It's amusing that since I say I live in Boston you think I haven't been to the midwest. To be clear I have family in the midwest and do very much work in the midwest, (I frequently work in Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois).
Arkansas isn't really considered part of the Midwest and Nebraska and Kansas sometimes aren't either depending who you ask. I'm being pedantic though. While no insult was intended, I suggested you learn more about the Midwest because your comments sound an awful lot like someone who hasn't really lived there. It sounds like you've been spending a fair bit of time in the more rural parts but that's FAR from the whole picture. Most of the population in the Midwest lives in or near a major metro area which are very comparable to most any urban coastal city you care to mention aside from some regional quirks.
The income levels in the rural midwest are lower than on the coastal urban areas, as shown in this map:
Apples to oranges. Income levels in urban Midwest are higher than rural coastal area too. That's mostly an urban vs rural thing, not a Midwest versus coast thing. The Midwest isn't just farming communities - not even close. The majority of the population in Missouri lives in either Saint Louis metro or Kansas City. 3/4 of the population of Illinois lives in Chicago-land (9 of 12 million). Nearly half of Michigan lives near Detroit. Over half of Ohio (pop 11.6 million) lives near either Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati.
Find me a dozen millionaires in Portis, KS. If I throw a rock in Manhattan I'll probably hit a couple millionaires in one throw.
I'll be happy to take you to the locations in the midwest if you want to club multiple millionaires with rocks. Every major metro area has them. Manhattan may have more than average but drive through some place like Ladue Missouri or Birmingham Michigan and you are in a place that is is positively lousy with them. Heck, Oakland County just north of the City of Detroit is one of the ten wealthiest counties in the entire US. Go to The Loop in Chicago and it's not so different from Manhattan.
You're telling me about the Detroit/Ann Arbor Whole Foods experience, which is not rural in the same way that central Kansas is, nor is it in the lower income areas. I have been to plenty of places in midwest rural areas where the only game in town is a Walmart, even for groceries. If Amazon/Whole Foods wants to access those people, they'll have to build there. There are 4 Whole Foods in Kansas - 728,000 people per store. There are 30 Whole Foods in Massachusetts - 227,000 people per store.
You asked how many there were in the Midwest. In the urban areas where most people in the Midwest actually live there are quite a few Whole Foods stores. You're quite correct that if you get out into the really rural areas that you aren't going to find much that is fancier than a Walmart in many cases. Population density plays more into this than income disparity. A premium store like Whole Foods doesn't work unless there is a certain population density to work with. Plenty of places in the Midwest have that and that's where most Midwesterners also happen to live.
Hundreds of billions spent on climate research in the few decades.
And what exactly is your point? The evidence CLEARLY points to the climate research being useful. I'm fine with spending that money as long as the evidence supports further investigation. The only people seemingly opposed to further climate research are people who make money from opposing it. Don't tell me you are one of these conspiracy theorists who thinks scientists actually en-mass are trying to scam you out of your tax dollars. If scientists really wanted to make money in a corrupt fashion the real money would be in opposing climate research.
Hundreds of billions more spent on green energy subsidies (including failed companies that took off like thieves in the night).
TRILLIONS are spend on fossil fuel subsidies annually. Again, what exactly is your point? Clean energy is an unambiguously good thing and subsidies are necessary for a time to get the technology to the point where the economics work. In many cases they have already succeeded. This is true for all kinds of new technology. Not sure why you seem to have a beef with subsidizing clean energy when fossil fuels in 2016 were $5.3 Trillion globally. That is 6.5% of global GDP for an industry that is wildly profitable and clearly does not need subsidies.
Though fossil fuel companies to make billions, the amount of money spent to push the AGW agenda dwarfs anything on the other side.
Bullshit. First off, fossil fuel companies collectively make TRILLIONS, not billions. The amount of money in clean energy currently is positively dwarfed by the amount of money currently in fossil fuel production and sales. It's not even remotely close. Second, "AGW agenda"? Spare me your nonsensical ravings. When you want to have a fact based discussion then we can revisit. Until then you are just spouting vague conspiracy theory bullshit.
I agree that you can get similar or better quality at other places on some items. You can go to a good local butcher to get good meats and cheeses. You can go to a local farm stand and get better veggies, etc. I think the advantage of Whole Foods is that you can get all that in one place. I'm not a frequent Whole Foods shopper but when I go I do notice much higher quality (albeit at a much higher price) than my local chain stores (stop and shop, market basket, shaws), especially for meats.
I can go to a nearby farmer's market and get a good approximation of what I can get at Whole Foods in one place. Excellent produce and meats and there is a top shelf meat market and fish monger and deli literally right next door for anything not carried by the local purveyors in the market. I also have three road side veggie stands, one upscale grocery store (plus three normal ones), and an awesome butcher on my drive home from work. Maybe not all under one roof but hardly inconvenient. In the summer I can pick up corn from a stand that was on a plant less than 6 hours prior. Whole Foods couldn't match that if they tried.
