Boutiques and Haberdasheries
The Law of One Price
If a business were to charge its customers different prices based on how much she liked this or that customer, or based on how much wealth that person had, that would be considered price discrimination, which is against the law. To arbitrarily raise the cost of Wal-Mart doing business in your town is the same sort of thing, here comes someone you don't like and a small, vocal, organized interest group decides that they're going to discriminate against Wal-Mart and raise their labor costs by 50%.
It'd be amusing if it weren't so repugnant how people who wouldn't dream of setting foot in a Wal-Mart are the ones demonstrating outside (lots of leisure, these types have). If only they'd just build a WholeFoods in poor neighborhoods or better yet get a farmer's market. Nevermind that hundreds of people will be applying to that WalMart and that it will be employing people without other prospects. We can wish poor people would have the kinds of skills the public school system failed to give them, but they don't, and so the option for them isn't between meaningful and fulfilling work making $15/hr + benefits at a Wholefoods that serves a wealthy clientele who can afford the higher prices, its between $8/hr greeting customers at Wal-Mart or hustling on the street. People will do what they have to to survive, and for upper-crust urbanites to flex their muscle in order to save the small businesses which DO NOT EXIST IN POOR NEIGHBORHOODS ANYWAY is a romantic crusade of infinite stupidity. Don't worry hipsters, your overpriced boutiques and habadasherys aren't going away because a Wal-Mart moved into town. The worst that is going to happen is that poor people are going to have a place to work and buy food at decent prices for a change.
How to Destroy a City in 5 Easy Steps
The top 10 poorest cities in America are all run by democrat mayors.
1. Make it costly to do business
2. Work on the assumption that government jobs are natively superior to private sector jobs, and create government jobs that pay better than private sector jobs. Unions can help at this.
3. Increase the regulatory burden on business to create more bureaucratic paper-pusher jobs
4. Give special privileges and immunities to interest groups in the name of compassion, which increases the incidence and influence of political lobbying/rent seeking.
5. Blame any bad outcomes on lobbyists and special interests.
5. Raise taxes to confront shrinking tax base as government jobs outstrip private sector jobs. Under no circumstance should you reduce pay, lay off redudant employees, or renegotiate terms of employment, pension, etc.
6. As businesses flee and revenue shortfalls become recurrent, blame businesses for the plight of the working man
7. As talent flees, blame "white flight" on greed of selfish individuals who didn't want to pay their "fair share".
8. As essential public services like schools, transportation and infrastructure, trash pickup confront the realities of dwindling resources, never once acknowledge that your policies might've had something to do with things.
If a business were to charge its customers different prices based on how much she liked this or that customer, or based on how much wealth that person had, that would be considered price discrimination, which is against the law. To arbitrarily raise the cost of Wal-Mart doing business in your town is the same sort of thing, here comes someone you don't like and a small, vocal, organized interest group decides that they're going to discriminate against Wal-Mart and raise their labor costs by 50%.
It'd be amusing if it weren't so repugnant how people who wouldn't dream of setting foot in a Wal-Mart are the ones demonstrating outside (lots of leisure, these types have). If only they'd just build a WholeFoods in poor neighborhoods or better yet get a farmer's market. Nevermind that hundreds of people will be applying to that WalMart and that it will be employing people without other prospects. We can wish poor people would have the kinds of skills the public school system failed to give them, but they don't, and so the option for them isn't between meaningful and fulfilling work making $15/hr + benefits at a Wholefoods that serves a wealthy clientele who can afford the higher prices, its between $8/hr greeting customers at Wal-Mart or hustling on the street. People will do what they have to to survive, and for upper-crust urbanites to flex their muscle in order to save the small businesses which DO NOT EXIST IN POOR NEIGHBORHOODS ANYWAY is a romantic crusade of infinite stupidity. Don't worry hipsters, your overpriced boutiques and habadasherys aren't going away because a Wal-Mart moved into town. The worst that is going to happen is that poor people are going to have a place to work and buy food at decent prices for a change.
How to Destroy a City in 5 Easy Steps
The top 10 poorest cities in America are all run by democrat mayors.
1. Make it costly to do business
2. Work on the assumption that government jobs are natively superior to private sector jobs, and create government jobs that pay better than private sector jobs. Unions can help at this.
3. Increase the regulatory burden on business to create more bureaucratic paper-pusher jobs
4. Give special privileges and immunities to interest groups in the name of compassion, which increases the incidence and influence of political lobbying/rent seeking.
5. Blame any bad outcomes on lobbyists and special interests.
5. Raise taxes to confront shrinking tax base as government jobs outstrip private sector jobs. Under no circumstance should you reduce pay, lay off redudant employees, or renegotiate terms of employment, pension, etc.
6. As businesses flee and revenue shortfalls become recurrent, blame businesses for the plight of the working man
7. As talent flees, blame "white flight" on greed of selfish individuals who didn't want to pay their "fair share".
8. As essential public services like schools, transportation and infrastructure, trash pickup confront the realities of dwindling resources, never once acknowledge that your policies might've had something to do with things.