I don't doubt their enormous advances in logistics. I have read the McKinsey report. I also agree with your planning point, which I use in classes.
You bring up a very interesting question -- at least, interesting to me. What would be the economic effect of buying too many PopTarts? ... especially if they are imported. This may mean some labor saving in terms of displacing higher employment at small retail outlets. The logistics have also saved on capital -- for example, their trucks are moving stuff with less down time, like SouthWest Airlines planes. That is capital saving & may or may not be as effective in requiring fewer truck drivers. In any case, I would like to learn more about the impact of this sort of productivity advance. Also, Daniel D's point about savings in finance is interesting for another reason. Strassmann, Paul A. 1997. The Squandered Computer: Evaluating the Business Alignment of Information Technologies (Information Economics Press) tells the story of computer technology actually wasting a lot of labor because of business's efforts to replace technology so quickly that the churn eats up enormous quantities of labor in relearning the technology -- sort of like changing to a more efficient keyboard layout every couple of years. I am delighted to see the list taking an interest in important economic questions. On Sat, Sep 22, 2007 at 01:08:41PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: > On Sep 22, 2007, at 1:03 PM, Michael Perelman wrote: > > > The jobs in the US are being produced in low wage service > > occupations, which do not > > allow much technical change. > > Eh? Wal-Mart? They revolutionized retail with high-tech. The jobs > suck, but no one beats them on inventory control, logistics, analysis > of buying patterns, etc. The gee-whiz example of this is that they > know that people stock up on PopTarts (the breakfast kind, not the > Britney kind) before a hurricane, so they ship extras when one is > forecast. Anyone who wants to do economic planning has a lot to learn > from them. > > Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
