On Sat, Apr 13, 2002 at 07:49:38PM -0400, Shawn McMahon wrote: > begin Paul 'Baloo' Johnson quotation: > > > Does the system on which you're reading this have an Intel processor? > > > > No, but they're not the evil empire. > > At least as much as Wal-Mart is. And, like Wal-Mart, they have a > quality product that a lot of people want. In my old home town in > Oklahoma, they were the best grocery store in town, and the ONLY 24-hour > place to buy computer equipment. > > But my point wasn't that Wal-Mart is good, or that Intel is bad; my > point was that one shouldn't berate someone else for doing business with > one evil conglomerate while one is doing business with another. > > You aren't doing business with the particular example I picked, but I > bet I could find one pretty easily if anybody cared enough for me to > bother. I won't, because the point is made without it. I must disagree with you drawing any parallel between Intel and Wal-Mart. It's worse than comparing apples and oranges ... at least those are both fruit. Intel is an American company, selling goods designed by Americans and made in America. Intel is not hurting small mom-and-pop operations all over the country as they sell their product. Wal-Mart sells Chinese crap which is cheaper in price and quality than goods produced elsewhere (like, here). This causes the trade deficit to remain high. When Wal-Mart moves into an area, smaller hardware, convenience, and grocery stores suffer. This hurts the local economy in some cases as profits are removed from the area. If Wal-Mart goes into an area and provides services which were unavailable, that's good. If Wal-Mart goes into an area which was already well served and destroys local competition by selling inferior products ... well, I don't know if I'm willing to say that's bad, but it's not good. Unfortunately, if consumers are stupid enough to buy the cute Paul Harvey ads and not worry about whether they are getting the same quality, Wal-Mart wins. This is off-topic and should probably be taken up on debian-curiosa or some other list. Cheers, -- Nathan Norman - Micromuse Ltd. mailto:nnorman@micromuse.com Gil-galad was an Elven-king. | The Fellowship Of him the harpers sadly sing: | of the last whose realm was fair and free | the Ring between the Mountains and the Sea. | J.R.R. Tolkien
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