A question for Midwest slashdotters: how common are they in the Midwest, compared to other grocery stores?
There are several Whole Foods in most major metro areas - they have over 400 stores nationwide. I have 5 within a 30 mile radius of where I live. Unsurprisingly they tend to be in relatively affluent areas. You could answer your question on their website. It's not hard to find them. However in my town (Metro Detroit/Ann Arbor) there are several other upscale grocery store options within driving distance. One of them is a blatant local knock off of Whole Foods and another is actually better in my opinion. We also have a wide variety of specialty markets, many of which put Whole Foods to shame.
If Amazon really wants to drop prices to attract a lower income crowd, then I'd think they'd want to start building them in areas that are accessible to that crowd (not that the Midwest is all low income, just that it's easier to access high income folks in coastal urban areas).
I think you need to actually spend time in the Midwest because you clearly have some misconceptions about the region. You seem to think that folks in the Midwest are poorer which simply isn't true as a general proposition - they're just less densely packed outside of the major metro areas but that's not really any different anywhere. It's just as easy to find high income people in the midwest as it is on the coasts - possibly even easier if anything. You simply go to the towns where they live. Look at a map of where Whole Foods stores are located and you'll have a pretty good idea where the money is in a given metro area. I live in a location that someone from Boston would probably classify as semi-rural (lots of hobby farms) and I can be in a Nordstroms in an upscale mall within 30 minutes of leaving my house. Furthermore cost of living in most of the Midwest is FAR lower than places like Boston so "low income" doesn't mean quite the same thing here and your money tends to go a fair bit farther.
I went to school on the east coast so I've seen a lot of folks from NYC and Boston and Philly who really don't have a clue what life is like in the midwest. They often think it is all farm country full of uneducated hicks and that there is nothing interesting happening. It's not true at all of course but since they've never spent any time here they have no idea. Major cities are pretty much the same no matter where you go. There is nothing in Boston has that you won't find a rough approximation to in Metro Detroit or Cleveland or Chicago. People who live elsewhere think Detroit is some sort of desolate wasteland. While it's certainly got some issues if you were to come to downtown Detroit today you'd find it's a VERY nice place to be (yes there is a Whole Fo
Last job I had, I worked with a number of physicists working in climatography and oceanography. Thats pretty much their take too. The politics *baffle* them. Conservative politiciians declariing that theres some sort of sneaky conspiriacy going on, meanwhile actual scientists are just following the evidence where it leads, regardless of what the policy wonks proclaimed.
This one is easy. First follow the money. Oil and gas companies have a vested and huge financial interest in avoiding any science that might point a finger at them and they support and fund conservative politics that lead to that might lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. This is simply money interests protecting the status quo. Second, look at the ideology. Conservative's purport to like small government and many of the environmental issues we have are best solved through regulation which to various degrees means larger government. So this makes an easy target for conservative pundits who want to make a buck on the backs of credulous people who inherently distrust government. It's little different from a preacher to tells people that the bible says homosexuality is bad. People listen to the preacher even when what he says is ridiculous. Third is simply tribalism. A lot of liberals are concerned about the environment and so the conservatives simply treat them as The Other. Because the opposition likes it then it must be bad. Whether or not this is contrary to their own self interest becomes irrelevant.
Ironically the republicans used to be rather forward thinking about environmental issues. The EPA and NOAA came into existence under republican administrations. It is a fairly recent development that conservatives started using the environment as a political punching bag. I find it hugely irritating that the notions of clean water and a hospitable climate could possibly be items of contention but it's amazing what some people will do to make a buck and gain power.
This doesn't strike me as particularly dishonest. Is organic produce really healthier than the alternative?
The evidence to date largely shows that there is little or no measurable benefit to organic produce over non-organic. There is nothing fraudulent about offering organic for sale per-se though it's not clear there is any actual benefit to it either. However the moment they promote it as "healthier" then they have stepped over a line because to date there is basically no evidence to support that claim. People assume organic should be better because there is a certain logic to the idea but that isn't the same thing as showing evidence that it actually improves nutrition, helps the environment, or decreases health problems. I admit I even like the idea of organic foods myself but my inner scientist still wants to see the evidence before getting too excited.
Is it healthy to avoid GMOs? Doesn't matter; there are customers for that.
Which is fine for people who live in an evidence free world. Again, there is no known harm from consuming GMOs (we've been genetically modifying foods since humans domesticated crops and animals) but if someone is willing to pay to avoid them, who cares? It's like the ridiculous number of people buying gluten free foods who do not actually have any actual physical issues with gluten. If the only harm is to stupid rich people's wallets then fine but I'm not thrilled about letting people be taken advantage of. People are imagining possible harms that don't appear to actually exist and for which they have no evidence that they exist and paying someone to provide them a product that avoids their imagined non-problem. Whole Foods is taking advantage of people who aren't very good at rational thought by cleverly marketing "benefits" that haven't actually been shown to exist. It's a little shady in my opinion.
