Ideas to solve unemployment

[loosecannon]

Bush v. Kerry. McCain v. Obama and Fred Thompson. Now we are talking about donald trump, Sarah Palin and John Bolton.

Button A of Button B. No choice really.

You can either buy a ford pinto or a Pacer. Again, not a choice.

 

[code1211]

You didn't convince me, Antagon.

Ford made crappy trucks since the teens but owned the small truck market until at least 1990 because of fierce brand loyalty. I remember one ad in which an actor actually said "trucks are a spiritual thing to me". And I know lots of guys who worked on crews who couldn't show up in a foreign truck unless they wanted to lose their jobs.

And I do not in the slightest believe that the parties make any more effort to deliver us quality candidates or that wal mart makes it a mission to deliver quality products. Why would they? Marketing has been pushing products and brands for 40 years even when the product served no purpose whatsoever to the customer. Walmart offers the best prices, not the best products. And they use monopoly to limit your options both within and without their realm. Once they establish a monopoly they only have to compete with other retailers selling the exact same crap. Only Walmart sells it cheaper, and dominates the cheaper end of the price spectrum.

Just like the two party system denies you 299,999,998 choices every election cycle and then provides you with just two, Walmart eliminates virtually all of your free market choices and then delivers you only the choice of where to buy the same shit.

Quality is a very nebulous term. Quality can be represented in various ways. In the 1930's, if you rented a hotel room and found that it had a radio, that was a gee whiz moment. The same gee whiz moment occurred in succession when one found a TV, an Air conditioner, a color TV, a little refrigerator, a hair dryer...

You get the point. The unusual and spectacular becomes the common place and expected real soon.

Right now, I walk through WalMart and am not at all concerned tha the array of 50 different flat screen TV's is cutting back on my choices. How many Flat Screen TV's do you need to make an informed choice?

 

[loosecannon]

"Right now, I walk through WalMart and am not at all concerned tha the array of 50 different flat screen TV's is cutting back on my choices. How many Flat Screen TV's do you need to make an informed choice?
Reply With Quote"

That's half of what I have been saying Walmart sells the same shit as everybody else but sells it cheaper. But if WallMart eliminates the competing retailers and wants to reduce your choices to two brands or one brand they can and you will still shop there, because they don't leave you a choice.

You shop the Wallmart brand.

 

[code1211]

"Right now, I walk through WalMart and am not at all concerned tha the array of 50 different flat screen TV's is cutting back on my choices. How many Flat Screen TV's do you need to make an informed choice?
Reply With Quote"

That's half of what I have been saying Walmart sells the same shit as everybody else but sells it cheaper. But if WallMart eliminates the competing retailers and wants to reduce your choices to two brands or one brand they can and you will still shop there, because they don't leave you a choice.

You shop the Wallmart brand.

Walmart probably will not reduce the choices available as they want to take money from as many people as possible. As they are Walmart, there are significant numbers of folks who will never shop there. My wife is one of that number.

Having compared the quality of bakery goods between Meijer, Kroger, Marsh (a local Indiana grocery chain) and Walmart, I think that Walmart has superior baked goods. I don't know or care what the price of these items is. I love donuts and i love a good French Bread with a chewy crust.

Walmart did not get the be the biggest retailer by only undercutting price.

If Walmart decided to abandon their successful formula for reasons that only you understand, there will be others who will sell the brands that Walmart drops.

 

[loosecannon]

First of all there are almost no "others" left that aren't attempting to copy the WallMart approach.

Second, yes Wallmart actually did "get the be the biggest retailer by only undercutting price".

Now that they own dominant market share they have to do a little more, like sell good french bread if they intend to keep growing. Someday you may be buying your auto, doing your banking and perhaps even living in the WallMart. In a Wallplex of course.

If location retail can sell it, WallMart probably has plans to someday offer it and dominate it.

 

[antagon]

Bush v. Kerry. McCain v. Obama and Fred Thompson. Now we are talking about donald trump, Sarah Palin and John Bolton.

Button A of Button B. No choice really.

You can either buy a ford pinto or a Pacer. Again, not a choice.

i think there are vast differences between right and left wing candidates, but i add the caveat that all american candidates are aimed at the interests of the american electorate. from an outsider's perspective, the similarities are because we are all in and from the same country and the same culture, despite out differences. political parties pull strings within those confines where there is demand. this is my point.

the pinto and the pacer, the mustang II... i could think of a number of reasons why the seventies gave way to datsun, honda and toyota. shit products that just dont seem to get it right are not buoyed by the external mechanisms you describe. good products build up these mechanisms. ads become convincing when the product is good. you roll your eyes when its not. this is my point

 

[antagon]

First of all there are almost no "others" left that aren't attempting to copy the WallMart approach.

Second, yes Wallmart actually did "get the be the biggest retailer by only undercutting price".

Now that they own dominant market share they have to do a little more, like sell good french bread if they intend to keep growing. Someday you may be buying your auto, doing your banking and perhaps even living in the WallMart. In a Wallplex of course.

If location retail can sell it, WallMart probably has plans to someday offer it and dominate it.

walmart is a good business. i'd agree that price is their shtick, but they modeled it better than their competition and sooner. i argue that has a lot to do with a better understanding of what americans really want, too. lots of cheap works for lots of people. it works for most items, too. i dont necessarily laud profits over price from a consumer perspective, so i don't advocate that there is something gravely wrong with it. as a major international employer, furthermore, i say this is the wrong sort of tree to bark up looking at ways to improve labor market participation.

the idea that consumer education led by god knows who is going to change people's value for money perspectives and that change will positively impact the american job market is more absurd than blindfolded football to me. not in the pragmatist box. is this what you are advocating, cannon?

