Gyroscopic Investing

Desert wrote:

Mountaineer wrote: This thread is fascinating.  It made me again think of the book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.  In that book there is the concept of "circle of influence" and "circle of concern".  I then reflected on how things have been within my "circle of influence" over most of my adult years.  Not much has changed, regardless of who the President is or which party he represented.

Able to shop where ever I want?  Check
Able to worship where ever I want?  Check
Able to have the friends I want?  Check
Able to live where ever I can afford?  Check
Able to cross state lines without a hassle?  Check
Able to rent a car for a reasonable price?  Check
Able to travel where ever I want relatively cheaply?  Check
Is food available?  Check
Able to invest money however I want?  Check
Were my children, grandchildren able to receive an education?  Check
Were my children, grandchildren able to play sports of their choice?  Check
Able to express my thoughts on a forum such as this?  Check
And the list goes on .....................

My conclusion:  No need to get my knickers all twisted up over the small shit of which bozo is going to be in so called power next.  I'll do my part and vote, but it is going to be decided by a lot of people way outside my circle of influence.  I'm going to stay inside my circle of influence, remain calm, and just buy more ammo.  It's all good. 

... M

I tend to lean this same way.  I generally feel that things are never quite as bad or as good as the popular narratives would have us believe.  But I think we also sometimes fall victim to the "bread and circuses" of our society; it's easy to become comfortable, smug and myopic.  As I was pondering these things, I came across this interesting book review:

A book that exposes the vacuity of the “upward climb” perspective regarding human society is They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer. Published more than forty years ago, Mayer’s book offers a unique window into the hearts and minds of everyday Germans during the rise of Hitler and fascism.

Mayer interviews a number of “ordinary Germans,” recounting their conversations and then adding his own thoughts and conclusions. The result is a chilling picture of ordinary people willingly being carried along by empty rhetoric as a way of ensuring the satisfaction of personal needs.

http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/tre ... -war-ii-2/

I've done a bit of reading about the rise of Hitler and how the general populace went along until it was too late.  I have not read the referenced book, sounds interesting.  This is one more reason to me that our First Amendment, and following the Constitution, is so important - we do not want a theocracy, or a state church like Germany had.  In my opinion, when you put one entity in charge of everything (the way our country is headed via the encouragement of big brother, in my opinion) bad things are much more likely to happen. 

There was a split in the German Lutheran church (Deitrich Bonhoeffer was champion of the part that split from the state church, and was later involved in an assassination plot to kill Hitler).  Bonhoeffer's story (Eric Metaxis wrote good bio a few years ago) is fascinating as it deals with his struggle to do what was right and most in concert with God's will for us.  I've also read a couple of books that Bonhoeffer wrote himself.  Bonhoeffer paid with his life, just before WWII ended.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Die ... effer 

... M

ochotona wrote: I think most of the problems in this country would vanish if a large number of people lived according to the Boy Scout Oath and Law, and if we still endeavored to teach these things to our youth. But I'm just an old timer speaking nostalgically. What the hell do I know.


A Scout is, AND DONALD TRUMP MOSTLY ISN'T,

Trustworthy,
Loyal,
Helpful,
Friendly,
Courteous,
Kind,
Obedient,
Cheerful,
Thrifty,    (Trump does manage to create financial value)
Brave,      (I think Trump may possess a certain kind of bravery)
Clean,      (Trump looks physically clean)
and Reverent.

Being an eagle scout myself and spending all of my youth in scouting, I totally agree with you on this.

Desert wrote: If the U.S. were somehow made "white," society would simply shift from worrying about other colors to worrying about other ethnic groups.  We'd then need to get rid of all the crazy Italians and drunk Irish.  And of course Jews.  Color is a convenient characteristic for humans to divide over, but it's hardly the only one.

Jumping into this discussion way late... Years ago when traveling in Kenya I was speaking with a Kikuyu man who said his people disliked another group "because they are not cutted." He meant because they weren't circumcised. I realized that people will always find ways to separate due to differences, no matter how small.

