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The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

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Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#61

Post by chillwaves »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #45
buerkle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many cases California and New York voters count much less than in smaller, more rural states. The senators from Wyoming represent about 300,000 people each. The senators in California represent nearly 19,000,000 each. And the The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number in the House of Representatives. In this case, each California House member represents three times as many people as the House member…

This is by design of course. The United States is a confederation of states...geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise. That people are surprised or shocked by this reveals how poor our civics education has become. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_...

Has become? People are more educated than ever, and mostly what you hear about is people complaining because the current system is unjust, not because they are "shocked " to learn it exists.

When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#62

Post by chillwaves »

dunnevens wrote: post #47
bdcravens wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.

Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism. The political system makes it pretty easy t…

This exactly. The folks claiming they are not represented are ironically over represented compared to city dwellers.

As long as Republican voters care more about abortion and gay marriage (and I guess transpeople using the bathroom now), they will not find economic solutions.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#63

Post by rayiner »

dunnevens wrote: post #47
bdcravens wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.

Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism. The political system makes it pretty easy t…

Are Democrats centrist? One of the things I learn the deeper I dig into how European countries are structured is that they’re more right leaning than American liberals assume. Let’s take Spain. If we adopted Spain’s tax structure, income taxes would go down by about a trillion dollars, while consumption taxes (paid for primarily by middle class and poor people), would go up two trillion dollars. Spain’s abortion laws are stricter than any southern state’s (elective abortion legal only up to 14 weeks). On gay marriage, Spain legalized it about 10 years before, but then the government tried to repeal that law a few years later. The constitutional court ruling permanently protecting gay marriage came just two years before the one in the US. The Spanish minimum wage works out to about 6 euro per hour. Like the US and almost all of Europe, many industries were privatized in the 1990s and 2000s, and unlike the US the passenger rail system is in the midst of privatization.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#64

Post by bsder »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51
richardhod wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be fair, they are in long-term stakes, wrong since these companies do end up impoverishing them. It's the problem that nobody without a backup and savings can think strategically, which is the paradox and issue with a predatory capitalist system .

>they are in long-term stakes, wrong since these companies do end up impoverishing them. Are they though? Walmart has a negative impact on local small businesses but is it made up for by making goods available at prices they would otherwise not be leading to increased purchasing power? As someone who grew up somewhere that local authorities were able to exert control over who did and didn't do business I am all for t…

> Walmart has a negative impact on local small businesses but is it made up for by making goods available at prices they would otherwise not be leading to increased purchasing power?

I'm not going to let you assert this without challenge.

First, durable goods are probably more expensive. For example, old lawnmowers lasted forever--WalMart ones die in a couple seasons.

Second, if a big box store wipes out local jobs that pay better, how much do prices have to be reduced to make up for that? People at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder spend and have a very high economic multiplier for how much their money drives other money. You don't have to lose many decent jobs in a 50,000 person town if most of them are 2x to 3x multipliers to really cripple the economy.

Third, is WalMart actually cheaper? Big box stores are really good at optimizing prices such that you get one great deal, but lose just a little on everything else. Normally, people put up with it because WalMart is the only choice or is a very convenient single stop.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#65

Post by [deleted] »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #53
pascalxus wrote: post #17

Shoes is one of those things I almost never need to buy, now that I'm an adult and fully grown. Even the very cheapest ones can last me 10 years or more without wearing out. Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems. PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for 4+ years at least. The Nike o…

I go through a pair of sneakers a year, at the least. And these aren't the wal-mart and payless brands either! I'm talking, Reebok or Sketchers that cost ~ $80-$100 USD+. I don't do anything strenuous, just normal wear and tear. But what I can't understand is why it costs so much for a piece of rubber and some canvas (or cloth), only to wear out in a few months time! Communities need places like Payless where $30 or…

[deleted]

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#66

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

pascalxus wrote: post #17

Shoes is one of those things I almost never need to buy, now that I'm an adult and fully grown. Even the very cheapest ones can last me 10 years or more without wearing out. Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems. PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for 4+ years at least. The Nike o…

I play basketball nearly every day -- still at 30. I've gone through a lot of basketball and running shoes. I've never bought any no-name random shoes, but Nikes -- for me at least -- are BY FAR the lowest quality shoes I've worn. They literally fall to pieces within months every time I buy a pair. I can't even complain, because at this point I should know better.

I've found a pair of Asics that have decent traction for basketball. I wore those for years, and then they turned into just my running shoes for years, and I'm still wearing them 6 years later for hiking.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#67

Post by techsupporter »

chillwaves wrote: post #61
mobilefriendly wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by design of course. The United States is a confederation of states...geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise. That people are surprised or shocked by this reveals how poor our civics education has become. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_...

