Wal Mart's Exploitive Practices Attacked By Website

Wake Up Wal-Mart ^

[Clintonfatigued]

Because of Wal-Mart's inadequate wages and benefits, Wal-Mart employees are eligible for $2.5 billion in Federal assistance, which comes from your tax dollars.

[jb6]

And yet these same Free Traitors rely upon a socialist system to keep the unemployed masses fed or "retrained" so that they don't rise up. Yup, nothing like the "free" market backed up by massive socialist spending.

[jb6]

I love these holier then thou people who have never had to struggle or have never been unemployed, who think that just because it's going well for them, it should be for everyone.

I also love the excuse that supporting American made, you are putting the "working" class ahead of the customer, never mind that they are the customer.

When did it become anti-conservative to put American made first and not Chinese communist made first?

[Aliska]

I love these holier then thou people who have never had to struggle or have never been unemployed, who think that just because it's going well for them, it should be for everyone.

I also love the excuse that supporting American made, you are putting the "working" class ahead of the customer, never mind that they are the customer.

When did it become anti-conservative to put American made first and not Chinese communist made first?

That's what I would like to know.

I don't feel well this morning and was really interested in Nowhere Man's post and also those of A. Pole; there were some other posters who may not be on the same page as me, but they seem to be concerned, as am I, where things are heading with all the oursourced jobs and "made in China" and all the peripheral issues relating to Wal Mart type business practices. I didn't read all authors NM did, but some of them and others he may not have.

I do love the world of ideas. I remember reading "Utopia" years and years ago and don't remember much about it although it seemed to be written from an elitist pov. The one thing I do remember is that he (can't remember the author without googling him) advocated bringing in foreign, "inferior, unsophisticated, less-cultured" (not his exact words) workers to do the meat slaughtering and packing so the more sensitive citizens could do more pleasant work. Sound familiar?

We are going to have to change some of the ways we think and look at jobs and people or like Nowhere said, robots are going to take more jobs. Then what? I can't think that far ahead, but robots definitely could take over some Wal Mart jobs. Speaking of robots, some employers treat their people like robots anyway so what is the difference? Robots can't fight back. When they break down, they will be repaired, discarded or replaced with new, better and more efficient robots. That will make the anti-union people happy. I doubt robots will be unionized and I doubt most of them will be "made in America."

My biggest beef with Wal Mart is that when they opened their doors, I think it was in the 70's or so, they pledged to sell only American made goods (when available?). How quickly people forget! This young generation doesn't know about that pledge. It made me feel good to buy quality goods with that paper UNION tag on them, "Made in America." at WAL MART where I did a lot of shopping back then. Now to me they are becoming part of the problem rather than the solution even if their products are cheaper.

Perhaps they do have some happy workers, but they are probably oblivious to the unhappy people whose jobs are being adversely impacted or done away with by their employer. Some towns don't want Wal Mart to come in. And Quebec is better off without them imo.

[cbkaty]

Wal-Mart, the Haliburton of retail.

You left out, The Tom DeLay of retail....GRIN...

Yes I shop there and any other establishment that offers value....

[Aliska]

Here's some jobs lost and businesses closed in my area very close to where I live since 2003. Some paid living wages; some didn't. People got by somehow.

Historic little business razed when hospital two blocks away is undergoing HUGE expansion. Must be more sick people.

My favorite cafeteria I liked to eat at; entire mall bulldozed and rebuilt; different businesses; ugly for the most part

Locally owned grocery store I shopped at for years because it was so convenient; prices were a little higher; shut down; no new owner yet. Target was next door. That building is still empty as Target moved further north.

Gas station I patronized for years (about 30); finally some business is there; have to get gas elsewhere.

Another grocery store my family patronized back in the 50's and I still went there when I didn't go to the closer one above; gone forever; whole chain went out of business except one bought out and a couple in other towns saved for now. Sat empty for at least 2 years and a Save A Lot finally went in there which is nowhere near as nice as this one when it opened. The bakery items back in the 50's were MUCH tastier. They put real custard filling in their cream puffs and eclairs but that is illegal now so they are made of some fake mix.

Somebody commented about a thread with no cat pictures. I will oblige with my now 20-year-old cat. She has failed over the last 2 years and doesn't look so good now.

I'm not blaming Wal Mart for any of this. Many jobs were lost, and some were able to find other jobs. I don't know what happened with a lot of them.

All but one of these pictures is in the center of a very affluent urban area.

I could spend hours photographing the factories and department stores that closed and what replaced them; mostly tourist industry and art. If people don't have money to spend on the boats and art, and tourists can't afford to come here, we are going to be in trouble. I think we already are, but nobody wants to admit it. Oh, we have lots of $350,000+ houses going in, building is thriving, no modest priceed homes. It's either trailers, apartments, condos (if people can afford them), government-subsidized or Habitat for Humanity refurbs, or HUD housing.

