Why Wal-Mart is Hated

[Orville Wrong]

Glenn Reynolds:

I think there's a class issue: Wal-Mart is unavoidable evidence that the American working classes don't think, or live, the way the American thinking classes want to imagine. For this sin, Wal-Mart can never be forgiven.

This comment was occasioned by the release of this documentary (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BWFSOA/103-3350427-7924605?v=glance&n=130).

I think I'm going to watch both the Greenwald and Galloway films.

[jvk]

Surprisingly, the Pro-Walmart DVD is more expensive than the Anti-Walmart DVD. I would have expected the opposite...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BWFSOA.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg ...Price: $14.95

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BTH4K4.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg ...Price: $12.95

hmmmmm..

[justa bill]

reason #4,378.25: I sware about ten years ago, Walmart made "Made in the USA" a really big selling point for them and one of their main marketing strategies. Yet while they kept their red-white-and-blue colors "Made in China" became their true stratagy. I bet Walmart buys more stuff from China than the majority of countries do.

I'd also bet that most Walmart shoppers would still associate walmart with 'american made' and disassociate walmart with cheap foriegn imports from a country which still has political prison camps... :[

meanwhile Walmart is greatly helping to make the government of China and those with very close ties to the government of China increadibly wealthy...

maybe this reason should be higher on the list... butit's a long list. :/

[markalot]

They did push for made in USA, then it vanished.

[Megs79]

I remember when WalMart wasn't evil. Communities were excited for it to open there (though, arguably, some still are) and everyone felt good about made in the USA and low prices. It has morphed into a different beast.

[weeone]

Glenn Reynolds:



This comment was occasioned by the release of this documentary (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BWFSOA/103-3350427-7924605?v=glance&n=130).

I think I'm going to watch both the Greenwald and Galloway films.

Case in point, before I opened this thread I thought it was going to talk about Walmart squashing local economies. I was thinking to myself, I'm going to post that I don't hate Walmart, I just hate the people who shop at Walmart. Well-played OW. Looking forward to seeing these documentaries.

[purple_octopus]

Case in point, before I opened this thread I thought it was going to talk about Walmart squashing local economies. I was thinking to myself, I'm going to post that I don't hate Walmart, I just hate the people who shop at Walmart. Well-played OW. Looking forward to seeing these documentaries.
And let's not forget the fucktards that work at Wal-Mart...

[REMgirl]

I quit shopping at Walmart two years ago and haven't been back since.

I designed fabric for seven years for a company in Oregon, called Daisy Kingdom. They sold to several buyers, like JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, and Hancock's. Walmart became one of their biggest buyers. But over a couple of years' time, Walmart buyers started "suggesting" that DK produce more stuff and get it out more quickly. Our deadlines went from 12 months to 9 months to six months in advance. I started to get stressed.

Soon the Walmart execs "suggested" that DK start having their fabric printed overseas in China rather than the mills they had always used in South Carolina. The labor was cheaper, the fabric greige goods were crappy, and the deadlines kept shrinking. Walmart finally pushed so far that DK went under, and I lost my job.

There are other reasons I quit shopping there, but that's the main reason.

[DaHood]

I quit shopping at Walmart two years ago and haven't been back since.

I designed fabric for seven years for a company in Oregon, called Daisy Kingdom. They sold to several buyers, like JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, and Hancock's. Walmart became one of their biggest buyers. But over a couple of years' time, Walmart buyers started "suggesting" that DK produce more stuff and get it out more quickly. Our deadlines went from 12 months to 9 months to six months in advance. I started to get stressed.

Soon the Walmart execs "suggested" that DK start having their fabric printed overseas in China rather than the mills they had always used in South Carolina. The labor was cheaper, the fabric greige goods were crappy, and the deadlines kept shrinking. Walmart finally pushed so far that DK went under, and I lost my job.

There are other reasons I quit shopping there, but that's the main reason.
Walmart did the same thing to Rubbermaid and it virtually destroyed Rubbermaid's consumer division.

[tobedawg]

I HATE Wal-Mart

[dry-gulcher]

Why I hate Wal-mart by Dry-gulcher ,
OK, April 10 1999 a tornado ravages area around my secret laboratory and Trilobite quarry . No power , out fo perhaps days. Dry-gulcher finds walmart open gets emergency supplies:
Large Flashlight
Camp Lantern
Candles
Cookies
Bread
Flashlight (made by forced/china prison labor)found its way to turn itself on by itself (wasted batteries/took lots of them).
Camp Lantern (china prison labor knockoff of a Colman) worked once!
Candles ,Found stickers on bottom DO NOT USE INDOORS
Cookies ,tasted funny , like chemicals ....... inedible chemicals ?
Bread , started to get moldy. The next day !
NOTE TO DRY-GULCHER
Made in China =Put it back on shelf
No more Wal-mart ,you get what you pay for CHINA=CHEAP=JUNK !

[DaHood]

CHINA=CHEAP=JUNK !
Just wait for the influx of cars made in China.

[pacoforgin]

I hate Walmart as much as the next person, but I think that it is funny that people hate Walmart so much when they don't have as much of a problem with companies like Target. Granted, Target does a better job at marketing themselves, they usually don't enter rural markets with the goal of monopolizing the market, and they are not as big as Walmart. Even considering those factors, I think really understand why people will fight Walmart to the bitter end, but they won't care if Target moves in nextdoor. As an "urban planner," I am really interested in what everyone thinks about this subject.

[jneale]

Personally, I've done a 180 with Wal-Mart since reading this:

Fastcompany (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html)

In the past I justified shopping there by price, cat litter is cat litter so I might as well get it @ he cheapest place.

Then I read the story about Vlasic & I suddenly realized that that stork hasn't been on TV in ages. Wal-Mart killed the stork just like it killed Rubbermaid - where will it end?

So, I've reversed myself & I avoid Wal-Mart.

[yoshomon]

why working people hate Wal-Mart:

when a Wal-Mart moves into town, wages go down, crime goes up, and property value goes down.

[yoshomon]

I hate Walmart as much as the next person, but I think that it is funny that people hate Walmart so much when they don't have as much of a problem with companies like Target. Granted, Target does a better job at marketing themselves, they usually don't enter rural markets with the goal of monopolizing the market, and they are not as big as Walmart. Even considering those factors, I think really understand why people will fight Walmart to the bitter end, but they won't care if Target moves in nextdoor. As an "urban planner," I am really interested in what everyone thinks about this subject.

Target pays less and treats their employees like shit. Wal-Mart pays shit too.

You could boycott, or just blow 'em up and burn 'em down...

[akip]

I hate Walmart as much as the next person, but I think that it is funny that people hate Walmart so much when they don't have as much of a problem with companies like Target. Granted, Target does a better job at marketing themselves, they usually don't enter rural markets with the goal of monopolizing the market, and they are not as big as Walmart. Even considering those factors, I think really understand why people will fight Walmart to the bitter end, but they won't care if Target moves in nextdoor. As an "urban planner," I am really interested in what everyone thinks about this subject.

my brother told me admiringly what target's good at---figuring out the next fashion very rapidly, coming up with the right color scheme and integrating it throughout the entire store. the aesthetic, along with wide aisles, good organization, bright lights, and good prices (yeah, you find the killer discounts at the ends of the aisles, near the wall) make it a pleasant shopping experience. and if i want, say, a decent looking holiday throw pillow, it'll cost me $14 instead of $40 at some pricey decor store.

every time i go into wal-mart, it's just fuckin depressing. dark, dirty, crowded, disorganized. it's worse than having no aesthetic---it's a darwinian third world experience, but without the local color or interest. and i hate that cheap shit they replaced rubbermaid with---i forget the name, begins with an "s"---but it's broken by the time you get it home.

besides, in their usual iron fist manner, they fired my brother for the fuck-up of one of his employees, just to make an example of him. they can eat shit.

[juggles]

I could list a bunch of petty grievences against Wal-Mart but thinking broadly, I'd say they represent the worst side of capitalism. Of course, every company is in business to make money, but Wal-Mart seems to do so with a particularly callous disregard for its employees, the communities it opens stores in, its suppliers, its competitors, etc.

And I agree that stores like Target have some of the same problems. I'd include any large corporate retailer in that group, such as Home Depot, Wild Oats, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and McDonald's. But Wal-Mart seems to be the most aggressive of the lot. I'm not going to pretend that I'm pious enough to never shop at these stores, but I try to support local stores as well, especially those in my neighborhood.

[purple_octopus]

I hate Walmart as much as the next person, but I think that it is funny that people hate Walmart so much when they don't have as much of a problem with companies like Target. Granted, Target does a better job at marketing themselves, they usually don't enter rural markets with the goal of monopolizing the market, and they are not as big as Walmart. Even considering those factors, I think really understand why people will fight Walmart to the bitter end, but they won't care if Target moves in nextdoor. As an "urban planner," I am really interested in what everyone thinks about this subject.
Target employees are helpful as hell. I can't walk into Target without at least a handful of employees trying to help me. Target's merchandise, while inexpensive, is still of much better quality than Wal-Mart's. If you can find a Super Target with a grocery, their food is also much better, especially the produce. If the Target were closer to my house, I might even shop there instead of Kroger. At Target, I don't have to look at 300 pound women in tube tops with four different bastard children with popsicle juice dirt rings around their mouths, each fathered by four different baby-daddies. These people are unavoidable at Wal-Mart.

[markalot]

Stop the bullshit.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

Wonderful news, because unless Walmart sends all of it's stores overseas it appears there will be no one left to shop at them.

Businesses don't have to sell to Walmart, especially a company like Vlassic. I don't know anyone who gets groceries at Walmart. GREED is driving companies out of business. Vlassic could have told Walmart to fuck off, but they looked at the potential volumn and the money that could be made and stuck with them.

Walmart capitalism is a fad that will die like all fads die. People will get hurt, but in the end Walmart will get hurt the most. And then we'll be seeing threads about inflation and food prices going through the roof and how the poor can't afford to eat anymore cause they can't buy a gallon of pickles for $2.97 :rolleyes:

One comparison I've never seen made is how Walmart effects cost of living. We know, for example, that salaries tend to be higher in areas that have a higher cost of living, so it would make sense that if Walmart is lowering prices that wages would also go down. Walmart has lowered prices for everything from food to bedding to patio furniture. Or so they say anyway.

[purple_octopus]

Businesses don't have to sell to Walmart, especially a company like Vlassic. I don't know anyone who gets groceries at Walmart.
In the early to mid nineties, Wal-Mart started converting all of their stores in TN to super stores (with groceries). From what I understand, they're only just beginning to do that in OH these last few years. Trust me -- most people here do buy their groceries at Wal-Mart. They can beat any other grocery store's prices. This has resulted in one grocery store chain pulling out of the area altogether, and another chain that has closed half of their locations. I can only hope that Kroger can pull through so I at least have *somewhere* to shop. Just wait until the OH market is saturated with Wal-Mart super stores.

[jneale]

In the early to mid nineties, Wal-Mart started converting all of their stores in TN to super stores (with groceries).

yep, the store in my parents town has very few items, the dollar store actually has better groceries.

Wal-Mart is their only real option - and they hate it. They never carry the same brands week to week & the Wal-Mart brand is crap.

[DaHood]

I love Super Target. It's a nice store with great groceries. Too bad we don't have one anywhere near my home.

Other stores might be shitty as so many corporations are but Walmart designed the business model and they're still the best at it. Walmart is shit and for that they deserve to die.

Walmart had illegal aliens for a cleaning crew. When the illegals were exposed, Walmart denied any knowlege of the situation and pointed the finger at the company they contracted for the services. Yeah right.

I see the same types of crews come into our plant on certain weekends and holiday shutdown periods. They wear green hard hats, presumably because they have no green cards. I've spoken to a couple of them. It didn't take much more than a simple 'hi' to realize that they had no idea what I was saying. No doubt when they are exposed the corporation will blame the contractor they hired, like they have no knowlege.

Before you know it, with Bush's pardon we will have throngs of people moving into the country to do all the shit jobs that nobody wants to do for minimum wage. All to fuel the corporate greed. It's not that nobody wants to do this work, it's just that nobody wants to work for shit wages. These people won't pay into the social security system and they will probably take all their earnings back to their own third world countries and live like kings. This is the collapse of our way of life. Witness it.

[yoshomon]

Illegal immigrants are not responsible for this country "going to shit" or wages going down.

Blaming the the people making $5.50 an hour to clean up stores is such a cop-out. What about the fat-cats making millions?

[purple_octopus]

There are some jobs that simply aren't worth more than minimum wage. Some of those aren't even worth that.

[DaHood]

Illegal immigrants are not responsible for this country "going to shit" or wages going down.
No they're not. Those that take advantage of them are.

There are some jobs that simply aren't worth more than minimum wage. Some of those aren't even worth that.
Jobs are worth whatever someone is willing to be paid to do them. It's the same as the market supporting the price that the customer is willing to pay for a product.

We're either a free market economy or we're not. They can't have it both ways. Well I take that back, I guess they can but it's not ethical nor should it be legal.

[purple_octopus]

Jobs are worth whatever someone is willing to be paid to do them. It's the same as the market supporting the price that the customer is willing to pay for a product.
Thank you for making my point.

[DaHood]

Thank you for making my point.
Say what?

0

[dry-gulcher]

Target employees are helpful as hell. I can't walk into Target without at least a handful of employees trying to help me. Target's merchandise, while inexpensive, is still of much better quality than Wal-Mart's. If you can find a Super Target with a grocery, their food is also much better, especially the produce. If the Target were closer to my house, I might even shop there instead of Kroger. At Target, I don't have to look at 300 pound women in tube tops with four different bastard children with popsicle juice dirt rings around their mouths, each fathered by four different baby-daddies. These people are unavoidable at Wal-Mart.
True'r words have never been spoken ! I was in the long line behind that 300 # woman two year's ago ,my last ever wal-mart visit !!!


word.

[mizary]

At Target, I don't have to look at 300 pound women in tube tops with four different bastard children with popsicle juice dirt rings around their mouths, each fathered by four different baby-daddies. These people are unavoidable at Wal-Mart.

