PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Rush on January 13, 2021, 06:40:58 PM
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I buy everything from them. I don’t want to anymore.
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I’ll answer my own question, overstock.com. For some stuff anyway.
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Go shopping in person, in actual stores.
Walmart if you don’t mind supporting China.
Target online if you don’t mind spending more.
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Go shopping in person, in actual stores.
Walmart if you don’t mind supporting China.
Target online if you don’t mind spending more.
I do grocery shopping at Walmart and I have to quit that too. Ah, Target. I forgot about them. Thanks.
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More than once I've used Amazon as a way to sort through options for something I want, then go to the web site of the company that makes the product (if such a site exists and has order entry) and purchase it directly from them. This takes advantage of Amazon without providing them income.
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More than once I've used Amazon as a way to sort through options for something I want, then go to the web site of the company that makes the product (if such a site exists and has order entry) and purchase it directly from them. This takes advantage of Amazon without providing them income.
I like that idea.
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I also use Amazon as a pricing tool then buy elsewhere. However, most of Corporate America, including retail has gone full blown Totalitarian Marxist. You have to wonder because there is a LOT of irony there. Also have to wonder about the intelligence of upper management these days. Woke is their religion.
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I like local options. ACE Hardware has an awful lot of stuff crammed into a relatively small store, and the local franchise is owned by a local family.
We used to have a gourmet shop, somewhat similar to kitchen side of Bed Bath and Beyond that had everything for the kitchen, except food. They too were locally owned by friends of mine. But they couldn't compete against Amazon.
There is a local book store and a local fabric store that my wife likes to shop at, but they too are under pressure from (among other things) Amazon.
When we go out to eat, we eat at locally owned restaurants instead of national chains. Even the bank where I do business is owned locally. But I do keep having to change banks because new local banks pop up but are soon bought out by the bigger banks.
I have also noticed that most local business owners are conservatives, so that makes shopping there even more satisfying.
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Walmart if you don’t mind supporting China.
Which is sad, because when Sam was alive he prided himself in finding made in America choices on most items sold at Walmart. When he died, his kids sold out to the Chinese, as if they weren't rich enough already.
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I also use Amazon as a pricing tool then buy elsewhere.
In the beginning, Amazon prices pretty much beat anyone, but now, with a little diligence, one can usually BEAT the Amazon price by shopping elsewhere.
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Walmart now has a plus service like Prime
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In my previous post, I forgot to include shopping at Farmers markets as much as possible instead of national chains like Publix or Kroger. I still shop at those places for some things that I can't get otherwise. I know that has little to do with AMAZON (except that I don't go to Whole Foods any more). But it has to do with supporting local businesses. I think shopping local is important in too many ways to list.
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I also use Amazon as a pricing tool then buy elsewhere. However, most of Corporate America, including retail has gone full blown Totalitarian Marxist. You have to wonder because there is a LOT of irony there. Also have to wonder about the intelligence of upper management these days. Woke is their religion.
America now looks very much like Russia. Russia is no longer communist. The state owned industries were sold off to private individuals when the USSR broke up but they were basically corrupt crime bosses already in power. So they are technically capitalist but the wealth is concentrated in a few at the top, and those few are the same communist overlords in government, and the economy for the rest of the people is heavily regulated, preventing people at the bottom from working their way into prosperity.
In America, people at the bottom could work their way into prosperity as long as the burden of government regulation was light, and they had access to a bit of starting capital which turns out to be a problem for urban black communities and rural isolated white “hillbilly” communities. This issue is where the seeds of economic collectivism begin, those people at the very bottom start thinking economic collectivism is a solution.
In America, except for the two groups mentioned, people thrived while government regulation was light and we grew to be the super economy of the world and with the highest standard of living in the world. Even those two groups at the bottom benefited greatly when compared to non-industrial parts of the world. Even impoverished people have indoor plumbing for example.
So this is the “good capitalism” conservatives talk about. But in Russia, you have “bad capitalism”. Most people are locked out of the wealth, and have no hope to gain access because the bureaucratic control over their lives didn’t end with the fall of communism.
America started out with “good capitalism” but the two groups mentioned had grievances and began the movement toward the left and it took root in the Democrat party. Rural white and urban black, not to say there weren’t rural black poor and and urban white poor too but I’m simplifying. There were in fact large numbers of poor blacks on farms from sharecroppers and poor whites in cities that depended on industrial jobs with horrific working conditions.
Anyhow, all those groups pushed for reforms and part of it was to demand some form of wealth redistribution which of course made them ripe fodder for the new Marxist movement beginning in the 60s that was imported to our universities at first and grew from there to take over the Democrat party.
At first it wasn’t so much economic collectivism, it was unions demanding higher wages and negotiating better working conditions which increased the regulatory burden on private business. Good and bad. You want large rich companies to not exploit workers. But regulations also crushed small businesses trying to get on their feet.
