Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Aww I'm a little disappointed, that's not what I think of when I think "libertarian management style", it sounds highly structured and rigid if inane. A libertarian management style is like, a hilariously well-spun way of saying a manager doesn't give a gently caress what happens if they even show up at all, which obviously would be funny coming from the CEO.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 18:11

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:57

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

OwlFancier posted:

Libertarian management in that he seems convinced that turning the company's internal management into galt's gulch is the way to improve productivity.

Yeah I mean, I Get It, it's just a waste of the moniker in my eyes. "Our laid back libertarian management style ensures we'll never get in your way", ie, we don't do poo poo good luck.

Instead it's "oh let's have all the overhead of being a big company but none of the corresponding benefits of collaboration".

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 18:29

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Is it that hard to figure out your walmarts were different? Come on guys it's okay.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 05:07

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

karlor posted:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...m=.b6f08fa837f9

While this thread is for big box stores in general, I only ever see stories like this about Walmart. While we've known for a while that Walmart effectively relies on taxpayers to subsidize their under-payed employees through food stamps, they've started applying that strategy to security. As in, not paying for adequate security and letting the local cops take care of it.

I'm not sure this characterization is fair - isn't there another lens where it's walmart subsidizing the government's care of its employees? Surely without walmart the government would only have to (or at least ought to) pay more to care for them. Sure, we can ask walmart to take on more of the burden, since they certainly benefit, but it seems more like walmart subsidizing food stamps in exchange for work than the other way around.

What security ought walmart provide? Should every business provide its own security? Local police have an incentive to investigate crimes in their jurisdiction because often the same people will commit crimes in multiple places - walmart could never find that. If walmart is actually paying to divert police to guard their stores in lieu of their other duties, that's super sketchy, but I don't think they need to go above and beyond - if the local walmart is the main place where crime is occurring, the local police should be there.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:07

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

OwlFancier posted:

It's the government subsidizing the company because the way companies work (supposedly) is that they find a way to make the labour of an individual profitable while paying that individual well enough for them to be able to provide their labour.

If they require government assistance they aren't being paid well enough to provide their labour, and if the company cannot afford to increase their wages then the company is not viable. It's being propped up by the state.

What does that mean though? "Paid well enough to provide their labor" is murky - who decided that? If walmart didn't pay, say, 70% of their living expenses, doesn't the bill get passed on to the taxpayer? You can argue that it is unethical to incentivize people to trade labor at such a low rate, and it's better for the government to pay so they don't have to work those hours, but that's an argument with a very different character than the one you're making. Every dollar that walmart pays out is a dollar that the government can use for something else - in a vacuum, isn't that good?

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:34

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

OwlFancier posted:

In theory, if the government withdrew their subsidy then *~market forces~* would necessitate wal-mart pulling their weight or sinking and a better competitor stepping in. In practice you'd probably just lose some jobs as the company would just stop using human labour for as many things as they do because it would no longer be as cheap.

I'm skeptical here - people working at Walmart are price takers. I think that, without government "subsidy", they'd keep working at Walmart and just suffer more. If it's their only lifeline left, what choice do they have? I don't think the government removing its subsidy and letting people starve is on the table - to me the main choices right now are the government pays X, or Walmart pays Y and the government pays X-Y.

quote:

At best, government wage subsidy is propping up exploitation because the state doesn't have the fortitude to tackle the problem of dwindling employment at the source, at worst it's direct funneling of taxpayer money into the private sector. In neither case is it really a good option.

Absolutely agreed that the real issue is dwindling demand for labor - I'm guessing that will remain a huge issue for the remainder of the century.

I don't see how it's funneling government money into the private sector - it's more like the government selling excess labor into the private sector. They get a discount on the support they have to provide. Walmart gets employees. Your argument seems predicated on the fact that Walmart would be forced to pay more if the government didn't subsidize them and I just don't see it. If anything the government removing support would let them pay less, as walking and living off of welfare/food stamps is no longer an option.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 18:43

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

The showroom is every big box store, and the warehouse is amazon.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2016 18:49

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Yeah same except the great lakes are still nowhere, sorry.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2016 03:55

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

It's rural vs urban really what makes that distinction though? Big box retail seems much more popular in suburbs then it is in in huge cities. Sure, big box stores exist in NYC, but most folks are going to go to their neighborhood grocer instead. The population is big enough to support all sorts of specialty stores that do one thing really well, so you don't have to go to a regressed-to-the-mean all-in-one supercenter for (cream puffs, pencils, cookbooks, etc).

# ¿ Dec 18, 2016 16:17

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

fishmech posted:

Well the thing is before computers, you'd easily be doing the total store count once a week instead of once a year, and the high error stock might be getting checked daily. It adds up to a lot more work.

Because without barcodes and computers in the register, you wouldn't have an ongoing tracking of products as they sell. Cashier wasn't carefully noting down each item as they sold them.

