Saturday, July 28, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Are the people who 'don't attend' making a living by being deemed ill and disfunctional? Are they being reinforced with cash and other goods and services for being disfunctional?
If they are it's not surprising they are not showing up is it.
If I throw a party where I give people free money and then throw another party which is a work on changing yourself party would you be surprised if a lot showed up for the free money and not many showed up for the work? And unless the people are also retarded they know that the work on changing yourself party lead them away from free money and free goods and free services.
That's kind of like the company I work for offering me retirement right now that is pretty much guarenteed for life, along with free medical care, and then offering me the opportunity to keep my job and people talking about how I must be sick because I no longer show up for my job.
The mental health system basically ignores the reality of economics.
If you pay people $11 per hour tax free to do whatever they want and answer to only themselves you should not be surprised that they are not falling over themselves to take a part time job for $3.50 per hour (which will be considerably harder than the vacation for $11 per hour) that is puting their $11 per hour free vacation for life at some risk.
If they are it's not surprising they are not showing up is it.
If I throw a party where I give people free money and then throw another party which is a work on changing yourself party would you be surprised if a lot showed up for the free money and not many showed up for the work? And unless the people are also retarded they know that the work on changing yourself party lead them away from free money and free goods and free services.
That's kind of like the company I work for offering me retirement right now that is pretty much guarenteed for life, along with free medical care, and then offering me the opportunity to keep my job and people talking about how I must be sick because I no longer show up for my job.
The mental health system basically ignores the reality of economics.
If you pay people $11 per hour tax free to do whatever they want and answer to only themselves you should not be surprised that they are not falling over themselves to take a part time job for $3.50 per hour (which will be considerably harder than the vacation for $11 per hour) that is puting their $11 per hour free vacation for life at some risk.
I have talked about this before and I will say it again, one of the major disservices the government does to those with major mental illness is put them on entitlement programs.
They put them on SSI and their livelihood becomes being a mental patient. Their bread and butter is their illness and their non performance of work skills and abilities. The sicker they stay the more secure their income is. The state reinforces their disfunction! It rewards them with money and housing for not working. Talk about a disincentive to getting a full time job!
In fact if they even get a part time job the state keeps more than half! Talk about regulations meant to keep people dependent on the state, geesh.
Give a person ~$ 400- $450 per week each week ($11 per hour TAX FREE based on a 40 hour work week) for a guarenteed permanent vacation 52 weeks a year for life and then set up programs to 'assist' them in 'finding and keeping jobs' where they can get a starter job for maybe $8 per hour where the state takes back ~ $4.50 or $5 an hour
leaving them with a job for $3.50 per hour. And with employment their bread and butter (their disability) is a little bit more at risk than it was before. After all if sweeping cuts take place in government THE LAST PEOPLE TO BE CUT will be the ones that are the ones who exhibit the least independent living skills. They are the most secure and each step towards independence is going against the natural grain of protecting your bread and butter.
So what his helpful in paying someone $11/hr to sit on their couch and then offering them a crappy job where they will only make 1/2 of minimum wage and telling them it is for their own good and funding programs to institute this???
Talk about a sick joke!
They put them on SSI and their livelihood becomes being a mental patient. Their bread and butter is their illness and their non performance of work skills and abilities. The sicker they stay the more secure their income is. The state reinforces their disfunction! It rewards them with money and housing for not working. Talk about a disincentive to getting a full time job!
In fact if they even get a part time job the state keeps more than half! Talk about regulations meant to keep people dependent on the state, geesh.
Give a person ~$ 400- $450 per week each week ($11 per hour TAX FREE based on a 40 hour work week) for a guarenteed permanent vacation 52 weeks a year for life and then set up programs to 'assist' them in 'finding and keeping jobs' where they can get a starter job for maybe $8 per hour where the state takes back ~ $4.50 or $5 an hour
leaving them with a job for $3.50 per hour. And with employment their bread and butter (their disability) is a little bit more at risk than it was before. After all if sweeping cuts take place in government THE LAST PEOPLE TO BE CUT will be the ones that are the ones who exhibit the least independent living skills. They are the most secure and each step towards independence is going against the natural grain of protecting your bread and butter.
So what his helpful in paying someone $11/hr to sit on their couch and then offering them a crappy job where they will only make 1/2 of minimum wage and telling them it is for their own good and funding programs to institute this???
Talk about a sick joke!
The Mentally Ill
Here's a synopsys of the way things work with the mentally ill:
They get free checks from taxpayers and free housing as well (some choose to stay in a shelter so they don't have to contribute ~ $200 of their ~ $700 they get free every month in order to get a one bedroom apartment to themselves, these are the ones who are using drugs and want 100% of that $700 per month for drugs).
They all have access to free drugs to treat their illness but some choose not to take the drugs. They are entitled to the check due to their illness and are not required to engage in any form of treatment whatsoever.
