[MD] Ham unlike you I will not create false idols

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt] 
> You mean you want to convince them to pay a local store $1.25 for a can of
> Campbell's soup  when they can get the same can at Walmart for 89 cents. Lotsa
> luck.
 
> [Arlo]
> Which is exactly my point. One should be more concerned about the loss of wages,
> which will come back and impact the consumer with far greater negative
> end-results, than with the 36 cents price differential. This is similar to the
> modes of thinking criticized in ZMM, where "immediate gratification" (36 cents)
> must be contrased with "long term results" (greater wages in the community mean
> more consumer choices, a stronger tax base for road repair, libraries, police
> and fire, and schools).

Again, your narrow focus on a tiny section of the globe reveals a narrow,  
parochial outlook. 
 
> Not to mention that real wealth is generated by manufacturing, not by retail and
> hospitality. Walmarts "success" is based on the fact that it has moved it
> manufacturing to cheap, overseas countries, so that 36 cents also displaces a
> large number of manufacturing jobs here in the U.S.

Again, a parochial instead of a global outlook. The economy went global about 
30 years ago, Arlo. Time you got caught up.

> The National Review, in 2003, published an article "Manufacturing: A crisis
> alert", which sided with an NMA study saying, "If the U.S. manufacturing base
> continues to shrink at its present rate and the critical mass is lost, the
> manufacturing innovation process will shift to other global centers. Once that
> happens, a decline in U.S. living standards in the future is inevitable." The
> article concludes...
> 
> "Dozens of other manufacturing sectors are experiencing the same rapid decline
> as electronics, aerospace, and textiles. If these losses are not reversed
> quickly, U.S. incomes and living standards will fall correspondingly. ... The
> accelerating decline of American manufacturing is largely the consequence of
> U.S. trade policies that encourage the shift of factories and jobs to other
> nations and pit U.S. workers against penny-wage foreign competitors, operating
> subsidized factories in highly protected markets. ... Manufacturing in America
> really does matter."
> 
> Steven Voigt, writing for Renew America (a strong conservative organization,
> check out their banner ads) writes, "The manufacturing jobs we are losing are
> the so-called family wage jobs — solid jobs with good benefits and wages that
> can support a family. These are the jobs that once made the nuts and bolts for
> tanks, steel beams for skyscrapers, and wooden planks for houses. As the chart
> below illustrates, no industry sector has been spared."

Yes, you can find "the sky is falling" articles on almost any subject under the 
sun. Doom, gloom and fear is big business among the intelligentsia with Noam 
Chomsky leading the pack.. 

> That 36 cents is false savings, that's the message that should be getting out. 

Not false savings to me or to many others. Over time by shopping at Walmart I 
can save enough to contribute money to help keep a university afloat. :-)

Platt