The IRS led the investigation.

There's the motive.

Malls did that, post-war America up until what.. 20 years? Kinda hard to pin a date on the death of the mall.

1. I don't shop in Walmart, and haven't for a while. Probably since around 2018.

2. If the difference is not obscene, and I like the store.. yes, I patronize the mom and pop. I'm not a "race to the bottom" guy, I don't drive around for an hour looking for a ten-cent cheaper gas station, like my fam would do.

3. I worked at a convenience store, not too horribly long ago, during a dry spell in my IT thing. I know the ridiculous markups, shady business and other shenanigans all too well.

Not everyone is a Wal-Mart customer, pal. I'm not. I don't have a Wal-Mart umbrella. I don't have a wal-mart TV. I don't have walmart this walmart that. I.. loathe.. walmart.. and I think I always have, from the very first one I shopped in what.. 1991?

I understand there's a large swath of America that has no choice, it's Wal Mart or Family Dollar. That speaks louder to "why hasn't the real salary of people increased since nineteen fucking seventy-three?" Had salaries kept up with GDP, then this wouldn't be the case, and a large chunk of america wouldn't *depend* on Wal-Mart. Or Family Dollar.

WTF happened in 1973, I mean besides the oil embargo, and the un-hitching of the dollar to gold? Why does the timeline skew off right there? What fuckery was done that hasn't been disclosed / snooped out to cause this freezing of real wages?

See sig.

I grew up with K-mart. Somehow, K-mart didn't lay waste to the mom n' pops. Or entire swaths of towns. They co-existed.

Maybe that has to do why now K-mart is a footnote, and so's the schmucks that bought them.

Walmart did something different -- the scale, mainly, I think.

Swell. Then, the resultant company can buy Cosco, and the US Government too, and we'll end up with Buy n' Large.

(yes, in Wall-E, Buy n Large is not just a supermegastore, it is also the Government, quite literally.)

(Walazon? Amamart?)

Yeah. *after* Wal-Mart already incinerated the retail landscape.

FWIW, malls did this back in the stone age. Santurce, PR was a bustling town hooked up by trolley rail and bus, to most of the island. The main drag had all the nice movie theaters, etc.

Then, in 1968 -- the year before i was born -- Plaza Las Americas opened, and was expanded in 78-80. That place *demolished* Santurce. It turned into a run-down haven for druggies, homeless, etc. The beautiful cinemas were shuttered, or reduced to grindhouse or porn.

I've seen it all before, and none of it invalidates the idea Walmart needs to be taught a lesson about hubris, and who best to teach it to them than Amazon.

Don't worry, one day someone will come and lay waste to Amazon. Maybe it'll be a resurgence of the downtown experience, maybe it'll be Walmart who does it.

Fair payback, for spending the last 4 decades destroying small mom n' pops, and sometimes entire towns.

Nice flamebait. They're free to buy what they can get. May I interest you in a Lamborghini? No tariffs against Italia (that I'm aware of.)

https://www.lamborghini-tracto...

Or, how about a homegrown alternative? The Farmall name still lives, in the hands of Case. They make big stuff, too.

https://www.caseih.com/en-us/u...

Ooh, there's choices... mm. Hardly a monopoly. Well, maybe a monopoly in brand recognition.. but there are choices.

Now, fuck vendor lock-in, and trying to prevent owner repairs.. but fuck you more for political flamebaity assholishness.

We have had this technology for several years now. The devices are in widespread use. You've probably seen one.

I mean, we all pause to pee, but that's not the only reason to pause. Maybe I want to see that weird thing in the background. Or have a really good look at a car on-screen.

Prime doesn't care, the people that cancel over this will be barely measurable at all.

I personally DGAF because i nuked the Prime Video app from all my devices when they started asking for more $ for ad-less. I barely watched Prime at all, so.. no loss at all.

But for the sake of those who still use it, I hope they make this user-selectable.

One more reason I love physical media over digital distribution.

SO did The Who.

As for KISS, one day in 1986 I was at Villa Piano, a huge music store in Santurce, PR.. just bumming around, trying a few things, just browsing. Maybe pick up a set of strings for my guitar.

In walks this whole weird entourage, some wearing KISS jackets, etc.. and they buy this cheap, white, Stratocaster-style Ibanez, in white.

There was a KISS concert the next day, and I went to it. At the end of the show, Paul Stanley demolished that very guitar, the white Ibanez I saw purchased at Villa the day before.

I thought it was wasteful. Back then I couldn't even cough up the $500 that bottom-of-the-line Ibanez cost, and he just made it splinters for entertainment.

Bothersome, but not terminal. But I do still sometimes ruminate on how a student may have gotten a decade's long enjoyment from that white Ibanez, vs it being splinters at the foot of the stage at the end of the show.

Hah. Listen up, Mr. Bunker: The people that write Communist-type ideas usually have little clue about how it really works.

I called him a "high school commie wannabe" because the shit he wrote in that article reminded me greatly of the vapid, divisive writings I saw in my high school intro to journalism class. Compete with the faux-outrage and "im superior to you" tone. That teacher was a self-described communist, and judged all our writings by that lens. Everything we wrote had to be slanted to how unfair the current system is, how it must be stricken down.

Commmies come in many flavors, Mr. Bunker. They not all ascribe to what you personally think a commie is or should be.

It could even be said commies are iN A sPeCtRuM, a non-binary condition of being a little commie, very commie, or Joseph Fucking Stalin himself.

I call 'em as I see 'em. Manufactured outrage is destroying this country. Nay, not just this country -- the "western world" as a whole.

I think it's relevant and incisive to mention it. Don't like it? Move along

Wish I had mod points. This is +5 informative / insightful

I do hope the 4 you mentioned get shit on all week long by people ridiculing them.

I'm starting to think it's not just "manufactured outrage" but a very cleverly concealed marketing op. Marketing masquerading as outrage.

Yes, yes you still are a thief.

The brother's retrieval of the victim's lunch money -- stolen by you -- does not "undo" the theft. You committed the theft and no force on this earth can erase that fact.

You'd still be found guilty of theft in a court, provided said court is not stacked in your favor and the judge paid off to see to your release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Destroying musical instruments for art's sake has been done long before.

I'm not defending the little shit that wrote that dementedly whiny article, I'm just leaving that link here to illustrate that sometimes bleeding-edge can come across as weird, off-putting and offensive.