Posted on 07/16/2009 11:57:05 PM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
Not really certain if they still do this, but back in the day Walmart made a point of highlighting the “Made in America” products it sold in its stores. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that most of what they sold was being made in places like China or Mexico. It was however, a reasonable enough PR move: the company was coming under criticism for selling too much imported junk and such moves helped to shut up the critics chorus - and if shoppers cared they could go out of their way to buy American, since the company was making money in any event it was no skin off their nose.
Our reliance on cheaply made Chinese junk has only gone up ever since, Walmart’s PR campaign did nothing to stop it. Their latest “green campaign” will have similar effects - namely none at all.
Does this mean that we no longer need to Cap and Trade? Has Wal-Mart done it all?
Evidently so because the author concludes his ecstatic remarks with the following:
The beauty of the Wal-Mart innovation is that it doesn't ask anyone to change anything except the information that is provided and received. If polluters want to keep polluting, they are free to do so as long as they provide that data on their Wal-Mart labels. And if consumers choose to buy from polluters whose labels they can read, they are free to do so. In theory.
In practice, of course, we know that suppliers will change their practices to avoid embarrassing disclosures, and consumers will think twice about the choices they make. Consumer activists have been clamoring for information.
So, the author thinks we have the perfect marriage of environmentalism and capitalism:
We should applaud Wal-Mart for joining the vanguard and leading a new parade. First for the green program and all that might follow from it. Second for showing that a new model of principled, not just greedy, American capitalism can take shape.
Even the left now sees the triumph capitalism and the superfluity of Cap and Trade.
What a bunch of bull. Goldman Sachs, GE, and Wal-Mart are all going to make billions of dollars in their partnership with the government with this green stuff. This has never been about the environment and has everything to do with control by keeping down small business and limiting new competition. The idea that people are classifying this as value-based capitalism over government/business corruption makes me sick.
does walmart really expect the Chinese to comply? ha!
Is this the same author who wrote that the Segway was surely going to change the way we live?
NOt just Walmart. McDonald’s also.
A McDonald’s opened (reopened - they tore the old one down and built this new green one in its place) in my area which provides hookups for all the electric car drivers to plug in to and get some more “juice” for their electric cars!
Isn’t that special?
The madness has almost taken full hold of corporate America and yet the Eco-Nazi’s are STILL going to destroy this nation with Cap and Trade - despite the attempts of many in big business to try to be “green” friendly.
I should point out that I found the original article on Bloomberg and not at HBP. Can’t post a bloomberg link though.
Remember when though when you attack Cap and Trade you are attacking a system and not what that system is intended to accomplish.
By the way, Cap and Trade as a system has been proven to effectively reduce powerplant emissions (SOX and NOX) in a market-based cost-effective manner. Your real bone of contention is with the need to reduce CO2 emissions at all. By attacking the system rather than the goals of the system you are implicitly agreeing that the goals are correct, but the system is the wrong one. Thus, if you don’t think CO2 needs to be controlled, you let the left win by saying their goals are correct, but their system is wrong becaues they can always find an alternative system.
Please see post 10 regarding your attack on Cap and Trade.
If you attack Cap and Trade then the left has already won the battle my FRiend.
So you have read the Cap and Trade 1200 page bill with the additional 300 page amendment which was pushed through the House of Representatives?
I will oppose Cap and Trade with every ounce of energy I have.
It will destroy what’s left of our economy.
If you are differentiating between the Cap and Trade bill and the premise of Cap and Trade you might wish to make that distinction.
Otherwise, as I have said, if you just fight Cap and Trade as a system, you implicitly agree that something needs to be done about CO2 emissions but Cap and Trade is the wrong system.
It is a clever ploy for the left which would rather have a direct and obvious tax on CO2 rather than a Cap and Trade system. So, they get you to attack the system. If it fails they offer an alternative and pain the right simply as the party of “No” and no ideas.
You go to the store for what you need or want. The price is right , you buy it.
No one gives a red rat’s patoot about a tag on it that syas it isnt “green” enough.
Nice try Walmart——Lame.
The author states that those of us who think the environment isn't a major issue are now irrelevant. I don't HAVE to buy the greenest products. He says that businesses will have to change their practices to comply. Yes, or change their labeling to make it LOOK like they've complied.
He makes the standard Marxist point about a business doing good instead of just being greedy (as if there is no mutual benefit between business and customer, e.g. even though I hate insurance companies, where else would I get insurance if they disappeared?)
This is an ingenious move on Wal-Mart's part. I can see Wal-Mart using this move in two ways. The first (they think) is that it will disarm the left's hatred for them. That's not going to happen of course, but they'll advertise it so much that it will make the left look shrill. It demonstrates that businesses can strike back against activists. The second thing Wal-Mart will do is use this to further beat down their suppliers on price. "Give me a lower price or I'll announce that you aren't complying with our green standards".
Finally, if I'm a Wal-Mart stockholder, who's going to enforce this wonderful utopian idea? Are Wal-Mart profits going to be spent on policing this idiocy? Why should the environmentalists' utopia come out of my pocket? The last is a rhetorical question, of course - we know they're going to take it out of my pocket one way or the other.
I suspect we're going to go from the Left hating Wal-Mart to the Right hating Wal-Mart before long. I just read somewhere the other day that the bigger a business gets, the more a part of the establishment it gets to be. At this point in history, make no mistake, "the establishment" is liberal.
I trust that Wal-Mart is creative enough to make money off the idiocy emanating from our Federal government.
My money has not been... and will never again go to walmartistan.
LLS
WalMart is smart. They know that this is going to go the way of nutritional labels: nobody cares ! They buy what they want anyway.
When they point out that, despite labeling, green products do not sell ( much like salads at MacDonalds, they'll have made their case in a way that the green people must see: no body cares !
Of course, then the green idiots will try to force people to.They'll be shown to be the totalitarians they are. It's not about green; it's about CONTROL.
Boy, was I wrong.
Obama is smarter than I am, he has managed, like Adolph Hitler in 1933, to co-opt virtually every industry out of fear and greed. The American Medical Association has just gone over to his side.
Our carmakers have become tame. Goldman Sachs is leading the charge against everything holy on Wall Street and in the banking community. Wal-Mart, whether experiencing a genuine conversion or merely finessing a public relations ploy, has given Obama a lot of running room.
If Obama succeeds in getting his healthcare and/or Cap and Trade, the America I grew up in will be gone forever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.