So some are getting
~ $20K free per year (cash, housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care, discounted public transportation)
~ $20K free per year (cash, shelter provided housing and food, as well as staff at the shelter, food stamps, free medical care, discounted public transportation)
If one of them commits a crime they are taken to jail or the hospital by police (depends on the extent of the crime I have one client who had exposed himself in public twice and was only taken to the hospital by ambulance after police responded, he was not charged with a crime or taken to the police station either time).
If they are taken to the hospital they are prescribed medication (that they are already likely prescribed and are not taking despite it's free availability) and pressured into taking it. They can sign a '3 day note' (which means that the hospital has 3 days to prepare and present a case in front of a judge why they are an eminent threat to themselves or others and need to be in the hospital against their will) at any time. Arguments such as "the person did X yesterday" is not an argument and it is tough for the hospital to make their case if the person signs the three day note. And their stay in the hospital is free as well btw. They are pressured into taking meds and mostly they go along with this. They are thus 'recompensated' a short time later and provided with recommendations and referrals to outpatient services (which are usually already in place and not being utilizied unless this is the persons first encounter with the mental health system) and released. They can then ignore the referrals, throw away the meds and prescriptions they were given by the hospital. Rince and repeat. People go through this cycle for decades sometimes. All for free to them (and significant cost to taxpayers and they are really never required to take medications despite this cycle and the significant costs of repeated emergency room visits, ambulance rides, and inpatient hospitalization stays).
If they are taken to the police station and charged with a crime and appear crazy they will be evaluated by a psychologist. If crazy they will be transferred to a psych hospital run by the state and prescribed meds (that they are likely already prescribed and not taking). As long as the psychologist deems that the person was not capable of understanding the wrongness of their actions at the time of the act (ie they thought that the cop was an alien fly and that is why they swung a pipe at him) they are declared not guilty by reason of mental illness. If they are now taking meds and are recompensated they are no longer a danger to the public or themselves and are released. Now they can flush the meds, throw away the scripts, not follow through with outpatient treatment. Rince and repeate.
Sometimes they will go to jail and a lot of times they will not. A judge can issue a rogers guardianship which requires they take medication but no one can force pills down their throat, the only thing this will do is make trips to the hospital more expedient if they are being monitored somewhere on an outpatient basis in the hospital meds will be forced) When they are released no one is going to force pills down their throats. Rinse and repeat.
Some states are likely more strict than others and send them to jail more than others but they have access to free doctors and free medication all over. They choose to not take the meds and are not required to take the meds even after multiple trips to the hospital on taxpayers dimes even after multiple criminal acts putting the public at risk. They are never convicted of a cxrime if they are crazy at the time the crime was committed, even if they were told to take their meds in the hospital the previous 5 times they did that act and were deemed not guilty because they were not taking their meds so didn't understand their action was a crime at the time they did it.
Things are far from as cut and dry as a libral would believe (or have you believe).
They get free checks from taxpayers and free housing as well (some choose to stay in a shelter so they don't have to contribute ~ $200 of their ~ $700 they get free every month in order to get a one bedroom apartment to themselves, these are the ones who are using drugs and want 100% of that $700 per month for drugs).
They all have access to free drugs to treat their illness but some choose not to take the drugs. They are entitled to the check due to their illness and are not required to engage in any form of treatment whatsoever.
So some are getting
~ $20K free per year (cash, housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care, discounted public transportation)
~ $20K free per year (cash, shelter provided housing and food, as well as staff at the shelter, food stamps, free medical care, discounted public transportation)
If one of them commits a crime they are taken to jail or the hospital by police (depends on the extent of the crime I have one client who had exposed himself in public twice and was only taken to the hospital by ambulance after police responded, he was not charged with a crime or taken to the police station either time).
If they are taken to the hospital they are prescribed medication (that they are already likely prescribed and are not taking despite it's free availability) and pressured into taking it. They can sign a '3 day note' (which means that the hospital has 3 days to prepare and present a case in front of a judge why they are an eminent threat to themselves or others and need to be in the hospital against their will) at any time. Arguments such as "the person did X yesterday" is not an argument and it is tough for the hospital to make their case if the person signs the three day note. And their stay in the hospital is free as well btw. They are pressured into taking meds and mostly they go along with this. They are thus 'recompensated' a short time later and provided with recommendations and referrals to outpatient services (which are usually already in place and not being utilizied unless this is the persons first encounter with the mental health system) and released. They can then ignore the referrals, throw away the meds and prescriptions they were given by the hospital. Rince and repeat. People go through this cycle for decades sometimes. All for free to them (and significant cost to taxpayers and they are really never required to take medications despite this cycle and the significant costs of repeated emergency room visits, ambulance rides, and inpatient hospitalization stays).
If they are taken to the police station and charged with a crime and appear crazy they will be evaluated by a psychologist. If crazy they will be transferred to a psych hospital run by the state and prescribed meds (that they are likely already prescribed and not taking). As long as the psychologist deems that the person was not capable of understanding the wrongness of their actions at the time of the act (ie they thought that the cop was an alien fly and that is why they swung a pipe at him) they are declared not guilty by reason of mental illness. If they are now taking meds and are recompensated they are no longer a danger to the public or themselves and are released. Now they can flush the meds, throw away the scripts, not follow through with outpatient treatment. Rince and repeate.
