Attention, Wal-Mart critics

The Seattle Times ^ | November 30, 2005 | Michael Medved

[sam_paine]

What is the reason for the recent proliferation of all these WalMart threads, and why are there so many anti-capitalist agitators on FR suddenly?

discuss...

[rdb3]

What is the reason for the recent proliferation of all these WalMart threads, and why are there so many anti-capitalist agitators on FR suddenly?

C'mon, sam_paine. That answer is self-evident. There will be denial of the undeniable, but it's still undeniable.

[VanDeKoik]

Not being an absolute 120% Wal-Mart fan and having the nerve to say it does not make you anti-capitalist.

Why are there so many Wal-Mart threads? Ya got me.

[af_vet_rr]

What is the reason for the recent proliferation of all these WalMart threads, and why are there so many anti-capitalist agitators on FR suddenly?

Because of their close ties to lots of Chinese companies, err suppliers, and because of how much money flows into China from them.

Besides the China thing, for me at least, some of their tactics are unsavory (but they are legal!).

[nascarnation]

If Costco or Target is a great place to work, quit Wal-Mart and go there....I assume the skill set is similar?

[Kokojmudd]

Adam Smith discussed the point at length in Wealth of Nations (1776), surely the primer of conservative economics. For instance, he said, it would be possible to produce very fine wine in Scotland from grapes grown under glass -- but it would be absurd because it would cost maybe twenty times as much as buying fine wines from sunnier lands like France and Portugal.

The walmart/big earl haters won't be happy until the govt subsidizes ma & pa junk factories. A shower flip flop plant for every home.

[af_vet_rr]

If Costco or Target is a great place to work, quit Wal-Mart and go there....I assume the skill set is similar?

I don't know, I can imagine those people stuck in such an industry could move around skill-wise, but maybe the benefits are not such that they can afford to, at least over the long run.

It's easy for me to say "buy American when possible", because I can afford to, but truthfully not everybody can, and I don't mean to criticize those folks who can't afford anything but Wal-Mart - Wal-Mart does make many things affordable, that would otherwise be out of the reach of some.

[T'wit]

Shoppers back their economic decisions with their own time and money. It is they who direct the market -- not critics and not cheerleaders. Anywhere Meijer and Target can out-compete Wal-Mart, more power to them. I suppose it happens here or there. Considering the corporate sizes and earnings, it doesn't happen much.

I just checked my zip code at meijer.com and they reported, "Sorry, there are no Meijer locations within 100 miles" of me. Meijer says it's a midwest chain while I'm in the east, so I'd guess that actually it doesn't have a store within five hundred or a thousand miles. They can't please us shoppers if we have to go hundreds of miles to find a Meijer's store.

[T'wit]

I actually have a flip-flop factory in the family, so I hope your are deeply, horribly mistaken about the government setting up a hundred million competitors :-) :-)

[Kokojmudd]

I actually have a flip-flop factory in the family, so I hope your are deeply, horribly mistaken about the government setting up a hundred million competitors :-) :-)

Egads! I will contact my RINO representative asap and implore him to consider something different, like er... back yard blast furnaces....them red chinese kept a lot of working people on the job during the great leap forward with them back yard blast furnaces! No need to reinvent the wheel I say! A blast furnace in every yard!

[MarkL]

you can go elsewhere, and vote with your wallet Exactly! Let all those who loathe Wal-Mart shop at the mom and pops. I'm happy to go to Wal-Mart. No one holds a gun to my head.

I doubt that it was caused by the local Walmart, but a really cool local mom & pop drug store closed in Lee's Summit, MO last year. More likely, it was a combination of the K-Mart & Walmart that had been there for at least the last 15 years, but in the last 2 years or so, there's also an Osco and a Walgreens that opened.

I miss that drug store, because it also sold guns, ammo, and reloading supplies! Very convenient.

Mark

[T'wit]

A blast furnace in the back yard, then everybody will be so hot we can all get rich with lemonade stands in the front yard.

[MarkL]

Wal-Mart is so far from a "monopoly" that any discussion of the subject in this context is just plain silly.

Exactly. For competition, there's K-Mart, Target, Costco, Sears, and JC Penney. And then there are still plenty of other local retailers that compete directly against Walmart, or even specific departments within Walmart!

Mark

[MarkL]

Wal-Mart boasts that 74% of its sales employees work full-time but this doesn't mean they are making good money. In 2001, Wal-Mart sales clerks made an average of $8.23 an hour ($13,861 a year). While $8.23 an hour doesn't sound like a bad wage for part-time work while you are getting through school, people who use that job as their full-time employment are in trouble: they make $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three.

There's a problems with this entire premis, as if a worker is making $8.23/hr, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, the annual wage is $16,460, a difference of $2599. I'm wondering exactly where they got the "$13,861?" Was the annual wage listed by using both part time and full time sales clerks? If so, then the "annual wage" would have been averaged using numbers coming from students who only worked 15 or 20 hours a week, as well as 40 hour a week full time employees.

Mark

[MarkL]

And while I'm a supporter of "business" in general, I hope that if employees that claim that they were forced to work "off the clock" by their supervisors to cut costs are able to prove it, I hope that Walmart is hammered by the courts. I would wish that the vast majority of any awards would go to the injured workers, but I realize that those suits are files as "class action," which is another definition of "the lawyers get rich, and a pittance goes to the injured."

Mark

[MarkL]

Greenwald's one big budget film, "Xanadu"

Good song by Rush (though it had nothing to do with the movie), and an abysmally bad movie.

Mark

[middie]

???????

[MarkL]

With this kind of history, one could argue that Wal-Mart is exactly a MOM & POP store----They just got real big..

Sort of an "extended family" there... lol.

Mark

[sam_paine]

re: ??????????

You from Rio Linda? Nobody is forcing anyone to work at WalMart.

[MarkL]

For years now, people have believed an employer should "take care of you" and provide you with all sorts of options, rather than those benefits being something you earn through time served, education pursued and other skills you might have that would benefit the employer. It's the same thing as believing teachers "give you grades" in stead of you having to "earn them."

This is an incredibly socialist way of thinking, and actually cedes control over our own lives to others. It makes me very sad.

Or, you could look at those additional benefits are incentive to come to work for an employer. Or incentives to work harder, or be more loyal.

Mark