The middle class has to buy nice, older homes if they want a house. I don't know where class lines are drawn any more. Some upper middle class are able to buy new homes. Sorry for another rambling post. This reflects the rapidly-changing face of my part of America and probably other parts, too, some for better, some for worse.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Did you read my post?

Who is this assclown? WalMart probably generates $18 billion in sales tax alone. They paid $5.589 billion in income tax. If their 1.3 million employees make $17,000 each that's $22 billion in salary and $1.37 billion in Social Security taxes. They paid $2.2 billion in dividends last year. If every "hit" to the federal government was as profitable as WalMart, there'd be no deficit.

If every dollar the government spent produced $2.23 in income tax revenue ($5.589/$2.50) there would be no deficit.If every dollar the government spent generated $8.80 in private sector wages ($22/$2.50) there'd be no poverty. If every dollar the government spent generated $0.548 in Social Security receipts ($1.37/$2.50) there'd be no funding crisis. If every dollar the government spent generated $0.88 in private sector dividends ($2.20/$2.50) we could all retire on our 401Ks and IRAs without worrying about Social Security.

Check this out.

The total amount of federal spending--$2,156,536,000,000--is too large to fully comprehend (in $1 bills, it would stack halfway to the moon, weigh 10 times as much as the Sears Tower, and blanket the state of New Jersey). A more relatable statistic is federal spending per household, which allows families to measure the costs and benefits of government in their own lives. Throughout the 1990s, real federal spending re-mained slightly under $18,000 per household. From 1998 through 2003, federal spending jumped by $2,500 to reach $20,300 per household--marking the first time since World War II that federal spending has topped $20,000 per household (see Chart 2 and Table 1).3

For that amount of government, Americans paid $16,780 per household in federal taxes in 2003--a staggering tax burden indeed, but only the beginning. Federal revenues are still $3,520 per household less than federal spending. That difference represents the per-household cost of the $374 billion budget deficit. Since all federal spending must eventually be paid for in taxes, the $3,520 per household represents higher future taxes that must be collected to fund the full $20,300 per household that Washington spent in 2003.

Heritage Foundation

Hmmm, let's look at that again
Wal-Mart employees are eligible for $2.5 billion in Federal assistance

Eligible for, not even uses $2.5 billion in Federal assistance. The propaganda website says 1.2 million workers so that would come to about $2,083 per workers, if they even used the Feds money. Sounds like WalMart employees are a freakin' bargain compared to the federal spending of $20,300 per household.

If you're fat and happy with the nation's largest employer having a a huge % of its employees eligible for public assistance, stop calling yourself an American, much less a conservative/

Whatever, just as long as you don't call yourself a math major!!!

[iconoclast]

Some patriot!

As a matter of fact, I am a math major.

Apparently you are too ... the kind that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Havoc?

[Quinotto]

Unfortunately Wal-Mart is one of the many corporations which started as a caring organization and a great work place, where employees were happy and received great benefits. But this was while the founding Sam Walton was alive and lived by different principles than today's WalMart CEO. Another company which comes to mind is Publix Supermarket (well known in the SE) which also was named year after year in the top 10 companies to work for because of pay, benefits and employee perks. But then the founder died also (George Jenkins) and the whole mentality of Publix when it came to its employees totally changed. I understand it is the need for profit which drives these corporations but the drive cannot be sustained properly if the employees are not treated right. So many wonderful people founded wonderful workplaces which, after their demise, transformed into profit-only driven entities. It is sad indeed and it is not what true capitalism is about where profit is the only thing that matters,

[Gabz]

You are amazing - I had no idea you are so young. As I said in another post to you I wish you all the success in the world......after reading this I know you will succeed.

Good for you!!!!!!!!!!

[jayef]

Can someone explain to me why my interests are not served by helping to create a consumer class in China that is built on entrepreneurialism and wants strong trade ties with the US? What interest do I have in keeping the Chinese slave to the nanny state?

[Gabz]

I would love to see the same level whining about employees of Walmart (maybe) being eligible for government assistance being done for many who are serving in the Armed Forces whoa re also eligible for the same assistance.

some people have their priorites totally screwed up.

God Bless our men and women in Uniform.

[Nowhere Man]

Love the pic of your cat, I have one that will be 18 in August, she is small for a cat, only a little over 5 pounds so people still think she is a kitten or at least 1 or 2 plus hse is very active.

If I had the time, I'd love to take some pictures of the Pittsburgh area where job loss has affected us too.



Pansy: b: 8-19-1987 -

[Nowhere Man]

I would love to see the same level whining about employees of Walmart (maybe) being eligible for government assistance being done for many who are serving in the Armed Forces whoa re also eligible for the same assistance.

I admit that was not the scope of the discussion but I do agree that is a big problem too with military families needing assistance and that needs addressed too.

