This NYT writer doesn't understand what business is for.

[Josie]

Multi level marketing schemes are wildly profitable and some "customer entrepreneurs" get rich, but many more gets screwed.

They do? I've never heard of one person who sells for an MLM company getting rich from it.

 

[Jetboogieman]

Not because of alcohol.

I know you're really getting your ass handed to you here mate, but you pretended that the practices associated with gangs that happened to make money off of alcohol, disappeared with its legalization.

Make better points if you don't want to have this problem.

They can only do this if they deal in products that people want, but are illegal.

Not in every circumstance, the things illegal groups do are varied and SOME, are legitimate that are not always fronts but help to support a network of illegality, the Yakuza in Japan are a good and rather bizarre case study in this, but we're getting quite off topic to go into how criminal gangs operate, only to say your point wasn't a good one.

Then why wouldn't you prefer a world without it?

Because I'm capable of recognizing bad, but still believing people should have choice, life, this world is imperfect, doesn't automatically mean I'm for banning anything I recognize as negative.

Not for most people, it doesn't.

It doesn't... Or they don't recognize it does?

Much like cancer, how many families are truly untouched by the effects of alcohol, whether they be health or social?

How many families can really say they haven't had a relative who has either been addicted, or had a health complication, or been in trouble with the law in relation to alcohol in the western world?

Probably, very few.

Most people consume alcohol with none of these problems.

That may very well be true, but it doesn't mean its a net positive for society and I've made my arguments above about how people still should have that choice, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize it's not great for us.

It in no way is based on that. It is based on the idea that people are willing to pay for things which they want, and are not for things they don't want.

You said this mate... Sorry:

No one would give any business their money unless they offered something that makes their life better.

I stand by everything I said in that thread.

Just because you wish to believe that HMOs "bankrupt people left, right, and center" -- by which I take you mean "in great numbers" -- it doesn't make it true. It's not.

And that's part of the problem with this entire thread and your points in general, you at least partially, live in a ideological fantasy land.

I can't argue my way through that bubble, but I can attempt to speak truth to ignorance.

 

[Harshaw]

Satisfying the demand of a few at the expense of (many?) others does not necessarily make life better for society. Folks made money by selling DDT, asbestos shingles and very addictive drugs - are those not exceptions?

There may be exceptions, as nothing is 100%.

But DDT, asbestos shingles, and any addictive drugs brought their mass benefits as well, which is why they sold.

People like not being bothered by malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and having fire-resistant houses, and powerful pain relief.

If better solutions come along later once the downsides of those things have been discovered, would it have been better in the long run not to have had them at all?

 

[RabidAlpaca]

They do? I've never heard of one person who sells for an MLM company getting rich from it.

If you're in the first few tiers from the top, yes, you can get rich.. But for every person getting rich there's 100 people getting ****Ed. Profitable for the company, but not a net benefit to customers or society.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

There may be exceptions, as nothing is 100%.

But DDT, asbestos shingles, and any addictive drugs brought their mass benefits as well, which is why they sold.

People like not being bothered by malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and having fire-resistant houses, and powerful pain relief.

If better solutions come along later once the downsides of those things have been discovered, would it have been better in the long run not to have had them at all?

People often buy something just because it's the cheapest and are ignorant to all of the consequences that may come with it. Just because a company manages to sell a lot of asbestos doesn't mean they're a net benefit to their customers who end up having a lot of health problems down the line. Your hyper simplistic libertarian world view is incompatible with the chaotic mess that is reality.

 

[Jetboogieman]

You keep using your anecdotes as though they are evidence.

Again, I'd like to see if people think the world is a better place with alcohol in it, or with convenient prepared food options in it, than without.

You say that "doesn't work," but I think you know what the answers will be.

If people think they'd rather have the world where these things are in it -- and I have no doubt they do -- then they think it makes the world a better place. Your personal objections to that are irrelevant.

You're diverting from your original points here.

