As you note, this is a disputable point. I’m inclined to believe that it is true, however, for the simple fact that small towns continue to try to attract Wal-Mart stores. It isn’t like Wal-Mart appeared on the scene yesterday, after all. Its impact on small, local businesses is well known. I suspect that if the economic impact of attracting a Wal-Mart was favorable less often than it was unfavorable, you’d see less incentivizing on the part of small towns.
Ever heard the phrase “race to the bottom?”
I’m not pining for the life of small town businesses here; I’m pissed that Wal-Mart gets out of paying taxes.
That depends on the answer to this question: what were those people doing before Wal-Mart came along? If they were unemployed, or employed under worse conditions, then they are better off. It’s better to have partially-subsidized working poor than a class of poor entirely bereft of job opportunities.
So let me get this straight, we should subsidize the companies, than their employees because the billionaires can’t pay decent wages. Are you familiar with Costco? Do they have sky high prices that only those rich out of towners can afford? Can I extend your argument then that sweatshops are good and minimum wage should be abolished because giving people something, anything is better than nothing?
The money they save at Wal-Mart might be trivial per-item, but it adds up. Maybe not enough to retire to Boca, but enough to have nice meal out every now and then or take the family to a ballgame or buy a few nice things for their home.
Not picturesque at all. No, all of a sudden from minimum wage trailer park worker, to caring family going out to the ball game? Yes, walmart is almost a religious experience that fixes all of life’s ills.
And why? So the wealthy can cling to their picturesque notions of a Norman Rockwell middle America? So charming main street shops can be preserved on the backs of the poor?
Nope, no strawman, that is in direct response to whose post or point?
Yes, though quipping that as a response to what I actually wrote is somewhat misplaced.
The phrase is ordinarily used to describe various municipalities slashing away at regulatory and other rules in competing attempts to lure businesses to their locality. It means, in essence, that town leaders are sacrificing the some other aspect of public policy in favor of economic development. That could conceivably include forgoing business tax revenue in favor of economic development. But that was not the point of the paragraph you quoted.
The portion of my post you quoted related to the question of just how much economic benefit a Wal-Mart actually brings along. The question it dealt with was not “what can we properly sacrifice to increase economic development,” but rather “is attracting a Wal-Mart a net economic benefit in the first place.”
Even in the face of continued unemployment and lost potential jobs in your town?
It isn’t like Wal-Mart is being sneaky about the tax situation; they are saying up-front they won’t locate a new store in the town unless they get tax concessions. The exact extent of those concessions will ultimately be the product of negotiation, but at the end of the day an unyielding stand on the tax issue will mean Wal-Mart will simply not build in your town.
I’m not saying that a town should give every possible tax incentive in every possible situation. I’m saying that making such deals can be the right move to make in many, but not all, situations. Indeed, it may be irresponsible not to make such a deal if your town is one of those rural communities dying on the vine.
I’m no advocate of subsidies. However, I understand how individual municipalities, faced with the prospect of losing a major economic investment to another town, can sensibly negotiate a tax deal with that economic entity. I also understand that it is better to have an underemployed person who is only partially subsidized than an unemployed person who is wholly subsidized.
What you don’t seem to understand is that there isn’t a third choice. Wal-Mart became the giant it is today by ruthlessly driving down prices. Two ways it does that are by reducing its local property tax liabilities and by paying low wages. If it reverses course on either of those fronts, its prices will rise – and its marketplace advantage will disappear, to be filled by competing entrants using the same low-price strategy.
So that’s the choice: cut a tax deal, or lose Wal-Mart. Pursue underemployment or get unemployment. That isn’t a moral point. It’s just a fact of life. Coming to grips with ugly realites is the first step to making grown-up decisions.
I’m vaguely familiar with Costco (warehouse store, right?), though I’m not sure why that is germane to the discussion.
I disagree with minimum wage laws because they cause unemployment. Nothing I’ve said can plausibly be said to describe sweatshops as “good,” though in some places, particularly third-world countries, they may be both necessary and inevitable to eventually lift people out of poverty.
