Holding steady in Orygun

It was time.

I had to get it done.

I could not put it off anymore.

I walked into the store that liberals love to hate.  All because of that one thing.

I walked without even casually looking around at anything there.  I was a man on a mission.

I reached.  I stopped.  It was all mine.

I sat down on the seat at the blood pressure measuring machine.  I erased the display and slid my left arm into the designated slot.

I looked up as I hit the "start" button.  Waiting for the pharmacist was a white guy, about 45 or 50 years old.  He had a camo-colored baseball cap that had the letters "NRA" in bold and uppercase.  On his side, was a gun in a holster.

A white guy with a gun in a store.

The machine whirred and whizzed and the tightness on my arm eased.  I shifted my attention to the display, wondering whether the sight of the gun would have caused a spike in the numbers.

Steady Eddie, despite the gun!

I don't care whether or not liberals or conservatives love that store; I am not going there anymore.  This pacifist does not want to witness people parading their guns in public spaces.

If the stereotype holds good, then the gun-carrying white guys won't come to shop at the places where I get edamame and paneer, and I will gladly restrict myself to those stores alone ;)

It is so bizarre that people--almost always white guys--publicly walking around with guns is apparently acceptable, but the sight of a woman wearing a hijab makes this country go ballistic!

America, what a country!

Will Liberals laud Walmart?

A year ago--in September 2013--I blogged about Walmart being way ahead of other businesses on at least one aspect that liberals love to talk about.  Yet, this news junkie hasn't read anything to that effect from the usual suspects.

So, what should liberals be applauding Walmart for?

Its adoption of green energy--solar power.

In that September 2013 post, I noted:

Among the corporations going solar, the biggest one is Wal-Mart.  Yes, that same Wal-Mart that the solar-loving left typically loves to hate.  Unlike the left that pushes expensive solar for reasons other than a dollar bottom-line, Wal-Mart does that precisely because it sees money in it

Now this update from Slate, which makes the story even more exciting:

105 MW.  That is huge.

the company now has more solar capacity than 35 states and the District of Columbia. 

How was the situation in that post a year ago?

From 65 MW to 105 MW!

You think that the Walmart-bashing, Apple-loving, liberals will cheer this?  Will faculty, who even organize their students to boycott Walmart, bring this to their students' attention?

Imagine if left-leaning environmentalist faculty get their students to write to Walmart appreciating the leadership the corporation has shown in this important issue of greener energy sources!

Of course, none of that will happen.  For one, we typically see only what we want to see, and we tend to dismiss evidence that does not resonate with our ideological perspectives.  Which means that chances are high that the liberal faculty who rail against Walmart and fossil fuels might not even know that Walmart is way ahead of them.  For another, even if they are aware of it, chances are pretty good that they won't give the devil its due.

As Slate notes:

Walmart's notoriously ruthless cost-cutting might actually burnish solar power's reputation as an economically viable choice rather than some goofy liberal fixation. The company wouldn't be building out an entire state's worth of capacity if solar didn't make fundamental financial sense. Corporate America doesn't get any more hardheaded—or mainstream—than Walmart, and that's great news for green energy.

Indeed.  Solar energy might really catch on if people and businesses found out that even the ruthlessly cost-cutting Walmart is going solar in a big way.  As they say, follow the money ;)

Why the middle class doesn't buy Lululemon at WalMart

I am a university professor in the social sciences, and one who comes to political and economic issues mostly from the center-left.  However, unlike most people in those two camps, I do one thing quite frequently. And to many of  those people my action will certainly be offensive. Even unpardonable.

I have no problems going to WalMart and buying a few things there.  And to check my blood pressure too ;)

A few years ago, my daughter was shocked.  "But, I thought you hated WalMart?"

That was a long, long time ago.  And she had missed out on my evolution!

I disliked WalMart not because it was flooding the market with stuff that we really did not need.  It was just that a WalMart almost always immediately altered the spatial arrangement of various economic activities.  Smaller stores closed down, and the empty buildings were not only a waste but were also terrible eyesores.

But then I made my peace with it and continued to coexist.

Sometimes, even when I do not need to buy anything, as much as I might simply walk through the mall, I walk through a WalMart too.  Because, it gives me a feel for what the vast middle-class that lives on tight budgets purchase.  I get a sense of how a middle-class family with a couple of kids has to juggle the competing claims for the few dollars they have.

