Is George W Bush a complete moron ?

[TheFaithfulStone]

12-16.00 wage minimum in various locations

 

Where is this place with a $12 - $16/hr minimum wage??!! Do the rest of the local wages scale up accordingly, cause I'm moving!

 

Yeah, yeah, at one time Walton had one store.

 

Here's a story. In 1960 most advertising agencies were small, independent businesses. The largest at the time was probably McCann - and although Hartman is not working right now, I suspect they're annualized billing was less than $1 billion dollars.

 

Today, forty years later there are four (that's 4) major advertising holding corporations and the independent shop is an increasingly rare breed. The picture of "success" in advertising is to get just big enough where a holding corp or major agency will buy you out, you retire to Bermuda, your local staff all gets canned, and the Big brings in a bunch of people from New York.

 

So, it isn't like there's an opportunity (or really even a desire) for Bob's Advertising to become a major industry player. Bob can make a living with his agency, but unless he sells, he won't ever be RICH.

 

I use the example because A) I'm familiar with it and :) It was one of the first sectors where it happened so quickly. The reason it did so is because all of your profit in a traditional agency comes from scale. If you can buy $48 billion in media at a time (WWP billings last year) then you're gonna get a heck of a lot bigger break than some tiny little company that can only buy $15 or $20,000.

 

There is still a market for one and two man shops in the ad world, just like there is still a market for mom and pop stores in retail - but it's a different kind of business now. Bob's advertising isn't going to land a $3 million dollar account, no matter how awesome their work is because they can't offer the media break that WPP can. Mom's Grocery isn't going to become your main grocery outlet (unless you'll vote against economic self interest) because they can't buy groceries at the same bulk rate that Wal-Mart does.

 

Mom and Pop have a niche - but it's a niche. If a market is saturated with huge corporations, there's not going to be any more huge corporations. That's the way monopolies (or at least corporate megastructures) work. You can have a IPG and a Publicis because they bought up agencies in different sectors. You can have a Wal-Mart and Target because of the same reason. They're eating from opposite ends of a VERY large hoagie.

 

But there is less and less of that hoagie left, and while there is always going to be a few crumbs to eat off of, that's all it is - crumbs. Monopolies shut out competition by virtue of their existence - not by anything particularly evil that they do. Just being around is enough to drive competition and innovation down within their sector.

 

Now, normally, you get around this by just calling up new sectors from the nether regions. If you're Google, you invent (or perfect to usability) online advertising, for example.

 

BUT - the really, really, real problem here is that the huge corporations now have the political clout to close off other markets. Witness internet radio. Traditional media outlets have all but shut it down, or relegated to "also ran" status by demanding "per listener" royalties from it. Oil companies and their hand-maiden the auto industry killed electric vehicles by convincing a single California pollution board that hydrogen fuel-cells were the way to go. Wal-Mart will do it, not by legislating that everyone shop at Wal-Mart, but by refusing to put a store anywhere that doesn't grant them enough economic stopping power to demolish any competitor that sets up shop near them. (If you don't give us a huge tax break, we won't build a store in your town, and then your town doesn't get the 2,000 jobs and the cheap goods, but Shelbyville does!)

 

TFS

[InfiniteNow]

Infinite; guess you know something i do not, since i am totally unaware of Bush blaming anyone else on any of his political problems. as a people, we do tend to follow our leaders.

 

Hence...

 

...you sugget that we're simply looking at things incorrectly.

<...>

Wake up.

[jackson33]

TFS; Wal Mart, claims their lowest pay per employee in the US depending on location, runs from 12 to 16.00 pending on location. in case your not aware, they and all box retailers have different retails in different stores on the same product.

 

Bob, or any person can do what it takes to become rich, or if you prefer take business from those giants. come up with a program or an idea which is at least different to the current. advertising is a complicated industry which a good deal of money is spent on never used material, in todays market. the corporations are interested in selling product/service and just as in many fields, productivity dictates the end receipts on an idea. you can see an adv. one time, generally in a test market or you can see one adv. near hourly on the national level. each in effect could have cost the same to produce and/or sell to a client. response usually done in groups taken off the street is the preferred first step, but if something bad slips the system, it must then pass the local, to regional and so on.

 

keep in mind today the advertisers have turned to the Internet for ideas and U Tube seems to lead the way. i understand a couple were featured in last years super bowl and many other ideas have been bought. those little Bob's are going to do quite well.

 

yes, one aspect to consider working for a corporation is the future of that company. i would say, however if your worth your weight in beans, any buy out will have your weight figured into the offer. many small companies are bought for the employees of that company, to begin with.

 

with what already written; NO, if you have an idea, hold the rights to the idea and can influence acceptance, no matter how large another entity is, they can no longer drown you out. frankly if you do have this, you are already GOING to be rich.

 

guess the long and short of my argument is business or service survives, thrives or dies on it product or ability to provide.