If the argument is, businesses are successful and people give them money because they make their life better, that argument is objectively not true and not because we shouldn't discount consumer responsibility, but because consumers don't always make good decisions.

If consumers could see, past the immediate gratification of the big mac and understand, conceptualize the long term ecological impact on the planet and the health impact on themselves, would they still give money to companies like McDonalds, arguably not, but we're not wired to do that.

Your bizarre instruction for me to go off and make a poll is your way if avoiding the fact that your point is bass ackwards here.

The problem you're having is that you think people should look at what makes life better the same way you do.

But not everyone does.

Why don't you try actually making a point that has anything to do with what you're arguing here.

People smoke for the pleasure of it, or for social benefits, which they apparently think outweighs the risks.

But has it made the world a better place?

The Tobacco industry drives a ****ing monster truck through your notion that businesses would not get money of they didn't make peoples lives better, does smoking really makes peoples lives better?

Surely you don't mean to make that point?

I know it makes some people think it does... But objectively come on, you really want to make that point?

 

[Harshaw]

I know you're really getting your ass handed to you here mate, but you pretended that the practices associated with gangs that happened to make money off of alcohol, disappeared with its legalization.

Make better points if you don't want to have this problem.

Except I'm not. You're either missing the point or being disingenuous.

The crime-related problems with alcohol disappeared once it legalized. To say "yeah but those kinds of crimes still existed" means you either don't understand the point or you're being dishonest in conflating the two.

Not in every circumstance, the things illegal groups do are varied and SOME, are legitimate that are not always fronts but help to support a network of illegality, the Yakuza in Japan are a good and rather bizarre case study in this, but we're getting quite off topic to go into how criminal gangs operate, only to say your point wasn't a good one.

You are WAY off point.

Because I'm capable of recognizing bad, but still believing people should have choice, life, this world is imperfect, doesn't automatically mean I'm for banning anything I recognize as negative.

And not at all because you yourself would like to retain the option of consuming alcohol?

It doesn't... Or they don't recognize it does?

It doesn't.

Much like cancer, how many families are truly untouched by the effects of alcohol, whether they be health or social?

How many families can really say they haven't had a relative who has either been addicted, or had a health complication, or been in trouble with the law in relation to alcohol in the western world?

Probably, very few.

Man, this is a CRAZY rabbit hole.

Nobody doesn't know someone who hasn't been in car accident either. That doesn't mean most people are ravaged by the scourge of automotive mishaps.

That may very well be true, but it doesn't mean its a net positive for society and I've made my arguments above about how people still should have that choice, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize it's not great for us.

Again, this is you thinking people should see things and weigh them the way you see them.

You said this mate... Sorry:

I did. The problem is, as I said, you think that everyone should measure the benefits they see the same way as you do.

And that's part of the problem with this entire thread and your points in general, you at least partially, live in a ideological fantasy land.

No, I live the in the factual reality where the claim you made is just plain false.

I can't argue my way through that bubble, but I can attempt to speak truth to ignorance.

You really should check to see if your assumptions are true before you adopt them as fact.

 

[Harshaw]

But has it made the world a better place?

The millions and millions of people who choose to partake of it think so.

Because they are not obliged to see things the same as you do.

The rest of your post was just repeating the same things.

 

[Harshaw]

People often buy something just because it's the cheapest and are ignorant to all of the consequences that may come with it. Just because a company manages to sell a lot of asbestos doesn't mean they're a net benefit to their customers who end up having a lot of health problems down the line. Your hyper simplistic libertarian world view is incompatible with the chaotic mess that is reality.

Don't you hate it when people think their interests are served by a set of criteria different from what you think they should measure them by?

From all you've said, you should really stop being hypocritical and using Amazon.

 

[Harshaw]

Your argument is that this journalist is incorrect because he said Amazon does not care about the net benefit to society or its customers, only profit. He is 100% correct.

My argument was considerably more complex than that.

