France approves law stopping Amazon from shipping discounted books for free

[Istvan diVega]

Indeed. So very, very different.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HarryT
There is a fairly large difference between a government doing something for the overall good of society, and a cartel of publishers doing the same thing for financial gain.

I agree. It seems that whether it's books or more important things Government always gives the short end to the little guy.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

I agree. It seems that whether it's books or more important things Government always gives the short end to the little guy.

Governments everywhere reward their friends and punish... everybody else.
And the circle of friends gets ever smaller and the punishments more abundant.
Not a model that can long endure, even when those being punished are willingly complicit.

Delaying the inevitable only makes the reckoning worse, whether it be booksellers or entire countries. Anybody who thinks they can legislate against entropy and the arrow of time is in for a big bang of a wakeup call.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Mivo

Where does it lead, though? Instead of a variety of small stores in the neighborhood, there will only be a handful of large online stores.

Why can't an online store be small? Further, why can't it serve a neighborhood? Most small, local stores seem to think their neighborhood owes them a living. That's why they fail-it's not selection. Maybe it's prices but if they offer extra value they could charge higher prices-but they don't.

Some local stores do well online. Mostly they seem to be stores that have traditionally offered delivery. Many of them operate out of self-storage units. It does require a different business model & few small businessmen seem to think 'outside the box' but that's probably why so many fail. It's not inherent in the competition, it's inherent in their approach to business.

[Istvan diVega]

Originally Posted by crich70

I agree. It seems that whether it's books or more important things Government always gives the short end to the little guy.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Governments everywhere reward their friends and punish... everybody else.
And the circle of friends gets ever smaller and the punishments more abundant.
Not a model that can long endure, even when those being punished are willingly complicit.

Speak for yourselves. I think the successive governments we've had here since WWII have done an admirable job of building a society based on broad consensus and fellowship. Left, Right and Centre alike (although they'd all translate to Left and Lefter from a US perspective).

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I've seen where a Walmart will move in and a nearby grocery store (from a chain) will close down. Why? Low pricing of course. But then, that store overcharged to begin with and is now paying the price for doing so.

Walmart is cheaper because they buy their wares at lower prices than a local grocery store can. Walmart doesn't buy 20 or 30 of one thing, but tens or hundreds of thousands. Partly, these chains even produce goods, or buy them directly at factories. Walmart also tends to employ people for low, at or close to minimum wages, so that's another area where they save in.

Local, independent stores don't pay the price because they overcharged. They pay the price because customers don't look at the larger picture and only want the cheapest price (which is understandable, of course), regardless of the long term consequences. In the end, it's not cheaper. Either we lose our own jobs eventually, our retirement payments get cut down, healthcare increases in cost, or we pay more taxes. Because those local stores employ local people, relay on other local service providers, etc. That card house is more complex than Walmart's card house.

This is starting to get political. Suffice it to say that I don't believe in propping up failing business models. I despise subsidies. Businesses that compete in their current model need to find another one or perish.

The entire topic is political. I disagree with your uncompromising, capitalistic view, and I don't feel it benefits us in the long run, as mentioned above. No local grocery store can possibly compete on an even level with Walmart, just like you could not compete with a sweatshop worker or a programmer in India, because your living costs are much higher.

The point here is that you can't just compare a Chinese or Indian worker to a North American or Western European one and say that it's fine that the latter lose their jobs because they overcharge. They overcharge because they can't rent an apartment for $50 a month. I feel that it is essentially the same for the local grocery store vs. the nation-wide supermarket chain.

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

I have no problem with subsidies. Without them Norway wouldn't have publishers, agriculture or anybody living above the 65th parallel except a handful exceedingly stubborn fishermen and a bunch of oil workers.

You'd no doubt be fine with that, but most people here wouldn't.

Norway buys Teslas.
Is a subsidy available?

[roger64]

Originally Posted by afv011

Funny that there is no word for "cheap/inexpensive" in French, and you have to revert to "not expensive". I guess it says it all.

