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Ah yes, who doesn't love visiting Silver Dollar City and eating their world-famous crab sticks!
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May 8, 2018 21:50
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Why specifically baby formula and not regular powdered milk that's significantly cheaper? Or flour?
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May 17, 2018 16:05
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Company managed pension funds: A bad idea? Nah, there's no need to change anything.
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May 31, 2018 22:54
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Pretty sure watching boxing is better than actually boxing.
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Jul 8, 2018 22:48
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fishmech posted:Because banks tried to introduce that back about ~5 years ago and it didn't catch on. My banks for instance issued me new cards with the tap stuff added in that time frame and then both sent me replacements without it a few years later without explanation. Thanks to Apple Pay and Google Pay (which use the same technology as NFC cards, you can use your NFC cards wherever either are accepted as well as the other way around), soon it's going to be everywhere even in technologically impaired nations like the US.
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Aug 1, 2018 21:12
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baquerd posted:You say that, but whenever I've tried using Google pay at places that say they accept it but don't have the proper symbol displayed, it doesn't work. Their NFC is probably disabled, which seems to be pretty common in the US. Google Pay doesn't do anything special.
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Aug 1, 2018 23:21
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Fraud has become a pretty big problem with magstripes, as the past few years have shown. And I'm pretty sure a PIN is better than a signature as a safety measure. It's probably more of a question of whether people might use their card less if it has a PIN vs. the additional fraud. American banks obviously went for accepting more fraud.Foxfire_ posted:So consumers don't care Except getting your card swiped and disputing charges is really annoying. I'd rather have a more secure system. Lambert fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 07:19
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Foxfire_ posted:Yeah, less fraud + no customer liability would be better. But I'd take a system where I have to occasionally dispute a charge, but am never liable over one where there's rarely fraud but I'm on the hook for it if it does happen. I mean, considering how high transaction fees are in the US, everyone is paying quite a bit for this lack of security. I'd rather have a secure system and reasonable consumer protections.
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Aug 3, 2018 08:57
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Plenty of states have dealership laws that mean every sale has to go through a dealership. These are the result of lobbying efforts by local dealerships that don't want to lose their status as middlemen.
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Aug 11, 2018 17:09
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fishmech posted:This is not true. You can buy cars online all you want, there's no law against it. Pretty sure you're the one that is confused, manufacturers can't compete with their dealerships by selling directly to consumers.
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Aug 11, 2018 17:53
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DrNutt posted:Maybe one of you could post sources on direct sales restrictions because you can't both be right. Fischmech argued against "you can't buy cars online", he didn't argue against the fact there are restrictions against direct sales in many states. The latter is a fact that's easily verifiable. Lambert fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 11, 2018 |
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Aug 11, 2018 19:18
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fishmech posted:In America you can order a Ford online. Easy as hell. Let's settle on "the US has really dumb laws that amount to socialism, but for corporations" that make cars more expensive for consumers.
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Aug 11, 2018 20:32
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fishmech posted:No, because that isn't true here. Substitute "some states have" for "the US has".
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Aug 11, 2018 20:37
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fishmech posted:The entire premise is wrong: there is no inherent better price you'd get as the customer because the local car storage was owned by Ford directly. Adding more middlemen has never increased prices anywhere, I understand.
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Aug 11, 2018 20:48
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fishmech posted:This is what you aren't getting, companies have no obligation to give you any savings. Let alone the whole aspect of the dealers being that they take on a bunch of risks and costs that corporate doesn't need to worry about. Particularly in outlying areas. That I do understand. But better to let ~*~The Market~*~ decide on things organically instead of creating ridiculous laws based on lobbying by car dealerships.
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Aug 11, 2018 20:56
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fishmech posted:Is it though? Yes, it is.
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Aug 11, 2018 21:04
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Also, without a debit card or checking account you can't make any purchases online or pay some utilities like internet/cable. It's not really equivalent to a check cashing place. The EU forces banks to offer a cheap "basic" bank account that includes a debit card to everyone. Which seems like a better way to solve this problem than check cashing places.
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Aug 22, 2018 14:37
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gaj70 posted:IDK. In this case, I'd probably define it as "better for the poor person." It's absolutely better for society (and even for capitalism to work like it's supposed to) to have the poor be banked. Lambert fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Aug 23, 2018 |
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Aug 23, 2018 08:18
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But you didn't have to pay the employee real money, either. So instead of paying the employee's salary & for the banana, you're just paying for the banana.
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Aug 24, 2018 21:51
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FCKGW posted:Walmart is also buying up all the niche online sites and will be #2 pretty soon. Right now they own Walmart.com, Jet.com, Hayneedle, Shoes.com, Modcloth.com, Bonobos and Moosejaw. It's even less if you count all sales everywhere and of anything in the whole world.
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Sep 6, 2018 22:25
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Amazon is apparently strong arming PC component manufacturers (graphics cards, power supplies, ...) into not increasing their prices due to the Trump tariffs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xO3NmReW8&t=222s
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Sep 7, 2018 13:33
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Oh no, now he only has 1.5 billion left.
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Oct 10, 2018 17:53
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Amazon is about 5% of the retail market. And it's even less if you include all goods sold everywhere. But maybe they're a much more crushing force if you look at their actual market, online retail. But I don't think there's much appetite for anti-trust action in the US, even considering Trump's current attempts at doing something.
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Oct 16, 2018 06:01
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It's okay, Jeff. They're not going to break up your company.
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Oct 18, 2018 14:38
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Cicero posted:Actually they're not and are not even close to a monopoly. Every time this comes up, it gets explained why it's wrong, and then a few pages later D&D forgets that discussion and reverts back to "Amazon monopoly yes" Except it doesn't get explained why it's wrong. They absolutely are dominant and they are using their leverage.
