17th January 2004, 1:33 AM
You sure can fling insults... Who says I don't have pride? I certainly do have pride in my nation for instance. However, I fail to see what some business failing has to do with pride. Why should I take offense that someone I never met and likely never will meet failed? They have nothing to do with me except for living in the same town. That's sheer coincidence, nothing to attach an emotion to. My TOWN has nothing going for it that I really should be proud of except being an American town, and that's just American pride right there. What's wrong with analysing and quantifying emotions anyway? 
:robot:
However, in all seriousness, the people at the Wal-Mart company worked hard to get where they are (and until I see a little more evidence than a refference to some news show without even a name, and if it's local I'll ignore it because local news is notoriously inaccurate at times) so why should I say "get out of here with your... stuff that I can afford and your... 20 ton drum of coolant for 99 cents"? Businesses come and go all the time. Any business in the same field as another is attempting right there to kill the other one. Even without big business, small businesses die all the time anyway. The cause? Same thing, some other business comes along with better prices or selection and the first doesn't get enough customers to survive. Sure I care peripherally about them finding a way to support themselves afterwards, but I'm not going to out and out blame the competition. That's how capitalism works. You ban big business, and little businesses, as I said, will die out just the same. They just all won't be loosing to the same company. The customers run the market. You need to realize that. Let me ask you this, when K-Mart declaired bankrupsy and everyone thought it was going to die out, did you feel the slightest bit of the caring you think I should feel? I bet you didn't. I bet you were even happy about it, because it was an "evil big business company getting what it deserved". If Wal-Mart really IS doing horrible inhuman stuff like illegal sweatshops and such, then as I said, I'd completely change my mind about them. Otherwise, leave them alone. They are doing a good job providing a wide selection at cheap enough prices.
As Weltall said, specialty shops seem to survive well enough because, within their specializations, they each provide a much wider selection than any super store.
:robot:However, in all seriousness, the people at the Wal-Mart company worked hard to get where they are (and until I see a little more evidence than a refference to some news show without even a name, and if it's local I'll ignore it because local news is notoriously inaccurate at times) so why should I say "get out of here with your... stuff that I can afford and your... 20 ton drum of coolant for 99 cents"? Businesses come and go all the time. Any business in the same field as another is attempting right there to kill the other one. Even without big business, small businesses die all the time anyway. The cause? Same thing, some other business comes along with better prices or selection and the first doesn't get enough customers to survive. Sure I care peripherally about them finding a way to support themselves afterwards, but I'm not going to out and out blame the competition. That's how capitalism works. You ban big business, and little businesses, as I said, will die out just the same. They just all won't be loosing to the same company. The customers run the market. You need to realize that. Let me ask you this, when K-Mart declaired bankrupsy and everyone thought it was going to die out, did you feel the slightest bit of the caring you think I should feel? I bet you didn't. I bet you were even happy about it, because it was an "evil big business company getting what it deserved". If Wal-Mart really IS doing horrible inhuman stuff like illegal sweatshops and such, then as I said, I'd completely change my mind about them. Otherwise, leave them alone. They are doing a good job providing a wide selection at cheap enough prices.
As Weltall said, specialty shops seem to survive well enough because, within their specializations, they each provide a much wider selection than any super store.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)