They have "bon marché" (cheap)

Funny that there is no word for "gratuit" in English, and you have to revert to "free"". I guess it says it all.

Free like free beer but not for "free" software!?

[medard]

It's a bit late now to kick Amazon out of Europe, but this concordant vote by the National Assembly of France shows that free countries don't want US companies to spy their citizens and to destroy their culture.

I'm sure we'll see similar laws in other European countries soon, Amazon is already building warehouses in Eastern Europe to get out of trouble in Germany.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Mivo

The entire topic is political.

Attempting to talk about France's economic policies without alluding to its politics is like doing situps on a tightrope: One soon finds oneself flailing in midair.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

Speak for yourselves. I think the successive governments we've had here since WWII have done an admirable job of building a society based on broad consensus and fellowship. Left, Right and Centre alike (although they'd all translate to Left and Lefter from a US perspective).

How are north sea oil reserves holding up for Norway?
And what's the local attitude towards cracking?
Peak oil has been delayed but not abolished.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

Left, Right and Centre alike (although they'd all translate to Left and Lefter from a US perspective).

Thanks for noticing the distinction! For those who remember the moment when the sea-change happened (hint: it was the early zeds), hearing people speak of right-of-centrist democrats as "leftists" is like waking in the Twilight Zone. There's a constant overhaul of language in the States that makes one think of Orwellian newspeak and Goebbelsian reversals. The rezoning of accurate terminology for right, left and center is designed to shift positions once considered extreme to more normative placements -- it's a kind of gerrymandering of categories. One notices the problem when one tries to place actual leftists on that spectrum and finds Marx's spot crowded by technically right-of-center politicians like Hillary Clinton. That shift has infected the press in the UK as well, and the problem is that we lose the overview of categories that educated people have had since 1867.

The irony is that many of us Americans (and Brits) are conditioned to treat our political views as mere common sense and everyone else's as agenda-driven and therefore overly political (nor do I claim to be cured of the inductive reasoning bug myself -- one has to examine one's thinking regularly, as if for thought lice). The result is that we bully people with our politics while accusing everyone else of having political agendas.

Overreactions to French policy are but one example of this.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Attempting to talk about France's economic policies without alluding to its politics is like doing situps on a tightrope: One soon finds oneself flailing in midair.

It's doable.
What's hard is getting past the concept that politics can supercede basic economics principles. Distort economic behavior, yes; abolish the consequences of the distortion, no. Core economic principles are not different for different political systems; they apply equally to theocracies and autocracies, democracies, and tribal groups.
Political discourse is infinite but economics is about finite resources. And it is the limits imposed by the resources being finite that brings politics (and emotion) into the picture. Focusing on theoretical politics is just a way to avoid dealing with the underlying issues of finite resource allocation, the reality that politicians everywhere can only dispense largesse they take from somebody else and that somebody else invariably ends up being their own society, present or future.

Allocation and regulation is not creation; sooner or later the rave ends and somebody has to clean the debris.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There is a fairly large difference between a government doing something for the overall good of society, and a cartel of publishers doing the same thing for financial gain.

Does anyone really imagine that's what governments do? Lobbyist exist for a reason.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

There's a constant overhaul of language in the States that makes one think of Orwellian newspeak and Goebbelsian reversals.

.

Indeed.
The Economist has highlighted several egregious examples in their blogs over the past few months. Most seem to be deliberate obfuscation.

What I find most amusing is the wrap-around appropriation of the term "progressive"--which originally was used in American politics by republican T. Roosevelt to describe his populist right-wing policies--by status quo leftists seeking to escape their traditional banner as "liberals" as they seek to prevent change sought by "conservatives".

So we have a "conservative" faction seeking change while a "progressive" faction seeks more of the same as the past 50 years, all within a political spectrum several inches wide.

Orwell and Kafka would be shaking their heads in bemusement.
Adam Smith would just roll his eyes and sigh.

Small wonder fantasy and SF have never been more popular.