Does anyone else on here besides me get a thrill from seeing the many ways that the melting pot works? Not saying that we should let every single person into our country but I love the diversity. And, yes, for the most part I would be labelled a liberal.

Desert wrote: Every Eagle scout I've met has been amazing, by the way.  I really hope my son will decide to become one. I know a lot of kids lose interest in HS.

Best way to keep interest is for them to have friends in the troop. Without friends, scouting can very much lose its luster.

More people are starting to get it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/boo ... ady-begun/

[P]olitical historian Thomas Frank is more interested in why the president disappoints. It’s not that Obama has abandoned liberalism; it’s that liberalism has abandoned the working class. Over the past four decades, Frank argues in his new book “Listen, Liberal,” the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class — the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a member in excellent standing of this class and a natural protector of it.  “When the left party in a system severs its bonds to working people — when it dedicates itself to the concerns of a particular slice of high-achieving affluent people — issues of work and income inequality will inevitably fade from its list of concerns,” Frank concludes.
[...]
The president’s star-studded economic team — with its links to Wall Street, to the Clinton era, to market-driven orthodoxies — made it almost impossible for the new president to tackle Wall Street malfeasance more aggressively. “For the kind of achievement-conscious people who filled the administration,” Frank writes, “investment bankers were more than friends — they were fellow professionals. . . the ‘creative class’ that Democrats revere.”

By Obama’s second term, Silicon Valley had replaced Wall Street in the liberal imagination, campaign events and the revolving door of Washington. Now it’s all Google and Uber rather than Goldman and Citi, but the Democrats’ worship of disruptive innovation is just as detrimental to working-class interests as their respect for financial engineering, Frank cautions. “Many of our most vaunted innovations are simply methods — electronic or otherwise — of pulling off some age-old profit-maximizing managerial maneuver by new and unregulated means.”

Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

Pointedstick wrote: More people are starting to get it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/boo ... ady-begun/

[P]olitical historian Thomas Frank is more interested in why the president disappoints. It’s not that Obama has abandoned liberalism; it’s that liberalism has abandoned the working class. Over the past four decades, Frank argues in his new book “Listen, Liberal,” the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class — the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a member in excellent standing of this class and a natural protector of it.  “When the left party in a system severs its bonds to working people — when it dedicates itself to the concerns of a particular slice of high-achieving affluent people — issues of work and income inequality will inevitably fade from its list of concerns,” Frank concludes.
[...]
The president’s star-studded economic team — with its links to Wall Street, to the Clinton era, to market-driven orthodoxies — made it almost impossible for the new president to tackle Wall Street malfeasance more aggressively. “For the kind of achievement-conscious people who filled the administration,” Frank writes, “investment bankers were more than friends — they were fellow professionals. . . the ‘creative class’ that Democrats revere.”

By Obama’s second term, Silicon Valley had replaced Wall Street in the liberal imagination, campaign events and the revolving door of Washington. Now it’s all Google and Uber rather than Goldman and Citi, but the Democrats’ worship of disruptive innovation is just as detrimental to working-class interests as their respect for financial engineering, Frank cautions. “Many of our most vaunted innovations are simply methods — electronic or otherwise — of pulling off some age-old profit-maximizing managerial maneuver by new and unregulated means.”

Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

Resistance is futile.  I suspect you know who wants you.  Do you hear the call? 

... Mountaineer

Pointedstick wrote: More people are starting to get it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/boo ... ady-begun/

[P]olitical historian Thomas Frank is more interested in why the president disappoints. It’s not that Obama has abandoned liberalism; it’s that liberalism has abandoned the working class. Over the past four decades, Frank argues in his new book “Listen, Liberal,” the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class — the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a member in excellent standing of this class and a natural protector of it.  “When the left party in a system severs its bonds to working people — when it dedicates itself to the concerns of a particular slice of high-achieving affluent people — issues of work and income inequality will inevitably fade from its list of concerns,” Frank concludes.
[...]
The president’s star-studded economic team — with its links to Wall Street, to the Clinton era, to market-driven orthodoxies — made it almost impossible for the new president to tackle Wall Street malfeasance more aggressively. “For the kind of achievement-conscious people who filled the administration,” Frank writes, “investment bankers were more than friends — they were fellow professionals. . . the ‘creative class’ that Democrats revere.”

