[Vision2020] Doug Jones Says It Clearly

Andreas Schou ophite at gmail.com
Thu Jan 26 16:48:32 PST 2006


> You are right about my confidence in a free market. Perhaps you could give
> me a few examples where an inferior business beat out a superior one.

Let me use a poker analogy. If I had a trillion dollars, played poker
for a living, and won every poker game I played by going "all in" on
every hand, would I be the best poker player that ever lived? Hint:
no, I would not.

This is Wal*Mart's business model: saturate the market, make
monopsonic agreements with suppliers, and run as thin a margin as
possible in new stores until all the other business goes under. Is
this a good business strategy? Yes. Does it contribute to market
efficiency -- which is generally how a "superior business" is
understood to work? No. It does not.

-- ACS



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