Posted on 01/25/2013 9:37:55 AM PST by Kaslin
Once again I am here to sing the praises of Walmart. Over the years I have done so on many occasions.
Many misguided souls take the other side. They blame Walmart for ruining mom and pop grocery stores, mom and pop hardware stores, etc.
Not me, I praise cheaper prices. Moreover, it's what consumers voted for with there hard-earned dollars.
If anyone wants to pay more for stuff, all they have to do is shop at a mom and pop hardware store, grocery store, or pharmacy. Most don't because they want a bargain.
Today, I have good news. Walmart-style competition may be on the way in the healthcare business.
The Orlando Business Journal writes Wal-Mart exploring private health insurance exchange for small biz.
Wal-Mart is exploring the idea of building a private health insurance exchange tailored to offer cheaper health insurance to small businesses, a vice president told Orlando Business Journal Jan. 11.
Marcus Osborne, vice president of health and wellness payer relations for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), spoke to OBJ after his keynote speech at the Foundation of Associated Industries of Florida’s 2013 Health Care Affordability Summit. Osborne said Wal-Mart wants to work with insurers and managed care companies to find new, low-cost health insurance options tailored for small companies, which historically have limited options.
The idea is to offer those products through a health insurance exchange — or as Osborne said, simply a marketplace — that would leverage Wal-Mart’s buying and marketing power to make the exchanges widely available and used. “It would allow small employers to piggyback Wal-Mart,” Osborne said. “We haven’t got it all figured out, but it’s one of the things we’re looking at.”
“The biggest problem today small employers face from a health insurance perspective is they have no alternatives,” Osborne said. “If they find anything, they’ve got to take it. There’s something wrong with that.”
This post is about trade wars, tariffs, health care, and Wal-Mart. I will tie these themes together starting with a look at Wal-Mart and health care.
I have many disagreements with Jim Jubak, but he hits the nail on the head with Let Wal-Mart fix US health care.
I know who can fix our broken health care system -- and who can't:
I say, let Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) do it. Hold your guffaws. Stifle your impulse to scoff. Control those sputters of rage.
Wal-Mart has done more to expand coverage and lower costs in the past year than any government program to come out of Washington in the past 10 years. And I'd bet the new programs that this company -- known for stiffing its own part-time workers on health care benefits -- has announced in the past year will do more to expand coverage and cut costs than anything likely to come out of a McCain, Clinton or Obama first term.
Letting Wal-Mart run the health care system would fix many of those problems. It's a company that understands how low prices can build market share and thus increase profits. Furthermore, it's a company with a culture of cutting costs that has shown no compunction in pushing suppliers to the wall over price. The Wal-Mart motto ought to be, "Make it cheaper, or we'll find someone who can." I'd love to see that attitude brought to bear in health care.
Inquiring minds will want to read the rest of the article. It's surprisingly good.
Jubak makes a compelling case. He never said this explicitly but I will. "We do not need higher wages or higher prices. We need lower prices and a dollar that buys more".
No, I still pay attention to my favorite grocery store, the store lefties and liberals hate, and smear with false stories about guns and such.
Where do you shop?
Well, I largely don’t shop - but when I have to, I don’t avoid Walmart nor do I seek it out. What I do participate in however is a constant study of which businesses are conservative friendly, and Walmart used to be one of the very best in that regard, but they are not now. Feel free to ignore that if you want to. Yes, I realize they are smeared by the left (duh) - but what I also realize is that they live in fear of that, and instead of fighting back, they are joining up. Awaken yourself. They are Obamites.
The WalMarts in my area still sell ammunition and they are the best price for a new long gun anywhere around here.
Do you pro-left, union people think that the left created that site because the Americans who shop at Walmart don’t shop at the union stores, or lefty Costco, or are unique somehow to Walmart?
Walmart has been hated by the left because it’s clientele are mostly red counties people, gun owners, republicans.
Do you think that New Yorkers and Los Angeles people are buying their beans and bullets at Walmart, or Texans and red county people?
So tell me the national grocery stores and box stores that are more conservative than Walmart, and what was that gun stuff about that you were claiming?
I remember them, long before I ever shopped in a Walmart.
Leftists and union goons hate WalMart. That’s good enough for me.
Ever been to a Dollar Store?
You are lucky because I called their corporate office and they said no guns or ammo. See my post.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2978689/posts
My experiences in shopping at Wal-Mart have been varied. Some OK but some; well not so good.
IMO, Wal-Mart is good as far as prices if you are buying well known and popular name brands but you need to do some research.
For example, I recently bought a rug steam cleaner. After doing a lot of research on-line and going to many stores to compare brands and prices, I decided on Bissel model and Wal-Mart had it $10 cheaper than anyone else so I bought it at Wal-Mart.
OTOH, when I was shopping for a flat screen HD TV and Wal-Mart had some really low prices but then TV’s they had were on the really low end of the consumer satisfaction scale, IMO, cheap in price and cheap in quality. After much research, I bought the TV I wanted on sale at Best Buy for a very good price – a much better TV at the same price that Wal–Mart had for much lesser quality TV’s.