By Obama’s second term, Silicon Valley had replaced Wall Street in the liberal imagination, campaign events and the revolving door of Washington. Now it’s all Google and Uber rather than Goldman and Citi, but the Democrats’ worship of disruptive innovation is just as detrimental to working-class interests as their respect for financial engineering, Frank cautions. “Many of our most vaunted innovations are simply methods — electronic or otherwise — of pulling off some age-old profit-maximizing managerial maneuver by new and unregulated means.”

Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

All that is fine other than the "lower" part. What is the criterion for "higher" and "lower"?

Pointedstick wrote: Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

I've long shared this mindset.  Personally, nirvana is found "beat-up" places like Safford, AZ ( which you might be familiar with as you hail from nearby NM ).  Things are old, careworn, and people have character.  Life---well lived---has a patina which is sorely lacking in America's "master-planned" megalopolises.  I pity those who are trapped in a big city lifestyle.  They don't know what they're missing, and I suspect they never really find America.

Libertarian666 wrote: All that is fine other than the "lower" part. What is the criterion for "higher" and "lower"?

I can't speak for PS, but I'm guessing "higher" and "lower" was meant in the economic sense, e.g. forgoing an area of "high-status" BMW 7-series coupes for "low-status" C-10s and F-100s.  There are so many material markers of class it would be asinine to attempt to iterate through them, though, but you probably know how to look for the cues.

Also, I believe a cultural sense was implied, though I've shied away from "high-status" circles for so long it's hard to tell what specific thought-fads PS might be wisely retiring from.  In any case, I believe "high-status" opinions would, in general, be betrayed by a certain "pinkies-out" affectation when holding prevailing opinions as ones own.  When the communists, fabianists, and national socialists of the late 1800s, early 1900s railed against the hyper-conformist bourgeois masses, they were were likely revolted by the same "high-status" phoniness of a middle class pretending to be gentry by buying things they didn't really need and professing opinions they didn't really hold.

Desert wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

I've never officially been a member of the elite class, but I've bumped elbows with them a few times.  I wonder if you find their regimen exhausting; I sure did.  There are lots and lots of rules to live by.  There are many official positions one must agree with, or reveal themselves as mere philistine.  Even the dress code is exhausting.  I remember getting to know my ex liberal friend's liberal ex-lesbian wife; she is very smart and very engaging.  I remarked at one point in our conversation that I liked her hippy clothes; that they looked comfortable and it must be nice to just throw on something without thinking too much about it.  She laughed and then explained that she spends a ton of time shopping for and designing the correct hippy/hipster outfits.  She was ashamed at how much time and energy she spends on her appearance.  And this is a middle-aged, grey-haired woman that looks like she staggered out of a Salvation Army thrift store.  But for a committed liberal, the rules and standards are high; a cruel taskmaster.  It all sounded very exhausting to me.  As I was getting ready to depart, she asked if I wanted a bowl of rice or couscous or something (she's a vegan).  I declined and told her I'd be driving through a local fast food place to pick up a bacon cheeseburger.  I told her that I'm also a vegan, but I eat a hell of a lot more meat than most vegans do.

Um, how can you be a vegan if you eat "a hell of a lot more meat" than anyone?

