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When did Walmart turn into America's loony bin?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by hondo, Aug 9, 2019.

  1. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Got it. I just find there's a kind of brain drain in the midwest ag states. Those states would probably be more educated - more liberal, frankly - if companies relocated their headquarters to those states.
     
  2. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    Austin, Madison, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Indianapolis are five of the fastest growing high-tech areas in the country. Their venture capital investments are dwarfed by the Bay Area, but I wouldn't necessarily connect "midwest ag states" and stupidity.

    The whole reason Silicon Valley is what it is comes down to four strokes of good fortune:

    1. Stanford University
    2. IBM's San Jose Research Lab
    3. The guy who invented the (EDIT: transistor) moving to Mountain View
    4. Cheap, plentiful land at that time
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2019
  3. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    Interesting. Especially the last two.
    The last one seems comical today.
     
  4. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    As late as 1975, over half of Santa Clara County was still farmland. And yeah, I missed Hewlett-Packard as a fifth major player.

    The difficult thing about painting things with large stereotypical brushes is that you can't always prove "if this, then that."

    Atlanta has Georgia Tech. The Triangle has N.C. State, Duke and Carolina. Nashville has Vanderbilt. Money follows big research universities, even if the surrounding areas may be considered "less than ideal." All of those states are in the bottom 10th of national test scores.
     
  5. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    And yeah, this guy's decision to leave Bell Labs for Mountain View -- mainly to take care of his mother in Palo Alto -- was a huge influence on what we now think of as Silicon Valley. (And he became a whacko,)

    William Shockley - Wikipedia
     
    Fred siegle likes this.
  6. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Of course it’s growing fast where it hadn’t grown as much previously.

    And I’m not connecting it to stupidity. Goodness. I know some college graduates who are close to morons.

    Point is, measuring education by rate of college graduates living in a given state fails to take into account that some states are gonna keep those grads easier than others based on what’s there.

    And it doesn’t have that much to do with Walmart either.
     
  7. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    All I'm pointing out is that Walmart is not some kind of a symbol for Trumpism. There are more minorities shopping at the one I frequent than whites.
     
  8. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    And it goes without saying, you don't have to be of a certain lower socioeconomic rung to take advantage of cheaper deals when available.

    Also, when you can get a percentage of your groceries, pick up some lawn-care goods, check out some PC accessories and grab a Subway sub without going from store to store, that's a selling point, too.
     
    HanSenSE and BurnsWhenIPee like this.
  9. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    The introduction of grocery pickup at WM was partly to draw in more affluent consumers. Based on the Bentley and Mercedes I saw next to each other in pickup spots last Sunday, it might be working.

    (The main goal is to train consumers, so in the future WM can be more of a warehouse than a retail outlet. They want to shrink the square footage open to the public to that of a Walgreens. The rest of the space will be warehousing items only available through pickup and/or delivery.)
     
  10. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    Well, just like a typical Walgreens, you have to find the one cashier working at a WalMart.
     
    Inky_Wretch, HanSenSE and heyabbott like this.
  11. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    There are more self-checkout lanes than checkout lanes with an actual person manning it at our local Wal-Mart.

    I resisted for a time, but being able to bag your own items and not get canned goods on top of bread, plus it being much quicker and easier, has won me over. I'm still not going to buy meat other than ground beef, or produce there, but for everything else ...
     
  12. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    That's our guiding strategy on the place -- we'll generally steer away from the deli and meat/fish items, go to Giant or a local store for that.

    And I think Wal-Mart's offerings in those areas reflect that a lot of people have given them that message.
     
    BurnsWhenIPee likes this.
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