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DC has enough people to create a market for retailers. It is not a question of if someone sells things, but whom. The idea that if these Wal-Marts don't move

DC has enough people to create a market for retailers. It is not a question of if someone sells things, but whom. The idea that if these Wal-Marts don't move in, these people won't have jobs is a fallacy: They'll just have jobs working for a more responsible employer. As a resident of D.C., I'm happy with what the council has done here.

drcode 13y ago
Well, you shouldn't be happy. What will most likely happen is that SOME of those people will be able to get a job at a "responsible employer" but large numbers will become more destitute because of this decision. Guess what: CostCo et al employ FEWER people per dollar people spend in the store, which is why they can afford the higher salaries. They do not somehow magically generate money out of thin air and hand it to their employees out of the goodness of their heart.
- imgabe 13y ago
  Look at it from the DC government's perspective. Wal-Mart is trying to get something valuable: access to a highly lucrative market. The DC government wants to get something in return: fewer people who require public assistance. The cost of living in DC is extremely high. If most of the jobs created by Wal-Mart leave the employees still requiring food stamps, subsidized housing, and free clinics. What's the point to DC in allowing them here? They may as well have kept on paying those people the food stamps anyway, without the added harm of destroying the small business Wal-Mart is no doubt going to steamroll over, and contributing to the homogenization of the US into one long blur of identical national chain stores. DC is not interested in subsidizing Wal-Mart's labor costs. If Wal-Mart can't afford to pay an actual wage that a person can live on without government assistance, then they aren't actually running a profitable enterprise. They're just leeching off the taxpayers.
  - drcode 13y ago
    > If Wal-Mart can't afford to pay an actual wage that a person can live on without government assistance, then they aren't actually running a profitable enterprise. This is the core flaw in your argument. First of all, it is obviously wrong on the surface (i.e. Wal-Mart reports profits every quarter) and even the argument you actually MEANT to make is wrong (No, it is not intrinsically better for society to have CostCo come in and hiring fewer employees and have more people needing full assistance, vs. WalMart come in and hiring more people needing partial assistance.)
    - imgabe 13y ago
      Profits = Revenue - Costs If a portion of your costs are paid not by revenue, but by taxpayer subsidy, and if the loss of that subsidy makes your costs exceed your revenue, then you are not technically profitable. Especially in instances like this, when the taxpayers decide they don't want to pay for your costs anymore "Intrinsically better" - whatever that is supposed to mean - has nothing to do with it, I'm talking about whether it's better for the DC government as that's what's driving the DC government's decision. If you reduce a portion of the people on public aid to partial aid, you still have the administrative cost of distributing that aid, so you're only saving the amount you're actually paying out. If you can move even a smaller portion off of the aid completely, you may be able to reduce the infrastructure you need to distribute the aid and save even more money. It's not like I have the numbers in front of me, but it isn't exactly perfectly clear which is better necessarily. Obviously lots of people on the DC council think the latter is going to be preferable. More likely, they're trying to use what leverage they have as gatekeepers to a large market to extract as much benefit for the city as they can. That's as it should be.
      - drcode 13y ago
        > More likely, they're trying to use what leverage they have as gatekeepers to a large market to extract as much benefit for the city as they can. That's as it should be. That's an optimistic view of the government. I think it's more likely the government think that saying "Wal-Mart Bad!" will help them get elected. I don't see any clear evidence from anyone here that preventing poor people from getting employment at WalMart in DC is going to improve their lives. I think the council is hurting DC. Luckily, I recently moved out of DC, so I guess if they want to go out of their way to hurt their economy and give their lost opportunities to other districts/cities instead I'm fine with that.

drcode 13y ago

Well, you shouldn't be happy. What will most likely happen is that SOME of those people will be able to get a job at a "responsible employer" but large numbers will become more destitute because of this decision. Guess what: CostCo et al employ FEWER people per dollar people spend in the store, which is why they can afford the higher salaries. They do not somehow magically generate money out of thin air and hand it to their employees out of the goodness of their heart.

imgabe 13y ago
Look at it from the DC government's perspective. Wal-Mart is trying to get something valuable: access to a highly lucrative market. The DC government wants to get something in return: fewer people who require public assistance. The cost of living in DC is extremely high. If most of the jobs created by Wal-Mart leave the employees still requiring food stamps, subsidized housing, and free clinics. What's the point to DC in allowing them here? They may as well have kept on paying those people the food stamps anyway, without the added harm of destroying the small business Wal-Mart is no doubt going to steamroll over, and contributing to the homogenization of the US into one long blur of identical national chain stores. DC is not interested in subsidizing Wal-Mart's labor costs. If Wal-Mart can't afford to pay an actual wage that a person can live on without government assistance, then they aren't actually running a profitable enterprise. They're just leeching off the taxpayers.
- drcode 13y ago
  > If Wal-Mart can't afford to pay an actual wage that a person can live on without government assistance, then they aren't actually running a profitable enterprise. This is the core flaw in your argument. First of all, it is obviously wrong on the surface (i.e. Wal-Mart reports profits every quarter) and even the argument you actually MEANT to make is wrong (No, it is not intrinsically better for society to have CostCo come in and hiring fewer employees and have more people needing full assistance, vs. WalMart come in and hiring more people needing partial assistance.)
  - imgabe 13y ago
    Profits = Revenue - Costs If a portion of your costs are paid not by revenue, but by taxpayer subsidy, and if the loss of that subsidy makes your costs exceed your revenue, then you are not technically profitable. Especially in instances like this, when the taxpayers decide they don't want to pay for your costs anymore "Intrinsically better" - whatever that is supposed to mean - has nothing to do with it, I'm talking about whether it's better for the DC government as that's what's driving the DC government's decision. If you reduce a portion of the people on public aid to partial aid, you still have the administrative cost of distributing that aid, so you're only saving the amount you're actually paying out. If you can move even a smaller portion off of the aid completely, you may be able to reduce the infrastructure you need to distribute the aid and save even more money. It's not like I have the numbers in front of me, but it isn't exactly perfectly clear which is better necessarily. Obviously lots of people on the DC council think the latter is going to be preferable. More likely, they're trying to use what leverage they have as gatekeepers to a large market to extract as much benefit for the city as they can. That's as it should be.
    - drcode 13y ago
      > More likely, they're trying to use what leverage they have as gatekeepers to a large market to extract as much benefit for the city as they can. That's as it should be. That's an optimistic view of the government. I think it's more likely the government think that saying "Wal-Mart Bad!" will help them get elected. I don't see any clear evidence from anyone here that preventing poor people from getting employment at WalMart in DC is going to improve their lives. I think the council is hurting DC. Luckily, I recently moved out of DC, so I guess if they want to go out of their way to hurt their economy and give their lost opportunities to other districts/cities instead I'm fine with that.