Pointedstick wrote: More people are starting to get it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/boo ... ady-begun/

[P]olitical historian Thomas Frank is more interested in why the president disappoints. It’s not that Obama has abandoned liberalism; it’s that liberalism has abandoned the working class. Over the past four decades, Frank argues in his new book “Listen, Liberal,” the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class — the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a member in excellent standing of this class and a natural protector of it.  “When the left party in a system severs its bonds to working people — when it dedicates itself to the concerns of a particular slice of high-achieving affluent people — issues of work and income inequality will inevitably fade from its list of concerns,” Frank concludes.
[...]
The president’s star-studded economic team — with its links to Wall Street, to the Clinton era, to market-driven orthodoxies — made it almost impossible for the new president to tackle Wall Street malfeasance more aggressively. “For the kind of achievement-conscious people who filled the administration,” Frank writes, “investment bankers were more than friends — they were fellow professionals. . . the ‘creative class’ that Democrats revere.”

By Obama’s second term, Silicon Valley had replaced Wall Street in the liberal imagination, campaign events and the revolving door of Washington. Now it’s all Google and Uber rather than Goldman and Citi, but the Democrats’ worship of disruptive innovation is just as detrimental to working-class interests as their respect for financial engineering, Frank cautions. “Many of our most vaunted innovations are simply methods — electronic or otherwise — of pulling off some age-old profit-maximizing managerial maneuver by new and unregulated means.”

Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

I see no problem in choosing to live differently than the way your parents lived.

But, it's a little odd to happily embrace the advantages that your upbringing gave you, and at the same time hate it.  My guess is that like all of us, your family of origin was a mixed bag, with positive and negative attributes.

Over time, I've come to appreciate my childhood more, and my parents, while at the same time I've looked for people/things to round it out as well.

Pointedstick wrote: Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed with novelty and youth, and full of blatant hypocrisy. Until I moved to New Mexico, I'd spent my whole life in elite liberal enclaves and everything about it always felt somehow wrong. I guess I'm one of those weirdos who emotionally identifies with a lower class then he ought to be a part of.

I've thought about this too.  That is, why should I care about a segment of society that no one I know belongs to?  My answer is that I sincerely believe that American culture & society are stronger with a solid middle class, and that does, eventually, affect me.  Without the middle class, we become a feudal society:  a layer of well educated and well-off elites over a large mass of poor people with no hope of gaining elite status, whose ranks are continually increased by "new" unskilled, poor immigrants.  Language is going to be yet another barrier:  the elite class speaks English, and the poor/peasant class is encouraged to avoid learning English.  Shades of medieval England, where the ruling aristocracy spoke Norman French and the peasants spoke Saxon English (well maybe I'm oversimplifying a bit...).

I disagree, by the way, that the current Administration favors the elite class.  Looks to me like they are trying to establish the poor/immigrant/peasant class as the new majority.  It's how the Democratic party plans to win elections going forward.  They don't need the elite class, and soon enough they won't need what remains of the middle class either.

WiseOne wrote: I disagree, by the way, that the current Administration favors the elite class.  Looks to me like they are trying to establish the poor/immigrant/peasant class as the new majority.  It's how the Democratic party plans to win elections going forward.  They don't need the elite class, and soon enough they won't need what remains of the middle class either.

Seems to be both. Import and nurture an underclass to manipulate for votes, while actually bringing home the cultural and economic bacon for English-speaking white elites.

As an English-speaking white elite, I ought to be thrilled, but like you, I worry about the social fabric fraying with this feudalistic approach. I think that's a great way to describe it, because it's basically true. The middle class is being hollowed out to make room for more poor and more wealthy:



http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-m ... eport-says

Oh, and let's not pretend it's all the Democrats' fault! They've done more to explicitly encourage a multi-ethnic underclass, but the Republicans have really stuck it to the middle class jobs-wise. Both parties share an enormous share of the blame for burning the commons like they have.

You're right, it's both parties who can claim credit.  Nice chart by the way.

It looks like the dissolution of the middle class is a slow process and that it may be decades before the impact becomes hard to ignore, but it sad to see nonetheless.

