The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 96 - Kathleen Thelen

The Grant Williams Podcast

Grant Williams

Business, Business:investing, Investing

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This terrific discussion with Kathleen Thelen examines the historical origins and rise of large retail chains and e-commerce platforms in the United States, tracing the parallels between the business models of early mail-order retailers like Sears Roebuck and modern companies like Amazon. Kathleen explainss how antitrust laws and the fragmented regulatory environment in the US enabled the growth of these large, low-cost retailers by making it difficult for alternative models like consumer cooperatives to gain a foothold. We focus on the reliance on low-wage labor and how the prioritizing of low prices over other considerations has become deeply embedded in the American consumer economy and, as the retail landscape has shifted with the rise of Amazon and other online shopping, she suggests that this business model remains difficult to dislodge due to the coalition of interests – manufacturers, third-party sellers, and consumers themselves – that have come to depend on these large retail platforms. The importance of the centrality of the American consumer to the US economy has significant implications for the future as factors like inflation, tighter credit, and labor organizing threaten to challenge the dominance of the current retail giants. Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, Kaos Theory and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com. Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we get going, here's the bit where I remind you that nothing we discussed should be considered as investment advice.
0:16.4	This conversation is for informational and hopefully entertainment purposes only.
0:20.2	So, while we hope you find
0:21.7	it both informative and entertaining, please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor
0:27.1	before putting a dime of your money into these crazy markets. You're about to listen to a very
0:37.2	special preview edition of the Grand Williams podcast featuring my very special guest, Kathleen Thielen, the author of a terrific new book called Attention Shoppers, American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy.
0:50.2	And with the American consumer being responsible for about 70% of that economy, I can't stress enough how important it is to understand what the hell is going on.
0:59.1	And this book will give you some great insight into not only how the American consumer became 70% the economy, but what might happen next.
1:07.9	Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including the end game, the super terrific happy hour, the narrative game, this week in doom, shifts happen and chaos theory
1:14.8	is available to copper and silver tier subscribers at my website, grant dash williams.com.
1:20.7	Copper tier subscribers get access to all the podcasts, while members of the silver tier get both
1:25.3	the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go, Hmm.
1:28.9	So, if you enjoy what you're here on the show and you'd like more high-quality content like it, please make your way over to grant-dash-Williams.com and join our excited community today.
1:38.8	And now, on with the show.
1:51.1	Kathleen, thank you so much for joining me.
1:55.7	I am delighted to have you on to discuss a subject that, you know, it's funny, my very first, when I started in this business 40-odd years ago, I remember one of the very first things
2:01.9	that somebody said to me was, you know, the American consumer makes up 70% of the economy.
2:07.6	You always have to focus on the consumer and you always have to understand the consumer.
2:11.9	And that has stuck with me ever since.
2:13.6	I mean, it's just one of those numbers that's in your head.
2:15.8	So to read your book about this, I find absolutely fascinating, and I have a whole bunch of questions for you. So thank you very much
2:20.3	for agreeing to do this. It's absolutely my pleasure. So as well as my financial market proclivities,
	...

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