Then came the end of protectionism and the industries that supported urban black communities closed shop leaving many unemployed. The alternative is small business but again, regulation stifles that, so these communities were given economic collectivism (welfare, government housing). In retrospect we see that was the wrong solution. What they really needed was seed capital and less regulatory burden.
But the malignant growth of government only increased regulatory burden, and discrimination prevented loans to blacks for seed capital. This also applied to poor urban whites. In the hillbilly land, isolation was the problem and you needed government to push a plan to get electricity to them. Later, they were behind on internet access, even still high speed internet is not available in many remote areas.
So government continued to grow and become a heavier burden on business while the biggest corporations lobbied and found loopholes and hence were “in bed” with government and only grew richer while it became ever harder for the small man to rise. Along came Donald Trump, reducing regulations and BOOM the economy explodes with prosperity.
But the once great industries of America are now made in China and the big companies in power are Big Tech which controls information. So the message about the economy barely makes it to a lot of the public, and the seeds of the ideology of economic collectivism have taken root and grown into a fully developed Marxist movement. The disenfranchised who once wanted only an even playing field now demand total wealth redistribution.
They naively voted in (or rigged the election for) the Democrats, believing they will get it, but look what we actually have: Just like Russia, privately owned corporations in bed with government holding all the wealth and power and promises of far harsher regulatory burden for small business.
The poor at the bottom, like the poor in all communist states, are in for a whole lot more poverty, they will be betrayed by the leftist at the top (government and big business/tech) who are now sucking up all the power like a vacuum cleaner and consolidating it into a monolithic overlord.
They will see it as evil capitalism run amuck while conservatives will see it as government run amuck, and neither will realize that the radical right and the radical left actually have the exact same enemy. We just keep fighting each other. My perspective of course is that the right is “more right” than the left, in that they recognize that the solution is to return to America’s roots of small government and free market private enterprise. With the exceptions of addressing the unfairness of the legacy of slavery, lack of seed capital for the poor, and most especially the underlying factors preventing success in these groups such as poor nutrition.
The left needs to get back to recognizing that freedom is freedom, just like the freed slaves for 100 years knew (they were conservative in ideology up until the 60s). The right needs to stop with “the poor are poor because they’re lazy” which alienates the other side and doesn’t solve anything.
Russia, America, and the whole world is now ruled by a few billionaire globalists and the bought and paid for political class they own. Evil capitalism can’t be evil without government (law) complicity. Good capitalism is the answer, protected by law (a Constitution and fair elections).
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The alternative is small business but again, regulation stifles that, so these communities were given economic collectivism (welfare, government housing). In retrospect we see that was the wrong solution. What they really needed was seed capital and less regulatory burden.
But the malignant growth of government only increased regulatory burden, and discrimination prevented loans to blacks for seed capital. This also applied to poor urban whites. In the hillbilly land, isolation was the problem and you needed government to push a plan to get electricity to them. Later, they were behind on internet access, even still high speed internet is not available in many remote areas.
So government continued to grow and become a heavier burden on business while the biggest corporations lobbied and found loopholes and hence were “in bed” with government and only grew richer while it became ever harder for the small man to rise. Along came Donald Trump, reducing regulations and BOOM the economy explodes with prosperity.
What are the specific regulations that affected small business that you think Trump removed and where did they go BOOM?
I own a small business BTW. The only thing that I saw in terms of regulatory changes over the last 4 years was a big headache in terms of how employee stock is issued, and all it did was to give work to lawyers. Can't even explain the change to you if I tried.
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I do grocery shopping at Walmart and I have to quit that too. Ah, Target. I forgot about them. Thanks.
Target supported BLM.
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More than once I've used Amazon as a way to sort through options for something I want, then go to the web site of the company that makes the product (if such a site exists and has order entry) and purchase it directly from them. This takes advantage of Amazon without providing them income.
I do the same thing.
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I also use Amazon as a pricing tool then buy elsewhere. However, most of Corporate America, including retail has gone full blown Totalitarian Marxist. You have to wonder because there is a LOT of irony there. Also have to wonder about the intelligence of upper management these days. Woke is their religion.
Remember when CEOs used to be hard charging managers like Lee Iacocca? Now they are woke, affirmative action robots, slaves to the stock market and to sociology.
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I like local options. ACE Hardware has an awful lot of stuff crammed into a relatively small store, and the local franchise is owned by a local family.
We used to have a gourmet shop, somewhat similar to kitchen side of Bed Bath and Beyond that had everything for the kitchen, except food. They too were locally owned by friends of mine. But they couldn't compete against Amazon.
There is a local book store and a local fabric store that my wife likes to shop at, but they too are under pressure from (among other things) Amazon.
