Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Go Wal-Mart Go

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, Nathan Odle wrote:

> On Apr 5, 2004, at 9:52 AM, Jonathan King wrote:
> >
> > Baloney.  An organization as highly engineered as Wal*Mart can
> > ABSOLUTELY get rid of 95% of these "accidental" screw-ups.  It's
> > exactly because we KNOW that Wal*Mart can control its own behavior
> > so extremely well that makes these kinds of things less acceptable,
> > especially when they are in the position to swing the market around
> > like it were a game of "crack-the-whip".  I agree with you
> > completely that the low-cost structure of Wal*Mart has saved people
> > a ton of money, and that this is a good thing.
> 
> Maybe I'm being too literally-minded here, but my point is:

Actually, it was I who was being literally-minded here.  I was 
replying to this comment you deleted:

# Now, this isn't to say that they don't have some shadier                      
# practices, i.e. mislabeling things "Made in the USA" or                       
# (allegedly) employing people with the knowledge that they're                  
# illegal immigrants, but sorry - you have to take the good with the            
# bad.                                                                          
            
My point was that *because* Wal-Mart has such excellent control over
their supply chain and personnel and the like, it makes it very
difficult for me to believe that we (or they) just have to accept
this kind of thing.  Their scanners could be programmed to tell you 
the country of origin of everything they sell, if they wanted (for 
one example).
 
> Because I believe that Wal-Mart's existence is a net benefit to
> society, I see no reason to not support them.

My belief is more abstract.  Very low prices and globalization are 
both very good things, but I could give a rat's hind side who or 
what can deliver these things.  Wal-Mart's existence per se means 
nothing to me, so I'm not ever going to give them the benefit of the 
doubt on stuff I think they could prevent that I don't like.  

> They do a lot of things that I don't like, but I'm willing to
> accept those things due to the fact that the positives outweigh
> the negatives.  In this way, I look at it in a similar way that I
> do the ACLU and the NRA...and guess who's a card-carrying member
> of both?

So who are the Libertarians running this year? :-)

jking

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