This is why wal-mart is so successful. The world is full of poor stupid people who only care about PRICE. Wal-mart has the cheapest prices so they shop there. It doesn't matter if what they bought was crap, it's what they are already used to.

Hopefully some day the USA will be filled with educated folks with good jobs and wal-mart can go back to "made in the USA," quality, service, etc...

--mizary

[purple_octopus]

Say what?

0
"Jobs are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them." Your words, not mine. But that is my point exactly. Were it not for government interference in the form of minimum wage, many jobs would in fact be worth less than $5.25/hr.

[Sovrana]

As usual around here, a Walmart-Hating thread turns quickly into a people-hating thread.

This is why Walmart wins everytime.

[purple_octopus]

As usual around here, a Walmart-Hating thread turns quickly into a people-hating thread.

This is why Walmart wins everytime.
But people are to blame for *everything*, Sovrana. You don't think evil corporations run themselves, do you? There are people there to hate as well. People suck. All of them. If you hate Wal-Mart because it's an "evil corporation", then you're people-hating too.

[DaHood]

"Jobs are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them." Your words, not mine. But that is my point exactly. Were it not for government interference in the form of minimum wage, many jobs would in fact be worth less than $5.25/hr.
Read again, that is not what I said:
Jobs are worth whatever someone is willing to be paid to do them. It's the same as the market supporting the price that the customer is willing to pay for a product.

We're either a free market economy or we're not. They can't have it both ways. Well I take that back, I guess they can but it's not ethical nor should it be legal.
My point is that if someone is unwilling to do the work, then the job does not pay enough. And I generally agree, there is no need for a minimum wage. There are many jobs in the Oakland County area here in Michigan that could very well be minimum wage but pay more because nobody would do them otherwise.

[Shlep]

This is why wal-mart is so successful. The world is full of poor stupid people who only care about PRICE. Wal-mart has the cheapest prices so they shop there. It doesn't matter if what they bought was crap, it's what they are already used to.

So then does it logically follow that poor people, if they would just wise up, would go shop at places where they couldn't afford anything and Wal-Mart would go out of business?

Though that is a salient point in that it seems to be the only one that addresses the actual reason behind Wal-Marts' success: consumers. The way people gripe about Wal-Mart, you'd think it was some retail juggernaut that goes around wrecking small businesses for the sadistic fun of it while miraculously making itself rich, as though being greedy generates money.

Wal-Mart succeeds because people shop there in droves. If people weren't spending money there, Wal-Mart wouldn't be making any.

As for Wal-Marts' effect on local business: yes, sometimes the mom-and-pop businesses shrivel up and die when Wal-Mart comes to town. Then again, if they can't compete with another business offering more stuff at lower prices, that's just how the system works. It's likewise true that smaller businesses often *benefit* from the arrival of a Wal-Mart, provided that they are a) close, b) offer goods and services not available at Wal-Mart and hence c) are able to capitalize on the increased foot traffic.

And in the same way most of us are not likely to shop at Wal-Mart because the Walton family has hired goons coming coming to our homes and escorting us there at gunpoint, I don't think any of us would be inclined to work there for that reason. And Wal-Mart may not be paying its' retail associates or clerks or team members or whatever the hell they call them there a lot of money, but then again how much do you think is really fair compensation for idling around and occasionally telling people what aisle to go to (and, God willing, be correct about which aisle they need to go to), placing boxes onto shevles, or standing by the door and saying "Hello!" to people as they walk in while hoping that you don't suffer a spontaneous hip fracture because you're 93?

[purple_octopus]

Read again, that is not what I said:
It's really the same thing, it just depends on whether the market flux happens to favor the employer or the employee. When there are more candidates than there are jobs, it's the employer who sets the price. When there are more jobs than candidates, it's the employee. Basic economics.

[DaHood]

It's really the same thing, it just depends on whether the market flux happens to favor the employer or the employee. When there are more candidates than there are jobs, it's the employer who sets the price. When there are more jobs than candidates, it's the employee. Basic economics.
That's true, but adding illegal immigrants to the mix upsets what is a fair price and that is wrong. (note to yosh: I am not blaming illegal immigrants for wanting jobs, I am blaming the government for allowing it to go on.)

[Shlep]

Actually-- Da Hood and p_o-- you're both right. For most jobs, there's a threshold for what I'm willing to accept before I decide it's not worth doing. If I'm an employer, there's likewise a threshold for what I'm willing to pay before I decide to seek alternatives to raising wages and/or hiring new employees (which is why artificially inflating wages with a mandated minimum wage has the same effect on employment as rent control has on apartments).

These competing yin/yang market forces generally determine what people get paid, at least above the minimum wage threshold.

[DaHood]

Actually-- Da Hood and p_o-- you're both right. For most jobs, there's a threshold for what I'm willing to accept before I decide it's not worth doing. If I'm an employer, there's likewise a threshold for what I'm willing to pay before I decide to seek alternatives to raising wages and/or hiring new employees (which is why artificially inflating wages with a mandated minimum wage has the same effect on employment as rent control has on apartments).

These competing yin/yang market forces generally determine what people get paid, at least above the minimum wage threshold.
That threshhold should not include breaking the law, period. Nor should it include shipping jobs to China which is a communist country where we should not be doing business.

[purple_octopus]

That's true, but adding illegal immigrants to the mix upsets what is a fair price and that is wrong. (note to yosh: I am not blaming illegal immigrants for wanting jobs, I am blaming the government for allowing it to go on.)
Personally, I think if someone can pass a criminal background check, we ought to just let them in and work for whatever wage they are willing. Bag boys and cashiers making shit wages are the reason I can afford groceries. These aren't the kinds of jobs that one works to sustain a family.

[weeone]

As usual around here, a Walmart-Hating thread turns quickly into a people-hating thread.

This is why Walmart wins everytime.
I believe this was Orville's original point. The 'thinking class' is reminded of what our culture really consists of when the subject of Walmart is broached. You are demonstrating his point quite aptly, ce/p'ers ! :p

[purple_octopus]

That threshhold should not include breaking the law, period. Nor should it include shipping jobs to China which is a communist country where we should not be doing business.
I agree with you that the law should be followed until it is changed (and I do think it should be changed). However, I will always support a free market. I don't care if China is communist. I don't care if they have green hair and worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[purple_octopus]

Actually-- Da Hood and p_o-- you're both right. For most jobs, there's a threshold for what I'm willing to accept before I decide it's not worth doing. If I'm an employer, there's likewise a threshold for what I'm willing to pay before I decide to seek alternatives to raising wages and/or hiring new employees (which is why artificially inflating wages with a mandated minimum wage has the same effect on employment as rent control has on apartments).
Had you read my post, you would know that's pretty much what I said. I said it goes both ways.

[DaHood]

I agree with you that the law should be followed until it is changed (and I do think it should be changed). However, I will always support a free market. I don't care if China is communist. I don't care if they have green hair and worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Aren't you a libertarian? Aren't libertarians isolationist? I am for a free economy as long as it's a fair economy and one that does not allow corporations to destroy the environment and use slave labor from prisons. A communist country is not a free market and should not be included in our economy until they are. And I expect any worker to pay into the social security system just as I do or abolish the system altogether (which I bet is exactly what you want) and I don't have a problem with that. But I want all my money back.

[purple_octopus]

Aren't you a libertarian? Aren't libertarians isolationist? I am for a free economy as long as it's a fair economy and one that does not allow corporations to destroy the environment and use slave labor from prisons. A communist country is not a free market and should not be included in our economy until they are. And I expect any worker to pay into the social security system just as I do or abolish the system altogether (which I bet is exactly what you want) and I don't have a problem with that. But I want all my money back.
Great, then you have the freedom to personally boycott companies that trade with China. (And no, libertarians are not isolationist, per se. But that's another thread.) A free market economy includes my right to trade with China despite not agreeing with them politically.

BTW, illegal immigrants (that are paid on the books anyway) *are* paying into Social Security, without the benefit of getting a dime back out of it. But yes, I would agree that Social Security should be abolished altogether, or offer an opt-out at the very least.

[DaHood]

I believe this was Orville's original point. The 'thinking class' is reminded of what our culture really consists of when the subject of Walmart is broached. You are demonstrating his point quite aptly, ce/p'ers ! :p
You got that right. :p

[Shlep]

Had you read my post, you would know that's pretty much what I said. I said it goes both ways.

I did read your post.

P.S. reeeeOOOOWWRRR!!! :p

[purple_octopus]

I did read your post.

P.S. reeeeOOOOWWRRR!!! :p
By read, I mean understand.

[Shlep]

By read, I mean understand.

I did. I realize I was being Capt. Obvious in restating your point, but my post was actually directed more towards the larger audience.

[purple_octopus]

I did. I realize I was being Capt. Obvious in restating your point, but my post was actually directed more towards the larger audience.
That would have actually been obvious had you not named me specifically in your post.

[jneale]

BTW, illegal immigrants (that are paid on the books anyway) *are* paying into Social Security, without the benefit of getting a dime back out of it.

Correct, & I think that is the real reason why the government refuses to do anything about them...

But they are also having kids - with no health insurance & placing the costs of their medical care & education on the rest of us.

Yea, they are paying into SS without the hope of getting anything back - but they are also eating up other government programs.

I'm heatless about it - put them back on the bus. There are ways to get into this country legally - it isn't easy - but it can be done.

& that BS about US workers don't want to work - the real story behind that is managers like the idea of employees who don't talk back (due to the language barrier.) It is easy to manage when you've got no problems because the workers don't know the rules & won't question authority.

[purple_octopus]

It is easy to manage when you've got no problems because the workers don't know the rules & won't question authority.Have you ever had to manage workers that don't speak English? It's not easy. You at least have to be able to communicate to them exactly what it is that you're paying them to do. It's a giant pain in the ass, frankly.

[jneale]

Have you ever had to manage workers that don't speak English? It's not easy. You at least have to be able to communicate to them exactly what it is that you're paying them to do. It's a giant pain in the ass, frankly.

In the manufacturing operations I've worked in - the tasks are pretty simple - show someone how to build furniture or set up a machine - from their (mgr's) perspective it is easy. The managers LOVE the employees because after they do their show & tell - they have little contact with the employees.

From my end - it is a major pain in the ass - OSHA training is impossible, benefits are a nightmare to communicate, and I don't like having a group of employees who are isolated.

I've emptied my current plant (legally - audited I-9s - after the 1st conversation the rest left) & refuse to hire anyone who can't communicate in English. I've got people from all over the planet - so you can't say I'm racist.

I fought hard with plant management - but after time the sky hasn't fallen & I feel everyone is part of the team.

[tobedawg]

Personally, I think if someone can pass a criminal background check, we ought to just let them in and work for whatever wage they are willing. Bag boys and cashiers making shit wages are the reason I can afford groceries. These aren't the kinds of jobs that one works to sustain a family.

Yep.. "FUCK THEM, I've GOT MINE".. The Modern American Attitude.. :rolleyes:

[justa bill]

Personally, I've done a 180 with Wal-Mart since reading this:

. . .In the past I justified shopping there by price, cat litter is cat litter so I might as well get it @ he cheapest place..

Funny, last week I heard a story on NPR: according to the American government, Walmarts "low" prices do not affect the over all "consumer price index" for the nation.

Why? Their prices are lower, right? Much lower, right?

No. According to the good ol' American government, the numbers on Walmart's price tags are lower, but the quality is lower as well. In other words, $1.99 for a shirt (?) might be a lower NUMBER on the price tag, but the shirt is measurably a lower QUALITY product.

Therefore, Walmart's billions of low prices are officially low for a reason: the basically sell junk. ( go American government! : )

[markalot]

Yep.. "FUCK THEM, I've GOT MINE".. The Modern American Attitude.. :rolleyes:


So should we raise their salaries? What do you think will happen to other salaries? What do you think will happen to costs of goods? What will happen to the fixed income family who now has to pay more for those goods?

Should we raise minimum wage?

What do you think would happen ...

-shrug- I guess someone has to like inflation.

[kgray]

after browsing this thread, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who has been a walmart employee for several years now.....and I told him a couple of things I had read here. his response was "wal-mart is taking this over-priced world and making it affordable for everyone.....they will match competitors prices and guarantee everything they sell"

discuss

[jneale]

Sounds like a very good employee who memorized the company line.

[markalot]

after browsing this thread, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who has been a walmart employee for several years now.....and I told him a couple of things I had read here. his response was "wal-mart is taking this over-priced world and making it affordable for everyone.....they will match competitors prices and guarantee everything they sell"

discuss


mind control

[Shlep]

Yep.. "FUCK THEM, I've GOT MINE".. The Modern American Attitude.. :rolleyes:

Actually, that's been the attitude of most human beings throughout history. Beyond that, I must say I feel rather foolish since I've been living with p_o for almost two years now, and I've hitherto been unable to notice that she's a member of the bourgoise, something you were able to pick up on from hundreds of miles away.

[tobedawg]

after browsing this thread, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who has been a walmart employee for several years now.....and I told him a couple of things I had read here. his response was "wal-mart is taking this over-priced world and making it affordable for everyone.....they will match competitors prices and guarantee everything they sell"

maybe.. just maybe there is something to this theory..

[tobedawg]

So should we raise their salaries? What do you think will happen to other salaries? What do you think will happen to costs of goods? What will happen to the fixed income family who now has to pay more for those goods?

YES, we raise their salaries and give them better benefits...

We also need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. of A and provide a living wage for those workers even if it means bringing the price of goods up a dollar or two more..

Well, by the rationale of the "Keep their Wages Low so I can pay less" Crowd maybe people on a fixed income should have budgeted better, huh? Why is it that now suddenly the people on a "Fixed income" are part of the picture?

Maybe if we had a living wage and better benefits those folks wouldn't be on such a "Fixed" Income.. It's mentalities like the "I Shop there and Want my Prices Cheap, So I could Care less if the Employees Dig in Garbage Cans For Food" that ENSURE that the people on a Fixed Income Stay Exactly Where they are At!

[Shlep]

YES, we raise their salaries and give them better benefits...

TBG, even those of us who got a low "C" Econ 101 because we spent most of the class daydreaming and stealing glances at the cute chicks in the lecture hall know that there are certain immutable laws of economics, and one of them is that when you artificially raise the price of something, it leads to a surplus of that thing.