Over the past few months, it seemed like the crowds weren't there.  The store--the same one that I have been popping into for years--seemed less cluttered, and with fewer customers.  Some of that can be explained away by online shopping, perhaps.  But, the trend was no different at the other big box store--Target.  Could there be something?

Turns out that I was not imagining anything at all.

A couple of days ago, Slate reported with the following headline:

The Working Class Is Sinking and Dragging Walmart Down With It

Today, WSJ has this as the headline for a story on Target:

One Thing That’s Consistent at Target Lately: Fewer Customers 

If I didn't have students to interact with I might not have known about the middle-class reality.  Early in my teaching career, I was shocked to realize that most students in that class hadn't ever flown in a plane.  Not even once.  It was one hell of a reality-check for me.  Teaching at regional universities--in California and here in Oregon--I deal with demographics that are starkly different from the student population at the affluent private university where I was a graduate student.

Thus, I know students are serious about money when students tell me how relieved they are that there are no textbook expenses for my classes (though, I started going textbookless for pedagogical reasons and in order to make use of the rich materials that are for free on the web.)

And then there is the "other" America; here is a classic example--"Yoga participation grew 4.5% in 2013" but:

sales of yoga apparel were up 45%, according to Matt Powell, an analyst for SportsOneSource, a sporting-goods industry tracker.
"Everyone is wearing yoga pants, even people who aren't doing it," said Karen Score, the owner of Yoga Mandali, an independent yoga store in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Ms. Score, who also runs an adjoining yoga studio, is drawing up brochures for fall classes with the tag line: "Do you wear yoga pants? Why not try yoga?"
Lauren Wheeler-Woodburn estimates that she owns at least 25 pairs of yoga pants.
As a graduate student at the University of Southern California and social-media strategist, she says she wears them mostly every day, for class or to work, or just sitting at home lounging.
"I sound like the yoga pants version of a crazy cat lady," said Ms. Wheeler-Woodburn, who prefers Lululemon but dons other brands too.

Ahem, do you know how much those Lululemons cost?  No wonder she is a grad student at the same university where I earned my doctorate!

Just for the heck of it, I checked whether WalMart carries that brand.  

You guessed it correctly!

But, you can buy a yoga starter-kit.

What do Wal-Mart and Tamil Nadu have in common?

One wonderful aspect of the work-is-hobby-is-work life that I have is how every single day I can be impressed with something or the other.  Well, in case there is no something or other, there are always redheads to be impressed about!

Yesterday, thanks to a tweet, I read this:

A leader in wind energy, Tamil Nadu is all set to claim at least the No. 2 slot among Indian states (after Gujarat) in solar power, as the State is gearing up to signing power purchase agreements for 698 MW.

Hey, the heart warms up every time there is any positive story about the old country, especially Tamil Nadu where I grew up.  I remember how impressed I was, during the sabbatical stay, with the windmill farm near Nagercoil.

A few kilometers outside Nagercoil

And, yes, with the harsh sun beating down on the land day in and day out, there is plenty of potential for solar power.  The science and technology to convert the sunrays into flowing electrons is getting better, and getting less expensive, by the year.  Well, getting less expensive in dollar terms.  But, with the rupee sliding down the slope,

Pashupathy Gopalan, Managing Director, SunEdison, says that rupee depreciation raises project costs by at least Rs 50 lakh per MW. Solar module prices have also gone up in the last few months and could raise capital costs by not less than Rs 12 lakh per MW. On the overall, project costs have gone up by 7-8 per cent, while the tariffs have remained low.
“It is going to be very hard to make it work,” says Gopalan.

The dollar cost going down is all the more the reason that private production of solar power is on the increase in the US.  Among the corporations going solar, the biggest one is Wal-Mart.  Yes, that same Wal-Mart that the solar-loving left typically loves to hate.  Unlike the left that pushes expensive solar for reasons other than a dollar bottom-line, Wal-Mart does that precisely because it sees money in it:

Since 2007, when the first solar arrays went up on its store roofs in California, the installed costs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s solar systems have dropped from $6 or $8 per watt of capacity to about $3.50 per watt, said David Ozment, the company's senior director of energy management. He said he expects the retailer to be paying as little for solar power as utility power "in less than three years," opening the floodgates to solar expansion.Wal-Mart produces about 4% of the electricity it uses but intends to make 20% by 2020, taking advantage of idle acreage on thousands of store rooftops.

