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WampaLord posted:Look, I'll give you Walmart and McDonald's, but a national highway system is literally the opposite of globalization. It's an American creation to benefit America exclusively. It was done with American labor and American money. It has literally nothing to do with globalization. Well, remember that that "American money" that builds and maintains the United States highway system comes from the United States running up a national debt. That is letting alone the oil imports that are needed to maintain America's driving habits. If you forgot, you wouldn't be alone in forgetting that paying for and maintaining a national freeway system is not something that has been done through the practice of rugged individualism and entrepreneurship. It is a gigantic federal bureaucracy that redistributes money, and that money comes from international sources. The oil to pay for those shopping trips requires an interventionist foreign policies, to say the least. One thing that is curious to me is that I have seen anti-globalization leftists try to at least come up with some sort of answer to questions of economic production, even if they leave a lot of questions unanswered (not everyone can pay 5 dollars a pound for organic spinach from the local co-op). but I've seen at least some attempts at the production of food, bicycles, computers, tools & hardware, in ways that avoid globalization. I honestly don't know if there is a conservative anti-globalization equivalent. Like conservative anti-globalists don't really have an alternative to their current lifestyle, and as much as some of them are "preppers", that seems mostly a hobby where they buy expensive hardware. And then, once they are done talking big about how they can survive the apocalypse, its back in to the 8 MPG truck to the local Target because they bought cinnamon waffles and not the pumpkin spice ones their wife wanted.
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Oct 19, 2017 20:34
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glowing-fish posted:Well, remember that that "American money" that builds and maintains the United States highway system comes from the United States running up a national debt. The bulk of that debt is intragovernmental debt in the form of social security and t bills, money that the government owes itself essentially. Only a fraction of it is owned by foreign nations. I have no idea what the word "globalization" means anymore, I guess. Just because some foreign goods and some foreign money touch our highway system, suddenly the reason we made it was for the majority benefit of other countries and not ourselves? I feel like the bulk of our disagreements on are on what words mean.
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Oct 19, 2017 20:39
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For the average angry low-info anti-globalist your avatar is essentially what they picture in their head.
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Oct 19, 2017 20:41
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glowing-fish posted:Like conservative anti-globalists don't really have an alternative to their current lifestyle, and as much as some of them are "preppers", that seems mostly a hobby where they buy expensive hardware. They are just assuming that corrupt politicians have made bad deals, and if globalism is crushed, all the factories will come back to the USA with $30 an hour union jobs with full benefits, and no other effect on prices or the economy.
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Oct 19, 2017 20:44
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BarbarianElephant posted:They are just assuming that corrupt politicians have made bad deals, and if globalism is crushed, all the factories will come back to the USA with $30 an hour union jobs with full benefits, and no other effect on prices or the economy. And that they would still be able to buy a toaster for 20 dollars at Target at 3 AM!
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Oct 19, 2017 20:48
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The whole point of America is that no one can tell us when we can or can't eat toast
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Oct 19, 2017 21:55
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Regarding highways and globalization, what I remember reading some time ago, during a planning course in college, was that the real kickoff to "globalization" happened during the Vietnam war, where the US invested heavily in the infrastructure that became our modern multi-modal shipping container system. This allowed huge amounts of war materials to be shipped to various bases in Asia. After the war, it ended up accelerating cheap shipping of goods back and forth over seas. Without the government investment in the port infrastructure, things would have moved a lot more slowly. I don't have any sources handy at the moment , since this was a while ago. The federal interstate highway system predated all this by a few decades. Yeah, some of the routes weren't completed until recently, but the seeds of the system were already planted in the 1930s.
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Oct 19, 2017 23:44
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LogisticEarth posted:Regarding highways and globalization, what I remember reading some time ago, during a planning course in college, was that the real kickoff to "globalization" happened during the Vietnam war, where the US invested heavily in the infrastructure that became our modern multi-modal shipping container system. This allowed huge amounts of war materials to be shipped to various bases in Asia. After the war, it ended up accelerating cheap shipping of goods back and forth over seas. Without the government investment in the port infrastructure, things would have moved a lot more slowly. This is sort of mixing things up. The containerization revolution was well underway, globally, when the US had to heavily increase its shipment capacity to South Vietnam and Asia in general to handle all their new logistic needs. In order to meet this, the US military decided to really go whole hog on container-based facilities to need less time spent at port on either side to load and unload ships. This pushed a lot of the shipping companies who got contracted for parts of the supply operation to buy their own container ships if they only had a few or none before, and then they're going on to put pressure on other ports around the world to offer facilities, etc. Note that this started, however, with the "CONEX" system of containers, originally implemented for the latter half of the Korean War to handle supply needs to Korea and Japan. These were much smaller containers than the normal ones we know today, the standard ones that are 8 feet by 8 feet by 20 or 40 feet nominally. Instead these containers were around 6.25 feet by 6.75 feet by 8.5 feet, essentially sized as to conveniently fit into the bed area of most of the Army's small trucks already deployed. Facilities for these weren't directly usable for the modern container sizes, but a lot of the ships could end up adapted fairly easily, as could a lot of old tanker ships. The first commercial container shipping was developed in the mid-late 50s by a guy who originally had planned to have a competitive advantage in truck-based shipping by being able to load a whole bunch of trucks onto ships and send them down the coasts - though he quickly realized you'd waste a lot of space hauling all the parts of the truck that didn't hold the cargo. Using ideas applied from CONEX, he developed different sizes of containers and starting with the Port of New York and New Jersey at Newark, he started building fully dedicated container terminals in more and more places to have the most efficient use. Today, the facilities at Newark and adjacent locations is still one of the busiest. So essentially the Korean War operations were key for developing commercial cargo containers, but then those developed on their own for many years before the US needed to pick up major shipment activity for Vietnam again. Note of course that much of that Vietnam traffic was the smaller and older CONEX containers and not the developing commercial standards.
