<p>Shhhh, Barrons – Amazon is cool! Can’t bash Amazon. Poor people don’t frequent Amazon, just hip, educated people who love to read AND care deeply for the poor – so it must be a force for good!!</p>
<p>ENC, ENC</p>
<p>[emperor’s new clothes . . .}</p>
<p>Sewhappy, maybe you should start a new thread about unions, since that seems to be what you want to discuss.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, if you can share with me information that indicates that I am also buying food and paying Dr. bills for Amazon’s employees, I’ll stop shopping there too. Really. </p>
<p>I don’t understand what it is about that particular value that you find so disturbing.</p>
<p>^ I get enough on the Unions from the nuclear family I grew up in. I have no desire to start a thread on unions.</p>
<p>I find the fusion of class prejudice with union defense really interesting though.</p>
<p>And if they were not earning any money at all working at WalMart?? They would be FAR worse off and so would the government. WM workers pay into SS and their income allows them some consumption being completely on welfare does not. Not like the turned down Goldman to work at WM. get real.</p>
<p>FWIW a lot of us over educated elitist hipsters are also Amazon bashers. That is a different thread.</p>
<p>Barrons, like I explained in another post: If they weren’t working at walmart, it would be because we were all shopping somewhere else right? </p>
<p>They’d be working at whatever store we were shopping at right?</p>
<p>No, there are great efficienices to one large store with a brilliant distribution network and great buying efficiencies. You might just be paying more for less and have fewer employees too.</p>
<p>oooh</p>
<p>alh – start the thread to bash Amazon . . . I am breathless with anticipation</p>
<p>In the end this is really a weird sort of wrapping up of distaste for low brow culture that cannot be permitted within a certain ideological venue and so it must punish those that the low brow frequent and like and call that their oppressors.</p>
<p>I get it. </p>
<p>It can make your world rock if you live in that world, and many do.</p>
<p>Of course, that just brings up yet another thread opportunity - like, what is really elite (aka, rogue intellectualism) . . . it isn’t what it used to be.</p>
<p>Honestly, if we would all just try to BUY LOCAL and BUY AMERICAN-MADE we would do a lot to improve both our local and national economies. And even Walmart can source goods from American suppliers.</p>
<p>^ agree – and we make that attempt in our family</p>
<p>But darned if those oranges from Mexico at Weg’s just aren’t so darned delicious!</p>
<p>OK…so barrons by that logic, if walmart is so efficient and we all stopped shopping there and buying our goods at a less efficient store, they’d have to hire more employees to meet the demand ('cause surely we’re all going to buy the same amount of stuff.) </p>
<p>And, Sewhappy, PLEASE tell me what it is about the fact that I don’t want to pay to take care of Walmart employees that you don’t like.</p>
<p>*And, Sewhappy, PLEASE tell me what it is about the fact that I don’t want to pay to take care of Walmart employees that you don’t like. *</p>
<p>Oh, my. I’d look higher up than Walmart for that answer. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’d just tell you these are not well off people, many of whom are unlikely to get a job anywhere, they pay into your social security and just perhaps deserve to be acknowledged for the nobility of the work they do.</p>
<p>Just a thought.</p>
<p>OK…well I’d go a step farther than that and say that every single one of them deserves the dignity of being able to support himself or herself without a government handout.</p>
<p>Apparently, you don’t think that is true.</p>
<p>Farmers markets are a wonderful thing. I was recently in our newly renovated Target which now has groceries. The produce was extremely unimpressive.</p>
<p>I agree zm. And, at least around here, farmers markets tend to be cheaper and support local farmers.</p>
<p>Well, indeed.</p>
<p>Target – good for a tee-shirt not so good for tomatoes.</p>
<p>Every store has it’s strength.</p>
<p>Isn’t it kind of weird to be insisting that one fulfill ALL our shopping needs?</p>
<p>Maybe we need a law . . .</p>
<p>Agreed, but the potatoes, squash and apples are a little uninspiring at this point.</p>
<p>No, we would all enjoy fewer goods because we are now paying more for each one and we only have X money to spend. And there would likely be fewer stores anyway.</p>
<p>I would hope on here that folks got it that we are not living and working in a country specific paradigm. Remember Al and Ross? No, no. We are global!</p>
<p>Thus, our lowliest workers compete with the world’s lowliest workers.</p>
<p>Now exactly who are we going to blame?</p>