Posted on 01/29/2005 9:23:51 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Here’s a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know it’s almost always on the receiving end of bad press. It ruins neighborhoods. It puts small businesses out of business. It wrecks the balance of trade. It pays its workers poorly and treats them mean. It makes overseas workers into slaves. That's what the news says. The truth is that Wal-Mart is a major blessing for most Americans who live close enough to one to shop there and for the people who work at them. My smart friend C.L. Werner in Omaha made the point really clearly. When a Wal-Mart opens in a town, he said, it's as if everyone in the town got a raise. That's because the stuff at Wal-Mart is so much cheaper than that same merchandise was anywhere else. This is not a trivial thing. Now, don't get me wrong. Target and Sears and K-Mart and J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers also sell good stuff usually at bargain prices, but they do not have the same reach of stores, the same astounding prices that Wal-Mart offers every day. This makes the people who shop there richer. Price matters a lot to most people. I am sure Wal-Mart is stiff competition for the stores and supermarkets across America. I feel bad for the people who lose their stores because of Wal-Mart. But not everyone is a store owner. Everyone is a consumer, and Wal-Mart is about as good a friend as the consumer ever had.Is Wal-Mart ruining the balance of trade? Well, let me put it like this: I buy American whenever I can find it.
But there are a lot of things that are just not usually made in the USA any longer. Toasters. Hot pots. Color televisions. Underwear. Since the goods are almost always made overseas, why not buy them at the best possible price? By the way, if someone knows of a good American made toaster, please stand up and shout.
Is Wal-Mart wrecking small towns? Not the ones I see, which are mostly in North Idaho. Those towns are booming. And the closest you get to a town square is the Wal-Mart, where neighbors visit with neighbors in the aisles all day and all night, in air conditioning, out of the rain.
Is Wal-Mart impoverishing third world workers in sweat shops? Heck, no. Conditions in those places are far from ideal. But they are far better than working on the farm or begging in the streets or selling themselves into prostitution or whatever they were doing before they came to work for foreign suppliers of US stores. The gains in prosperity in the developing countries because their people can sell to America through Wal-Mart are astounding. As to the people who work at Wal-Mart, they seem to me to be bright, alert men and women who work there because it's the best they can do in their town or at their age. Plus, they seem happy. The usual clerk at Wal-Mart gives a lot better service than the clerk at Tiffany. I would like it if they were paid more, but they are in a competitive labor market. And what about those greedy stockholders? A lot of them are those same Wal-Mart clerks, many of whom got rich from their stock.
In the real world, Wal-Mart is as much of a boon to the American shopper as the Sears catalogue was long ago.
Jeer at it all you want, all you cool people, but, it's progress, big time.
read later
"Well you missed the ones near me then."
Well, you must live in a dirty nay-ber-hood (?) Where quality store managers refuse to work. That sort of scenario occurs with all large and small retailers.
You might want to ask the employees of those stores. Chances are when they worked for a local employer they did not have health insurance, retirement benefits, etc.
My guess is that Wal-Mart is better employment than what most had before.
"And I didn't even mention the legions of screaming, mucus-encrusted children that run through the store like packs of Morlocks from an H.G. Wells novel"
Written like the typical anti-family GAY hair dresser with no chair or salon to put it in. Tssssssk!
Why is that your concern? If Wal-Mart feels they need to advertise in the local rag, I'm sure they can make that decision on their own.
I'm sure the latest convicted firearm homicide perp didn't invent the gun either. So, I guess his conviction should be overturned?
The case you cite has very limited effect. Other states have ruled the opposite.
If you love your local Chicom slave labor product distribution center, go for it.
Are any of these good enough?
http://news.google.com/froogle?scoring=pd&q=%22manual+can+opener%22&sa=N
Why didn't you use the self check-out lane?
Never said he was an angel. However, he did pay his workers higher wages and that was part of his success.
I've experienced nothing but courtesy and cleanliness at my two local Walmarts.
Nope. My neighborhood is decidedly upper-middle class. Must just be the management in this district.
Thank you for the compliments to Sunbeam....my dad worked there all his working life, as a machinist, making all the little parts for all those appliances...my moms kitchen, and my own kitchen, had nothing but Sunbeam appliances in them...dad always got a good discount on appliances bought at the company store....
I still have some of those appliances, and I bet they are probably as old as your old toaster....and they still work...what I especially like about having them, is that I like to imagine, improbable as this may be, is that my personal appliance actually has a part that my dad made...
Well, he and those with him did a fine job.
This old "Toastmaster" is unique in that it takes the bread out of your hand gently, toasts it, and them gently gives it back. No spring-loading, no jumping off the table.
It has a specially-designed heater element (that your dad probably was well aware of) that has not been duplicated in any toaster I've seen since.
I also have an old Sunbeam mixer (Mixmaster) that is just as old and runs just as well also.
Well, my dad would thank you if he was still alive...he took great pride in his job...he actually operated the Browne and Sharpe Machine....but for short, all the guys on those machines, called themselves 'screw machine operators'...and, when we were kids if any adult asked us what our dad did for a living, we always said he was a screw machine operator...it was not until I grew up and realized why sometimes those adults asking the question had to squelch a snicker, when we serious little kids gave our answer....
When the Sunbeam factory in Chicago merged with another company in the early 1980s they offered dad early retirement with full benefits, and he, being a wise man, gladly took retirement early(years of working in that hot factory made him glad to retire)....a lot of the older workers were given early retirement and many took it, if they could afford it....
When Sunbeam factory closed down, they auctioned off most of their machines...a close friend of my dads, who operated the Browne and Sharpe right next to dad, bought his own machine and dads, because he knew he took good care of his machine, and that my dad took good care of his machine as well....dads friend took those machines, retired, and started a small machine shop on his farm...that was 20yrs ago, and as far as I know dad and Wilburs(dads friend) machines are still turning out parts...
I still have a big old teal colored Sunbeam Deluxe mixmaster, with the beaters, the bread hooks, and the original glass bowls...and it still works just fine...it will be handed down to my son...I doubt if he will ever use it, but there is a sentimental attachment to it, that even my son feels...
Thank you for the link. I have looked at Krup's opener, expecting quality, but the cutting device is the same as the others. Somebody is bound to build a better one sooner or later. Like with mousetraps. LOL.
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