Summary
Two studies reveal that Walmart’s entry into communities lowers household incomes by 6% over 10 years and increases poverty by 8%, even when accounting for cost savings.
Its practices, such as undercutting competitors, suppressing wages, and squeezing suppliers, harm local economies by reducing employment and forcing smaller businesses to close.
Walmart’s “monopsony power” enables it to pay lower wages and dominate suppliers, compounding these effects.
The findings challenge the idea that low prices alone benefit communities, emphasizing long-term economic harm.
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Low prices AND low value. The cheap ass shit they sell is intended to break and be replaced as quickly as possible. E.g. cheap clothes that wear out quickly. Those who can’t afford better are thus trapped in a cycle of repeat buying.
The boot problem as written by Terry Pratchett. You can buy crappy boots every year for 25 dollars or boots for life for 100 dollars.
Where can I get these lifetime boots for $100?
Probably somewhere like Red Wing. Though they’re probably more than 100 now, you can get them resoled when the soles wear out.
So I’m gonna push back on this notion that quality boots that last a long time are even close to this price.
Red Wings are typically $180-270. I have a friend who does resoles and charges around $100-120. I’ve heard folks get their boots resoled every 2-3 years or so. Don’t know if that’s typical. So assuming a “lifetime” is 20 years and you resole 5 times in that period, you are looking at around $200+$500 minimum, not even accounting for inflation. Big difference.
I’ve never owned Red Wings - I will check them out but I note they do not make chelsea/chukka steel toe work boots in appropriate sizes. I wear Blundstone 990s because they are unisex, not too expensive and are pretty bomb proof.
They cannot be resoled but I find since I wear them for work I wear the sole and leather at about the same rate anyway and they typically will last me 3-4 years.
tl;dr I don’t think $100 “lifetime” boots exist, even behind magical mirrors.
The book they were referring to was written over 30 years ago. Of course they don’t exist anymore at that price, but I think the overall point still stands, if all you can afford is the lowest quality boots, you’ll end up paying more in the long run than if you could afford to buy better quality boots that can be repaired.
You have to find the right mirror in a Ross that reflects a tiny door behind you, only big enough to crawl through, where a decrepit shoemaker has been waiting for you. $100 but you will have non-Euclidean nightmares.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_poverty
Indeed. And worse, wealthy get a discount on everything - an obvious example being that f you have lots of money you don’t need to get a car loan or even a mortgage. More likely you are the one, indirectly, making the loans and earning interest for the huge effort you expended being wealthy.