"Why we don't hate walmart any more"

[Deja Q]

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/27/news/companies/dont_hate_walmart.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009102710

Yup, it's the "We'll break your leg - when that happens, come lean on us" game...

:popcorn:

[Brickbat]

1. Um, no. I still hate Wal-Mart, thanks.

I know what he's getting at, and he's getting at it all wrong.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. + 1

[madrchsod]

6. ten dollars toys that will be in the garbage can in a week

recycle? nope they are made out of stuff that can`t be recycled.





oh.......


did i mention lead content?

[quiller4]

30. Me too.

[Statistical]

34. Delete. Wrong spot.

Edit: wrong spot

[rfranklin]

2. Walmart is an organized crime syndicate...

And they should be treated accordingly.

[gateley]

3. Wal-Mart is such a help to so many. We HAVE to be able to make our local

stores competitive so everyone can afford to shop at them. How do we do that?

I personally don't like what Wal-Mart has done to our economies, but I know several people who can't shop anywhere else. :shrug:

[gratuitous]

9. It's important to distinguish between Wal Mart and its patrons

Indeed, some people don't have a real choice. We should always encourage folks who do have a choice to choose not to shop at Wal Mart, but without thorough knowledge of anyone's particular circumstances, we should avoid the temptation to make blanket statements about people who patronize Wal Mart or who have to work there.

But say anything you want about Wal Mart itself; it's evil.

[gateley]

19. You're so right -- distinguish between W-M and its patrons and employees. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. But those people DID manage to shop before WalMart came along.

Now, only Walmart can save us from the crisis created by Walmart.

[juno jones]

28. +1

Walmart doesn't pay enough for it's workers to live on. It's workers are heavily subsidised by government programs such as food stamps. In walmarts, they make people clock out to use the rest room and dock them if they pee too much. A walmart near me several years ago got busted putting it's graveyard stocking crew (mostly immigrants) in diapers so they could work all nite without breaks. Walmart IS THE CRISIS. Many people have no choice but to shop there. It is now the only game in town. Both my sisters in the midwest are suffering that conundrum, even tho they could theoretically afford something else. The availibility of options other than wally world is one of the things that keeps me on the west coast.

I don't get the people saying 'well it's the only thing poor people can afford'. Bullshit, in many places it's their only choice and in others, well I've been butt poor all my adult life and managed never to shop there, ESPECIALLY for groceries.

Most people on this board have the luxury of affording to pay a dollar more for something. Stop apologising for wally world and buy from locally owned stores and union shops. The job you save may be your own.

[totodeinhere]

32. Most Walmart stores were already in place before the economic downturn hit last year.

When you are unemployed with no realistic job leads and your unemployment insurance has either run out or soon will run out, you have no choice but to shop at the cheapest store you can find. And usually that's Walmart.

This in no way is meant to condone Walmart's management practices or their use of overseas slave labor needed to put out cheap products.

[RaleighNCDUer]

38. In the long term, WalMart created that situation - they come to town,

undercut local businesses, driving them out of business. The profits that used to stay local with the local businesses, that got spent locally, now go to Bentonville, leaving only the salaries of those who work there and municipal taxes for the one store, rather than for several local stores, to be recycled into the community.

It used to be somewhat more sustainable, when WalMart had a policy of buying from US producers, but after Sam Walton died his successors started purchasing all their product from overseas, which meant that the factory workers and manufacturers that were very possibly local before are now in China and Indonesia, so even THAT revenue stream is denied to our communities.

WalMart is a vampire, a parasite. It drains communities dry, leaving a withered husk.

WalMart is a tick on your ass.

[Heidi]

4. "Je schlechter es den Menschen geht, desto besser geht es uns."

A quote from the mother of the guys who founded super-discount grocery chain, Aldi.

Translation: "The worse off the people are, the better off we are."

[madrchsod]

8. i worked at a plant that made aldi brand dry mixes

the majority of the product was salt ,gum, or seaweed. aldi branded foods are just a hair better than walmart branded foods.

[Heidi]

15. I actually had my first Aldi experience a week ago.

The prices are absolutely excellent and a couple of the products (the red pesto is one of the best prepared sauces I've ever tasted, to be honest) were very good. But when I got home with my Aldi groceries, I was informed by CMW and a friend of ours about allegations against Aldi related to some very unsavory labor practides. I also know that Aldi UK fired a store manager for being HIV positive a few years ago. They can't get by with that kind of thing under Swiss labor laws, but that it happens in other countries is more than enough to keep me from shopping there, regardless of the prices.

