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A Rant: What do I want for Christmas? Relief from idiocy. In particular, the idiocy that makes this article somehow news. Supposedly an attack on Wal-Mart for the crime against nature called ?charging people too little,? it turns out there?s no there, there, and even author Steve Lohr has to admit it. He wanted so badly to bash Wal-Mart. But his soundbytes just took it away from him.
?Wal-Mart, the juggernaut of retailing, already seems to have claimed its first victim,? writes Lohr. ?The corporate owner of F.A.O. Schwarz stores said last week that it would file for bankruptcy? [T]he F.A.O. Schwarz formula of selling premium-priced toys in sumptuous surroundings could not withstand the steady advance of Wal-Mart into the toy business.? Oh! The humanity! What Lohr is saying is that Wal-Mart is bad because it doesn?t charge as much for toys as the notoriously expensive F.A.O. Schwarz. Why, how dare they! Don?t they know those Schwarz employees have families to support?
Of course, Lohr rattles through the same old litany: ?Wal-Mart points the way to a grim Darwinian world of bankrupt competitors, low wages, meager health benefits?.? Blah blah blah. But what he means is this: Wal-Mart is bad because it provides people goods they want at a price they?re willing to pay. People are flocking to Wal-Mart to get jobs. It?s the largest employer in the country?except the government?and you know what? They didn?t force a single one of those people to work for them.
?There is a lot to be said for getting the best deal, economists say.? No, Mr. Lohr, it?s not economists who say that, it?s people. Buyers. Folks who have jobs and kids and wives and homes and pets and budgets and rent to pay.
Still, Lohr continues: ?some economists note [that] lower prices for the kinds of basic goods on sale at Wal-Mart superstores, like food and clothes, are of the greatest benefit to the less affluent.? You can hear the ?but? coming, can?t you? It?s on its way:
??The prospect of Wal-Mart amassing even more market power does not worry free-market economists?.? Note the tone?amassing. Yes, much as Darth Sidious is amassing his army of clones for war against the Republic!
?Inevitably, less efficient rivals will be winnowed, he added, and those that remain will compete aggressively for consumer dollars.? Yes, and trapped in the middle of this savage war of vast automatic murder machines? The helpless American consumer, condemned to a life of cheap abundance and pleasant homemaking.
?In the past, antitrust policy assumed that more companies meant more competition, which was good for consumers. The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936?was passed partly to protect small local retailers from the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, the Wal-Mart of its time.? Now, remember?how does a company like Great Atlantic become powerful? In a free economy, a company becomes powerful by providing consumers with goods they wants at prices they?re willing to pay. So we must prevent that from happening in order to ?protect [more expensive] mom-and-pop stores.? Perhaps that?s why even New Dealer Robert Jackson later wrote that the New Deal ended up supporting the monopolies it claimed to attack.
?But the intellectual tide shifted by the 1980?s, especially under the growing influence of the so-called Chicago school of economics?.? Yes, that?s right. It had nothing to do with the almost paralyzing economic policies of the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations?. And what did these monsters from Chicago do? Why, they ?emphasized prices as the fundamental gauge of consumer welfare.? Overlooking such warm and fuzzy community-building aspects of shopping as, um, paying too much, and failing to find what you were looking for?
?To keep cutting costs, Wal-Mart is tough on its suppliers. Selling to Wal-Mart, by all accounts, is a brutal meritocracy.? Brutality! Oh, it figures. It?s a juggernaut, after all, that?s amassing power. Tell us about the brutality, Steve! ?Manufacturers have been forced to lay off workers after Wal-Mart canceled orders when another vendor cut its price a few cents more.? Simply inhuman! Wal-Mart should have instead stuck with the first vendor and charged us all more and just screw the vendor who worked harder and met consumer needs more efficiently.
?Wal-Mart?s detractors point to?a federal investigation into its use of poorly paid illegal immigrants as janitors.? Yeah, they shouldn?t offer jobs to Mexicans, just white folks. And if they do hire Mexicans, they should pay ?em double.
?Wal-Mart?s growing power has brought increased scrutiny from federal and state regulators.? (Yeah, I?ll say. Just like antelopes bring increased scrutiny from lions on the savannah.)
?The classic behavior of a predatory corporation is to cut prices to drive out competition in order to raise them later. There is no evidence yet that that is the Wal-Mart strategy.?
Then what the hell are you writing this article for, Steve?!
