Posted on 01/29/2005 9:23:51 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Heres a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know its 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.
I have to disagree with you here. Free Republic is able to handle such a huge load and yet exist on purely voluntary donations in part because of its design. The lightweight, straight HTML nature of Free Republic makes it very fast. I and many others appreciate a site designer that promotes performance over appearance. (Hey, that's a pretty good description of a conservative, isn't it? One who prefers performance above appearance.)
Anyway, kudos to JimRob! :-)-
I don't know who you have been talking to, but everything you said about Wal-mart is not true.
I've been with Wal-Mart 13 years and am still hourly. I can honestly say that I make more than most Asst Mgrs.
As for working off the clock, it ain't going to happen unless your management team is too stupid to try and do it.
Wal-Mart's health care may not pay for every Dr. visit, but it is meant to be for major illness or injury, not band-aid fixes. Name me another company that does not have a cap on claims. Wal-Mart's is unlimited.
You are right, Wal-Mart does not lay-off associates. The ones fired usually do something stupid and get fired for violating policy(which is very clearly written, ask the top execs)or just plain breaking the law.
So the next time you want to act like a DU member, get your facts straght.
R.Buckman
The boom of northern Idaho has alot to do with the boom that spots in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and other parts of the West are seeing with the retirement of baby-boomers to less-populated areas.
Yeah. They spent their whole adult lives screwing up their home cities and states, then they come out here to the West, to retire where taxes, cost of living and crime are still low. Then, they start shooting off their mouths about how their new state isn't like the one they left!!
Pathetic.
Damn, I wish our Walmart was that nice...
Where do you live, in Watts?
Yep.
Yep. That's why I like that site. I can look up various companies and decide for MYSELF where I'll spend my hard-earned dollars. :)
My wife prefers Target, but I've still got a bone to pick with them about their treatment of employee reservists and the Salvation Army Christmas Bell Ringer ban. Won't shop there or even enter their stores. Probably my Celtic blood, but it takes a good long while for me to forgive or forget those types of things.
Child Labor In January 2004 the Associated Press reported that a Wal-Mart internal audit had warned top executives three years prior that employee records at 128 stores showed extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations. A spokesperson for the company told the paper the audit was meaningless, since what looked like violations could simply reflect employees' failure to punch in and out for breaks and meals they took. The audit shows one week's time-clock records for about 25,000 employees. The audit found 1,371 instances in which minors worked too late at night, worked during school hours or worked too many hours in a day, 60,767 apparent instances of workers not taking breaks, and 15,705 apparent instances of employees working through meal times. Source: Associated Press, Jan. 13, 2004
There are also quite a few reports of them using sweatshop labor in foreign countries where child labor laws are nowhere near as stringent as they are here...
For instance:
Sweatshop Labor Lee Kil-Soo, owner of the Daewoosa factory in American Samoa, was convicted in February 2003 of human trafficking for illegally confining workers in "involuntary servitude," holding their passports, and threatening deportation in retaliation for any acts of non-compliance. A US Department of Labor (DOL) investigation reported that workers at Daewoosa were often beaten, deprived of food, and forced to work without pay. Clothing produced by the Daewoosa factory was sold with the "Made in the USA" label, because American Samoa is a US territory. Before Mr. Lee's arrest and the closing of the factory, Daewoosa supplied clothing to J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart. According to the Manchester Guardian Weekly , only J.C. Penney has paid back wages to the Daewoosa workers. Source: DOL, Manchester Guardian Weekly, Washington Post
I so agree that Ben get's it. I have no doubt that he appreciates all the wonderful comments this particle offering has generated.
I wish there were more like Ben, to tell it like it is. One can hope!
Sounds more like a function of where you live. Or maybe you're just a would-be snob.
I'm not a would-be anything. I prefer to shop in a clean, quiet environment where unruly children, parking-lot drifters, and scary street thugs are not present to ruin the atmosphere. In other words, I am willing to pay more for a pleasant shopping experience. If that makes me a snob, I will wear the label with pride.
