WalMart

[Kylere]

Unfettered anything is bad, so it is rather moot, you know, the whole power corrupts thing.

I am personally disturbed by the cookie cutter nature of reality between the Atlantic and Pacific and north of the Rio Grande, and as such I vote the only effective way a consumer can, I spend my money in the types of places I prefer to spend my money.

I use small shops for music, books, and such not MegaBins or UberStore places, I use those for things like paper towels and hard drives. If something is boring cheap and functional and needs no artistry, then Megalomart is fine.

As to the loss of jobs overseas? That will be self correcting, because we will adjust wages down to compete, they will adjust wages up in time as they want the rewards of their own labor and the balance will swing. The US was once before merely a consumer nation, then it was a developer of raw materials, then of manufactured goods. No reason that cycle will not continue, and things will change to adjust one way or the other.

[Winnow]

I bought EQ: Planes of Power at Walmart. I may buy the next expansion at Walmart because they had it first and mail ordering software is unreliable for getting it before someone has already finished the expansion.

I feel cheap and dirty.



I am also countering Seeb's Sams Club purchases with my Costco purchases thus providing a nice balance to prevent a collapse of free enterprise.

My gallon keg of mustard > your gallon keg of mustard!

[CalandraWindrose]

I'll admit to shopping sometimes at Walmart out of poorness

In fact in college I even worked at one for a while

WalMart does hurt in some ways - if you are a walmart stockholder you are happy as a clam

but when they move in and smaller business go out this is bad - a person owning their own small business makes a better living than as a cashier at wal mart

most importantly as was previously mentioned - businesses which are locally owned bring money into the local economy - walmart takes the money out and it doesn't get respent there

it all depends really how you want to look at it - it is good for some people and bad for others

[Fyndina]

It realy isn't Wal Marts fault. They found something that works, i.e. sell for (at least perceived) lowest price, and people will come. Add to that you can get most of what you need to live there, and people will come. So, because consumers will tend to gravitate towards low cost, that is where they will go.

WM will be hard to call a monopoly and get the governemt involved. Even though they are largest by far, they are not the only large player in the retail business, and there are a lot of smaller regional chains of retail stores. They do behave like a monopoly in many ways.

That said, I do not shop there. I also try not to buy items manufactured in China. Heck what is left in a WM that is made in the US, milk?

Someone said wages will equalize by wages going down in the US and up in foreign countries. You sure? They will go down here, but will they go up significantly in say India and China? Both countries have over one billion people each. That is a LOT of jobs that need to equalized. Protecting American jobs is a much a national security issue as a lot of the drivel comming from the current administration. Why does China have official Favorite Trading Partner status from the US government?

[Voronwë]

Its like this: selling your stuff at Wal Mart can hugely improve a manufacturer's distribution of product.

But if WalMart wants to leverage its distribution network to such an end that they really take the cream of the manufacturer's margins to pad their own profits, then it is a definite issue for those companies.

but anti-competitive practices are certainly a bad thing, and the government should potentially intervene in many cases. Our economy is in better shape if the small companies who make the goods are profitable and creating jobs in their local markets, reinvesting capital, etc, than if more of the margins are going to the increasing Walmart corporate largesse. Its not socialism, its actually good capitalism. I'd rather have hundreds of companies flourishing (the manufacturers), one doing damn good (Wal Mart), than one giant company getting larger, with hundreds scraping by.

[Akanae]

Something else Walmart does is purchase large quantities of something from a small company, and has them sign a contract stating that Walmart doesn’t have to pay for the products until they are sold off the shelf at Walmart, and that Walmart can return them at anytime.
For example, you have just invented the Weeble and your company has only sold 100 in the last 6 months. You approach a Walmart distributor they tell you that they want to buy 1 million Weebles from you. The catch is that you sign that contract and you don’t get paid until they sell them. Lets say Walmart has the 1 million Weebles sitting in a storehouse for a few months, and then decides that they would rather sell Woobles. They return all 1 million and you are stuck with them. It has happened.
Another thing Walmart does is they will make an arrangement with a city (lets say Metrocity) that if they set up a store there they won't have to pay city taxes for the first 7 years. Metrocity is excited about Walmart so they agree. Walmart stays in Metrocity for 7 years, and puts all competing stores out of business. Then right before they would have to pay city taxes they close up shop and move 3 counties over.
Now obviously not all Walmarts locations do that, but its sketchy at best.
and sorry if someone else already mentioned one or more of those points

BTW to the person who said they shop at Sams Club I believe its owned by the same corporation that owns Walmart

[Chmee]

To address a couple of the issues people have brought up regarding Wal-Mart.