Should not surprise us, right?  After all, if the cost of energy goes up, or if there is an increase in the risks with the energy supply, then it makes economic sense to seek alternatives.  A textbook case of how we expected, and expect, a growth in solar and wind and other sources of energy that will slowly draw us away from carbon-based sources.

Now, before you think all is well, life is rarely ever without downsides even in positive news.  What can be the drawback here, you ask?  After all, isn't it a good thing to generate more solar power?  Yes, indeed. But ...

State and federal regulators say they are worried that utilities could end up with fewer customers to pay for costly transmission lines and power plants. Utility executives, meanwhile, are asking themselves a disquieting question: "Am I going to just sit here and take it and ultimately be a caretaker of a museum, or am I going to be part of that business" that's emerging, said Nick Akins, chief executive of American Electric Power Co.,

I say this is a better problem to have.

Because, there are some really energy problems in the developing world.  How serious?  Here is a neat way to compare the excesses that we indulge in against the acute shortages elsewhere--comparing the electricity demand at the Dallas Cowboys stadium and the entire country of Liberia:

During moments of peak demand on game day, the 80,000-seat stadium may consume up to 10 megawatts of electricity, Bernstein said. Liberia has the capacity to pump less than a third as much power into its national grid.

So, celebrate Tamil Nadu and Gujarat and Wal-Mart and others tapping into solar energy.  The more they do, and the more the technology develops, the more we can then also address the energy shortages in Liberia and the developing world.  Like the proposal to construct the world's largest solar power plant in Rajasthan.  

And maybe even put some solar panels on the Cowboys stadium ;)

The best public relations company in the world: Apple!

Way back in graduate school, one of my first year apartment-mates was a doctoral student in marketing.  One of his favorite humorous takes on convincing people, which I later came to understand is a staple in the marketing and public relations realms, was about the wonderful job that Austrians did in making sure that the world knew Hitler as a German and Beethoven as an Austrian.

Over the years, it has been fascinating to observe the many, many variations of this Austrian job.  This post adds one more to that list!

There is a growing sense of anger and frustration, and rightfully so, at the inequality gap between those to whom a larger and larger share of income and wealth are accruing versus the millions who feel like they are working longer and longer hours that do not translate into wages that assure them of that "American Dream."

This frustration quickly reaches a bottom-line of "those greedy corporations and their CEOs."

In the populist narrative with the bottom-line of greedy corporations and their CEOs, rotten eggs are thrown at the likes of fast food restaurant chains like McDonald's, big box retailers like Walmart, oil corporations like Exxon.

One company is pretty much never, ever attacked. It is a multinational corporation that is the largest in the world.  This multinational corporation has profit margins like you won't believe.  This corporation employs very few people in its "home" country of the United States.  Stories abound about its shoddy treatment of workers and the environmental impacts of its factories.

Yet, this multinational corporation is rarely ever attacked compared to the daily assaults on WalMart or McDonald's or Exxon.

A masterful Austrian job of public relations, right?

Of course, the corporation that I speak of is Apple.

Here is a succinct comparison of the employment and profit aspects of the "good guy" Apple and the "bad guys":

Walmart and Target earn between three and four cents on the dollar; a typical McDonald’s franchise restaurant earns around six cents on the dollar before taxes, according to an analysis from Janney Capital Markets. In fact, the combined profits of all the major retailers, restaurant chains, and supermarkets in the Fortune 500 are smaller than the profits of Apple alone. Yet Apple employs just seventy-six thousand people, while the retailers, supermarkets, and restaurant chains employ 5.6 million.

 Did you get that? Let me repeat:

the combined profits of all the major retailers, restaurant chains, and supermarkets in the Fortune 500 are smaller than the profits of Apple alone

Yet, the assault is on McDonald's and WalMart?  Aren't you convinced by now that Apple has done one heck of a Austrian-style PR job to market itself as the angelic corporation?

People protest outside fast-food establishment. Outside WalMart.  But not outside Apple.  For a simple reason: those working for Apple at Cupertino have nothing to complain about, when their work is handsomely rewarded.  (Apple's productions are offshore--but then, when did we Americans start caring for factory workers employed by American corporations in the rest of the world anyway!)

Those working at a McDonald's restaurant or at a WalMart, on the other hand, know all too well that they are barely earning the minimum wage.  Thus, the corporations that employ 5.6 million people and with paper-thin profit margins are attacked day in and day out, whereas very little is said about Apple.

What you see is not always what you see.