Sometimes they will go to jail and a lot of times they will not. A judge can issue a rogers guardianship which requires they take medication but no one can force pills down their throat, the only thing this will do is make trips to the hospital more expedient if they are being monitored somewhere on an outpatient basis in the hospital meds will be forced) When they are released no one is going to force pills down their throats. Rinse and repeat.
Some states are likely more strict than others and send them to jail more than others but they have access to free doctors and free medication all over. They choose to not take the meds and are not required to take the meds even after multiple trips to the hospital on taxpayers dimes even after multiple criminal acts putting the public at risk. They are never convicted of a cxrime if they are crazy at the time the crime was committed, even if they were told to take their meds in the hospital the previous 5 times they did that act and were deemed not guilty because they were not taking their meds so didn't understand their action was a crime at the time they did it.
Things are far from as cut and dry as a libral would believe (or have you believe).
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
I remember reading (no link, sorry) that someone had done an estimation on how much money we where given by the natural processes going on. How much the earth absorbing and cleaning pollution, CO2 and whatnot is worth, i.e. what it would cost if we should do it on our own. Their conclusion was that what we get for free was at least 10x the total world economy.
Guess I'm not making any real argument here, but I belive the effects of pollution and climate change has the potential to cost large large large amounts of money.
I think what you're talking about is cost externalities. The argument being that the cost of a barrel of oil is artificially depressed, because the people using it are not paying the costs of pollution. I actually agree with this completely. 100%. What happens is that because the cost is externalized, the resource is used in ways that are uneconomical, i.e. it is wasted, because if the full cost were internalized, the price would go up, and the demand down. Agreed, agreed, agreed. Oil is being wasted by the externalization of pollution costs.
But the solution is not less capitalism, i.e. more government regulations, interventions, and restriction. The solution is more capitalism, i.e. allow the market to internalize the costs of pollution. Statists merely assume the cost must be externalized, and I couldn't disagree more. A completely free market simply would not allow pollution costs to be externalized. I've written about it with regards to private roads before. I think there was a thread by someone titled "Help me understand AC!" where I explained how private roads for example would internalize pollution costs and create incentives to reduce emissions.
Quote:
" Doing things that are uneconomical is wasteful (by definition)"
I'm not at all sure this is true.
But it is true, and true by definition, which is my point. Uneconomical == wasteful.
Quote:
It's only true if the price you are paying are reflecting the real value. And in many cases what we are paying does not reflect the actual value, especially not when it comes to natural resources. When it come to oil for example we are paying the price it takes to get the stuff out of the ground, but not really the price it would take to replace it. The value of a barrell of oil is a lot more than 60$ if you should supply the energy or the material for production in some other way.
That isn't how "value" is determined. How much work or energy went into the creation of a good is completely irrelevent. The only thing that's relevent is how useful it is in satisfying future needs or wants, and how much competition for that good exists in the market.
Frankly, I think fossil fuels are a barbaric and filthy energy source. I am not pessimistic about future energy demands at all, if government allows the market to operate. As the cost of energy goes up and up and up, energy prices, and hence profits, will go up and up and up. This will tempt more and more and more capital into the energy markets. I see no possible fundamental insurmountable technological barriers. The beauty of capitalism is that if energy becomes a bottleneck, if need be, all of the capital of the entire world would eventually be brought to bear in the energy market to break that bottleneck. Literally trillions of dollars of investment, because that will be where all the demand and all the profits are. There's simply no way that humanity working with the available intellectual capital and the technological base that we have now could not solve the "energy problem."
But what really, really, really scares the [censored] out of me, is that I see government turn with hate upon the very providers of what we all need: energy. They see increasing profits as "exploitation". They seek to tax away "windfall profits", i.e. destroy the incentive to invest in the energy industry and supply what we all desperately need. Government will tax away those incentives, install price caps, centrally plan the energy economy (as it has disastrously done for decades) and create endless misery, poverty, and shortages, all the while blaming the "evil capitalists" who are "exploiting the masses". It's happened multiple times in the past (antitrust, the New Deal, etc), and I'm very pessimistic that it will happen again.
Guess I'm not making any real argument here, but I belive the effects of pollution and climate change has the potential to cost large large large amounts of money.
I think what you're talking about is cost externalities. The argument being that the cost of a barrel of oil is artificially depressed, because the people using it are not paying the costs of pollution. I actually agree with this completely. 100%. What happens is that because the cost is externalized, the resource is used in ways that are uneconomical, i.e. it is wasted, because if the full cost were internalized, the price would go up, and the demand down. Agreed, agreed, agreed. Oil is being wasted by the externalization of pollution costs.
But the solution is not less capitalism, i.e. more government regulations, interventions, and restriction. The solution is more capitalism, i.e. allow the market to internalize the costs of pollution. Statists merely assume the cost must be externalized, and I couldn't disagree more. A completely free market simply would not allow pollution costs to be externalized. I've written about it with regards to private roads before. I think there was a thread by someone titled "Help me understand AC!" where I explained how private roads for example would internalize pollution costs and create incentives to reduce emissions.
