5 ms·

i purchase a hell of a lot more stuff from Walmart than I do fine art.

by calvinmorrison 8mo ago

conception 8mo ago
I think what you think this says about you is not what it actually says about you.
- shimman 8mo ago
  You're telling me there's more to life than being a consumer?
shimman 8mo ago
Yes and do billion dollar corporations really need that much government subsidies? Turns out yes they do, but sure enjoy your plastic trinkets from China I guess. Hopefully you thank a tax payer that pays for the welfare and medicaid of those Walmart workers, and the local town for cheaper property taxes and utility rates at Walmart. God knows Walmart couldn't exist with all this rampant welfare.
- testaccount28 8mo ago
  walmart solves a major logistical problem: provide government subsidized goods to low income neighborhoods. the government should like to give walmart money, as it is plausibly a cost-effective way to provide these goods to people who need them. the administrators of walmart are well rewarded for providing this public good.
  - shimman 8mo ago
    The only thing Walmart solves is destroying local ecosystems both biological and human. Acting like the executives paying themselves exorbitant salaries is a virtue is frankly odd and deeply disgusting as a human being, I'm sure the lowly workers wished they could vote themselves higher salaries too. Maybe if workplace democracy was enforced upon Walmart it would be an entirely different entity, likely for the better too.
    - wolvoleo 8mo ago
      I'm sure the OP intended an /s at the end of their post :)
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
    - testaccount28 8mo ago
      i wished i had a pony, which is why i VOTE VERMIN SUPREME.
  - Sl1mb0 8mo ago
    This is where we're at huh?
    - antonvs 8mo ago
      This is their brain on capitalism
      - inglor_cz 8mo ago
        I wish more intellectuals had their "brain on capitalism". It is dismaying to find out how many American academicians take Marxism seriously - unless they stem from countries like Cuba that had the misfortune to actually let Marxist ideas rule them. It is mental fentanyl for certain kind of collectivist mind. Give me Hayek and Buckley instead.
        direwolf20 8mo ago
        Which ideas constitute Marxism?
        inglor_cz 8mo ago
        In theory? The most obvious is labor theory of value, plus false consciousness and the division of the society into exploitative class and exploited class. In practice? For example, nationalization of businesses and collectivization in rural areas, including suppression of "kulaks".
        antonvs 8mo ago
        It's possible to criticize one thing without endorsing another. Your comment reads like a response to someone criticizing what the current US administration is doing by saying "yeah but the Democrats..." Binary thinking is analogous to quantizing an LLM to 2 bits (worse, actually). You're not going to get good results.
        inglor_cz 8mo ago
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    You can both be right. Walmart is a valuable corporation; there are useful idiots who choose not to see that. It’s also a profitable one, which means it doesn’t need subsidies; another set of useful idiots can’t seem to see that.
  - Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
    > Yes and do billion dollar corporations really need that much government subsidies? Turns out yes they do, but sure enjoy your plastic trinkets from China I guess. Hopefully you thank a tax payer that pays for the welfare and medicaid of those Walmart workers, and the local town for cheaper property taxes and utility rates at Walmart. This is not the case. Walmart doesn't have the lowest prices because they are efficient, yes conventional wisdom might dictate that but you are forgetting wholesalers exist from which conventional retailers buy from and the margin definitely tilts towards walmart but there was a time where they could easily compete against walmart and set their prices. Now what's happening is that walmart has these special deals (in this case with pepsi) where pepsi would literally surveil all marts and see which is selling cheaper than walmart (FoodLion did that) and then what Pepsi did was cut off all the promotional money of FoodLion and increase their