The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

Fast Company magazine ^ | november 2003 | charles fishman

[em2vn]

A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

[tubebender]

Bump...

[phil1750]

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been in walmart in the past 5 years (once in the past 2).
Their corporate goal is to have 100% of all retail business in the US. That is ALL retail businesses. I have chosen not to participate.

[Mad Dawgg]

"There isnt enough volume to fill the void"

Not to worry someone would figure out how to get products to Wal-Mart. I am sure there is a whole bunch of foreign Food Manufacturers who would rush into fill the void.

[GatekeeperBookman]

Seems real enough for me. I am sorry to distract you. I just find that this happens. Like the spekllings which won't behave-like the Old ProfessEr. Things do disrepear-someday soon i shall too.

[GrandMoM]

....Too bad you didn't post the whole article. I know it was long, but, most people won't go to the site and read the whole article. It really is frightening!!!!!!!

[BabsC]

BINGO!!!!!

ref. post#18

[CajunConservative]

Nasty, filthy stores full of crap from China. My husband (I refuse to go in that store) bought 5 items there yesterday. I looked at the packaging for them, every single one of them say "Made in China".

I bought a vacuum cleaner last night from WalMart and the damn thing did not work 10 minutes. It was a Eureka with the spin duster, one of the higher priced models they sell. When I was looking to see what was wrong, it was mostly cheap plastic that got shredded. In my older vacuum cleaner that part is metal and was made here. Of course in big bold letters on the inside of the box was MADE IN CHINA. I was so ticked off, because I had to take it back today and waste a big portion of my day.

I would rather pay a few dollars more for something that is well built. I should know better, I have horrible luck with WalMart appliances that don't work. Oh well, rant off.

[Axenolith]

The "monopolies" of Standard Oil and Microsoft did not lead to rising prices...

[the_devils_advocate_666]

I think this is the quote that sums up the whole article:

"We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions."

[GrandMoM]

BTTT

[narses]

Another hatefilled anti-WalMart screed can be found at http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3044wal-mart.html

I'd like my fellow Catholics to sort out the issues and help me relate the actual facts to Catholic doctrine, especially as set forth in Rerum Novarum.

[Romulus]

The free market is a means, not an end. When it becomes an end in itself, it becomes a false god. As a means, it must be used to serve a good end -- something higher than a ruthlessly "efficient" allocator of goods and capital. The duty to form and employ a functioning conscience cannot be subcontracted to an amoral mechanism capable only of determining the market-clearing price but not capable of telling you what it means or whether you should care.

[narses]

I agree, but where does that leave WalMart? I can choose to shop there or not, yes?

[Fitzcarraldo]

[DouglasKC]

This article sounds like buggy makers complaining that Ford selling cheap cars was costing them jobs. Sure we can buy a cheap car, but what about the people that work for the buggy makers?

Bottom line is that Walmart will succeed as a retailer as long as they keep giving the consumers what they want. If companies that supply them keep supplying them to the point that they go bankrupt, they're idiots.

[VOA]

You decide if Wal-Mart is a cancer or blessing.

I grew up in a moderately-isolated part of "flyover country".

To even have a POSSIBILITY at a CHOICE of reasonably-priced consumer products,
you spent the weekends driving 100 miles to one of three major metropolitan areas,
each of about 500,000 population.

When Wal-Mart arrived within 20 miles of my home...it was like the falling of an
economic Berlin Wall that local merchants had benefitted from for maybe 50 years.

Those local merchants had grown FAT AND RICH.
They had NOT given us ANY reason to even just LIKE them more than that Wal-Mart 20 miles away.
In fact, they had simply p-ssed us off.

To cut to the chase, we embraced Wal-Mart the same way the Poles finally told the Commies
to Get the Hell OUT of their neighborhood.

Now, with the birth of the Internet and other economic-supply models,
Wal-Mart needs to figure out how to make sure consumers don't find a retailer that
offers even greater convenience and choice in buying NECESSARY and luxury consumer items.

I'm from FlyOver Country. I now live in Southern California. And I honored the
Union picketlines at the local grocery stores (Vons, Albertsons, and until recently,
Ralphs). I learned last Sunday night, via KABC radio (790AM; www.kabc.com) from
union spokesperson, Connie Leyva, that the grocery-store union SUPPORTS
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
I will now BREAK the picket line at will...the Union supports Illegal Immigration,
while Wal-Mart is being SUED by the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT employees that they
"dropped a dime on" and turned into the US Justice Department.

Wal-Mart...they are Satan, if you aren't looking for decent prices...
AND apparently LEGAL IMMIGRATION POLICY.

[VOA]

This article sounds like buggy makers complaining that Ford selling cheap cars was costing them jobs.

I wish I could remember the accurate numbers, but the number of employees involved in
the manufacture of LPs (remember, those vinyl discs with grooves for the conveyance
of music/voice) in the USA went from something like a few millions to about 3,000
in five years.

Of course, the digital (CD) revoluton just happened to occur at the same time.

Personally, I can see the need for an ETHOS of making someone like the executives of maybe
Phillips (and the "record" companies) give some of their millions/billions to retrain
their former workers.

But for those greedy executives, the free market and the cosmos has a strange way of
exacting vengence for greed...
as in the birth of the music downloading revolution (actually a rebellion) and the
10 to 20 percent NEGATIVE "growth" in the profitability of the music/recording industry.

[drlevy88]

Some other company that has masochistic aspirations, that is. I don't buy a lot of Kraft, but what I do buy is in non-walmart supermarkets.

[ozzymandus]

Wal-Mart is neither a blessing nor a cancer. Nobody is forced to shop there, and no suppliers are forced to do business with Wal-Mart, either. If Wal-Mart won't pay what the supplier wants for his product, he's free not to sell to them, not matter how much he whines.

[drlevy88]

I am sure there is a whole bunch of foreign Food Manufacturers who would rush into fill the void.

Nobody would be able to match the quality of Kraft for most products, however. Consumers would gravitate back towards competing supermarkets.