--- Robert Seeberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That sounds pretty strawmannish to me. (I think in > certain situations > it may well be true, but I doubt this is the case > with WalMart.)
Why? Again, I think of this as Ec 101, so I'm assuming things that may not always be clear. When WalMart moves into a community, it sells a lot of stuff. It sells a lot of things more cheaply than anyone else could do it. This has two wonderful effects. It allows people to buy stuff that they couldn't otherwise afford (employing more people making it, etc.). And it allows them to spend more money on _other things_ (again, employing more people mkaing it, selling it, etc.) All WalMart has done is figured out a bunch of ways to do this more cheaply than anyone else has. It's literally no different than me inventing that widget I talked about that can manufacture cars more cheaply. If you would think that's a good thing, then you should think WalMart's a good thing. > No, but you mention using government to achieve > ends: Sure. What else is it for? It's certainly not an end in itself. > There are times when you sound like an > administration apologist (As > opposed to John who almost always does). I made this > comment because > you sound here as if you are of a different mid than > the > administration. Heh. No one on this list has ever had the simple presence of mind to ask who I'm voting for. There are a couple of people who know my feelings about this election. I'm debating making them more clear. > It seems to me that "convinced" people on both sides > of the party line > reflect this. True enough. Oh, what the hell, I'm not going to get that job anyways. I have no idea who I'm voting for. I find the Bush Administration to be brutally inept, almost frighteningly incompetent across a wide variety of areas, and wrongheaded in a fair number of others. I think the second President Bush has been the worst President since Jimmy Carter. Had the Democratic party nominated someone other than a Massachusetts Senator who has raised political opportunism to the level of performance art, been wrong on every major issue of foreign policy in his entire public career, and believes that four months of his life 30 years ago are important enough to vote for him while his entire public life is unimportant...I'd definitely be voting for him. As it is, I still would...but the problem is his supporters. There are plenty of people like that on this list - one might call them the "no enemies to my left" crowd. Or the Michael Moore crowd and his enablers. The Michael Moore crowd is obvious - people who hate the US. That's not a very large part of Kerry's supporters. The far larger problem is the humongous group of his supporters who are patriotic people who are, nonetheless, so consumed with hatred for the Bush Administration that they don't have a problem with Michael Moore. People who look at Bin Laden and John Ashcroft and think we should understand Bin Laden and hate Ashcroft. People who sneer at NASCAR. As someone without firm partisan commitments, I tend to look at these people and think, "If these people are right, I'd rather be wrong." If John Kerry displayed any sign of coherent principle I'd say, okay, he's a good guy who's served his country, once he's become President he'll tell these guys to go to hell. But he appears to be, in Winston Churchill's marvelous phrase, "The Spineless Wonder". Since Presidential candidates cater to their supporters, I fear that he might actually _do what they want_, and, say, become a protectionist, stop offshoring, surrender our national security to our French enemies, and so on. This would be a problem. So I look at Bush and think - this guy is a D- President. And I look at Kerry and think, this guy _wants to be_ an F President. So who do I vote for? I honestly have no idea. > For what it is worth I was wrong here. WalMart > employess who work > 32hrs/wk *are* eligible for insurance. Bad > information on my part and > bad interpretation of what I was told otherwise. > > My apologies and an admission of a head-up-the-ass > event on my part. Hey, no need to apologize. Everybody makes mistakes. Dan didn't like my 90% statistic. I know that they don't necessarily get it from WalMart. So what? A large part of that is because WalMart (very intelligently) has decided to do things like offer jobs to senior citizens, who are covered by Medicare. Good for them. Who cares where the health insurance comes from, as long as it's there? > I want to think about this some, do a bit of > research. But in the case > of CA I would think that WalMart undercuts the > prevailing wage. I'll > get back if I find anything of interest. Maybe. But they hire different people, and they create a huge amount of economic benefit while doing so. > > The irony occurs to me that WalMart constantly wraps > itself in the > American flag, yet keeps it's employees as poor as > possible. > Eventually this may undo their model. I don't think they do that, that's the thing. I think they pay what the market will bear, and get cheap goods to people who need them. The first is morally neutral, the second morally positive. If you _don't like_ what the market will bear (and I've _never_ said that I do), then I've already proposed one change that would help a lot (immigration reform). A second would be further expanding the EITC. But don't blame WalMart for doing what a business is supposed to do as well or better than any business in history. > I'm not the first to say that this statement is > silly. Walmart is not > a business "in addition to" all other businesses. If > WalMart did not > exist then other companies would fill those markets, > and if they did > so less efficiently, then even more people would be > hired. I talked about this above. The problem is that it expresses a static conception of the labor market. It's the same idea that caused the French to legislate 35 hour work weeks. There's only so much work to do, so you have to spread it around. But the labor market is _dynamic_, not static, and when WalMart does what it does, it creates a huge amount of wealth. In technical terms, when you pay money for goods, most of the time there's a surplus created, right? You would have paid more for the good (even if it's only a little bit more). And the store would have sold it to you for less (even if it's only a little bit less). That's why economic exchanges are value-positive, not value neutral. The point here, though, is that that surplus is split between two people - the consumer and the producer. The producer surplus is the profit that the store makes. The consumer surplus is where you are better off - because you got something for less than you valued it. WalMart is better than any other company in the world today at taking producer surplus and shifting it to consumers. This is a _great_ thing. The most important difference between the American economy and the European economies is that we are oriented around the welfare of consumers. Shifting surplus towards consumers is wonderful (unless you're a businessman, of course, in which case it sucks). We should applaud them for their ability to do that. Again, the truncation. Weird. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
