Hey sancho as usual, great thread S+F well spent.

I am totally going off memory here, but I think I recall that for most corporate mega monstrosities, as little as 10% of the money spent their is retained in the local community.

Where as a local owned and operated store could return upto 90% of the money back to the community. The number can vary because if all the product you buy for your local store is from somewhere far, far away, then it's not true that 90% of it stays in the community.

Where it counts is small convenience stores, small restaurants etc. Any serviced based company as well. I would much rather spend my money somewhere small, not to mention the service is usually far superior to that off megamarts.

I realized, what it means...its a monopoly! I always thought the feds would never allow a chain of stores to do that, striclty becuase ti kills competition?

Ever heard of walmart?

Everyone should check out "Walmart: The high cost of low prices", amazingly informative documentary. The small savings we see up front, pale in comparison to the long term economical destruction that stores like Wal-mart bring.

The stat from the documentary I believe was from 2000 or 2001, but there is apparently 25,000,000sqft of empty wal marts around the US. That's an old figure and most likely has expanded. They go into a town, suck the wealth, kill the businesses, once the moneys gone they shut down shop. And the only thing that could occupy a past walmart location, is another walmat - thus the staggering amount of space sitting unused.

Originally posted by nrky

Buy processors from big companies like Intel or AMD, buy MoBo's from ASUS and BioStar, buy TV's from samsung or sony. These companies are the ones putting out big bucks for research into applications that may down the line produce technology that benefits our lifestyle needs greatly.

I emphasise the "may" part, in the above post, because buying products from these companies is a gamble as to whether or not they MAY produce technology that 'improves' our lives.

No, they will. Maybe you want to go back to the stone age where all your time is spent foraging for limited resources while you pray you don't die from the many diseases and infections you are susceptible to, but I prefer the modern technology age.

That heat in your home, those nice lights, that effective insulation in your walls, the gas/electric stove, etc. etc. are all products of research and mass production.

Technology gives us more free time to pursue other goals, learn, and become informed. It is hard to be a well educated and informed society if you spend all your time out in the field trying to get by.

People who deny the benefits of modernized society baffle me. There is pretty much no aspect of life that isn't improved by technology. From transportation to going to the bathroom.

Those of us addicted to technology and it's useless consumerism that tags along, probably don't realise that our grandparents lived without all this useless crap we think we 'need'.

Right, and our grandparents didn't have the opportunities that we have today. I'm surprised they never pointed that fact out to you. You know what one of the major factors in life span is? Stress. The amount of stress in your life has direct effects on health. What does entertainment do? Decrease stress.

That xbox isn't just useless consumer garbage, it's a high end form of entertainment that is just what the doctor ordered in moderation.

Play a game, watch a movie, relax for a minute, you might live a little longer.

Computers that have streamlined accounting, manufacturing, etc, have done nothing but create further unemployment.

And in their place is computer technician jobs, network management, software design, hardware design, etc. etc.

This is the world of tomorrow, you have to learn to adapt to the times. Learn new skills whenever possible, which should be often, considering all the extra time you have as a result of technology cutting down the time it takes to do taxes, gather resources, etc. etc.

The statement you made is at best a poorly informed opinion, and at worst a blatant lie. Unemployment has not skyrocketed as a result of technology, if anything it has dropped.

Just because right now during our current economic crisis unemployment is high, that has 0 correlation to growth in the tech field. The tech field creates more jobs than it destroys because it creates entire new fields of employment.

How many TV manufacture plants were there 100 years ago? How about computer chip factories? How many video games development studios were there? None. They are just a few of the HUGE industries which employ a LARGE amount of people, all sprouting from technology.

Oh, but people like to claim that if there are less jobs in manual labour because of technology, that we should all go back to school to get jobs that work with technology? Great, so who's going to pay for those extra three or four years in University? Certainly not our parents, who seem to be of the mentality that their baby-boomer generation had it tough.

You should be paying for it. In normal times, its not hard for the trying person to find a WIDE array of options available to them to go to school. Times like these it is definitely harder, but not impossible at all.

The simple fact is most people don't want to go and put in the extra work because they are too lazy. They lack the proper work ethic to stick it out and get a good job in a growing tech field. That is their own loss.

Nobody is responsible for your situation but you. The ability to go back to school and get a better job is there, it always has been. If you are willing to try, and willing to make the sacrifices, it can be done. It is done on a daily basis by millions of people. The only person holding you back from making it a reality is you.

But hey, as long as you keep passing the button of blame on to others, your problems with the system will persist.

[edit on 26-8-2009 by grimreaper797]

Originally posted by ziggy1706
I kinda agree with sanchezearlyjones, and havbe thought about this, for quite some years. I work in retail, for a CVS pharmacy.

I worked for what was a regional drug store [Long's Drugs] that was bought out by CVS...I have seen nothing but problems with CVS so far, and the rumor is we only get a 2% raise once a year...what BS...
There's another thing that bothers me, with Longs, we could give stuff away to charities. Lets say we had food that was to expire in less than 30 days, under Longs we'd give it to a local charity that gives food to senior citizens...but with CVS? We were told to throw it all in the dumpster...

I still like the power of no better...as in no to taxes. That will bring the mother down, if millions do it.

Oh and given my personal experience with ipod stuff, you would be an utter fool to buy an ipod every time a new generation came out. It would be like buying a new car because you found out the new car has power seats. Sure, power seats technology has been out for years, but this new one just got it. Big deal.

I still have a 30 gig ipod classic which functions relatively the same as the 120gig ipod classic they are selling today. Mostly the same features. The big jump is from the ipod to the ipod touch/iphone.

They came out with a second generation itouch recently, you know what the difference was? A built in speaker, a volume control on the side, and a nike feature for running. All that tech has been out long before the ipod existed. It was added because of feedback from users, not because the tech wasn't available.

That is how a great deal of product in the next generations work. Being on the sales floor I hear customer objections and concerns, desires as well. I pass that info onto the panasonic rep, the apple rep, the sony rep, etc. etc, and that directly influences features in new tvs the put out, sale prices, etc. etc.

Just recently I had a sony rep ask me a bunch of questions taking notes about what was driving customers to buy what product and what customers wanted.

The new panasonic tv's have new features built in that were a direct result of sales people bringing it up repeatedly to reps in the company.

The problem with consumer electronics isn't that they trickle tech (though they definitely do sometimes), but that the majority of time, they need to know exactly what features are selling and what features aren't, because every added feature costs them money.

The itouch having a built in speaker and volume control on the side, that costs them money. Every little feature they add costs money, and in turn costs us money. In an effort to drive prices down they initially tend to sell the core product and slowly release added features as a matter of not running their product into the ground.

If they put in a dead weight feature that bumps the itouch up from 229.99 to 269.99, that will result in a big decrease in sales. That's bad for business.


As for computer processors, all I need to do is refer to AMD's phenom line to say "look what happens when you rush technology out too soon". A crap line of processors, and a great deal of wasted money, by both the company and the consumer. The company because they will feel the hit of a poor line of designed processors, and the consumer because they will have to upgrade from a poorly made processor.

In particular, any business that gets the Stimulus is clearly Illuminati controlled. So avoid it. Stop doing business with the major banks. Avoid major insurance companies. Walk away from them, send a message. Walk away from credit. Get rid of your credit card and stop paying on it. The contract is illegitimate. Stop paying on a car loan or mortgage. The company is in violation of the laws of the land.

the best thing you can do is vote democrat

at every election