RIP Toys R Us: Gone But Not Forgotten (Page 2)

[legalboxers]

who the hell put these onions here :(

[PoohBoy38]

Toys R Us was one of my childhood favorite stores!

[Paris13]

No Retail is Us. xxoo

[cherryphi82]

What... that sucks.

[zagor]

Jeff Bezos will kill off a few more before long.

[Aynsof]

Isn't unregulated capitalism just great?

[Curmudgeon]

Yes, because things do change. Maybe YOU would have enjoyed standing in line for a small amount of shoddy toys that fell apart quickly at GUM (pronounced "goom") but most of us would not.

[Aynsof]

@Curmudgeon
Hmmmmm...
So that I do not favour unregulated capitalism means I support Soviet style communism?
Highly intellectual reasoning there...
I am in actuality in favour of the Keynesian economic model
You know the one that built prosperity in the West post WWII...
The one that proved superior to the Soviet model and thus winning the cold war
The one that has been destroyed by deregulation after deregulation since the 80s
So yeah... No GUM
Now you can wait for have super cheap junk that breaks easily shipped from China instead
But at least there is enough junk for all

[Curmudgeon]

And in *that* model, retailers changed *all the time*. Kresge's, Zody's, GemCo, Ben Franklin, Federated, Gold Circle, Mervyn's, Dayton Hudson, Ward's, Bullock's, Emporium Capwell, or a host of other retailers in the USA came and went. Retailers turn over.

As for the Keynesian model, it began to come apart in the inflationary 1960's and completely collapsed in the stagflationary 1970's.

Nor am I a goo-goo for globalism free-trade-at-all-costs type, which, in fact, the Keynesians were. Like Trump, I think that a little protectionism need not be a bad thing.

The postwar system was unique to its time, when the USA was an economic hegemon. Today, no so much. The Bretton Woods model was great for its time, but too much has simply changed to go back to it.

[ThatPersonOverThere]

You... you think we have unregulated capitalism? 😒
Well, no. We have tons of regulation.

That aside, what alternative would you suggest?

Taxing people to keep irrelevant businesses afloat? Perhaps you would have stopped them from taking out so much debt that they were drowning in it? You know, their own poor decisions.
Perhaps you would crush any competitors who made good decisions and provides better value to the customers (Which is why the customers left Toys R Us to shop there instead).
Perhaps force banks to keep giving them loans so that unprofitable businesses never go bankrupt?

At one point their business model made sense, and they were greatly rewarded for it. Their model no longer makes sense (Since you don't operate in a vacuum you operate in an environment with competitors), and due to this they lost profitability and had to close.

What is your solution to the "problem" that bad businesses eventually close? I would truly love to know.

[Aynsof]

No we do not have completely unregulated capitalism
But with every decade that passes is becoming less regulated
This deregulation is a very large contributing factor to the globalization effects we are seeing which in turn is largely the reason why certain businesses can no longer compete
Of course there are other reasons as well there always is
I am not saying this chain deserved to live
I am sure they participated in creating the situation that killed them because they all do because if they don't they just go under that much sooner...
Every time a big chain like this folds or a company relocates production or customer service or whatever it may be to other parts of the world to increase profitability it creates some wealth elsewhere in the world and some wealth in the upper echelons of the economic hierarchy where it used to be but it damages the economic foundation of it consumer base and that in the long run hurts everyone

[Aynsof]

Things do cha he indeed
Some change is inevitable
Some is embraced for some reasons or other
Some is spurned
Change is not automatically good just for being changed
Some change need not have been if not for political reasons
But now it is
Solutions? Don't really see there is one
Sometimes Pandoras box just can't be closed again
Doesn't mean we need to look favourably upon those that opened it or the things it wrought
Or maybe the ways to "fix" things are very complex requiring a great many things nearly impossible to achieve because they are antithetical to a very entrenched system that fosters internal competition and strife for dominance...
I can't fix it but I don't have to like it
Just because there is no better realistic alternative does not mean what is is really the best there can be

[Aynsof]

But if you guys wish to believe everything is great
That the great moderation is real
That trickle down economics really work
That globalization is beneficial for all long term
Go right ahead
You are free to believe as you will