When we go out to eat, we eat at locally owned restaurants instead of national chains. Even the bank where I do business is owned locally. But I do keep having to change banks because new local banks pop up but are soon bought out by the bigger banks.
I have also noticed that most local business owners are conservatives, so that makes shopping there even more satisfying.
I’ve been with Credit Unions for the last decade or so. It’s like banking in the old days, and their interest rates are better than any bank. They even take your fucking coins - banks gave up on that a long time ago.
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I’ve been with Credit Unions for the last decade or so. It’s like banking in the old days, and their interest rates are better than any bank. They even take your fucking coins - banks gave up on that a long time ago.
I love my credit union. No hard sell about anything. No complicated fees. Flat $1 a month fee as long as I can remember for all accounts, which is, gosh, 30 years now, it has never gone up. Competitive or better interest rates, friendly personal service. Humans answer emails, no auto replies. My only complaint is it’s not in Texas.
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I love my credit union. No hard sell about anything. No complicated fees. Flat $1 a month fee as long as I can remember for all accounts, which is, gosh, 30 years now, it has never gone up. Competitive or better interest rates, friendly personal service. Humans answer emails, no auto replies. My only complaint is it’s not in Texas.
Sometimes a small local bank is just as good or better.
No fees at my bank for certain accounts. If you have a certain level of total funds, then no fees period. Waaaaay better rates than the gi-normous banks.
It helps that my sisters works at the bank (has for over 45 years).
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I love my credit union. No hard sell about anything. No complicated fees. Flat $1 a month fee as long as I can remember for all accounts, which is, gosh, 30 years now, it has never gone up. Competitive or better interest rates, friendly personal service. Humans answer emails, no auto replies. My only complaint is it’s not in Texas.
And you're a co-owner of a credit union vs being a customer of a bank. I went with a CU for my Oregon corporation. I've noticed that a credit union that has former bankers in its management may treat their account holders/co-owners in the same way they treated bank customers - so IMHO one must scrutinize the management of any credit union one intends to use.
After moving to South Dakota we never got around to opening either a local bank or credit union account - it seems our Fidelity Brokerage account provides all the services we need. Only service they don't support is a way to deposit cash - but we haven't had any need to do that yet. We can get cash at any ATM - they reimburse for any ATM fees.
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Sometimes a small local bank is just as good or better.
No fees at my bank for certain accounts. If you have a certain level of total funds, then no fees period. Waaaaay better rates than the gi-normous banks.
It helps that my sisters works at the bank (has for over 45 years).
Yes, when we needed a local branch in Texas for lockbox and whatnot we used a small local bank. I don’t think we qualify for any credit unions here. But I’ll never give up my NC one.
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And you're a co-owner of a credit union vs being a customer of a bank. I went with a CU for my Oregon corporation. I've noticed that a credit union that has former bankers in its management may treat their account holders/co-owners in the same way they treated bank customers - so IMHO one must scrutinize the management of any credit union one intends to use.
After moving to South Dakota we never got around to opening either a local bank or credit union account - it seems our Fidelity Brokerage account provides all the services we need. Only service they don't support is a way to deposit cash - but we haven't had any need to do that yet. We can get cash at any ATM - they reimburse for any ATM fees.
That’s too bad if some are ruined by mega bank culture being brought in by managers.
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Love our credit union, except they seem to be on a skeleton staff or something now. Lobbies are all closed and I submitted a question about transferring an HSA to them several days ago with no answer as of today.
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Love our credit union, except they seem to be on a skeleton staff or something now. Lobbies are all closed and I submitted a question about transferring an HSA to them several days ago with no answer as of today.
Since COVID everything’s screwed up. My sister in NC says you have to make an appointment just to walk inside the branch. Here Wells Fargo closed the lobbies of their two branches and now they announced one of them will permanently close. I wonder what the employees there are doing for a job?
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Remember when CEOs used to be hard charging managers like Lee Iacocca? Now they are woke, affirmative action robots, slaves to the stock market and to sociology.
It is a total paradigm shift in mentality. Once the worst thing a company could do is alienate customers or potential customers. Now they are perfectly willing to forego half of them. WTF?
Look at their Mission Statements today. All Marxist babble. CEO's now say this PC, SJW, far left crap is more important than profits which is totally abrogating their fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders.
If I just wanted that, I'd donate the money I use for stocks to some PAC. >:(
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It is a total paradigm shift in mentality. Once the worst thing a company could do is alienate customers or potential customers. Now they are perfectly willing to forego half of them. WTF?
Look at their Mission Statements today. All Marxist babble. CEO's now say this PC, SJW, far left crap is more important than profits which is totally abrogating their fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders.
If I just wanted that, I'd donate the money I use for stocks to some PAC. >:(
You may have noticed that the word “equity” has crept into the “diversity and inclusion” departments. It happened at my firm.