[Jyhad] Best Buy shutting down the Future Shop chain

[Kersus]

Just another example of why it should be illegal to buy another company or worse, allow foreign companies to buy out domestic companies. 

Heaven forbid we allow a successful domestic company to exist.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Blame Reagan for giving credence to the belief that a corporation's sole duty is to its shareholders. Now, this wasn't new idea and had even been ruled so in a SCOTUS case, but Reagan made it popular for those who gained nothing from corporations.

Actually, you can't even blame Reagan. Even Sweden was affected by the government-bad-privatization-good bug and Sweden has never been big on the US bandwagon.

[Kersus]

I always viewed Sweden as a similar but smaller United States although they actually overtly subjugated their neighbour Finland where Canada kicked back the invaders but was subjugated by their media.

I have certainly been thinking about moving somewhere less disturbed by capitalism but anywhere with self-sufficient resources is being plundered.

[Oedipussy Rex]

On a now-defunct forum, a Swede answered another member's question regarding Sweden's socialist health-care system with a rant how the system, which was set up in the early 1900s between the crown and the unions as a hedge against the communists, was sold off to private interests in the '80s by politicians because "private industry is more efficient than government," and the people went along with it, after all, that was the platform the polits were running on. As everyone should have realized would happen, the private interests started gutting benefits because the needs of the shareholders exceed the needs of the public. When the people who voted in the those who sold out their interests realized what was going on, they voted said politicians out, but sadly the bell couldn't be un-rung. Much did get re-nationalized, but much couldn't. So today, Sweden's much-vaunted social health-care system is a pale shadow of what it once was. That's what I had in mind in making my Sweden comment.

Also, it appears that Best Buy bought Future back in 2001, are only now getting around to consolidating, and the stores that won't be re-opened as rebranded Best Buys are those right next to existing Best Buys.

[Kersus]

That's what they're saying in the news but in reality they're not turning lone Future Shops into Best Buys, only select ones. So this area for example loses it's Future Shop, doesn't have a Best Buy, and is left with Staples and Wal-Mart for computers.

To some degree it's good for the small business computer store, but truth be told, most of them buy from Future Shop because it's cheaper than wholesale. Just like small town Loblaws grocers buy their stuff from Wal-Mart and resell it.

The Best Buy/Future Shop thing took much longer than Target/Zellers but it's similar. The major difference between the two chains was that FS was commission sales (you could barter with them) and Best Buy wasn't. They had exactly the same suppliers and stock but the prices varied quite a bit. An equal laptop might be hundreds of dollars cheaper at one.

They would have been solid competitors, but when the buyout happened, their services became pretty horrible and worse over time.

They also just renovated the local FS. Closed it down for a long time, spent insane amounts of money redoing the whole building as a catalogue store. People around here hate catalogue stores. It was done in the past by others. It was so obviously a stupid idea and really a matter of time before it failed. One could only hope they'd turn it back into a real store.

P.S. We were also one of the Zeller's stores Target didn't want. There is no real competitor to Wal-Mart ATM except in Office supplies at Staples and groceries at Loblaws (who charges for bags).

[Oedipussy Rex]

Granted, all I know about it was what I read on a few websites. That said, you should be using reusable bags, anyway. Don't know if you have the equivalent up there, but at Whole Foods, if your old bag wears out, they'll replace it for free. But yeah, diminishing services and options. Also, no idea what the local version of what a Loblaw is.

Other than Chachi as Bob Loblaw. (You have to say it aloud to get the humor.) (I miss Arrested Development.)

[Kersus]

 Hah!

Loblaws is a big supermarket chain that owns a pile of others (Valu-Mart, Your Independent Grocer, Real Canadian Superstore, Freshmart, etc). We essentially have Loblaws and Metro for supermarkets. Metro is from Quebec and bought up A&P and all their subsidiaries like Food Basics and I believe Loeb. Loblaws bought the rest.

Loblaws uses the fun tactics of buying and placing their less than favourable chains in great vantage points to simply direct you to their main chains. Oh this price is too high? Just go around the corner and down the street to Superstore. We don't have enough variety, well just go down....

It's one of those things where people get angry with one store and go to another not realizing it's really the same company. I wish they had to have the parent company in their name. It would change everyone's perspective of a lot of companies if it was plainly obvious who owned who. I use "own" rather flippantly as sometimes they're just the sole supplier.

I need bags for my garbage pails. I did get a handy reusable bag from the short-lived Target project here that squeezes into a little baggy for easy carrying when it's empty. I quite like it although the handles are so long the bag drags on the ground. It's really the only one I use often.

Whether using reusable or not, charging for bags isn't done here to help the environment; it's simple a money grab - except Toronto where it's a by-law. 

Anyhow, there's a great loss of jobs because these foreign companies buy a chain and end it. 

Mergers and like acquisitions have been a bane on Canadians even when purely domestic. Banks, airlines, etc...

[Oedipussy Rex]

"Goddam 'Muricans coming in and taking our jobs."

That's a joke because Canadians are too polite to use "goddam."


(No. I'm not making light of your legitimate anger. It just struck me as funny making the connection between the Mexicans coming up and "taking good American jobs" that no one here actually wants to do, like picking crops, and corporations going up to Canadia and taking jobs that actually Canadians do want. Ah, 'Muricans. Who else would cross into Canadia in July packing parkas and skis.)

[Kersus]

I thought it was funny

It is sort of true. They come here, buy companies and then close the plants and move them to Mexico, Philippines, Costa Rica, and India..... I have been in so many buyout/site closures that I've given up on the career thing.

There was even a US company here that paid no taxes, had 80% of their employee wages covered by the government, free this and that, even having the best results of any site company-wide, and they still moved the site to the Philippines.