On the Wal-Mart Money Trail (Why the left HATES Walmart!)

The (left wing) Nation ^ | [from the November 21, 2005 issue] | LIZA FEATHERSTONE

[Rosie405]

Nor should we forget that one of the DEMOCRATIC SENATORS is heir to the Target (Dayton-Hudson) fortune.

[DHC-2]

Sam ... because we are talking here about Wal-Mart, not Microsoft ... go find another thread for that

[grey_whiskers]

And Hillary sat on the BOD!

That phrase brings to my mind images I just can't handle.
EWWWWWW! :-)

[Rembrandt]

Well, if you don't like Wal-Mart, don't shop there. Problem solved, right? Go ahead and pay higher prices at your local grocery store and let your neighbor make his own choice as to where he wants to shop. It's America, remember?

[Rembrandt]

"I know a few hundred people who won't be having a nice Christmas this year because of the great and benevolent Wal-Mart. I'm one of them ... along with the many people I used to employ."

Here are the mistakes you've made and you've obviously paid for them.

1. You failed to establish a strong brand which your firm owned, lock, stock and barrel, complete with the necessary legal protections.

2. You viewed your dealings with Sam's as adversarial; you should have established a team concept with them so that the goal was how can "we" jointly benefit.

The company from which I retired counts Sams as its most important customer. The working relationship is quite good although they do admittedly try to get in our pockets.

[Rembrandt]

"So the Chinese chip maker employee makes what....3$ a day..2$???? $1.00... how much??? And produces how many chips a day? The packager gets 2 cents. Total cost is 5 cents.
And then there is a .15 cent markup on each chip sent back to taiwan..... so the charge of $320 worth of chips includes the markup of .15 or 75%. So there is a 75% markup earned by the subsidiary that is undoubtedly owned by HP or it's counterpart. And then HP adds another $125
markup....so all the markup is post production if I read your post #132 correctly.

Same goes for manufacturing job by wal mart. all the markup and profit is post production. The very people who make those items cannot afford to buy them even in their own country, so they are exported, and that is providing good jobs?"

There are a number of countries in which bottom level employees have an avg earnings per day of $3; these people can live on that and they choose to work those jobs. Would it make you happier if they didn't work, didn't have the $3 per day to live on and, consequently, starved? I don't think the ex-workers'd be angry about not having a PC.

[EDINVA]

if only the Waltons philanthropy matched Soros's everything would be grand ;) I'm sure there was a similar Nation article about how his fortunate was made 'questionably' and how his philanthropy serves his self-interest, right?

[GSlob]

"A lot of freepers have been bamboozled by the left too. They are stupid and hate Walmart like the left does."
Well, one could hate the "made in China" stuff, boycott it, and still shop at Walmart for other items [food, for example] as the need arises. I would not call it "having been bamboozled".

[antisocial]

See post #114

[Issaquahking]

What your bank didn't push this trinket at you? /sarc>


If it's a major appliance, you can go someplace like this here. You may not have been in Alaska long enough to remember McKay's hardware down behind Chilkoot Charlie's, but it was the kind of place where anything off-the-wall mechanically could be found. In the Anchorage/Eagle river area, I normally shop Fred Meyer, AIH, B&J's.


I miss Gary King's Sporting Goods most of all in the sporting goods section for Anchorage. Gary's was always service orientated, and a great contributor to the ski world in Alaska when they were big.

[o_zarkman44]

If those foreign people are so happy to work for $3.00 a day then why are so many coming here illegally to work?
They realize standard of living is better here and they would rather be on the recieving end of the economics.

If we all went back to living in straw huts and log cabins, we would be able to live on less money ourselves.
However, If we keep draining our economy to pay those who live in mud huts a small wage, we will eventually fall toward their economic situation rather than bring them up to ours.
America did not become the largest economy in the world because cheapskates were running the country.

[narses]

Fact: The majority of Wal-Mart’s hourly store associates in the United States work full-time. That is well above the 20 - 40 percent typically found in the retail industry. Our average hourly wage for regular full-time associates in the U.S. is $9.68 an hour, almost double the federal minimum wage. Wal-Mart’s average full-time wage in urban areas is slightly higher than the national average. For example: Chicago, $10.69; Austin, TX, $10.69; Washington D.C./Baltimore, $10.08; Atlanta, $10.80; and in Los Angeles, $9.99.

[thackney]

I do appreciate the link, but I have trouble believing it is all made in America. Such as:

http://madeinusa.org/nav.cgi?data/kitc

near the bottom choose:
Gourmet cookware, appliance, and kitchenware accessories
which goes to:

http://www.cool-kitchenwarez.com/

This list of products here does not appear to be only made in America, at this site, it is a amazon.com online store.

They have:
Yamazaki Flatware
Sharp & Sanyo Microwaves

I'm sure most of it is real, but this was the first link I followed and it left me doubting.

And I've only been here a little of two years. Not even enought time to break in the snowblower, just my back.

[pganini]

Nice 75% margin (and it should be if you're building semiconductor chips with software).

And the figure shows as a China deficit, instead of a US export (really, the design is the export).

[DHC-2]

A "team concept" with Wal-Mart ... what planet are you from?