Are americans buying themselves out of jobs?

Memnoch

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

I'm sure a lot of people are aware about walmart and their extreme business practices. I found this well written and balanced article that makes a lot of intersting points in both directions.

Is walmart the true definition of unbridled corporate capitalism? Is it also the demonstration of the limits of this school of thought?

More importantly, is it the ultimate lesson by example of why the completely unilateral capitalistic policies of today are destined to fail?

Sand

Is walmart the true definition of unbridled corporate capitalism?

No, its not the free market ideal as its so large as to be a monopoly. An ideal market is formed by many small buyers and sellers, not any one huge one.

Though it got to its present position by simply being far better managed than its rivals so it could simply be a result of the most efficient company rising to the top.

Is it also the demonstration of the limits of this school of thought?

More importantly, is it the ultimate lesson by example of why the completely unilateral capitalistic policies of today are destined to fail?

I dont see how you view it as failure.

The article doesnt dispute that Walmart is delivering low prices for all its customers year after year, though efficiency on its own part and demanding efficiency on the part of its suppliers - a benefit to all its customers, all its suppliers, and all the other customers of their suppliers. Firms admit theyre forced to innovate and introduce new products. The only real loser are firms that are inefficient and cannot compete. Those jobs go overseas to firms that are more efficient.

I dont see that as a problem - if we can get goods for cheaper abroad then why not? We benefit from lower prices and the new suppliers benefit from new markets. Everyone wins. Some jobs are lost in the developed world in the short term but developed economies are moving towards jobs that require a more educated workforce and were far better equipped to take the pain than the developing world.

The fact is that countries cant compete with the rest of the world in everything anymore. Low skilled, low wage workforces are going to trump low skilled, high wage workforces everytime. You can either try to educate your workforce so as to compete in markets where you can succeed or attempt to defeat reality by establishing barrier to trade - this is the route the EU has taken to preserve innefficient food production in Europe rather than allow 3rd world farmers access to their markets.

But capitalism could never help that particular problem could it?

chill

Memnoch wrote:

I'm sure a lot of people are aware about walmart and their extreme business practices. I found this well written and balanced article that makes a lot of intersting points in both directions.

There's nothing extreme about Walmart. They are incredibly successful because they supply what the ordinary people want at the prices they can afford. More power to them.

Is walmart the true definition of unbridled corporate capitalism? Is it also the demonstration of the limits of this school of thought?

It certainly is an example of the power of capitalism and the free market system. It delivers lower prices so that ordinary middle class and working class people can afford the things they buy. They supply much needed jobs for people at the bottom end of the skills ladder.

More importantly, is it the ultimate lesson by example of why the completely unilateral capitalistic policies of today are destined to fail?

Walmart are one of the greatest successes in the history of the market system and a lesson that demonstrates the success and power of the market system and it's importance to ordinary people.

Memnoch

sand - i don't view it as a failure. I said it seems destined to fail. The outsourcing of jobs from the US continues at a tremendous rate. The new jobs that are being created do not match in terms of salaries and benefits, since a lot of these jobs are working for McDonalds, which i'm sure we will all agree isn't the ideal vocation.

the question is how long can this system be supported?

With the US government giving more and more corporate tax cuts, with more and more jobs being outsourced, not only in low skilled areas such as labour but even high skills areas such as information technology, is it the beginning of a terminal downward spiral?

The article made a VERY good point about another huge monoply that was 5 times larger than wal mart that destroyed america's economy in the past, and was the cause of the anti-trust/takeover policies of modern economics. With these rules now being discarded as single corporations grow more and more powerful and wield greater and greater lobbying influence, how long is it before we are back to the original crises.

Again to reiterate, i'm not really on EITHER side of the issue in this case. I'm just trying to throw it out there for debate to see what people think about it.

mike65

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=204258

Of course if Walmart opened up here you'd get killed in the rush, Aldi and Lidl
have shown there's a healthy market for cheaper but quality goods. Also consider the hoo-har over IKEA, they can't open up here due to planning laws. So thousands get a coach/ferry to Scotland or Manchester and spend thier money in the UK instead. Sure too big can be bad but not big enough is'nt any great shakes either...

Mike.

SkepticOne

One of problems being identified in this article is that many formerly dirt-poor agricultural nations are now developing manufacturing capability and competing directly with richer countries.