[Buffy]

Buffy; merger and acquisition activity, is at an unusually high level, but with a purpose. the fear is with a Democratic President and Congress this activity will be slowed or even stopped. add this to the current values of business (very high) and you have the perfect storm for getting out of, while the getting is good. to say nothing what future is seen by many including myself for the climate of business activity during an inflationary period.

Okay, first notice that my argument is that monopolies/oligopolies are detrimental to society. You don't address this issue at all in this response, so I can only assume that you don't believe that they are bad. Is that the case? Or is it that you deny that having only 2-3 entrants with 90% of all sales volume constitutes an oligopoly?

 

If its the former, you might want to defend the position: by omitting any response, your viewpoint would be another example of what people have been pointing out in this thread as a refusal to deal with important issues and dismiss them as mere "Liberal lies." Even the most liberal of the Democratic candidates solely oppose *anti-competitive* mergers, although it is useful rhetorically to take any support *at all* of anti-trust activity as being "they want to destroy all businesses!" Knowing many people who make a living off of M&A, I can assure you that except for SBC, no one is "rushing" any deals due to paranoia about a Democratic president. Deals are done to maximize immediate revenue and capital, 2009 is so far in the future as to be irrelevant.

 

If its the latter, I'd suggest you take a look at the economics literature on the topic. Small businesses succeed only in the short run unless they are incredibly disruptive and have intellectual property or channel ownership that can fend off attacks from competitors. It used to be that you could succeed just by working hard, and that's no longer the case. *Service* businesses are just about the *only* place that there is a lot of activity (my own company is an example), because you are not forced into living on the razor thin margins forced upon you if you are distributing anything from anyone else: the Internet has made that just about impossible. Service businesses are also principally geographically limited, and can be incredibly risky if the margins *do* get too big. I'm not saying at all that you can't succeed in this way, but its so fundamentally different today than it was 20 years ago because of the massive size of suppliers who can dictate prices, and the speed with which distribution businesses can move to snap up or destroy smaller competition. This has resulted in services being horrible compared to the "old days" where repeat business mattered.

 

The question comes down to, are nebulous influences of Liberal Values more to blame for service that sucks, or is it a direct consequence of unchecked elimination of competitive markets and disincentives to pay attention to long-term results?

 

Seems pretty obvious to me, but I hear that thick-enough rose-colored glasses can make sow's ears look pretty good.

 

Competition requires more than one person on the field,

Buffy

[TheFaithfulStone]

TFS; Wal Mart, claims their lowest pay per employee in the US depending on location, runs from 12 to 16.00 pending on location. in case your not aware, they and all box retailers have different retails in different stores on the same product.

 

I am 100% certain that that isn't true. Where are you getting your facts?

 

TFS

[jackson33]

Buffy; there are safeguards in our system to prevent, horizontal or vertical monopolies. as to what the public will accept, not only are there no safeguards, there is no way to stop this acceptance in a free market. WM/Sam's does play an ever increasing rolls in retail/wholesale consumer cost in this country and they have bought out many suppliers, where saving were enhanced to the customer.

 

my comments on M&A activity are from the investors viewpoint, which are held by market analyst, commentators and business heads around the world. i happen to agree and do try to buy into company stocks which fit this possible outcome. my interest are not condemnation of the Democratic or liberal philosophies, but you must admit your viewpoints make my concerns just a little more plausible. another point is business does look years into the future, out of necessity. a head of a company which can see the company trending will make an effort now if that trend is down to sell or be merged with a stronger partner. its just good business. the purchasing unit does look into the future for increased value or markets share of a product. i might add a good many business ventures begin with the idea of being purchased by larger like minded organization. you might like researching *storage units* and the history of thousands of little units in as many towns being bought out by three or four majors, which a few years back the largest was bought by GE.

 

Buffy, as a small business person my entire life i can tell you opportunity exist today and for the foreseeable future. any business venture is risky and understanding better where your coming from, think you understand the risk.

regardless of the service provided, there is something in that service, not being done by the competitor, possibly even by your's for the sake of cost. one friend of mine a few years back, in SLC, decided to package and ship which was highly competitive and decided to do the same thing, but only for high value, fragile or perishable products. he had all of that business in SLC, with in a years and did well. additionally he was bought out by Brown Express and living in the Caribbean, while his employees receive better pay and benefits from their new employer. what ever your service is, their is that one thought which could make that tight profit margin a memory.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by jackson

TFS; Wal Mart, claims their lowest pay per employee in the US depending on location, runs from 12 to 16.00 pending on location. in case your not aware, they and all box retailers have different retails in different stores on the same product.

 

My guess is selective ommision. I would not doubt the $12 figure IF that number only reflects full-time employees AND it also assigns a value to any benifits.

However, I would also be interested in the source of this information.

[Zythryn]

Nope, I must correct myself. The $12 minimum pay is not representative of full time workers. From the horses mouth, the average pay for a full time employee at Walmart is $10.11 (reference Bloomberg.com: Worldwide) as of August of last year. If $10.11 is the average, I wonder what the minimum is?

[jackson33]

TFS & Z; those figures were given by the CFO of WM on a CNBC program back when the company was under fire for insurance. i will try to find that program, but CNBC has the worst site for such a task. i use Yahoo for all my financial research, which will not have the statement.

