Lifestyle > Train of Thought
walmarts bad for economy? (i dont know if this is the right section sorry)
Trauma-san:
--- Quote from: Mo Z. Dizzle on January 01, 2007, 09:05:56 PM ---negative: it reduces competition; if competition runs out, ppl are forced to shop at Wal-Mart for products and will have to pay the price at whatever Wal-Mart sets it at.
positive: by having lower prices, competition will also have to try and lower prices; good for consumers since they have options for now; and it also gets consumers to shop more which brings money into the economy; then money is used in different parts of the coutnry's infrastructure
--- End quote ---
Your negative is your positive. Think about how idiotic that is. If they reduce competition by having lower prices, how can they then raise prices? Free Enterprise will always have those with lower prices, OR better quality at a comparable price as the market leaders. Wal-Mart would get hurt as soon as they raised the prices back up. Name me 1 thing you can buy cheaper than you can get it at Wal-Mart. There is no negative, the only negative is the thinking of the idiots who attack Wal-Mart simply because they're fucking HUGE. People always shoot arrows up.
Trauma-san:
--- Quote from: JML - no vowels, disembowel your Colin Powell, throw in the towel on January 01, 2007, 09:07:39 PM ---
--- Quote from: Lincoln on January 01, 2007, 08:43:00 PM ---It's the opposite, Wal-Mart is great for the economy. It provides jobs at half-decent wages to people who otherwise would not find work (such as the elderly, students, perpetually unskilled and therefore unemployed.)
--- End quote ---
You can't say Walmart is great for the economy simply because it creates jobs. You can't just focus on one positive aspect, and ignore other negative effects that something may have.
With that being said, there is no definite answer to whether Walmart is "good" or "bad" because first you have to ask/define in what context you want to use those terms, what in your opinion would make something good or bad.. people always have different normative views. For example, Lincoln might believe it's good for the economy because it creates jobs, but someone else might look at the same exact situation and consider it something horrible. Like someone above said, Walmart engages in predatory pricing (they lower their prices to the extent that competition is driven out, barriers to entry are created, and can almost be considered a monopoly in certain areas - these things usually lower efficiency - im not sure if you're familiar with that, but that's basically a measurement of the overall benefit to consumers and producers). And since the creation of jobs was brought up, Walmart isn't really known for adhering to labor laws, is anti-unions (again this depends on your view of whether unions are good or bad), and Walmart uses more foreign labor than any other company (but then again Walmart is the world's largest retailer, so it's all relative.. and even this can be considered as good or bad).
Basically when your teacher says it's bad for the economy, I'm assuming he has looked at certain figures and came to the conclusion that Walmart lowers economic efficiency.
--- End quote ---
No, his teacher is a democrat and he's pushing liberal ideaologies he didn't think up himself on his students. The teacher should be fired.
Trauma-san:
--- Quote from: Ant on January 01, 2007, 09:52:49 PM ---Ahhh my head hurts.
--- Quote ---Basically when your teacher says it's bad for the economy, I'm assuming he has looked at certain figures and came to the conclusion that Walmart lowers economic efficiency.
--- End quote ---
This is such a retarded comment you should be ashamed. Same goes for "even my teacher says." So you're suggesting that anything a "teacher" says must be the "truth." So what happens when teachers disagree? Now you're fucked.
Guess what?! Just because a "teacher" says something doesn't mean it's true. Plenty of teachers are just as dumb as you.
Back to the question... Is Walmart good for the economy?
To the extent that improved efficiency is good for the economy, Walmart is also good for the economy. The question you're all addressing is a different one. You're discussing if Walmart is good for society. This is debatable, but you cannot debate that Walmart is good for the economy.
Of course a few people are ballsy (stupid) enough to suggest Walmart reduces economic efficiency. But these people are not to be taken seriously. Walmart clearly improved the efficiency of our international and national economic system. The problem is there is often a trade-off between efficiency and equality. When we make the economy more efficient we create losers. People are hurt. Small businesses get killed. Workers get laid off. Middle income jobs get replaced with lower income jobs. Or something else happens. These things are all good for the economy. But its not so clear that they are good for society. Try not to confuse the two.