Are their homeopathic "cures" better than the alternatives? Same answer.
You seem to have missed the point. Homeopathy is snake oil. It's fraudulently taking people's money for a placebo. By definition it doesn't work and there is no physical mechanism by which if can work. It's been studied and proven to not work. The problem isn't that their homeopathy is different from others. The problem is that Whole Foods shouldn't be selling homeopathic "remedies" in the first place. It's fraud.
There's nothing inherently dishonest about making the items available for sale
In the case of homeopathy I completely disagree. EVERYTHING about homeopathy is dishonest. I'm frankly stunned that it is legal to sell.
No, I'm not going to another store, be it another supermarket or a pharmacy, to buy asprin. No other supermarket on the planet refuses to sell basics like that. And while, yeah, I'm sure the steak is noticeably worse at Winn Dixie, but Publix manages to sell quality food and everything else you'd expect to find at a supermarket.
There is a difference between a grocery store and a supermarket. Supermarkets tend to have a wider variety of products beyond just food whereas a grocery store tends to focus mostly on food. Whole Foods is a grocery store, not a supermarket. They sell some stuff other than food but it's clear food is their focus.
I also question the usefulness of a store that doesn't sell essentials like asprin. I can get decent quality steak at Publix, and I can get asprin there too. I might be able to get a better steak from Whole Foods but I suspect I probably wouldn't taste the difference, and after viewing the receipt, I'd have a headache and no asprin to fix it.
There is no doubt that a typical steak from Whole Foods will likely be better than one from Publix and the price will also be substantially higher most likely as well to reflect that fact. That doesn't mean the one from Publix is bad though and if you aren't a particularly good cook then the better cut of meat could easily be ruined in which case why bother buying the expensive cut?
What irritates me about whole foods is that they go to all the bother to sell expensive healthy organic produce and then they sell fraudulent homeopathic "cures" instead of real medications. To me it shows they really aren't a very honest company given they are pedaling snake oil like that. They're basically catering to idiot hippies with more money than brains.
Now, sure, I can go to two supermarkets. I can also not, and use the extra half hour to an hour it would take to drive to the next one, park, go in, find what I'm looking for, go to the checkout, buy it, walk back to the car, and drive home, to read another chapter of a book, or watch TV.
I wouldn't disparage you for doing so. I shop a lot online these days for exactly that reason. Why spend a hour running from store to store if you don't have to?
WalMart tends to buy at the low end of the quality spectrum, mainly to keep prices down; at least that was the case a few years back when I talked to one of their suppliers who sold to most other grocery chains as well. There is nothing wrong with their food, just a lot of it is a cut below a major grocery chain's quality; that lets them keep prices low. The only exception I've seen is the vegetables which tend to be perfectly fine; the meats and fish OTOH are often barely edible in comparison.
I don't disagree but remember that Walmart doesn't have to capture all of Whole Foods customers to drive them out of business. They just need to get enough to push them into unprofitability like they've done with so many other retailers. The problem Whole Foods is facing is simply increased competition and they don't have the cost structure right now to deal with the threat adequately. Most people simply aren't that loyal to Whole Foods especially since they no longer have a niche all to themselves.
Yeh, this is really sad - WholeFoods for all that it is pricy as hell also sells a bunch of really good quality things that you can't easily get elsewhere.
That's just not true anymore. I have a half dozen grocery stores within 30 miles of my house that are every bit as good (sometimes better) than Whole Foods and serve price points similar to Whole Foods. And frankly there is rarely anything I would ever buy that I can only get at Whole Foods. Decent quality organic produce and meats? Available at several premium grocery stores near me and sometimes even at my local Kroger. Sustainable fish? I've got a fish monger that is WAY better than Whole Foods plus the same premium grocery stores. Prepared foods? Same deal. Deli? I've got one of the best in the country near me which Whole Foods can't even touch. Weird grains? Got 'em. Pricey lotions? Countless options. Bogus homeopathic "remedies"? Widely available from a scam artist near you.
Whole Foods does sell good stuff for the most part but they are hardly the only game in to in the places where their stores are located most of the time. Seriously, what do you think you can get at Whole Foods that isn't available elsewhere?
Turning it into yet another Safeway is a real shame.
Why do you assume it will become a Safeway? Amazon could do a lot to cut costs and prices without turning it into a crappy shopping experience.
This group doesn't intersect with WallMart shoppers, so why then would you want to compete with WallMart on price?
Because if Walmart offers good enough organic produce, price will win out. There seemingly are not enough Whole Foods customers who aren't willing to go elsewhere for their organic kale to keep the company afloat when they can get it from Costco or Kroger or yes even Walmart. Whole Foods had a niche when they were effectively the only ones selling organic foods. Now I can get that from nearly anywhere, often for a lot less money.
Austin Texas. A small bubble of something close to sanity surrounded by the rest of the lunacy that is Texas. Austin isn't much like the rest of the state. They call it weird but it's only really weird if you compare it to the rest of Texas. For people like me who visit Austin regularly but don't live in Texas, it isn't weird at all.