If green energy did more harm than good, it would not be a net benefit to society. Green energy (or anything) simply being profitable does not mean it's not a net negative thing for society. The better example is that green energy would be a large net positive for society but because it's not as profitable as fossile fuels (for now) it still lags behind. Profit, not customer or societal benefit drives all business in capitalism.

That may be a "better example" for what you'd like to argue, but it certainly not an argument for any point I'm making.

 

[iguanaman]

No one would give any business their money unless they offered something that makes their life better. If it's done on a large scale, then it's true for a lot of people.

Can you name any exceptions to that?

Customers are not the only people effected by Amazon's meteoric growth. Those living near and around their headquarters can be negatively effected . How would you like your homes taxes doubled overnight forcing you to sell and move out of your neighborhood? How about the traffic that 45,000 new cars bring to an area?

What have been the biggest strains? Well, you might have heard that it rains in Seattle. We used to talk about that a lot. Now we talk about the traffic. Seattle had worse traffic than its image might have implied back in 2010, but since then, traffic has just spun out of control. Megacommutes, a commute of 90 minutes or more one-way to work, have catapulted Seattle to the No. 3 position in the country. That number has expanded by almost 80 percent in the last seven years for Seattle.

What else? Another tough effect is housing prices and displacement. The housing prices in Seattle have doubled in the last six years. There are about 700,000 people in the city of Seattle. Amazon made this unusual technology company choice to locate its campus in a city, as opposed to in the suburbs.

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/07/20/the-amazon-effect-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.html

 

[Jetboogieman]

No, I live the in the factual reality where the claim you made is just plain false..

We're getting so far off base here, your claim in the OP is categorically false, I can't convince someone who doesn't already recognize that smoking and drinking aren't all that great for society, to recognize that people don't always give money to businesses that make their lives better and that businesses that are successful, don't always make the world a better place because they are successful.

You see these things through a bizarre, right wing ideological bubble and in the past when we have discussed business, we'll never see eye to eye on anything, the "pro-business" lens, which you view these issues through is impenetrable, but like many right wingers like you, what you often perceive as "Pro-Business" is actually destructive and what sometimes I argue, which is pro-consumer and finding balance, is seen as anti-business.

I can't break through to someone who sees the world that way, because the claim you made, is clearly, categorically and factually false.

Period.

And you will never understand that.

 

[Harshaw]

We're getting so far off base here, your claim in the OP is categorically false, I can't convince someone who doesn't already recognize that smoking and drinking aren't all that great for society, to recognize that people don't always give money to businesses that make their lives better and that businesses that are successful, don't always make the world a better place because they are successful.

You see these things through a bizarre, right wing ideological bubble and in the past when we have discussed business, we'll never see eye to eye on anything, the "pro-business" lens, which you view these issues through is impenetrable, but like many right wingers like you, what you often perceive as "Pro-Business" is actually destructive and what sometimes I argue, which is pro-consumer and finding balance, is seen as anti-business.

I can't break through to someone who sees the world that way, because the claim you made, is clearly, categorically and factually false.

Period.

And you will never understand that.

As I said, the problem is, you think everyone should look at things the same way you do, and consider "benefits" to be only the things you think they are, as well as coming to the same cost/benefit conclusions you, particularly as it impacts their own lives.

But that's not how things work.

 

[Jetboogieman]

As I said, the problem is, you think everyone should look at things the same way you do, and consider "benefits" to be only the things you think they are, as well as coming to the same cost/benefit conclusions you, particularly as it impacts their own lives.

But that's not how things work.

Pro-Business to the point of absurdity.

The complex end result of decades of right wing American propaganda borne out of the red scare.

Can't be helped mate, just the way you are.

 

[Harshaw]

Pro-Business to the point of absurdity.

The complex end result of decades of right wing American propaganda borne out of the red scare.

Can't be helped mate, just the way you are.

This is pants-on-your-head looney.

You've been attacking what you think is my ideological motivation; I've been arguing the points made, which for me are not the slightest bit ideological. That you see ideology where there is none suggests that it may be you who's having the problems with inflexible ideological lenses here.