[Aliska]

I love your picture of Pansy. Thanks for sharing. She doesn't look that tiny, a very pretty little cat. Lucy used to weigh over 12 pounds and has lost half her body weight the last couple of years. I've had her checked over at great expense for one visit and some tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her that was treatable, liver and kidney levels were a little high.

Job loss is probably much worse in Pittsburgh. I wish you had time to do a photo essay as I'm not real good at that sort of thing.

One thing I was thinking I shouldn't have posted my pictures here for a number of reasons. It's the people I dealt with in those places I miss. I used to kid around with them except at the cafeteria. Now I'll probably never see most of them again.

They've just built tons more restaurants further out, and a chain grocery store came in to replace all that. All those pictures were of LOCAL businesses that started (and ended now here). Replacement businesses have corporate headquarters elsewhere and so flows the profits. Some gets cycled back into the community through employee paychecks.

A worse blow to the community was the loss of our far better-paying farm implement manufacturing jobs. One by one they shut down, at least five fairly large employers. Young men could get their high school diploma one day and walk into any number of those places the next day, get an entry level job that paid a living wage, get rapidly promoted if they kept their noses to the grindstone, marry and raise families on their pay. That's pretty much history now. Not all of them were union shops.

I'm not sure why all that happened, and will see if I can find out. Some of it I did blame in my own mind on the unions, but I think there was more to it than just that.

Why do some corporations have two-tiered systems anyway? Salaried employees never unionize. Not all of them are that highly paid. Some are very well paid for not a whole lot of skills or training. Why is that, do you know?

Why is there so much antipathy for unions? In the 1800's after the industrial revolution, employees worked horrible hours at low pay right here in America. That's probably why they were started.

[Nowhere Man]

I love your picture of Pansy. Thanks for sharing. She doesn't look that tiny, a very pretty little cat. Lucy used to weigh over 12 pounds and has lost half her body weight the last couple of years. I've had her checked over at great expense for one visit and some tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her that was treatable, liver and kidney levels were a little high.

I'll respond to the other stuff later, but in the case of Pansy, she did lose a little weight over the last several years, she was close to 8 pounds at one time but the vet said she is perfectly healthy and is in good shape for her age, her only problem is allergies. I know it is normal for older cats to drop some weight as we all know that some people do as well when they get older. She loves to run around, play a lot and holler so loud at night. She has a loud meow and you can hear her purr across the room.

[jb6]

Because as it stands right now, China continues to use slave or near slave labor. Because in China, labor has no rights to negotiate anything and if they go on strike, they are arrested and sent to prison factories to keep working. Because China furthermore primarly uses us as an economic colony, buying our raw resources and dumping their finished goods here. Because for the loss of a factory, there are losses by follow on factories that supported the main one and there are losses by secondary businesses that served the paid workers. Because there are losses in tax revenues, increases in expanditures in the form of retraining and welfare, because crime goes up, property values drop, etc, a whole ripple affect that devistates the very consumers who are supposed to benefit from saving a buck or two on Chinese vs American made products.

[jb6]

This is what happens when managers and CEOs are brought in from the outside and not promoted from within the company. Those who work their way up the ladder, tend to believe in the company, as opposed to the management mercenaries who just come in for THEIR perks. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "management" know-how that suppresses the need to have years under the belt in an industry. At the CEO level, you can't just skip from one industry to a totally different industry and hope to achieve the same results. Each industry, heck each geographic area, has it's own peculiar quarks.

[jayef]

You're not directly answering my question. My theory is that capitalism, entrepreneurialism and free trade are the cures for those ills you enumerated. Do you disagree with that? Therefore, I don't see how trade with China and the development of an entrepreneurial middle class in China are harmful to America. Does economic competition with China scare you that badly? What do you propose we do about it?

[jb6]

My theory is that capitalism, entrepreneurialism and free trade are the cures for those ills you enumerated.

I have one thing to say in response: Tiaiman Square. First, China is not competing with free trade, as a matter of fact, the only ones playing free trade is us, and we're paying for it. All other major nations are putting up various protectionist barriers: Japan, EU, China, India, Russia, etc. We are the only ones who aren't and we all know where our jobs are going. Sure, we have job growth: checked out where? Lower end (why DollarTree and other "Dollar" stores are posting record gains, since their primary growth sector, the $25,000 and below demographic is the one that grows the fastest) and government jobs. Uncle Sam is the biggest producer of jobs in the past 5 years, yup, more government, more socialism. As it stands, counting all levels of government, some 25% of the US work force is government employeed.

Further, while there is a middle class in China, it is trivial, compared to the billion plus slave or near slave labor. China by WTO rules is required to have freely organized labor, environmental and work safety features, etc. The WTO has given China sweeping access to various markets but they have failed to comply by any of the rules, while no government complains, except Taiwan.

Lastly by your standards, we should never have gotten rid of Saddam, or the Taliban, nor should we pressure N.Korea or Iran or anyone else. We should simply have free trade with them and all the ills will be solved.