Has become? People are more educated than ever, and mostly what you hear about is people complaining because the current system is unjust, not because they are "shocked " to learn it exists. When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.

> This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st.

Exactly!

People act like our[0] Constitution is some inviolable, sacrosanct tome with words that must be revered and held close, unchanging and unchanged forever. Yet they seem to skip that we've modified the thing TWENTY EIGHT TIMES and that every Much Revered Framer(tm) anticipated that we'd not only change it as often as needed, we would very likely scrap the whole thing and do it again every few generations.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that mandates that the compromises, adjustments, and tweaks our nation's founders made must persist beyond tomorrow, except our own collective will to not bother with or to actively resist change. It's why I very much enjoy hearing at least one of the major parties actively talk about modification of the Electoral College or the makeup of the Supreme Court or how the legislative bodies of our nation operate. Maybe their ideas are good ones, maybe they're not, but the one thing we MUST NOT DO is shy away from a willingness to keep our country's governance current.

0 - By "our," I mean the collection of people who are citizens of the United States of America. Other nations can and do amend their nations' basic laws as they see fit.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#68

Post by dsfyu404ed »

bsder wrote: post #64
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they are in long-term stakes, wrong since these companies do end up impoverishing them. Are they though? Walmart has a negative impact on local small businesses but is it made up for by making goods available at prices they would otherwise not be leading to increased purchasing power? As someone who grew up somewhere that local authorities were able to exert control over who did and didn't do business I am all for t…

> Walmart has a negative impact on local small businesses but is it made up for by making goods available at prices they would otherwise not be leading to increased purchasing power? I'm not going to let you assert this without challenge. First, durable goods are probably more expensive. For example, old lawnmowers lasted forever --WalMart ones die in a couple seasons. Second, if a big box store wipes out local jobs…

>First, durable goods are probably more expensive. For example, old lawnmowers lasted forever--WalMart ones die in a couple seasons.

The local hardware store sells the same or close to the same value engineered Chinese lawnmower using a B&S clone engine and a steel deck. Walmart sells it for $119 when it's in season and more than that the rest of the time (I wanna say $140ish but I'm not sure). The hardware store can't touch the sale price. I bought a lawnmower last summer so I'm very aware of what durable they cost at the various outlets. Old lawnmowers lasted forever because all the ones that are left are high end aluminum deck models that never got ridden hard and put away wet (which is why I got one of them for free on Craigslist instead of buying one). You see a similiar pattern with other durable goods. The model of big box stores is low margin, high volume. They sell some stuff that's value engineered to within an inch of it's life (a lot of the stuff at Harbor Freight comes to mind) but they don't generally engage in bait and switch. If they sold goods that always failed to live up to what people were expecting they wouldn't still be in business.

>Second.

Walmart by itself is not going to wipe out your town. If Walmart and the other big box stores wipe out the town it's because there was no real economic activity going on there and everyone else was just rent seeking to sap the money from the few parties engaged in actual economic activity (like a plumber that jacks up his rates when working on rental income properties in a tourist town). Nothing of value is lost in that case. Complaining that Walmart kills a town is like complaining that more automation kills a factory town, sure it might be technically true but if increased efficiency is a threat to your economic survival then you were already dead and just didn't know it.

>Third, is WalMart actually cheaper?

It's very, very rare that I find that they're not. On groceries their selection seems to be pretty poor but you can get staples pretty damn cheap. I grew up in a shithole where you always had to watch what you were paying or you could get screwed hard so I tend to really watch trends. Big box stores tend to have the cheapest prices broadly. Small businesses will occasionally have great prices on a few things but prices in general will be higher. The value add of small businesses is flexibility and service that is only workable at their scale, not pricing.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#69

Post by dboreham »

chillwaves wrote: post #62
dunnevens wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism. The political system makes it pretty easy t…

This exactly. The folks claiming they are not represented are ironically over represented compared to city dwellers. As long as Republican voters care more about abortion and gay marriage (and I guess transpeople using the bathroom now), they will not find economic solutions.

Also guns.

Re: The Looming End of Payless ShoeSource

#70

Post by pascalxus »

kasey_junk wrote: post #41
pascalxus wrote: post #17

Shoes is one of those things I almost never need to buy, now that I'm an adult and fully grown. Even the very cheapest ones can last me 10 years or more without wearing out. Actually, it's the Nikes that wear out much faster, it seems. PS:(edit) I walk around a decent amount and even go running 6 to 9 miles per week. Even a super cheap pair of running shoes won't show any holes in it for 4+ years at least. The Nike o…

Are you having them repaired? The shoe repair shops in my neighborhood are aging out & im worried it will stop being an option.

no, i don't repair them because at 10$ it's cheaper to buy a new pair than have it repaired.
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