In article ,
"Tex Houston" wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Ahh, but if you were capable of thinking abstractly, you would realize
that Wal-Mart in many ways *is* dictating your preferences.
I have no Wal*Mart preference but I will shop there when it is convenient.
I just resent some individual with their own axe to grind trying to tell me
where to shop. If I want to shop discount store I tend to shop at the
closest at the time.
Let the marketplace decide (Economics 101?).
Tex
Except in this case, it isn't the marketplace deciding. Wal-mart forces
manufacturers to meet their specs. "We will *ONLY* carry laundry soap
packaged in 410 gram plastic buckets shipped as pallets 4 layers high,
and we will only pay $X.YY per unit for it - No, we don't care that your
cardboard box packaging at 413 grams per unit is more cost-effective or
environmentally freindly. No, we don't care that the customer WANTS the
413 gram box, and that you can give it to us for a third of the cost of
the 410 gram tub. Either do it our way, or we go to your competition,
the XYZ soap company, and shut you out of the market completely."
Wal-mart forces customers to shop only there through the fact that by
sheer size (ignore the pressure they apply to manufacturers that I
mentioned above for the moment) they can and do run any other
competition in a town out, leaving no option.
Wal-mart pays their employees next to nothing, and, simply fires all
employees and shuts the store down at the first hint of union activity
that could force them into paying a competitive wage in a store. Despite
the fact that I hate unions with a passion, this is *WRONG*. The pay
that a Wal-mart employee takes home isn't sufficient for them to shop
anyplace BUT Wal-mart, and there have been rumors (you decide yourself
about the fallacy or reality - to *ME* they're rumors. To someone else,
they may be "This happened to me") of Wal-mart employees being seen in
other stores one day coming in to work the next day to find they've been
given their walking papers. Never, of course, for any reason related to
being in the other store, but hey, who on this planet doesn't have
*SOMETHING* that can be used against them to legitimize their firing?
Tex, it isn't that Wal-mart is "bad" in and of itself. I'll argue
against anyone who claims it is. It's the fact that Wal-Mart is, much
like Microsoft, forcing consumers to give up choice through pressure
that can only be applied by someone with a monopoly or near-monopoly
position in the market. "I used to buy my tuna in 10 ounce cans, but all
you've got on the shelf are 8 ounce cans at half again the price. When
are you going to get the regular cans back in? We're not. Buy what we
sell, or suffer with nothing." The worst part is, in MANY MANY MANY
places, that's exactly what the customer *MUST* do: Wal-mart has driven
all competition out of town, and the only place to shop is there. Which
is exactly what their operating goal is: Shut down anything that looks
like competition, either indirectly, through their massive size and
attendant ability to almost literally give merchandise away until
there's noplace left in town for customers to turn to (the "company
store in a company town" concept) or they outright buy up and shut down
any competition that doesn't fold from the first method.
Wal-mart as a concept is great. Wal-mart as a reality is the death-knell
for a town's economy. Don't take my word for it - look around and see
how many towns that have had a Wal-mart move in are losing their other
retailers in numbers that are hard to believe.
No, Tex, it isn't about letting the marketplace decide. It's about
keeping the marketplace from being decided for you by the corporate
power that is Wal-mart.
--
Don Bruder -
--- Preferred Email - SpamAssassinated.
Hate SPAM? See http://www.spamassassin.org for some seriously great info.
I will choose a path that's clear: I will choose Free Will! - N. Peart
Fly trap info pages: http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/Horses/FlyTrap/index.html