This is one of the things that the anti-globalists were demonstrating against in Cancun and more recently Santiago. They believe that poor countries should rely on the charity of the rich rather than from trade and industry which can cause jobs to be lost in developed countries.

TomF

Reading this article makes me think that the world economy is like a landscape of peaks and valleys, with the wealthy regions the peaks and the poor the valleys. It seems that as manufacturing jobs head to China and India that the valleys will fill and the peaks will erode. Eventually, it will all be at sea level, and the only way to make things happen is to keep coming up with new products, or as in the Wal-Mart article, new designs or items that have no cheaper competitor yet.

What in the world is Ireland going to produce that is cheaper and better? We can't go on building more and more costly houses and spiralling higher and higher in the mortgage market and producing nothing but more "owner" debt with no more buyers lining up at the auctions.

Hobbes

chill wrote:

There's nothing extreme about Walmart. They are incredibly successful because they supply what the ordinary people want at the prices they can afford. More power to them.

Beginning to wonder if you even read what it says.

"No Logo" has a good piece on Walmart and its practices. Worth reading.

It delivers lower prices so that ordinary middle class and working class people can afford the things they buy. They supply much needed jobs for people at the bottom end of the skills ladder.

:rolleyes: What happens when the working class are out of work because the prices are so low it is impossible for the companies in the US to supply the goods?

Which is the whole point of story. I think it will be more like this..
1. Walmart/KMart offer low prices below what US companies can compete at.
2. Companies lay off people.
3. People can't afford to shop at other shops and end up in Walmart/KMart.

Cycle continues.

The story is intresting though. Some of the problem has a lot to do with US mentality (not all States but I did notice it more in San Diego/Michigan).

Quote: They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough.

Stuff is so cheap it is practically wasted. I would see this in resturants too. You would ask for a meal and you could get x3 what a normal person could on your plate.

Boggle

Stuff is so cheap it is practically wasted. I would see this in resturants too. You would ask for a meal and you could get x3 what a normal person could on your plate.

Better being left hungry, having paid good money for a meal! (And why shouldn't stuff be cheap?)

pickarooney

It'll eventually end up with just one shop, selling one brand of goods, at silly prices. Of course it'll be up to the shopkeeper to decide if that's silly expensive or silly cheap.
A bit like Russia in the good old days.

The Corinthian

Last time I checked manufacture was only one link, albeit an important one, in the supply chain. Retail and transport are benefiting from an increase in trade. Ultimately, the market adapts to competition and where jobs are lost in one sector, they’re created in another.

Hairy Homer

Sand wrote:

No, its not the free market ideal as its so large as to be a monopoly. An ideal market is formed by many small buyers and sellers, not any one huge one.

The free market ideal, or idyll, may indeed be that but in practice the 'free' market eventually rationalises down to a few big players.

Coke and Pepsi -- Go on. Name the third largest cola brand in the world.
United and Arsenal -- hasn't the premiership got EXCITING now that Chelsea have emerged as the third horse in the race?
Dell and HP -- name the third largest PC maker in the world.
Gibson and Fender
etc etc

The more competitive a market is, the more likely it is to boil down to just such a situation.

The socialist ideal is that everybody gives according to their ability and receives according to their needs so we all live in egalitarian utopia. But if somebody argued from that point of view here the unreconstructed free marketeers would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

Sand wrote:

We benefit from lower prices and the new suppliers benefit from new markets. Everyone wins.

By God sir, you're beginning to sound like a real pantywaisted leftie. In the capitalist system, somebody is REQUIRED to lose. It's inevitable. Those who mouth the 'win-win' mantra would earn the scorn of many on the right in places like America for daring to exhibit such touchy-feely inclinations.

sand wrote:

you can ....attempt to defeat reality by establishing barrier to trade - this is the route the EU has taken to preserve innefficient food production in Europe rather than allow 3rd world farmers access to their markets.

But capitalism could never help that particular problem could it?

It certainly couldn't when there are muppets out there who say that market forces are the only ones worth paying any attention to and must be allowed maximum freedom of operation at all costs.

Read our own history. Especially around the 1840s. We were an integral part of the world's strongest empire. Our political representatives sat in its parliament. Our ancestors lived in one of the most fertile countries in the world from a food-producing point of view. In 1846 there was a bumper grain harvest.

That same year, people began to starve in their hundreds of thousands. It wasn't a natural famine. It was an economic one.

The economic 'efficiency' of our peasantry's food production was stunning. They grew their own food, basing their diet on a single foodstuff with the most remarkable combination of nutrients and incredible yields per acre of tillage. For all the good it did them.