Right - even if you still have to manually look for discrepancies, the common case of "person buys item A and stock of A goes down by 1" is handled by the computer.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 16:30

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

LeoMarr posted:

So I saw Amazon now offers 1 day shipping to prime members. Are we going to see a further downturn of retail as we know it with other providerbeing forced to mimic the same behavior

They also have same day delivery in some markets, though when I tried it they delivered 24 cans of dog food instead of the cable I ordered.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2017 17:43

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

PT6A posted:

So, I was shopping for a TV today and I want it ASAP because I'm a useless, impatient manchild. How many places do you think had the TV I wanted (or a similar model at a similar price) in stock, anywhere in the city/province, and indicated so on their website?

0.

loving none.

If I'm going to order something and wait, of course I'm going with Amazon. I probably would've paid another $200-300 to have my TV by Friday, but nope! Is there something I'm missing? How can you compete with online stores when you steadfastly refuse to stock things?

I had a similar experience. Best Buy had the TV, and I was willing to pay the $200 extra it cost there to have it that day, but they made it as hard as possible. It was too big to fit in my car for sure, but they had no way to get it to me other than that. They offered vaguely to find something that would bring it to me in a few days for another $100 or so, completely missing the point. Maybe it's entitled of me to expect delivery but like, a furniture store will deliver a couch if you buy a couch, why can't they? I bought it on amazon with free shipping and had the thing in 3 days for way cheaper, including tip for the guy who delivered it.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 15:44

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

I think its a b�te noire.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2017 07:30

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Amazon offers a lot of services that aren't even really retail adjacent, like cloud computing and imdb and whatnot. I'm curious what the numbers would look like if they only took revenue and employees that are part of the online storefront.

I knew costco paid well, I guess that partially explains how they're able to do that.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 19:44

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

OneEightHundred posted:

Bebe has gone bye-bye, 168 stores to close.

The "how" is more a matter of will than anything. Wal-Mart can afford to pay their employees more, and Costco can get away with paying their employees less. Costco's been under constant pressure from Wall Street to cut their employee pay and have repeatedly refused.

Speaking of warehouse clubs, apparently Amazon may be looking at buying BJ's, which could create the ultimate retail doomsday device.

Right I said able, not willing. You have to be able *and* willing to pay more in order for it to happen.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2017 02:18

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Cicero posted:

Looks pretty inoffensive except for that inner courtyard, ugh what happened. Looks totally phoned-in.

Yeah I dunno about San Diego but LA has actually been quite good about building out their rail system lately, it's just that they have a lot of catching up to do.

San Diego ain't doing poo poo - LA puts them to shame at this point.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 16:17

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

eyebeem posted:

San Diego has two massive projects right now that are a mix of highway, light rail, medium rail, and trolly lines from University up to Carlsbad.

Mid-coast and north-coast corridor

Los Angeles has been able to afford the massive jobs in progress because of Measure R.

(I worked on 3 of the large LA Metro jobs being constructed right now, and one of the large San Diego jobs)

Okay I'm wrong then! Guess they picked up the slack in the last couple years - last I saw the plan was like, "do something by 2035".

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 16:32

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

eyebeem posted:

The big problem is that SANDAG and Caltrans basically blew their San Diego budget for two years to fund these jobs, and it's completely stalled infrastructure spending elsewhere in the county. I work in civil construction (obviously) and we have seen a massive reduction in projects because of it.

Mid Coast :

http://www.sandag.org/uploads/projectid/projectid_250_16887.jpg

Still not quite walkable from where I used to live, but a nice looking improvement for sure.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2017 17:08

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

"Hipster" will only be discontinued once portlandia stops airing.

# ¿ May 2, 2017 20:17

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

ReidRansom posted:

Go price a yacht

Like, just watch that accompanying video and tell me you don't lust for the crew to rise up and keelhaul the owners.

I would like one of these.

# ¿ May 2, 2017 21:10

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

BrandorKP posted:

You can buy a containership for that much money.

You seem to be correct....noted.

# ¿ May 2, 2017 21:19

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Amazon doesn't do any of the crazy perks that google does which buys the latter a lot of good will for not very much money/employee. They still want crazy hours out of people.

No idea how they treat their warehouse employees compared to amazon though.

# ¿ May 18, 2017 23:29

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

axeil posted:

Well Amazon kills them from heat exhaustion and doesn't give them breaks so it's not a real high bar to clear.

Yeah I mean, that's why I brought it up. Google's are obviously less...prominent but I'm not gonna assume anything about them.

# ¿ May 18, 2017 23:42

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

I like going into stores, holding things, and then buying them

You can still do this and save money at amazon and hell, maybe they'll same-day ship it!

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 00:06

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

I'm pretty sure they mean walmart's website and not the store.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2017 21:33

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:57

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

I don't think it really matters if he's using the textbook definition, the point is that you need different terms to describe such areas, and he picked some. If you think which words are used is important, suggest your own method of differentiating the two things.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2017 18:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union