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>Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war a

by gt_ 9y ago

>Wal-Mart sacrificed and betrayed its founder’s key principles of integrity and honesty, pushing those core values aside in its rush to win the e-commerce war at all costs. Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Innovation is only one way to compete, and a rare one at that. It’s one to be treasured, not defended on disgraceful terms like that of how both Amazon and Wal-Mart are content to treat their employees.

henvic 9y ago
Markets left to their own? And what is your magic solution? Socialism? How come do you trust more people who rob others with tax and enslave society more than the rest of others (the market)?
- musage 9y ago
  Why are you asking for a "magic solution" right out of the gate, or assume "trust" should enter into any of it, towards some "other" people?
- sli 9y ago
  That is nothing but a strawman argument. Please raise your level of discourse, this isn't reddit.
- yequalsx 9y ago
  ...rob other with tax... I don’t understand this mentality. Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. The evidence suggests that taxation is necessary to have a functioning society. Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    henvic doesn't like roads. :)
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      Who-would-pay-for-roads is as dumb a meme as taxation-is-theft. I complain about taxes all the time, but I wouldn't complain as much if the publicly funded roads I drive on most weren't absolutely shitty and if the snow removal that's part of my local government budget was actually done anywhere near where I live. I wouldn't complain as much if my state wasn't going into debt for the next 70 years to do upgrades and talking about charging tolls for other upgrades. I wouldn't complain as much if any significant percentage of my taxes were actually going to roads, and not political agendas, pet projects, wars on drugs and unauthorized wars on brown people who don't like our foreign policy. And I wouldn't complain as much if I didn't have to spend days and hire professionals to figure out how much I owe the road makers. Fuck the roads.
      - yequalsx 9y ago
        It’s not a meme. It’s a proper question to those who decry taxation as theft. Without taxation who would pay for government services? Your complaint about the road system indicates that taxes ought to be higher or are currently misallocated. The ire is not at the concept of taxation it’s at the allocation and level of taxation.
        TallGuyShort 9y ago
        The fact that a government agency fails to provide the services you're taxed to pay for does not mean they should get more money. I pay far higher taxes where I live now than when I lived in an openly socialist country that had better roads, faster police response times, better (and universal) healthcare. Every time I dig into specific government projects the amount of waste and corruption is disgusting. Wanting to throw more money at it is stupid, and the burden of proof is not on the people who want to be taxed less that it's actually doing anything.
        yequalsx 9y ago
        You apparently missed the “or are misallocated” part and completely missed the point of what I wrote. It seems like you are doing some projecting. My post does not in any way imply a “throw more money” attitude. Also, the original statement I responded to was an attitude that taxation is theft. It was not a statement about whether or not taxes should be reduced. Indeed, in my first post I specifically mentioned that reasonable people can and do question taxation levels.
  - kimdcmason 9y ago
    It's libertarian extremism. It's simply the reverse of communism, where the taxation level is 100%, and the state provides everything. Under this model, the taxation level is 0, and the government provides nothing. Neither of these models works at all.
  - feanaro 9y ago
    Alternative viewpoint: traditionally taxation was done by the monarchs/oligarchs because they had the power to do so and in order to secure their position even further. This simply continued into the modern age. The evidence seems to suggest that consolidation and reallocation of resources through taxation is extremely inefficient. I consider it unreasonable to claim it is unreasonable to consider taxation theft. It happening for a long time isn't a strong enough argument.
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      Taxation has been done by governments because all governments need money to function. Even in the monarch era localities needed money to run as well. It’s not the case that under monarchs taxes only went to the monarch to further his/her position. The proper view is that government regardless of political system needs taxation to function. Calling taxation theft is unreasonable because the evidence is that it is a necessary aspect of having a society. It is not theft by any reasonable interpretation of the word.
      - feanaro 9y ago