Quote:
" Doing things that are uneconomical is wasteful (by definition)"
I'm not at all sure this is true.
But it is true, and true by definition, which is my point. Uneconomical == wasteful.
Quote:
It's only true if the price you are paying are reflecting the real value. And in many cases what we are paying does not reflect the actual value, especially not when it comes to natural resources. When it come to oil for example we are paying the price it takes to get the stuff out of the ground, but not really the price it would take to replace it. The value of a barrell of oil is a lot more than 60$ if you should supply the energy or the material for production in some other way.
That isn't how "value" is determined. How much work or energy went into the creation of a good is completely irrelevent. The only thing that's relevent is how useful it is in satisfying future needs or wants, and how much competition for that good exists in the market.
Frankly, I think fossil fuels are a barbaric and filthy energy source. I am not pessimistic about future energy demands at all, if government allows the market to operate. As the cost of energy goes up and up and up, energy prices, and hence profits, will go up and up and up. This will tempt more and more and more capital into the energy markets. I see no possible fundamental insurmountable technological barriers. The beauty of capitalism is that if energy becomes a bottleneck, if need be, all of the capital of the entire world would eventually be brought to bear in the energy market to break that bottleneck. Literally trillions of dollars of investment, because that will be where all the demand and all the profits are. There's simply no way that humanity working with the available intellectual capital and the technological base that we have now could not solve the "energy problem."
But what really, really, really scares the [censored] out of me, is that I see government turn with hate upon the very providers of what we all need: energy. They see increasing profits as "exploitation". They seek to tax away "windfall profits", i.e. destroy the incentive to invest in the energy industry and supply what we all desperately need. Government will tax away those incentives, install price caps, centrally plan the energy economy (as it has disastrously done for decades) and create endless misery, poverty, and shortages, all the while blaming the "evil capitalists" who are "exploiting the masses". It's happened multiple times in the past (antitrust, the New Deal, etc), and I'm very pessimistic that it will happen again.
Global Warmings
The problem with the global warming debate is that the science (which I believe is incontrovertible) is used to draw the wrong conclusions. At the end of the wickipedia article there is a fairly good estimate of the cost of the impacts of global warming. But what is not there is an estimate of the cost of "doing something" to try and prevent global warming. Basically what it comes down to is this: significantly reducing greenhouse emissions can only be done by crippling the world economically. While the costs associated with global warming could be trillions of US dollars, the costs associated with the various Kyoto-style plans to reduce greenhouse emissions are in the hundreds of trillions, with no guarantee that they would work.
The number one killer of human beings is not heat, or cold, or tornados, or hurricanes, or droughts, or any other climate-related disaster. It is poverty. And the only cure for poverty is increased productivity that can raise standards of living. The cost of coercively shackling world productivity to reduce emissions will be a drastic increase in world poverty, and poverty brings starvation, disease, misery, and death on unimagineable scales.
Human beings live in every environment on Earth, from the blistering cold to the blistering heat. Some places will get worse, and some places will actually get better. People will have to move. But they will have decades over which to do it. There's already enough poverty in the world. Don't advocate policies that will multiply it ten or a hundred fold.
The number one killer of human beings is not heat, or cold, or tornados, or hurricanes, or droughts, or any other climate-related disaster. It is poverty. And the only cure for poverty is increased productivity that can raise standards of living. The cost of coercively shackling world productivity to reduce emissions will be a drastic increase in world poverty, and poverty brings starvation, disease, misery, and death on unimagineable scales.
Human beings live in every environment on Earth, from the blistering cold to the blistering heat. Some places will get worse, and some places will actually get better. People will have to move. But they will have decades over which to do it. There's already enough poverty in the world. Don't advocate policies that will multiply it ten or a hundred fold.
About monopolies
Stop and think about this for a minute.
Let's say I own Coke. I want no competition from the market. I have to buy out Pepsi, RC, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and whatever other soft drinks there are. So I go and do that.
Now let's assume I haven't gone broke. Ah! Now I have a monopoly! NOW I CAN CHARGE YOU CAFFIENE-LOVING BASATRDS $10/CAN MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
...
If all the soda costs ridiculous amounts, a businessman stands to make a lot of money by competitively marketing a cheaper coke.
AH BUT I AM EVIL CAPITALIST MONOPOLY MAN, I CAN EITHER BUY YOU OUT OR LOWER MY PRICES TO LEVELS YOU CAN'T COMPETE WITH AND JACK THE PRICES AGAIN!!!!!!!
This can't happen. If Coke buys out every piece of competition, it's going to go broke from people who can just take Coke's money by "threatening" the monopoly. There is also a great demand for reasonably-priced soda; "price swinging" would be too complicated due to all the businesses the market can provide, and it's also not going to look good for the consumer or Coke's stockholders.
Monopolies are bad for business. They can only happen if the business provides a truly excellent product at a price no one can compete with (in which case, who cares if they're a monopoly).
Let's say I own Coke. I want no competition from the market. I have to buy out Pepsi, RC, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and whatever other soft drinks there are. So I go and do that.
