Found another little Walmart gem.

[MissMarple]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/26/ED186944.DTL

I found this through www.rockridgeinstitute.org.

Walmart really isn't healthy for local economies.

[Bozita]

1. Great find, MissMarple. --- That's must read stuff.

thanks

[Wickerman]

2. The usual points, and some great stuff I hadn't considered before

I've been anti-Walmart as long as I can recall due to the impact of Walmart on my small hometown of 15k. Many of the usual points are rpeated here, but what I found most poignant was these paragraphs...

Did she say taxpayers? That's right. We, the customers, get such low prices and convenient shopping because we, the taxpayers, subsidize Wal-Mart profits by paying for county public health services, food stamps and social services for its retired employees.

So should you shop at Wal-Mart? To make up your mind, consider this: If you earn a livable wage or are protected by a union, you can probably buy all your monthly needs at Wal-Mart. But that's because the average Wal-Mart employee, who earns about $15,000 a year, cannot do the same.

[liberalman11]

3. I live at WAL-MART

I love that place. They have the lowest prices by far of any grocery chains and retail places. They also have great clothes. They make it easier for families to make their budget, because the things are SOOO cheap. What I hate is the other grocery chains charging 4.19 for a box of cereal where I can get it for 2.99 at Wal-mart. They grocery chain is probably making a 35-40% profit margin.

[el_gato]

7. you'll spend your retirement there too

wearing a blue smock

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RebelOne]

42. Well, if there is a Big Lots near you

You can buy that $2.99 box of cereal for $1.99.

[donco6]

43. Rather short-sighted thinking.

I'm not sure anything can stop the Wal-Mart juggernaut now. When you're the largest purchaser of cheap goods, you have incredible power to set prices through low bidding on volume. This in turn leads to a corporation (W-M) that can actually put manufacturers out of business by turning down a bid. "We had to close the plant because we lost the Wal-Mart bid."

So, here's the rub with W-M: If you really want a totally homogenized, one-brand-fits-all society, then by all means, shop there. When all the stores offering other brands have gone out of business, you might think differently.

[Scottie72]

44. Yea on the backs of

the workers they force to work off the clock.

[Lefty48197]

46. You are missing the point: Walmart is Satan

Walmart's low prices are created by their failure to pay their employees living wages or to offer health care benefits. Also, their hiring of illegal immigrants to work at slave wages contributes to those low shelf prices.
Walmart shall have their reward, but it won't be here on earth.

[baby_bear]

4. Today's Horsey cartoon right on the mark

s_m

[liberalman11]

5. They choose to work their

The workers at Wal Mart choose to work there. NO body is forcing them to work at Wal mart. I will always be loyal to them, they make it possible for me to make my budget for my wife and baby on the way!

[burythehatchet]

6. Liberalman, I realize you won't be around long so I'll make this quick

One of the tenets of liberal thought in my estimation is that one should NOT live one's life driven purely by self interest. In making decisions about where we shop and what we buy, it is always important to consider what effect our actions are having. In the case of WalMart, it has been well documented that this company does not pay living wages, does not provide health care benefits, and has a very negative effect on community life, in general. So when you say you love shopping there because its cheap, you are looking out for yourself. The problem is that you then join the millions of like minded individuals who do not feel that looking out for societal best interests is worth paying a little more for your box of Fruit Loops.

[liberalman11]

17. You tell that to the millions of College Students and Poverty

In town, many low income hispanics and African americans shop here because it is the only place they can afford to shop. The other stores are so expensive they would go broke without a low price place like Wal Mart.
Also tell that to the millions of college students who go their on a daily basis with the pennies they have in their pockets.
All I am saying is just because wal mart is the largest corporation doesn't give someone a right to hate it with such passion. Geez get a grip!

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lefty48197]

47. Uh, yeah LIBERAL man

I'm buying that.

[samwotring]

40. Well said

I think it's safe to assume that this guy is a mole (with a name of liberalman) that holds some middle-management position and is just trying to ease his own conscience. One last thing, please do not get a grip.

[samwotring]

41. Well said

I think it's safe to assume that this guy is a mole (with a name of liberalman) that holds some middle-management position and is just trying to easy his own conscience. One last thing, please do not get a grip.