Why am I not surprised the first action upon acquiring a new company is to fire everybody who might know how to run it?
Whole Foods has been in considerable trouble recently so it's pretty clear the folks in charge of Whole foods did not know how to run it. The company found an untapped niche where they were a first mover. The competition has significantly caught up and so it's harder to get away with charging for $6 "asparagus water".
And yes there will be headcount cuts, at least at first. Almost any time two companies merge there are some redundant positions. Furthermore Whole Foods has a cost structure that is not working in the face of increased competition. Part of this means they probably have more people employed than they can really justify. They can change or they can die. There is no option three.
There is a demographic of people that "always" have money, and you want them as your customers. Do you think Rolex or Louis Vutton were really hurt that much during Great Recession of 2008? That is the market that Whole Foods tries to go after.
There is a big difference between selling a $1000 purse and selling a pint of ice cream for and extra few bucks. People buy a Rolex because they can show off how rich they are. Lot harder to do that with stuff you eat.
Grocery stores are practically recession proof. Everyone has to eat even when times are hard.
That's true to a degree but it is definitely not true for upscale grocery stores like Whole Foods. If people fall on hard times shopping at Whole Foods is among the first things to go by the wayside.
I kind of figured Amazon would try to get into the grocery business in a big way but this is not the strategyI would have expected. It's an interesting approach from a business perspective. Whole Foods is struggling with cost and pricing but has a good brand and Amazon is amazing at the back end stuff. Might work brilliantly if they do it right. Might be a catastrophe. It's certainly well outside Amazon's wheelhouse to get into traditional retail in such a big way but it does give them immediate access to a high quality group of supplier relationships in groceries.
I often can't get a cellular connection inside of a store, especially if it's in a metal building.
"Often"? I've been in a LOT of stores and while there certainly are some dead zones, it's fairly uncommon. Certainly not enough of them to justify using in store Wi-FI.
The patent, titled "Physical Store Online Shopping Control," details a mechanism where a retailer can intercept network requests like URLs and search terms that happen on its in-store Wi-Fi, then act upon them in various ways.
WTF would anyone use in-store Wi-Fi in a retail store? I have trouble even imagining a meaningful benefit to this. I don't even use "free" Wi-Fi at places like the airport outside of an emergency. Cellular network connections are generally faster, more secure, more private, and less hassle.
Basically you are simply assuming there are more homeless people than geniuses when in fact the data seems to show that probably isn't actually true, at least in the US and most other modern countries.
It's simply easier to become homeless than be a genius.
That is an assumption not an evidence based fact.
Out of those groups, quirkiness would have to be much much more common in geniuses than in homeless people for there to be roughly similar numbers.
See the data above which seems to disagree with you.
There are more quirkly homeless people than quirky geniuses.
Just playing devil's advocate but is this actually true and what is the evidence for or against? Are you just assuming it to be true because it sounds right? We're talking about opposite ends of the spectrum in many cases but both tend to be some standard deviations outside the norm. It wouldn't actually surprise me if the number of crazy geniuses in total wasn't all that different from the number of crazy homeless people. I have no evidence for or against but it is an interesting question. (to me anyway...)
We already have too much self-described geniuses on websites like Slashdot who are arseholes because they read a self-confirming article that many geniuses were arseholes.
The European Commission said the end of roaming charges was one of the greatest successes of the EU
If that is one of their "greatest successes" then the EU is a good approximation of worthless. Sure roaming charges are an issue but are a very minor problem in the grand scheme of things.
Published source makes it a lot easier to spot problems with the code.
Demonstrably false in most circumstances. Just because the code is available does not mean competent people are looking at it and finding bugs. It would be safe to say most open source programs are not being looked at by a lot of eyes beyond the primary developers. You need more than published source code to make it easy to spot bugs. Heck a lot of code is so badly written that it would be easier to re-write from scratch than to find a bug in it.
The have billions of dollars (in foreign currency). However, it is doubtful that these money can be used to create jobs
Baloney. If they do pretty much anything economically useful beyond simply gathering interest from securities, jobs will be created. But as long as they keep that pile of money sitting in the figurative bank no jobs of any kind will be created. There is no task you can do that involves billions of dollars that will not create meaningful numbers of jobs. But they have to actually try to do something first. Apple hasn't taken a significant risk since the iPhone was released. It's just been incremental improvements and variations on existing technology for the most part.
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It's amusing that since I say I live in Boston you think I haven't been to the midwest. To be clear I have family in the midwest and do very much work in the midwest, (I frequently work in Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois).
Arkansas isn't really considered part of the Midwest and Nebraska and Kansas sometimes aren't either depending who you ask. I'm being pedantic though. While no insult was intended, I suggested you learn more about the Midwest because your comments sound an awful lot like someone who hasn't really lived there. It sounds like you've been spending a fair bit of time in the more rural parts but that's FAR from the whole picture. Most of the population in the Midwest lives in or near a major metro area which are very comparable to most any urban coastal city you care to mention aside from some regional quirks.