Look at it from the property owners point of view: let them eat potatoes, their ability to feed themselves goes up; our rents and margins--or the area we can set aside for cash crops--increases. A Win-Win scenario if ever there was one.

Apart from that little matter of more than 10 per cent of the inhabitants starving to death and the population halving over the next 50 years.

sovtek

Sand wrote:

I dont see that as a problem - if we can get goods for cheaper abroad then why not? We benefit from lower prices and the new suppliers benefit from new markets. Everyone wins.

Yea "everyone" like the poor Chinese kids that go blind making cheap crap in factors with no health/safety standards to speak of.
Efficient and cheap are two entirely different things.
And how do middle income people win when their taxes go to help Wal-Mart to send jobs to other countries as well as the people that work at Wal-Mart having to go on wefare...also something the middle earners pay for?
Is it "capitalism" this week?

Some jobs are lost in the developed world in the short term but developed economies are moving towards jobs that require a more educated workforce and were far better equipped to take the pain than the developing world.

And businesses of developed countries are now sending all those lovely skilled jobs to India...win win of course....

Low skilled, low wage workforces are going to trump low skilled, high wage workforces everytime.

And every time a country starts to climb out of that "developed" status and can demand higher wages and safer working conditions the "developed" world moves to another slave wage country meanwhile putting pressure on those "developing" countries to keep "labour flexibility". EYE EMMM EFF

You can either try to educate your workforce so as to compete in markets where you can succeed or attempt to defeat reality by establishing barrier to trade -

How the hell does educating your workforce help anyone when those jobs are going somewhere else....

this is the route the EU has taken to preserve innefficient food production in Europe rather than allow 3rd world farmers access to their markets.

...and what do these two entirely different animals have to do with the former?

But capitalism could never help that particular problem could it?

Is it "capitalism" or "free-trade"?

Sand

Yea "everyone" like the poor Chinese kids that go blind making cheap crap in factors with no health/safety standards to speak of.

Thats right, lets deny employment and development to people because human rights are about as bad in those developing countries.....as human rights were in the developed world when they were developing?!?! Do you see the possiblity of history repeating itself?

Yeah, we should encourage human rights development in the devloping world - that goes without saying, and would probably be best brought about by firms pushing for some sort of international recognition of their working standards and pushing consumer demand for some symbol of that recognition.

Starving them economically and helping to ensure theyre dependant on the wholly inadequate Western aid budgets is not an alternative.

And businesses of developed countries are now sending all those lovely skilled jobs to India...win win of course....

Answering phones isnt a skilled job?

And every time a country starts to climb out of that "developed" status and can demand higher wages and safer working conditions the "developed" world moves to another slave wage country meanwhile putting pressure on those "developing" countries to keep "labour flexibility". EYE EMMM EFF

Which is why the pressure is on to develop infrastructure, education and encourage investment by higher value industries. As a country develops it cant compete with a lower wage workforce....Ive already stated this.

How the hell does educating your workforce help anyone when those jobs are going somewhere else....

Youre right - education has no benefit.

...and what do these two entirely different animals have to do with the former?

Break down the barrier to trade and most of EU farmer will find they cant compete with the developing worlds farmers. Almost 100% of Europeans will enjoy lower food prices, the developing worlds farmer will enjoy a rising standard of living from selling their produce and the only losers will be the EU farmers who will get on a soapbox and prophesise death and destruction because all the jobs are going from Euro farming to Kenyan farmers.

Its the same old story here - a firm cant compete, they go to the wall and their jobs are somehow "stolen" by another firm whose crime is to do their work cheaper. Those bastards! And theyre damn foreigners too! If they were American it would be okay and wed be praising yankee work ethic and meritocracy but its cheating chinese or whoever. Its just more trade=war tripe that Id have hoped would have died out with the age of enlightenment.

Sand

Apart from that little matter of more than 10 per cent of the inhabitants starving to death and the population halving over the next 50 years.

Right so limited trade ( only within the British Empire ) led to the Irish famine, not generations of the effects of penal laws which were designed to reduce the majority of Irish people to a subsitence level of existence....that might mean that a series of agricultural reverses could lead to terrible famines?