Posted by: TMS / 9:09 PM
A Rant: What do I want for Christmas? Relief from idiocy. In particular, the idiocy that makes this article somehow news. Supposedly an attack on Wal-Mart for the crime against nature called ?charging people too little,? it turns out there?s no there, there, and even author Steve Lohr has to admit it. He wanted so badly to bash Wal-Mart. But his soundbytes just took it away from him.
?Wal-Mart, the juggernaut of retailing, already seems to have claimed its first victim,? writes Lohr. ?The corporate owner of F.A.O. Schwarz stores said last week that it would file for bankruptcy? [T]he F.A.O. Schwarz formula of selling premium-priced toys in sumptuous surroundings could not withstand the steady advance of Wal-Mart into the toy business.? Oh! The humanity! What Lohr is saying is that Wal-Mart is bad because it doesn?t charge as much for toys as the notoriously expensive F.A.O. Schwarz. Why, how dare they! Don?t they know those Schwarz employees have families to support?
Of course, Lohr rattles through the same old litany: ?Wal-Mart points the way to a grim Darwinian world of bankrupt competitors, low wages, meager health benefits?.? Blah blah blah. But what he means is this: Wal-Mart is bad because it provides people goods they want at a price they?re willing to pay. People are flocking to Wal-Mart to get jobs. It?s the largest employer in the country?except the government?and you know what? They didn?t force a single one of those people to work for them.
?There is a lot to be said for getting the best deal, economists say.? No, Mr. Lohr, it?s not economists who say that, it?s people. Buyers. Folks who have jobs and kids and wives and homes and pets and budgets and rent to pay.
Still, Lohr continues: ?some economists note [that] lower prices for the kinds of basic goods on sale at Wal-Mart superstores, like food and clothes, are of the greatest benefit to the less affluent.? You can hear the ?but? coming, can?t you? It?s on its way:
??The prospect of Wal-Mart amassing even more market power does not worry free-market economists?.? Note the tone?amassing. Yes, much as Darth Sidious is amassing his army of clones for war against the Republic!
?Inevitably, less efficient rivals will be winnowed, he added, and those that remain will compete aggressively for consumer dollars.? Yes, and trapped in the middle of this savage war of vast automatic murder machines? The helpless American consumer, condemned to a life of cheap abundance and pleasant homemaking.
?In the past, antitrust policy assumed that more companies meant more competition, which was good for consumers. The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936?was passed partly to protect small local retailers from the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, the Wal-Mart of its time.? Now, remember?how does a company like Great Atlantic become powerful? In a free economy, a company becomes powerful by providing consumers with goods they wants at prices they?re willing to pay. So we must prevent that from happening in order to ?protect [more expensive] mom-and-pop stores.? Perhaps that?s why even New Dealer Robert Jackson later wrote that the New Deal ended up supporting the monopolies it claimed to attack.
?But the intellectual tide shifted by the 1980?s, especially under the growing influence of the so-called Chicago school of economics?.? Yes, that?s right. It had nothing to do with the almost paralyzing economic policies of the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations?. And what did these monsters from Chicago do? Why, they ?emphasized prices as the fundamental gauge of consumer welfare.? Overlooking such warm and fuzzy community-building aspects of shopping as, um, paying too much, and failing to find what you were looking for?
?To keep cutting costs, Wal-Mart is tough on its suppliers. Selling to Wal-Mart, by all accounts, is a brutal meritocracy.? Brutality! Oh, it figures. It?s a juggernaut, after all, that?s amassing power. Tell us about the brutality, Steve! ?Manufacturers have been forced to lay off workers after Wal-Mart canceled orders when another vendor cut its price a few cents more.? Simply inhuman! Wal-Mart should have instead stuck with the first vendor and charged us all more and just screw the vendor who worked harder and met consumer needs more efficiently.
?Wal-Mart?s detractors point to?a federal investigation into its use of poorly paid illegal immigrants as janitors.? Yeah, they shouldn?t offer jobs to Mexicans, just white folks. And if they do hire Mexicans, they should pay ?em double.
?Wal-Mart?s growing power has brought increased scrutiny from federal and state regulators.? (Yeah, I?ll say. Just like antelopes bring increased scrutiny from lions on the savannah.)
?The classic behavior of a predatory corporation is to cut prices to drive out competition in order to raise them later. There is no evidence yet that that is the Wal-Mart strategy.?
Then what the hell are you writing this article for, Steve?!
Posted by: TMS / 9:09 PM
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