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Old 01-13-2016, 07:31 PM
 
Location: Southern US
162 posts, read 268,712 times
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I was learning about contractualization of employees and how mall chains like SM and Ayala are actually massive slave labor cartels that are widespread bilt around the country yet, likely would not even run if labor laws changed. I learned that SM malls amassed the wealth through dirt cheap labor. I started comparing Philippines to other countries for malls and you wont believe the comparison! India in its huge expanse of land and 1.4 billion population has just one mall that made small ranking on the top 110 mall list. Vietnam and Indonesia, the latter of which is also huge country, BOTH these countries ALSO had just one measly ranking. Countries wth lots of tourists like Thailand and Malaysia also had big rankings. But Philippines compares perfectly in the middle of the likes of Vietnam,Indonesia, India economically who have almost no big malls, a reflection of how Philippine WOULD look if these laws also changed to normal. Yet in some magic way, Philippines practically takes over the list of worlds biggest malls! More than a quarter of them are just in the Philippines.
I used to always wonder, why does it seem Philippines has so many malls!!!! Yet little did I realize it was even this much out of control for mall trends.

I am suspecting that this is yet another sign of the monstrous exploitation of labor. Philippines is not at any advantage economically and even has a bigger unemployment AND high cost of living issue which would naturally make it even less favorable for malls, yet it rules the world with mall size!!
So I think this whole explosion of malls is just under capitalization of the massive ilegal labor exploitation.

SMs mall explosion in an otherwise economically challenged country is actually a massive retail empire being built on the foundation of labor exploitation, one that is so premium in scale and scope that would seize to exist if labor cost was returned to normal which is MUCH MUCH more expensive and would no longer justify the mall sizes.

I have some pretty nasty projections for what would happen if Duterte wins the elections and forces labor regularization. This empire would collapse. I think SMs losses would extend beyond just the slashing of profits from labor cost hikes. Many tenants would no longer be able to operate and SM would lose thousands of tenants and lose billions more in revenue. This wold lead to the ultimate collapse of the SM empire. I do believe that the foundation of cheap labor is what has created this massive empire. Most of these malls are built in places that, in comparable locals in any other countries, would not have any mall at all, much less a giant mall like they DO have everywhere.

To put it in a closer perspective, Indonesia has several cities that are MUCH bigger than Cebu, but those huge Indonesian metropolises dont have any malls that come even close to making it anywhere to this list (shown below) Cebu alone, on the other hand, just a medium city has FIVE malls! in the list. A little city in the Philippines called Dasmarinas, their regular mall is WAY ahead of India's biggest mall in size ranking!
So you know something is defiantly out of proportion in the Philippines.
All those countries compared have only one thing in common, they all have stable labor policy. Bring this to the Philippines and watch all these malls get tossed in the bin!
The 10 plus NEW malls they are preparing to open will also go in the bin if the current labor setup is abolished!

Check it out, Philippines OWNS this list!!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_the_world

There are so many other countries that are either poor like the Philippines or better off, NONE of those countries have mall sizes like the Philippines. Kenya, Peru, Dominican, South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica, even booming MEXICO are just no worse than the Philippines in economic performance and just about all of these are actually faring better or much better, yet NONE have malls like Philippines whose small town malls even dwarf those in industrial countries. Makes me think that the only exist because of labor exploitation and if things are changed to any other country's laws, the mall fleet will collapse down from what it is now, dominating the below shown list, to later being like Mexico which is a normal county,, but NO malls at all on the list! All would be gone. Philippines which is actually in a serious crisis has NO reason to have so many malls that are so big when again, you compare to all other countries in the world. Only difference is the exploitative labor law. So I think it is certain that if you switch the labor law to normal, the SM retail empire of huge malls will collapse like a Christmas tree whos stem is made of cardboard.

