[Cialug] OT: Deep packet inspection meets 'Net neutrality, CALEA

[Jeff Davis]

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Brandon Griffis wrote:
> If you want to blame government.  
I wasn't blaming government.
I was stating that I'd prefer minimal regulation.
Governments have a terrible record of trying to manage resources.

> I don't think of Walmart as an evil entity.  As you said, it's a
> business with shareholders whose purpose is to make money.  However,
> most corporations have fallen into the method of doing whatever is
> necessary to show a substantial growth over the short term.  That's what
> sells shares.  That's why companies have massive layoffs when in 3-4
> years it will damage the business.  Because in 6 months it will look
> really good in the stock report.
It's a private entity.
If they run it poorly and it goes out of business, so be it.
(Except when they lobby congress for a bailout and use my $$ for it.)


> The trend for the sub 5k towns has been that Walmart will come in. 
> Eliminate all other business while making money off subsidies.  Then,
> with competition eliminated, will jack up prices to keep making money. 
> With so many other jobs lost the town sees an economic decline over the
> next few years and a mass exodus.  Then after 10-12 years the Walmart
> closes, abandoning the few that remain in a now relative ghost town.  In
> the process they've made a ton of money.  So in the case of sub 5k towns
> it IS in Walmart's interest to destroy the town, because they can make
> more money faster this way.  (Nowata, OK)

This article by the person you cited:
http://www.seta.iastate.edu/retail/publications/10_yr_study.pdf
states that unless you are selling items in direct competition with
walmart, business generally went up in the towns were walmart opened.
(Not really a surprise though.)

It also state that rural towns have been losing local retail business
since Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck started their mail order businesses.

I believe it is somewhat disingenuous to note the Nowata OK case, without
including that walmart closed the store after 12 years, because
they opened a supercenter 30 miles away.

I grew up in a town of about 4k people.  So in my opinion sub 5k is
pretty much a ghost town at the word go. There is typically few local
businesses in any given town of that size.  Driving 30 miles to some
other town was normal course of business for everyone I knew.


> As for the town giving subsidies.  It becomes a choice of being
> destroyed in 10-12 years when the Walmart has sucked the town dry, or of
> being destroyed in 1-2 years by Walmart opening a store in the next town
> over.  Kenneth Stone (econ professor IAState) has several papers on the
> sort term vs long term economic effects of Walmart on sub 5k towns.  (no
> I didn't go to IAState, nor have I ever personally met Kenneth Stone -
> in case anyone thinks it matters).
I don't know Kenneth Stone either, nor have I attended IA State.
(No offense to Mr. Stone, but I prefer to study the writings
 of Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams when it comes to economics.)

(We should probably discontinue this conversation as it bears no relation to linux.)

- -Jeff
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