Wealth inequality-how it affects the economy

[MaggieMae]

It must really suck to be ignorant and stupid, like you.
walmartstores.com/download/3078.pdf
Study by the Cato Institute.
Cue squalling about "right wing think tank" and "corporate shills."

OH! A "study" prepared by WalMart regarding WalMart's value vs. small retailers. Wow, I wonder how that's gonna read! I saw nothing there prepared by Cato. Do you honestly think WalMart wouldn't ONLY include in its analysis numbers that would make it look good? And you call me stupid. Imagine that.

Yup. Knew it. Didn't read the paper did you?

I did peruse it but didn't study it. Where's CATO's input? Look, I'm sure overall the numbers aren't fudged. But you can't just presume that every WalMart that moves in on small communities is going to be "good for" that community, I don't care how many generic "studies" are done. I've posted my opinion on how it has affected my own community, both the good and the bad, so if you want to chase me down on this particular point of yours, you'll be wasting your time.

 

[The Rabbi]

OH! A "study" prepared by WalMart regarding WalMart's value vs. small retailers. Wow, I wonder how that's gonna read! I saw nothing there prepared by Cato. Do you honestly think WalMart wouldn't ONLY include in its analysis numbers that would make it look good? And you call me stupid. Imagine that.

Yup. Knew it. Didn't read the paper did you?

I did peruse it but didn't study it. Where's CATO's input? Look, I'm sure overall the numbers aren't fudged. But you can't just presume that every WalMart that moves in on small communities is going to be "good for" that community, I don't care how many generic "studies" are done. I've posted my opinion on how it has affected my own community, both the good and the bad, so if you want to chase me down on this particular point of yours, you'll be wasting your time.

OK. So you'd rather believe anecdotal evidence that is local and limited rather than a full blown study that has reams of data.
That explains a lot.

 

[Freedomfan1776]

who gives a shit about WHO is in the top 10%? Are you happy to live in a country where the top 10% owns damned near everything? yes or no

The question should not be 'how many are in the top bracket?', the question should be 'how did those in the top income bracket get there?' Other than those in government, who have a legal monopoly on the use of force and regulation to benefit one person or company over another, the only way a person such as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett makes a penny is by providing a good or service that a consumer finds valuable and worth the amount of money he is paying for the good or service.

I would agree with you, there are some in the upper income bracket who got there by lobbying for legislation which gave them an unfair advantage over others who were not doing anything wrong. Whether that legislation is in the form of tariffs, more regulation, or anything else for that matter, when government gets involved and people do not have choices, prices will go up as a result of the decreased competition. This is particularly interesting to think about in the context of taxpayer funded grant money which is often used for 'innovative purposes.' The example often used to illustrate this point is by pointing out that in 1980, would the government choose to give a grant for innovation in the personal computer field, to what was then one of the largest companies in the world, IBM, or would they choose to give the money to a couple of college drop outs who ran a business from their garage? The people in the garage went on to become the founders of Microsoft. The point is, that government should decrease regulation so that those people, much like Gates in his garage back in 1980 can pursue their ideas and create wealth. That is the only way to prosperity and it has worked every time it has been tried.

So why is there such opposition to providing grant money for innovators/entrepreneurs who have excellent solutions for alternative energy? Instead, we give billions in subsidies for oil companies to use in their own R&D labs, which ironically they could fund by virtue of their own huge profits.

I can not speak for others, but the main reason why I am opposed to any more grants is based upon the fact that they will most likely end up going back the oil companies or big businesses who have the lobbyists in Washington instead of going to people who might really make good use of the money.

 

[FA_Q2]

I would second that request. I actually feel that Wal-Mart IS NOT harmful to a local community but there are other reasons that I feel that way. I have lived in small towns and watched some of those supposed mom and pops go out of business and I have noticed a trend with those that fail - they suck. Small business can succeed near a Wal-Mart, they just need to offer something Wal-Mart does not. It is not that hard - customer service is a good place to start as Wal-Mart has none at all. If you have not noticed, ACE hardware exists as a small retail chain next to Home Depot not because they offer better prices but because they offer better service. There will be those that go out of business but there will be others that are strengthened and in the end it is the CUSTOMER that wins out the best. That is the ENTIRE purpose for free enterprise and competition.