If there was some crime or deliberate policy attached then that was it - the potato blight was widespread in Europe. We got hit hardest because surprise surprise the Irish were reduced to absolute dependancy on it. From here

Too bad for the kids who will be taught this partisan line; most recent historical evidence doesn't support it. In the 1960s, a revisionist school of economic historians proved that limiting wheat exports would have made only a puny dent in the calamity. British action wouldn't have mattered. In addition, British intervention to assist the starving assumes a more contemporary idea of the state's responsibilities that doesn't jibe with mid-19th-century realities. If Ireland got hit hardest by the famine, it was because it depended more heavily on the potato for sustenance than other countries.

Hell, look at this. Youll notice that in 1847, right after the bumper grain harvest wheat exports *halved*, wheat imports *tripled*, oat exports *halved*, oat imports *tripled*, barley exports *halved*, barley imports *tripled*, rye imports went up *21 fold*, maize imports *tripled*.

Indeed as a total of *all* grain imports Irish exports roughly halved, and imports went up four fold.

Yeah, this really supports the argument that masses of wheat were exported whilst the poor Irish starved, damn those imperialist/capitalist bastards.

Read our own history.

Read it yourself - without the green tinted glasses this time perhaps?

By God sir, you're beginning to sound like a real pantywaisted leftie. In the capitalist system, somebody is REQUIRED to lose. It's inevitable. Those who mouth the 'win-win' mantra would earn the scorn of many on the right in places like America for daring to exhibit such touchy-feely inclinations.

Right, so every time you pay for a newspaper are you winning or losing? Whose keeping score? Do you get like trophies or medals if you win?

Do you have a book of grudges where you keep track of newspaper sellers who you lost to?

Coke and Pepsi -- Go on. Name the third largest cola brand in the world.

How the feck should I know - there are enough barriers to trade to ensure the world cant sell into this market. If you want to ask me which is the 3rd biggest coke manufacturer in the Irish markets Id hazard a guess at Country Spring.

United and Arsenal -- hasn't the premiership got EXCITING now that Chelsea have emerged as the third horse in the race?

Heh, the premiership as a free market - You know that one of the definitions is that anyone can enter or leave the market? Not quite true as Cletic and wimbledon before them are finding out.

Dell and HP -- name the third largest PC maker in the world.

IBM? Yeah i know - whose ever heard of them. Oh and Toshiba and Fijitsu Siemens are 2 others before you go "Oh yeah, well whose the next ...."

The more competitive a market is, the more likely it is to boil down to just such a situation.

Balls to be honest, but I havent got time to fill you in on the economics lectures you skipped.

The socialist ideal is that everybody gives according to their ability and receives according to their needs so we all live in egalitarian utopia. But if somebody argued from that point of view here the unreconstructed free marketeers would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

Our needs are the same, our ability differs. Its a flawed ideal.

RainyDay

It's not that hard for the offshore suppliers to undercut the US based suppliers given that they have no minimum wage laws, no unfair dismissals legislation, no health & safety protection, no unions etc etc etc.

shotamoose

SkepticOne wrote:

One of problems being identified in this article is that many formerly dirt-poor agricultural nations are now developing manufacturing capability and competing directly with richer countries.

This is one of the things that the anti-globalists were demonstrating against in Cancun and more recently Santiago.

Er, bollocks. The vast majority of the mainstream trade NGOs / campaign groups that I know of want developing countries to be competitive with richer countries. And they want richer countries to lower their trade barriers to make trade more beneficial for poor countries.

Captain Trips

shotamoose wrote:

Er, bollocks. The vast majority of the mainstream trade NGOs / campaign groups that I know of want developing countries to be competitive with richer countries. And they want richer countries to lower their trade barriers to make trade more beneficial for poor countries.

I would rather the EU keep it's barriers. The US's example has shown that it virtually inevitably leads to exploitation of third world workers. I can live without a gallon (? 4 litre!!) jar of ****ing gerkins or whatever it was. I can live without the Monster Thickburger http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6498304/

Currently, the EU is not exploiting anyone (relatively to comparitive US brands) and we all seem to be doing pretty well, and there are limits, thankfully on companies so that Walmart can't come here and build a 500000 square foot city of cheap **** from China to destroy other businesses.

Let's all go to Bewley's next Tuesday........

SkepticOne

Captain Trips wrote:

I would rather the EU keep it's barriers. The US's example has shown that it virtually inevitably leads to exploitation of third world workers. I can live without a gallon (? 4 litre!!) jar of ****ing gerkins or whatever it was. I can live without the Monster Thickburger

I think this is pretty representative of the ant-globalist protesters point of view. There may be some NGO groups that don't entirely go along with it however.

shotamoose

SkepticOne wrote:

I think this is pretty representative of the ant-globalist protesters point of view. There may be some NGO groups that don't entirely go along with it however.