Main Bazaar, Pondy Bazaar, Big Bazaar, and the stalled retail revolution in India

A few weeks ago, a friend in Eugene reminded me about the bazaar at her church, for fundraising activities.

"You owe the British for having imported the word "bazaar" into the English language, thanks to their adventures in India and the Middle East" I commented with my half-baked understanding of the etymology in this context. 

Well, perhaps whatever I know is half-baked, eh!

In the small industrial town where I grew up, the Main Bazaar was the commercial part of town. From clothes to electronics to bakery, it had them in a bazaar-styled layout.  It is the bazaar air that the pedestrian single-story mall of contemporary new urbanism tries to capture too.

With the high school reunion only a few days away, I suppose I will soon find out how much that old Main Bazaar has changed, and how much of that old layout remains.

Here in Chennai, I went with my sister to a multi-level store that is like a Wal-Mart Superstore in Pondy Bazaar.  This fancy new place is called "Big Bazaar" and is one happening place in the evenings. 

Turns out that as is the case with the Wal-Mart kind of big box stores, this Big Bazaar also offers products at prices that are lower than those charged by the smaller stores.  At least, that was the case with the few things we purchased at Big Bazaar.

If the prices in the sampling of merchandise are not any outliers, and are more typical in terms of lower prices than the smaller "mom and pop stores" then I have ground-level evidence on why the stalled openness in retailing might not be advantageous to the consumer.  

While the Government is still hesitant about the next step, it's wrong to assume that global retailers will wait forever, say retail experts. “The Government is sending the wrong signals to global players. While they are wary of the policymaking process in the country, these retailers also now realise it will be a challenging task to tackle each State Government on APMC rules if FDI is ever allowed,” says Mr Arvind Singhal, Chairman, Technopak Advisors.

Global retailer Walmart has indicated that India allowing 51 per cent FDI in retail had actually exceeded its expectations. In view of the political sensitivity, the company was comfortable with a 49 per cent FDI.

Mr Raj Jain, Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Walmart, had said in November that while the FDI nod was welcome, the company will need to study the conditions and the finer details of the new policy and the impact it will have on its ability to do business in India.

I worry that the problem is not merely about India opening up to a Tesco or Walmart.  But that this is a serious symptom of acute problems in India.  Fareed Zakaria also seems to worry about the same:

Last week marked exactly 10 years since the term BRIC was coined. The catchy acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China used to describe the new powerhouse emerging markets. But the man who invented the moniker now says one of the four has been a great disappointment. No, not Russia, with all its recent troubles; not Brazil, whose economy contracted in the last quarter; and certainly not China, which continues to power on.
Goldman Sachs' Jim O'Neill says that the country that has been the biggest letdown has been India. He pointed out last week that India's inability to attract foreign investment could actually lead to a balance of payments crisis. From BRIC to basket case, "What in the World?" is going on?
Well, some numbers tell a troubling story. Growth has dipped below 7% for the first time in two years. The Indian rupee is Asia's worst performing currency this year, falling to a historic low against the dollar.
India's deficits are soaring and funding is drying up. India received less than $20 billion in foreign direct investment in the first six months of 2011. China got three times that amount. Even Russia, with the smaller GDP, took in more.
Why is India struggling? Sadly, the real problem isn't economics. India has a very dynamic private sector - probably the most dynamic in the emerging markets. But it has a government that simply doesn't work.

I hope India will soon correct its course; else, Indians might have to worry a lot about the Mayan prophesy!

Wal-Mart in India? What about mom-and-pop stores?

More here on the stalled retail reform in India

Working stiffed: the union adopts Wal-Mart's practices :)

The Daily Show points out yet another inconvenient and uncomfortable truth:

The UFCW of Nevada pays temporary workers minimum wage to demand fair treatment and wages from Wal-Mart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Working Stiffed
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

More on Wal-Mart doing good things ....

Of course, Wal-Mart, like most businesses, is a mix of good and bad. But, the company is beginning to understand that maybe the critics have a point and, as noted in earlier posts, is exploring the ways in which its business can address those criticisms. 
And, when it makes money sense, well, why not use its market-muscle-power, right?  Which is what it is up to now with check-cashing/payday loan.  What is payday lending, you ask?

Cheque-cashing and payday lending businesses are very common in poor neighbourhoods around the country. They provide the most basic financial services to unbanked customers, at what are typically described as usurious rates of interest—often 400% APR or more.