Again, sweatshops, particularly third-world sweatshops, provide a good example of emotion getting in the way of dealing with unpleasant realities. People working in sweatshops overseas are (barring actual coercion) there because the alternative is subsistance farming or some other less-optimal work. And the sweatshop exists precisely because the labor is both cheap and unskilled; absent that cost advantage, the sweatshop will relocate where it can find greater skill (and thus efficiency) for its labor dollar.
So that’s the choice: let these folks work for very low wages, or take away their cost advantage and send them packing back to their subsistance farms. At least with the former, the labor pool may become more skilled over time, and thus better able to advance their economic interests.
I’m not calling either alternative “good.” I’m just saying that you have to go with the lesser of two evils.
Gee, Chet, it sounds like you’re saying minimum wage trailer park workers don’t have caring families…
Anyway, I hardly said Wal-Mart “fixes all of life’s ills.” Indeed, I was quite careful NOT to say that. All I said was that the cost savings realized by the poor at Wal-Mart would allow for small but nonetheless tangible improvements in their quality of life. No, it isn’t a cure-all. But it is a little better than what they had before.
It isn’t like Wal-Mart is being sneaky about the tax situation; they are saying up-front they won’t locate a new store in the town unless they get tax concessions. The exact extent of those concessions will ultimately be the product of negotiation, but at the end of the day an unyielding stand on the tax issue will mean Wal-Mart will simply not build in your town.
I’m not saying that a town should give every possible tax incentive in every possible situation. I’m saying that making such deals can be the right move to make in many, but not all, situations. Indeed, it may be irresponsible not to make such a deal if your town is one of those rural communities dying on the vine.
You seem overly fond of finding irrelevant quips instead of actual arguments.
The above is usually said in reference to obscure legal loopholes that allow people or companies to do something most folks would think they couldn’t. That isn’t the case here: the opening of a new Wal-Mart is hardly a secret event, and the concessions made to get them there are hardly kept quiet.
Quite the contrary, really. Small-town pols will usually announce the deal they cut quite loudly, and it will be featured prominently in their re-election campaign literature as proof positive of their ability to stimulate economic development.
Damien, before you go on and on about the glories and benefits of Walmart’s low prices, I suggest you actually do read up on costco which competes against walmart’s sam’s club. How they treat their employees, but yet keep their prices down is in stark contrast to Walmart.
Also walmart’s products tend to be shoddy,and in the long run are probably not a better purchase for the consumer, in fact, it is this crap mentality, that really preys on the poor who think they can only afford walmart, so they buy their dishes there, only to wonder why they break so easily and they need to buy more.
You don’t know about a major player, but you know that all small town residents cheer and love their walmarts and elected officials push them in their elections?
Just odd bits of knowledge… oh thats right, you are just making shit up again. But do you me a favor, go on again about the power of capitalism, and then talk about corporate welfare at the taxpayers expense, good stuff side by side.
Your argument seems to rest on, the only way for low prices is to screw your employees and there are no discount shops but walmart. And quite a few other fallacies, but those two are a good start.
You seem overly fond of finding irrelevant quips instead of actual arguments.
The above is usually said in reference to obscure legal loopholes that allow people or companies to do something most folks would think they couldn’t. That isn’t the case here: the opening of a new Wal-Mart is hardly a secret event, and the concessions made to get them there are hardly kept quiet.
Quite the contrary, really. Small-town pols will usually announce the deal they cut quite loudly, and it will be featured prominently in their re-election campaign literature as proof positive of their ability to stimulate economic development.[/quote]
Do they loudly announce that they’ve transferred billions of dollars in tax liability from Wal-Mart to the rest of their taxpayers?
I agree with you that the stuff Wal-Mart stocks is crap, but at the same time the juice glasses I bought at Crate & Barrel for $3 a glass break a hell of lot easier than if I just settled for a $3 stack of melmac glasses at Wal-Mart. :)
Chet- Your knowledge of labor economics is trumped only by your knowledge of proper comma placement.
Andrew Mayer- Even if I pretended that you were right about the Walton’s using electronic banking instead of merely holding stock, do you know what banks do with the money you give them?
Jason- Yes, I’ve heard the phrase “race to the bottom.” Mostly from the sort of person who throws things at WTO meetings.