The fact is that most NGO groups don't go along with that view - in fact I'm hard pressed to think of any that do. So your statement that anyone who demonstrated at Cancun was against trade of any kind remains totally wrong.

bonkey

Captain Trips wrote:

Currently, the EU is not exploiting anyone (relatively to comparitive US brands)

Riiiiight. Suuuuure we aren't.

One of the very first "headline" issues concerning the (mis)treatment of the people in developing nations was the whole sweatshop thing....you know...Nike getting some kid from Penuria to sow $5000-a-pair running shoes for .002c or thereabouts*.

And who were Nike's competition, engaged in the exact same practices? Adidas. And where are Adidas based?

On a different note, Starbucks - the biggest (?) player in the retail-coffee world - are signed up to Fair Trade / Max Havelaar for their coffee-purchasing. Can we say the same about the major European producers/packagers/retailers?

jc

* may be slightly exaggerated

pickarooney

bonkey wrote:

Riiiiight. Suuuuure we aren't.

On a different note, Starbucks - the biggest (?) player in the retail-coffee world - are signed up to Fair Trade / Max Havelaar for their coffee-purchasing. Can we say the same about the major European producers/packagers/retailers?

jc

* may be slightly exaggerated

Douwe Egberts says it's not their responsibility. Although I think their parent company (Sara Lee) is American. Nestlé may or may not be, though they have a pretty woeful reputation in this respect.

Hairy Homer

Sand wrote:

If there was some crime or deliberate policy attached then that was it - the potato blight was widespread in Europe. We got hit hardest because surprise surprise the Irish were reduced to absolute dependancy on it. From here

The point is, as you concede and even that ranter from the New Republic concedes, the Irish peasantry was reduced to absolute dependancy on a single food crop. When a natural disaster wiped that out, that peasantry was doomed.

Let's give the Victorian Brits the benefit of the doubt. Let's say they really did not have the information systems or foresight to have been able to predict what could happen when an entire section of the population was feeding itself with such 'efficiency' that they depended on the ultra 'streamlined' highly 'productive' output from one 'specialist' crop the production of which was the peasants' 'core competence'. No point picking a fight with Victorians, anyway. They're all dead.

My argument is not that theirs was a deliberate policy of extermination. It is that their laissez-faire policy which forced such specialisation on the peasantry proved to be disastrous.

So that means today's laissez faire capitalists have no excuse. The lesson that should be learned from the famine is the danger that exists when the bottom layer of society is marginalised to such an extent that its existence can be threatened by something as simple as potato blight.

Indeed as a total of *all* grain imports Irish exports roughly halved, and imports went up four fold.

Yeah, this really supports the argument that masses of wheat were exported whilst the poor Irish starved, damn those imperialist/capitalist bastards.

It supports the argument that the organisation of food production and distribution by Irish society in the 1840s was the problem, not the ability of nature to provide foodstuffs. Unfettered, laissez-faire free markets cannot provide the answer to such problems. Wal-Marts policy would seem to be 'LEt them eat Gherkins'

A welfare state can. And those who say: 'But you can't distort a free market on principle' should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

If you want to ask me which is the 3rd biggest coke manufacturer in the Irish markets Id hazard a guess at Country Spring.

No I don't. I want you to tell me who is the third largest in the world. Don't worry. I don't know either. Which is kind of my point about the duopoly situation a free market normally produces.

IBM? Yeah i know - whose ever heard of them. Oh and Toshiba and Fijitsu Siemens are 2 others before you go "Oh yeah, well whose the next ...."

Not even close. Fujitsu Siemens are third biggest in Europe in general. They're nothing in America. Tosh don't make PCs, just portables. IBM are nowhere in the PC market nowadays.

Again my point being there are two dominant global players. The rest of the market is fragmented between the smaller ones.

Balls to be honest, but I havent got time to fill you in on the economics lectures you skipped.

ROTFLMAO

On the basis of these posts, the only economics lectures you paid any attention to were given by the likes of Britain's Young Conservatives circa 1985. And where are they now?

sovtek

Sand wrote:

Thats right, lets deny employment and development to people because human rights are about as bad in those developing countries.....as human rights were in the developed world when they were developing?!?! Do you see the possiblity of history repeating itself?