Home Depot (and Walmart) will always have the advantage because they can buy in bulk, and therefore at a lower cost. If you're talking about Mom & Pop food stores, I agree that most of those do suck, but ironically, they usually survive because they are actually more convenient for quick stops on the run.

But when a local building/lumber supply company gets put out of business because a Home Depot moves to town, a LOT of people lose their jobs and Home Depot can't absorb them all. That particular example happened right in my town. The building company had only one warehouse/storage facility for lumber and other inventory and it couldn't compete with Home Depot which had acres of inventory right on site. We also had a small bookstore that accommodated best sellers, reference books, and all the usual categorized variety of fiction and non-fiction, but didn't have a huge back room where they could cull from stock once a book sold out at the front. It had to be ordered. Along came Barnes & Noble, and that was that (along with the comaraderie found poking around small bookstores). And yet another example was when Staples came to town and within 2 years, the local office supply company relocated. It didn't go under because a lot of its business was business machine and computer repair.

I'm not "against" big box retail stores. I just wish they would not park themselves right in the middle of downtown shopping districts which DOES put small non-franchised retailers out of business, plus destroys the joy of just walking around from store to store and window shopping along the way. (If anyone remembers that.) And of course the big box stores all need gigantic parking lots too, so even more potential retail space gets sucked up.

All that said, indeed I do shop at WalMart for the prices on sundries, etc., and I would miss it if it weren't there. And they do hire many people who aren't qualified to do much else other than work at a place like WalMart, so I suppose that is itself a service to the community.

'Tis a conundrum.

What do all of those places that Wal-Mart put out of business have in common? They were attempting to perform the same service as Wal-Mart does and were not as good at it as Wal-Mart is. That is the problem with those stores, they are not adapting to the situation. Small business has a place, a niche if you will. That niche is in their flexibility, customer service and personality. These things are nigh impossible for a big box retailer to come by and that is where the small businesses need to shoot. I have no love of mom and pops that sit there and complain because they cannot simply do business the same way they have done it without progressing. Those businesses have survived because they have not been exposed to real competition and it is those businesses that are sucking every penny out of their customers they can without improving the businesses they run. Along comes a big retailer and those that are not willing to change become extinct while those that are willing to offer a superior product can actually improve because of the grater traffic a Wal-Mart can bring.

Also of note: demand does not appear out of thin air when a big box shows up. It was there before and a small store like the book store you were referring to was apparently not meeting the full demand. If that store had expanded to continually meet demands then there should not even have been room for a Barns and Nobel and even if there was, those on site warehouses would have been available to the small store anyway.

There is no doubt in my mind that big box retailers send some small businesses packing but to me those are the businesses that should not have been there in the first place. There is also the point that those same stores actually create some other small businesses as well. You rarely find a Wal-Mart or Barnes and Nobel that stand alone with nothing surrounding them. Many times they build an entire shopping center when they move in and in the many stores that are built around that Wal-Mart there are a myriad of small businesses that spring up around them. Restaurants, barbers, toy stores; you name it. They all want to build off the crowd that Wal-Mart draws and it is good for business. While the face of the community changes with the big retailers it may just be a good change. Nothing is 100 percent, there are communities that are not helped but I feel there is a far greater positive than there is negative.

 

[FA_Q2]

again... to bring this all back to where it started, the OP merely lays out the FACT that the richest 10% of our population has gone from owning 49% of everything in 1973 to owning 73% of everything 37 years later. Do the math folks. extrapolate that trend line. Do you really want to live in a country where the top 10% of the population owns..say...85% of everything? What about 95% of everything? What about 99% of everything? What about EVERYTHING? At what point does that sort of disparity begin to bother you?