wholesaler prices. Is this legal? Hell no. It's all completely illegal but the govt. stopped enforcing the law Then when it was released by FTC, the whole document was almost redacted and Trump signed an executive order essentially trying to stop it from going out but some journalists dug/pressured for its release. So walmart isn't the base because they are price competitive, hell-no. It's because they set the floor & have special deals with other companies to maintain that floor artificially. Which actually leads to small retailers/chains shutting down because they can't compete on price and this essentially leads to a monopoly of walmart where it can dictate prices & increase them and the people are forced to STILL go to them. And all of this while being immensely govt subsidized as you say too while paying their employees peanuts. Actually Walmart when it was launched in germany was sued quite a lot for such practices that iirc they had to take an exit. No country wants a walmart because they know that they might use their american profits (which we discovered how come from shady practices themselves) and then use it to run marts at losses until the competition dies which is still immensely bad long term for the average consumer of whole world but particularly the americans in my opinion as all other govts are more protective of such industries for this good reason and walmart fails to measure up to those standards in other countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhVF_xLIQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhVF_xLIQA : We Uncovered the Scheme Keeping Grocery Prices High [More Perfect Union] A lot of my points were heavily influenced by this video so I would recommend you to watch it to help understand more as well about what I am talking. The deception of walmart actually fools a lot of people but the economical margin is actually quite low. It's the artifical floor that they set which gets unnoticed by many and this is why other retailers aren't able to compete, all of which is highly illegal but once again, the govt. stopped enforcing this law.
  - computerthings 8mo ago
    [dead]
zeckalpha 8mo ago
In Ireland?
tropdrop 8mo ago
What's interesting is that you don't realize how much of that stuff from Walmart had artistic processes embedded into it along the production line. Did those shower curtains have a design? Did your sweater have a color and style? Probably so, but you never pay attention to how the world of "fine art" refracts into your daily life. If the products were cheap, it's likely someone unpaid is responsible for the design. See, for example, the lawsuit against Zara over theft of ideas from small-time designers [1]. In any case, cheap Chinese brands do the same thing as Zara en masse (copying designs – note the "external suppliers" bit in its defense PR), and those products then end up in Walmart/on Amazon. The artists starve but you have your shower curtains and are happy with the price. [1] https://www.grossmanllp.com/independent-artists-on-the-offensive-after-zara-allegedly-steals-designs https://www.grossmanllp.com/independent-artists-on-the-offen...
- BobbyTables2 8mo ago
  Even when people are paid, it’s not necessarily fair nor driving the price paid - like clothing/purse manufacturing in low income countries for high income markets.
- terminalshort 8mo ago
  Artists who were paid for by willing buyers, not tax payers who don't have a choice.
  - devmor 8mo ago
    Your taxes subsidize walmart and you don’t have a choice either.
    - hackable_sand 8mo ago
      Yes. Everyone's gotta eat, even if Walmart refuses to pay fair wages.
    - terminalshort 8mo ago
      And I don't like that either. Being ripped off once doesn't mean that I should be ok with being ripped off again. That doesn't offset.
subpixel 8mo ago
It's funny that you put it that way, b/c I have definitely spent more money on art (not even 'fine' art) that I have at Walmart over the years.
computerthings 8mo ago
[dead]
ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
Walmart is an insanely profitable business that pays most of its employees well under a living wage. Maybe we should have a structure in place that taxes companies based on how many benefits their employees claim, say five times the total amount of money claimed.