No I don't see history repeating because developed countries didn't get there without barriers to trade.
Of course all use knee jerk anti-globalisation nuts want the Chinese people to stay poor and unemployed and undeveloped because we want to keep the nice rustic atmoshere for backpacking holidays. :rolleyes:

Yeah, we should encourage human rights development in the devloping world - that goes without saying, and would probably be best brought about by firms pushing for some sort of international recognition of their working standards and pushing consumer demand for some symbol of that recognition.

And when did that ever happen (and only tokens even then) without some big media do about poor blind Chinese kids. Then Starbucks sends $2m worth of food to Columbia to keep the coffee pickers alive. (about %1 of the profits they've made off them). So it's all good then

Starving them economically and helping to ensure theyre dependant on the wholly inadequate Western aid budgets is not an alternative.

Where's the strawman smiley?

Answering phones isnt a skilled job?

It is when a software developer answers it.

Which is why the pressure is on to develop infrastructure, education and encourage investment by higher value industries. As a country develops it cant compete with a lower wage workforce....Ive already stated this.

Which is why they don't want the government using their increased tax revenues (from the one armed blind workers) to do just that and keep the price low, otherwise they threaten to go somewhere else. EYE EMM EFF as I've already stated.

Youre right - education has no benefit.

...still can't find that strawman smiley.

Break down the barrier to trade and most of EU farmer will find they cant compete with the developing worlds farmers. Almost 100% of Europeans will enjoy lower food prices, the developing worlds farmer will enjoy a rising standard of living from selling their produce and the only losers will be the EU farmers who will get on a soapbox and prophesise death and destruction because all the jobs are going from Euro farming to Kenyan farmers.

No ****...but then you were raving about ending farm subsidies (which all us anti-globalisation nutjobs are against as well) and in the same sentence saying that educating the first world is going to make jobs magically appear.

Its the same old story here - a firm cant compete, they go to the wall and their jobs are somehow "stolen" by another firm whose crime is to do their work cheaper. Those bastards! And theyre damn foreigners too! If they were American it would be okay and wed be praising yankee work ethic and meritocracy but its cheating chinese or whoever. Its just more trade=war tripe that Id have hoped would have died out with the age of enlightenment.

By now I'm convinced there needs to be a new strawman smiley....either that or you honestly don't understand my argument.

sovtek

Captain Trips wrote:

Currently, the EU is not exploiting anyone (relatively to comparitive US brands) and we all seem to be doing pretty well, and there are limits, thankfully on companies so that Walmart can't come here and build a 500000 square foot city of cheap **** from China to destroy other businesses.

Let's all go to Bewley's next Tuesday........

I don't agree with you there...I mean EU corporations are just as insanely greeding as the Americans...the EU companies just don't have such fervent backing by their respective government(s). And before anyone jumps on me, "fervent" does not equal "none".

sovtek

Hairy Homer wrote:

ROTFLMAO

On the basis of these posts, the only economics lectures you paid any attention to were given by the likes of Britain's Young Conservatives circa 1985. And where are they now?

You know, of course, that we all need to attend Trinity to be able to understand big scary terms like "supply and demand"

bonkey

Hairy Homer wrote:

No I don't. I want you to tell me who is the third largest in the world. Don't worry. I don't know either. Which is kind of my point about the duopoly situation a free market normally produces.

Except that when you say "nromally" you mean "in a few examples - some of which are flawed - that I can provide".....as we will now see.

Not even close. Fujitsu Siemens are third biggest in Europe in general. They're nothing in America. Tosh don't make PCs, just portables. IBM are nowhere in the PC market nowadays.

Care to back any of that up? This would tend to show that Fujitsu/Siemens are fourth in the world...just behind......IBM. So thats two of your points knocked on the head.

The third one (notebooks not being PCs) is also factually incorrect, but has nothing to do with this discussion, because you're correct in that Tosh are no longer considered to be a major player.

Again my point being there are two dominant global players.
The rest of the market is fragmented between the smaller ones.

"Dominant" in this case meaning "have approximately one third of the market between them" ??? Indeed, the top 5 have less than 50% of the market between them. Given that you're talking this signifying lack of competition, I think we can safely say that short of the figures I've linked to being totally incorrect, your example kinda undermines your entire argument.

Going further, we can also say that the disappearance of Toshiba, the emergence of Acer, Dell, etc also shows that the positions of market dominance are far from well-established. Indeed, the emergence of Sony as a player in recent times further backs that up.