Now let's assume I haven't gone broke. Ah! Now I have a monopoly! NOW I CAN CHARGE YOU CAFFIENE-LOVING BASATRDS $10/CAN MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
...
If all the soda costs ridiculous amounts, a businessman stands to make a lot of money by competitively marketing a cheaper coke.
AH BUT I AM EVIL CAPITALIST MONOPOLY MAN, I CAN EITHER BUY YOU OUT OR LOWER MY PRICES TO LEVELS YOU CAN'T COMPETE WITH AND JACK THE PRICES AGAIN!!!!!!!
This can't happen. If Coke buys out every piece of competition, it's going to go broke from people who can just take Coke's money by "threatening" the monopoly. There is also a great demand for reasonably-priced soda; "price swinging" would be too complicated due to all the businesses the market can provide, and it's also not going to look good for the consumer or Coke's stockholders.
Monopolies are bad for business. They can only happen if the business provides a truly excellent product at a price no one can compete with (in which case, who cares if they're a monopoly).
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
A few common misconceptions about Walmart
1. Tax revenue generated at the local level is not enough to support the increase is services required.
I don't see how this can be a Walmart problem. This seems like incompetant government planning at the local level.
2. The cost to individual states when many of Walmart's employees do not earn enough to make ends meet and thus the individual state incurs higher costs associated with providing healthcare (Medicaid) and other public
assistance.
Here's a link that basically discusses this problem in economics:
Public Goods and Externalities
This is something that is true for all companies that don't provide health insurance for their employees as one example. Many companies that provide benefits like health insurance to many of their employees and are highly profitable use "temporary" employees and these employees don't receive benefits. Again this seems to be a problem with government policy. I note the recent law enacted in Maryland that more or less singled out Walmart for paying more taxes due to this negative externality. This apparently is an attempt to "level the playing field" and it remains to be seen what effect this will have.
As an aside I wonder if this supports the argument for having national health insurance in that it would relieve U.S. companies of having to provide this benefit and thus U.S. companies would be more competitive in the world marketplace.
3. Impact on local communities
Again this seems like a failure of public policy more than an indictment of Walmart.
4. Low Wages Paid
Basically the skills required to work as an employee at a Walmart store are minimal for many of the jobs there.
My sense from the information provided in the link is that the complaints about Walmart are more or less about Walmart "gaming" the system (system being laws and public policy) to their advantage. This seems like a problem with the system rather than a problem with Walmart
I don't see how this can be a Walmart problem. This seems like incompetant government planning at the local level.
2. The cost to individual states when many of Walmart's employees do not earn enough to make ends meet and thus the individual state incurs higher costs associated with providing healthcare (Medicaid) and other public
assistance.
Here's a link that basically discusses this problem in economics:
Public Goods and Externalities
This is something that is true for all companies that don't provide health insurance for their employees as one example. Many companies that provide benefits like health insurance to many of their employees and are highly profitable use "temporary" employees and these employees don't receive benefits. Again this seems to be a problem with government policy. I note the recent law enacted in Maryland that more or less singled out Walmart for paying more taxes due to this negative externality. This apparently is an attempt to "level the playing field" and it remains to be seen what effect this will have.
As an aside I wonder if this supports the argument for having national health insurance in that it would relieve U.S. companies of having to provide this benefit and thus U.S. companies would be more competitive in the world marketplace.
3. Impact on local communities
Again this seems like a failure of public policy more than an indictment of Walmart.
4. Low Wages Paid
Basically the skills required to work as an employee at a Walmart store are minimal for many of the jobs there.
My sense from the information provided in the link is that the complaints about Walmart are more or less about Walmart "gaming" the system (system being laws and public policy) to their advantage. This seems like a problem with the system rather than a problem with Walmart
Walmart
Studies sponsored by unions and special interest retail sales groups that offer no plausible logical mechanisms for how offering goods at lower prices hurts communities in general, rather than just their competition, do not impress me.
Why don't you explain logically how offering goods at lower prices hurts communities?
WalMart is in retail sales, although they do offer a few services as well, photographic developing, pharmacy, optometric, and some automotive services (like tire replacement) generally. They usually also have a small fast food cafe. So in general WalMart actually produces almost nothing. So aside from photographic developing, pharmacy, optometric, and some automotive services, and a handful of fast food jobs, all of which clearly represent a small fraction of the services offered in any community, the only jobs that WalMart can displace are also retail sales jobs, and possibly a small number of local manufacturing or crafts jobs that are outcompeted by imported goods. Now, I don't care how you slice it, a retail sales job does not produce wealth; it only facilitates the distribution of goods. In other words, none of the retail sales jobs in a community can actually contribute to the wealth of the community except by adding value through distribution. But WalMart clearly adds more value through distribution, because you can get similar products for lower prices, which leaves more money left over to spend elsewhere. This increases the money available to spend at all of the other businesses in town, of which there are many. How do I know there are many? Because someone has to be producing the wealth that is being spent on the retail stores. If a small community is made entirely up of retail stores and local service providers this community will rapidly go broke. Where is the money coming from to shop at the retail stores and pay for the services? Money must leak out of the community as people buy cars and goods that are not manufactured there. In other words, the community damn well better be producing something of value or it is doomed anyway. Citing a bunch of studies that say that some fraction of communities do poorly after a WalMart or other big box retailer comes to town is preposterous. The big box retailers can only make communities wealthier. If some fraction of communities becomes poorer after a big box retailer comes to town, that is probably because the economy of that town is becoming obsolete, regardless of the makeup up their retial sales sector.