It looks like they invested in hundreds of establishments whose fate lies in keeping labor exploitation or else close down. It is like shabu plants, it there are hundreds of them and they are caught because of ilegal operation they are automatically dead business. SM would experience a lethal blow as the the difference between keeping contractual and stopping it will mean an unimaginable difference that destroys the SM empire. It is indeed a cartel being run off exploitation and would disappear if this ended overnight. The difference between their labor policy and the rest of the world appears to be massive as the density of large malls in all other poorly touristed locals worldwide is nil, and is a reminder of what will happen to SM when the labor law is changed. The change in mall coverage back to one more like Mexico, (best case scenario since its economy is even better) will be a jaw dropping event as you can see the crazy number of malls that falls!

If it turns out that this massive landscape of hundreds of establishments is indeed build on the foundation of grossly exploited cheap labor, what do YOU think will happen to all these places if labor policies are switched to the likes of Vietnam, Indonesia, India where malls look nothing like in the Philippines whos purchasing power just as weak as them?

Last edited by Santaronto; 01-13-2016 at 07:52 PM..
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Old 01-14-2016, 06:38 AM
 
Location: Elysium
12,278 posts, read 7,985,400 times
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No it would just mean a SM work/shopping floor would look more like an American one. Instead of a girl assistant at every floor display and three manning every register, one to ring up the sale, one to staple the receipt to the bag and I never figured out what the third does you will have one on an open register.

With 2/3rd of the initial jobs for recent graduates gone, even if they were temporary to avoid benefits, there will be much social disruption
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Old 01-14-2016, 09:57 AM
 
25 posts, read 29,543 times
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Well Tunjungan Plaza in Surabaya is pretty big, and there's plenty of first class mall such as Ciputra, Grand City, Surabaya town square, etc.. Atleast i think Indonesian malls put more effort to make the interior of the malls much more attractive.

Also come to think of it, the malls in Philippines lacked international brand. Atleast you got them around in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and even Vietnam.
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Old 01-14-2016, 10:46 AM
 
3,439 posts, read 3,257,308 times
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did you consider the availability of large lots to build malls on?
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Old 01-14-2016, 11:01 AM
 
3,439 posts, read 3,257,308 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by apakabar View Post
Also come to think of it, the malls in Philippines lacked international brand. Atleast you got them around in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and even Vietnam.
shouldn't be an honor? you don't need international brands to sell in a mall?


the fact is, the Philippines started earlier in the learning curve before the rest of SE Asia did. before WTO, economic policies were geared towards import substitution so the businessmen created their own brands. I still remember wearing Grosby shoes due to non availability of other footwear. the only other choice was Adidas. and these were all made in the Philippines.




then WTO came and cheap products flooded the market. those Grosby shoes got decimated by Nike.


so those local brands who survived the onslaught of cheap products naturally could compete against the international brands.

by the way, I still wear Bench briefs and still buy Islander sandals. they are better than those Brazilians

you can not say that to Vietnam or Thailand or Indonesia. they don't have brands to compete in the first place.


its just unfortunate that some misguided politicians and nationalists still insist on protecting local businessmen to the detriment of the masses.
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Old 01-14-2016, 02:44 PM
 
Location: Southern US
162 posts, read 268,712 times
Reputation: 58
People are saying that Indonesia has big malls, but just look at the facts. As I said, Indonesia has 250 MILLION people. Yet only 2 malls with measly rankings in the list I gave you, India has one mall in there and Mexico has none. Brazil has one. Philippines has like .... 33 of them, yet it is the country that just so happens to be the most impoverished of the bunch. And just so happens to be the only one with an exploitative labor law. Also the dawn of the building of malls seems to coincide with the start of the exploitative labor law, which came into effect 1989. that is when the big malls started getting built. Since unions have collapsed 2003 and there is a recent trend for almost complete conversion to the contractualiization scheme, it now has a mall investment explosion far more than even before. In its history (Just SM Prime holdings alone) it had made about 50 malls, which is a lot, but guess what? now in 5 years they are trying to quickly put up 30 malls! Where you think this mall explosion is coming from? It would either have to be from an economic miracle 6 times bigger than Chinas (really when poverty has goten so bad???) or from the emergence of a crazy exploitative labor law, and I leave it to you to guess which one is more likely in the Philippines.
Indonesia, Vietnam and Mexico are among the countries that are experiencing the economic miracle through manufacturing and have mall expansion no more than Canada, which is pretty much nothing.

