Arkansas was ground zero
 

I'd be interested in seeing that on a global scale.

Pure evil spreads quickly. :sniff:

WOW! China has us by the short hairs. Guess I'll have to move to Nevada - looks like only 3 0r 4 stores in the entire state.:eek:

That's just to match the 3 or 4 people outside of Vegas. If you move there, that'll make it 5 and they'll have to open a new one.

ARRGH! It's like watching the nationwide spread of a deadly infectious disease!

Oh wait...

Prosperity and innovation is contagious. Thankfully.

The Chinese are very thankful.

Yeah, nothing like playing by two sets of rules. Seems like the free market is losing to our communist friends. But you be thankful all you want. Its a free country. The US, I mean.:rolleyes:

It isn't about "winning," with free trade both sides of the trade benefit. I can attempt to explain the "miracle of free trade" but the short story "The Choice: A fable of free trade and protectionism" by Russell Roberts does it better than I can.

Personally I think that exposure to free trade has done more to "defeat" Communism than any war ever would. China has of their own will opened large free trade areas and will undoubtedly expand these areas due to their prosperity. Young Chinese will gain experience and familiarity with free trade, and the move away from Communism will begin.

What would you prefer? Expending more resources than we have to for basic commodities, for the benefit of lowering the standard of living for the Chinese? :eyebrow:

Maybe the cost of oil will make shipping from China so prohibitive, that to stay competitive Walmart will start looking for more local sources?

Or the quality of living will raise enough in China so that labor isn't as inexpensive as before.
"Labor Shortage in China May Lead to Trade Shift"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/bu...=1&oref=slogin
"China is no longer the lowest-cost producer."

That was a little more than two years ago. Those searching for cheap labor will just move on and unintentionally raise some more 3rd world countries’ standard of living. If you want to be US-centric think of it as USA forging ahead… and dragging everyone else with us.

Phage, there are people in this country that find the idea of prosperity for everyone abhorrent.

Arkansas Was Gorund Zero ??

Dude Dont you know Arkansas Is the center of the Universe !!!!!

I'd like to see this data overlaid with population density data. Who has too many?

There are also people that feel closing thousands of businesses, and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, for the purpose of concentrating wealth in a few hands, is abhorrent, and certainly not "prosperity for everyone".

:lol2:

Yay, Ridgecrest is finally on the map for something!!

Bravo!

I appreciate your business. By the way, I'm not bad. I'm actually kind of nice when you get to know me.

Exactly! Since Chinese laborers are relatively unskilled when compared to the US it is advantageous to hire more workers instead of trying to make them more productive. While a single US worker might be able to produce 10 units of goods with the help of automation, ten Chinese workers would be able to produce 10 units of goods manually for less cost. Now there are ten people employed as opposed to one, and the one left unemployed has much better opportunities and safety nets than the other ten.

Protectionism is just that; denying a good deal and people their livelihood for the sake of keeping wealth within a privileged group. Besides being somewhat mean-spirited it does not result in overall gain.

That's make you the devil's advocate? :lol:

Yup, that's walmart.

One of the reasons I loved Leicester was because it still had a vibrant city centre. Even while I lived there however, more and more retail was focussed on out of town shopping parks. Including - and especially - the Big Four supermarkets, one of which is Asda (a division of Walmart).

One of the reasons I now love Greenwich is because there isn't an awful ot of land available for this sort of thing. It's London, space is at a premium and even though I have a big Sainsbury's and a big Asda within walking distance, they are nowhere near the category-killer size of those in Leicester.

And there are so many small independent places still thriving in the urban centre. Given that this is a tourist destination there are a few more places selling ships and telescopes rather than speciality cheeses and freshly ground coffee. But the market makes up for that. And I am ?15? minutes from the London markets anyway.

I understand that Government control might be unpalateable when it comes to success and achievement. But in this country at least, most of those in the corridors of power haven't been to a big supermarket in years. Some safeguarding of the specialist and independent retailer is surely reasonable. Otherwise we end up with a situation where the hoi polloi queue for their sliced white bread, while the ruling classes get their hand baked ciabatta delivered along with the brown envolope of money that ensure the next supermarket is built on greenbelt land.

Following on the IoTD castle image debate - I believe some safeguarding is necessary to make life better across the board. I know there's a fine line, but might is right and dog eat dog will surely end up in unpleasantness somewhere in the near future.

All your base belong to us.

:thepain:
I wish I could say that I never shop at Wal-Mart, but around here there are few choices.

My workplace is in a suburb that as far as I can tell, started out as kind of a quaint small town, but has long been overrun by strip malls, a huge enclosed mall, random big-box stores, and various scattered chain stores and restaurants. So when we saw a Super Wal-Mart going up nearby, I couldn't understand why some of my co-workers were so excited about it.

What is the allure, besides the cheap prices? A lot of the surrounding chains are discount stores, too--its presence in that area just seems so redundant to me. It opened next to a Sam's Club, for christ's sake.

Walmart wants to save that quaint little town by driving all those other stores out. Then they'll close that store and everyone will have no choice but to drive a few miles to the next one. :(