If I'm running a retail business, and the government forces me to offer a pay and benefits package to the guys who sweep the floors or ring up purchases that cuts into my profits and excises a cost from me that outweighs the benefit their work beings to my business, am I going to have a real burning incentive to hire still more unskilled labor? No, I'm going to act like every other kind of consumer and seek alternatives, such as sweeping the floor myself and installing U-Scan self-serve registers right after I shit-can all of my unskilled employees who had previously been doing this work.

We also need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. of A and provide a living wage for those workers even if it means bringing the price of goods up a dollar or two more..

Sounds great. However:

1) What is a "living wage"? Nobody has ever been able to define that for me.

2) Ramping up the cost of labor is hardly a novel concept...labor unions have been doing it for decades, and are a large part of the reason why so much of our manufacturing gets outsourced.

3) Unless your plan includes imposing sky-high tariffs on foreign goods or simply banning foreign goods from US markets altogether, then the businesses you just got done forcing to raise their prices in order to pay their workers more are going to be laying them off when they go out of business because people, being people, are going to buy cheaper foreign products. That includes the workers you care so much about.

Well, by the rationale of the "Keep their Wages Low so I can pay less" Crowd maybe people on a fixed income should have budgeted better, huh? Why is it that now suddenly the people on a "Fixed income" are part of the picture?

Maybe if we had a living wage and better benefits those folks wouldn't be on such a "Fixed" Income.. It's mentalities like the "I Shop there and Want my Prices Cheap, So I could Care less if the Employees Dig in Garbage Cans For Food" that ENSURE that the people on a Fixed Income Stay Exactly Where they are At!

As someone who has previously spent years managing to survive at times by working at a gas station, painting houses, handing out towels at the YMCA, working in retail, digging swimming pools, answering phones, (sometimes, a number of these jobs atthe same time) and otherwise doing the sort of work and living the sort of life that sends guys like you into spasms of righteous outrage, I find myself humbled by the sentiments expressed above.

How dare I even suggest that others live as I have and struggle to get ahead as I do.

[purple_octopus]

Yep.. "FUCK THEM, I've GOT MINE".. The Modern American Attitude.. :rolleyes:
That's an awfully elistist attitude you have there. What makes you so much better than someone who had the misfortune to be born outside the US?

[Slar]

I'd also bet that most Walmart shoppers would still associate walmart with 'american made' and disassociate walmart with cheap foriegn imports from a country which still has political prison camps... :[Yeah, thank goodness we don't have any political prison camps.

[Homsar]

Wait, wasn't it already decided that Wal-Mart was hated and evil and whatnot?

[purple_octopus]

Wait, wasn't it already decided that Wal-Mart was hated and evil and whatnot?
I think everyone agrees that Wal-Mart is evil, we just don't agree on why it is evil. Besides, what else are we going to bitch about? That whole France thing is getting old.

[jneale]

Sounds great. However:

1) What is a "living wage"? Nobody has ever been able to define that for me.
Bingo.

You can’t compete with China where employees live in dorms, seldom get any off time to see their families and don’t speak up because there is always a replacement waiting in the wings.

[Shlep]

Bingo.

You can’t compete with China where employees live in dorms, seldom get any off time to see their families and don’t speak up because there is always a replacement waiting in the wings.

Moreover, what sort of "living" are we talking about? Poor people living in shitty, dirty and often dangerous neighborhoods are making a living wage; they have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs. And they're pissed off because they live in a shitty neighborhood and want more money. How much more do we pay them? Where are they more or less entitled, as working folks, to live?

Furthermore, the assumption seems to be that if you throw money at people, they'll take it and spend it wisely. I've spent enough time in the low-wage labor pool to know that some folks-- let's face it-- are just morons, at least when it comes to money.

[purple_octopus]

Moreover, what sort of "living" are we talking about? Poor people living in shitty, dirty and often dangerous neighborhoods are making a living wage; they have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs. And they're pissed off because they live in a shitty neighborhood and want more money. How much more do we pay them? Where are they more or less entitled, as working folks, to live?
We don't really have a poverty problem in this country. There are *very* few people in the US who really know what poverty is. I think anyone who has a roof over their head and food in their stomach, yet still complains of living in poverty, should go live in Haiti for a year.

[Vodka-7]

Wal-Mart = Mall-Wart

There was a proposal to build some mega-crap store in Vancouver last year--with 30 acres of parking lot (!)--but council had the sense to turn them down. So, despite their seemingly ubiquitous presence in every other municipality, Vancouver is Wal-Mart free.

The statistics were shocking regarding the added traffic and subsequent congestion and the damage to small local businesses which, really, are the heart of any city.

I was in a Wal-Mart once, maybe ten years ago, took about five steps, breathed in the smell of cheap rubber, turned around and walked out. I'm by no means rich but I'll pay a couple extra dollars to shop somewhere that doesn't make me ill.

[REMgirl]

Granted, there is poverty worldwide which we can't begin to understand. But there is poverty in this country as well, poverty which should be addressed and not ignored. There are communities in rural America which still don't have running water or electricity. There are those living just outside major cities who live in fear of bullets spraying though the walls of their buildings. Poverty has many facets; it's not the black and white issue about how little money one has.

I saw a program the other day about poverty in the US. One woman who is married and lives in a trailer with her two children has no teeth, yet she's only in her early thirties. She has an inherited vitamin deficiency and she's lost all her teeth over the years because she couldn't afford dental care. Now her youngest daughter is going through that same thing; her little teeth are black. Her husband works and they still can't cover the costs.

I saw another program about poverty years ago, and one little girl was asked what she would like for Christmas. Instead of replying that she wanted a doll or some toy, she said, "I would like something to eat".

Of course, it's a matter of context and comparison. We are facing so much in the wake of the storms this summer and what is going to happen there that the issues of poverty and need are at least going to be topics for discussion.

[justa bill]

Yeah, thank goodness we don't have any political prison camps.

yeah, nice comparison... 'cause america always locks up monks (http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=9399&t=1&c=1) and guys who held up signs (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/01/china11957.htm) for 20 years... :rolleyes:

Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in forced-labor camps for criticizing the government, estimates that 16 to 20 million of his countrymen are incarcerated, including common criminals, political prisoners, and people in involuntary job placements. Even ten million prisoners would make for a rate of 793 per 100,000. (that rate is even greater than america's--the world leader for people in prison, show me the people who've been locked up for staging peaceful protests.)

i wonder how many of the 'god bless the usa'-type t-shirts that Walmart sells are made by political prisoners in China? :eek:

[PeterABnny]

I could list a bunch of petty grievences against Wal-Mart but thinking broadly, I'd say they represent the worst side of capitalism. Of course, every company is in business to make money, but Wal-Mart seems to do so with a particularly callous disregard for its employees, the communities it opens stores in, its suppliers, its competitors, etc.



That pretty much sums it up for me, too.

On a somewhat related note, I heard on NPR about how badly Dumbass is failing in pushing his free trade policies in S. America, mainly because S. American countries are seeing how it didn't work in other countries over the past 15 years and they don't want any part of it. Pretty much, capitalism and free trade only work if those with all the power and money share what they have/what they make with the larger group of people who give them that power and money. It's only then that the people on the lowest rungs truly benefit from all that foreign investment. Unfortunately, however, they don't, so *insert socioeconomic woe here* is usually the unforseen result. The rich - especially the super rich - don't stay rich by sharing.

[markalot]

YES, we raise their salaries and give them better benefits...

We also need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. of A and provide a living wage for those workers even if it means bringing the price of goods up a dollar or two more..

Well, by the rationale of the "Keep their Wages Low so I can pay less" Crowd maybe people on a fixed income should have budgeted better, huh? Why is it that now suddenly the people on a "Fixed income" are part of the picture?

Maybe if we had a living wage and better benefits those folks wouldn't be on such a "Fixed" Income.. It's mentalities like the "I Shop there and Want my Prices Cheap, So I could Care less if the Employees Dig in Garbage Cans For Food" that ENSURE that the people on a Fixed Income Stay Exactly Where they are At!


You need to think some of these ideas through.

1. They are alive, so they must be making a living wage. Maybe they aren't happy about it, but they aren't starving or dieing.

2. If you raise their wages then other prices will go up, meaning they now have to make more, meaning prices have to rise, meaning .... You probably think Walmart makes too much profit, and could afford to pay people more and lower their profits? If not, then you are clearly ignorant of simple economics. Walmart clearly sells goods for less to the exact people they employee. Raise those prices and you're in the same boat.

3. What benefit does walmart provide to the low income family? Any? You have to be honest. If they have the lowest prices on everything from soap to food to lawn chairs then they must be providing some benefit.

I believe that companies should be able to make as much money as they can, as long as there is a healthy competition (see oil companies). That is the healthiest for everyone in the long run. If people can't afford to live life then these companies will lose customer. Simple. One thing we can do to help this process along is to remove many of the government subsudies that help places like walmart pay people less. We shouldn't force them to raise wages or benefits.

[Slar]

yeah, nice comparison... 'cause america always locks up monks (http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=9399&t=1&c=1) and guys who held up signs (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/01/china11957.htm) for 20 years... :rolleyes:

Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in forced-labor camps for criticizing the government, estimates that 16 to 20 million of his countrymen are incarcerated, including common criminals, political prisoners, and people in involuntary job placements. Even ten million prisoners would make for a rate of 793 per 100,000. (that rate is even greater than america's--the world leader for people in prison, show me the people who've been locked up for staging peaceful protests.)

i wonder how many of the 'god bless the usa'-type t-shirts that Walmart sells are made by political prisoners in China? :eek:My point being, that with secret prisons around the world in violation of whatever convention you can think of, that the United States can no longer stand on the moral high ground. Who are we to point fingers?

[miami2112]

since wal-mart killed rubbermaid and wooster ohio, i've refused to shop there. so i go to meiers which is probably the same cheap imported crap. i dont know if im solving any problem or making some kind of statement by how i spend my money, but i feel better for not shopping there.

[aqualou]

for me, i hate slow stupid people that won't get out of my way. As it turns out, all of these genepool bottom feeders hangout at walmart. there's a home depot right next door and i go to lowes just because of the walmart next to home depot.

[something]

that and I always have this experience when i go to walmarts (or malls, or shopping in general i guess) that's unique to me where there's something about the stagnant air that makes me want to fall asleep, but there's something about the bright lights that makes me want to kill people.

so whenever people try to tell me all about how much they *love* walmart is because you can find so many good deals, i tell them
really? that's funny, because walmart makes me want to commit acts of murder.

[euro60]

Agreed with all of the above. In addition, I don't shop at Walmart because much of their stuff is just crap. Why would I want to buy crap when I can buy better quality? Seems to remind me that "you get what you pay". You pay little, you get crap. You pay some more, you get something better. Down with Walmart!

[weeone]

since wal-mart killed rubbermaid and wooster ohio, i've refused to shop there. so i go to meiers which is probably the same cheap imported crap. i dont know if im solving any problem or making some kind of statement by how i spend my money, but i feel better for not shopping there.
what can you buy from meijer that you can't buy at smaller/local level stores ? Just curious ... It's the same for me - it's hard to find a way to support local grocers. I mean, I shop at Kroger, because it's right around the corner and it's been my Kroger since 1999. Granted, Kroger employs an awful lot of people in the community and is fairly low priced. Luckily, we also have a non-corporate owned wholesale restaurant supply and some farmers' markets open to the public, too, where I can get produce. As for non food related necessities, my favorite place is Walgreens - I know it's not local, but some guy's in Illinois, however again, I feel like it is better to support this kind of place. There really is no local place to buy my deodorant (when I wear it :D ) unless I go to the hippy supply marts like Rainbow Blossom and Amazing Grace - who now have competition from Wholefoods, as if they needed it. Lucky for Rainbow Blossom and Amazing Grace, Wholefoods is too much of a hike to frequent all that often. I wish there was some cost/time effective way to not line fat cats' wallets, not crush local economies, and not export jobs. But it's important to think about who you are investing your money in and who you are supporting.

Having said all that, think about it: Walmarts keep all those annoying people out of your hair. If they are at Walmart all the time, and you aren't, your life will be that much better :)

*kicks back and smokes peace'em pipe'em*

[purple_octopus]

Having said all that, think about it: Walmarts keep all those annoying people out of your hair. If they are at Walmart all the time, and you aren't, your life will be that much better :)
I think that's the best point anyone has made in this entire thread.

[DaHood]

Having said all that, think about it: Walmarts keep all those annoying people out of your hair. If they are at Walmart all the time, and you aren't, your life will be that much better :)
Brilliant! An actual redeeming quality of Walmart. :p

[weeone]

Walmart: society's flypaper. :D

[purple_octopus]

Walmart: society's flypaper. :D
I am so sigging that.

[DaHood]

Walmart: society's flypaper. :D
I love you.

[DaHood]

I am so sigging that.
Goddammit. You beat me to it.

[purple_octopus]

Goddammit. You beat me to it.
I love her more anyway.

[DaHood]

I love her more anyway.
Can we expect a hot chick sex scene?

[purple_octopus]

Can we expect a hot chick sex scene?
I'll direct you to the lez out thread at this time.... ;)

I just noticed that I have Weeone referenced four times in my sig. Granted, she did put three of those there herself.

[DaHood]

How about some floor pics?

[weeone]

I knew we could twist this thread into propaganda for the lez out thread ! Good work PO ! :D

[DaHood]

I knew we could twist this thread into propaganda for the lez out thread ! Good work PO ! :D
I'm the one that asked for the hot chick sex.

[the happy prole]

I think you guys are misreading the situation. Wal-mart is adamantly in favor of RAISING the minimum wage.

The reality is that there are very few (if any) jobs worth less than $5.25 per hour, if "worth" is measured by supply and demand. It's something like 2 or 3 percent of the work force that makes minimum wage, so it's not that big an issue in the labor marketplace over all.

What happens is, Target pays $6.00 an hour and Wal-mart pays $5.50. That gives Target an advantage in attracting labor. If EVERYONE had to pay $6.00 an hour than Target's advantage would be gone.

