[Stormsmith]

I agree with posters that favour boycotting Amazon and Walmart, but Walmart has virtually killed domestic shopping, moved "downtown" to the outskirts of town so your forced to shop there, and now most of the clothes and shoes are rubbish.

And we need to force wage rises. This is one of Canada's most expensive towns. People are hurting. By underpaying people, folks are shopping at food banks. Kids are staying at home instead of getting their own homes etc. Why should Walmart and Amazon have this much power?

[Hong Wu]

This assumes that each resident has equal power/say. This is of course, not true. This basically say's that the 1/3 that opposed this on average have more power and influence.

I doubt that very much. My impression of New York is you have these marginally conservative Wall Street types and working class people who receive government assistance and then you have the AOC protesting in the street people that everyone is afraid of. Fairly similar to certain parts of California. So I guess it comes down to how you define power and influence but the people who have the real power and influence (Wall Street) basically live in fear of the threatened mobbing by the AOC types.

New York city will ultimately probably be worse off for this and if it Segways into a real effort to tax Amazon more from the left I will be a little bit surprised. They seem to care about whether or not their street protest made them look powerful and now that Amazon has f- off they will probably not talk about it again other than to gloat about what they did.

New York is reliably liberal because you basically can't afford to live there as an actual working class person without government assistance (and artificial wage increases are merely a less nuanced form of said assistance) but that model is not normal and it won't work forever if they make a habit of driving away successful businesses.

[Torus34]

The phrase 'free market' crops up in some of the posts above. It's a concept that appears to resonate almost exclusively with politicians. Workers don't find it appealing because it precludes unionization. Companies certainly don't like it. They do all they can to buy up the competition and create safe, controlled markets known as monopolies. Consumers, faced with the prices which can be supported by monopoly-controlled markets, aren't big fans, either.

The politicians, however, continue to extol its virtues while raking in 'campaign contributions' and passing legislation such as 'right to work' laws.

And so it goes.

[layman]

@noemon why must those things be true? Physical shops and markets can still exist out of town which employ people. The city and town centres are the most valuable spaces we have so ideally why not more imaginative things than shopping?

I get those lovely continental food markets but not much else. Most first world city centre shopping is pretty drab and depressing from what I see at my end.

[noemon]

In your end, markets have already been destroyed across the entire UK. Not even huge chains can survive in the UK let alone independents.

What was your choice of furniture for the house, mate? Could you find anything other than the classic British drabs in online stores or Ikea? In my poor Athenian neighborhood alone we have more choice and better quality furniture than the entire UK, and no this is not an exaggeration or hyperbole.

Having choice as a consumer, people having jobs and people getting creative in their arts and crafts is what drives civilisation forward. Dull monopolies removing items that do not sell as well as drabs and then imposing premiums on the drabs makes us all worse off, culturally, aesthetically, qualitatively.

[SolarCross]

Business rates are the big cause of the tide going out for the high street. When the govs get less greedy then that real estate will become more viable for business.

[noemon]

Business rates are ridiculously outdated but they are not the reason the high street is dying. They are the tiniest fraction of cost for brick and mortar enterprises and they offer nothing in return, not even garbage collection or parking. Business rates should change indeed, overhauled completely actually but it is doubtful it will revive the high street or do anything about the monopolies and oligopolies rampant in the UK. That requires anti-trust legislation.

[SolarCross]

Business rates are ridiculously outdated but they are not the reason the high street is dying. They are the tiniest fraction of cost for brick and mortar enterprises and they offer nothing in return, not even garbage collection or parking. Business rates should change indeed, overhauled completely actually but it is doubtful it will revive the high street or do anything about the monopolies and oligopolies rampant in the UK. That requires anti-trust legislation.

It isn't the tiniest fraction, it is as much as rent in many cases unless you have a charity shop which are mostly exempt from rates. In retail margins can be wafer thin so even a "tiny fraction" can mean the difference between profit and loss. You said yourself big corporations are as likely to retreat from the high street as the small ops. HMV and Blockbuster video for example. If we have anti-trust legislation it should apply to government too.

[noemon]

Any business owner worth his salt will tell you that rent should account for max 5% of revenue. Business rates are a bit less than half of rent so they are for small business usually around 2% of revenue while for places like Tescos are about 0.001% of revenue. An obvious solution to this is scraping the rates system alltogether and applying perhaps a 0.5-1% tax on revenue.

The reason there are no people making/selling furniture, clothes, shoes, jewelleryis not because of business rates but because global mamooths have taken them out of business.