        I disagree that there is evidence showing it is a necessary aspect of having a society, though. What we have is evidence that societies with tax can function reasonably well, not that societies without tax are not able to function. It is obvious that any system doing useful work needs resources, and money is a fungible way of representing those resources. However, in my opinion, it is unreasonable to say with certainty that taxation is the uniquely existent solution to this problem or even the best one. Taxation has an inherent element of force to it, taking forcefully the product of someone's labour to redistribute it to other parties. I would say the element of forced redistribution qualifies it for at least some reasonable definitions of theft (albeit a theft with a good intent, under some definition of "good"). In any case, I am having a hard time drawing a clear line between taxation and, for example, Robin Hood-style redistribution, other than the current governments of the world being recognised as a sanctioned, official, good-enough Robin Hood occupying a local minimum. Another problem of taxation is the well known market inefficiency of the very act of piling up resources in a central place and then trying to allocate them manually to where they are needed. There is plenty of empirical evidence that systems like this tend to swell in size for no good reason other than serving their own existence.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    I actually have a hard time thinking the other way around. > Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. That's not really an argument in favor of taxes, many things have existed for a long time. And many wars were fought purely or most importantly on taxes: most of the american revolutions of independence were largely about taxes or tax-like sanctions. Taxation has always been a contentious topic. > Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft. There are many arguments and school of thought within libertarians and anarco-capitalists. I'm no expert, but the taxation is theft argument does have nuances. Taxation IS theft, because it is involuntary, and unless you concede the tax man a privilege over yourself, he is stealing from you. To me this is a non-negotiable concept: you are one way or another being forced to give your labor under threat of liberty. But the reality is there are ways in the which theft can be justified, the same way we tend to forgive a robber that eats for sustenance, theft can be justified to pay for the military that gives you freedom in exchange of their lives. You can eliminate taxes 100% if you made contributions voluntary. This is utopic in today's world, maybe, but not in the next world, the one we get to design and work towards to.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I don't trust almost anyone, but democratic process ensures that politicians at least have to pretend to care about some of the people who are affected by their decisions.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  The solution isn't magic; it's simply "don't leave markets to their own." Markets are regulated in many ways, the most painfully obvious example of which is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, mentioned in the article.
legitster 9y ago
> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. That is not the takeaway from this. The enemy of a corrupt, shady organization is an open and transparent market with lots of consumer options and stock researchers drilling deep into their numbers.
- kimdcmason 9y ago
  Sounds sensible, but how does one ensure that the "lots of consumer options" part holds? There seem to be quite a few sectors with winner-take-all dynamics (e.g. social networking), and quite a few other sectors that under many conditions tend toward oligopoly or monopoly (e.g. insurance, banking, credit history reporting).
wgerard 9y ago
> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Sort of? There's also a strong financial incentive to expose that dishonesty and manipulation - I mean, that's basically why Jim Chanos is famous. I'm not saying I think the system is perfect as-is (far from it), just that it's maybe not as clear-cut as you're making it sound.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 9y ago
>Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. Companies that view things like customer service as a cost center rather than customer retention & profit center tend not to experience as much success as their all-else-being-equal competitors. It's a PITA to return something to Walmart Online, refund are slow and sometimes nonexistent, requiring lengthy exchanges and delay. Amazon makes it easy, and is one of the primary reasons I long ago made them my first and, when possible, only stop for shopping online.
- da_chicken 9y ago
  > Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. So only the companies run by poor business managers or otherwise openly traded on stock markets. That makes me feel so much better.
  - InclinedPlane 9y ago
    Nah, only the companies run by humans.
  - ineedasername 9y ago
    You describe incompetence, not dishonesty & manipulation. Glib words are easy, strive for a deeper level of understanding than reflexive misanthropy.