The income levels in the rural midwest are lower than on the coastal urban areas, as shown in this map:
Apples to oranges. Income levels in urban Midwest are higher than rural coastal area too. That's mostly an urban vs rural thing, not a Midwest versus coast thing. The Midwest isn't just farming communities - not even close. The majority of the population in Missouri lives in either Saint Louis metro or Kansas City. 3/4 of the population of Illinois lives in Chicago-land (9 of 12 million). Nearly half of Michigan lives near Detroit. Over half of Ohio (pop 11.6 million) lives near either Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati.
Find me a dozen millionaires in Portis, KS. If I throw a rock in Manhattan I'll probably hit a couple millionaires in one throw.
I'll be happy to take you to the locations in the midwest if you want to club multiple millionaires with rocks. Every major metro area has them. Manhattan may have more than average but drive through some place like Ladue Missouri or Birmingham Michigan and you are in a place that is is positively lousy with them. Heck, Oakland County just north of the City of Detroit is one of the ten wealthiest counties in the entire US. Go to The Loop in Chicago and it's not so different from Manhattan.
You're telling me about the Detroit/Ann Arbor Whole Foods experience, which is not rural in the same way that central Kansas is, nor is it in the lower income areas. I have been to plenty of places in midwest rural areas where the only game in town is a Walmart, even for groceries. If Amazon/Whole Foods wants to access those people, they'll have to build there. There are 4 Whole Foods in Kansas - 728,000 people per store. There are 30 Whole Foods in Massachusetts - 227,000 people per store.
You asked how many there were in the Midwest. In the urban areas where most people in the Midwest actually live there are quite a few Whole Foods stores. You're quite correct that if you get out into the really rural areas that you aren't going to find much that is fancier than a Walmart in many cases. Population density plays more into this than income disparity. A premium store like Whole Foods doesn't work unless there is a certain population density to work with. Plenty of places in the Midwest have that and that's where most Midwesterners also happen to live.
Hundreds of billions spent on climate research in the few decades.
And what exactly is your point? The evidence CLEARLY points to the climate research being useful. I'm fine with spending that money as long as the evidence supports further investigation. The only people seemingly opposed to further climate research are people who make money from opposing it. Don't tell me you are one of these conspiracy theorists who thinks scientists actually en-mass are trying to scam you out of your tax dollars. If scientists really wanted to make money in a corrupt fashion the real money would be in opposing climate research.
Hundreds of billions more spent on green energy subsidies (including failed companies that took off like thieves in the night).
TRILLIONS are spend on fossil fuel subsidies annually. Again, what exactly is your point? Clean energy is an unambiguously good thing and subsidies are necessary for a time to get the technology to the point where the economics work. In many cases they have already succeeded. This is true for all kinds of new technology. Not sure why you seem to have a beef with subsidizing clean energy when fossil fuels in 2016 were $5.3 Trillion globally. That is 6.5% of global GDP for an industry that is wildly profitable and clearly does not need subsidies.
Though fossil fuel companies to make billions, the amount of money spent to push the AGW agenda dwarfs anything on the other side.
Bullshit. First off, fossil fuel companies collectively make TRILLIONS, not billions. The amount of money in clean energy currently is positively dwarfed by the amount of money currently in fossil fuel production and sales. It's not even remotely close. Second, "AGW agenda"? Spare me your nonsensical ravings. When you want to have a fact based discussion then we can revisit. Until then you are just spouting vague conspiracy theory bullshit.
The one by here has an entire medicine aisle. Except, of course, it's homeopathic because of course it is.
If it is full of homeopathic "cures" then it is by definition not a medicine aisle.
I agree that you can get similar or better quality at other places on some items. You can go to a good local butcher to get good meats and cheeses. You can go to a local farm stand and get better veggies, etc. I think the advantage of Whole Foods is that you can get all that in one place. I'm not a frequent Whole Foods shopper but when I go I do notice much higher quality (albeit at a much higher price) than my local chain stores (stop and shop, market basket, shaws), especially for meats.
I can go to a nearby farmer's market and get a good approximation of what I can get at Whole Foods in one place. Excellent produce and meats and there is a top shelf meat market and fish monger and deli literally right next door for anything not carried by the local purveyors in the market. I also have three road side veggie stands, one upscale grocery store (plus three normal ones), and an awesome butcher on my drive home from work. Maybe not all under one roof but hardly inconvenient. In the summer I can pick up corn from a stand that was on a plant less than 6 hours prior. Whole Foods couldn't match that if they tried.
A question for Midwest slashdotters: how common are they in the Midwest, compared to other grocery stores?
There are several Whole Foods in most major metro areas - they have over 400 stores nationwide. I have 5 within a 30 mile radius of where I live. Unsurprisingly they tend to be in relatively affluent areas. You could answer your question on their website. It's not hard to find them. However in my town (Metro Detroit/Ann Arbor) there are several other upscale grocery store options within driving distance. One of them is a blatant local knock off of Whole Foods and another is actually better in my opinion. We also have a wide variety of specialty markets, many of which put Whole Foods to shame.