So why can't Wal-mart just decide to pay $6.00 an hour and negate Target's advantage? Because it won't work. Wal-mart has to pay employees more money than Target (or whoever) to retain them because Target has better benefits or a better working environment or more flexible hours, I don't know. In other words, Target is spending money to satisfy employees in ways other than wage. And however they're doing it, it's apparently more efficient in the bottom line.

Wal-mart wants to jack up minimum wage to the point where Target has no choice to redirect that "fringe benefit" money into wages. The wage and labor costs are then set and that's one less thing Wal-mart has to worry about. The only way you can beat Wal-mart on the expense side is cheaper suppliers and Wal-mart feels like they got that end of things locked down pretty well.

So the bottom line isn't that minimum wage is distorting the market, it's that it's NOT distorting the market. And if we raised it, it would work in Wal-mart's favor.

[DaHood]

I think you guys are misreading the situation. blah blah blah blah
I think it is you who are misreading the situation. This is now the hot lesbian sex thread. If you want to talk about Walmart I suggest you start a Walmart thread. :p

[Shlep]

I think you guys are misreading the situation. Wal-mart is adamantly in favor of RAISING the minimum wage.

The reality is that there are very few (if any) jobs worth less than $5.25 per hour, if "worth" is measured by supply and demand. It's something like 2 or 3 percent of the work force that makes minimum wage, so it's not that big an issue in the labor marketplace over all.

What happens is, Target pays $6.00 an hour and Wal-mart pays $5.50. That gives Target an advantage in attracting labor. If EVERYONE had to pay $6.00 an hour than Target's advantage would be gone.

So why can't Wal-mart just decide to pay $6.00 an hour and negate Target's advantage? Because it won't work. Wal-mart has to pay employees more money than Target (or whoever) to retain them because Target has better benefits or a better working environment or more flexible hours, I don't know. In other words, Target is spending money to satisfy employees in ways other than wage. And however they're doing it, it's apparently more efficient in the bottom line.

Wal-mart wants to jack up minimum wage to the point where Target has no choice to redirect that "fringe benefit" money into wages. The wage and labor costs are then set and that's one less thing Wal-mart has to worry about. The only way you can beat Wal-mart on the expense side is cheaper suppliers and Wal-mart feels like they got that end of things locked down pretty well.

So the bottom line isn't that minimum wage is distorting the market, it's that it's NOT distorting the market. And if we raised it, it would work in Wal-mart's favor.

According to Wal-Marts' CEO, (http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/25/news/fortune500/walmart_wage/) Wal-Mart is in favor of raising the minimum wage so that low-wage Wal-Mart customers have more money to spend at Wal-Mart. Okay, maybe so...but if Wal-Mart does in fact have a history of Dickensian treatment of its' employees, if find it hard to believe that they're lobbying Congress to force them to pay their people more. Especially since (according to the article above, if I'm to believe Wal-Mart Watch) Wal-Mart is simultaneously retaining the services of lobbyists who oppose minimum wage increases.

Personally, I think that Wal-Mart calling for a minimum wage increase if nothing but a lot of PR balloon juice intended to defuse criticism that they're mean and greedy and hate unskilled workers. And they can do it, too and not worry too much since last time I checked, Wal-Mart was not a branch of the US government.

As for being Target being forced to redirect "fringe benefit" money into wages if the minimum wage gets increased...not sure how that would happen. I've worked at Target, and I recall the bennies package being elective, like most places, and the more benefits you get, the more that comes out of your wages. And as has already been pointed out, Target isn't "forced" to do jack with their employees in the end; if they become prohibitively expensive, Target can opt to thin their ranks at will, or reduce them to part-timers who don't rate full-time benefits, as I can assure you from personal experience and observation they *will* do to save money...as Wal-Mart could for that matter (any Wal-Mart critics here willing to believe Wal-Mart would lobby for a minimum wage increase and then start sacking people if the wage does indeed go up?).

[justa bill]

My point being, that with secret prisons around the world in violation of whatever convention you can think of, that the United States can no longer stand on the moral high ground. Who are we to point fingers?

if the prisons are secret, how do you know 'we' have them... and even IF 'we' have them, what do you think the proportion of budist monks to psychotic terrorists is? :confused:

yeah, 'we' still got plenty of high ground... :|

[Shlep]

if the prisons are secret, how do you know 'we' have them... and even IF 'we' have them, what do you think the proportion of budist monks to psychotic terrorists is? :confused:

To that I would add: how many of the folks incarcerated in Gitmo and other federal pens on suspiscion of being involved with terrorism have been put to work making cheap crap for retail vendors?

[DaHood]

...but if Wal-Mart does in fact have a history of Dickensian treatment of its' employees, if find it hard to believe that they're lobbying Congress to force them to pay their people more.http://www.vh1.com/shared/media/images/sn_legacy/addict/images/Catherine_Wheel/sm-Catherine_Wheel.gif

[markalot]

wait wait wait


PR balloon juice?


Used condoms?

[seafoamgreen]

let me simply say this: i recently bought the Steven Seagal opus, Fire down below, for $5 at walmart. so it can't be all bad.

[DaHood]

let me simply say this: i recently bought the Steven Seagal opus, Fire down below, for $5 at walmart. so it can't be all bad.
Overpriced!!!!

[seafoamgreen]

Overpriced!!!!

shut up you! it's a masterpiece.

[DaHood]

http://www.freshdirect.com/media/images/product/grocery/gro_lays_bbq_01_p.jpg

[eighty]

I simply don't care for the Walmart ambiance.
I also don't like being greeted walking into a self-serve store, pointless! Same goes for you, Home Depot!

[miami2112]

I simply don't care for the Walmart ambiance.
I also don't like being greeted walking into a self-serve store, pointless! Same goes for you, Home Depot!

absolutely!! keep the old fart from saying hello to me and place someone else on the checkout line!!!

[weeone]

wait wait wait


PR balloon juice?

ha !

Used condoms?
ha! ha! :eek:

[justa bill]

absolutely!! keep the old fart from saying hello to me and place someone else on the checkout line!!!

which is why i love Home Depot & Kroger: uScan. no wait--usually; no 'how ya doin' with the cashier; no 'shit, this guy's trying to pay a $40 total in singles'....

heck, i've purchased sheets of plywood at the uScan before... and when does Home Depot have greaters? on the weekends or something? :p

btw, that NPR "MarketPlace" story about Walmart... there was a guy there who argued that the only reason Walmart is fighting for an increase in the minimum wage is that: 1) they don't pay it anyway [they pay just slightly more], 2) a lot of "mom and pop" stores pay minimum wage to teens that work there after school. So... all it does is drive up "the compitition's" costs.

reason #3,459.66... :|

[george]

since wal-mart killed rubbermaid and wooster ohio, i've refused to shop there.

How exactly did Wal-Mart kill Rubbermaid?

From what I can glean from five minutes on Google, Rubbermaid raised their prices and Wal-Mart chose to go with a lower-cost supplier.

What should Wal-Mart have done instead?

[akip]

How exactly did Wal-Mart kill Rubbermaid?

From what I can glean from five minutes on Google, Rubbermaid raised their prices and Wal-Mart chose to go with a lower-cost supplier.

What should Wal-Mart have done instead?

like i said, what wal-mart replaced it with is a piece of shit product line that breaks when you breathe on it.

[aqualou]

walmart makes me want to commit acts of murder.
in your sleep

[weeone]

like i said, what wal-mart replaced it with is a piece of shit product line that breaks when you breathe on it.
a Walmart sympathiser ! Sick him girl ! Good job !

[george]

like i said, what wal-mart replaced it with is a piece of shit product line that breaks when you breathe on it.

I understand, but I still don't see how that makes them responsible for killing Rubbermaid.

Wal-Mart is all about "low price," not "quality." Rubbermaid decided to keep making "quality" products rather than "low cost" ones. It appears to be Rubbermaid's business decision.

[jneale]

How exactly did Wal-Mart kill Rubbermaid?

From what I can glean from five minutes on Google, Rubbermaid raised their prices and Wal-Mart chose to go with a lower-cost supplier.

What should Wal-Mart have done instead?


Rubbermaid tried to be a good corporate partner with Wal-Mart and was blindsided.

They didn’t just decide to increase their price.

Wal-Mart demands agreements with their suppliers – increasingly they demand lower costs. The get a company to commit to being a primary supplier – then they threaten to pull all of the business unless the supplier meets their cost – they push manufactures to China to make the products cheaper AT THE COST OF THE US JOBS.

I posted a link to a FastCompany article about Wal-Mart – if you really can’t find anything about Rubbermaid – read what they did to Vlasic & Huffy, Rubbermaid was just one of the first companies they F’ed over.

[george]

a Walmart sympathiser ! Sick him girl ! Good job !

No, no. I don't like Wal-Mart. Mainly because I think they sell nothing but crap. However, any company who decides to play ball with them can't cry foul when Wal-Mart turns to a new, cheaper supplier.

Besides all that, it's the people who shop at Wal-Mart who are the real culprits. If they really wanted Rubbermaid products they would have balked at buying the cheaper stuff. I doubt the average Wal-Mart customer really cares who makes the plasticware, so long as it's really cheap.

[weeone]

No, no. I don't like Wal-Mart. Mainly because I think they sell nothing but crap. However, any company who decides to play ball with them can't cry foul when Wal-Mart turns to a new, cheaper supplier.

Play ball with walmart ? You mean put your products on the market ? Why would you limit who carries you ? Especially when that company limits the market with its huge corporate network to begin with ?

[george]

Rubbermaid tried to be a good corporate partner with Wal-Mart and was blindsided.

They didn’t just decide to increase their price.

Wal-Mart demands agreements with their suppliers – increasingly they demand lower costs. The get a company to commit to being a primary supplier – then they threaten to pull all of the business unless the supplier meets their cost – they push manufactures to China to make the products cheaper AT THE COST OF THE US JOBS.

I posted a link to a FastCompany article about Wal-Mart – if you really can’t find anything about Rubbermaid – read what they did to Vlasic & Huffy, Rubbermaid was just one of the first companies they F’ed over.

What I read about Rubbermaid was that the cost of an ingredient in their process jumped by 80% and Rubbermaid wanted to pass that cost onto Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart said "no, we can get plasticware from another supplier at a lower cost."

Should Wal-Mart have said "okay, we'll pay you more"? Should they have eaten the new higher cost or should they have passed it along to the customer? If a cheaper substitute existed, wouldn't Wal-Mart be stupid for continuing to sell the higher-priced Rubbermaid stuff while K-Mart and Target undersold them?

What about Rubbermaid's choices? Why could others make the same product for less? Was Rubbermaid the only one that used this ingredient?

As for the "jobs to China" thing -- If widgets can be made more cheaply in China, why should Wal-Mart continue to buy them from the U.S.? Won't their competitors buy the cheaper Chinese widgets and undersell Wal-Mart? Or, do you suggest that the government get involved and mandate that U.S. retailers must sell only U.S. made goods?

[weeone]

What I read about Rubbermaid was that the cost of an ingredient in their process jumped by 80% and Rubbermaid wanted to pass that cost onto Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart said "no, we can get plasticware from another supplier at a lower cost."

Should Wal-Mart have said "okay, we'll pay you more"? Should they have eaten the new higher cost or should they have passed it along to the customer? If a cheaper substitute existed, wouldn't Wal-Mart be stupid for continuing to sell the higher-priced Rubbermaid stuff while K-Mart and Target undersold them?

What about Rubbermaid's choices? Why could others make the same product for less? Was Rubbermaid the only one that used this ingredient?

As for the "jobs to China" thing -- If widgets can be made more cheaply in China, why should Wal-Mart continue to buy them from the U.S.? Won't their competitors buy the cheaper Chinese widgets and undersell Wal-Mart? Or, do you suggest that the government get involved and mandate that U.S. retailers must sell only U.S. made goods?
Discriminating shoppers shop elsewhere :cool:

[george]

Why would you limit who carries you ?

Maybe because they are going to kill you?

[weeone]

Maybe because they are going to kill you?
you're obviously not a golfer.

[akip]

Rubbermaid decided to keep making "quality" products rather than "low cost" ones.

that's why i buy rubbermaid...at target :)

[jneale]

I understand, but I still don't see how that makes them responsible for killing Rubbermaid.

Wal-Mart is all about "low price," not "quality." Rubbermaid decided to keep making "quality" products rather than "low cost" ones. It appears to be Rubbermaid's business decision.

Rubbermaid increased their production capacity specifically to meet the Wal-Mart demand. Then Wal-Mart sprung the trap – lower your cost, we don’t care how you have to do it. Rubbermaid had significant commitments to meet Wal-Mart’s volume requirements. The costs reductions were unreasonable, they pulled the business & Rubbermaid lost it all. Wal-Mart’s motivation is to get companies to move their production to China.

[george]

that's why i buy rubbermaid...at target :)

Amen.

Unfortunately, I don't think most people make that decision and I don't know how much you can really fault Wal-Mart for the decisions of those people.


If most people were really concerned about U.S. manufacturing jobs, then most people would probably make more of an effort to buy only American goods. I think most people are just concerned with getting things as cheaply as they can. Again, I don't know how much you can fault Wal-Mart for giving most people what they want.

[icehouse]

that's why i buy rubbermaid...at target :)
whatever happened to a tupperware party?

http://michelemiller.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/tupperware_party.jpg

[weeone]

Rubbermaid increased their production capacity specifically to meet the Wal-Mart demand. Then Wal-Mart sprung the trap – lower your cost, we don’t care how you have to do it. Rubbermaid had significant commitments to meet Wal-Mart’s volume requirements. The costs reductions were unreasonable, they pulled the business & Rubbermaid lost it all. Wal-Mart’s motivation is to get companies to move their production to China.
**oh snap**

[george]

Rubbermaid increased their production capacity specifically to meet the Wal-Mart demand. Then Wal-Mart sprung the trap – lower your cost, we don’t care how you have to do it. Rubbermaid had significant commitments to meet Wal-Mart’s volume requirements. The costs reductions were unreasonable, they pulled the business & Rubbermaid lost it all. Wal-Mart’s motivation is to get companies to move their production to China.