by gt_ 9y ago

henvic 9y ago

Markets left to their own? And what is your magic solution? Socialism? How come do you trust more people who rob others with tax and enslave society more than the rest of others (the market)?

musage 9y ago
Why are you asking for a "magic solution" right out of the gate, or assume "trust" should enter into any of it, towards some "other" people?
sli 9y ago
That is nothing but a strawman argument. Please raise your level of discourse, this isn't reddit.
yequalsx 9y ago
...rob other with tax... I don’t understand this mentality. Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. The evidence suggests that taxation is necessary to have a functioning society. Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  henvic doesn't like roads. :)
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Who-would-pay-for-roads is as dumb a meme as taxation-is-theft. I complain about taxes all the time, but I wouldn't complain as much if the publicly funded roads I drive on most weren't absolutely shitty and if the snow removal that's part of my local government budget was actually done anywhere near where I live. I wouldn't complain as much if my state wasn't going into debt for the next 70 years to do upgrades and talking about charging tolls for other upgrades. I wouldn't complain as much if any significant percentage of my taxes were actually going to roads, and not political agendas, pet projects, wars on drugs and unauthorized wars on brown people who don't like our foreign policy. And I wouldn't complain as much if I didn't have to spend days and hire professionals to figure out how much I owe the road makers. Fuck the roads.
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      It’s not a meme. It’s a proper question to those who decry taxation as theft. Without taxation who would pay for government services? Your complaint about the road system indicates that taxes ought to be higher or are currently misallocated. The ire is not at the concept of taxation it’s at the allocation and level of taxation.
      - TallGuyShort 9y ago
        The fact that a government agency fails to provide the services you're taxed to pay for does not mean they should get more money. I pay far higher taxes where I live now than when I lived in an openly socialist country that had better roads, faster police response times, better (and universal) healthcare. Every time I dig into specific government projects the amount of waste and corruption is disgusting. Wanting to throw more money at it is stupid, and the burden of proof is not on the people who want to be taxed less that it's actually doing anything.
        yequalsx 9y ago
        You apparently missed the “or are misallocated” part and completely missed the point of what I wrote. It seems like you are doing some projecting. My post does not in any way imply a “throw more money” attitude. Also, the original statement I responded to was an attitude that taxation is theft. It was not a statement about whether or not taxes should be reduced. Indeed, in my first post I specifically mentioned that reasonable people can and do question taxation levels.
- kimdcmason 9y ago
  It's libertarian extremism. It's simply the reverse of communism, where the taxation level is 100%, and the state provides everything. Under this model, the taxation level is 0, and the government provides nothing. Neither of these models works at all.
- feanaro 9y ago
  Alternative viewpoint: traditionally taxation was done by the monarchs/oligarchs because they had the power to do so and in order to secure their position even further. This simply continued into the modern age. The evidence seems to suggest that consolidation and reallocation of resources through taxation is extremely inefficient. I consider it unreasonable to claim it is unreasonable to consider taxation theft. It happening for a long time isn't a strong enough argument.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    Taxation has been done by governments because all governments need money to function. Even in the monarch era localities needed money to run as well. It’s not the case that under monarchs taxes only went to the monarch to further his/her position. The proper view is that government regardless of political system needs taxation to function. Calling taxation theft is unreasonable because the evidence is that it is a necessary aspect of having a society. It is not theft by any reasonable interpretation of the word.
    - feanaro 9y ago
      I disagree that there is evidence showing it is a necessary aspect of having a society, though. What we have is evidence that societies with tax can function reasonably well, not that societies without tax are not able to function. It is obvious that any system doing useful work needs resources, and money is a fungible way of representing those resources. However, in my opinion, it is unreasonable to say with certainty that taxation is the uniquely existent solution to this problem or even the best one. Taxation has an inherent element of force to it, taking forcefully the product of someone's labour to redistribute it to other parties. I would say the element of forced redistribution qualifies it for at least some reasonable definitions of theft (albeit a theft with a good intent, under some definition of "good"). In any case, I am having a hard time drawing a clear line between taxation and, for example, Robin Hood-style redistribution, other than the current governments of the world being recognised as a sanctioned, official, good-enough Robin Hood occupying a local minimum. Another problem of taxation is the well known market inefficiency of the very act of piling up resources in a central place and then trying to allocate them manually to where they are needed. There is plenty of empirical evidence that systems like this tend to swell in size for no good reason other than serving their own existence.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I actually have a hard time thinking the other way around. > Every sufficiently large collection of people in the history of the world has had taxation. That's not really an argument in favor of taxes, many things have existed for a long time. And many wars were fought purely or most importantly on taxes: most of the american revolutions of independence were largely about taxes or tax-like sanctions. Taxation has always been a contentious topic. > Reasonable people can and do question taxations levels but not on the necessity of having taxes. It is unreasonable to consider taxation theft. There are many arguments and school of thought within libertarians and anarco-capitalists. I'm no expert, but the taxation is theft argument does have nuances. Taxation IS theft, because it is involuntary, and unless you concede the tax man a privilege over yourself, he is stealing from you. To me this is a non-negotiable concept: you are one way or another being forced to give your labor under threat of liberty. But the reality is there are ways in the which theft can be justified, the same way we tend to forgive a robber that eats for sustenance, theft can be justified to pay for the military that gives you freedom in exchange of their lives. You can eliminate taxes 100% if you made contributions voluntary. This is utopic in today's world, maybe, but not in the next world, the one we get to design and work towards to.
kerkeslager 9y ago
I don't trust almost anyone, but democratic process ensures that politicians at least have to pretend to care about some of the people who are affected by their decisions.
rdiddly 9y ago
The solution isn't magic; it's simply "don't leave markets to their own." Markets are regulated in many ways, the most painfully obvious example of which is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, mentioned in the article.

legitster 9y ago

> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. That is not the takeaway from this. The enemy of a corrupt, shady organization is an open and transparent market with lots of consumer options and stock researchers drilling deep into their numbers.

kimdcmason 9y ago
Sounds sensible, but how does one ensure that the "lots of consumer options" part holds? There seem to be quite a few sectors with winner-take-all dynamics (e.g. social networking), and quite a few other sectors that under many conditions tend toward oligopoly or monopoly (e.g. insurance, banking, credit history reporting).

wgerard 9y ago

> Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Sort of? There's also a strong financial incentive to expose that dishonesty and manipulation - I mean, that's basically why Jim Chanos is famous. I'm not saying I think the system is perfect as-is (far from it), just that it's maybe not as clear-cut as you're making it sound.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ineedasername 9y ago

>Markets left to their own accord incentivize dishonesty and manipulation. Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. Companies that view things like customer service as a cost center rather than customer retention & profit center tend not to experience as much success as their all-else-being-equal competitors. It's a PITA to return something to Walmart Online, refund are slow and sometimes nonexistent, requiring lengthy exchanges and delay. Amazon makes it easy, and is one of the primary reasons I long ago made them my first and, when possible, only stop for shopping online.

da_chicken 9y ago
> Only among the narrow minded & short sighted. So only the companies run by poor business managers or otherwise openly traded on stock markets. That makes me feel so much better.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Nah, only the companies run by humans.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  You describe incompetence, not dishonesty & manipulation. Glib words are easy, strive for a deeper level of understanding than reflexive misanthropy.