[Scottie72]

45. Welcome To DU!!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[el_gato]

8. wal-fart pr person

transparent

[benddem]

9. Attitudes like yours aren't helpful

Walmart doesn't pay living wages, doesn't provide health insurance that the employees can provide and puts other businesses out of business. They have predatory tactics like building stores at the north and south end of a town to snuff out traffic to the main shopping district. They do not do any business locally and therefore don't help the communities they are in.
Go ahead and shop there. But you have to decide if you want to help out fellow citizens. I won't go near the store.

[liberalman11]

11. OK I get it

Just pay 25-30% more on your grocery bill. I am only trying to support a family, not trying to keep every little tiny business in business around my town, its not my job.

[el_gato]

14. phoney bullshit take your PR talking points back to WalMart HQ

"will somebody please think about the children!"

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. In some towns....

Walmart IS the only game in town for jobs.

That is the future being planned for us -- a future in which there will be only the wealthy and those who HAVE to shop/work at Walmart. We have been there before in our history -- the old robber barons are making their big comeback.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. The REAL question you should be asking...

is why are your own wages so bad that your budget requires you to shop at Walmart?

[liberalman11]

15. My wages aren't bad

I just like to say a dime and a dollar here and there. I love getting a good deal.

[el_gato]

18. a good deal like shitty low paying non union jobs

and unaffordable healthcare in exchange for crappy shit imported from China

boy what a deal!

[liberalman11]

19. non union?

so what if they are non union that is probably why they are able to offer low prices...the unions don't strangle them into 1 penny premiums on health care, and 100,000 salaries for stockers.

[el_gato]

21. prove your lies

no one has ever been paid six figures to stock a store
but you don't care your PR, tasty lies are your preference

[liberalman11]

22. Geez get a grip

your hate for wal mart is dripping from your mouth, I am not a wal mart PR person I just like shopping there and like their low prices.
Trust me there are some union people who are paid 100,000 because when they dont get their way they whine and walk out on their job until the company....has to raise the price of their goods so their employee can make 6 figures instead of 5 figures.

[Lefty48197]

48. Your ignorance is boundless

You know nothing about unionism or the good wages that go along with unionism. You are a right wing corporate shill and you're slithering around in our website. Get out damned spot.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Supply Side Jesus]

24. ya, standing up for something you believe in is a hallmark

of being a moran. :eyes:
If you piss in your water, don't be suprised if it turns sour.
now go login into FreeRepublic and vanish.

[el_gato]

26. so you tell a lie and the avoid it

you can either say "okay I was talking out of my ass"
or you can prove it

I don't shop at wal-mart because they have nothing i need
and they drive out local business that gives each community its
unique flavor. If you have a problem with that I DON"T CARE.

now back to your phoney story about the 100k stocker.

Where is your proof?

[Lefty48197]

49. That's "morans"

nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

25. Sounds like me...

I am on a budget right now, I like a good deal, I like to save a dime and dollar here and there.

But I am a liberal and I won't set foot in a Walmart.

They intimidate their hourly workers into working overtime for no extra pay.

They have a history of promoting men over qualified women.

They just got busted for paying $2 an hour to illegal immigrants.

Walmart is simply not the kind of business I want to support.

[Wickerman]

27. I love a good deal

--or--
they make it possible for me to make my budget for my wife and baby on the way!

Which the fuck is it? You talk out of both sides of your mouth. Walmart has drained away whatever advances the Unions have achieved. When we give in to low wage sweatshops like Walmart our overall ability to bargain for a liveable wage is diminished.

Why, why, are some people (Republicans) so bent on making certain that Corporations are so better served the general populace? Here we have a moran who is barely eeking by and can't support his wife and family unless he sells his soul for pennies on the dollar for his fruit loops. Fight the corporate power entities to preserve a living wage!

[liberalman11]

29. Wow thanks

for such a nice response to my comments. Isn't it great how we can have diverse believes and still unite against Bush in 04. And since when is shopping at wal mart a "republican" view? I never said i can't support my family, all I said is wal mart makes it easier to spend money more wisely elsewhere..FOR EXAMPLE paying 4.19 for a box of cereal or 2.99..by the way its not froot loops its Fruit Harvest..that stuff rocks

[Wickerman]

30. You're welcome

I thought your own quotes that I used summed your self-defined fiscal position nicely. BTW, shopping at Walmart certainly ain't a liberal view, nor is laughing at union pickets.