First, that Wal-Mart will destroy all the jobs.

When a company manages to deliver something more productively than before, can it destroy jobs? Certainly. It happens all the time (and has for a very long time). It can cause hardship on individuals, but overall the economy benefits because it helps drive new job creation. If what I used to pay $10 for now only costs me $9, I have a dollar to spend on something else. Although people keep trying to make the argument that the jobs we are destroying now are different and no new jobs will show up to replace them, we have been finding new places to create those jobs with no sign of any stopping point for a long time now.

Next, that Wal-Mart wields monopoly power to the detremint of the economy (or will in the near future).

Monopoly power isn't nearly as easy to come by as people make it out to be. Even more so in a country where the transportation infrastructure means that you potentially have to compete with companies over a pretty large geographic area (in some cases, effectively the whole planet). Its even harder for companies to wield that monopoly power to negative effect. If a monopoly starts using its dominance to raise prices and screw the consumer, they let themselves open to other companies being created to compete with them. This is especially true in a country with such vast capital markets as the U.S. possesses. There is an exception of course, if a would be monopolists can get the government on its side to stifle competition and create barriers to entry of would be competitors then a company has a better chance of wielding monopoly power.

[Chmee]

Why does China have official Favorite Trading Partner status from the US government?

Most Favored Nation status is somewhat misleading. It basically means normal trade relations. At the time we were debating to grant Most Favored Nation status to China there were like 6 countries in the world that did not have MFN status with us.

[kyoukan]

Who said Wal-mart was or is trying to be a monopoly? They don't have to be monopolistic.

[Chmee]

Walmart, Blockbuster (who edit the movies they rent for content, btw), McDonalds, etc...all the gargantuan companies pushing out the smaller competition, leaving us little choice but to buy the worthless crap they sell, or service they provide.

Although Wal-Mart does an amazing amount of business, there are still a huge amount of places you can buy the same things you can buy at Wal-Mart. Even in the very narrowly defined field of dvd and video rental, there seem to be a lot of rental places other than Blockbuster out there. Not to mention internet outfits like NetFlix. If you widen the field to video entertainment, then there are stores that sell them, cable, streaming over the net, movie theatres etc. People have been complaining about the golden arches of McDonalds taking over for quite some time now, but I don't notice much of a lack of variety in fast food places available to go to. In fact, it seems like there are more than ever. No real lack of non-fast food resteraunts either, in fact there seems to be more of them as well.

[Kylere]

Hey Look! http://www.iht.com/articles/123229.html

The Chinese are starting to want wines, cars, and larger apartments...

I love being right, almost as much as kyoukan loves being bitter

[Metanis]

Unfettered capitalism is just as bad, if not worse than pure socialism.

A particularly inane comment. (Even for Kooky.)

[kyoukan]

Yes and another brilliant and stellar argument from yourself that concisely and completely refutes my statement. What the fuck is wrong with you? Isn't this like the five zillionth time people have asked you to put your money where your crusty sperm hole is when you make pointless fucking moronic statements without any intellectual backing at all? Go back to watching O'Reilly and licking the TV screen you stupid monkey, because your capacity to discuss anything begins and ends at about his level, except you're too stupid to be an effective bully so your resort to making whiny little pot shots at a thread and running away like a fag.

[zenoran]

What's Walmart? Do they sell walls there or something?

[Zaelath]

To address a couple of the issues people have brought up regarding Wal-Mart.

First, that Wal-Mart will destroy all the jobs.

When a company manages to deliver something more productively than before, can it destroy jobs? Certainly. It happens all the time (and has for a very long time). It can cause hardship on individuals, but overall the economy benefits because it helps drive new job creation. If what I used to pay $10 for now only costs me $9, I have a dollar to spend on something else.

