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10.19.2004
The Pound and the Fury: An answer, Maybe, to Myself, or Something Jack has been pounding away on the nature of Wal-Mart. My conclusion to my dilemma is not that Wal-Mart can't do what they do or that capitalism is bad; rather, we have to be better, more demanding. Why allow corporations into convincing us that buying a particle board desk that LOOKS like an antique is somehow the equivalent of owning a real deask (sic) made with real wood. I think we should cut a piece of paper into a round shape, draw a smiley face on it and tape it to the nose of the vicious pitbull that is tearing off our leg. I obviously disagree with his conclusion even though I think he makes some valuable observations. People don't just purchase cheap particle board desks because they don't appreciate quality. They are faced with a constant need for material goods with an ever-diminishing buying power. The cheap and easy answer is "Don't buy it if you can't afford it", and while I try to follow that advice its easier said than done. In many ways, Wal-Mart is both part of the problem and part of the solution. The demand for cheaper goods has risen due to a stagnation in wages over the past thirty years. Adjusted for inflation, most workers have seen no net gain in their buying power. At the same time, the rise of Wal-Mart illustrates the changing reality of work. The service industry has ballooned even as the manufacturing industry has declined. If you go from a well paid, unionized manufacturing job to a low paying non-unionized Wal-Mart job you are going to need any cost savings you can get. Either way, you still need a desk. One of the reasons I like selling cameras is because they are a non-necessity item for most people. I don't have to deal with people who feel like they are being forced into a purchase against their will. I've also sold appliances and that sucks! You get people that just scan the tags, find the cheapest one they can and say "this one". They need a washing machine but don't really have the money for it. People aren't stupid, they react to the market any way they can to survive. So what happens when wages stagnate but you still need to make a purchase? You look for the cheapest prices and you charge what you cannot afford. Hence the rise of Wal-Mart and the nearly doubling of unsecured debt held by Americans since 1992. and... "? the recent decade of economic growth and falling unemployment has featured a perplexing phenomenon: personal bankruptcy rates in the late 1990s (peaking at 1.4 million in 1998) soared to nearly ten times the rate of the Great Depression." hmm.. its not perplexing really. The new jobs being created are lower paying, and consumers are using debt to fill the growing gap between the cost of living and stagnant wages. While offshoring has lowered the costs of many consumer goods (you priced hard drives lately!) some costs are still rising, health care in particular. (pssssstt... read my comments at Jack's site. I didn't spend half and hour typing it out for nothing!) Of course, I have a old wooden desk I bought at a thrift store for seven bucks. All real wood, heavy as a dump truck. Congrats to the Red Sox on winning fame six. Note to CGHill of Dustbury: When I criticise fundamentalist Christians it DOES NOT mean that I want a band of fundamentalist Muslims moving into the spare bedroom. There may be some lefties that fall victim to the absurd logic that our fundies are bad and their fundies are good, but this isn't one of them. I have a problem with people whose religion tells them to treat others like second class citizens, be this Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. ... and as the author of that Frontpage article should realize, once you open the door to teaching ANY religion in schools, you will have to teach all religions, not just yours. You can't have it both ways. |
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