ROTFLMAO

Exactly what I thought when the world's third-largest PC manufacturer was dismissed as being "nowhere", or that two players with "teen-percentage" shares in a market dominated anything.

On the basis of these posts, the only economics lectures you paid any attention to were

And what does what I've just posted say about your equivalent knowledge of the subjects you are presenting as "test-cases"???

sovtek

Hairy Homer wrote:

Not even close. Fujitsu Siemens are third biggest in Europe in general. They're nothing in America. Tosh don't make PCs, just portables. IBM are nowhere in the PC market nowadays.

Again my point being there are two dominant global players. The rest of the market is fragmented between the smaller ones.

Personally I find it hard to talk about free markets and PC manufacturers in the same sentence when you consider who payed for the R&D.

Hairy Homer

bonkey wrote:

This would tend to show that Fujitsu/Siemens are fourth in the world...just behind......IBM. So thats two of your points knocked on the head.

OK hands up. Didn't research the minutiae of the market details before I posted that. My impressions were formed by data I had seen for the European market some time ago which showed Fujitsu Siemens in third place, some way behind the Big Two and IBM in among the general maw of 'others.'

Fujitsu Siemens, I am pretty sure, have little or no presence in the US so their market share is mainly accounted for in Europe and Asia. I suspect that IBM's share comes largely from the US.

Anyway the basic point I am making remains unchanged. Dell and HP are the two biggest players everywhere. The rest of the market is fragmented between smaller players who are, in many cases, struggling to survive.

"Dominant" in this case meaning "have approximately one third of the market between them" ??? Indeed, the top 5 have less than 50% of the market between them. Given that you're talking this signifying lack of competition, I think we can safely say that short of the figures I've linked to being totally incorrect, your example kinda undermines your entire argument.

Yep. They're dominant. Most of the others are so small that they're not even worth registering as individual items on this table.

Going further, we can also say that the disappearance of Toshiba, the emergence of Acer, Dell, etc also shows that the positions of market dominance are far from well-established.

On the contrary. The big two positions are fairly entrenched. It's the little people who are eating themselves. And will continue to do so.

You may point out here that IBM was number one PC maker for years and is no longer in a dominant position, which is true, but that is because they have realigned themselves to concentrate on other areas of IT. They are still the largest IT company in the world by some distance when you consider all the other sectors of the industry: mainframes, software, services etc etc

The only other company that comes close is HP

Dell is way behind.

Off the top of my head I would guess that IBM's annual revenues are about 80-90 billion dollars

HP's about 70-80 billion

Dell about 40 billion

How did I do?


Point taken about factual error. Mea culpa. But even then it doesn't change my argument.

And the cola market is probably exactly the same. Coke and Pepsi everywhere. Virgin big in Britain and Ireland but way off the top two. Dr Pepper probably third in US but again way off the top two. Worldwide? Dunno. Never met anyone who does.

SkepticOne

shotamoose wrote:

The fact is that most NGO groups don't go along with that view - in fact I'm hard pressed to think of any that do. So your statement that anyone who demonstrated at Cancun was against trade of any kind remains totally wrong.

I'm not talking about NGO groups, I'm talking about protesters who make their way to various events like WTO negotiations. These take the anti-globalist position of being in favour of trade barriers.

An example of this would be the Korean farmer who killed himself in protest against the removal of trade barriers against foreign rice imports. I don't know what the situation is now, but at the time there was a virtual wall against imports of rice from surrounding poorer countries. After he died, other protesters held up banners saying "WTO Kills". It may not be the view of all NGO's or even most NGOs, but it is a proper anti-globalist position and did seem to strike a chord with the protesters at Cancun.

chill

Despite all the crocadile tears for the third world countries, the truth is that capitalism and market forces are doing more for the poor of the world than the sum total of all of the charity and aid handed out.
The great multinationals of the market like Nike, Adidas, Walmart etc are doing more for these people by giving them jobs and feeding and clothing and educating them than anything done by the left wing socialists who abhor free markets.
Jobs are being exported to those countries from the US and EU every day and this ia a great thing for those countries. This is how they grow and develop, and it is how wee grew and developed.
What we need is less barriers to trade, less barriers to outsourcing of jobs, less barriers to multi nationals setting up manufacturing plants abroad. That is if we really care about thgose people, instead of lining our own pockets.