 

i will also admit it seems rather high, but making it plausible is the knowledge Costco and Target claim a 15-16.00 over all average... 12.00 in 95% and a few on up to even one at 16.00 would also make the statement valid and commonly done in business conversation.

[Zythryn]

Actually, the same article I linked indicates "Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart pays full-time employees an average of $10.11 an hour, compared with $17 at Costco Wholesale Corp., the largest U.S. warehouse-club retailer."

Now, I understand low price is king at Walmart and paying low wages allows them to sell items at a lower price. However, there is little to support the idea that Walmart's pay is anything but sub-par.

 

PS - I agree whole-heartedly, CNBC's website is awful

[DougF]

My guess is selective ommision. I would not doubt the $12 figure IF that number only reflects full-time employees AND it also assigns a value to any benifits.

However, I would also be interested in the source of this information.

I found this site.

 

Wal-Mart Stores—Careers

 

Did you Know?

Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million associates worldwide in more than 3,900 stores in the US and more than 2,700 throughout the rest of the world.

76% of our store management started in hourly positions.

Our average hourly wage for regular full-time associates in the U.S. is $10.50 an hour, almost double the federal minimum wage.

Visit Walmartfacts.com

[jackson33]

just quickly googled the issue; The CFO must have been giving averages according to what i saw, at best and then for full time maybe for over a year of employment.

 

i did note, that Costco pays entry level full time at 10.50 with a Company wide average over 16.00..

 

Doug, has found one point of my original comment and that 76% of management came from the entry level employees which is EXTREMELY high for any business. all in all however, even noting a very high turn over rate, WM must be an acceptable employer, as they sure don't have a shortage of employee's in a 4.3% unemployed (low) enviorment...

[Buffy]

Buffy; there are safeguards in our system to prevent, horizontal or vertical monopolies.

Which are systematically being ignored by the current administration with very few exceptions. In fact most of those exceptions seem to be companies that are "not Republican enough" like last weeks block of the merger of natural foods retailers--"natural foods?" they gotta be tree huggers!) Whole Foods and Wild Oats. As the linked WSJ story says:

It’s an unusual move for the Bush adminstration; the WSJ cites a study showing that the administration rarely meets a merger it doesn’t like.

 

So again the question that you continue to belittle is are unconstrained monopolistic practices okay? Even the Bush Administration--when it feels like it--says the right thing (from same article):

Says Jeffrey Schmidt, director of the FTC’s bureau of competition: “If Whole Foods is allowed to devour Wild Oats, it will mean higher prices, reduced quality and fewer choices for consumers.”

You seem to think these detrimental effects on the market never ever happen, or that somehow its all okay if it does.

 

Sure, you can build a niche solutions with a start-up, and if you're smart enough you can be quite successful. But the capital available to buy or crush makes buy-out deals much more one-sided and therefore much less lucrative for the seller. In addition, that imbalance also makes it easier for the monopolist to not even bother with buying, its easier and cheaper to just crush, thus increasing the chance of failure in small-business and reducing the number of people with a beta high enough to risk starting one. What surprises me is that as a small business person, you don't see that unrestrained monopolistic and anti-competitive practices lowers the value you will be able to gain from your business. I guess if you prefer that the principle of eliminating government "interference" in markets is more important than the amount of money you will get for your small business if you're lucky enough to get bought out, then your position is justified.

 

But I guess that makes you a starry-eyed liberal!

 

The NFL should eliminate referees: the players should have unrestricted freedom to innovate,

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

The above sequence of posts makes clear how misinformation and skewed perceptions being shared as fact can quickly lead a prominent issue down a rathole of corrections and tangents. Look over there... A terradactyl!

[freeztar]

What were we discussing again?

I seem to remember something about Bush...

[jackson33]

Buffy; there is no way i am going to convince you Bush is not a moron, that his administration is as above board as most or that conservative/capitalist principles, in an economy are overall better than liberal/socialistic. nor will you convince me of the opposite. i will agree to disagree and with a final comments on the FTC and number of decisions...

 

Sirius Sat Radio and XM are probably going to both go broke, are not tree huger are also fighting FTC for a favorable ruling. Whole Foods and tree hugging or environment movements as SIRI/XMSR do not calculate. for the record however, if the final recommendation of either is negative, i would disagree with that decision.

 

i have no idea how many decisions one person can personally be responsible for during any one day or over an 8 year period. it seems to me everything deemed important and whats actually important are different things to different people, which make their opinion of the President, yes or no, that moronic figure. in no way have i agreed with Bush, Clinton Bush I, or the ten before these on everthing, but including Carter and Johnson I would never call the person who in their chosen field has climbed to the top, a moron...

[jackson33]

What were we discussing again?

I seem to remember something about Bush...

 

"we"??? checking back only to May 1st, your have made no contributions to this thread.

 

Infinite; Prominent issue...The president of the US is a complete moron. i might suggest we brought the subject up from that rat hole, at least for awhile...