OK, let's try this. I cut and pasted the old post into this message. Gautam Mukunda wrote: > --- 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.
Me: Incidentally, I'm not trying to be patronising here. What I mean is that I've internalized all these discussions years ago, so quite often we're discussing stuff that I haven't thought about since I was a junior in high school teaching myself Econ for the AP Economics test...so I tend to just assume stuff and not actually make clear what the hell I'm talking about. Rob: If I thought WalMart was The Great Satan I would not shop there.<G> I do think they could pay employees more competitively. WalMart does a lot of things right, but I doubt it is one of the best places to work. Me: Well, it depends. If you had the bad luck to not go to college, but were intelligent and motivated and willing to work hard, WalMart is probably the best place in the country to work. If you're a senior citizen who needs a job when you're in retirement, WalMart might be the _only_ place you can work. If you have no value-added skills for a variety of reasons, same thing. If there were fewer people who met that description, WalMart would have to pay more - but as long as the labor market is what it is, WalMart just has to pay enough to recruit enough workers to do the jobs it needs. That's what I mean by "what the market will bear." Rob: I could see myself voting for you as the Republican candidate for President. (Unless your opponent was Obama, and then it would be a tough choice. I really really like what I've seen of Obama. If he ever runs...........) Me: Thanks. _I_ wouldn't vote for me as the Republican candidate. 30 years from now? Well, no non-white non-Christian is going to be elected in my lifetime, and I'm not exactly the personality type for it either. I like Obama too, actually. That being said, I have to share my favorite DNC joke, spread after Obama's "One America" speech. John Edwards was supposed to speak the next day, doing his "Two Americas" shtick. Which lead someone (I don't remember whom) to comment, "Obama gave his speech, and tomorrow, John Edwards is coming up to be the rebuttal witness." Rob: That took guts. I can also appreciate that you might not enjoy saying it on the list in that it might seem like an admission of some variety or another. Me: Thanks again. No, the admission isn't the problem. Among my major life problems, I genuinely do say what I think freely. I should learn to stop doing that. It's definitely a professional handicap. The _brave_ part was worrying that, a few years down the road, I might be unable to get a job in a Republican Administration because I said that. I'm a political science graduate student, it's not like I'm all that employable. Which, incidentally, circles back to an earlier discussion on confidential information. It's not too hard to figure out where I might hear stuff that I can't repeat, but I _am_ constrained, for the reason above as well as all the others that people talked about. Rob: He wasn't one of the tastier Dem candidates was he? Me: Nominating Mayor Quimby probably wasn't the Democrats' winning strategy, no. Actually, this is the second election in a row where they've done something like this. I don't get it. Al Gore was probably the most despised person in the United States Senate. I have heard from many, many people, including a drunk senior staffer on the Gore campaign, the story of how Gore picked which side to vote for in the Desert Storm vote based on which side would give him more TV time. This was not something that won him much respect among his peers (incidentally, to get a read on how I source stories like that - I don't believe stories like that which are told to me by one source, ever, and never if it's only told to me by people of the other party. I believe that story because I heard it from multiple Democratic Party activists including, as I said, a Gore campaign staffer). I don't get it. I understand the President Clinton wasn't exactly a man of upstanding principle and personal character, okay. He was also a political genius. Surely the lesson _isn't_ "Let's nominate the least principled person we can find, and he'll be _just like Bill_!" Rob: Now, if we can find a way to get the other 45 million covered........... Me: Hey, I've been in favor of universal coverage for years. It's the last remaining really huge inefficiency in the US labor market. I just can't figure out how to pay for it. Rob: Different people? Different from what exactly? Me: Older/younger/less skilled, basically. That's why they _can_ pay less. >> >> 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. Rob: Maybe it's just down here, but the stores are covered with flags. They almost treat it like it's their corporate logo or something. Me: No, I didn't mean the patriotism, that's one of the things I _like_ about WalMart. It's a good Red State company. It's American and it's proud of it. What I mean is, I don't think that they unfairly underpay people. I think they pay people about what their labor is worth and, unfortunately, in the US we have a large pool of unskilled labor that gets larger all the time. Rob: I would qualify that by saying they "pay as little as the market will bear". Me: Yeah, but I don't think that's any different from any other company. They might be more efficient at it (htey're more efficient at everything else, certainly) but that's kind of their job. Rob: If it were up to me, people below the poverty line and retired people who don't work would pay no taxes. I would be willing to pay more to enable this. Me: I don't agree about retired people. The over 65 group is the wealthiest age demographic in America. They often have astonishing incomes from a variety of sources, ranging from Social Security to capital gains. But as for people below the poverty line - I would guess that, functionally, they _don't_ pay taxes. Wealth transfers in the US aren't enormous, but they're sufficiently large between the EITC, welfare benefits, etc. that they almost certainly get more in government benefits than they pay by a fair margin. > > 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). Rob: Sure, but isn't WalMarts surplus mostly directed to expanding into new markets? Me: Well, sure, among other things, but what do you care (as a consumer, I mean)? The point is that on any given transaction, their surplus is smaller than for any other retailer. Which leaves more for you, the consumer. Rob: I think you are oversimplifying here by calling WalMart a producer. Me: Sorry. "Producer" was meant in a technical sense. "Producer" - whoever you buy stuff from. In that specific sense, every retailer in America is a producer. It's not a value statement (i.e., producers are good). It's just a descriptive one (they sell stuff). Rob: I'm not going to demonize WalMart for that because it is nearly a zero sum game for everyone but the consumer in many respects. Me: Exactly. That's the good thing about them. As a consumer, that's hugely to my benefit. If I had to _compete_ with WalMart, I wouldn't be happy about it, of course. But I wouldn't have a moral leg to stand on - they're just better at business than everyone else is. Rob: The way I would state that is "The American system utilizes more of an enlightened form of capitalism than the models used in other developed nations". I think this follows from the "Golden Goose" manner in which we are used to thinking about such things. Me: I don't really know the reasons for it. I would posit this as an initial explanation. American politics is far more democratic (small d) and far less elite-driven than that of any other country in the world. Producers are elites, consumers generally are not. So since governments respond to power, and non-elites are more powerful in the US than any other countyr in the world, it makes sense that our economy is structured to benefit consumers. rob ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
