[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,

[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.