Go. And don't come back until you can find an independent study that backs up the Wal-Mart purchased statistics you spouted.
Um....I'm as anti-Wal-Mart as just about anybody else and I'm not seeing anything particularly controversial in the statistics he threw out. The $2500 a year number might be suspect, but even that isn't entirely outside the realm of reason (assuming a consumer spends most of their money at Wal-Mart, and also including the "Wal-Mart effect" that drives retail prices down even outside their store).
If you ignore the extremely local impacts to local manufacturers, this makes sense. And that's fair, since this won't be a factor in every local economy that Wal-Mart enters.
I don't think the actual statistics are wrong, I think it all comes down to how one interprets them and what other factors are taken into account.
Except the study he's quoting from was funded by Wal-Mart. He hides it well, though. And the one "article" is actually a Wal-Mart press release - it just doesn't look that way because it's being shown through the Money website. That was what I'm complaining about.
Except the study he's quoting from was funded by Wal-Mart. He hides it well, though. And the one "article" is actually a Wal-Mart press release - it just doesn't look that way because it's being shown through the Money website. That was what I'm complaining about.
I know. I spotted that before I even posted. But still, those statistics don't seem outside the realm of reason. It's just that those statistics, like most statistics, likely fail to tell the entire story.
If you don't believe the actual numbers, I'd say go ahead and post statistics from elsewhere that contradict them. Don't just dismiss the numbers he presented because of who funded the study.
Criticizing a study for it's funding instead of on its data and methods is sort of ironic. If I accept your criticism, then I've abandoned the idea that the data and methods are what's relevant.
Yeah, Wal-mart funds the study. Why wouldn't they; they know the data out there makes them look better and there isn't anyone out there except themselves motivated to fund a study that we know will make them look good. They want the study done. Whereas every illogical emotional politcal scammer on the planet is looking to fund a study that makes Wal-mart look bad. If you've got a valid criticism of the study that shows it to be falsified somehow, let's see it.
And I didn't "hide" it. I used the first sites I got back in my searches. I thought it was explicitly stated that Global Insights was funded by Wal-mart.
Criticizing a study for it's funding instead of on its data and methods is sort of ironic. If I accept your criticism, then I've abandoned the idea that the data and methods are what's relevant.
Yeah, Wal-mart funds the study. Why wouldn't they; they know the data out there makes them look better and there isn't anyone out there except themselves motivated to fund a study that we know will make them look good. They want the study done.
Studies don't exist to make someone or something look good. They exist to analyze the data.
Whereas every illogical emotional politcal scammer on the planet is looking to fund a study that makes Wal-mart look bad. If you've got a valid criticism of the study that shows it to be falsified somehow, let's see it.
Your Freudian slip is showing. We ripped that thinking into shreds a while ago, IIRC.
And I didn't "hide" it. I used the first sites I got back in my searches. I thought it was explicitly stated that Global Insights was funded by Wal-mart.
Nope. And if you're going to post a PR release, you should post it from the company. Posting it through the Money website makes it look like you're passing it off as an article.
Criticizing a study for it's funding instead of on its data and methods is sort of ironic. If I accept your criticism, then I've abandoned the idea that the data and methods are what's relevant.
Well, I can do criticism of methodology, too.
Oh, hey, the EPI, an admittedly pro-Labor think tank aimed at increasing benefits to the working class. I'm going to dismiss everything the study says. See how easy that was?
Or, more specifically, their criticisms seem to take single quotes from the GI study out of context, and in the end only assert that the effects are perhaps less than reported but still significant, all the while repeating phrases like "fraught with problems" without giving many good examples.
Ultimately, EPI's conclusion doesn't challenge the data I presented very much at all, but instead challenges the implication that prices and wages are a dichotomy. They are essentially challenging a hypothetical presupposed conclusion that some readers might incorrectly draw from the GI study, and not challenging the actual conclusions of the study. Fortunately for me, I was not presenting nor implying that dichotomy and it isn't part of my argument.
EPI's conclusion is basically, "Yeah, Wal-mart probably really is a net gain for local economies, but maybe not as much as they claimed, and they could do even more." That's a shoddy criticism.
Studies don't exist to make someone or something look good. They exist to analyze the data.
?!?!?! So which is it? Are studies really about the data, or do we dismiss studies outright simply because we don't like who funded them? I think it's hard for you to claim that studies don't exist to make someone look good in the same debate that you're claiming we should dismiss a study just because of who funded it.
