Hezbocrats Attack Wal-Mart By Herman Cain

Hezbocrats Attack Wal-Mart By Herman Cain

The Hezbocrats, a roaming band of militant guerrillas seeking their party’s 2008 nomination for president, have most recently lobbed their rhetorical bombs at Wal-Mart, that cruel capitalist occupying corporation. The most recent base of Hezbocrat activity was Iowa, the state whose January 2008 party caucuses are the nation’s first measure of presidential preference. The Hezbocrats, armed with nothing more than Katyusha-grade class warfare rhetoric, descended upon Iowa earlier this month determined to take down Wal-Mart, a company they consider the nation’s largest capitalistic oppressor of the proletariat.

Leading Hezbocrats, including Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), attended rallies in Des Moines to slam Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer. Wal-Mart’s crime? According to the Hezbocrats, Wal-Mart has abandoned the middle class by not paying what they consider a “living wage” or providing its employees free healthcare coverage.

At one rally, Sen. Biden stated, “My problem with Wal-Mart is that I don’t see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people.” Sen. Bayh added, “Wal-Mart has become emblematic of the anxiety around the country, and the middle-class squeeze.”

These are spurious charges, considering the fact that Wal-Mart’s average full-time hourly wage is $10.11. Wal-Mart also announced this month that it is raising wages by an average of six percent for employees in over 1,200 of its 4,000 U.S. stores. Further, the company offers qualifying employees a menu of 18 healthcare plans, some costing as little as $11 per month.

Earlier this year another Hezbocrat, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) returned a $5,000 campaign contribution from Wal-Mart, citing “serious differences” with the company. In a biting twist of irony, Clinton, regarded by many as the Hezbocrat militia’s leading candidate for the 2008 nomination, served on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors for six years when her husband, impeached former president Bill Clinton, was Governor of Arkansas. In 1986, the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton chose Clinton as the company’s first female board member, and she received over $18,000 each year she served on the board. Even though she’s rich now, Clinton has not publicly returned her Wal-Mart salary from those six years.

The Hezbocrat assault on Wal-Mart probably has the casual political observer scratching his head over why a political party would blast away at an employer of 1.3 million Americans, not to mention his family’s favorite place to shop. The candidates claim to be looking out for the nation’s “working families” by advocating higher wages and full healthcare coverage for all employees. In truth, the Hezbocrat candidates have another agenda, one that is purely political and would hurt the very Wal-Mart employees and customers they claim to support.

Two organizations, Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart, are responsible for organizing the Iowa rallies and similar rallies across the country. As the old political adage reminds us, follow the money. Wal-Mart Watch is funded by the Teamsters Union and the Service Employees International Union. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union funds Wake Up Wal-Mart. Why would Big Labor Unions organize a fight against Wal-Mart? Because employees at the nation’s largest employer do not belong to labor unions.

Hezbocrat opposition to Wal-Mart is akin to their opposition to legislation that would have increased the minimum wage because it also contained a provision to scale back the estate tax. They pay no mind to the raft of economic benefits Wal-Mart brings to employees, customers and communities. All the critics see is that Wal-Mart has not succumbed to Big Labor Union – and Big Labor Union, pillar of the Hezbocrat Party, is not happy.

The Hezbocrats risk a huge political backlash by drawing horns and a tail on Wal-Mart’s trademark yellow happy face. They say that Wal-Mart treats its employees poorly, but who is complaining? In January, 25,000 people applied for 325 available jobs at a proposed Wal-Mart store outside of Chicago. According to Wal-Mart, over 75 percent of its store managers started with the company as hourly workers. Wal-Mart’s prices save the average American household over $2,300 per year. The company is so unpopular that over 127 million customers shop at its U.S. stores each week.

When you vote this November, remember which party places unionizing the largest private employer’s workers over jobs and low retail prices for the communities and families who need them the most. It is unfortunate, and telling, that with all the threats to our national security abroad, the candidates for president from one of the two major political parties have instead chosen to declare war on a private company right here at home.

How do you think competition bases it's pricing?

They all base their prices on at what price they believe will make them the most money.

Lower prices often create more demand but lower profit margins.

Walmart has led the way in improving efficiency and lowering costs.

That has allowed them to make money selling items for less, and has allowed them to be profitable on low margins.

It has forced their competitors to become more efficient as well, and has driven down prices.

They also base the wages and benefits they pay based on the competitive labor market. They offer competitive wages and benefits to be able to get workers with the skills the reliability they need. Many of their jobs don't require a very skilled work force, but they do need to pay well enough to attract and keep desirable workers that meet their needs.

Unionizing Wal-Mart has nothing to do with importations.

That's what I said as well.

Why is the company such an overwhelming success?

Value and providing the vast majority of customers with what they want. Walmart gathers and analyzes an incredible amount of information about what sells and what doesn't at which price points.

For a long time they had a major made in the USA program where they offered a large number of American made products as an option to customers, however since those products often cost Walmart more than imported goods, the American made products were also priced higher that comparable imported goods.

The American made goods just didn't sell well if there was a less expensive imported alternative. Their customers shopped based on price rather than where the items were made, and having items that don't sell takes up valuable shelf space and inventory gets taxed, so items that didn't sell got dropped.

How does it's marketing affect competition?

It's more Walmart's business model than their marketing.

They are very good at managing inventory and keeping costs low.

They keep track of what sells and keep the supply lines flowing smoothly. They push their suppliers to be able to be able to supply them what they need when they need it. They work very hard to reduce excess inventory yet avoid empty shelves. They've done these things better than most everyone else and have done it on a massive scale.

That has allowed them to sell products cheaper than their competitors while earning higher profits.

How would rival stores react to increased prices and what effect would this ultimately have on the consumer?

