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That's an interesting take and very reasonable. But what could be done to encourage more private vs public / equity financed ownership?

Most effectively, by deliberately not shopping at Walmart, Giant, Safeway but at smaller shops. Reducing barriers for mom&pop shops to hook into gig services and making sure they aren't being ripped off by the middleman (by removing the middleman? who was working on decentralized delivery? I forgot.)

You'll pay more but you'll be happier (and potentially, healthier)

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I wonder if we have historical examples of consumers simply making better choices leading to better business practices

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128 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 21 Dec

Hmm... fair trade chocolate. See https://fairtrade.net/us-en/why-fairtrade/impact/impact-stories/tonys-chocolonely.html - in NL there is barely any slavery-chocolate left - all chocolate across all outlets is fair trade (and expensive)

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I've never heard about slavery chocolate. What are the specifics?

I've just been reading King Leopold's Ghost, though (slavery in the Congo, for harvesting rubber) so I was learning about how in the 1890's through about WWI there was basically slavery in the Congo, set up by King Leopold of Belgium.

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When you have nameless faceless people appointed to your leadership board they sway business decisions in a major way. Co-ops and family owned companies seem to have more of a philosophy of providing top notch service to their customers. Plus everything isn’t always about growth at all costs.

Think of wegmans posted same store revenue declines by like 5% the stock price would tank and the board would look to cut costs and just laying off people and closing low performing stores.

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Yeah... financialization is the enemy of quality, because everything becomes speculative: measured in terms of stack growth consistency rather than the actual value a business provides; like consistently delivering high quality products to customers.

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Yeah this is why I boycott Walmart! It’s absolutely ridiculous how they run that business.

Also why I’m so critical of Warren Buffett. I think the GFC would have really damaged his returns due to the corporate debt daisy chain.

I often think who is holding Ford’s $100B+ of debt!! Who would get wiped out if they stop making payments and more importantly who is using that debt to take on more leverage!

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Pension funds. I can tell you who's going to get 10% equity next bailout though haha

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Hahaha

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