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Oct 20, 2017 00:36
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WampaLord posted:I have no idea what the word "globalization" means anymore, I guess. It's just a word coined as a name for the many many concurrent phenomena that are the result and/or cause of international "global" trade becoming more vital and national economies becoming mutually interlocked and interdependent. It refers to a huge swath of stuff. You are correct in saying that the interstate highway system was largely built domestically for domestic use. You are wrong that it has nothing to do with globalization because as it turns out just about everything made by that point has something to do with international trade. Turns out vague generalizing terms have super malleable definitions when you want them to!
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Oct 20, 2017 00:54
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Containerization really starts in the fifties with Malcolm Mclean and SeaLand.
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Oct 20, 2017 01:03
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WampaLord posted:The bulk of that debt is intragovernmental debt in the form of social security and t bills, money that the government owes itself essentially. Only a fraction of it is owned by foreign nations. So what does globalization mean? Someone in Galesburg, Illinois, drives to the Target across from the Sandburg Mall. This is where US-150 and US-34 meet. They are driving there right this moment, to buy a toaster. They could probably get one at Walmart, a mile or so away, but they have questions about the quality there. Target closes at 10, so they can't buy that 3 AM toaster they want, but they will pay a little extra to go to Target. On the way back, they will stop at Walmart to get some waffles, including the Pumpkin Spice waffles for their wife. We will let aside for a moment where the toaster comes from, where the gas in their car comes from, who owns the municipal bonds that paid for this road expansion. Lets just look at the "American company", Target, that he is driving too. Target is headquartered in the typical, friendly, comforting Middle American city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. But who owns Target? Luckily, the NASDAQ has this information: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tgt/institutional-holdings The largest holder of Target shares, holding about 11% of the shares, is State Street Bank, the investment bank that is responsible for the "Fearless Girl" statue, and is also so large that the G20 judged it "Too Large To Fail". State Street Corp administrates "11% of the world's financial assets, totalling 29 trillion dollars", which makes the 3 billion dollars that they own of Target a rather paltry amount of money overall. (I am not up on my financials: they manage that 29 trillion dollars but don't actually own it, apparently, their own value is the relatively small 243 billion dollars, meaning that Target makes up a considerable 1% of their portfolio. And while Target is an American company owned by an American company, who owns State Street? Before we look at that, lets look at the other Top 10 shareholders of Target, who together own 55% of Target. The other top 14 owners are: Blackrock, Vanguard, Franklin Resources, Dodge & Cox, Capital World Investors, Bank of America, Duetsch Bank, Invesco Ltd, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon Company, FMR LLC, Northern Trust, Norges Bank, Highfields Capital Management. Some of those names might be familiar, while others are anonymous mutual fund companies. Of those 15 companies, only three (Duetsch Bank, Invesco Ltd and Norges Bank (which is actually the government of Norway, more or less)) are not based in the US, as far as I know. But since almost all of these are investment banks and mutual fund companies, they themselves own the stock so they can pass the money on to investors in Mutual Fund. Which brings us back to who owns State Street Bank. http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/stt/institutional-holdings In the top 15 investors in State Street Group, we see: Vanguard, Blackrock, FMR LLC, Invesco, Bank of New York Mellon Corp. And if you open up Invesco, you will find: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ivz/institutional-holdings The same mixture of big American mutual fund companies, as well as a few other companies from outside of the US. (I know this is confusing, but that is kind of the point) So when I talk about Target as being a product of globalization, it makes sense. Whatever marginal profit comes from that toaster purchase, after overhead and salary and taxes and what not, goes into the balance sheets of big mutual fund holding companies, including, "Longview Partners", based in Guernsey. And the largest shareholder of Target is a company that the world's most powerful people got together and said was "Too Big To Fail". All of which means that Target, to create shareholder value for the mutual fund companies who own it, to create value back and back through investors until you reach the King of Norway, makes its policies about how it treats the local community, how it treats its employees, based on that. None of which is news. What my point is, the person who just bought that toaster and is now heading to Wal-Mart for those waffles, never thinks of Target as a symbol of globalization. Its just a small town store, that normal, "non-elite" people shop at. The changes that it makes to the local community are just obvious things that everyone wants. And if he is a conspiracy theorist, he can imagine an America that is Made Great Again, with all of the interferences of coastal elites taken away from the simple people of the heartland, but he can't imagine that means there won't be an identical antiseptic Target every 15 miles along the freeway.