[SolarCross]

Any business owner worth his salt will tell you that rent should account for max 5% of revenue. Business rates are a bit less than half of rent so they are for small business usually around 2% of revenue while for places like Tescos are about 0.001% of revenue. An obvious solution to this is scraping the rates system alltogether and applying perhaps a 0.5-1% tax on revenue.

The reason there are no people making/selling furniture, clothes, shoes, jewelleryis not because of business rates but because global mamooths have taken them out of business.

The high street isn't really the place for manufacture especially when you have higher rates to pay to there. If you are talking about the high street then you need to limit the conversation to retail. The subject isn't small vs large it is high street vs online. Small ops and well as large ops do just as well online and large ops do just as poorly as small in the high street. The actual problem is the cost vs benefits associated with the high street vs online which comes down the rates regime which still considers the high street to be a particulary juicy source of funds even while virtual shop spaces have erased that advantage.

If we have anti-trust legislation it should apply to government too.

[noemon]

I am not entirely sure if you care at all about the delapidated state of modern British cities and towns, the fact that in most towns there is nowhere to buy anything at all except for a tesco or an asda. You seem completely unconcerned about this major social change and the causes of the total collapse of shop-keepers and artisans.

It seems to me you are arguing in favour of monopolies while totally ignoring the fact that as soon as a monopoly has been established it no longer has a reason to keep prices low or the products competitive as there is noone to compete with resulting in fleecing you as a consumer. For a professed anti-commie it’s funny you are arguing for communist monopolies devouring the competition resulting in stagnation.

[SolarCross]

I am not entirely sure if you care at all about the delapidated state of modern British cities and towns, the fact that in most towns there is nowhere to buy anything at all except for a tesco or an asda. You seem completely unconcerned about this major social change and the causes of the total collapse of shop-keepers and artisans.

It seems to me you are arguing in favour of monopolies while totally ignoring the fact that as soon as a monopoly has been established it no longer has a reason to keep prices low or the products competitive as there is noone to compete with resulting in fleecing you as a consumer.

I care but it isn't a big versus small problem. It is just a cost vs benefit problem regarding online vs high street.

BTW tescos and asda are predominantly food retailers and so can leverage the VAT exempt status of food to part subsidise the cost of selling non food items. They are mostly not on the high street as well, preferring large lots outside of the high street.

The point is the more greedy the tax regime the more success in business does not depend of pleasing the customer but on how much tax you can avoid.

[noemon]

The issue is whether our national policies in a wide range of subjects should favour monopolies, oligopolies or perfect competition. I, for the reasons already provided, support the third option, you seem to support the commie first option which mathematically leads to stagnation.

[SolarCross]

The issue is whether our national policies in a wide range of subjects should favour monopolies, oligopolies or perfect competition. I, for the reasons already provided support the third option, you seem to support the commie first option which mathematically leads to stagnation.

Which national policy favours monopolies?

[noemon]

The lack of anti-trust legislation favours the formation of monopolies.

[SolarCross]

The lack of anti-trust legislation favours the formation of monopolies.

Lol, well fair is fair if we have anti-trust legislation then it should apply to government too. But I think there are some kinds of monopoly that you will love no matter how stinky and thuggish they may be.

[noemon]

Government anti trust legislation means to break up the country in smaller competing states, funny coming from a nationalist but sure whatever rocks your boat.

If you want to read more about anti-trust legislation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

[Rancid]

I think I just learned a new British phrase.

I'm guessing when you say "High Street" this the same as what Americans refer to as "Main street"? That is, many towns/cities will have a major artery road called High Street?

[SolarCross]

Government anti trust legislation means to break up the country in smaller competing states, funny coming from a nationalist but sure whatever rocks your boat.

If you want to read more about anti-trust legislation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

I am more of a libertarian than a nationalist. I generally do favour decentralisation when it comes to government, exactly because it discourages monopolistic crud and fosters competition which ultimately means choice. I don't care so much about "private", by which we really mean civilian, "monopolies" because if you are not armed it can't be a real monopoly, and if you are armed then you are effectively a government. Private "monopolies" are a phantom menace as real as the bogey man under your bed.

[noemon]

Private "monopolies" are a phantom menace as real as the bogey man under your bed.

Actually mate, this reality we live in is the Matrix, yes. There are no shops, no Amazon, no Netflix, no Google, no Apple and no Microsoft, in fact there is nothing at all, this is all just a Matrix created by unicorns who harvest our nails and use them to file their horns.

I'm guessing when you say "High Street" this the same as what Americans refer to as "Main street"? That is, many towns/cities will have a major artery road called High Street?

Yes man, but it is also used to refer to the main chain retailers as well, yet another unintended consequence of oligopolies.