Posted on 09/16/2006 6:51:22 AM PDT by bitt
Liberal campaign hurts people who need bargains
Evergreen Park, Ill., a suburb contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88 percent white. A large majority of the customers of the Wal-Mart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city, and more than 90 percent of the store's customers are African-American. One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000 square-foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down because, she said, the person doing the hiring "had an attitude."
So why is the woman shopping here anyway? She looks at the questioner as though he is dimwitted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her.
Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money. Besides, she should not brood. She had lots of company in not being hired: More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings.
Which vexes liberals like John Kerry. (He and his helpmeet last shopped at Wal-Mart when?) In 2004 he tested what has become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes: Wal-Mart is, he said, "disgraceful"and symbolic of "what's wrong with America."
By now, Democrats have succeeded, to their embarrassment (if they are susceptible to that), in making the basic numbers familiar: The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel.
A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at cmonitor.com ...
His real interest is in promoting real estate bubble scare stories.
What cracks me up is that, on a conservative website, it's not unlikely that someone will post leftist crap by accident (usually, when someone allows Google to do one's thinking). But the reasonable response to someone else pointing-out the error would be, "Gosh, I didn't realize. Sorry." Instead, the rest of us get entertained with a doomer Kabuki dance.
"I enjoy reading your housing bubble threads, but now you've cast a lot of doubt on their veracity.
Respectfully yours,
Frank"
I believe everyone has learned something here today.
I've read that article before, here on FR, the CEO of a lawnmower company thinks he'll do better selling his own product because of it's brand identification, and while he wanted to stay with Walmart he wanted a higher profit margin than he could get through them.
I have a similar strategy in my company.
"What's sad about this thread, regardless of the position you take, is one could have bought anything online, from an American owned company, manufactured in the U.S, using U.S. citizens, paying U.S. taxes---- in less time than it took to post a comment."
That didn't make much sense.
Then you realize it's not that complicated. Sell to Wal-Mart and let your distribution network take the hit, suffer lower overall margin but deny the field to your competition, or choose not to sell to Wal-Mart, protect your distrubutors, bank the higher margin, and pray your competition doesn't get a boost. I think some folks call this free-market capitalism.
Walmart-Belleville Rd-Belleville MI
Walmart-Hunter Rd.-Westland MI
Sams Club-Warren Ave-Westland MI
Walmart-Sumpter Township MI
The other 16 are in the upper section of the lower peninsula of MI. These 4 boarded up stores I drive past. Your page does not indicate your state, so you possibly know nothing of Meijer's.
http://www.meijer.com/
I disagree. It's the unions and their RAT supporters.
I'm not entirely sure what your point is. Why shouldn't Wal-Mart close under-performing stores?
'That didn't make much sense.'
I only purchase U.S. products, made in the U.S., with U.S. parts, by U.S. workers, from U.S. owned companies.
"Then you realize it's not that complicated. Sell to Wal-Mart and let your distribution network take the hit, suffer lower overall margin but deny the field to your competition, or choose not to sell to Wal-Mart, protect your distrubutors, bank the higher margin, and pray your competition doesn't get a boost. I think some folks call this free-market capitalism"
Exactly, this is a good time to remind everyone that Walmart is singled out because of leftist politics.
Home Depot, Cosco, Target, Lowes etc are all roughly the same.
Home depot wipes out many mom and pop stores, and now they wipe out contractors.
"I only purchase U.S. products, made in the U.S., with U.S. parts, by U.S. workers, from U.S. owned companies."
"Ever compare the working innards of a fishing reel or firearm bought at wally vs. a sporting goods store. Wally's is inexpensive plastic junk vs. metal from the sporting store. This is the basis of wally's low prices."
"Michigan has 20 Wally grocery stores-in the state. Meijer's, Kroger, and Farmer Jack rule the grocery business here."
I would love to hear where you shop to pull this off,
"I only purchase U.S. products, made in the U.S., with U.S. parts, by U.S. workers, from U.S. owned companies".
What I don't understand is the prevailing assumption that one can be expected to make rational purchasing decisions based on any number of criteria, but others cannot be expected or allowed to do the same.
$ WM hit with $ 172 million verdict over workers denied lunch breaks
WM Pays $ 11 Million for illegal workers
WM Target of Federal Probe Over Waste
And you people all will argue "there no requirement for a company to pay decent wages, provide insurance or allow your workers lunch breaks."
And there you have it. That is why liberals hate Wal Mart. It embarasses them. Capitalism will always win out over liberal government hand-out programs. They just HATE it.
As far as pointing out that the largest corporation in the United States is periodically subject to legal challenges of one sort or another, why don't you try arguing that such legal challenges would not occur in the absence of Wal-Mart?
I agree with you ...it is a good stop-gap for upwardly mobile young workers, in-between jobs workers, people just learning to work (high school, ex-welfare recipients) and people who just want to make some money for the family bills, but don't want full-time comittments.
and ex-texan, ...
'People in Oregon hate WM.'
makes me stand up for Wal-Mart even more....
I myself never seem to get into a Wal-mart -
but I see Will's points, and if sKerry is against them, I'm for them!
'Why shouldn't Wal-Mart close under-performing stores?'
Good point. The local communities should have given a tax break to home builders to create revenue rather than wally. Now they are left with 100 acre plots consisting of a parking lot and a boarded up building. Housing, while not haveing the initial impact of revenue as compared to big box stores, is more consistent in producing tax based revenue for the local community for decades. Remember Forest City Home Improvement Stores, Handy Andy Home Improvement Stores, ReXall Drug Store, Great Scott grocery store, Wrigley grocery store, Chatamn's grocery store......all closed. And yes, I know the business end. My background is medical. Meeting are regularly held to weigh number of deaths vs. cost of product vs. liability vs. final net profit.
Found a read for you-http://robertdfeinman.com/society/bigbox_vs_hardware.html
Same practice occurs for purchasing invasive agiography catheters. Jam an incorrect size in because 'we got a deal on this size over the next 2 years.'
Stay healthy.
http://www.madeinusa.org/
http://www.howtobuyamerican.com/
http://www.usstuff.com/
http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/
There's a heck of a lot more sites out there,
but this only took 10 seconds.
That's what I thought. You're firing at the wrong target. Your problem appears to be with sort-sighted local officials. Why you wish to take your frustration out on the retailer is anyone's guess.
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