We'll point out first that it isnt the same people in the top group from period to period. The actual membership shifts considerably.
Second, why should we extrapolate to the future, assuming that present trends will always continue? That makes no sense at all.
Finally, why should anyone be bothered by the idea that some people will always do better than others?

who gives a shit about WHO is in the top 10%? Are you happy to live in a country where the top 10% owns damned near everything? yes or no

No, but I am happier to live in a country that the top 10 owns 80 rather than the governments top 1 own 100. Here is the rub: come up with a solution that does not destroy the system that gave us the power to get that wealth in the first place.

 

[plumberbaltimor]

if the "stimulus" money got moving around faster--it was probably a mistake running a lot of it through established programs--it would be far better.

Long run, though, if we don't reduce the damage to our industrial base done over the last 20+ years, none of this will mean diddly.

And that has very little to do with politics, save with the incompetent, selfish, degenerate scum bag executive filth who intentionally exported jobs to inflate their own already-bloated salaries, and of course, the corrupt scum who promoted the horrors of "deregulation", by far the stupidest idea in modern American history.

 

[Rshermr]

who gives a shit about WHO is in the top 10%? Are you happy to live in a country where the top 10% owns damned near everything? yes or no

The question should not be 'how many are in the top bracket?', the question should be 'how did those in the top income bracket get there?' Other than those in government, who have a legal monopoly on the use of force and regulation to benefit one person or company over another, the only way a person such as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett makes a penny is by providing a good or service that a consumer finds valuable and worth the amount of money he is paying for the good or service.

I would agree with you, there are some in the upper income bracket who got there by lobbying for legislation which gave them an unfair advantage over others who were not doing anything wrong. Whether that legislation is in the form of tariffs, more regulation, or anything else for that matter, when government gets involved and people do not have choices, prices will go up as a result of the decreased competition. This is particularly interesting to think about in the context of taxpayer funded grant money which is often used for 'innovative purposes.' The example often used to illustrate this point is by pointing out that in 1980, would the government choose to give a grant for innovation in the personal computer field, to what was then one of the largest companies in the world, IBM, or would they choose to give the money to a couple of college drop outs who ran a business from their garage? The people in the garage went on to become the founders of Microsoft. The point is, that government should decrease regulation so that those people, much like Gates in his garage back in 1980 can pursue their ideas and create wealth. That is the only way to prosperity and it has worked every time it has been tried.

How little you know about Bill Gates and how he started Microsoft.

 

[Rshermr]

You have evidence? Then post it, asshole. City by city; town by town.

It must really suck to be ignorant and stupid, like you.
Walmart Corporate - Walmart Corporate - We save people money so they can live better.
Study by the Cato Institute.
Cue squalling about "right wing think tank" and "corporate shills."

OH! A "study" prepared by WalMart regarding WalMart's value vs. small retailers. Wow, I wonder how that's gonna read! I saw nothing there prepared by Cato. Do you honestly think WalMart wouldn't ONLY include in its analysis numbers that would make it look good? And you call me stupid. Imagine that.

By the way, CATO is the leading Libertarian think tank. Founded originally and run for years by the Koch boys. Never, ever saw a huge corporate entity that they did not love. And a typical source of the Rabbi, who lives among the bat shit crazy conservative web sites. He will push this study as being valid, but you would hear him scream if anyone quoted moveon.

 

[oldfart]

It must really suck to be ignorant and stupid, like you.
Walmart Corporate - Walmart Corporate - We save people money so they can live better.
Study by the Cato Institute.
Cue squalling about "right wing think tank" and "corporate shills."

OH! A "study" prepared by WalMart regarding WalMart's value vs. small retailers. Wow, I wonder how that's gonna read! I saw nothing there prepared by Cato. Do you honestly think WalMart wouldn't ONLY include in its analysis numbers that would make it look good? And you call me stupid. Imagine that.

By the way, CATO is the leading Libertarian think tank. Founded originally and run for years by the Koch boys. Never, ever saw a huge corporate entity that they did not love. And a typical source of the Rabbi, who lives among the bat shit crazy conservative web sites. He will push this study as being valid, but you would hear him scream if anyone quoted moveon.

But the real question is: "Can any of them spell 'Pic-a-TEA'?"