--- End quote ---
I agree.
swangin and bangin:
--- Quote from: Trauma-san on January 02, 2007, 04:29:42 PM ---
--- Quote from: JML - no vowels, disembowel your Colin Powell, throw in the towel on January 01, 2007, 09:07:39 PM ---
--- Quote from: Lincoln on January 01, 2007, 08:43:00 PM ---It's the opposite, Wal-Mart is great for the economy. It provides jobs at half-decent wages to people who otherwise would not find work (such as the elderly, students, perpetually unskilled and therefore unemployed.)
--- End quote ---
You can't say Walmart is great for the economy simply because it creates jobs. You can't just focus on one positive aspect, and ignore other negative effects that something may have.
With that being said, there is no definite answer to whether Walmart is "good" or "bad" because first you have to ask/define in what context you want to use those terms, what in your opinion would make something good or bad.. people always have different normative views. For example, Lincoln might believe it's good for the economy because it creates jobs, but someone else might look at the same exact situation and consider it something horrible. Like someone above said, Walmart engages in predatory pricing (they lower their prices to the extent that competition is driven out, barriers to entry are created, and can almost be considered a monopoly in certain areas - these things usually lower efficiency - im not sure if you're familiar with that, but that's basically a measurement of the overall benefit to consumers and producers). And since the creation of jobs was brought up, Walmart isn't really known for adhering to labor laws, is anti-unions (again this depends on your view of whether unions are good or bad), and Walmart uses more foreign labor than any other company (but then again Walmart is the world's largest retailer, so it's all relative.. and even this can be considered as good or bad).
Basically when your teacher says it's bad for the economy, I'm assuming he has looked at certain figures and came to the conclusion that Walmart lowers economic efficiency.
--- End quote ---
No, his teacher is a democrat and he's pushing liberal ideaologies he didn't think up himself on his students. The teacher should be fired.
--- End quote ---
i want the bitch fired, she might fail me cause i suck at french
Trauma-san:
--- Quote from: 7even on January 02, 2007, 02:43:20 AM ---monopoly is always bad, fanboys.
--- Quote ---When we make the economy more efficient we create losers. People are hurt. Small businesses get killed. Workers get laid off. Middle income jobs get replaced with lower income jobs. Or something else happens. These things are all good for the economy. But its not so clear that they are good for society. Try not to confuse the two.
--- End quote ---
it's not about confusing, it's about being smart enough to realize that things that hurt the society also hurt the economy in the long run. if people get paid less, lose their businesses, etc, of course that's also bad for the economy... because what sucks for the economy is that those people will eventually consume less, since they have less money.
now one can argue that it's just about the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and overall economy efficiency is the same if not even better, just society is ass.
but if the poor don't buy from the rich then it's a problem again, isn't it? nothing hurts an economy more than people who don't buy shit.
that being said you can always make statistics to "prove" something is awesome/awful, so what the hell.
at the end of the day I will never be a fan of monopolies or things close to that, never. economic competition and economic diversity .. those things are very important, and monopolies kill them.
for the less economically educated ones in here, here's an example to make it more visual. let's imagine the playstation 3 and the nintendo wii wouldnt exist because microsoft baught sony and nintendo. so only the xbox 360 exists. monopoly right there. so everybody has to buy from microsoft. what happens? the quality of the console decreases as they put less effort in and the prices go up ... because there's no competition AND you also don't have the diversity you'd have if there's also a wii and a ps3.
fuck walmart.
--- End quote ---
You're an idiot. You act like these monopolies exist in a vacuum. If Microsoft did that, Sega would start making home consoles again and cripple Microsoft because nobody would buy a shittier system. The fact is, Wal-mart gives people what they want, they don't give people what egg head socialists say the people need.
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