If Amazon really wants to drop prices to attract a lower income crowd, then I'd think they'd want to start building them in areas that are accessible to that crowd (not that the Midwest is all low income, just that it's easier to access high income folks in coastal urban areas).
I think you need to actually spend time in the Midwest because you clearly have some misconceptions about the region. You seem to think that folks in the Midwest are poorer which simply isn't true as a general proposition - they're just less densely packed outside of the major metro areas but that's not really any different anywhere. It's just as easy to find high income people in the midwest as it is on the coasts - possibly even easier if anything. You simply go to the towns where they live. Look at a map of where Whole Foods stores are located and you'll have a pretty good idea where the money is in a given metro area. I live in a location that someone from Boston would probably classify as semi-rural (lots of hobby farms) and I can be in a Nordstroms in an upscale mall within 30 minutes of leaving my house. Furthermore cost of living in most of the Midwest is FAR lower than places like Boston so "low income" doesn't mean quite the same thing here and your money tends to go a fair bit farther.
I went to school on the east coast so I've seen a lot of folks from NYC and Boston and Philly who really don't have a clue what life is like in the midwest. They often think it is all farm country full of uneducated hicks and that there is nothing interesting happening. It's not true at all of course but since they've never spent any time here they have no idea. Major cities are pretty much the same no matter where you go. There is nothing in Boston has that you won't find a rough approximation to in Metro Detroit or Cleveland or Chicago. People who live elsewhere think Detroit is some sort of desolate wasteland. While it's certainly got some issues if you were to come to downtown Detroit today you'd find it's a VERY nice place to be (yes there is a Whole Fo
Last job I had, I worked with a number of physicists working in climatography and oceanography. Thats pretty much their take too. The politics *baffle* them. Conservative politiciians declariing that theres some sort of sneaky conspiriacy going on, meanwhile actual scientists are just following the evidence where it leads, regardless of what the policy wonks proclaimed.
This one is easy. First follow the money. Oil and gas companies have a vested and huge financial interest in avoiding any science that might point a finger at them and they support and fund conservative politics that lead to that might lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. This is simply money interests protecting the status quo. Second, look at the ideology. Conservative's purport to like small government and many of the environmental issues we have are best solved through regulation which to various degrees means larger government. So this makes an easy target for conservative pundits who want to make a buck on the backs of credulous people who inherently distrust government. It's little different from a preacher to tells people that the bible says homosexuality is bad. People listen to the preacher even when what he says is ridiculous. Third is simply tribalism. A lot of liberals are concerned about the environment and so the conservatives simply treat them as The Other. Because the opposition likes it then it must be bad. Whether or not this is contrary to their own self interest becomes irrelevant.
Ironically the republicans used to be rather forward thinking about environmental issues. The EPA and NOAA came into existence under republican administrations. It is a fairly recent development that conservatives started using the environment as a political punching bag. I find it hugely irritating that the notions of clean water and a hospitable climate could possibly be items of contention but it's amazing what some people will do to make a buck and gain power.
This doesn't strike me as particularly dishonest. Is organic produce really healthier than the alternative?
The evidence to date largely shows that there is little or no measurable benefit to organic produce over non-organic. There is nothing fraudulent about offering organic for sale per-se though it's not clear there is any actual benefit to it either. However the moment they promote it as "healthier" then they have stepped over a line because to date there is basically no evidence to support that claim. People assume organic should be better because there is a certain logic to the idea but that isn't the same thing as showing evidence that it actually improves nutrition, helps the environment, or decreases health problems. I admit I even like the idea of organic foods myself but my inner scientist still wants to see the evidence before getting too excited.
Is it healthy to avoid GMOs? Doesn't matter; there are customers for that.
Which is fine for people who live in an evidence free world. Again, there is no known harm from consuming GMOs (we've been genetically modifying foods since humans domesticated crops and animals) but if someone is willing to pay to avoid them, who cares? It's like the ridiculous number of people buying gluten free foods who do not actually have any actual physical issues with gluten. If the only harm is to stupid rich people's wallets then fine but I'm not thrilled about letting people be taken advantage of. People are imagining possible harms that don't appear to actually exist and for which they have no evidence that they exist and paying someone to provide them a product that avoids their imagined non-problem. Whole Foods is taking advantage of people who aren't very good at rational thought by cleverly marketing "benefits" that haven't actually been shown to exist. It's a little shady in my opinion.
Are their homeopathic "cures" better than the alternatives? Same answer.
You seem to have missed the point. Homeopathy is snake oil. It's fraudulently taking people's money for a placebo. By definition it doesn't work and there is no physical mechanism by which if can work. It's been studied and proven to not work. The problem isn't that their homeopathy is different from others. The problem is that Whole Foods shouldn't be selling homeopathic "remedies" in the first place. It's fraud.
