• Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Sort of true. The rich also expand their dynasties. For example, Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1 as they are the children of the founder. I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1

      The Waltons own 20x as much as they did a generation ago and split it among 10 people.

      I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.

      Their products were always shit. That was the Walmart gambit. Sell someone a $1 plastic piece of crap for $8 rather than a durable piece of $8 metal for $10. Pocket the difference and claim you saved people money.

      But the broader consequence of Walmart and its “Buy up / shut down the competition” model is that everyone who sells to Walmart is obligated to produce crap. Because if you can’t sell to them at $.50, they’re not buying. And if they’re not buying, you lose access to millions of customers.

      I think it was either Catepiller or John Deere that had a knock-down drag out fight with Walmart, where they wouldn’t budge on their wholesale price and Walmart began kicking them out of all their stores as a result, that effectively broke the back of the union-lead opposition to price cuts.

    • pigup@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Dude, they have fucked up batteries so bad. I have batteries that are 2 years old, new in packaging that are leaking. Almost every time batteries die in a remote, it’s because they exploded.