[JVS]

22. The thing about shopping at Aldi, especially US Aldis (Germany's are a bit nicer) is that...

between the limited offering of almost entirely store brands, the limited produce section, and the fact that they'd rather burn the place down than open another check out lane, eventually going over to Walmart seems like indulging in a trip to Harrods

[Heidi]

25. We don't have a Wal-Mart here, that I know of, and certainly not in Ticino.

But I know what you're sayin' about Aldi. When I was there, it was just after noon on a Wednesday (kids here have Wednesday afternoon free from school, so there were lots of kids in Aldi with their moms), the day that the new sales week starts in the stores. It's a very small store, but everyone goes snaking along the aisles, bumper to bumper with their shopping carts, in single file. Two open check stands. Not good.

[madrchsod]

24. the european made chocolate that`s sold at aldi`s is great!

plus it`s cheaper than american/mexican made chocolate.

[Heidi]

26. Oh, dear.

madrchsod, I consider you a longtime DU friend. If you want some _really_ good European chocolate, send me a PM. :hug:

[Jennicut]

7. I will admit going to Walmart on occasion but then the guilt of buying Chinese made crap gets

to me and I stay away for a few months. The thing is, there will always be business there because of the really low prices. I do go to Target sometimes, but it has the same problems as Walmart without the bad rep.

[madmom]

12. As does meijer and kmart(sears). I've been saying this for quite some time now. Don't

just go after walmart and let the others slide because if walmart goes down, one of the others will just step in and take it's place.

[Jennicut]

14. I guess it is a question of do you really, really need a certain product right now?

Why not save up for the better quality product or go without. The other issue is the lower middle class and working class cannot afford to even save up for the more expensive products.

[madmom]

20. I do shop at walmart. We have 4 grocery stores in my town. I did comparison shopping at all 4, ...

same product, same brand, etc. Walmart was by far the less expensive as far as food. I checked some of their store brand for ingredient comparison, not much difference there. As far as non food items, when buying a particular brand item, why should I go across the street and buy the EXACT SAME product and pay more, just because it's not walmart? I know what the usual answer is, but living on a fixed income, I've got to decide what is in my best interest also.

[totodeinhere]

33. Many poor and unemployed can't afford to buy a lot of things even at Walmart.

But they have to eat so they buy their groceries there.

[cbdo2007]

17. Walmart isn't the only place that sells "Chinese made crap" you can get that anywhere.

Literally just about every store out there sells "Chinese made crap" and I'm sure your house and your closet are full of "Chinese made crap".

I've heard a lot of dumb reasons for not shopping at Walmart and I think yours of "the guilt of buying Chinese made crap" is the stupidest.

[Jennicut]

18. True, tons of the kid's toys are made from China

Maybe I should have said I feel guilty over their bad labor practices as well?

[JVS]

23. I don't buy the crap. I buy the groceries, which my chiseling bastard local grocers keep raising...

the prices of.

[lame54]

10. Speak for yourself

:grr: walmart

[madrchsod]

13. the only good thing about our walmart is...

the majority of the tax revenue from walmart is paid directly to our city run water system. our downtown transitioned from a big store to small business, art gallery,antique shops, and a very diversified restaurant and bar area.

the 2 million dollar gift from denny hastret for our waterfront park sure helped too....

[kjackson227]

16. Without Walmart, a lot of people would be unable to get their...

prescriptions filled.

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. Several stores here have discount prescriptions

Not only WalMart.

[quiller4]

41. That isn't true. The "low" generic prices WalMart advertises

so heavily is no cheaper that the prices of generics at many large pharmacies some of whom have larger formularies than WalMart. In my area CostLess, COSTCO and Fred Meyer all beat WalMart on formulary items including the most often prescribed drugs for asthma and hypertension and they are quite a bit higher for the most common generic injected insulin.

[quiller4]

42. That isn't true. The "low" generic prices WalMart advertises

so heavily is no cheaper that the prices of generics at many large pharmacies some of whom have larger formularies than WalMart. In my area CostLess, COSTCO and Fred Meyer all beat WalMart on formulary items including the most often prescribed drugs for asthma and hypertension and they are quite a bit higher for the most common generic injected insulin.

[AndyA]

21. Thanks to everyone who supports Walmart.

You are shopping yourselves out of a job.

Some facts about Walmart:

Walmart has received over $1.2 billion in taxpayer subsidies and counting.

Walmart initially creates jobs when it opens new stores, but after an initial boost, studies show a net loss of jobs and an erosion of the better jobs in the area

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, counted a net loss of 150 jobs after a Wal-Mart opened. Wal-Mart didn't create jobs; it destroyed them. For every person who got a job at Wal-Mart, 1.4 other retail workers lost theirs.

Wal-Mart has an effect on manufacturing jobs. Its cost-cutting makes it a leader in moving production overseas. The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., think tank interested in protecting middle- and low-income Americans, estimated the loss at 77 U.S. manufacturing jobs for every Wal-Mart.

As the competitive leader in the retail market, Wal-Mart sets the tone; studies have shown that when Wal-Mart comes to town, the wages of workers at other businesses also drop. Research out of the University of California, Berkeley, found in 2007 that total wages in a given county decline by 1.5% for each Wal-Mart that opens.