I'm ready to defeat Bush* in 04 but that is a bit of a strawman, isn't it? The issue at hand is Walmart and corporate greed and the ethics of shopping at a place that is so contrary to the public good.

[el_gato]

16. good one HHNF

[FDRrocks]

56. Choose?

or have no choice?

[MissMarple]

13. Great cartoon! So, is Walmart the problem or a symtom of the problem?

That's what I've been asking myself. I know we can pay more in the store, or more in taxes, or more in a diminished quality of life for much of America. But what are the issues that bring us to these points? Is it that corporations are bad if they don't take care of their employees, or are we expecting too much from a disjointed system of benefit distribution. If companies don't want to provide benefits, we can't make them. And more and more of them are choosing not.

So, how do we and our government address this problem? How do we provide a living wage, child care, health care, good schooling, etc, to a workforce having so little overall employment stability? If the only jobs available to many workers barely pay the rent, what can we do? From where we are today, I see the only direction we are going is down. Our economy will continue to degrade.

If that happens we erode the principal that powers American capitalism, the people. We should be growing it, not using it up.

Sorry, end of rant. I hope that made some sense.

[arcane1]

28. Go Contra Costa!

homeboys kicking WalMart Ass!!! :kick:

:bounce:

[sinkingfeeling]

31. I live 'next-door' to Wal-Mart's World Home Office......

and we even have our Arkansas governor defending them against hiring illegals to clean their stores! While Bentonville is growing at an impressive rate, due to WM demanding that suppliers and vendors come to them, and wealth is very evident in Benton county, I too, will not shop there. It started with their rebuilding of the smaller stores into larger ones...when supercenters hit, I quit buying from them. It was very hard to do here, since we have no K-Mart nor other competitive discount chains...Target recently opened their first store in the area. It seems on the surface that their groceries are cheaper, but I wouldn't eat food from WM!! Their bakery goods (often show up at work and parties) are terrible! Many tales about the poor quality of meat are available. And, I've discovered that I can BEAT their prices on dry/canned items with careful shopping, sales, and coupons. My local IGA and Harp's will match any advertised WM price!!

If you're not aware, WM has another type of grocery in the works..it's called the Neighborhood Store and the test ones are here in Arkansas and Oklahoma. These will attempt to drive out all other grocery stores in smaller communities. Believe me, this is the plan. They're also moving into the gasoline business and want to become the country's largest gas station company as well!

I spent over two years, in their HO, working for one of their vendors.

[liberalman11]

33. That's called capitalism

doing business is about growing your company and that is what they are doing. THey have a competitive advantage (economics) over other retailers. I do agree with beating any advertised price..but There are millions of items wal mart carries but they only advertise about 100 in a mailer.

[Wickerman]

34. And that is why many of us have a problem with capitalism

"growing" your company at any cost. In MBA school they nake a token effort to teach you Coporate Responsibility. The complaint you see here at DU is that Walmart historically has not even tokenly practiced corporate citizenship, and, in fact, has acted in an exact opposite manner.

[sinkingfeeling]

35. True, but it's not the type of capitalism I want to support....

and what of the 'millions of items' Wal-Mart carrys? I get pet fods and supplies cheaper at the local farm store; plastic containers and junk cheaper at the 'dollar' store; electronics cheaper at Best Buy; printer cartridges and film cheaper at Office Depot; smokes cheaper at discount tobacco shop. So, what does that leave: clothing, shoes, sports stuff, and groceries. Is it really better to buy a pair of shoes for $9.94 and have them fall apart in a couple of months, or spent $22 and buy a pair that will last for years? Ditto on clothing, although maybe that would be OK for kids' stuff that they will out-grow soon. I don't buy sporting goods, so don't know how they compare price wise and already said, I wouldn't buy 'fresh' food there.

I truly dislike the supercenters for all kinds of reasons including trying to check out, walking miles to find something, parking and etc. I really do not understand WM's attraction to millions...it just can't be price alone. Even the idea of combining discount stores and grocery stores was not original to Wal-Mart...used to shop at GemCo in Tucson, AZ years ago.

[cap]

52. walmart is a waste of money

cheap crap that falls apart quickly is not budget conscious
if you have to keep replacing stuff what's the point. Price is not the only discriminator. Buy Walmart tools or buy Craftsman at Sears.
sporting goods same thing. Buy stuff you really want to have at a specialty store.