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Oct 20, 2017 01:53
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glowing-fish posted:And that they would still be able to buy a toaster for 20 dollars at Target at 3 AM! target closes at 10
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Oct 20, 2017 02:38
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mandatory lesbian posted:target closes at 10 You are right, and 9 on Sundays. Walmart is open 24 hours.
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Oct 20, 2017 02:51
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glowing-fish posted:You are right, and 9 on Sundays. Not anymore.
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Oct 20, 2017 02:51
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Depends on the store.
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Oct 20, 2017 06:35
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I forgot where we were on Sears implosion news, but: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-sears-edward-lampert-loan-20171020-story.html It looks like they are trying to keep it floating through the Christmas holiday. Right now they still have two months or so. My guess is still that after January, the real retail bloodbath begins. 
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Oct 22, 2017 16:44
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glowing-fish posted:I forgot where we were on Sears implosion news, but: at my local mall there's always parking in the sears lot
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Oct 22, 2017 19:43
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Last week Target announced it's establishing its first Vermont store in 2018. The mall location was revealed but not the store location. The safe bet is the detached Party City store. My wildcard bet was the (currently still open) Sears store attached to the mall. I'm sticking to my wildcard bet.
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Oct 23, 2017 15:16
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I missed the part about the mall location being announced and thought it was funny that you apparently can say "it might be the Party City store, or the Sears" and anyone in the state would know what you mean.
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Oct 23, 2017 16:03
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our target is open until 11 
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Oct 24, 2017 15:27
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More bad news for Sears: http://time.com/4995060/sears-whirlpool-appliances/ They don't say what the conditions of sales were, but I imagine they might have been buying merchandise on credit without collateral.
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Oct 24, 2017 20:40
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maskenfreiheit posted:at my local mall there's always parking in the sears lot
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Oct 24, 2017 21:49
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http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/24/investing/chipotle-q3-earnings/index.html This is an interesting article because its the only article I've seen so far thats explicitly tied retail performance to Harvey and Irma. Can anyone in East Texas or Florida tell us what it looks like on the ground, like how long and how big was the disruption from the hurricanes?
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Oct 25, 2017 03:56
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East Texas: some places managed to stay open on reduced hours during the whole event, some were closed throughout and some got royally hosed. Some are still hosed to this day though most are back to normal-ish even if they may have some outstanding repairs to do. All of this only applies to urban/greater metro areas not  rural places.
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Oct 25, 2017 12:57
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Reading this constant ongoing argument has made me wonder what most here would call my hometown. Is this out in the middle of hot gently caress nowhere enough? Is it still super urban cause it has 19k people? What does glowing fish want to argue about real lake sizes!? Its tenth largest in the world bucko fucko, I doubt any thing you lived near comes close. Your hills is my lake booyah this is really dumb.
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Oct 26, 2017 11:26
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I have officially escaped (luxury) retail sales as of this week after so let me give you my own insight after years of managing stores: One thing that will do well in retail from now on are service based stores. poo poo where someone needs an expert to answer a dozen random questions really quickly and then fix, maintain, or clean something. The other thing that will do well is seasonally shifting home and clothing. Basically TJX companies. Those places are absolutely killing it because of the treasure hunting aspect, the lower prices, and fulfilling a direct want or need. Is it summer time? Here's a fuckin' tank top and outdoor furniture. Is it winter time? Here are some jackets and fireplace poker. Is it going to be a jacket from a brand that I like? Maybe! You better get your dumb rear end over there before some idiot with a football sticker on their truck buys your size
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Oct 26, 2017 14:06
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Playstation 4 posted:Reading this constant ongoing argument has made me wonder what most here would call my hometown. Canada defines rural as less than 150 people per sq km. Yellowknife has 142, so yes, it's rural.
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Oct 26, 2017 14:07
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:Canada defines rural as less than 150 people per sq km. Yellowknife has 142, so yes, it's rural. Technically not per square land km, though. I was not being entirely serious with that post.