I read about how Indonesia had business issues because they said how "businesses could not afford long term employees"
This is true. It is no wonder that it, like just about all other countries, does not have a mall explosion. Long term employees become more and more expensive over time as they hike wages and have unions and stuff. regular labor is prohibitive if you are running 80 massive malls. Malls are not profitable or even result in losses if you dont either have a prime tourist spot like Bangkok or, are using something controversial as exploiting labor to get the malls to run. This is why Philippines has a mall explosion, even in far away cities where the poor locals are just strolling around inside them. SM dosnt need to do any long term employment. No wonder they have so many malls. All these corporations must be fighting for their lives in the senate because they have invested billions of dollars and are in the middle of a massive mall building binge, the biggest in history and would suffocate in bankrupsy if the normal labor procedure is forced on them as all these malls could become defunct. Cuz as I said, regular labor would be prohibitive, what would they do with all those malls if the labor laws changed? all the malls would be gone!! no other country has malls like this. These people are only getting richer and therefore are having more power by the day to control govt policy as billions in malls are at stake.

when the rest of the world has a booming economy and no mall expansion and the Philippines is in a grave economic crisis and feasting off an easily exploitable labor law, how else can you explain the sudden explosion of mall growth?

China is the biggest country in the world by population and India is almost the same while India has one mall in the list and China has 6. Philippines has THIRTY THREE MALLS in that list!!!! And I stand corrected from my earlier statement saying it was a "quarter" of the total, Philippines, despite being a small share of the world population, not to mention, pervasive poverty worsened thorough suffering of high cost of living, it owns one THIRD of the worlds biggest malls list!!!! An again, they have the world most exploitative labor law which must be no coincidence with the massive number of malls.
You get my point?
If anyone disagrees as to the reason for all these malls, how else do you explain the Philippines, who has bad labor policy and poverty, having by far the most malls?

Last edited by Santaronto; 01-14-2016 at 02:56 PM..
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Old 01-14-2016, 02:50 PM
 
3,439 posts, read 3,257,308 times
Reputation: 2508
Quote:
Originally Posted by Santaronto View Post
People are saying that Indonesia has big malls, but just look at the facts. As I said, Indonesia has 250 MILLION people. Yet only 2 malls with measly rankings in the list I gave you, India has one mall in there and Mexico has none. Brazil has one. Philippines has like .... 33 of them, yet it is the country that just so happens to be the most impoverished of the bunch. And just so happens to be the only one with an exploitative labor law. Also the dawn of the building of malls seems to coincide with the start of the exploitative labor law, which came into effect 1989. that is when the big malls started getting built. Since unions have collapsed 2003 and there is a recent trend for almost complete conversion to the contractualiization scheme, it now has a mall investment explosion. In its history it had made about 50 malls, which is a lot, but guess what? now in 5 years they are trying to quickly put up 30 malls! Where you think this mall explosion is coming from? It would either have to be from an economic miracle 6 times bigger than Chinas (really when poverty has goten so bad???) or from the emergence of a crazy exploitative labor law, and I leave it to you to guess which one is more likely in the Philippines.
Indonesia, Vietnam and Mexico are among the countries that are experiencing the economic miracle through manufacturing and have mall expansion no more than Canada, which is pretty much nothing.