Another example of The Powers That Be starting to get it (my emphases in bold):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/busin ... point.html

What seems most striking is that the angry working class — dismissed so often as myopic, unable to understand the economic trade-offs presented by trade — appears to have understood what the experts are only belatedly finding to be true: The benefits from trade to the American economy may not always justify its costs.

In a recent study, three economists — David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn at the University of Zurich and Gordon Hanson at the University of California, San Diego — raised a profound challenge to all of us brought up to believe that economies quickly recover from trade shocks. In theory, a developed industrial country like the United States adjusts to import competition by moving workers into more advanced industries that can successfully compete in global markets.

They examined the experience of American workers after China erupted onto world markets some two decades ago. The presumed adjustment, they concluded, never happened. Or at least hasn’t happened yet. Wages remain low and unemployment high in the most affected local job markets. Nationally, there is no sign of offsetting job gains elsewhere in the economy. What’s more, they found that sagging wages in local labor markets exposed to Chinese competition reduced earnings by $213 per adult per year.

In another study they wrote with Daron Acemoglu and Brendan Price from M.I.T., they estimated that rising Chinese imports from 1999 to 2011 cost up to 2.4 million American jobs.

“These results should cause us to rethink the short- and medium-run gains from trade,” they argued. “Having failed to anticipate how significant the dislocations from trade might be, it is incumbent on the literature to more convincingly estimate the gains from trade, such that the case for free trade is not based on the sway of theory alone, but on a foundation of evidence that illuminates who gains, who loses, by how much, and under what conditions.”

Global trade offers undeniable benefits. It helped pull hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty in a matter of a few decades, an unparalleled feat. It ensured Apple could benefit from China’s ample supply of cheap labor. Consumers around the world gained better-priced, better-made goods.

So, shockingly, displaced factory workers don't become app developers. Who could have seen that one coming!?!?! It was great for China, I guess. I wonder when they'll thank us.

Really great article. You should read the whole thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/busin ... point.html

Pointedstick wrote: Another example of The Powers That Be starting to get it (my emphases in bold):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/busin ... point.html

What seems most striking is that the angry working class — dismissed so often as myopic, unable to understand the economic trade-offs presented by trade — appears to have understood what the experts are only belatedly finding to be true: The benefits from trade to the American economy may not always justify its costs.

In a recent study, three economists — David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn at the University of Zurich and Gordon Hanson at the University of California, San Diego — raised a profound challenge to all of us brought up to believe that economies quickly recover from trade shocks. In theory, a developed industrial country like the United States adjusts to import competition by moving workers into more advanced industries that can successfully compete in global markets.

They examined the experience of American workers after China erupted onto world markets some two decades ago. The presumed adjustment, they concluded, never happened. Or at least hasn’t happened yet. Wages remain low and unemployment high in the most affected local job markets. Nationally, there is no sign of offsetting job gains elsewhere in the economy. What’s more, they found that sagging wages in local labor markets exposed to Chinese competition reduced earnings by $213 per adult per year.

In another study they wrote with Daron Acemoglu and Brendan Price from M.I.T., they estimated that rising Chinese imports from 1999 to 2011 cost up to 2.4 million American jobs.

“These results should cause us to rethink the short- and medium-run gains from trade,” they argued. “Having failed to anticipate how significant the dislocations from trade might be, it is incumbent on the literature to more convincingly estimate the gains from trade, such that the case for free trade is not based on the sway of theory alone, but on a foundation of evidence that illuminates who gains, who loses, by how much, and under what conditions.”

Global trade offers undeniable benefits. It helped pull hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty in a matter of a few decades, an unparalleled feat. It ensured Apple could benefit from China’s ample supply of cheap labor. Consumers around the world gained better-priced, better-made goods.

So, shockingly, displaced factory workers don't become app developers. Who could have seen that one coming!?!?! It was great for China, I guess. I wonder when they'll thank us.

