OT: Great Wal-mart story!

Oh, yea...I remember. That didn't work out so well, did it?

On 3 Aug 2006 18:54:38 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, jim rozen quickly quoth:

Weigh the cost of the ammo, the guns to shoot them, and the ecological damage from all the metal in the slugs, Jim.

Clubs are far cheaper and easier. China keeps it simple.

P.S: Isn't "humane execution" an oxymoron? Feh!

-- I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others. -- Jennifer Louden

Simpler explanation is that they left the ultrasonic burglar alarm on "standby" during the day, rather than turning it off. Many people (myself included) can sense a 26 KHz ultrasonic tone, if it's loud enough, although it's perceived as a pressure rather than heard as a sound.

I used this trick to set the atmosphere in a Holloween Party in the late

Joe Gwinn

The US is hardly a paragon of free (or fair) trade. Ask Candaian timber suppliers, non- US steelmakers (including their good buddies the Australians who are fighting in Iraq for US interests) and New Zealand and Australian sheep meat exporters. Not to mention how Australia has been reamed by the "free trade" agreement with the US. All of these groups have been screwed by the US trade interests, and in the case of the sheep and steel, illegal trade barriers. The US only follows the WTO rulings if it is in their interest. Fairness has nothing to do with it. Not as bad as the EU though. Geoff

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:14:36 GMT, Geoff M wrote:

============= A major portion of the problem is the erosion of meaning of the terms used, where they have become largely slogans, code words, and catch phrases.

"Free Market" and "Capitalism" are separate and largely antagonistic concepts. Indeed, Adam Smith observed that one of the first things that occur in a "free market" is the successful capitalists will attempt to combine to prevent its operation by limiting competition and preventing new entrants into "their" economic sector.

One of the fundamental factors of "Capitalism" is the "cost of capital." While this is a truism, observe that in all the countries of the so-called free world, indeed all countries, the "cost of capital" is not set by transparent operation of the markets, despite all the cant, rhetoric and hoopla, but rather by tiny groups of largely anonymous individuals meeting in secret conclaves.

The national viability of any particular economic segment and the prosperity of its investors, suppliers, employees, etc. is no longer is determined by the classical free market factors of price, quality, availability, reputation and customer preference.

Because of an incredibly complex direct and indirect web of tax abatements, exemptions, deductions, subsidy of component costs such as labor and fuel, and cost externalization [shifting of legitimate business expenses to the general public and others such as toxic dumping, unreasonably dangerous equipment, processes and products, and employee training] IT IS NOW IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE TRUE COST OF ANY TWO SIMILAR PRODUCTS TO MAKE A MEANINGFUL COST COMPARISON. It is even more difficult when the products are not directly comparable, but you are attempting to evaluate different solutions requiring dissimilar products to a problem or need.

A more insidious and ultimately dangerous situation in the long term is that the so-called "trade negotiations," like the setting of interest rate, are conducted by tiny groups of largely anonymous individuals, meeting in secret conclaves. As would be expected, based on 10,000 years of history, the decisions reached are seldom, if ever, in the interests of the nation as a whole, but favor special interest groups and individuals with access, and thus the ability to supply selected/culled data. One example of the extremely dangerous consequential affects of this procedure is the "Banana wars" that resulted when a rogue corporation called Chiquita Brands was able to obtain governmental backing to force the EEC to accept their Bananas, despite the fact that almost no bananas are produced within the United States. Chiquita Brands is the successor to an earlier criminal corporation called "United Fruit" that toppled the elected government of Guatemala, resulting in 50 years of bloody oppression, which continues to this day, because that government had the audacity to attempt to impose taxes and controls on their operations with in the country. The later effort by Chiquita Brands to mussel their way into the EEC banana market were successful, but because there was limited demand for bananas, killed the banana exports for several other countries in Central America and Africa. The Central American countries were able to shift to other cash crops such as Coca/cocaine and Marijuana, which they could profitably process and export to the United States, but the African countries have been unable to find alternative crops, economically collapsed and simply started exporting some their people to Europe, while the rest became involved with Islamic fundamentalism. FWIW -- even after Chiquita Brands used the US government "knee knockers" to get access to the EEC banana market, they still went bankrupt. Grace of the "Grace Commission" that advised the American government on how it could/should improve its operations was connected to both United Fruit and Chiquita Brands.

International trade has been a wonderful thing for the tiny minority that makes the rules, and thus the profits, at least in the short run.

Unka George (George McDuffee)

...and at the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear: ?A Fool lies here, who tried to hustle the East.?

Rudyard Kipling The Naulahka, ch. 5, heading (1892).

I saw this post over in alt.home.repair. It's about Home Depot, not Wal-Mart, but I think the point holds true in both cases. I didn't write it, but I wish I did:

-Frank