Less competition to keep prices low, means their competitors can charge higher prices. If Walmart's prices go up, so will their competitors, though possibly to a lesser extent if they can make more money through higher volumes.

Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions.
Kearny had 8,000 for 350 jobs.

Also, average wage for employees was about $10.50 an hour.

I expect those wages are competitive in the area. They may have even offered a bit on the high end for important position they needed to fill. That's the nature of the free market.

How many companies are moving manufacturing out of the country and why?

There are a number I know of personally. Many higher technology manufacturing jobs moved to China later in the dot com boom. China made doing so appealing in the short term, but also made agreements with those building manufacturing there to require the companies do more and more development and engineering in China as well over time.

China did a very good job of taking advantage of our technology boom to entice investment in their economy, and now that the boom has faded, and profit margins are low, many of those companies are relying on lower production costs in China, and having to train Chinese workers so that more development can be done in China because they can't afford to move their manufacturing elsewhere.

Where is Chevrolet now producing the Camaro?

I haven't heard where Chevrolet will build the Camaro, but it seems like if you want to buy a car that has most of it's parts made in the US and is assembled in the US, you're best off looking at cars from Japanese auto makers rather than traditional American brands.

I live in Ohio. Honda is building cars not too far from where I live, and they are paying fair wages and remaining profitable. They also run non-union shops, and the unions attempts to get the workers to unionize have failed.

Delphi and GM are having serious problems in this area. I worked at Delphi as an engineering co-op many years ago, and what I saw there left me with a very low opinion of the union there and a sizable portion of their workforce.

The issues with the union and management at Delphi seem to have gotten no better now and in ways they are worse.

The unions have failed their members and the management at Delphi have failed their stockholders.

They entered into agreements in the past that were insane, and the union and Delphi are stuck with trying to live up to past commitments, while still being viable in the future. Workers that have been there a while are still getting payed amazing amounts of money for what they do. Those who are new in many cases make less than half of what those who have been there longer doing identical jobs simply because those who were there longer were grandfathered in under the old agreements.

However, the old agreements were so unreasonable that Delphi simply can't afford to live up to them even for a portion of the workforce, and they can't pay competitively enough for new workers.

For new workers entering the workforce, a non-union job at a Honda plant is more stable, pays competitively, and they don't have to pay union wages.

Delphi and the union failed, yet the bankruptcy courts keep them from completely failing. However, the negotiations between Delphi and the Union are not even close to being done in good faith anymore.

They fight and bicker, and eventually come to an agreement that both should realize is something that will not allow Delphi to survive, but the union can not accept less after all their years of telling their members how Delphi has been attempting to underpay and exploit their members.

So they agree on a contract, and then a matter of months later they are back in bankruptcy court with Delphi saying that they need the court to void the contract if they are to survive.

This has gone on for too long. Delphi and the unions must be able to fail, or they will never do what is necessary to fix the problems. The bankruptcy courts must stop protecting these companies very soon and force them to fix things or have their assets sold off to pay their creditors.

Honda and other manufacturers have shown that it is possible to have profitable heavy manufacturing in the US. However, Delphi and their union counterpart have shown that they cannot do it, so they need to be allowed to fail so that it can be done by someone else.

The unions have strangled the goose that laid the golden eggs. Their power is fading quickly. They need to find a way to move into other markets to survive, which is why they are attacking Walmart so vehemently.

Otherwise they may soon face a company similar to Walmart buying Delphi plants or other plants in the auto industry and see themselves crushed to insignificance in just about every market except civil service.

Once again, how would rival stores react to increased prices and what effect would this ultimately have on the consumer?

Competitors would raise their own prices if Walmart raised theirs.

There's an equally important question. Would competitors increase their benefits if Walmart increased theirs?

If the labor market is flooded, they would not have to raise them a huge much, especially since health care benefits are not as apparent to many workers as is the size of their take home pay.

Their competitors would likely be able to spend significantly less per employee to attract workers simply by spending less on health care, but offering the same or slightly higher wages.

Walmart would be more appealing to people with health problems or dependents with health problems, which would make their workforce even more expensive compared to the workforce of their competitors.

This is pretty much a direct attack on capitalism and the government attacking one of the most efficient companies in the US to benefit a relatively small special interest group.

This effort needs to be crushed, and those pushing for this transparent attack need to be throughly investigated.

What is the ultimate effect on the consumer? They pay more. They pay more because our economy is made less efficient. We have to import more to keep inflation down which means less well paying jobs here.

It means that the rate at which inflation rises will increase faster than their compensation will increase, and even though they may get paid more, they will be able to afford a lesser standard of living rather than a greater one.

To take the time to explain the facts to you is obviously not worth my effort.

You presented some facts and asked some open ended questions.

You never really bothered explaining your interpretation of those facts.

You just ask some more open ended questions when you don't like the answers I give to your questions.

If you feel it's not worth the effort to explain your interpretation of the facts, or discuss why you might disagree with my interpretation, then I guess I have to question if you really know what your opinions are or have a sound basis for them.

You apparently are only willing or able to hint at them rather than explain them and support them.

One portion of our voting sector was brainwashed into believing there would be a draft in Mr Bush's second term, "untrained skeptics"...

Yes, there are many people out there that are attracted to a variety of different philosophies that find conspiracy theories such as the one about the draft appealing.

The way to combat conspiracy theories is to carefully look at the facts and see if the theory is soundly supported.

The way to propagate conspiracy theories is to mention a few facts, ask a lot of open ended questions, and make statements vague allegations not soundly supported by the facts.

So do you actually have a point you are trying to make?

Or are you just going to try and make vague comments linking my board name with brainwashed people who are easily swayed by conspiracy theories?

Do you actually have something to say? Or are you just trolling?

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