When an economist crunched the numbers, he traced a loss of 200,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs to China just by looking at Wal-Mart's additional sales for the six years ending in 2006. That's 33,333 jobs per year, or 641 every week.

Those numbers don't include the hundreds of thousands of jobs already lost to meet existing sales, he said. Nor do they take into account U.S. manufacturing jobs that suppliers to Wal-Mart moved to other countries, such as Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and India.

"Total job displacement may be two or three times as high as what I estimated there," Scott (the economist) said. "The question is who is going to make the goods that go in those shelves, and that's what's being overlooked and hidden in the PR statements from companies like Wal-Mart."

Americans truly are shopping themselves out of jobs, and they don't see it at all. They think they're saving money, and they can't afford to shop anywhere else. In reality, you can't afford to shop at Walmart.

Source: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/the-price-of-wal-mart-coming-to-town.aspx?page=1

[madmom]

31. The same can be said about buying foreign cars, or foreign anything.

[totodeinhere]

36. I understand what you are saying. But...

if you are one of the desperately poor, and we are seeing more and more poor people all the time, you are forced to live for the moment. While your contention that people can't afford to shop at Walmart because of the long term consequences of doing that is valid, you can't expect a poor person who has very little money to take that to heart and refuse to shop at Walmart. For someone in the situation, their only concern is their immediate survival, and the politics surrounding Walmart just isn't on their radar screen.

If your food stamps run out before the end of the month and you have a hungry family, you will seek out the cheapest food that you can buy, and that's at Walmart. A lot of food banks are maxed out and can't always help either.

As for me personally, I am one of the lucky ones so far. I still have a job. And I don't shop at Walmart. Nevertheless, I don't judge someone else who does.

[RebelOne]

27. The only reasons that I do not shop at WalMart

is that the store is always too crowded and the only available parking I can find is way in the back of the lot in never-never land.

[Fumesucker]

29. It's a lot less crowded at two am..

I hate shopping in crowds and have a screwed up sleep schedule so most of the time I shop in the wee hours, it's much more pleasant and the cashiers often appreciate having someone come through the line and chat for a moment to help them stay awake.

[Statistical]

35. Good point on Walmart vs Target (and others)

I know all these folks in Westchester County, N.Y., where I live, who loved going to Target (TGT, Fortune 500), and actually talked about it, because it SEEMED different than Wal-Mart.

Was it? Is it? Let's see: Non-union employees? Check. A lot of overseas-made products? Check. Sells basically the same stuff as Wal-Mart? Check. (But Target's dog mascot, Bullseye, is so much cuter than Wal-Mart's dog mascot, Ol' Roy!) People are just looking for good deals now, no matter where they find them and don't feel compelled to talk about it at their kids' soccer games. Maybe Wal-Mart is now the new Target -- who knows?

I never understood this. Target sell 90% of the same shit that Walmart does. They have non union employees and pay well below a living wage. Somehow they are Double Plus Good when Walmart is double plus Ungood.

Did Walmart kill mom & pop stores? Of course. However even if Walmart hadn't existed mom & pops would have been destroyed by all the big box stores (Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Sears, Barnes & Noble, etc). Economies of scale, low paid workers, and money for capital expenditures ensured these stores gained a competitive advantage that they would have continued to exploit.

So without Walmart the mom & pops would still have died it just would have taken a couple more years. Anyone thinking otherwise is in denial. Find me a bookstore that can match Barnes & Nobles prices & selection. Even if they could can they match Amazon.com?


My choice of grocery stores is 3 non-union shops which pay minimum wage, Walamrt which pays more (but not enough) and Harris Teeter which I believe (?) is union but the prices are so high my credit card maxes out just walking in the door.

So would shopping at non-union Food Lion and paying more (nice profit for shareholders) which pays it's employees less than Walmart be somehow less evil?

I don't think so. If I get a 20% pay raise I might start shopping at Harris Teeter (if I can confirm they are union and pay living wage). Until then I am not paying more to support a store employing non-union min wage workers just because they are NOT Walmart. Sorry.

[GoCubsGo]

39. Actually...

Business practices aside, they may share many of the same name-brands in eletronics, etc., but I have found Target's products to be of much quality than Walmart's. Most of the clothing from Walmart falls apart after two or three trips to the laundry. I have had much better luck with those from Target. I also like the styles I can get there better. Target's housewares and furniture are far more contemporary in style, and the textiles are of better quality, IMO. My house is decorated in contemporary/modern style, and the kuntrified stuff Walmart sells just doesn't fit in my house. The rare times I go to Walmart are times when I want to purchase crafts items or fabrics. The only other options I have for that are to drive 30 miles to the nearest Michael's, or go to Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby creeps me out with its overt religiosity. There's just something very unsettling about shopping to the music you used to sing at church as a kid.

[donheld]

40. Still hate'm