But, but...Walmart is EVIL!

[Kidlicious]

No it's not. With contracting you find the lowest bidder.

[Kuciwalker]

Only if you use certain types of competitive bidding.

[Last Conformist]

@Kid: What matters isn't if you get the lowest bidders, what matters is if you get more or less benefit for the same cost.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Wal-mart is destroying America, Gramps. I'm not gonna say bad things about them helping people out in a crisis, but how many other communities has Wal-Mart destroyed across the country? I can tell you one, Oberlin, OH, home of Rubbermaid.

Keep your head down, just in case Ophelia blows your way.

I agree and again was merely thanking Walmart for this individual effort

Ophelia..we been having rip currents for a week and wind is very strong today, still 3 days away from impact should it come through

Back to topic

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
@Kid: What matters isn't if you get the lowest bidders, what matters is if you get more or less benefit for the same cost.

How would Walmart be compensated though? Are you going to give them a profit margin on their expenditures?

[Kuciwalker]

Uh, presumably they'd be compensated with money.

Instead of chucking money at FEMA, you chuck it at Walmart's Disaster Relief Division or whatever.

Walmart and other bidders would hope to be able to use the money more efficiently than FEMA, allowing them to provide better service for slightly less money. That = profit.

[Kidlicious]

You aren't getting it Kuci. You can't set a price. If the price is too high there is waste. If the price is too low people don't get saved.

[Kuciwalker]

*sigh*

Congress gives FEMA X billion dollars per year. Instead of giving it to FEMA, you give it to Walmart's Disaster Relief Division. They do the same thing as FEMA, exactly, except presumably they do it more efficiently, because they have tons of experience with logistics and stuff. Ergo, more bang for you buck. If the efficiency gain is large enough, Walmart can actually pocket some of the money, still giving us more bang for our buck AND getting profit.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The government isn't subject to market forces [nearly as much]. So, like LC said, maybe we ought to contract out logistics and such to people like Walmart.

That's not the point. No planned economy is subject to direct market forces, since it doesn't need to operate according to the price system - we know what people need, we don't have to set a market price. For example if you know what your resources are, and what everyone in your village wants, making a market would be a waste of time - there's a reason tribal societies like the Maori didn't operate according to market principles - it would have been a waste of time. Similarly companies for the most part don't operate on market principles internally, because that would be dumb too.

Do you understand at all what markets are for? They are a distribution system that we use when it is too difficult to find out what people need directly. When that difficulty is overcome it is simply easier to realize what people want and make a plan to produce it.

Planned economies like the Soviet Union had a tough time because they simply didn't have the information required to know what had to be produced in order to meet their needs. Wherever you don't have that information it is usually better to decentralize production through a market. Information technology is making that less true every day. Wal Mart is efficient for this very reason.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
*sigh*

Congress gives FEMA X billion dollars per year. Instead of giving it to FEMA, you give it to Walmart's Disaster Relief Division. They do the same thing as FEMA, exactly, except presumably they do it more efficiently, because they have tons of experience with logistics and stuff. Ergo, more bang for you buck. If the efficiency gain is large enough, Walmart can actually pocket some of the money, still giving us more bang for our buck AND getting profit.

You are assuming that Wal Mart would really want to get into that business. We might have to pay them an even higher amount to do it.

[Kuciwalker]

Dude, I'm just explaining how it would presumably work to Kid. You're getting too complicated

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Do you understand at all what markets are for? They are a distribution system that we use when it is too difficult to find out what people need directly. When that difficulty is overcome it is simply easier to realize what people want and make a plan to produce it.

And in a competitive system those with the best plans end up winning. That's why Walmart is so good at logistics - because those who had worse logistics had higher costs and were less competitive.

[mrmitchell]

Wal-mart is destroying America, Gramps. I'm not gonna say bad things about them helping people out in a crisis, but how many other communities has Wal-Mart destroyed across the country? I can tell you one, Oberlin, OH, home of Rubbermaid.

If Sam was still around I wonder if Wal Mart would be selling so many Chinese products and have all these executives reeling in multimillions and getting caught up in scandals or be trying to sell clothing even mildly fashionable...

But either way, we've already had the Rubbermaid discussion. Suppliers have a choice if they want to supply Wal Mart or not...

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Agathon




That's not the point. No planned economy is subject to direct market forces, since it doesn't need to operate according to the price system - we know what people need, we don't have to set a market price. For example if you know what your resources are, and what everyone in your village wants, making a market would be a waste of time - there's a reason tribal societies like the Maori didn't operate according to market principles - it would have been a waste of time. Similarly companies for the most part don't operate on market principles internally, because that would be dumb too.

Do you understand at all what markets are for? They are a distribution system that we use when it is too difficult to find out what people need directly. When that difficulty is overcome it is simply easier to realize what people want and make a plan to produce it.

Planned economies like the Soviet Union had a tough time because they simply didn't have the information required to know what had to be produced in order to meet their needs. Wherever you don't have that information it is usually better to decentralize production through a market. Information technology is making that less true every day. Wal Mart is efficient for this very reason.

Great post. Though I would question how close we're coming to that level of information. It may be less true every day, but we're still a long way from perfect information, from knowing what type of each product, in what numbers, every consumer wants. Moreover, if we ever get to that stage, it would probably been seen as violating people's privacy, as the government or body providing the goods they require would know exactly what they want, when they want it - a huge amount of personal information. Do we want that?

[DinoDoc]

I love this thread. Several posters stopped making sense almost immediately.