This makes it sound like Rubbermaid agreed to deliver X quantity of product to Wal-Mart but left the price for Wal-Mart to decide. Again, Rubbermaid would seem to hold a lot of the responsibility for entering that kind of agreement.

Why is it bad that Wal-Mart wants to buy things from China?

[akip]

Amen.

Unfortunately, I don't think most people make that decision and I don't know how much you can really fault Wal-Mart for the decisions of those people.


If most people were really concerned about U.S. manufacturing jobs, then most people would probably make more of an effort to buy only American goods. I think most people are just concerned with getting things as cheaply as they can. Again, I don't know how much you can fault Wal-Mart for giving most people what they want.

i agree that for a lot of people, price is the lone factor. i buy into the old school creed that quality is cheaper in the long run.

i think what i don't like about wal-mart is the same thing i don't like a lot of what plays to the lowest common denominator in all of us---the dumbing down and junkification of american culture. i respect the european model, which is what i learned from my mom---that you try to get quality (on sale whenever possible) and keep it for a very long time. my mother didn't have much money, but she had standards.

[george]

whatever happened to a tupperware party?


Tupperware outsourced it to China.

http://www.aklehr.com/Tup910.jpg

[icehouse]

Tupperware outsourced it to China.

http://www.aklehr.com/Tup910.jpg
hahahahahaha

[weeone]

Why is it bad that Wal-Mart wants to buy things from China?
How is this a good thing for the american economy ? :confused:

[jneale]

What about Rubbermaid's choices? Why could others make the same product for less? Was Rubbermaid the only one that used this ingredient?

Ok, last post & I’m done.

The thing you are missing is the relationship between the companies.

Wal-Mart asked Rubbermaid to increase capacity & they complied. Then Wal-Mart pulled the plug AFTER Rubbermaid made investments to meet Wal-Mart’s needs.

Every manufacture has key customers and suppliers. Those customers where we have commitments – we’re very open about how much things cost & how much we charge. Sometimes we bite the bullet – sometimes we pass along the costs – but at each step we work with our customers.

Getting a supplier to commit to a volume – then changing the terms (lowering the cost) isn’t just buying something cheaper somewhere else – it is trapping a manufacturer into agreements that force them out of business.

[george]

i think what i don't like about wal-mart is the same thing i don't like a lot of what plays to the lowest common denominator in all of us---the dumbing down and junkification of american culture. i respect the european model, which is what i learned from my mom---that you try to get quality (on sale whenever possible) and keep it for a very long time. my mother didn't have much money, but she had standards.

I agree with you -- I think most Americans follow the "buy often and replace often" philosophy. But I think the antidote to that lies in personal responsibility. Don't vilify Wal-Mart for selling crap, vilify the morons that buy the crap and therefore make Wal-Mart as large and successful as it is. Even if Wal-Mart gets dragged down, some other company will spring up in its place so long as there are still people who want to buy crap as cheaply as possible.

[george]

Ok, last post & I’m done.

The thing you are missing is the relationship between the companies.

Wal-Mart asked Rubbermaid to increase capacity & they complied. Then Wal-Mart pulled the plug AFTER Rubbermaid made investments to meet Wal-Mart’s needs.

Every manufacture has key customers and suppliers. Those customers where we have commitments – we’re very open about how much things cost & how much we charge. Sometimes we bite the bullet – sometimes we pass along the costs – but at each step we work with our customers.

Getting a supplier to commit to a volume – then changing the terms (lowering the cost) isn’t just buying something cheaper somewhere else – it is trapping a manufacturer into agreements that force them out of business.

I get all that. But Rubbermaid was naive (and possibly guilty of horrible mismanagement) if they agreed to make all these new investments without any sort of guarantee that they would pay off.

[jneale]

Why is it bad that Wal-Mart wants to buy things from China?

It isn’t.

I work for a company that purchases supplies & finished goods from China. We shop, if we find it cheaper & it meets our needs - we buy it.

We don’t lock our suppliers into commitments – then tell them we’re going to pay them less that what we agreed.

What is wrong is Wal-Mart is the way they do business.

That FastCompany article makes it pretty clear how they operate.

[akip]

i could also tell the story of what happened to my brother dealing with wal-mart. but my stomach hurts already.

[george]

How is this a good thing for the american economy ? :confused:

It's not a good thing for the American manufacturing economy; but I don't see how Wal-Mart is responsible for propping up American manufacturers.

[weeone]

It's not a good thing for the American manufacturing economy; but I don't see how Wal-Mart is responsible for propping up American manufacturers.
Why don't you just marry walmart, you freak. :p

[george]

We don’t lock our suppliers into commitments – then tell them we’re going to pay them less that what we agreed.

What is wrong is Wal-Mart is the way they do business.


And nobody sues them for breaking these contracts?

Or are they just so blinded by the dollar signs that they agree to whatever Wal-Mart wants?

[george]

Why don't you just marry walmart, you freak. :p

I'm afraid she'd want me to move to Arkansas.

[markalot]

It isn’t.

I work for a company that purchases supplies & finished goods from China. We shop, if we find it cheaper & it meets our needs - we buy it.

We don’t lock our suppliers into commitments – then tell them we’re going to pay them less that what we agreed.

What is wrong is Wal-Mart is the way they do business.

That FastCompany article makes it pretty clear how they operate.

I disagree.

What's wrong is that companies doing business with Walmart appear to be incompetent. Would you hire more people and ramp up production if you didn't have a guaranteed contract for sales? Would you have come up with a disaster plan for unexpected price increases?

Business rules haven't changed, but some companies have forgotten about them. Walmart realized that there were a bunch of poorly run disorganized companies out there and like an abusive boyfriend they raped them.

I think the analogy fits.

I also think Walmart is soon going to run into a lot of problems.

[icehouse]

well at least walmart knows they carry crap. they will take back practically anything. A friend of mine in college bought some deck chairs that rotted in no time and they fully refunded him. I personally chose not to shop at wal-mart.

In other news, my ex-gal pal is in Bentonville right now at Wal-Mart/Sam's Club Corporate. They are one of her company's customers; specifically she is in charge of replenishment. I don't want to go into anymore detail. Wal-mart might hunt me down.

[icehouse]

I disagree.

What's wrong is that companies doing business with Walmart appear to be incompetent. Would you hire more people and ramp up production if you didn't have a guaranteed contract for sales? Would you have come up with a disaster plan for unexpected price increases?

Business rules haven't changed, but some companies have forgotten about them. Walmart realized that there were a bunch of poorly run disorganized companies out there and like an abusive boyfriend they raped them.

I think the analogy fits.

I also think Walmart is soon going to run into a lot of problems.
another overlooked fact. walmart owns VERY LITTLE real-estate. Almost every wal-mart is just leasing the building from a GC. So if Walmart ever fails good luck to the GC's that it will take down with them.

My major beef with the mart is how they force edits on the music they carry and then leave the movies alone. weird.

[akip]

I agree with you -- I think most Americans follow the "buy often and replace often" philosophy. But I think the antidote to that lies in personal responsibility. Don't vilify Wal-Mart for selling crap, vilify the morons that buy the crap and therefore make Wal-Mart as large and successful as it is. Even if Wal-Mart gets dragged down, some other company will spring up in its place so long as there are still people who want to buy crap as cheaply as possible.

yes, there's both eggs and chickens here, but wal-mart is soooo huge that it is undeniably a market force. they have certainly changed american commerce.

i'm not entirely pro-local, 'cause i've lived in some smaller places where the local hardware store basically gouged people until home depot moved in. there's still a niche for local, even with wal-mart, but it's usually high-end, service-oriented. as usual, as the economic middle thins out, the retailers move toward either bulk-franchise or affluent niche.

[george]

Progressive Wal-Mart. Really. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/27/AR2005112700687.html?nav=hcmodule)

By Sebastian Mallaby
The Washington Post
Monday, November 28, 2005; A21

There's a comic side to the anti-Wal-Mart campaign brewing in Maryland and across the country. Only by summoning up the most naive view of corporate behavior can the critics be shocked -- shocked! -- by the giant retailer's machinations. Wal-Mart is plotting to contain health costs! But isn't that what every company does in the face of medical inflation? Wal-Mart has a war room to defend its image! Well, yeah, it's up against a hostile campaign featuring billboards, newspaper ads and a critical documentary movie. Wal-Mart aims to enrich shareholders and put rivals out of business! Hello? What business doesn't do that?

Wal-Mart's critics allege that the retailer is bad for poor Americans. This claim is backward: As Jason Furman of New York University puts it, Wal-Mart is "a progressive success story." Furman advised John "Benedict Arnold" Kerry in the 2004 campaign and has never received any payment from Wal-Mart; he is no corporate apologist. But he points out that Wal-Mart's discounting on food alone boosts the welfare of American shoppers by at least $50 billion a year. The savings are possibly five times that much if you count all of Wal-Mart's products.

These gains are especially important to poor and moderate-income families. The average Wal-Mart customer earns $35,000 a year, compared with $50,000 at Target and $74,000 at Costco. Moreover, Wal-Mart's "every day low prices" make the biggest difference to the poor, since they spend a higher proportion of income on food and other basics. As a force for poverty relief, Wal-Mart's $200 billion-plus assistance to consumers may rival many federal programs. Those programs are better targeted at the needy, but they are dramatically smaller. Food stamps were worth $33 billion in 2005, and the earned-income tax credit was worth $40 billion.

Set against these savings for consumers, Wal-Mart's alleged suppression of wages appears trivial. Arindrajit Dube of the University of California at Berkeley, a leading Wal-Mart critic, has calculated that the firm has caused a $4.7 billion annual loss of wages for workers in the retail sector. This number is disputed: Wal-Mart's pay and benefits can be made to look good or bad depending on which other firms you compare them to. When Wal-Mart opened a store in Glendale, Ariz., last year, it received 8,000 applications for 525 jobs, suggesting that not everyone believes the pay and benefits are unattractive.

But let's say we accept Dube's calculation that retail workers take home $4.7 billion less per year because Wal-Mart has busted unions and generally been ruthless. That loss to workers would still be dwarfed by the $50 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers save on food, never mind the much larger sums that they save altogether. Indeed, Furman points out that the wage suppression is so small that even its "victims" may be better off. Retail workers may take home less pay, but their purchasing power probably still grows thanks to Wal-Mart's low prices.

To be fair, the $4.7 billion of wage suppression in the retail sector excludes Wal-Mart's efforts to drive down wages at its suppliers. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," the new anti-Wal-Mart movie that's circulating among activist groups, has the requisite passage about Chinese workers getting pennies per day, sweating to keep Wal-Mart's shelves stocked with cheap clothing. But no study has shown whether Wal-Mart's tactics actually do suppress wages in China or elsewhere, and suppression seems unlikely in poor countries. The Chinese garment workers are mainly migrants from farms, where earnings are even worse than at Wal-Mart's subcontractors and where the labor is still more grueling.

Wal-Mart's critics also paint the company as a parasite on taxpayers, because 5 percent of its workers are on Medicaid. Actually that's a typical level for large retail firms, and the national average for all firms is 4 percent. Moreover, it's ironic that Wal-Mart's enemies, who are mainly progressives, should even raise this issue. In the 1990s progressives argued loudly for the reform that allowed poor Americans to keep Medicaid benefits even if they had a job. Now that this policy is helping workers at Wal-Mart, progressives shouldn't blame the company. Besides, many progressives favor a national health system. In other words, they attack Wal-Mart for having 5 percent of its workers receive health care courtesy of taxpayers when the policy that they support would increase that share to 100 percent.

Companies like Wal-Mart are not run by saints. They can treat workers and competitors roughly. They may be poor stewards of the environment. When they break the law they must be punished. Wal-Mart is at the center of the globalized, technology-driven economy that's radically increased American inequality, so it's not surprising that it has critics. But globalization and business innovation are nonetheless the engines of progress; and if that sounds too abstract, think of the $200 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers gain annually. If critics prevent the firm from opening new branches, they will prevent ordinary families from sharing in those gains. Poor Americans will be chief among the casualties.

[icehouse]

Progressive Wal-Mart. Really. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/27/AR2005112700687.html?nav=hcmodule)
These gains are especially important to poor and moderate-income families. The average Wal-Mart customer earns $35,000 a year, compared with $50,000 at Target and $74,000 at Costco. Moreover, Wal-Mart's "every day low prices" make the biggest difference to the poor, since they spend a higher proportion of income on food and other basics. As a force for poverty relief, Wal-Mart's $200 billion-plus assistance to consumers may rival many federal programs. Those programs are better targeted at the needy, but they are dramatically smaller. Food stamps were worth $33 billion in 2005, and the earned-income tax credit was worth $40 billion.

But let's say we accept Dube's calculation that retail workers take home $4.7 billion less per year because Wal-Mart has busted unions and generally been ruthless. That loss to workers would still be dwarfed by the $50 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers save on food, never mind the much larger sums that they save altogether. Indeed, Furman points out that the wage suppression is so small that even its "victims" may be better off. Retail workers may take home less pay, but their purchasing power probably still grows thanks to Wal-Mart's low prices...
But globalization and business innovation are nonetheless the engines of progress; and if that sounds too abstract, think of the $200 billion-plus that Wal-Mart consumers gain annually. If critics prevent the firm from opening new branches, they will prevent ordinary families from sharing in those gains. Poor Americans will be chief among the casualties.

wow, this guy leaves out a couple points. He makes the assumption that a poor person will shop at wal-mart. In one sentence he talks about wal-mart being "a force for poverty relief" and then admits to the point that wal-mart has wage supression. So which came first the chicken or the egg?

Also, when you work and buy everything from the same place (like the assumption of the article)...that isn't consumer freedom. It sounds more like serfdom or slavery.

The oversights are upsetting. Sebastian Mallaby is usually pretty insightful.

[markalot]

But let's say we accept Dube's calculation

Critical piece you left out because clearly he does not buy into Dube's calculation.

Unskilled jobs are going to be paying less and less. Walmart might be speeding up the process, but the end result will not change.

[icehouse]

Critical piece you left out because clearly he does not buy into Dube's calculation.