Well, congratulations on your 8th Grade economics education. Now explain how you have $10 w/o a job.

[Melrin_Specclaster]

but on the whole this era is the best in the history of humanity.

This 'era' may be the best in some countries they have ever seen, but I'd have a hard time agreeing with anyone saying it was the case in the US. We give away to other countries, take away from our own, smile to each others face, stab each other in the back, etc.

Gangs have more organization and loyalty than this country does.

As for Wal-Mart destroying jobs, yes and no. Mass-producing gives any country the ability (through training) to take the people on the lower rungs and move them up. One of the problems in the US is people spend more time on the 'self pity' train than on the 'self improvement' train. If people wouldnt settle for a Wal-Mart equivalent job, then they wouldn't have to worry about losing their job because a Wal-Mart came to town.

Sure, point at Wal-Mart for underselling, how do you think Toyota and others got a foot in the US car market?

[Deward]

I have a friend who has worked at WalMart part time for years and he makes over $10 and hour stocking shelves. He has a regular day job but he claims the work environment is great and he gets stock options and periodic raises.

I normally avoid WalMart as much as I can because I hate the crowds. I do go there when I can't find something anywhere else. Sadly, it is the only place in my town to buy video games.

[kyoukan]

I have a friend who has worked at WalMart part time for years and he makes over $10 and hour stocking shelves. He has a regular day job but he claims the work environment is great and he gets stock options and periodic raises.

what? are you lying? wal-mart has the worst record of treating their employees like human garbage in recent history? it's corporate policy to never give raises, and the very notion of giving stock options to shelf boys is almost too ridiculous to imagine.

[Ducru]

I have a friend who has worked at WalMart part time for years and he makes over $10 and hour stocking shelves. He has a regular day job but he claims the work environment is great and he gets stock options and periodic raises.

what? are you lying? wal-mart has the worst record of treating their employees like human garbage in recent history? it's corporate policy to never give raises, and the very notion of giving stock options to shelf boys is almost too ridiculous to imagine.

Nope. It's true. I worked at Wal-Mart for just over 3 years, from the time I was 15-18. Granted this is a long time ago, but when min. wage was 4.25 I was making 6.75 with periodic raises of .25 after evaluations. I also recieved stock options/profit sharing. By the time I left Wal-Mart, I was partially vested, and got a check for around $1500 2 weeks after I quit.

I'm not saying they are "good semaritans" in the business community, andI despise most of their methods, but they aren't the big white devil that everyone thinks they are. It's just business... be it good or bad.

Oh, I also know a woman that still works there in recieving. She's going on 20 years + and will retire with well over 250,000 in profit sharing, her stock, and her 401k... not to mention her retirement. Think she gives a shit about Wally-World's unethical business antics?

Ducru

[*~*stragi*~*]

Ralphs is in Cali, in AZ its Fry's Food and Drug.
like it matters anyway
haeohaoeheonwlheaeh

[Sartori]

I have a friend who has worked at WalMart part time for years and he makes over $10 and hour stocking shelves. He has a regular day job but he claims the work environment is great and he gets stock options and periodic raises.

$10 an hour stocking shelves after how long working there (usually starting at the bottom which is oh...$8.10 an hour in WA State)? Sure stock options might be nice in many cases, but that "perk" doesn't make up for the negatives IMO. Periodic raises? Any place gives those out if they want to retain employees.

Nope. It's true. I worked at Wal-Mart for just over 3 years, from the time I was 15-18. Granted this is a long time ago, but when min. wage was 4.25 I was making 6.75 with periodic raises of .25 after evaluations. I also recieved stock options/profit sharing. By the time I left Wal-Mart, I was partially vested, and got a check for around $1500 2 weeks after I quit.

This entire paragraph illustrates why I would never work for or shop at this store. $1500 after quitting? Cool. After moving up $2.50 from minimum wage after 3 years? Were you living with mom & dad? I couldn't see living anywhere else and still retaining a positive attitude at that age. People are mentioning a few different examples of why they liked working there, but no one has said a fucking thing about how good their medical coverage at Wally-World is/was?