Incidentally, you're wrong. Studies have to get funded, and people are motivated for various reasons to do so. I am intimately familiar with at least one major organization that spends massive amount in funding anti-Walmart studies because, indirectly, Walmart may threaten their business down the road (a business I might add that is collectively larger and more profitable than Walmart is). Considering that there is such political and economic drive for people to fund studies against Walmart, it only makes sense they'd fund a counterpoint study on data that many people already intuitively knows exists but wasn't getting studied.
And I didn't "hide" it. I used the first sites I got back in my searches. I thought it was explicitly stated that Global Insights was funded by Wal-mart.
Nope. And if you're going to post a PR release, you should post it from the company. Posting it through the Money website makes it look like you're passing it off as an article.
You're really taking cheap shots here and we should drop it. I put a phrase in Google and clicked the first thing that came back. I wasn't trying to mask anything. If I was, I didn't do a good job of it, here's a quote from my second link above:
Wal-Mart counters with a study it funded from Global Insight...
So maybe you can retract your, "Nope"? The fact that you are accusing me of Freudian slips and hiding things is par for this debate. People tend to project a lot that just isn't there.
I'm not sure what you believe has been settled in this particular thread, but I know the last two Walmart threads eventually rested on "Walmart isn't particularly bad compared to retail in general, and it in fact better in many respects, but in challenging the drawbacks of retail capitalism in general, it is most advantageous to go after the largest and most visible target." So if you are against the retail industry in general and it's influence on Americanism, then Walmart is a fruitful but otherwise unfair target. Basically what Irond Will said above. Otherwise, there isn't much that separates Walmart from anyone else.
Claims that Target's products don't break like Walmart's do are bullshit, most likely due to improper counting of hits and misses.
Seems to me, people who can afford to feel guilty really hate on walmart. People that can't afford retail guilt find Walmart to be just peachy.
My personal interest in the company centers mostly around the amazing innovations they have brought to the marketplace such as championing the wireless barcode scanning system as well as championing RFID technology as they are now. They were also the first large retailer to open up their inventory databases to their suppliers in a risky move that became the foundation of their huge gains in efficiency. But these aren't so much social factors as they are the geek in me being interested.
As far as the economics go, I'm not going to through my own theories around; Unless there are professional Macro-economist's hanging out here, I don't think anyone is qualified to do much more than parrot that thought provoking article they picked up off of google a few minutes before they turned it into a reply.
What I do know, is that the existence of a walmart store does lower the cost of goods substantially to the community at a slightly negative to slightly positive impact on the hosting communities job market. I fail to see what the problem is.
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Except the study he's quoting from was funded by Wal-Mart. He hides it well, though. And the one "article" is actually a Wal-Mart press release - it just doesn't look that way because it's being shown through the Money website. That was what I'm complaining about.
I know. I spotted that before I even posted. But still, those statistics don't seem outside the realm of reason. It's just that those statistics, like most statistics, likely fail to tell the entire story.
If you don't believe the actual numbers, I'd say go ahead and post statistics from elsewhere that contradict them. Don't just dismiss the numbers he presented because of who funded the study.
Yeah, Wal-mart funds the study. Why wouldn't they; they know the data out there makes them look better and there isn't anyone out there except themselves motivated to fund a study that we know will make them look good. They want the study done. Whereas every illogical emotional politcal scammer on the planet is looking to fund a study that makes Wal-mart look bad. If you've got a valid criticism of the study that shows it to be falsified somehow, let's see it.
And I didn't "hide" it. I used the first sites I got back in my searches. I thought it was explicitly stated that Global Insights was funded by Wal-mart.
Well, I can do criticism of methodology, too.
Studies don't exist to make someone or something look good. They exist to analyze the data.
Your Freudian slip is showing. We ripped that thinking into shreds a while ago, IIRC.
Nope. And if you're going to post a PR release, you should post it from the company. Posting it through the Money website makes it look like you're passing it off as an article.
My personal interest in the company centers mostly around the amazing innovations they have brought to the marketplace such as championing the wireless barcode scanning system as well as championing RFID technology as they are now. They were also the first large retailer to open up their inventory databases to their suppliers in a risky move that became the foundation of their huge gains in efficiency. But these aren't so much social factors as they are the geek in me being interested.
As far as the economics go, I'm not going to through my own theories around; Unless there are professional Macro-economist's hanging out here, I don't think anyone is qualified to do much more than parrot that thought provoking article they picked up off of google a few minutes before they turned it into a reply.
What I do know, is that the existence of a walmart store does lower the cost of goods substantially to the community at a slightly negative to slightly positive impact on the hosting communities job market. I fail to see what the problem is.