There's nothing inherently dishonest about making the items available for sale
In the case of homeopathy I completely disagree. EVERYTHING about homeopathy is dishonest. I'm frankly stunned that it is legal to sell.
No, I'm not going to another store, be it another supermarket or a pharmacy, to buy asprin. No other supermarket on the planet refuses to sell basics like that. And while, yeah, I'm sure the steak is noticeably worse at Winn Dixie, but Publix manages to sell quality food and everything else you'd expect to find at a supermarket.
There is a difference between a grocery store and a supermarket. Supermarkets tend to have a wider variety of products beyond just food whereas a grocery store tends to focus mostly on food. Whole Foods is a grocery store, not a supermarket. They sell some stuff other than food but it's clear food is their focus.
I also question the usefulness of a store that doesn't sell essentials like asprin. I can get decent quality steak at Publix, and I can get asprin there too. I might be able to get a better steak from Whole Foods but I suspect I probably wouldn't taste the difference, and after viewing the receipt, I'd have a headache and no asprin to fix it.
There is no doubt that a typical steak from Whole Foods will likely be better than one from Publix and the price will also be substantially higher most likely as well to reflect that fact. That doesn't mean the one from Publix is bad though and if you aren't a particularly good cook then the better cut of meat could easily be ruined in which case why bother buying the expensive cut?
What irritates me about whole foods is that they go to all the bother to sell expensive healthy organic produce and then they sell fraudulent homeopathic "cures" instead of real medications. To me it shows they really aren't a very honest company given they are pedaling snake oil like that. They're basically catering to idiot hippies with more money than brains.
Now, sure, I can go to two supermarkets. I can also not, and use the extra half hour to an hour it would take to drive to the next one, park, go in, find what I'm looking for, go to the checkout, buy it, walk back to the car, and drive home, to read another chapter of a book, or watch TV.
I wouldn't disparage you for doing so. I shop a lot online these days for exactly that reason. Why spend a hour running from store to store if you don't have to?
WalMart tends to buy at the low end of the quality spectrum, mainly to keep prices down; at least that was the case a few years back when I talked to one of their suppliers who sold to most other grocery chains as well. There is nothing wrong with their food, just a lot of it is a cut below a major grocery chain's quality; that lets them keep prices low. The only exception I've seen is the vegetables which tend to be perfectly fine; the meats and fish OTOH are often barely edible in comparison.
I don't disagree but remember that Walmart doesn't have to capture all of Whole Foods customers to drive them out of business. They just need to get enough to push them into unprofitability like they've done with so many other retailers. The problem Whole Foods is facing is simply increased competition and they don't have the cost structure right now to deal with the threat adequately. Most people simply aren't that loyal to Whole Foods especially since they no longer have a niche all to themselves.
Yeh, this is really sad - WholeFoods for all that it is pricy as hell also sells a bunch of really good quality things that you can't easily get elsewhere.
That's just not true anymore. I have a half dozen grocery stores within 30 miles of my house that are every bit as good (sometimes better) than Whole Foods and serve price points similar to Whole Foods. And frankly there is rarely anything I would ever buy that I can only get at Whole Foods. Decent quality organic produce and meats? Available at several premium grocery stores near me and sometimes even at my local Kroger. Sustainable fish? I've got a fish monger that is WAY better than Whole Foods plus the same premium grocery stores. Prepared foods? Same deal. Deli? I've got one of the best in the country near me which Whole Foods can't even touch. Weird grains? Got 'em. Pricey lotions? Countless options. Bogus homeopathic "remedies"? Widely available from a scam artist near you.
Whole Foods does sell good stuff for the most part but they are hardly the only game in to in the places where their stores are located most of the time. Seriously, what do you think you can get at Whole Foods that isn't available elsewhere?
Turning it into yet another Safeway is a real shame.
Why do you assume it will become a Safeway? Amazon could do a lot to cut costs and prices without turning it into a crappy shopping experience.
This group doesn't intersect with WallMart shoppers, so why then would you want to compete with WallMart on price?
Because if Walmart offers good enough organic produce, price will win out. There seemingly are not enough Whole Foods customers who aren't willing to go elsewhere for their organic kale to keep the company afloat when they can get it from Costco or Kroger or yes even Walmart. Whole Foods had a niche when they were effectively the only ones selling organic foods. Now I can get that from nearly anywhere, often for a lot less money.
You do realize Whole Foods started in Texas
Austin Texas. A small bubble of something close to sanity surrounded by the rest of the lunacy that is Texas. Austin isn't much like the rest of the state. They call it weird but it's only really weird if you compare it to the rest of Texas. For people like me who visit Austin regularly but don't live in Texas, it isn't weird at all.
Why am I not surprised the first action upon acquiring a new company is to fire everybody who might know how to run it?
Whole Foods has been in considerable trouble recently so it's pretty clear the folks in charge of Whole foods did not know how to run it. The company found an untapped niche where they were a first mover. The competition has significantly caught up and so it's harder to get away with charging for $6 "asparagus water".