Hey, if a company can thread that needle, that’s great. If Costco can compete on price and still provide all that other stuff, then good for them. Presumably, they’ll also be able to attract more talented employees and will give Wal-Mart a good run for their money. But there’s reason to believe Costco can’t do that long term.
I looked up a few articles on Costco’s business strategy. The costs of those extra employee benefits and higher wages come at the expense of Costco’s profit margins – they make less profit per item sold than Wal-Mart. That strategy might cost them in the long run, because it impacts the shareholders’s return on their investment. A poorer return on investment will make it more difficult for Costco to tap the financial markets for capital when they want to expand, which will impair their ability to take advantage of new or expanding markets and to further keep their costs down via economies of scale.
Again, I think it’s great if Costco can continue doing well. But let’s not pretend that this is a cost-free or riskless strategy. There is a very real chance of failure or at least impaired growth here.
(BTW, Costco doesn’t compete directly with traditional Wal-Mart stores, but rather with Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club warehouse stores, which have for some time been the red-headed stepchildren of the Wal-Mart organization.)
Well, this is really a decision for the consumer to make. Cheap merchandise is usually inferior; that’s why it’s cheap. “You get what you pay for” is right more often than it’s wrong. I think consumers should be allowed to decide for themselves what balance of price and durability they wish to seek in their purchases.
Well, I hardly said everyone “cheers and loves” Wal-Mart; that clearly isn’t the case. What I did say is that elected officials often have to make tradeoffs for economic investment in their community, that these tradeoffs are defensible, and that Mayor Bob’s “commitment to economic growth,” replete with details, will feature prominently in Mayor Bob’s reelection materials.
Actually, I haven’t said anything of the kind. If other companies can compete effectively against Wal-Mart while simultaneously having more generous employee compensation packages, that’s great.
I’m not sure why that’s relevant here, though. Hey, if Costco comes to town looking for a tax incentive, it might make sense to negotiate with them, too.
I’d love to hear them. Why don’t you name a few I’ve actually committed this time?
And, of course, no individual town transfers “billions” in tax liability away from Wal-Mart. Let’s not confuse individual cases with an aggregate number.
The point is that when money is taken out of a local economy it is no longer in that economy. (That particular bit of voodoo is known as a tuatology, BTW.)
If you think that has no effect on a local economy then perhaps you should have your sanity checked.
Damien you really are just an arrogant foolish prick.
That is exactly what I called you on in the other thread and you played dumb, that is your debate style in a nutshell. You offer nothing, run from every statement you make, then try and take what someone else says, and turn it to make it look like you said it. And in classic modern political style, ignore something I said, then say it as if I was the ignorant one.
Maybe if you knew what you were talking about, or had the ability to form a valid argument, you could put forth something of your own, and then not back pedal from it. I don’t try and punch through sponges, and I don’t debate the intellectual equivalent of a sponge. At least Cherub stands by his insane rantings.
So would it be wrong to point out the humor value of Ben complaining loudly about how everyone else has no clue when it comes to real-world economics, while still hanging on to the statement that all Wal-Mart employees make $8/hr, despite this being mentioned to him as incorrect in the other twenty-three Wal-Mart theads?
Good Lord, I only noted that as a minor point of clarification: I wanted to be sure the reader knew both that a Sam’s Club store was a different thing than a Wal-Mart store and that the Sam’s Club stores were not central to the Wal-Mart organization. I did not note it to make you look “ignorant” (you’re doing a fine job of that on your own – you don’t need my help). It was a brief aside in the context of a larger discussion, and nothing more.
I’m flabbergasted that you ignore a post full of valid arguments, then ignore every one of them in your response, claiming they don’t exist. You say I “run from every statement” but provide no instances of me doing that. “Backpedaling”? Where? Please, do tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.
Are you even capable of coherent participation in a political discussion?
Derek- You quoted a Plain Dealer article as paying Cleveland area Walmart workers as less. That, to my knowledge, is the only time someone has argued against that number. I got my $8/hr figure from these very threads, and IT DOESN’T FREAKING MATTER. Make it $6 or $10, that’s still “too low,” right?
The point is that there is a significant population on this board that says that instead of taking low paying jobs people should do what’s best for them and be unemployed.
For the good of the motherland, or something. Ask Andrew “I have no idea how banks or corporations work” Mayer.