Unskilled jobs are going to be paying less and less. Walmart might be speeding up the process, but the end result will not change.
That is exactly what I am saying. His two main points conflict with each other. He has provided two different figures as to what spending saving ultimately amount and then "strengthens" his point by deducting Dube's liberal calculation to still show a net savings. That is his mistake, the implication that wal-mart is the only choice for the poor. He didn't write it but it is heavily implied that a less well off person would shop at wal-mart and typically said people work at wal-mart. The implication is serfdom.

Yes, unskilled jobs are going to pay less and less, Wal-Mart or not, until the next world war or depression.

[purple_octopus]

That is exactly what I am saying. His two main points conflict with each other. He has provided two different figures as to what spending saving ultimately amount and then "strengthens" his point by deducting Dube's liberal calculation to still show a net savings. That is his mistake, the implication that wal-mart is the only choice for the poor. He didn't write it but it is heavily implied that a less well off person would shop at wal-mart and typically said people work at wal-mart. The implication is serfdom.
He also stated the average income of the Wal-Mart shopper to be $35,000. I doubt Wal-Mart employees make that much money (and if they do, your argument goes out the window). There are plenty of people with college educations that aren't making that much. If that figure is correct, it would sound as though he's implying that the low prices are helping plenty of people who aren't Wal-Mart employees. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the author, but I really don't think that was the point he was trying to make.

[akip]

back to rubbermaid, i asked my bro' about it. he said that although it's true that wal-mart got rubbermaid in a twist, both organizations were hitting a point in their growth where they were maxxing out and starting to teeter earnings-wise. rubbermaid had been forced to expand into new product lines (expensive retoolings) and wal-mart has to keep promoting cheaper junk and expanding into dicey foreign markets. it's something to do with an expected 20% earnings growth every year that gets more and more difficult to achieve.

i asked him if that means any business has a 25-to-30 year life cycle and he said that's probably true---unless a business can anticipate its next reinvention into relevance and make it happen in time.

[Phreon]

after browsing this thread, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who has been a walmart employee for several years now.....and I told him a couple of things I had read here. his response was "wal-mart is taking this over-priced world and making it affordable for everyone.....they will match competitors prices and guarantee everything they sell"

discuss

Spend a day with your brother in law and show him a really great time. Then late at night, while he's asleep, drive a wooden stake through his heart and end Satan's claim to his soul.

Phreon

[jneale]

Spend a day with your brother in law and show him a really great time. Then late at night, while he's asleep, put a wooden stake through his heart and end Satan's claim to his soul.

Phreon

I haven't laughed out loud all day, thank you.

[frizgolf]

back to rubbermaid, i asked my bro' about it. he said that although it's true that wal-mart got rubbermaid in a twist, both organizations were hitting a point in their growth where they were maxxing out and starting to teeter earnings-wise. rubbermaid had been forced to expand into new product lines (expensive retoolings) and wal-mart has to keep promoting cheaper junk and expanding into dicey foreign markets. it's something to do with an expected 20% earnings growth every year that gets more and more difficult to achieve.

i asked him if that means any business has a 25-to-30 year life cycle and he said that's probably true---unless a business can anticipate its next reinvention into relevance and make it happen in time.
On a smaller scale, that has to be the biggest deterrent to new business start ups. The prospect of topping out in a few years without franchising and expanding your offerings would be a buzzkill.
Has Wally World realized their potential? How many more dragons are out there to slay? What else is there?

[Phreon]

back to rubbermaid, i asked my bro' about it. he said that although it's true that wal-mart got rubbermaid in a twist, both organizations were hitting a point in their growth where they were maxxing out and starting to teeter earnings-wise. rubbermaid had been forced to expand into new product lines (expensive retoolings) and wal-mart has to keep promoting cheaper junk and expanding into dicey foreign markets. it's something to do with an expected 20% earnings growth every year that gets more and more difficult to achieve.

i asked him if that means any business has a 25-to-30 year life cycle and he said that's probably true---unless a business can anticipate its next reinvention into relevance and make it happen in time.

You've added fuel to my secret belief that the idea of an economy driven, if not utterly dependent on a cycle of endless growth is catagorically insane.

Phreon

[markalot]

On a smaller scale, that has to be the biggest deterrent to new business start ups. The prospect of topping out in a few years without franchising and expanding your offerings would be a buzzkill.
Has Wally World realized their potential? How many more dragons are out there to slay? What else is there?

Rubbermaid had a new and unique idea, sell products made of rubber that were durable and cheap (comparatively).

Krispy Kreme has a good idea, sell high quality donuts in small shops.

Both of these companies have or are currently tanking.

It's a mistake to blame anyone besides themselves.


Rubbermaid had a problem with identification. They decided to go cheap in order to maximize sales. Rubbermaid products were once considered the best, but now Rubbermaid is just another cheap rubber product. We had an old Rubbermaid garbage (outside) can that was unbreakable. One day it dissapeared, so we bought a new Rubbermaid garbage can. This new one was cheap in price and cheaply made; it cracked the first winter. Why buy Rubbermaid?

Krispy Kreme opened donut shops. People loved their donuts. Sales exploded and people flocked to their shops to buy donuts. Then Krispy Kreme got caught the growth bug, just like Rubbermaid. Krispy Kreme everywhere! Store bought Krispy Kreme donuts were so so, not as good as fresh, and worse it tarnished there name. What's so special about Krispy Kreme again? They tank.

Anti-investor types like to complain that these companies are driven to doom by the constant demands of shareholders. Bull shit. They are driven to doom by short sighted irrational greed. Both of these brands had proven that people will buy quality, both screwed up.

[weeone]

People who eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts shop at Walmart. I'm not talking about the one-off stop at Krispy Kreme like once in a blue moon (me, I can't eat the things, feels like my teeth are breaking) but those who can't pass a Krispy Kreme without stopping ... also ... patronize ... Walmart ....

Just a pathetically prejudiced comment.

that's all.

Time for my bath.

[DaHood]

Spend a day with your brother in law and show him a really great time. Then late at night, while he's asleep, drive a wooden stake through his heart and end Satan's claim to his soul.

Phreon
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!! :D :D :D

[markalot]

I can't stand Krispy kreme, too much damn sugar. Dunkin Donuts, glazed, there is no better.

[DaHood]

Mom and Pop donuts kick ass. Krispy Kreme donuts lick ass.



'Nuff said.

[icehouse]

He also stated the average income of the Wal-Mart shopper to be $35,000. I doubt Wal-Mart employees make that much money (and if they do, your argument goes out the window). There are plenty of people with college educations that aren't making that much. If that figure is correct, it would sound as though he's implying that the low prices are helping plenty of people who aren't Wal-Mart employees. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the author, but I really don't think that was the point he was trying to make.
I think he meant that combined household income...that is what he was discussing before...

[DaHood]

Another donut related side note: In the greater Detroit area all the Dunkin Donuts are owned by Indians. Why is that?

[weeone]

Another donut related side note: In the greater Detroit area all the Dunkin Donuts are owned by Indians. Why is that?
Franchises and families.

Here a lot of Subways are owned by Indians.

[icehouse]

mark,
I think Krispy Kreme was fine until it went on the stock market. Investors overvalued the doughnut, just like the tech of old. Why did they go on the market? To raise more money for capital to expand. So once again, you are correct sir. Greed is screwing KK. Good product, overvalued stock. It has been late filling its reports the last two quarters...that will typically get you de-listed. So KK will have to privately trade once again.

[icehouse]

hold up a sec, I thought Krispy Kreme already filed for bankruptcy.

*runs off to google*
not unless it happened this quarter but bankruptcy or not it will be delisted ala incompent earnings reporting in 2002, 2003, 2004, and the first and second quarter 2005.

[akip]

Anti-investor types like to complain that these companies are driven to doom by the constant demands of shareholders. Bull shit. They are driven to doom by short sighted irrational greed. Both of these brands had proven that people will buy quality, both screwed up.

one of the many things i love about my brother is his fairmindedness, despite the fact that while wal-mart was a big factor in his career ascent as VP of a plastics molding firm, they were the sole player in the ruin of his career in that industry. he spent many, many hours walking the aisles of wal-mart, target, k-mart, etc., studying the retail landscape (rubbermaid was obviously one of his competitors, so he studied that issue just as diligently). he doesn't get worked up or on a high horse when he discusses any of it, just sees it all as part of a global game of good, bad, lucky or unlucky business decisions made under pressure of huge market forces.

he told me that his boss, the president of the plastics firm, said, when a crummy, cheapo korean line came out in competition with their own main product, "don't worry about it. that stuff is total crap. our customers expect quality. they're not gonna buy it." well, they did buy it, and a lot of it. it turned out they should've responded sooner 'cause it fucked with their sales considerably. they were an old-style family-run firm who treated their employees well. since then, they've had to close plants, cut benefits and even targeted plants with older, more expensive workers. (they had to fire my brother, who had been with them 18 years and had a stellar record, because wal-mart forced them to, but that's another story.)

anyway, a little tangent, but relevant to why some businesses succeed and others tank---my brother also told me that wal-mart succeeded, in part, because they studied k-mart's mistakes when they devised their logistical systems. k-mart brought in satellite tracking, etc, but they could never really get it right. wal-mart did get it right and was able to dominate.

[akip]

Btw, two words why krispy kreme failed:

shitty coffee.

[DaHood]

one of the many things i love about my brother is his fairmindedness, despite the fact that while wal-mart was a big factor in his career ascent as VP of a plastics molding firm, they were the sole player in the ruin of his career in that industry. he spent many, many hours walking the aisles of wal-mart, target, k-mart, etc., studying the retail landscape (rubbermaid was obviously one of his competitors, so he studied that issue just as diligently). he doesn't get worked up or on a high horse when he discusses any of it, just sees it all as part of a global game of good, bad, lucky or unlucky business decisions made under pressure of huge market forces.

he told me that his boss, the president of the plastics firm, said, when a crummy, cheapo korean line came out in competition with their own main product, "don't worry about it. that stuff is total crap. our customers expect quality. they're not gonna buy it." well, they did buy it, and a lot of it. it turned out they should've responded sooner 'cause it fucked with their sales considerably. they were an old-style family-run firm who treated their employees well. since then, they've had to close plants, cut benefits and even targeted plants with older, more expensive workers. (they had to fire my brother, who had been with them 18 years and had a stellar record, because wal-mart forced them to, but that's another story.)

anyway, a little tangent, but relevant to why some businesses succeed and others tank---my brother also told me that wal-mart succeeded, in part, because they studied k-mart's mistakes when they devised their logistical systems. k-mart brought in satellite tracking, etc, but they could never really get it right. wal-mart did get it right and was able to dominate.
There is a price to quality ratio for any product that people are willing to accept. If the price is right, people will buy dog shit. Personally I believe in paying for quality and not having to deal with the hassles but not everyone sees things the way I do.

As far as Kmart and their failures goes, much of that was because of gross mismanagement to the point of being criminal. It's going on every day in the corporate world and the law has just scratched the surface in fighting back.

It's a shame that the old style family run business is virtually dead. I don't see where overall we've gained because of cut throat corporate tactics. Something of our heart and soul has been lost in this country and I don't see it coming back.

[markalot]

he told me that his boss, the president of the plastics firm, said, when a crummy, cheapo korean line came out in competition with their own main product, "don't worry about it. that stuff is total crap. our customers expect quality. they're not gonna buy it."

I don't believe it, sorry to say. Sure, the masses bought the cheap shit, but Rubbermaid wanted to serve the masses, not their nitch market, and they failed. They should have seen it coming. This small family owned business could have stayed a smaller family owned business and stayed in business.

1. Failed businesses ALWAYS use the quality excuse. People just won't pay for quality. Sure, there are dumb asses who won't, so don't market to them. For every business who claims this there is another successful business who make a ton of money selling quality.

2. Perhaps Rubbermaid quality was no longer a step above the rest? If this was the case they should have seen it coming too, though I don't think it was.

3. Rubbermaid didn't have to sell to Walmart. I don't shop at Walmart, I bought rubbermaid. It's not rocket science.

So what they are saying is ... we targeted idiots who acted like idiots and we don't understand. We blame Walmart. When Walmart told us to lower prices because idiots wanted to pay less we did, because ... um, well, we wanted the sales! We blame walmart.

[the happy prole]

One thing I find really classy is when people cheat on their wives. Especially if they do it with barely legal teens. It's fun to cruise around high schools looking for the ones that seem especially vulnerable. You feel so much more powerful that way.

Even better, a lot of the times the vulnerable ones come from poor, broken homes. If they live with their mom or grandma, you can probably bilk them for cash. After all, if their guardians were smart they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Oh, and sometimes I film it. Then I either sucker them into signing consent forms or I blur out their faces and I sell the video on my internet porn site.

See, because if I just did this for personal jollies, you'd probably think it was immoral. But you can see that it's a business venture, so obviously there's nothing wrong with it.

I help drive the economy by keeping divorce attorneys, roadside motels, private investigators, gynecologists and therapists in business. Plus I plow the some of the profits into my KKK Megamart and Bookstore, which helps laundromats, the linen and textiles industry, and the Nazi paraphenalia dealers. And who does it hurt? People who make poor decisions and therefore should be swept out of the marketplace anyway. Really I'm doing all of you a favor.

[DaHood]

One thing I find really classy is when people cheat on their wives. Especially if they do it with barely legal teens. It's fun to cruise around high schools looking for the ones that seem especially vulnerable. You feel so much more powerful that way.

Even better, a lot of the times the vulnerable ones come from poor, broken homes. If they live with their mom or grandma, you can probably bilk them for cash. After all, if their guardians were smart they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Oh, and sometimes I film it. Then I either sucker them into signing consent forms or I blur out their faces and I sell the video on my internet porn site.

See, because if I just did this for personal jollies, you'd probably think it was immoral. But you can see that it's a business venture, so obviously there's nothing wrong with it.