And yes there will be headcount cuts, at least at first. Almost any time two companies merge there are some redundant positions. Furthermore Whole Foods has a cost structure that is not working in the face of increased competition. Part of this means they probably have more people employed than they can really justify. They can change or they can die. There is no option three.
There is a demographic of people that "always" have money, and you want them as your customers. Do you think Rolex or Louis Vutton were really hurt that much during Great Recession of 2008? That is the market that Whole Foods tries to go after.
There is a big difference between selling a $1000 purse and selling a pint of ice cream for and extra few bucks. People buy a Rolex because they can show off how rich they are. Lot harder to do that with stuff you eat.
Grocery stores are practically recession proof. Everyone has to eat even when times are hard.
That's true to a degree but it is definitely not true for upscale grocery stores like Whole Foods. If people fall on hard times shopping at Whole Foods is among the first things to go by the wayside.
I kind of figured Amazon would try to get into the grocery business in a big way but this is not the strategyI would have expected. It's an interesting approach from a business perspective. Whole Foods is struggling with cost and pricing but has a good brand and Amazon is amazing at the back end stuff. Might work brilliantly if they do it right. Might be a catastrophe. It's certainly well outside Amazon's wheelhouse to get into traditional retail in such a big way but it does give them immediate access to a high quality group of supplier relationships in groceries.
I get 50 MB a month of mobile data. The only way I ever use the Internet on my phone is through Wi-Fi.
Then you need to shop around for a better plan. There are plenty available for reasonable prices.
Not everyone has an unlimited data plan for their cellphones.
You don't need an unlimited data plan. We're talking about doing a quick price comparison. That doesn't require gigabytes of data.
Sometimes wifi is just more convenient.
In a retail store? When?
m using wifi on the express bus since it's faster and doesn't drop out while going through the Palo Alto hills on 280.
What does that have to do with a price check on in-store wifi in a retail store?
I often can't get a cellular connection inside of a store, especially if it's in a metal building.
"Often"? I've been in a LOT of stores and while there certainly are some dead zones, it's fairly uncommon. Certainly not enough of them to justify using in store Wi-FI.
The patent, titled "Physical Store Online Shopping Control," details a mechanism where a retailer can intercept network requests like URLs and search terms that happen on its in-store Wi-Fi, then act upon them in various ways.
WTF would anyone use in-store Wi-Fi in a retail store? I have trouble even imagining a meaningful benefit to this. I don't even use "free" Wi-Fi at places like the airport outside of an emergency. Cellular network connections are generally faster, more secure, more private, and less hassle.
There are more homeless people than there are geniuses
It depends on how you define genius. Approximately 2.2% of the population has an IQ above 140 which is the cutoff for MENSA membership. Approximately in the US is homeless. So if you are talking Newton or Tesla level geniuses you might be right but if you define genius as the smartest 1-2% of the population then there are at least as many geniuses as homeless people.
Basically you are simply assuming there are more homeless people than geniuses when in fact the data seems to show that probably isn't actually true, at least in the US and most other modern countries.
It's simply easier to become homeless than be a genius.
That is an assumption not an evidence based fact.
Out of those groups, quirkiness would have to be much much more common in geniuses than in homeless people for there to be roughly similar numbers.
See the data above which seems to disagree with you.
There are more quirkly homeless people than quirky geniuses.
Just playing devil's advocate but is this actually true and what is the evidence for or against? Are you just assuming it to be true because it sounds right? We're talking about opposite ends of the spectrum in many cases but both tend to be some standard deviations outside the norm. It wouldn't actually surprise me if the number of crazy geniuses in total wasn't all that different from the number of crazy homeless people. I have no evidence for or against but it is an interesting question. (to me anyway...)
We already have too much self-described geniuses on websites like Slashdot who are arseholes because they read a self-confirming article that many geniuses were arseholes.
There's definitely a surviorship bias in play here.
The European Commission said the end of roaming charges was one of the greatest successes of the EU
If that is one of their "greatest successes" then the EU is a good approximation of worthless. Sure roaming charges are an issue but are a very minor problem in the grand scheme of things.
Published source makes it a lot easier to spot problems with the code.
Demonstrably false in most circumstances. Just because the code is available does not mean competent people are looking at it and finding bugs. It would be safe to say most open source programs are not being looked at by a lot of eyes beyond the primary developers. You need more than published source code to make it easy to spot bugs. Heck a lot of code is so badly written that it would be easier to re-write from scratch than to find a bug in it.
The have billions of dollars (in foreign currency). However, it is doubtful that these money can be used to create jobs
Baloney. If they do pretty much anything economically useful beyond simply gathering interest from securities, jobs will be created. But as long as they keep that pile of money sitting in the figurative bank no jobs of any kind will be created. There is no task you can do that involves billions of dollars that will not create meaningful numbers of jobs. But they have to actually try to do something first. Apple hasn't taken a significant risk since the iPhone was released. It's just been incremental improvements and variations on existing technology for the most part.