Really great article. You should read the whole thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/busin ... point.html

You know what's even worse than that? The auto industry wiped out all the jobs in the buggy whip industry! Not only that, but electric lighting wiped out almost all the candlemakers (other than the frou-frou ones that are just a mockery of a serious business), and what about the jobs lost by telephone operators due to those newfangled automatic switchboards?

And don't get me started on the almost total loss of jobs in farming! Why, farming used to be the majority of all jobs, and now it's under 2%.

There ought to be a law prohibiting all of these job-killing "innovations", as their henchmen call them.

Hmm, why don't we have 99% unemployment with all of those "innovations"?

Pointedstick wrote: What’s more, they found that sagging wages in local labor markets exposed to Chinese competition reduced earnings by $213 per adult per year.

And the net effect of Walmart on the economy is to save each family in the US approximately $2500/year as of 2008, according to that well-known right-wing conspiracy rag, the New York Times:

"On Monday, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus will announce its finding that the “implied claim” in the ads — that families shopping at Wal-Mart will save $2,500 a year more than those that shop at other big stores — is misleading.

It is a message “for which the advertiser provided no support and, in fact, conceded that there was none,” the group says.

The claim of saving $2,500 dates to 2005, when Wal-Mart, under mounting criticism from unions and elected leaders over its business practices, commissioned a study of its economic impact on Americans.An outside firm, paid by Wal-Mart, found that the company’"s emphasis on low prices led to a 3 percent decline in overall consumer prices. That translated into $287 billion in savings in 2006, or $2,500 a household, whether a family shops at Wal-Mart or a competitor, according to the study.

The watchdog group had no quibble with what it called the “express claim” of Wal-Mart’s ad — that it saves American families $2,500 a year. “The advertiser has provided adequate support for its intended message,” according to the report."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/busin ... lmart.html

I'm shocked, just shocked that a study done by a firm that Wal-Mart hired and paid produced results that show Wal-Mart has a positive effect on consumers 

Did it show the effect on employment, or the numbers of people who work at Wal-Mart who need/qualify for food stamps/other government assistance, or the quality of goods at Wal-Mart, etc.?

I'd be interested in any studies done by firms that aren't getting paid by WM.

jafs wrote: I'm shocked, just shocked that a study done by a firm that Wal-Mart hired and paid produced results that show Wal-Mart has a positive effect on consumers 

Did it show the effect on employment, or the numbers of people who work at Wal-Mart who need/qualify for food stamps/other government assistance, or the quality of goods at Wal-Mart, etc.?

I'd be interested in any studies done by firms that aren't getting paid by WM.

The New York Times agrees that the study was legitimate. Since they aren't actually a right-wing conspiracy site, but the opposite, I'll accept their verdict (as it is against their ideological leanings).

I'm sure Wal-Mart does save consumers a lot of money. But the issue is that lowering consumer prices often comes at the cost of higher unemployment levels.

Restricting free international trade in order to keep more jobs at home is basically a form of redistribution of income from consumers to the people who would lose their jobs under free trade. I used to be completely opposed to redistribution of income, but when free international trade doesn't produce the desired long-term benefits to society, it starts to make me question my assumptions.

But I think Republicans, especially policy people in DC, suffer from what MBD calls a failure of imagination. They don’t understand that not everybody is an A student, and not everybody can figure the complexities of modern life out. There is among a lot of Republicans a contempt for the working poor and working class — a contempt of which that the people who hold it are unaware — that says people not smart enough to be self-contained, successful individualist libertarians kind of deserve what they get. Too stupid to figure out how to invest your Social Security allotment? Sucks to be you.

One of my neighbors is a guy a lot like some of the people profiled in that article. He's led a hard life, with a most recent stint as a prison chaplain. He's about 55 or 60 now, and his body is starting to fall apart, but that didn't stop him from re-roofing his own house last summer when it was about 100 degrees outside. Honestly, the man doesn't have a very quick mind. I help him with his tech and computer problems that seem trivial to me. It's so easy to lose sight of just how strange this world is to an awful lot of people. He's been duped into paying more than $250 a month for basic internet service and two smartphones that see little use. It's a crime.