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Oct 26, 2017 14:51
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Playstation 4 posted:Reading this constant ongoing argument has made me wonder what most here would call my hometown. Yellowknife is very isolated. I mean, that area kind of defines what it means to be isolated. But the thing with Yellowknife being rural is that like a lot of isolated places, you get this paradox that because people can't easily travel outside of where they are, you have more goods and services in that town. Yellowknife has things that most cities in the US or Canada of that size wouldn't have, because most people in cities of 19K wouldn't have, because they could just drive to the nearest urban hub. So in terms of retail, and also of education and medicine, Yellowknife is effectively a much larger city than most cities of under 20 thousand people. I would be really interested in visiting Yellowknife or Whitehorse.
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Oct 26, 2017 15:33
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:Canada defines rural as less than 150 people per sq km. Yellowknife has 142, so yes, it's rural. I mean, Yellowknife the municipality is like 16 square blocks of actual habitation and then 5 lightyears of empty forests and lake in every direction right?
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Oct 27, 2017 01:00
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fishmech posted:I mean, Yellowknife the municipality is like 16 square blocks of actual habitation and then 5 lightyears of empty forests and lake in every direction right? According to Google Maps, Yellowknife is two rectangles, each about 6 or 7 kilometers wide, about 50% of which is the city center and inhabited places and the other half of which is tundra. So the municipal definition of Yellowknife might be misleading. Yellowknife itself looks like a very unique town. Because it has like 10 story buildings in the center of town, which most cities of 19K don't have. But its about 1500 kilometers to the next largest city, Edmonton. Yellowknife is a pretty unique place.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:29
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glowing-fish posted:According to Google Maps, Yellowknife is two rectangles, each about 6 or 7 kilometers wide, about 50% of which is the city center and inhabited places and the other half of which is tundra. So the municipal definition of Yellowknife might be misleading. Yellowknife itself looks like a very unique town. Because it has like 10 story buildings in the center of town, which most cities of 19K don't have. But its about 1500 kilometers to the next largest city, Edmonton. Yellowknife has a weird placement because it essentially loops around Frame Lake as a centerpiece, and one side has the downtown and actual development, and the other has sprawl, a Walmart, Superstore, the Hospital and a bit further out, the airport. Kam Lake area is even more spartan and looks like a village of 100 on its own. Also, to correct a thing, Yellowknife is a taiga, not a tundra. We still have trees, though we lie in very close proximity to the treeline. In fact, you can drive to it on the small highway, H4, that heads north and cuts off at Tibbit Lake.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:38
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/jc-penney-slashes-2017-earnings-forecast.html JC Penney's attempts to restructure and have a sale off on old merchandise appear to be not working, or only working partially. Do we have a master list of all the big anchor mall retailers who are in trouble, and how much trouble? Because while Sears appears to be almost certainly gone, it looks like JC Penney might survive with some "restructuring" after the holiday season. I am pretty sure that there will be an acceleration of what has been happening in 2017 in 2018. What I am wondering about is how big the ripples and domino effect will be: because malls are in bad shape, and when the anchors close down, the other stores close down, the municipal tax base weakens, the unemployed retail workers have less money to spend... But right now, I don't know, because it could just mean that some malls and retail in smaller cities will close. But it could be large enough to have repercussions on the entire economy.
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Oct 27, 2017 16:00
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Wegman's should become an anchor.
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Oct 27, 2017 17:04
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Discendo Vox posted:Wegman's should become an anchor. High end grocers in malls is an interesting idea but it seems like it would undercut the importance of the food court.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:35
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HEY NONG MAN posted:High end grocers in malls is an interesting idea but it seems like it would undercut the importance of the food court. Yeah let me just tear into this box of oatmeal for a snack rather than use the food court.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:47
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fishmech posted:Yeah let me just tear into this box of oatmeal for a snack rather than use the food court. High end grocers tend to have very good cafe's/deli's/etc. Whole foods, for instance. My wife goes to Whole Foods for lunch pretty regularly.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:57
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Hahaha... But I dunno, high end groceries often already have a substantial prepared foods / deli type section and if you were to put one in a mall they would probably expand and emphasize that. Still, it's not like they are gonna interfere with food court business more than a restaurant and malls have plenty of those. And having a viable anchor is probably more important anyway. Alternatively you could just say gently caress it and make your anchor a Target or Walmart, like some malls already. At this point it's point it's impossible to argue that doing so is more detrimental to a mall's ~*~image~*~ than having a Sears.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:59
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Grocery and to some extent clothes are basically the only retail business models that have a competitive edge against the Internet anymore. On that end there is talk that Amazon will buy Nordstrom. Trying to buy clothes off Amazon is pretty whack experience right now so it makes a lot of sense.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:01
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Appliances & large pieces of furniture too(there's a reason JCP's shifting away from clothes and towards that stuff), but there's only so many stores that can sell them before that market gets saturated.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:05
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