For years now politicians have been blowing hot air about this and, true to their nature, prefer not to do any damn thing.  Wal-Mart is smelling money in this, in ways that could actually clean up the system and make it less onerous for the poor:

WHAT is retail behemoth Wal-Mart up to these days?

Wal-Mart already has “MoneyCenters” in 1,000 of its U.S. stores, and the company said yesterday it plans to to add 400 more by the end of the year. The centers offer services like check cashing and bill pay that are often considered part of the broader “fringe banking” system. [...] Lots of those people go to local check-cashing outfits that often charge high fees. So Wal-Mart, which charges $3 to $6 cash a check, can be a good alternative, said Alejandra Lopez-Fernandini, who works for a New America Foundation program that aims to help low- and middle-income people build wealth.

Pretty neat, eh! 

This just continues to illustrate how interesting Wal-Mart is as a phenomenon and a mirror of American society and culture. Wal-Mart clearly has market power, which it occasionally uses abusively, if not necessarily illegally. But sometimes, it uses its market power to accomplish things government entities are unwilling or unable to accomplish—pressing environmental standards on its suppliers, for instance, or reining in abusive lenders. I just appreciate Wal-Mart's ability to demonstrate the strangely ad hoc way in which American institutions manage to muddle through. Americans should maybe be taking Wal-Mart's market power a little more seriously, but hey, so long as its ability to shift the economics in local markets accomplishes goals a dysfunctional federal government is unable to address, well, it may be better to leave well enough alone.

Not your grandpa's Wal-Mart!

Yes, Wal-Mart is huge.  How huge?  consider this:

Wal-Mart has more than 10,000 suppliers in China. In addition, about a million farmers supply produce to the company's 281 stores in China. If Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation, it would be China's fifth- or sixth-largest export market.

That huge!
The old story was about Wal-Mart the evil giant.  But, as I noted recently, the market-savvy Wal-Mart is transforming in ways that might surprise those confined by their ideological blinders.  Wal-Mart is flexing its muscles to promote a green thinking among its suppliers:

"We heard that in the future, to become a Wal-Mart supplier, you have to be an environmentally friendly company," Fung said. "So we switched some of our products and the way we produced them."

And there is more:

"For those who may still be on the sidelines, I want to be direct," Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott said sternly. "Meeting social and environmental standards is not optional. I firmly believe that a company that cheats on overtime and on the age of its labor, that dumps its scraps and its chemicals in our rivers, that does not pay its taxes or honor its contracts will ultimately cheat on the quality of its products. And cheating on the quality of products is the same as cheating on customers. We will not tolerate that at Wal-Mart."
Now new suppliers are screened for environmental practices.

And for those worried that the Chinese government does not seem to care about the environmental impacts of its economic growth strategies?  Here is the killer:

Many China experts say Wal-Mart's guidelines could be more important than the government's.
"They are the rule setters," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based group. "Before Wal-Mart only cared about price and quality, so that encouraged companies to race to the bottom on environmental standards. They could lose contracts because competition was so fierce on price."
Wal-Mart's suppliers have been forced to get serious about pollution, Ma said. "Wal-Mart says if you're over the compliance level, you're out of business. That will send a powerful signal."

Who you gonna believe? Walmart or Whole Foods?

“They do a lot of good things they don’t talk about” .... “It’s getting harder and harder to hate Walmart.”

Those are quotes in a wonderfully honest and objective report from my favorite food commentator, Corby Kummer.
Kummer takes a look at Walmart Supercenters selling organic and locally grown produce, and is impressed:

I had trouble believing I was in a Walmart. The very reasonable-looking produce, most of it loose and nicely organized, was in black plastic bins (as in British supermarkets, where the look is common; the idea is to make the colors pop). The first thing I saw, McIntosh apples, came from the same local orchard whose apples I’d just seen in the same bags at Whole Foods. The bunched beets were from Muranaka Farm, whose beets I often buy at other markets—but these looked much fresher.

And then he devises the following experiment:

Walmart holding its own against Whole Foods? This called for a blind tasting.
I conspired with my contrarian friend James McWilliams, an agricultural historian at Texas State University at San Marcos and the author of the new Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. He enlisted his friends at Fino, a restaurant in Austin that pays special attention to where the food it serves comes from, as co-conspirators. I would buy two complete sets of ingredients, one at Walmart and the other at Whole Foods. The chef would prepare them as simply as possible, and serve two versions of each course, side by side on the same plate, to a group of local food experts invited to judge.

Read his essay on what that experiment revealed.