Posted on 11/14/2003 9:42:50 AM PST by em2vn
A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.
(Excerpt) Read more at fastcompany.com ...
"We just operate everywhere," he said. "We need to include everybody around the world in the asset utilization. They buy our products and pay up. We can't just extract wealth from other countries and pay ourselves.
"And the United States has no divine right to our standard of living," Mulally added, defending Boeing's overseas parts production.
......... "Because that's what we believe in. That's capitalism. That's market forces."
Strange brew between shrewd business (not a bad thing), and a total lack of understanding/acknowlegement that his products are in fact wealth more useful to his customers than the cash paid for them. That both the shareholders and customers gain wealth from the transaction.
Actually, I have talked to a Wal-Mart employee. Have you talked to any that didn't have a chip on their shoulder?
They all think of themselves as trained customer sevice experts, and deserving, but not getting good salaries and bennies. Many W-M people I know have two jobs just to make a modest go of it.
It doesn't matter how they consider themselves. If you are working as a cashier or customer service at Wal-Mart, your skills are worth $7.50/hour (in central Oklahoma). Last I heard, Target employees in the same area are starting at no more than $7.00/hour. You're kidding yourself if you think unskilled labor is worth much more than that. Wal-Mart jobs of this type should consist of high-schoolers, people working their way through college, and retirees looking for a little extra cash. If one wants to support themself (or their family) on a Wal-Mart hourly wage, that is their decision. Wal-Mart doesn't force anyone to become an associate.
The prez gets a mere $17.7 million a year plus bonuses etc. The Walton family members are all billionnaires.
$17.7 million for running the largest company in the world? I'd say Wal-Mart's stockholders are getting a deal. The Walton family members are billionaires because they hold large portions of a stock that has skyrocketed since opening. Are you faulting them for that? Do you have a problem with "the rich" or just everyone that makes more than Wal-Mart unskilled labor?
Oh? Why doesn't competition take care of that? Last I checked, your automotive "cartel" was still trying to fight off the import threat (and losing, bigtime).
FYI, you're supposed to turn them off when you're done using them.
I talk to many W-M employees including relatives so I think I have a good understanding of the plight of the lower ranks and not a one is a teenager or a retiree. Three of them have college degrees.
At the other end of the W-M salary spectrum are the prez and numerous high officials, all of whom get the real salaries and bennies. The prez gets a mere $17.7 million a year plus bonuses etc.
True. This is because "at the other end of the spectrum" the job requires talent --- much like being a basketball or a movie star. Talen is unique and therefore very expensive.
It is a favorite thing among Marxists to think that the cashier register operator and a CEO of Wal-Mart are comparable jobs. Unions love it too. You should not.
The Walton family members are all billionnaires. These billions are from a different category altogether: risk-taking by a enterpreneur. You should not think of this wealth when you think of jobs and salaries.
As many people who have been betrayed by our system of education you do not even know what education is: not all knowlege is experiential; that is, one does not have to belong to club to know what it is.
If you are anti W-M, does that make you a Club member? NOt at all. Once again, you think in terms of taking sides. It is not the side you are on but the reason for your choice that matters. Your argumentation of your position is what makes it socialist.
Your post is obtuse. Look who's talking...
With the destruction of the medieval guild-artisan economy and the duty-based feudal system that created it, labor became a commodity As evidenced by what?
If anything, the opposite is true --- and has always been so. Just as goods are differentiated, so is labor. Just as some goods become "commodities," so is labor in some sectors. It is in these, and only these, sectors that the third-world economies are compatible with ours. And it is in these sectors that outsourcing is possible. Most of the labor supplied by Americans is differentiated from that supplied by Chinese or Indians.
and in a world of six billion people the commodity price of labor inexorably trends toward zero. Again, if you should make jugements of this kind, they should be based on something better than Econ 101.
Firstly, the price of a differentiated good need not tend to zer0. And, secondly, that picture is static; in a dynamic environment even the price iof a "commoditiy" need not tend to zero either.
sophistication of automatic manufacturing and service systems, which offer the ultimate in low-wage labor mechanical "slave" labor. Correct. But the humans need not compete for it: they should avail themselves of other labor that is sorely needed and well-rewarded.
Thanks to the ever-cheapening price of labor,
Again, this is false. The price of talent has skyrocketed in 1990s.
Professional positions are enjoying a notable growth in salaries as well.
It looks like you first decisded on the picture of the world and only started to look for evidence.
ere will in time be no opportunity for employment left in the United States: all manufacturing jobs will be done by electronic/mechanical "slave labor",
Again, you miss the point: only "commoditized" labor can be delegated to a machine. How do you delegate to a machine product innovation? If we ourselves do not know how innovation is done, how can we write a computer program that would do that?
All knowledge jobs (banking, accounting, customer service, sales, etc.) will be similarly outsourced to developing nations or performed by electronics. This is not even funny. You should (i) read up a bit, and (ii) take a vacation: you are depressed.
It should be clear to you by now that you should stop talking about this: more you speak more silly you look.
Wal-Mart is not and cannot be a monopoly. If at all it may become a monopsony.
Buy yourself a book and make sure it does not have pictures.
Can't you understand that? The question is not what I understand but what you do.
Good point. This is the impression I got from the article as well.
By the way, your childish insults are contrary to FR policy, or do you know the policy re personal attacks?
"The possession of control of a trade or service" is too loose of a definition. What is control? The government regulating trade has control but is clearly not a monopolist. Moreoever, the term "monopoly" is typically appied to a single SELLER of a good or service. The corresponding terms for a single BUYER (which is where Wal-Mart's strength partly lies) is monopsony.
I may have stated my thought too directly in the previous post, but the thought is valid: (i) you are reading wrong books, and (ii) the streangth of your opinions is (way) out of proportion with factual knowledge. Suspend jdgement until you study more economics -- that is what the scientific method dictates.
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