Why not shop at a thrift store and just buy the $1 clothes and be done with it if price is your object? You'd make out better pricewise and may even luck out on the quality.

[Skittles]

36. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Wickerman]

37. Thanks Skittles

my sentiments exactly

[specimenfred1984]

38. 300 illegal Aliens & GOP Supporter, Explain Hypocrisy Please

I don't understand your posts. You say you love Wal-mart, you say you support capitalism but, Wal-mart was just busted big-time as a supporter of illegal aliens who were taking jobs from law-abiding, capitalism supporting Americans while Wal-mart is also a big contributor to the GOP.

Clearly, the GOP doesn't support hiring hundreds of illegal aliens to work in a free, capitalistic system and yet here you are on this board supporting Wal-mart and all its business practices.

Seriously, if you're just posting crud for a laugh, the laugh's on you. If you have an actual point, I'm open to hearing it, as are most of the others around this website.

I don't understand how criminal activities fit into capitalism if capitalism is to function in a democracy.

[Skittles]

39. You're talking to a repug

they don't give a shit about exploitation of workers as long as they can get stuff cheap. The selfishness astounds me.

[Lefty48197]

51. Please forgive him! Remember that it was the conservatives

who created that great "jobs creation" program known as slavery. Their decision to pay their workers $0.00 per hour was hailed by conservatives as a brilliant business move designed to reduce their costs, so that they could pass the savings on to their consumers.
...just like Walmart does.

[Lefty48197]

50. It's called a monopolization

and that's the OPPOSITE of capitalism. Republicans have a lot of trouble with that concept too.

[politicat]

54. One of the funny things about capitalism

is that over and over, time and again, we keep figuring out that letting it go and not regulating it

DOESN'T WORK.

Liberalman, I'm an historian. Let's start with the Roman Empire. They had more laws on the books governing trade and smart trade in any two hundred year period than we Americans have currently in the Federal Code dealing with commerce. This is because they figured out that people will cheat the system any which way they can, given the choice.

Fast Forward to the Middle ages. Every market town, fortified village and seat of power had some sort of inspection process, certification process and legal system to ensure that the bread was not short weighted, the meat was clean and what it was advertised to be and the pepper was really pepper and not rabbit drops. The guilds were "self-regulating" groups that answered to the crown or the local overlord and if they screwed up, they were out of business. (Nice thing about autocracy that way. :eyes: )

Fast Forward again: Henry Tudor VIII drops most of the laws and goes laissez faire economics (at least for the time). Mass financial chaos ensues to the point that 10 years later, his daughter Elizabeth comes to the throne broke. She puts most of the laws back, requiring some pretty stringent fiscal policies and hands over a treasury worth more than the last four monarchs combined.

Enlightenment - 18th and early 19th Centuries: Adam Smith writes observations on how trade works, documenting capitalism for the first time. He didn't invent it.

Fast Forward to the late 19th and early 20th century in America: Someone turns Smith's ideas and observations into a religion that can't be messed with and makes it government policy.... There are no guarantees on anything. Your medicine is probably opium and alcohol, your meat may be horse, tuburcular cow, old age pig, or if you're really unlucky, industrial accident Hungarian immigrant. If you buy a house on a lease to own option and miss a payment because of a job loss, you lose everything, and there is no arbitration. If you're injured on the job, too bad.

Laissez Faire capitalism flourished in the late 19th century and people, average, working people, died because of it. Lives were ruined while small numbers of the very wealthy became so out of sight rich that we can't even imagine it.

Regulation came in in the teens and twenties, and has gone through cycles every few years since then. But laissez faire capitalism is a religion that won't die, and it infects people every day, usually those who have the power to hurt others with it and those who are most likely to be harmed by it. The lessons of the depression are that basic controls are necessary to a healthy economy. A machine must have negative feedback - a machine that only has a positive feedback loop oscillates wildly out of control. An economy is a machine. Controls are the negative feedback. Every time someone comes in with the bright idea of deregulating commerce and making it easier to work without controls, the economy gets really sick - recessions, depressions, panics, you name it. Coincidence? No.