("Red scare." Crikey. Climb down.)

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Well I can tell you one downside to Amazon taking over so many small businesses in all their success.
We are DROWNING in cardboard these days.
The wife loves Amazon, so she does almost all her shopping on Amazon, so every time something arrives, it has its own large cardboard box, and breaking down and dealing with all those cardboard boxes is almost turning into a part time job.
And the average suburban trash can can't deal with all that cardboard.

I'm starting to hate cardboard...a lot.

 

[MTAtech]

All other things aside, this, massively blanket statement, is simply not true, just because a business is successful, doesn't mean it has made the world a better place, or what it has done is good.

That is just... Well it's just wrong.

RJ Reynolds is a successful business by making teens addicted to cigarettes. Is the world a better place because of Reynolds?

 

[Jetboogieman]

RJ Reynolds is a successful business by making teens addicted to cigarettes. Is the world a better place because of Reynolds?

You need to read the thread again if you think thats an argument I'm making.

 

[MTAtech]

You need to read the thread again if you think thats an argument I'm making.

It was simple enough to get the jist the first time. The argument, such that it is, is in the first post, "And I'm not saying this because the point of business is profit, not altruism, or anything like that (though it's true).

I'm saying it because any successful business makes the world a better place."

That's an old libertarian notion -- that the market solves all problems, except that it doesn't. Businesses only have the motivation of profit. Without government to establish the rules of the road, businesses will provide consumers tainted meat, harmful drugs, etc.

 

[Harshaw]

RJ Reynolds is a successful business by making teens addicted to cigarettes. Is the world a better place because of Reynolds?

Millions -- billions, even -- of people who enjoy tobacco think the world is a better place with tobacco in it. And they think so despite the risks to themselves.

 

[Jetboogieman]

It was simple enough to get the jist the first time. The argument, such that it is, is in the first post, "And I'm not saying this because the point of business is profit, not altruism, or anything like that (though it's true).

I'm saying it because any successful business makes the world a better place."

That's an old libertarian notion -- that the market solves all problems, except that it doesn't. Businesses only have the motivation of profit. Without government to establish the rules of the road, businesses will provide consumers tainted meat, harmful drugs, etc.

I’m not the one making that argument.

Im afraid I’m not mentally deficient enough to be a libertarian.

 

[Harshaw]

I’m not the one making that argument.

Im afraid I’m not mentally deficient enough to be a libertarian.

The problem is that your personal morality is irrelevant to this. People are not required to look at things the way you do, and millions upon millions don't.

You clearly have a tough time dealing with that, but it remains true despite your frustration that people have different viewpoints than you and make different value judgments than you.

It ain't about you.

 

[roughdraft274]

Now I know you're going to hit back and say "well... Um... I meant legitimate businesses".

But shall we start with... The Cocaine Trade?

But, let's back track to what is part of the mainstream US economy, HMO's are a good example, well the entire healthcare industry really, bankrupting people left right and center, perpetuating a system that continues to drain the entire US economy whilst providing worse and worse returns as things go on, whilst other industrialized nations provide better outcomes for a fraction of the cost.

Trump university.

/Thread

 

[Harshaw]

Trump university.

/Thread

Already dealt with.

Fraud is fraud, and nothing in this thread pertains to fraud.

But even ignoring that . . .

How successful was Trump University? It ran for less than five years, about the span of a typical failed business. It had fewer than 8,000 "customers."

 

[Cramer]

Actually here's another example I like.

McDonalds.

One could make the argument, devil advocate, that McDonalds was able to create a company that was able to deliver food at an unprecedented cheapness and convenience and shaped the course of food output and consumption forever.

On the flip-side, the food is delivered and the industry it fostered created a obesity epidemic that has ended up killing more people than smoking, not to mention the way all this food makes its way into its stores has had an ecological impact that is incredibly destructive among a whole host of other negatives it produced.

And the pay sucks.
Many people who work at McD generally qualify for government benefits as well.