In fact, because the economy is always changing you will always be able to find communities whose economies are on the wane, and some fraction of these will always have a WalMart! In fact, you can easily see a correlation between WalMarts and economic downswings in communities by recognizing that economies on the downswing are the economies most in need of inexpensive retail goods, meaning that the positive impact is largest where the economy is hurting, and hence the positive increase in the lifestyle and standard of living of consumers will be largest in these communities, hence their market capture will likely be largest there. By targeting communities in economic distress, WalMart could ensure their low prices do the most good! Unfortunately that would also create a correlation between the presence of a WalMart in a community and an economic downturn that can be exploited by the disingenuous spin engines of unions and coalitions of disgruntled competitors.
All of the jobs lost due to competition are, of course, real hardships in the short run for those people. But as always, the loss of jobs due to competition frees up labor for more valuable uses. The United States has lost 300 million jobs in the last 14 years. There are only 300 million men, women, and children in the entire country! Is the country all unemployed? No. Because 320 million jobs have been created in the same time (the population has risen by about 20 million people in that time).
40% of the population used to be employed in agriculture. Now it's less than 2%. Do we have 38% unemployment? No.
We've lost an enormous number of manufacturing jobs. But so what? Manufacturing jobs generally suck. They are usually sweaty, repetitive, dangerous, and boring. They were replaced with safer jobs, more interesting jobs, better jobs, more valuable jobs.
I reiterate, WalMart and the other big box retailers, although they can be faulted for taking government handouts and sometimes using local government to steal people's land, cannot be faulted for offering consumers lower prices which makes them wealthier, and freeing up valuable labor and capital for more productive uses.
So until you can come up with a plausible logical mechanism for how less expensive goods can possibly be harmful to a community in general, all the handwaving and spin machine studies will remain unconvincing.
Why don't you explain logically how offering goods at lower prices hurts communities?
WalMart is in retail sales, although they do offer a few services as well, photographic developing, pharmacy, optometric, and some automotive services (like tire replacement) generally. They usually also have a small fast food cafe. So in general WalMart actually produces almost nothing. So aside from photographic developing, pharmacy, optometric, and some automotive services, and a handful of fast food jobs, all of which clearly represent a small fraction of the services offered in any community, the only jobs that WalMart can displace are also retail sales jobs, and possibly a small number of local manufacturing or crafts jobs that are outcompeted by imported goods. Now, I don't care how you slice it, a retail sales job does not produce wealth; it only facilitates the distribution of goods. In other words, none of the retail sales jobs in a community can actually contribute to the wealth of the community except by adding value through distribution. But WalMart clearly adds more value through distribution, because you can get similar products for lower prices, which leaves more money left over to spend elsewhere. This increases the money available to spend at all of the other businesses in town, of which there are many. How do I know there are many? Because someone has to be producing the wealth that is being spent on the retail stores. If a small community is made entirely up of retail stores and local service providers this community will rapidly go broke. Where is the money coming from to shop at the retail stores and pay for the services? Money must leak out of the community as people buy cars and goods that are not manufactured there. In other words, the community damn well better be producing something of value or it is doomed anyway. Citing a bunch of studies that say that some fraction of communities do poorly after a WalMart or other big box retailer comes to town is preposterous. The big box retailers can only make communities wealthier. If some fraction of communities becomes poorer after a big box retailer comes to town, that is probably because the economy of that town is becoming obsolete, regardless of the makeup up their retial sales sector.
In fact, because the economy is always changing you will always be able to find communities whose economies are on the wane, and some fraction of these will always have a WalMart! In fact, you can easily see a correlation between WalMarts and economic downswings in communities by recognizing that economies on the downswing are the economies most in need of inexpensive retail goods, meaning that the positive impact is largest where the economy is hurting, and hence the positive increase in the lifestyle and standard of living of consumers will be largest in these communities, hence their market capture will likely be largest there. By targeting communities in economic distress, WalMart could ensure their low prices do the most good! Unfortunately that would also create a correlation between the presence of a WalMart in a community and an economic downturn that can be exploited by the disingenuous spin engines of unions and coalitions of disgruntled competitors.
All of the jobs lost due to competition are, of course, real hardships in the short run for those people. But as always, the loss of jobs due to competition frees up labor for more valuable uses. The United States has lost 300 million jobs in the last 14 years. There are only 300 million men, women, and children in the entire country! Is the country all unemployed? No. Because 320 million jobs have been created in the same time (the population has risen by about 20 million people in that time).
40% of the population used to be employed in agriculture. Now it's less than 2%. Do we have 38% unemployment? No.