This relates to Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart has sidestepped, legally, extra-legally, and illegally, those controls. If Wal-Mart paid, not 6 figure salaries (which don't happen in any of the unions round THESE parts) but competitive wages ($23K for a truck driver, $19K for a cashier, 30K for a Butcher (highly skilled labor, BTW), etc), the federally mandated overtime required after 40 hours in a week(They've been sued for failing to pay overtime and forcing people to work off the clock), and didn't cheat employees by doctoring their time cards (this is in litigation right now and my sister is part of the class action suit) and forcing all breaks to be unpaid (in blatant contradiction to federal regulations) then Wal-Mart would not be any "cheaper" than the stores that play by the rules.

Of course Wal-Mart is cheaper right now for you. Wal-Mart is like a college basketball team recruiting a benched player from the NBA (who has not finished college) to play in the playoffs for them. They're exploiting a competitive advantage that is maybe legal, maybe not, but definitely unethical. And once the NBA player starts making it hard for the other schools to even score, let alone win, all of the "competition" in the game is gone. Why bother playing when you know that X school is going to win?

So next season, everyone gets a benched NBA player, and the 1st school loses its advantage, so they get 2 NBA bench warmers. But by this time, the Education Department is suffering because the school can't pay the Ed Dept. budget AND 2 NBA salaries, and so the teachers the Ed dept turns out can't add. And the NBA, losing all its benched players, starts losing money and going downhill, putting people at the stadiums and elsewhere out of work.....

Are you seeing the cascading effect? It may seem to be a good thing, but once any organization starts exploiting a weakness in the system, others will, too, and eventually, that weakness erodes the other aspects of the organization to the point where the weakness acutally costs the organization. And what costs the org ends up costing you. Economics is a chaotic system - every part relates to another and one bad cog can bring down the whole bloody Ferris wheel.

So here's what will happen. You keep buying at Wal-Mart and the Safeway, Kroger and Publix (or what have you) in your area are going to go out of business. It may be slow, but it will happen. Then people in your town will move away, through natural attrition, because their jobs at Safeway, Kroger and Publix are gone, and because being in a one-store town will disturb them on a low level. Those that stay will get bored with WM and start driving two towns over to shop someplace "different" and "new". (This is an evolutionary behavior developed to prevent over-consumption of the fruits of a given patch of land. We're not likely to weed it out.)

WM will stop making as much money, look at the balance sheet and realize the store no longer makes a big enough profit.... close the store and move to the town two over because the demographics say that's where the money is.

And you're stuck with a 45 minute drive to the town two over to buy a gallon of milk because you don't have any grocery stores at all left. And then you'll have the cost of the gas plus the maintenance on your car, plus the ecological damage of 4 or 5 45 minute drives a week to add to the gallon of milk that once upon a time was 20 cents cheaper at the walmart.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. You pay for it one way or the other, Liberalman. This is just one scenario. It's basic economics of the commons. It may be good for you now in the short term, but it's disastrous for EVERYONE in the long run. I'm not telling you to stop, but I'm asking you to realize what the long term effects are, not just what its doing for you today.

You know, I'm sorry you aren't making enough to raise your kid and be responsible. Maybe you should be looking at why that's happening and eating generic cheerios instead of fussing over the price of a box of cereal and ignoring the real world that your CHILD is going to inherit real damn soon now. 20 years is not a long time.....

[MissMarple]

57. Excellent lesson on why we need regulation. Human nature never changes.

:bounce:


Now, what do we do about the Walmartization of our economy?

[minto grubb]

53. Walmart??

Have these guys recently moved into the UK under another name? Have they bought up any British firms or companies? If so, and anyone can supply details, I would be grateful. I seem to recall the name mentioned, and wonder what I in the UK can do.
Clearly, if a private company can benefit from the local community, it should put something back into the community, too. Walmart can well afford to give its workers better conditions. Government should stop good employers having to subsidise the bad ones. It should be Law that EVERY employer give:-
Union Recognition
Healthcare
Paid leave for vacations
Pension rights
A minimum wage
to ALL its employees. If everyone does the same, Walmart won't be able to say that they are being penalised.
A lot of this stuff is on the statute books in the UK, including a minimum wage.

[Lefty48197]

55. Sorry, but that crap don't fly here in Wal-Merica

Here, low wages and no benefits = good business practices.
Don't worry about the fact that we'll become a nation of unemployed people soon.