Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia • Hacker News Board

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#41

Post by dchest » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:19 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #23

dchest wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "truth" is based on what, you being Russian? "I will be in Samara" in your only argument. You didn't provide any data on furniture sales, no references to the "fact" that IKEA put local stores/factories out of business. Well, I'm Russian too, and your comments are totally wrong. I can say my arguments after I hear yours. Finally, cursing on HN (even in Russian) doesn't make you sound good.

Well, did the article provide any data on how much are they expected to bribe, in $, and how good their mall building is? No, instead we've seen some bashing. It's okay to bash, it's okay for me to troll. Face with it: IKEA drains money from the country (is that called investments) and also their offerings are crap. Maybe it's just my experience; Тёмочка praises them. However, my experience is that you should only go…

"Today we order $50m of furniture here from Russian factories. In the future want to buy at least ten times that amount," said Dahlgren." -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1836004.stm (2002)

There are over 30 Russian factories working for IKEA. How does this correlate with your theory of IKEA killing local factories?

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#42

Post by known » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:21 PM UTC

Russia is Fed Up with IKEA.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#43

Post by presto10 » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:21 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #35

Dauntless wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm sure that if Russian furniture is so fine and good value for the money, it will have no problems competing with Ikea on domestic or international market (and that is a big if). Or do you want in your absurd hatred of Ikea to ban it from the market, even though normal people like me for example would prefer it (I have several Ikea products that are just fine and are several years old). Anyhow, I don't see wha…

I argue that IKEA uses "free press" as a lever to get whatever it wants from government, for cheap. Then I say that if we don't like IKEA that much, we shouldn't buy into that.

Are you implying Ikea would want anything else than normal, civilized treatment from local authorities? If not, why on earth would Ikea need to slander the local government for anything? I'm sure this is not the kind of publicity either one wants.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#44

Post by presto10 » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:23 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #31

presto10 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you can't win the actual argument, you will slander Ikea's products? Maybe I'm feeding the trolls here.

How would IKEA ever interest us outside of the context of its products? "In other news, IKEA, after operating in Russia for 9 years, suddently discovers that there's a massive corruption there". IKEA uses press to bash government for bad process; I use HN to bash IKEA for bad wares; If I troll, don't they?

Ikea would interest us as a company trying to do business without paying bribes in Russia. No matter what the quality of its products, it does not deserve to be extorted by corrupt authorities. So don't mix up the quality of its products with the corruption issue.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#45

Post by berntb » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:26 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #10

presto10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does one have to accept the practise of corruption, to have a profitable and fast-growing business, as you seem to suggest? With your reasoning, we could put forward that maybe the Moscow accident was caused by corruption: the builders paid off the inspectors to save on building costs. The bottom line is: Ikea and Ingvar Kamprad has stated several times that they will not accept the Russian business practise of c…

Well, you can either accept "practice of corruption" or circumnavigate around in some way, or not have a business. About the Moscow accident; I'm sure it was, partly. But I don't see how is this fact going to help if their mall in Samara has safety problems, indeed. If it doesn't, as I've told, they have their three choices. In short: I DO think there's a problem with corruption in Russia; I just DON'T see a problem…

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#46

Post by presto10 » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:27 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #40

presto10 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You as a Russian should know better than to generalize about others, in the same way Russians are being unfavorably generalized elsewhere. It just makes you look as bad as them.

Well, doesn't it seem strange to you that they SUDDENTLY discovered that there's corruption. There's two branches: - It's really the first time they ran into corruption; it would be a cool fairy-tale, but neither I nor you beleive this. - They managed to get along before despite corruption. Which means that either corruption is not so much severe (they managed to open and operate successfully and profitably, on a lar…

Do you see the title of the original article: it includes the expression "fed up". It implies they have been fighting corruption issues before, but until now managed to stomach it. Now, however, they are fed up with it, resorting to going public. See?

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#47

Post by berntb » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:32 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #37

ilyak wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with comparative advantage is: For what products do Russia have comparative advantage? Besides oil, because being an Oil banana republic suck, and also all kinds of banana republics gravitate towards corruption and despoty. If we'll find that we don't have comparative advantage over China in all manufacturing, we have two choices: - Ruin all the country manufacturing and hope for economical tooth fairy to…

Give me a break. Russia has huge natural resources, a large aerospace and military industry, and a promising if undeveloped IT/maths/science sector. The possibilities and potential is endless. There are plenty of things highly skilled Russians can and should be doing rather than making crappy, expensive furniture. But you know this, of course. This is what every other country does. And there are plenty of other count…

Check "resource curse theory" on Wikipedia. Really fascinating.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#48

Post by alexk » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 12:36 PM UTC

ilyak wrote: post #19

Confusion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to pay bribes, you need to raise your prices to still make a profit. Your customers, i.e. you , need to pay more. Corruption hurts the population of a country, as every cent comes directly out of their pockets. That is partly why people in properly democratic countries have, and keep , a higher standard of living.

Sure! Where did I say that corruption is a good thing? But I'm saying that they feed the corruption. By paying bribes.

None of your posts here contains a single fact, just rage. Moreover you are using lexicon (in russian) that unacceptable here. Stop trolling, please.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#49

Post by sho » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 1:35 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #47

sho wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. Russia has huge natural resources, a large aerospace and military industry, and a promising if undeveloped IT/maths/science sector. The possibilities and potential is endless. There are plenty of things highly skilled Russians can and should be doing rather than making crappy, expensive furniture. But you know this, of course. This is what every other country does. And there are plenty of other count…

Check "resource curse theory" on Wikipedia. Really fascinating.

Thanks for mentioning that theory, yeah I'd heard about it.

I don't really buy it, though. It strikes me as being too cute by half and I can think of any number of counterexamples. For example, Norway, Canada and Australia have immense resource wealth per capita and no-one would say they're bad places to live. And Canada has 3x Russia's oil reserves, with 1/5th the population!

I think resource wealth is just a multiplier. If you have a bad government, it can make it even worse, but with good management it can provide a useful flow of income.

Re: Why IKEA Is Fed Up with Russia

#50

Post by berntb » Mon, Jul 06, 2009, 1:49 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #49

berntb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check "resource curse theory" on Wikipedia. Really fascinating.

Thanks for mentioning that theory, yeah I'd heard about it. I don't really buy it, though. It strikes me as being too cute by half and I can think of any number of counterexamples. For example, Norway, Canada and Australia have immense resource wealth per capita and no-one would say they're bad places to live. And Canada has 3x Russia's oil reserves, with 1/5th the population! I think resource wealth is just a multip…

I think there is some benchmark that a country doesn't become a democracy if it has a certain percentage of export income from natural resources.

Norway was a democracy before the oil income. (I don't know about export incomes and Canada/Australia. Do they get most income from that?)

Edit: Syntax, so it will parse in your brain.