Please don't misunderstand me. My hatred of Wal-Mart is based upon esthetics, not politics. I don't go around protesting Wal-Mart, trying to keep it out of my city, or complaining about its business practices. Yes, they sell products made my slave labor, yes, they drive local stores (and their own suppliers) out of business, but so do all the others. In any economic system where labor is commodified, the unit cost of labor (i.e. wages) trend lower and lower until the producing is done by either slaves or robots. Capitalism is such a system; therefore, the use of slaave labor (or robot labor) by Wal-Mart (or any other concern) is inevitable.
I'm not trying to convince anyone to pay more somewhere else instead of buying cheap at NASCAR Mart. I'm simply stating the reasons that I choose not to. I personally prefer to pay more for goods that are made by free adults and sold by local people, but that's my choice. Those who don't care about labor practices, local merchants, or atmosphere are welcome to my place in line at the Wal-Mart checkout.
Hi, TChris. Sorry for the delay; I just now got to my computer for the day.
Let me say upfront that the self-supported nature of FR, which thrives because its own users' donations, has always been one of the most appealing aspects of the site. In my mind, that's what makes it one of the most notable phenomena not just on the political Web, but on the entire Internet.
I also agree that the site's speed is refreshing (no browser pun intended). I'm not a fan of the ubiquitous UBB/Invision type of board format, which seems to choke even the mightiest of servers.
But the issues I raised are not about site "appearance" per se -- like you, I've no need for a bunch of bells and whistles. My remarks were aimed at basic navigational issues. It's not "fancy stuff" that I like. It's simplicity. And in my mind, simplicity involves consistency across the site, intuitive interfaces, uniform navigation aids, that kind of stuff.
I've been here for years, and I still have never completely felt figured out what I'm getting when I click the "Forum" link. There's a main list of threads, of course, but no indication why they're there, exactly, or what the list represents. Along the right-hand side, there are several blue boxes with threads from various "News/Activism" subcategories -- but without any indication why they're there, or how they made the cut.
Or take the "Browse by Forum" list in the upper right. All right, so let's say I click on "News/Activism." Up pops a page with a list of what are, presumably, the latest threads to have been posted in the News/Activism category. But then it gets confusing again. Down in those right-hand blue boxes, the threads listed there don't match the threads on the main list. More confusion.
For instance: At this moment, the thread atop the News/Activism main list is titled "Ehrlich, Steele mum on Md. marriage amendment." But if I read through the little blue subcategories on the right, there's no sign of that thread. After all my time here, I've never discerned the rhyme or reason behind it all, and I'm always left with a vague sense that I'm not getting the full picture -- that there might be pathways or links that just aren't real apparent. And that makes me wonder if I'm missing out on stuff I'd be interested in reading.
Sorry for the long example, but it's the only way I know how to describe it.
Let me note that I sometimes have this same experience at certain newspaper sites, where the main-page layout leaves me feeling like I'm not really seeing everything the site has to offer. That's frustrating. A good site makes it easy for the user to find content, to feel like they're getting everything they can out of the site. The user shouldn't have to wonder if he's seeing everything there is to see. The sense of comfortable navigation is a burden that should be on the site, not on the user.
I and many others appreciate a site designer that promotes performance over appearance. (Hey, that's a pretty good description of a conservative, isn't it? One who prefers performance above appearance.)
LOL -- nice analogy (and accurate)! Again, I don't care much about aesthetics, just functionality.
It's fun discussing this kind of stuff -- sort of like chatting about the quirks of the morning commute you drive day after day. (Though I'm not sure how we ended up doing it in this thread...!)
Best,
Semolina
I love Walmart, too. Everything from books to towels to birdseed to toilet paper is cheaper there.
I can get $100 worth of merchandise for $50 at Wally.
What's so bad about that?
"Socialist? Hardly."
Sorry. I misjudged you. After reading your screed, I see that you are a tin foil wearer.
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