We've lost an enormous number of manufacturing jobs. But so what? Manufacturing jobs generally suck. They are usually sweaty, repetitive, dangerous, and boring. They were replaced with safer jobs, more interesting jobs, better jobs, more valuable jobs.
I reiterate, WalMart and the other big box retailers, although they can be faulted for taking government handouts and sometimes using local government to steal people's land, cannot be faulted for offering consumers lower prices which makes them wealthier, and freeing up valuable labor and capital for more productive uses.
So until you can come up with a plausible logical mechanism for how less expensive goods can possibly be harmful to a community in general, all the handwaving and spin machine studies will remain unconvincing.
The unions are sabatoging the auto industry
We're talking about the maintenance of employment at GM and Ford and ultimately the survival of the comanies. Actually manufacturing in the U.S. has picked up in the past few years. However, productivity has increased alot as well and thus less workers are required.
The costs incurred at GM and Ford due to labor agreements put them at a competitive disadvantage.
An excerpt from an op ed piece in today's WSJ:
General Motors and Ford, bleeding cash and market share, have vowed to cut 60,000 jobs over the next half-dozen years. So far, though, they have been unable to request, much less obtain, more than token economic first-aid from the United Automobile Workers. A recent modest health-care "give-up" proposal at Ford provoked angry union militants to accuse their president, Ron Gettlefinger, of rank appeasement and was endorsed by a vote of only 51% to 49%. Ford's announcement of its "Way Forward" downsizing has led UAW leaders to grouse that both auto makers should be mobilizing to increase sales rather than engaging in brutal cutbacks.
The collective bargaining negotiations upcoming in 2007 loom as a likely auto industry Armageddon, in stark contrast to a rising trend among similarly threatened industries in Germany, where unions are quietly customizing deals to protect jobs and preserve employers. The evident unwillingness of the UAW rank-and-file to participate in that sort of salvation effort is a legacy of the union's justly admired founder, Walter Reuther, an inheritance likely to prove now progressively more obsolete and self-defeating.
I'm not against unions per se (looks like coal mine workers need a strong one) but the never give an inch mentality in an industry that is on the slide is counter productive IMO.
The costs incurred at GM and Ford due to labor agreements put them at a competitive disadvantage.
An excerpt from an op ed piece in today's WSJ:
General Motors and Ford, bleeding cash and market share, have vowed to cut 60,000 jobs over the next half-dozen years. So far, though, they have been unable to request, much less obtain, more than token economic first-aid from the United Automobile Workers. A recent modest health-care "give-up" proposal at Ford provoked angry union militants to accuse their president, Ron Gettlefinger, of rank appeasement and was endorsed by a vote of only 51% to 49%. Ford's announcement of its "Way Forward" downsizing has led UAW leaders to grouse that both auto makers should be mobilizing to increase sales rather than engaging in brutal cutbacks.
The collective bargaining negotiations upcoming in 2007 loom as a likely auto industry Armageddon, in stark contrast to a rising trend among similarly threatened industries in Germany, where unions are quietly customizing deals to protect jobs and preserve employers. The evident unwillingness of the UAW rank-and-file to participate in that sort of salvation effort is a legacy of the union's justly admired founder, Walter Reuther, an inheritance likely to prove now progressively more obsolete and self-defeating.
I'm not against unions per se (looks like coal mine workers need a strong one) but the never give an inch mentality in an industry that is on the slide is counter productive IMO.
You expect the Jews and the Palestinians to live together as one nation with the Palestinians in their current state of mind? I...don't...think...so.
As to your prior question about why Egypt and Jordan don't want their former territories returned let me answer this way:
I think that most people miss the real story in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and that is why do the Israelis act the way they do?
There has been no 'Jewish Army' in the past 2,000 years or so. The Jews have been booted about at the whim of the rulers of whatever lands they have lived in. At any moment, no matter how secure they had become in their current homelands, they were subject to ejection and often were. The discriminatory treatment, humiliations and oppression were pretty much a constant.
Everyone, OTOH, has heard of the Muslim armies, those charming fellows who created a religion by the sword. As an aside doesn't anybody wonder why the Muslims are so outraged that they have lost Jerusalem? After all, they have lost it the same way that they got it.
At any rate, here come the Jews, those famous warriors and ravening despoilers of nations and peoples, onto a sliver of land, opposed by millions determined to crush them, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the Jews turn out to be monstrously depraved, murderous lunatics plotting barbarous tortures on a helpless and cowering defeated people?
What a laugh. The Israelis do what they do because they, to their horror, are compelled to do it. The Egyptians and Jordanians are, in effect, saying "Thank goodness we were able to dump that mess off onto them. Whew!"
A couple of passing thoughts and then I'm done with it.
No Jew has broken into a Palestinian house, hunted a mother and her two children into a back bedroom where they were crouched into a corner and shot them to death.
A few years back a proud avenger of the Palestinian cause detonated a bomb in a nightclub full of Russian immigrant teenagers. Across the street from that nightclub stands a Mosque. Where are the Temples in the Palestinian territories?
