So you’re neither admitting nor denying that the “drinks” in question are coffee-based?

You betrayed an anti-Wal-Mart bent with this phrase:

“does as little damage to the world at large as possible”

And did I criticize Wal-Mart?

If you are willing to pay a higher price for organic vegetables and high-quality coffee, that’s fine in my opinion. You should have complete freedom to buy whatever you want. Just don’t criticize Wal-Mart.

On the other hand, if you are a Mormon, maybe you shouldn’t be drinking coffee…

This discussion reminds me of my dear husband. He won’t go with me to the coffee house up the street because he’s annoyed by the clientelle–too yuppy, too self satisfied, too PC.. But it’s close. The drinks are lovely. Lots of exposed wood. Free wifi. And remind me please, why is it that I’m not supposed to go there?

Obviously, deodorant packaged in a cardboard box is wasteful. It kills tree unneccessarily. Paper mill workers who make these boxes are wasting their time and energy. Workers who create the ink for these boxes waste their time and energy. People who used to buy deodorant in cardboard boxes were wasting their money because they had to pay for the little bit of cardboard that the deodorant came in, but they were getting absolutely zero value from the cardboard box. Rather, they had to take the time to chuck the cardboard box into the trash. Landfill space was taken up by useless cardboard deodorant boxes that added no value to the human race.

So thank goodness that we no longer buy our deodorant in cardboard boxes. Who can we thank for this? Wal-Mart.

In Wal-Mart’s race to compete and provide the lowest possible prices, Wal-Mart innovates. Then, thanks to its innovation, it dominates. The competition copies Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart does things efficiently, and when the competition copies Wal-Mart, pretty soon everyone is doing things efficiently.

And then trees don’t get cut down for useless cardboard deodorant boxes. And then poor families will each save a few dollars each year because they aren’t paying for cardboard boxes each time they buy a stick of deodorant.

Thank goodness we have Wal-Mart. All of your lives are better off because of the existence of Wal-Mart. If Sam Walton were alive today, he would be the richest man on earth, and he would deserve every penny of it.

“So, in the New Testament the only way to be wealthy was to oppress others, while today it’s possible to be wealthy without oppressing others because of better property rights laws?”

In a free market, the way to get wealthy is helping others. You compete with other businesses to provide a product at the lowest possible price. This spurs innovation. The consumer wins because they end up getting a product at a low price. The efficient producer wins because consumers purchase from him / her.

“Retail Sector
In general merchandise (representing 16 percent of the total retail productivity growth acceleration), we found that Wal-Mart directly and indirectly caused the bulk of the productivity acceleration through ongoing managerial innovation that increased competitive intensity and drove the diffusion of best practice (both managerial and technological).”

If you care about poor people, you would support Wal-Mart.

Be careful, Mark IV. It is a slippery slope.