I help drive the economy by keeping divorce attorneys, roadside motels, private investigators, gynecologists and therapists in business. Plus I plow the some of the profits into my KKK Megamart and Bookstore, which helps laundromats, the linen and textiles industry, and the Nazi paraphenalia dealers. And who does it hurt? People who make poor decisions and therefore should be swept out of the marketplace anyway. Really I'm doing all of you a favor.
Brilliant! :D

[weeone]

One thing I find really classy is when people cheat on their wives. Especially if they do it with barely legal teens. It's fun to cruise around high schools looking for the ones that seem especially vulnerable. You feel so much more powerful that way.

Even better, a lot of the times the vulnerable ones come from poor, broken homes. If they live with their mom or grandma, you can probably bilk them for cash. After all, if their guardians were smart they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Oh, and sometimes I film it. Then I either sucker them into signing consent forms or I blur out their faces and I sell the video on my internet porn site.

See, because if I just did this for personal jollies, you'd probably think it was immoral. But you can see that it's a business venture, so obviously there's nothing wrong with it.

I help drive the economy by keeping divorce attorneys, roadside motels, private investigators, gynecologists and therapists in business. Plus I plow the some of the profits into my KKK Megamart and Bookstore, which helps laundromats, the linen and textiles industry, and the Nazi paraphenalia dealers. And who does it hurt? People who make poor decisions and therefore should be swept out of the marketplace anyway. Really I'm doing all of you a favor.

Well, thank you.

*jots down mental note to see the happy prole when I'm low on dough*

[akip]

i have no illusions that my own personal distaste for wal-mart's practices and boycott of them have any impact on their success or failure, or that those practices will bring them down. but i admire my brother for putting their shit behind him and moving on with his life.

[REMgirl]

Akip, I respect and admire you here on the board. I quit shopping at Walmart two years ago and I despise their business policies. At first, I felt like it wouldn't make any difference, either, but it seems to me that a few years ago, no one was speaking out against them, no one was making documentaries against them, and no one had the guts to say, "Hey, wait a minute! Is this right?"

People are making a stand against new Walmarts opening up where they aren't wanted. People are speaking up against how women are treated in the corporate structure there, and they've noticed that Walmart is no longer the bigmouth advocate of Made in America is once was.

I'm a firm believer in speaking out and speaking up. ;)

[akip]

Akip, I respect and admire you here on the board. I quit shopping at Walmart two years ago and I despise their business policies. At first, I felt like it wouldn't make any difference, either, but it seems to me that a few years ago, no one was speaking out against them, no one was making documentaries against them, and no one had the guts to say, "Hey, wait a minute! Is this right?"

People are making a stand against new Walmarts opening up where they aren't wanted. People are speaking up against how women are treated in the corporate structure there, and they've noticed that Walmart is no longer the bigmouth advocate of Made in America is once was.

I'm a firm believer in speaking out and speaking up. ;)

the best revenge is somebody else smarter and better coming in and knocking em off the map. and shopping at target. :p

[artfag]

I'm sure this has been said given how long this thread is but "Big Box" stores ruin our economy, promote outsourcing, degrade surrounding neighborhoods. U.S. Toy companies our on their way out of business due Wal-Mart's import from Japan.

Over The Rhine has been saved by the city not allowing the proposed Wal-Mart. All hope for survival would have died.

[george]

Majority says Wal-Mart bad for America: poll (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051201/us_nm/retail_walmart_poll_dc_1)
By Emily Kaiser
Thu Dec 1, 2:13 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some 56 percent of U.S. consumers think Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is bad for America, according to a Zogby International poll released on Thursday by one of the retailer's most vocal critics.

The national poll -- commissioned by WakeUpWalMart.com, a union-funded group that has been pressuring Wal-Mart to raise employee wages and benefits -- surveyed 1,012 randomly chosen adults on their attitudes toward the world biggest retailer.

Respondents were asked to choose which of two statements more closely fit their personal opinions.

The majority, or 56 percent, picked: "I believe that Wal-Mart is bad for America. It may provide low prices, but these prices come with a high moral and economic cost for consumers." Thirty-nine percent agreed that "Wal-Mart is good for America. It provides low prices and saves consumers money every day."

Wal-Mart questioned the timing of the poll, which was conducted from November 15 to 18 -- a week when many of the retailer's critics organized events to highlight their concerns about the company, and screened a widely publicized documentary that cast Wal-Mart in a negative light.

"This poll is another way for them (WakeUpWalMart) to reach out for something to try to validate their efforts because they don't have anything else to hang their hat on," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said.

The poll was released on the same day that Wal-Mart reported a 4.3 percent increase in November sales at its U.S. stores open at least a year -- a key retail measure known as same-store sales. Wal-Mart has about 3,700 U.S. stores and 2,400 international locations, and is expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenues in the current fiscal year.

Wal-Mart, the largest U.S. private-sector employer, faces intense pressure at home from unions, environmental groups and others who say the company pays poverty-level wages, offers poor health-care benefits and gobbles up green space with its massive big-box stores.

At the same time, Wal-Mart is defending a record-large class-action lawsuit that charges it with discriminating against women in pay and promotions.

Wal-Mart denies those claims, and points out that it often receives thousands of applications for a few hundred jobs when it opens new stores.

Wal-Mart, which hired a team of public relations experts to help polish its image, said critics' efforts to discredit the company have had little success, judging from the more than 100 million U.S. customers who shop its stores every week.

But WakeUpWalMart lauded the poll as evidence that consumers are increasingly aware of the concerns the group has worked to spotlight.

"Despite two high-priced image make-overs, Wal-Mart's public image is in a tailspin," Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart, said in a statement.

The Zogby poll also questioned consumers on whether they thought that Wal-Mart was becoming too powerful an economic force in America. Some 33 percent were very concerned, while 20 percent said they were not at all concerned.

Thirty-three percent strongly agreed that Wal-Mart was a retail monopoly that threatened the future health of the U.S. economy, but 35 percent did not agree at all.

[DaHood]

Why Wal-Mart is Hated: They put a big fat ugly store in my town.

Why Wal-Mart is Hated: When I went in there the place looked dumpy as hell.

Why Wal-Mart is Hated: I don't think anybody but cashiers work in that place.

Why Wal-Mart is Hated: We have a Wal-Mart in my town and not a Target.

Wal-Mart is such a lovely store...


FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!

[ajax]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/index.html

Brain-damaged woman at center of Wal-Mart suit



* Debbie Shank, 52, suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident

* Wal-Mart's health plan sued Shank and her family to recoup what it paid out

* The Shanks got money in suit; Wal-Mart says policy means couple can't get benefits

* Couple's son was killed in Iraq after they lost lawsuit to Wal-Mart

This is just a sad story. Remember, always read the fine print.

[the happy prole]

I'm on Wal-Mart's side on this one. Her medical expenses have been recouped. And they were paid for by the party responsible for causing them, which is how it should be. Why should Wal-Mart allow her to double-dip?

The money in a healthcare plan is for when you can't pay your expenses, and hers were theoretically covered. That clause is there for a reason. It ensures that the money goes to people who really need it. If this woman had collected $50 million from the trucking company, would anyone have a problem with Wal-Mart asking for their money back?

So if there's an evil party in this, it's the trucking company that ran her down fought her in court and then only paid her $1 million. Or the attorneys who made it so that she somehow last 60% of her recovery to legal fees. Or the husband who kept pursuing the case when he apparently knew Wal-Mart was within their legal rights.

Wal-Mart's really just a bystander in this.

[Hogarth]

of course they could get their money, but what's the point? This is going to cost them more in bad pub than they could recover. Selfish, greedy bastards.:mad:

[mizary]

at least wal-mart offers a health plan...

by the way people talk about wal-mart you would think they would just fire you if you get sick.

I'm going to open a store called, "even cheaper than wal-mart"

ok, I might have some legal problems with the name... but I'll figure something out.

My angle will be everything cheaper than wal-mart. I'll pay all my employees minimum wage. No health care. No raises. But I'll offer a 1/2 pint of rot-gut liquor at the end of each 8hr+ shift. Work 12+ hrs straight and get a full pint. Oh, no overtime, ever. No uniforms. No paint. no bathrooms. no floor tiles. It's will basically be a warehouse. Customers will have to sign wavers to shop there saying if the products hurt them they can't sue "even cheaper than wal-mart" Our oil changes will contain 40% recycled oil, which we will hide the fact in a bunch of "we are green" propaganda. The only nice pretty things in the stores will be the hundreds of flat panel TV's blasting you with commercials. The biggest sections will be for liquor and p0rn. We will have an escort service in place of a police station. We will have our own militia which will enforce our own laws. (we might have some legal problems here, too) We will also have a head shop in place of the cafe. We will sell pipes, herbal cleanse, insense, rolling papers, screens, etc. Our cafe will be outside and will consist of a fountain drink machine and several deep fryers. Everything in the pharmacy section will contain the maximum amount of pseudo-amphetamine allowed by law, and we will sell by the case, skid or shipping container. We will also specialize in knock off products. No we won't be selling any fake rolexes... we have enough legal problems. We will be selling genuine rolexx watches, sorny tv's and bows speakers.


Of course I am joking... But you know what? people would flock to the store. And it's coming. Either wal-mart will turn into this or someone else will come along and start one... I'd suspect whatever the chinese equivilant of wal-wart is will take over. Then again wal-mart is trying to take over china too... perhaps this will be the testing ground for new radical tactics like I've outlined above.

The real problems of course isn't wal-mart or big business... it's consumers. Until consumers can see and FEEL why buying cheap peanut butter at wal-mart is wrong (if it indeed is) there will be no change into the "positive" direction. So I predict the store I described is the direction we are still heading.

If I took $0.01 from each person in the usa - I know that would be bad for the economy and people in general, but I think I'd do it if I could. And I feel like I am more socially conscious than most people.

150 million people x $0.01 = $1.5 million bucks.

And would you really miss that penny? Of course not. And I think most people think this way. So turning around this path of only caring about what gets me ahead of everyone else is the "problem" - Getting rid of that is going to be tough considering that is pretty much what capitalism is all about.

--mizary

[the happy prole]

I'm a little confused by the story...are they $53k in the hole after Walmart asked for the money back or did they start with $887k total and were asked to give the Walmart portion of that back?

Both. They are in the hole, but not because of Wal-Mart.

They recovered $417k in money for medical expenses after legal fees. Wal-Mart had given them an additional $470k for medical expenses, now they simply want their $470k back. That should leave the Shanks with their original $417k.

The problem is, apparently most of Wal-Mart's $470k has been eaten up somewhere along the line so dude no longer has. And probably it was eaten up with medical expenses above and beyond what either Wal-Mart or the trucking company were obligated to cover.

I'm not saying the guy went on a mad spending spree in Vegas, it's just that the real-life cost of caring for someone you love is almost much greater than what people are obligated to provide.

In calculating the medical fees, I'm sure that Wal-Mart and the trucking company and the court all decided that she was entitled to reimbursement for standard nursing home costs for her condition. Instead, they got her a private caregiver. Stuff like that. Kind of hard to blame him.

So I think what they are actually arguing about (although it's not clear in the article) is-- Was the recovery in the legal suit intended to cover ALL medical expenses, or were there some things not covered in the damages that are covered under Wal-Mart's plan?

Beyond that, it's a standard subrogation clause. Look at your healthcare plan. You have one, too.

[markalot]

The problem with healthcare is the people using it. Everyone demands something for nothing, they don't consider the cost, and they don't consider the cost to others.

I suppose the one good thing about socialized medicine is everyone gets crap care and so one can complain.

[the happy prole]

Somewhat of a side issue, but something I just don't get:

If someone has no short term memory and they keep asking about their dead son STOP TELLING THEM HE IS DEAD.

Seriously, wtf? The truth is of no use to her. She doesn't have the ability to process the information, grieve and move on. It's not helping her live a more normal life. It's just torture.

All you are doing is making her re-live one of the most horrible things that can happen to someone over and over. You're making her miserable until she forgets, and then you remind her and make her miserable again.

The son was in Iraq. It's not like you have to come up with some elaborate story that forces you to tell a bunch of lies and feel bad. It just takes one littel white lie. "He's doing fine. He wanted to come but remember, he's in Iraq." And just tell her that every time she asks.

Every waking hour she is grieving over her dead son like she just found out. Think about people. Sheesh.

[DaHood]

Beyond that, it's a standard subrogation clause. Look at your healthcare plan. You have one, too.
I am sure this is correct. But Walmart can still suck it. :)

[markalot]

I am sure this is correct. But Walmart can still suck it. :)

By all means let's bring down Walmart so all prices can go back up!

I thought Walmart didn't offer healthcare anyway, so what's the deal here?

[silentpaul]

By all means let's bring down Walmart so all prices can go back up!

Go to Target. Prices are only slightly higher, but the quality is that much better, and they're not as dependent on slave- I mean, uh, third world labor.

[markalot]

Go to Target. Prices are only slightly higher, but the quality is that much better, and they're not as dependent on slave- I mean, uh, third world labor.

Got any stats to back that up? What is the average target pay, what are the healthcare benefits, how many people does target employee?

These battles are proxy for socialized healthcare.

I prefer target too, and shop there often.

[drougan]

I'm on Wal-Mart's side on this one. Her medical expenses have been recouped. And they were paid for by the party responsible for causing them, which is how it should be. Why should Wal-Mart allow her to double-dip?

The money in a healthcare plan is for when you can't pay your expenses, and hers were theoretically covered. That clause is there for a reason. It ensures that the money goes to people who really need it. If this woman had collected $50 million from the trucking company, would anyone have a problem with Wal-Mart asking for their money back?

So if there's an evil party in this, it's the trucking company that ran her down fought her in court and then only paid her $1 million. Or the attorneys who made it so that she somehow last 60% of her recovery to legal fees. Or the husband who kept pursuing the case when he apparently knew Wal-Mart was within their legal rights.

Wal-Mart's really just a bystander in this.


Yeah... this story really should be about how the Shank's attorneys hosed them. HARD. I'm willing to bet that as soon as the health plan started paying out benefits, they sent a letter stating that should any money be collected, that the plan is entitled to a cut-which they are. The attorneys should have known that, and should have negotiated a settlement with the subrogation people before the Shanks ever saw a cent.

[silentpaul]

Got any stats to back that up? What is the average target pay, what are the healthcare benefits, how many people does target employee?
I don't have anything to back it up, other than my impression of the two stores, what I hear other people saying about the two stores, and how well the stuff holds up after I get it home. But in the long run, isn't public opinion a big component of a company's success?