In your vision of a democratic state for the region, one suddenly supported by a Islamic political party, whom would you chose to be your neighbors? The Armenian Copts, the Orthodox Christians, the Jews or the Palestinians with their closests full of Kalashnikovs and their bomb-belt undergarments? I'll leave out that you might also have to listen while they murder their sisters and daughters for having sex.
As to your prior question about why Egypt and Jordan don't want their former territories returned let me answer this way:
I think that most people miss the real story in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and that is why do the Israelis act the way they do?
There has been no 'Jewish Army' in the past 2,000 years or so. The Jews have been booted about at the whim of the rulers of whatever lands they have lived in. At any moment, no matter how secure they had become in their current homelands, they were subject to ejection and often were. The discriminatory treatment, humiliations and oppression were pretty much a constant.
Everyone, OTOH, has heard of the Muslim armies, those charming fellows who created a religion by the sword. As an aside doesn't anybody wonder why the Muslims are so outraged that they have lost Jerusalem? After all, they have lost it the same way that they got it.
At any rate, here come the Jews, those famous warriors and ravening despoilers of nations and peoples, onto a sliver of land, opposed by millions determined to crush them, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the Jews turn out to be monstrously depraved, murderous lunatics plotting barbarous tortures on a helpless and cowering defeated people?
What a laugh. The Israelis do what they do because they, to their horror, are compelled to do it. The Egyptians and Jordanians are, in effect, saying "Thank goodness we were able to dump that mess off onto them. Whew!"
A couple of passing thoughts and then I'm done with it.
No Jew has broken into a Palestinian house, hunted a mother and her two children into a back bedroom where they were crouched into a corner and shot them to death.
A few years back a proud avenger of the Palestinian cause detonated a bomb in a nightclub full of Russian immigrant teenagers. Across the street from that nightclub stands a Mosque. Where are the Temples in the Palestinian territories?
In your vision of a democratic state for the region, one suddenly supported by a Islamic political party, whom would you chose to be your neighbors? The Armenian Copts, the Orthodox Christians, the Jews or the Palestinians with their closests full of Kalashnikovs and their bomb-belt undergarments? I'll leave out that you might also have to listen while they murder their sisters and daughters for having sex.
Roe v Wade
It does become a woman's issue within the context of Casey which states that a woman's equality in the workplace and the world can be determinable by a pregnancy. That the ability to exercise control over their reproductive rights is crucial to equality. This is a good legal argument if it didn't involve another individual namely the unborn baby.
I completely agree that birth control is a personal choice and must be exercised and not forced. No man can say to a women "you can't use birth control or You must use birth control". But once the pregancy has occurred, then it involves another person and therefore it ceases to be a woman's preference issue and an equality issue and the dominate right is the life of the unborn child. I think the line of birth control should end at the presence of a heart beat and/or brain activity.
But even with this comes gray areas such as rape and the health of the mother. In the event of rape, the woman's ability to prevent pregency is subverted and unconsented and such they pregnency was forced into existance where it would not had the crime of rape not occurred. I can see the legal grounds and moral grounds for that pregnency to be terminated. But, as a Christian I cannot support that because of my understanding of the sanctity of life and that it is not the unborn babies fault that the mother was rape and why should this innocent victim be punished for a crime. In cases of the health of the mother, I think that this clearly falls in the favor of the woman. Her life is established and their may be people dependent on her. So this established life is more valuable than the life of the child. I also think that it should be up to the mother in case such as these. I can tell you right now I would incourage my wife to have an abortion if her life was in danger. So then the rape case come into view here with the mental health of the woman having to carry the baby full term from this horrible crime. This again is a grey area and up for debate.
So it is a woman's right issue...I just believe the right to live on the part of the vulnerable unborn member of society trumps a woman's preferences.
I completely agree that birth control is a personal choice and must be exercised and not forced. No man can say to a women "you can't use birth control or You must use birth control". But once the pregancy has occurred, then it involves another person and therefore it ceases to be a woman's preference issue and an equality issue and the dominate right is the life of the unborn child. I think the line of birth control should end at the presence of a heart beat and/or brain activity.
But even with this comes gray areas such as rape and the health of the mother. In the event of rape, the woman's ability to prevent pregency is subverted and unconsented and such they pregnency was forced into existance where it would not had the crime of rape not occurred. I can see the legal grounds and moral grounds for that pregnency to be terminated. But, as a Christian I cannot support that because of my understanding of the sanctity of life and that it is not the unborn babies fault that the mother was rape and why should this innocent victim be punished for a crime. In cases of the health of the mother, I think that this clearly falls in the favor of the woman. Her life is established and their may be people dependent on her. So this established life is more valuable than the life of the child. I also think that it should be up to the mother in case such as these. I can tell you right now I would incourage my wife to have an abortion if her life was in danger. So then the rape case come into view here with the mental health of the woman having to carry the baby full term from this horrible crime. This again is a grey area and up for debate.
So it is a woman's right issue...I just believe the right to live on the part of the vulnerable unborn member of society trumps a woman's preferences.
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