i purchase a hell of a lot more stuff from Walmart than I do fine art.

conception 8mo ago

I think what you think this says about you is not what it actually says about you.

shimman 8mo ago
You're telling me there's more to life than being a consumer?

shimman 8mo ago

Yes and do billion dollar corporations really need that much government subsidies? Turns out yes they do, but sure enjoy your plastic trinkets from China I guess. Hopefully you thank a tax payer that pays for the welfare and medicaid of those Walmart workers, and the local town for cheaper property taxes and utility rates at Walmart. God knows Walmart couldn't exist with all this rampant welfare.

testaccount28 8mo ago
walmart solves a major logistical problem: provide government subsidized goods to low income neighborhoods. the government should like to give walmart money, as it is plausibly a cost-effective way to provide these goods to people who need them. the administrators of walmart are well rewarded for providing this public good.
- shimman 8mo ago
  The only thing Walmart solves is destroying local ecosystems both biological and human. Acting like the executives paying themselves exorbitant salaries is a virtue is frankly odd and deeply disgusting as a human being, I'm sure the lowly workers wished they could vote themselves higher salaries too. Maybe if workplace democracy was enforced upon Walmart it would be an entirely different entity, likely for the better too.
  - wolvoleo 8mo ago
    I'm sure the OP intended an /s at the end of their post :)
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  - testaccount28 8mo ago
    i wished i had a pony, which is why i VOTE VERMIN SUPREME.
- Sl1mb0 8mo ago
  This is where we're at huh?
  - antonvs 8mo ago
    This is their brain on capitalism
    - inglor_cz 8mo ago
      I wish more intellectuals had their "brain on capitalism". It is dismaying to find out how many American academicians take Marxism seriously - unless they stem from countries like Cuba that had the misfortune to actually let Marxist ideas rule them. It is mental fentanyl for certain kind of collectivist mind. Give me Hayek and Buckley instead.
      - direwolf20 8mo ago
        Which ideas constitute Marxism?
        inglor_cz 8mo ago
        In theory? The most obvious is labor theory of value, plus false consciousness and the division of the society into exploitative class and exploited class. In practice? For example, nationalization of businesses and collectivization in rural areas, including suppression of "kulaks".
      - antonvs 8mo ago
        It's possible to criticize one thing without endorsing another. Your comment reads like a response to someone criticizing what the current US administration is doing by saying "yeah but the Democrats..." Binary thinking is analogous to quantizing an LLM to 2 bits (worse, actually). You're not going to get good results.
        inglor_cz 8mo ago
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  You can both be right. Walmart is a valuable corporation; there are useful idiots who choose not to see that. It’s also a profitable one, which means it doesn’t need subsidies; another set of useful idiots can’t seem to see that.
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  > Yes and do billion dollar corporations really need that much government subsidies? Turns out yes they do, but sure enjoy your plastic trinkets from China I guess. Hopefully you thank a tax payer that pays for the welfare and medicaid of those Walmart workers, and the local town for cheaper property taxes and utility rates at Walmart. This is not the case. Walmart doesn't have the lowest prices because they are efficient, yes conventional wisdom might dictate that but you are forgetting wholesalers exist from which conventional retailers buy from and the margin definitely tilts towards walmart but there was a time where they could easily compete against walmart and set their prices. Now what's happening is that walmart has these special deals (in this case with pepsi) where pepsi would literally surveil all marts and see which is selling cheaper than walmart (FoodLion did that) and then what Pepsi did was cut off all the promotional money of FoodLion and increase their wholesaler prices. Is this legal? Hell no. It's all completely illegal but the govt. stopped enforcing the law Then when it was released by FTC, the whole document was almost redacted and Trump signed an executive order essentially trying to stop it from going out but some journalists dug/pressured for its release. So walmart isn't the base because they are price competitive, hell-no. It's because they set the floor & have special deals with other companies to maintain that floor artificially. Which actually leads to small retailers/chains shutting down because they can't compete on price and this essentially leads to a monopoly of walmart where it can dictate prices & increase them and the people are forced to STILL go to them. And all of this while being immensely govt subsidized as you say too while paying their employees peanuts. Actually Walmart when it was launched in germany was sued quite a lot for such practices that iirc they had to take an exit. No country wants a walmart because they know that they might use their american profits (which we discovered how come from shady practices themselves) and then use it to run marts at losses until the competition dies which is still immensely bad long term for the average consumer of whole world but particularly the americans in my opinion as all other govts are more protective of such industries for this good reason and walmart fails to measure up to those standards in other countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhVF_xLIQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhVF_xLIQA : We Uncovered the Scheme Keeping Grocery Prices High [More Perfect Union] A lot of my points were heavily influenced by this video so I would recommend you to watch it to help understand more as well about what I am talking. The deception of walmart actually fools a lot of people but the economical margin is actually quite low. It's the artifical floor that they set which gets unnoticed by many and this is why other retailers aren't able to compete, all of which is highly illegal but once again, the govt. stopped enforcing this law.
- computerthings 8mo ago
  [dead]

zeckalpha 8mo ago

In Ireland?

tropdrop 8mo ago

What's interesting is that you don't realize how much of that stuff from Walmart had artistic processes embedded into it along the production line. Did those shower curtains have a design? Did your sweater have a color and style? Probably so, but you never pay attention to how the world of "fine art" refracts into your daily life. If the products were cheap, it's likely someone unpaid is responsible for the design. See, for example, the lawsuit against Zara over theft of ideas from small-time designers [1]. In any case, cheap Chinese brands do the same thing as Zara en masse (copying designs – note the "external suppliers" bit in its defense PR), and those products then end up in Walmart/on Amazon. The artists starve but you have your shower curtains and are happy with the price. [1] https://www.grossmanllp.com/independent-artists-on-the-offensive-after-zara-allegedly-steals-designs https://www.grossmanllp.com/independent-artists-on-the-offen...

BobbyTables2 8mo ago
Even when people are paid, it’s not necessarily fair nor driving the price paid - like clothing/purse manufacturing in low income countries for high income markets.
terminalshort 8mo ago
Artists who were paid for by willing buyers, not tax payers who don't have a choice.
- devmor 8mo ago
  Your taxes subsidize walmart and you don’t have a choice either.
  - hackable_sand 8mo ago
    Yes. Everyone's gotta eat, even if Walmart refuses to pay fair wages.
  - terminalshort 8mo ago
    And I don't like that either. Being ripped off once doesn't mean that I should be ok with being ripped off again. That doesn't offset.

subpixel 8mo ago

It's funny that you put it that way, b/c I have definitely spent more money on art (not even 'fine' art) that I have at Walmart over the years.

computerthings 8mo ago

[dead]

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago

Walmart is an insanely profitable business that pays most of its employees well under a living wage. Maybe we should have a structure in place that taxes companies based on how many benefits their employees claim, say five times the total amount of money claimed.