just kidding, but i figured you guys would get a kick out of it:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/a-ceasefire-in-the-sunset-park-pizza-war/
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18.
August 6th,
2008
11:47 am#4, Zagat is for tourists, not people who are into real food.
New York City should simply have a chain store tax. (They are already implementing something similar, requiring that chain restaurants print calories on their menus.)
We New Yorkers need to ask ourselves and our elected officials, what kind of city do we want to live in? Do we want to be inundated by suburban shopping mall chain stores that are owned by shareholders from Hong Kong to London? Do we want the profits from our purchases to go into the pockets of New Yorkers or of some investor in China?
A big corporate chain store has economies of scale and power over its suppliers that no independent business could ever dream of. Independent businesses on the other hand usually offer a superior product (above is a perfect example - homemade with love vs. mass produced in a machine designed for speed). But the playing field is not level - chains have a huge economic advantage.
It is the job of government to ensure a level playing field, and more importantly, to protect and improve quality of life. If better quality of life means to you being surrounded by Starbucks, Gap and McDonalds, then you may be happy with what’s been happening in this city. But I suspect the majority of us would beg to differ.
Any business that is not based in New York and has more than 10 branches nationwide should pay double sales tax.
— Posted by JL
i will say this - even stupid comments on the nytimes blogs tend to be spelled correctly.
"Yeah, but my character would be all swav and deboner." - Warren
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
You could change that by sending a link to John.
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
The nativist signaling of OMG, dark-skinned people getting our money is particularly cute.
I say fine - so long as we can levy an equivalent federal sales tax on all NYC businesses that don't qualify for this one. ;)
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
I assume that such a proposal would run afoul of the interstate commerce clause, although that's not just super clear from the language Article I sections 8 - 10, or from Article IV.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions may call for extraordinary remedies. But the argument necessarily stops short of an attempt to justify action which lies outside the sphere of constitutional authority. Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers." - Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
just the loss of staples alone would fuck with so many local businesses.
i don't know how much of it is nativist - in that particular forum, probably not so much - than, honestly, an aesthetic reaction. they have this idea of what the city should and should not be that's essentially artistic in nature. it's certainly fanciful.
"Yeah, but my character would be all swav and deboner." - Warren
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
I would just like to confirm that I am not the JL in question.
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
Also, I don't really understand the romantic mystique of local monopolies. Give me a break. I've done business in a small town with only 'local' options. Guess what? The food isn't all delicious. It's mostly of lower diner quality. Guess what? Everything costs too much. Guess what? You have a fraction of the choices.
But hey, you know the dude behind the counter (i.e. you know that he's a vile racist because he tells you all about it), and what that makes it all worthwhile, right?
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
dhex is right that it's totally aesthetic. A guy like JL could never grasp how a person could choose McDonald's over someplace like Rare Bar & Grill with being the victim of oppression. It offends his standards.
As for the romantic mystique, I understand the appeal, I just realize that it's naive. It's like when you go on vacation, and you eat in all nice restaurants, shop in interestings little stores, and some part of you thinks "I wish it could be like this all the time." except that in your real life, you'd go crazy if you had to go to a deli, a meat market, a baker, and a grocer to do a week's shopping.
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
Andrew Young kinda got in trouble for kinda pointing this out several years ago when he went to work for Wal-Mart and said that local businesses always ripped you off. Only he spoiled it by naming the ethnicities most associated with local businesses in big cities and implying that it was because these small businesspeople were not of the black community they were serving.
Never underestimate the stupidity of intelligent people!!
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
i do that all the time.
it helps they're all on the same block, more or less.
"Yeah, but my character would be all swav and deboner." - Warren
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
yeah, it works if you're doing foot traffic on a one-to-two-block radius. It starts seeming pretty wasteful if you're having to drive to each one, which probably 97-99% of the US population would have to do.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions may call for extraordinary remedies. But the argument necessarily stops short of an attempt to justify action which lies outside the sphere of constitutional authority. Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers." - Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes
Re: this is a brilliant policy propsal
It's the pepper on the aesthetic soup. If you're talking about chain stores, there's no reason at all to mention that foreign people can buy stock in them - as there aren't many China-based chains in the US, despite the writer mentioning China twice - except to play on hostility towards foreigners.