I prefer target too, and shop there often.
It really is a night-and-day difference.

[the happy prole]

I've read in a couple places that the Target/Wal-Mart distinction is no longer valid, if it ever was. There was an article in WSJ about a year or so back that did a comparison.

Wal-Mart took so much crap for their practices, plus no one wanted to work there who was competent. Target OTOH, opened up so many zillions of stores and spread so rapidly they are almost like Wal-Mart. And they realized the profit margin wasn't there. I guess that's the free market for you.

The anti-Wal-Mart is really Costco.

[yoshomon]

Go to Target. Prices are only slightly higher, but the quality is that much better, and they're not as dependent on slave- I mean, uh, third world labor.

I know people who work for or have worked for Target. They pay less than Wal-Mart and fuck over their employees just like every other service/retail job.

But less poor people shop there so it's a more comfortable shopping experience for liberals and the like.

[markalot]

But less poor people shop there so it's a more comfortable shopping experience for liberals and the like.

This is why I can't bring myself to hate you.

[Arkansas]

I know people who work for or have worked for Target. They pay less than Wal-Mart and fuck over their employees just like every other service/retail job.

But less poor people shop there so it's a more comfortable shopping experience for liberals and the like.

Couldn't agree more.
I worked there for 4 years. I even worked my way up to management. They treat employees like dirt even more so when you reach the management level.

The only difference between WM and Target is that Target has more stylized, slicker and specific marketing. They are really just a Wal-Mart wannabe.

[silentpaul]

But less poor people shop there so it's a more comfortable shopping experience for liberals and the like.

This is why I can't bring myself to hate you.

How is this helpful to the discussion at hand?

[berzerker]

Both. They are in the hole, but not because of Wal-Mart.

They recovered $417k in money for medical expenses after legal fees. Wal-Mart had given them an additional $470k for medical expenses, now they simply want their $470k back. That should leave the Shanks with their original $417k.

The problem is, apparently most of Wal-Mart's $470k has been eaten up somewhere along the line so dude no longer has. And probably it was eaten up with medical expenses above and beyond what either Wal-Mart or the trucking company were obligated to cover.

I'm not saying the guy went on a mad spending spree in Vegas, it's just that the real-life cost of caring for someone you love is almost much greater than what people are obligated to provide.

In calculating the medical fees, I'm sure that Wal-Mart and the trucking company and the court all decided that she was entitled to reimbursement for standard nursing home costs for her condition. Instead, they got her a private caregiver. Stuff like that. Kind of hard to blame him.

So I think what they are actually arguing about (although it's not clear in the article) is-- Was the recovery in the legal suit intended to cover ALL medical expenses, or were there some things not covered in the damages that are covered under Wal-Mart's plan?

Beyond that, it's a standard subrogation clause. Look at your healthcare plan. You have one, too.

I guess that a clause in an insurance policy THAT YOU PAY A PREMIUM in case of an unforeseen, not your fault, emergency that basically entitles the company to recoup all expenses is fucking harsh. Probably shouldn't ahave agreed to that one.

I mean, that's why we pay premiums, and some entity collects those premiums, right? They use the lump sum to pay the bills, and we all move on. If everytime you got into a car accident, and you pay the $300 deductible on a $10K accident, you don't expect the insurance company to send you a bill for $9,800, do you? No. You expect your premium to rise by $20 or so a month, and you move on. That's the basic premise.

Sounds like Wal-Mart wrote it specifically to ensure that they'd collect money to pay for insurance, as well as any claims made.

THAT's the double-dipping going on.

[berzerker]

By all means let's bring down Walmart so all prices can go to a reasonable level to promote more actual Made-in-America products!



FTFY .

[markalot]

FTFY .

So what will be your answer to the rising prices then? I suspect both you and I can afford it. I don't shop at walmart as it is.

[berzerker]

So what will be your answer to the rising prices then? I suspect both you and I can afford it. I don't shop at walmart as it is.

My answer is: the gas station.

Prices go up, you pay them. End of story.

I hope is that as a side effect, we decrease inports from China, India, etc, and start making more stuff here, and in effect improving our economy.

Totally theoretical, of course - I'm not an economics specialist, I in fact design products that by default need to be made in China so that we can keep the costs low enough to satisfy Wal-Mart. We spend so much time each year trying to decrease cost that we end up making the products cheaper (and of lower quality) year by year. I'd like to be able to design stuff that we can afford to make here, instead.

[yoshomon]

So what will be your answer to the rising prices then?

Brazen theft.

[drougan]

I guess that a clause in an insurance policy THAT YOU PAY A PREMIUM in case of an unforeseen, not your fault, emergency that basically entitles the company to recoup all expenses is fucking harsh. Probably shouldn't ahave agreed to that one.

I mean, that's why we pay premiums, and some entity collects those premiums, right? They use the lump sum to pay the bills, and we all move on. If everytime you got into a car accident, and you pay the $300 deductible on a $10K accident, you don't expect the insurance company to send you a bill for $9,800, do you? No. You expect your premium to rise by $20 or so a month, and you move on. That's the basic premise.

Sounds like Wal-Mart wrote it specifically to ensure that they'd collect money to pay for insurance, as well as any claims made.

THAT's the double-dipping going on.


Well, what you're really paying for in a car insurance situation is for your insurer to cover your ass if/when you screw up. But the insurer is entitled to recoup if someone else does the screwing up.

Similarly for Health insurances. If your body craps out, that's where your premium pays off for you. If someone negligently wounds you, the company still takes a hit. The difference is, they're not going to let you collect money specifically intended to cover your medical expenses when they've already paid for it. Perversely enough though, if you never file suit (lets say you were jaywalking at night in your ninja outfit on a dark country road and had no case), subrogation doesn't kick in.

[markalot]

Brazen theft.

Why would you want to steal bras? Don't tell me ...

[markalot]

Sounds like Wal-Mart wrote it specifically to ensure that they'd collect money to pay for insurance, as well as any claims made.

Re-read your insurance policy, it's a pretty standard clause. The fact most Americans don't understand or want to understand insurance is why the system is so screwed. Insurance is there to pay for the care you need, not the care you want.

[berzerker]

Well, what you're really paying for in a car insurance situation is for your insurer to cover your ass if/when you screw up. But the insurer is entitled to recoup if someone else does the screwing up.

No, they recoup that from the person who caused the accident. They keep my deductible until they recoup their losses, then pay me back the deductible.
If I cause the accident, I pay the deductible, and I never get it back. Any recouping that happens there is they raise my rates.

Similarly for Health insurances. If your body craps out, that's where your premium pays off for you. If someone negligently wounds you, the company still takes a hit. The difference is, they're not going to let you collect money specifically intended to cover your medical expenses when they've already paid for it. Perversely enough though, if you never file suit (lets say you were jaywalking at night in your ninja outfit on a dark country road and had no case), subrogation doesn't kick in.

Well, it seems like the money awarded to me in a lawsuit should go to me, since I was the one sueing the defendant. If Wal-Mart wants some money, then let them sue the defendant. They shouldn't be just sitting on the sidelines and waiting for money to fall into their lap.

[the happy prole]

No, they recoup that from the person who caused the accident. They keep my deductible until they recoup their losses, then pay me back the deductible.

That's what happened here, only Wal-Mart didn't even take a deductible. If the Shanks wanted, they could have simply taken the $470k from Wal-Mart and been done with it. Wal-Mart would have then sued the trucker and recovered $470k.

Only they felt the $470k didn't cover their expenses. They wanted more. So they sued the truck driver themselves. And unless their attorney is a complete idiot, he joined Wal-Mart in the suit. And Wal-Mart's attorneys definitely aren't idiots and neither are the trucking company's so they DEFINITELY would have joined themselves if the plaintiff didn't.

And really, that's how the legal system is supposed to work. Any party with an interest in the suit can join. And everyone goes to court and the court determines the damages and divvies it up. They go "Okay, this amount of costs was caused by the other driver. This amount of damages was not caused by the other driver but is covered by insurance. This amount of damages is not covered by insurance nor should the other driver have to pay."

That last part means either some portion of it was your fault or you want a level of health care that exceeds what the court thinks is fair. If I break my nose I don't have to pay you for the most expensive Hollywood plastic surgeon to fix it.

The problem is, the system kind of sucks. First you take on a big personal expense when you sue that takes a bite out of your recovery. Then Wal-Mart goes "Hey, you dragged us into this lawsuit. You should have to defray some of our extra costs for that." And of course Wal-Mart attorneys cost a zillion dollars an hour. And Wal-Mart and the trucking company (or their insurer) probably have much more legal firepower to bring to the table so in a three-way battle to settle a pot of money/costs, the individual almost always loses.

The real issue here is that the amount they recovered is not nearly enough. Legal costs took a huge chunk out. Plus, that's your wife. You don't want to send her to a nursing home. You want her at home with a personal caregiver. That is considered above-and-beyond the level of healthcare the defendant is obligated to assume.

This would have happened with any insurance company. In fact, it happens daily. I am not saying nothing bad happened here. But if you have a beef, it's with the exorbitant costs of legal services and medical care in the US. That's what screwed these guys, not Wal-Mart.

The basic principle of insurance is exactly what drougan said. It's for when something is your fault or no one's fault. If it's someone else's fault, they pay. Not your insurance company. Wal-Mart didn't double charge. In fact, they didn't charge at all. They just broke even on the whole deal.

The argument that Wal-Mart is rich and should therefore pay is ridiculous. I'm sure there are thousands of kids in the US suffering from terrible afflictions not caused by Wal-mart and who are not covered by Wal-Mart's employee health benefits. Should they pay for all of them as well?

It'd be nice if they did, but it doesn't make them bastards if they don't. What about us? I'm sure we could all send a couple of bucks to the Shanks without killing ourselves. So maybe we should all pay a little. I guess that's the argument for socialized healthcare.

[markalot]

Wal-Mart: Brain-damaged former employee can keep money

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/law/04/02/walmart.decision/index.html

(CNN) -- A former Wal-Mart employee who suffered severe brain damage in a traffic accident won't have to pay back the company for the cost of her medical care, Wal-Mart told the family Tuesday.

"Occasionally, others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times," Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran said in a letter. "We have all been moved by Ms. Shank's extraordinary situation."

...

[Breeze]

"We have all been moved by Ms. Shank's extraordinary situation."

...or by our desire to avoid the onslaught of bad press.

[markalot]

That's the way it should work and the reason a free press is so critical.

[Breeze]

That's the way it should work and the reason a free press is so critical.
Absolutely. It's nice to know it can still work.

[Orville Wrong]

Insurance is there to pay for the care you need, not the care you want.

Modern US health "insurance" is not insurance. That it is still sold by the same companies that used to offer the traditional risk-pooling for catastrophic injury that defines true insurance obfuscates the fact that what is called health insurance is a simple value transference from your employer to you, in which they leverage superior purchasing power to get lower rates than you could secure yourself.

What we have now is more accurately termed employer-funded, discounted insulation from any medical expense.

Companies like this deal for the same reason the government wants a piece: control. If they are paying for something you need, you are willing to do things that benefit them that you otherwise might not. Don't be a fat slob or a smoker (they're absent more often), or we'll drop you. You can't get the premium in the form of salary instead, so it's either comply or accept lower compensation. The government will bring this to new levels, since there is no "opting out" for lower pay. It's a Trojan Horse to get their fingers into your rectum. Keep your laws of my prostate, says I.

[DaHood]

This just in: Walmart still sucks. :)

[classicgrrl]

This just in: Walmart still sucks. :)

yep



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[frizgolf]

yep



12456789

Boonhower seems like the type who would love Wally.

[classicgrrl]

Boonhower seems like the type who would love Wally.

nope.




465123789

[grumbachr]

don't mean to derail the topic if there is one.

is Walmart the parent company of Home Depot? I was told this once and I guess i believed the person without really checking. Now that I've checked I cant find any proof.

So that would that make home depot a less evil company.

[ThomasC]

is Walmart the parent company of Home Depot? I was told this once and I guess i believed the person without really checking. Now that I've checked I cant find any proof.
Nope.

"The Home Depot is ... the second-largest general retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Depot

[grumbachr]

Nope.

"The Home Depot is ... the second-largest general retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Depot

Thanks. I wasn't shopping at HomeDepot because of my wrong association of it to Walmart but now I'm still not sure it a good place to shop.

thanks again.

[dry-gulcher]

Thanks. I wasn't shopping at HomeDepot because of my wrong association of it to Walmart but now I'm still not sure it a good place to shop.

thanks again.
That crappy chineese-prison-labor desk lamp I got from Home despot last week just caught on fire.

BTW, Anyone know where I can get some of them Aquadots???
I got a date coming up and I'm not sure if she'll be 'cooperative'.:rolleyes:

[DaHood]

That crappy chineese-prison-labor desk lamp I got from Home despot last week just caught on fire.Doesn't surprise me. The quality of Chinese manufacturing leaves more than just a little bit to be desired. I avoid it whenever I can.

[classicgrrl]

Thanks. I wasn't shopping at HomeDepot because of my wrong association of it to Walmart but now I'm still not sure it a good place to shop.

thanks again.

home depot used to be cool until their shitty CEO jacked them up and ruined them. the board were idiots for hiring him - he's known for cost cutting and ruthlessness and did not fit their culture at all.

I prefer Lowes - better customer service and frankly a better run business.

[DaHood]

home depot used to be cool until their shitty CEO jacked them up and ruined them. the board were idiots for hiring him - he's known for cost cutting and ruthlessness and did not fit their culture at all.

I prefer Lowes - better customer service and frankly a better run business.I didn't know any of that, but I do also prefer Lowe's. We're at the end of a big kitchen remodel for mom. She bought everything from Lowe's and friends of my brother did the construction and installation work. I did all the electrical and some other odds and ends. It's friggin gorgeous. Mom spent upwards of five digits, but it would have been a lot worse if she had regular contractors. Plus, these guys do great work and they care, as do I. You wouldn't even believe the hourly rate they charged. It was a fraction of the industry rate.