I read about how Indonesia had business issues because they said how "businesses coud not afford long term employees"
This is true. Long term employees become more and more expensive over time as they hike wages and have unions and stuff. regular labor is prohibitive if you are running 80 massive malls. This is why Philippines has a mall explosion. they dont need to do any long term employment. No wonder they have so many malls. All these corporations must be fighting for their lives in the senate because they have invested billions of dollars and are in the middle of a massive mall building binge, the biggest in history and would suffocate in bankrupsy if the normal labor procedure is forced on them as all these malls could become defunct. Cuz as I said, regular labor would be prohibitive, what would they do with all those malls if the labor laws changed? all the malls would be gone!! no other country has malls like this. These people are only getting richer and therefore are having more power by the day to control govt policy as billions in malls are at stake.

when the rest of the world has a booming economy and no mall expansion and the Philippines is in a grave economic crisis and feasting off an easily exploitable labor law, how else can you explain the sudden explosion of mall growth?

China is the biggest country in the world by population and India is almost the same while India has one mall in the list and China has 6. Philippines has THIRTY THREE MALLS in that list!!!! And I stand corrected from my earlier statement saying it was a "quarter" of the total, Philippines, despite being a small share of the world population, not to mention, pervasive poverty worsened thorough suffering of high cost of living, it owns one THIRD of the worlds biggest malls list!!!! An again, they have the world most exploitative labor law which must be no coincidence with the massive number of malls.
You get my point?
If anyone disagrees as to the reason for all these malls, how else do you explain the Philippines, who has bad labor policy and poverty, having by far the most malls?
you can not build mall if you don't have available large lots..it just happened that there were landed gentry in the Philippines due to awards given by the colonial govts in the past. those located in the cities were never distributed


so if you have large lots, you build horizontally..small lots, build vertically..like they do in the other cities you mentioned
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Old 01-14-2016, 05:55 PM
 
Location: Southern US
162 posts, read 268,712 times
Reputation: 58
Quote:
Originally Posted by payutenyodagimas View Post
you can not build mall if you don't have available large lots..it just happened that there were landed gentry in the Philippines due to awards given by the colonial govts in the past. those located in the cities were never distributed


so if you have large lots, you build horizontally..small lots, build vertically..like they do in the other cities you mentioned
Are you trying to dispute the fact that large malls in the Philippines indeed far outnumber other countries as stated in the list?

But how can you miss the whole point? This has nothing to do with how wide these malls are. The malls are listed according square foot mall area
There is a reason why you dont measure width, because that is not the point anyways. It is about how much square foot space they have. So back to all my points. How can you explain this whole mall trend in the Philippines? You should take a look at the actual malls then to see the specifics.

Are you actually disputing any of these? :
A. Philippines has 1/3 of the malls in this list of world malls
B. cause of explosive expansion is because of exploitation of labor.
What is your argument against these? I cant imagine how you can even argue A. because the facts are stated right in front of you! you cant just make assumptions based on a quick observation on the ground. The world data for ALL countries is right there for you to analyze! Instead of disputing the gigantic presence of malls there, you should instead argue as to WHY this is happening there and not in any other country.


In fact, if anything the PHILIPPINES should be the country suffering from the most land area anyways since it IS the one grappling with land shortages in places like Manila and Cebu where the biggest malls luckily have still been build, despite difficulties in finding more land. So that claim about land availability is wrong anyways. And in the reverse thought, if Philippines could NOT get land, they too would have built up. Point is, LOOK at the facts on mall rankings!


And also besides, it is not just Indonesia, it was clearly stated that ALL countries in the WORLD were far beat by Philippines so your argument of losts being the final answer is clearly invalid as that is certainly NOT the strength they have there. Didnt you read both long posts? Didnt you observe the facts stated? I discussed a lot about the difference in labor policy, the economic situation in the Philippines and comparisons of countries and lots more. Since Philippines beat the rest of the world by a mind boggling margin, you should take a look at why Philippines has so many malls instead of disputing the fact that it has so many malls. It is indisputable, big mall investments there are taking over the country and going up like there is no tomorrow.