Oh, I also know a woman that still works there in recieving. She's going on 20 years + and will retire with well over 250,000 in profit sharing, her stock, and her 401k... not to mention her retirement. Think she gives a shit about Wally-World's unethical business antics?

If you don't require good or even AVERAGE medical coverage, and don't mind dealing with one of the lowest pay scales in retail for 20+ years of your life then Wal-Mart is for you. Everyone has their own ideas of happiness. You might be giving some individual's examples of that, but apparently you aren't considering the well-documented, bigger picture consisting of thousands of employees getting the shaft daily, and hundreds of class-action law-suits involving this company (30+ in progress as we speak, but maybe that's just anti-Wal-Mart propoganda!).

Of course no one pays attention to any of this shit right?

[a_guide]

He said he was 15-18 when he worked there... fairly safe to assume he was living with his parents and at that age with little to no job experience it's not the worst thing. He was probably covered under his parents insurance at the time.


My method is I do not go out of my way to support Walmart and if I can get it somewhere else without a huge hassle I will.

[Xyun]

I spend on average $100-$150 a week at wal-mart. I simply cannot afford to shop somewhere else. I could care less whether the product I buy is made in china, indonesia, mexico, or the US, as long as the quality meets my standards, which obviously aren't very high.

[Vetiria]

A non-unionized grocery store here in town pays better than Wal-mart. I started at $6.00/hour (that may have been upped now that minimum was just raised to $5.50/hour in IL). After 3 months you got a raise to $6.50, then an evaluation every 3 months for another quarter raise. After 1 year, you get full medical and dental.

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is known to not let their employees go higher than $6.50/hour. They go through almost full turn-over of their employees every 2 years here.

[Sartori]

He said he was 15-18 when he worked there... fairly safe to assume he was living with his parents and at that age with little to no job experience it's not the worst thing. He was probably covered under his parents insurance at the time.

Yes, this is why I put "at that age" in the same paragraph, but I guess it's easily missed. From my experience, 15 to 18 year olds that can be considered someone else's dependent don't exactly represent the majority of workers in the grocery/retail business. I'll even go as far as to assume most of those kids are blissfully ignorant of what's going on around them, and wouldn't care anyways. This is why I say look at the bigger picture, not just one person's experiences from when he/she was barely old enough to purchase some fucking tobacco.

Luckily, I live in an area that (for the moment) still has plenty of alternatives that aren't beyond my budget. Speaking of my area - my local Wal-Mart (opened a year ago) was just fined HUGE a few months back for employing over a dozen illegal aliens. They're also dealing with a class-action lawsuit from 16 employees that were asked to work off the clock or be fired. They walked off the job and got a fucking lawyer.

Cheers

[m4yh3m]

I know I'm late to this party, but seeing as how I did several papers on Wal-Mart while in college (I.T./Management analysis) here is my .02:

Wal-Mart achieves the vast amount of its cost savings through smart infrasctucture and volume discounts. Smart infrastructure examples: 90%+ paperless transactions between vendor and Wal-mart, optimized distribution channels, JIT product delivery system that actually works. etc... How can Wal-Mart offer a $30 DVD player? Easy, they buy 100,000 of them at a time. Volume drives prices down pure and simple. Wal-Mart doesn't need to twist vendors' proverbial arm to get prices down, if they don't like the price that vendor A has on DVD players, then they go to vendor B. Also, using electronics as an example of price trending isn't a smart idea because electronics generally behave in the opposite direction of the general economy and actually drop in price over a time period.

Penalizing Wal-Mart because they are efficient and smart about business is a ridiculous idea in my mind. If it is such a horrible idea to buy Chinese made clothing (to cite an example earlier on this thread), don't penalize the end-retailer, penalize the manufacturer, i.e. use tariffs or trade restrictions. News flash - the same clothing is available in any metropolis wholesale clothing district for the same price.

Im not a Wal-Mart fanboi, and in fact I too refuse to shop there because of their censorship policy and because of what they represent (swap meet in a store). Other people do prefer to shop there and that should be their perogotive.