The High Cost of Low Prices

The American Conservative ^ | May 22, 2006 Issue | Marian Kester Coombs

[bfree]

Here's a little more about this wackjob author, not my kind of person.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=526&printable=1

[hedgetrimmer]

then capitalism will correct it LONG before we're all unemployed

You are wrong. Capitalism and communism play together very nicely these days. Look at the wealty the chinese communist party has garnered from "free trade". Look at south america, whose response to the pressures from the US and Europe to sign "free trade" agreements is to shift further left,and now countries there are falling to communism just as Reagan predicted they would.

[A. Pole]

[arthurus wrote:] "Karl Marx showed us all the way for humane manufacturing and social relations. If all production was done for Human Values we would all live in a Marxist Utopia today."

I don't think that you have a clue what Marxism is about. It is a theory that social formations are strong (or "good") until they are advancing the progress of mankind.

So the feudalism was good when it was imposing civilization on the barbarian tribes, protecting cities and roads, establishing money etc ... Once feudalism succeeded it allowed capitalism to grow. Then feudalism (and its leading class of aristocrats) became obsolete inhibitor of further progress.

Then capitalism took over. Its role will be fulfilled when the whole mankind becomes industrialized and integrated in the global scale and when the means of production become so advanced that a large portion of workers become redundant. This will create the final contradiction of capitalism - the overabundant surplus production without sufficient market but with destitute masses.

Then socialism is logical next step. (The socialist revolution in backward Russia was a deviation and a miscarriage from this classic Marxist view. Now after Soviet obstacle is removed the original process can resume)

"the way for humane manufacturing and social relations" was rather proposed by the Church. The best formulation of it is available in the papal encyclicals like Rerum Novarum

The Christian approach was rejected for Marxists who did not believe in social solidarity and in inherent value of private property. But Marxists liked Free market ideology as a useful tool for bringing socialist revolution closer.

[hedgetrimmer]

The function of a consumer is to seek the best quality for the price, not to bestow charity on inefficient and unresponsive economic entities.

What is the function of a citizen? Since you "free traders" only think of human beings as laborers or consumers, you fail to take into account that human beings are citizens of countries, and as such have a vested interest in maintaining healthy domestic economies. In fact, it is just his attitude of "free traders" that is causing the chaos in our immigration policies, as the "free traders" fund the migrants rights groups, who claim there are no borders and no people are illegal.

[hedgetrimmer]

American companies or other transnational corporations?

[Toddsterpatriot]

I know more than one guy who has two or three of them.

Willie Green?

[Gabz]

WalMart ping!

For a change here is a WalMart thread posted AFTER I have actually been in WalMart today. A friend and I went there this morning after taking our 7 year olds to school. What a lovely experience and that is an unusual comment coming from me because I hate shopping. But we needed stuff because our girls are going camping with their Girl Scout Brownie Troop this weekend. We got everything we needed in one place, for less than $30 and EVERYTHING we purchased is made right here in the U S of A.

[Paul Ross]

It is likely that they have contributed to the GOP as well.

That is my fear as well.

Ever wonder why there has been no real effort by the GOP to make sure that Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer who were also caught taking Chinese campaign donations...actually divested themselves of the money? Or that the full story of Able Danger got disclosed? [Which made tremendous findings of Chinese links to the Xlinton's...hence dooming that program to being cancelled...and their work product ordered shredded before they left...]

[A. Pole]

Here's a little more about this wackjob author, not my kind of person.

Interestingly you provided Southern Poverty Law Center article. Not surprisingly this article does not provide proper references to the supposed "quotes".

If the Southern Poverty Law Center is your authority maybe FR is not for you.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Vlasic Corporation found itself bound to supply huge gallon jars of pickles to Wal-Mart for $2.97, a price at which it made maybe a penny a jar.

Yeah, right...it they just "found themselves bound. Not that some Vlasic senior executive made a ridiculous decision to enter into such an agreement, oh, no, of course not.

Forced to continue offering the deal or lose its entire Wal-Mart account, the company saw its profits squeezed for two and a half years before Wal-Mart finally let it “up for air.”

Again, what kind of moron delegates decisions on product production to a retail outlet? They should have remained legally able to say, "Sorry, we're halting production of gallon jars next month. Deal with the quart jars."

In January 2001, after Wal-Mart was done making its “statement,” Vlasic filed for bankruptcy.

And from the evidence in the article, blaming that on Wal-Mart is a huge stretch - but it's not hard to see how Vlasic's sales, marketing, and legal departments are at fault.

FWIW, I don't shop at places like Wal-Mart - I follow the Francisco d'Anconia dictum to buy "the best my money can find". But this article is hysterical socialist propaganda masquerading as concern for "da workin' man" - a propaganda piece that could have come right out of Howard Dean Laboratories. ;)

[maxwellp]

My husband and I shopped for food the other day at Wal-Mart for the first time. It's true, the food is not from China and we were very pleasantly surprised by the money we saved. There was a huge variety and the produce was fresh. We're going back next week.

[bfree]

nope, just found it on Google. You seem to be the one that is misplaced here.

[Paul Ross]

You are aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a radical liberal...perhaps marxist... attack dog against conservatives, constantly barking that conservatives are full of bigotry/hate etc.

E.g., Morris Dees' Defamation. Check out the Morris Dees' Fact Sheet.

BTW: They also defame Free Republic.

[bfree]

Wrong. People have NO obligation to support unions or their members. If they can't provide goods and services competitively, then they should be gone. If union jobs disappear, then they aren't competitive and shouldn't be subsidized by any of us.

[palmer]

Canada has enough oil sands to supply the world with oil for the next five hundred years, but at $30 a barrel it is not economically feasible to extract it with the steam technology required.

At $70 per barrel, however, it is quite economically feasible and production is being ramped up even as we whine about forcing people to use alternatives.

I have heard that many times before and it was true, when oil was $30 a barrel. But now that oil is $70/barrel the oil sand oil probably costs $100/barrel. Still infeasible.

[investigateworld]

>>>Moral: Economic practices in which human beings are mere means to an end are immoral no matter how well they work.<<<


Bingo!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

But now that oil is $70/barrel the oil sand oil probably costs $100/barrel. Still infeasible.

Then why is one-third of Canada's current oil production from oil sands?

If it's infeasible, how is it being done?

[palmer]

From your article:

Others are also expressing caution. "It takes a lot of natural gas to process oil sands, and much more will have to be allocated," says James Halloran, Wall Street analyst for National City Bank in Cleveland. Without the added natural gas, "technological improvements will have to be made to make up for the lack of it. At some point, the cost to the environment may limit production growth." Producers, meanwhile, are having trouble getting the needed resources to support increased development of oil sands.

If they have to import natural gas to get the oil out of the sand, that is a showstopper. As a general rule, an energy resource needs to use about 1/2 or less (preferably much less) of it's own energy to be viable. External energy inputs must be minimal.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Alberta alone is producing as much oil from sands as Texas is from traditional deposits:

Production in Alberta is up 61 percent over the past four years. This year, Alberta's oil sands are expected to produce 1.2 million barrels a day, roughly equal to the production of Texas.

[A. Pole]

nope, just found it on Google.

OK, but you passed a judgment on the author. I advise you to have a closer look at Southern Poverty Law Center

Just up front you will find such gem:

On The Minuteman Project :Caravan of fear and bigotry