On a separate note, I am actually confident that the oligarchs responsible for this do have control over the elections. Despite the past president being in control then, it appears that the current liberal party won because he has the best links to the oligarchs. He serves the interest of ALL the rich. He made promices to the people about poverty and corruption and broke them. He conversely promised and FULFILLED promices for the monopoly business elite and so they love this president even more. They rigged the election result last time and will do the same again this year. Unlike last time there the sitting president was an opposition and the comelec was a divided body, now the whole comelec, sitting president AND the oligarchs/billionaires are all on the same side and for the same election goal which is Liberal party to maintain the status quoe. So I am certain, especially if Grace Poe and Duterte are disqualified, the remaining opposition, Santiago and Binay will be easily cheated out by the monopoly groups and current government that all have this one goal in a harmonized effort. So my prediction is that even though the grand majority dont want Roxas to win, he (under liberal party banner) WILL win because all the rich and powerful want it and will get it through easy manipulation of both the surveys and and actual elections so their cheap operation is covered up.
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Old 01-14-2016, 07:05 PM
 
25 posts, read 84,138 times
Reputation: 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by apakabar View Post
Well Tunjungan Plaza in Surabaya is pretty big, and there's plenty of first class mall such as Ciputra, Grand City, Surabaya town square, etc.. Atleast i think Indonesian malls put more effort to make the interior of the malls much more attractive.

Also come to think of it, the malls in Philippines lacked international brand. Atleast you got them around in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and even Vietnam.
I think the Philippines' malls are trying to focus more on making the surrounding outside areas aesthetically pleasing and more integrated into the mall. The Philippines may have a hot climate, but a lot of people like to be outdoors, even at the malls


Mall of Asia



Ayala Cebu


Greenbelt



Bonifacio High Street


SM Aura rooftop garden


Eastwood


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Old 01-14-2016, 08:54 PM
 
25 posts, read 29,543 times
Reputation: 28
Quote:
Originally Posted by payutenyodagimas View Post
shouldn't be an honor? you don't need international brands to sell in a mall?


the fact is, the Philippines started earlier in the learning curve before the rest of SE Asia did. before WTO, economic policies were geared towards import substitution so the businessmen created their own brands. I still remember wearing Grosby shoes due to non availability of other footwear. the only other choice was Adidas. and these were all made in the Philippines.




then WTO came and cheap products flooded the market. those Grosby shoes got decimated by Nike.


so those local brands who survived the onslaught of cheap products naturally could compete against the international brands.

by the way, I still wear Bench briefs and still buy Islander sandals. they are better than those Brazilians

you can not say that to Vietnam or Thailand or Indonesia. they don't have brands to compete in the first place.


its just unfortunate that some misguided politicians and nationalists still insist on protecting local businessmen to the detriment of the masses.
Not true, that is just absolute non-sense. Small scale local manufacturing have always been strong in these region.

All major shopping spots around the world have global designer brand available, well thanks to capitalism.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Santaronto View Post
People are saying that Indonesia has big malls, but just look at the facts. As I said, Indonesia has 250 MILLION people. Yet only 2 malls with measly rankings in the list I gave you, India has one mall in there and Mexico has none. Brazil has one. Philippines has like .... 33 of them, yet it is the country that just so happens to be the most impoverished of the bunch. And just so happens to be the only one with an exploitative labor law. Also the dawn of the building of malls seems to coincide with the start of the exploitative labor law, which came into effect 1989. that is when the big malls started getting built. Since unions have collapsed 2003 and there is a recent trend for almost complete conversion to the contractualiization scheme, it now has a mall investment explosion far more than even before. In its history (Just SM Prime holdings alone) it had made about 50 malls, which is a lot, but guess what? now in 5 years they are trying to quickly put up 30 malls! Where you think this mall explosion is coming from? It would either have to be from an economic miracle 6 times bigger than Chinas (really when poverty has goten so bad???) or from the emergence of a crazy exploitative labor law, and I leave it to you to guess which one is more likely in the Philippines.
Indonesia, Vietnam and Mexico are among the countries that are experiencing the economic miracle through manufacturing and have mall expansion no more than Canada, which is pretty much nothing.
Malaysia have 30 million people and they have several malls on the ranking.
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