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Nov 9, 2018 13:59
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Maera Sior posted:Please tell me this is available online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8cqk0uIuso
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Nov 9, 2018 14:01
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Cicero posted:Yes it does. For example: They pretty much have 50% market share in online retail. hth. Also, monopolistic behavior doesn't hinge on "exactly 50% market share in some randomly defined overarching segment".
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Nov 9, 2018 14:19
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Cicero posted:Siloing by sales channel is irrelevant since people are still buying the same poo poo via a different channel. Their retail market share is 5%, that's not a monopoly, or even close to it. They are online retail, differentiating by sales channels absolutely makes sense and absolutely is part of considering what constitutes monopolistic behavior. Cicero posted:No, but IIRC that's generally been the minimum legal threshold to be considered a monopoly by the courts (although yes there are other factors too). The definition US courts use doesn't matter at all. In a similar vein, Wal Mart very likely is a local monopoly in quite a few parts of the US. Lambert fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 14:31
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Cicero posted:They're that and B&M retail, but nevertheless siloing by sales channel is meaningless. Nobody looks at "online car sales" vs "dealership car sales" to determine if some company has a monopoly by sales channel. Nobody gets mad at QVC for dominating TV retail sales. But people do get mad at companies for having local monopolies as well as online monopolies. It's just that TV retail sales don't matter, that's why nobody cares about their monopoly. It doesn't hurt consumers in any meaningful way. Cicero posted:Okay cool, so the superior definition you use comes from...where, exactly? And what even is it? What makes a company a monopoly? Do you have anything that's not vague and wishy-washy as all hell? The US legal system isn't the arbiter of truth. And the question is whether they are big and dominant enough to engage in monopolistic behavior, which Amazon most certainly is. Cicero posted:Yeah, that's probably true as far as B&M sales, but they're definitely not a monopoly for the retail sector as a whole, and at least these days people have other options even in little podunk towns. Like, for example, online retail, because people -- and suppliers -- aren't constrained by channel. I don't know why you're griping about abstract definitions of monopolies so much when that's not even the relevant question. In terms of grocery shopping, online isn't really a viable option in small towns. Either no one will deliver groceries, or the delivery costs are too high.
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Nov 9, 2018 14:38
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Oh, and they're probably not using their market power to hurt the consumer directly, at least I'm not seeing any evidence of this. So we're in agreement there. But they are certainly using their extremely dominant position in online retail to squeeze suppliers to a large degree.
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Nov 9, 2018 14:46
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Cicero posted:As I already pointed out, squeezing suppliers is not inherently monopolistic behavior. All retail companies try to get low prices from their suppliers for obvious reasons, as you get bigger this gets easier, but in and of itself it doesn't indicate a monopoly. But if you are dominant, it does become monopolistic behavior at some point (see: Ebooks). For some reason you seem to think monopolies exist only in relation to end consumers of products.
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Nov 9, 2018 14:49
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Cicero posted:So we know they're a monopoly & dominant because they're squeezing suppliers, and squeezing suppliers means they're a monopoly because of how dominant they are. Truly, circular reasoning is best reasoning. Their market share in online retail.
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Nov 9, 2018 14:53
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Cicero posted:An example of abusing market power w/r/t suppliers would be, say, forcing them to sign agreements saying that they can't sell to other competitors, or they can't sell to other competitors for as low a price as they give you. They absolutely did the latter with sellers on their platform and got slapped down for it in Germany, for example. Sellers weren't allowed to offer better prices than they were offering on Amazon on their own sites.
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Nov 9, 2018 16:23
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Cicero posted:I don't think that's the same thing as saying they must offer lower prices on Amazon than other places, they could give each place the same price. As far as I know, it is in the EU. It's also why travel portals can't force hotels in the EU to offer the their best prices through them. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The Obama DOL found that ~40% of wage theft cases came from family-owned or independent retail and food businesses. Even though they represent only 12% of the jobs in those sectors. If only laws could be passed to better protect workers against wage theft.
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Nov 9, 2018 19:29
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:There are. There aren't in my opinion, otherwise wage theft wouldn't be so common. Much more could be done. And I didn't mean to disagree with your premise, plenty of small businesses are lovely places to work at.
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Nov 9, 2018 20:02
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:There are already pretty broad wage theft laws on the books. It is just difficult to enforce them, because they rely on people reporting them. Lots of people think "Well, it was just an hour or so and I don't want to lose this job." Other than auditing every business in America by having someone come and monitor shifts, there isn't a way to 100% enforce it. So why do other countries not have such severe problems with wage theft? Or are you saying that worker protection laws would need to be much stronger.
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Nov 9, 2018 20:21
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So there's nothing to be done, even though some European countries have more effective laws? I love right-wingers like you - everything is bad, but because somewhere else is just as ineffective at handling the problem, there's no possible solution to the problem. Lambert fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Nov 9, 2018 |
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Nov 9, 2018 21:03
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lol
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Nov 9, 2018 21:10
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But it's obviously a problem of enforcement being fraught with too many uncertainties. It's very likely not about the "penalty for wage theft", but about the ease of access to the court system and lack of worker protections making it easy to harass an employee that actually tries to get what's theirs. Having independent government-funded bodies that are able to assist workers in these cases would be a start, for example. And better worker protections, so they can't be fired for complaining about not getting lunch breaks. And much heavier fines for employers. And giving independent bodies the ability to sue.
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Nov 9, 2018 21:23
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And if you compare it to the GDP of the US, Amazon is even less of that. So if you think about it, they don't have a dominant position anywhere. Online retail? Totally irrelevant and not it's own thing at all.
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Nov 10, 2018 12:25
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