 

[loosecannon]

the idea that consumer education led by god knows who is going to change people's value for money perspectives and that change will positively impact the american job market is more absurd than blindfolded football to me. not in the pragmatist box. is this what you are advocating, cannon?

No that is your idea. My idea is that Americans would be best served to look at the longer term costs of buying cheap chinese made goods. And we as a society need to look beyond consumerism.

It used to just be stupid to spend so much of our income on disposable crap instead of durable alternatives that might last generations.

Now we are at an age when entire platforms have life cycles of only a few years, speaking of things like music collections, stereo equip, computers, cell phones, TVs etc.

It is by design that we can either upgrade whole platforms or be left behind. You can always make an argument for the increased quality of the newest devices. But that doesn't change the fact that designed obsolescence dictates our choices.

Demand isn't what is driving this, it is manufactured demand that is. Consumerism is a manufactured phenom. Take the ipod, it didn't exist but it was sold out before it was available. That's how successful manufacturers and marketers have become at dictating demand.

 

[antagon]

the idea that consumer education led by god knows who is going to change people's value for money perspectives and that change will positively impact the american job market is more absurd than blindfolded football to me. not in the pragmatist box. is this what you are advocating, cannon?

No that is your idea. My idea is that Americans would be best served to look at the longer term costs of buying cheap chinese made goods. And we as a society need to look beyond consumerism.

i thought that was what you were getting at and proposed consumer ed as some kind of way that it might happen without individual sales contact. i'm otherwise stumped.

that psykihacker guy and a few others have mentioned this notion of durable multi-generation-lasting goods, and i'm curious who wants that or what the value as an employment solution might be.

i'm of the opinion that next to nobody wants that and such would be a detriment to employment. have i missed something?

 

[antagon]

the choices to go after extremes of quality no matter the price are there. some firms specialize on just that high-end market. others prefer the broader bargain market. for most things, i cant fault the latter market among which most of us participate in for most of our purchases. i also find the consumer market in the US has evolved considerably since the time which many may look on nostalgiacly as a quality-centric one. variety, competition, information, price and quality has improved since the 1950s in virtually any product from pencils to planes. i'm not sure if the criticisms laid on american consumers and the products in the market are based in reality.

 

[loosecannon]

I spose if you casually dismiss the waste and resource dependence of consumerism, no, you wouldn't see a downside.

But the age of consumerism will be short lived and even in it's hayday will only be possible for a small % of the world's population.

Most people on earth would not and didn't think about spending more than a tiny fraction of their money on things that lacked lasting value or that were not necessities.

Now virtually everything we buy is quasi disposable, even our homes.

 

[code1211]

First of all there are almost no "others" left that aren't attempting to copy the WallMart approach.

Second, yes Wallmart actually did "get the be the biggest retailer by only undercutting price".

Now that they own dominant market share they have to do a little more, like sell good french bread if they intend to keep growing. Someday you may be buying your auto, doing your banking and perhaps even living in the WallMart. In a Wallplex of course.

If location retail can sell it, WallMart probably has plans to someday offer it and dominate it.

Penny's and Wards and Sears did it toothers and now WalMart is doing it to them.

It won't take all that long before another has risen to do it to Walmart.

 

[antagon]

i think product life-cycles have inherent wisom wherein waste unaccounted for in homes and products without that consideration is mitigated. we could start with wastes of time and money on a first glance.

 

[loosecannon]

"i think product life-cycles have inherent wis(d)om"

cool. So you won't mind a life reduced to being the sex organs of machinery and techno crap.

 

[loosecannon]

Penny's and Wards and Sears did it toothers and now WalMart is doing it to them.

It won't take all that long before another has risen to do it to Walmart.

Amazon.

 

[antagon]

"i think product life-cycles have inherent wis(d)om"

cool. So you won't mind a life reduced to being the sex organs of machinery and techno crap.

this is happening?

 

[loosecannon]

more or less. What % of our productivity is assigned toward the replication of techno crap and machines we do not need?

 

[antagon]

sooner or later you might appreciate that commerce is about what people want and that people dont exclusively want only what they need, what fits a third-party standard of quality or that will outlast them.

our economy is not merely dependent on that, our economy is that fact. this comes about when the government allows for businesses to sell goods, rather than determining which of them everyone needs and to what standard. once this freer system is adopted and people have enough income in their perception, they're free to consider what they want rather than just what they need.

 

[code1211]

Penny's and Wards and Sears did it toothers and now WalMart is doing it to them.

It won't take all that long before another has risen to do it to Walmart.

Amazon.

There you go. Without change there can be no improvement.

 

[loosecannon]

sooner or later you might appreciate that commerce is about what people want and that people dont exclusively want only what they need, what fits a third-party standard of quality or that will outlast them.

our economy is not merely dependent on that, our economy is that fact. this comes about when the government allows for businesses to sell goods, rather than determining which of them everyone needs and to what standard. once this freer system is adopted and people have enough income in their perception, they're free to consider what they want rather than just what they need.

And the economy you describe is A) on life support and B) terminally ill.

Go figure!