A few years ago I bought some clothes at Wal-Mart, a pair of Capri jeans and a cotton top, very cute and at a very good price. That was at least until the first time I washed them and they literally both fell apart at the seams. Sure they were inexpensive but considering I only wore them twice, they were actually very expensive.
I also tried doing my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Some items were definitely a bargain – things like laundry detergent and boxed foods but produce? Not so much. I bought a bag of apples that looked nice on the outside but were all rotten on the inside, the same with the onions, nice on the outside but rotten on the inside. I also bought some frozen foods that were all freezer burned and funky tasting. Another time I bought a set of salt and pepper shakers, they looked nice from the picture and description on the box but when I got them home and opened the box, what from the picture and description seemed to be glass with metal lids, it was all plastic and very cheaply made, not all worth what I paid for them. FWIW, Target, like them or not, has better prices on many groceries items and many other name brand products than Wal-Mart.
OTHO, I recently bought a set of tires for my car at Wal-Mart for a very good price. But then I had to wait nearly 6 hours to have them put on and they lost three out of my four valve stems. : (
I bought a pair of glasses from Wal-Mart a few years ago. The frames fell apart in less than a year. I would never buy eye glass frames from them again.
The other bad experience I had was when I needed to buy a battery for a wrist watch. I went to the jewelry counter to buy the battery but didn’t know the size and needed to have the back taken off the watch, something that required a tool that I didn’t have. When I asked for assistance, the gal at the jewelry counter asked me if I had bought the watch at Wal-Mart and when I said no, she told me something along the lines of “I ain’t touching no watch you didn’t buy here, u gotta go back to where u got it, I ain’t touching that shit.” :( !
I’m not anti Wal-Mart but I’m not pro Wal-Mart either. I try to do a lot of research when buying a big ticket name brand product and if Wal-Mart has the best price for what I want, I will buy from them. But as for doing my regular shopping there; I can do better elsewhere in most cases as far as quality and customer service. Just my opinion.
That’s unfortunate.
You are asking the wrong questions....but here are some of the right answers:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2947968/posts
http://business.time.com/2013/01/11/walmarts-on-again-off-again-relationship-with-guns/
Walmart has not stopped ordering ammo. The are fighting the shortages as much as anyone else. From some of the verbiage I have seen on this board, there are people who find out when the next sipment is arriving, arrive early and buy as much as they will allow. And that is why Walmart has no ammo on the shelves.
They have stated that they have changed no policies and I believe them. Why? Because a person I deal with is a Walmart manager and he is well aware that their shoppers are gun owners and some of them are carrying as they shop.
In Texas, they figure that 40% of their shoppers are armed, whether the heater is on them or in the car. They know who their customers are and they are not about to push them away.
In view of your attacks on Walmart and accusations, my questioning for clarity is appropriate.
So tell me the national grocery stores and box stores that are more conservative than Walmart, and what was that gun stuff about them that you were claiming?
Don’t give me links, it isn’t my place to go research to see if I can find a defense for your claims.
Are you obtuse, or just being thick for pretend? Other groceries have NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I”M TALKING ABOUT for two very clear, distinct, and common sense reasons. I’ll type slowly:
A: Walmart, as the victim of UNIQUE mindless attacks of the left over the years, has gotten much UNIQUE public and shopping support from conservatives JUST because they were attacked from the left. This separates out Walmart from “other groceries” etc. They are in a UNIQUE place.
B: when dealing with corporate political behavior, it doesn’t matter what industry a company is in, so the same industry fetish you have is mindless.
C: Okay, you don’t read news. That explains a lot. Attention shoppers, intellectual spil on aisle 7.
So you can’t explain what your accusation about them and guns and Obama was about?
You can’t name any stores more conservative than them but you want to attack them as being allied with the left and Obama?
I understand now why you don’t read news, because you wouldn’t understand it anyway with your blitheringly poor reading comp.
BUT: Walmart is considering going along with several Obama Admin gun proposals in exchange for Obama making Walmart’s gun registration system THE system that all small gun shops would have to refer their customers to.
AND: Mr. Walton gave a million to Obama’s Super PACs for the last election.
AND: I’m comparing Walmart to what they used to be, and NOT comparing Walmart now to any other stores, because other stores are not in the news the way Walmart is. But having said that, Whole Foods CEO came out with much stronger anti Obama Care statements last week while Walmart was talking with Eric Holder and maybe joining his team.
Do not ping me again until you find another 75 IQ points please.
Many people say operations like WalMart have hurt the small local stores and that's probably true at times but the small local store has to offer something WalMart can't just as the bricks and mortar store has to offer what the internet can't.
When Sears first began sending out mail order catalogs the local shopkeepers hated Sears for breaking the grip of local suppliers on the rural communities.
But soon enough that model was copied just like sales on the internet have become the norm.
WalMart and me have an affair of the wallet not the heart.
Are you capable of posting like an adult without childish outbursts and bizarre claims and insults?
You jumped on this thread to jump on Walmart, I’m starting to remember that you are pretty left in your politics anyway, I am looking for some more information from you on your reasons for going after Walmart.
So you can’t explain what your accusation about them and guns and Obama was about?
You can’t name any stores more conservative than them but you want to attack them as being allied with the left and Obama?
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