But the man is an absolute wizard with leather and animal hides. I'm wearing right now a beautiful flashlight holster made of gator hide that he made for me one day. If he had any business sense, he'd be a wealthy man with his level of skill. And he's a kind, gentle, compassionate man. He can build or fix anything. What he wants to do is make the little things around him better however he can.

Needless to say, he's a strong Trump supporter.

Maybe he's a dinosaur. Maybe the world of tomorrow isn't going to have a lot of broke, tattooed, harley-riding tech illiterates who talk about Jesus. But that world will also be losing guys who can make leather goods from scratch, fix a 40 year-old truck with junk, turn tree branches into fine furniture, roof a house at noon in July, or redo a whole kitchen practically for free. The world will be poorer for it if there's only room for people who resemble the characters from Dilbert. Even as I match that description myself, I can't help but prefer living among people more like my neighbor than me.

Pointedstick wrote: The world will be poorer for it if there's only room for people who resemble the characters from Dilbert. Even as I match that description myself, I can't help but prefer living among people more like my neighbor than me.

Variety is the spice of life. It's good to have different people out there, helps to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge set. Also prevents just having an echo chamber for your ideas (much like for the most part the non-echo from this forum).

Tortoise wrote: I'm sure Wal-Mart does save consumers a lot of money. But the issue is that lowering consumer prices often comes at the cost of higher unemployment levels.

Restricting free international trade in order to keep more jobs at home is basically a form of redistribution of income from consumers to the people who would lose their jobs under free trade. I used to be completely opposed to redistribution of income, but when free international trade doesn't produce the desired long-term benefits to society, it starts to make me question my assumptions.

Restricting trade makes everyone poorer on average. Yes, there are winners, but they are far outweighed by the losers, even at the lowest income levels.

But trade is not the reason that trends in real personal income have been very unsatisfactory recently. That is due entirely to the damage that government is doing to the economy by taxation, regulation, and other interference in the market.

Greg wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: The world will be poorer for it if there's only room for people who resemble the characters from Dilbert. Even as I match that description myself, I can't help but prefer living among people more like my neighbor than me.

Variety is the spice of life. It's good to have different people out there, helps to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge set. Also prevents just having an echo chamber for your ideas (much like for the most part the non-echo from this forum).

I think that it is good for highly educated/highly intelligent people to have an honest and sincere respect for working class people.

I think that the only way you can cultivate this respect is to spend some time around them if that is not your normal social circle.

Working class people are Reality.  The better you understand them, they better you understand reality.

I think that part of what made the U.S. so great in the second half of the 20th century is the number of people who were able to make the jump from working class to middle class in just one generation, and often within the same generation.

My dad never went to college, was an enlisted guy in the Air Force, worked for the Post Office for many years, and finally found his niche in sales for the last 20 years of his working life.  My mom never went to college and worked as a secretary when she worked.  I feel privileged to understand that world.  I think that a lot of people have no idea what that world is like.  All they know are the caricatures they see on TV and in the media.  If life were a war, the people I'm talking about would be the ones in the trenches, the ones getting shot at, and the ones who suffer because of the bad decisions their leaders make.

I think that the elites in both parties are guilty of trivializing and marginalizing the people I am talking about.  I think that's a mistake.  I think that the fortunate people in society should see themselves as servants of those who are less fortunate.  All of that is what has always made me think Kasich would be a good President.  I think he really understands the kind of people who make up most of this country and actually cares about them because that's who he was when he was growing up.

One of the reasons I started my carpet cleaning business is that I like the feeling of making money from manual labor.  It reminds me of how working class people live every day.

It feels sort of like getting paid to work out, which is cool, though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel that way if I did it all day every day.

Although I think a lot of it is fake at this point, I love the premise of the TV show Undercover Boss.