| > I'm not defending uncompetitive environments and monopolistic exploitation Okay. Well that's what the article is attacking. So I guess I don't understand your point w.r.t. the thesis of the original article. Do you agree with the article but disagree that Wal-Mart is an example? Or what? Could you clarify? > I'm asserting Wal-Mart as example uncompetitive environment is, in the general case, nuts. To repeat myself, there's more than one way for companies to behave anti-competitively. Wal-mart cannot afford to screw consumers, so they find other ways to leverage their status as a mega-corp -- squeezing local government via tifs (this corn field/park/10 year old walmart is "blighted", so give us 15 year tax break to build a new one), paying poorly compared to other players in the market, abusing or undercutting supply chain partners, etc.. > but making groceries cost more is a freakishly regressive sort of way to attempt to redistribute wealth Well, we could one-up Wal-Mart and make all the groceries completely free by enslaving all those involved in food production. So this is clearly an over-simplification. It's also a false choice. Wal-Mart could instead decrease its profits and play nicer with everyone (like many of its local chain competitors do, arguably because they don't have the huge legal/PR/marketing team and cash reserves which can buy F-U leverage against local governments and labor groups -- this coercive power that comes with being so big is at the heart of the article's thesis). Also, the price difference vs. wage difference between Walmart and its competitors also puts the lie to this claim -- even an extra 1.00+ an hour way more than offsets an extra .10 cents on the dollar for groceries. |