is walmart really the evil one?

[old2soon]

And another F Y I. The Wal Mart in West Plains Mo. has a lot of stores that are very close to it. Womens fashion shop or shops shoe stores discount dollar stores a Sears a furniture store a J C Penneys and a few mom and pop stores a couple of fast food outlets that have been there longer than i've lived in this area-14 years. Yes i shop at Wal Mart. BUT as some others have stated-NO ONE has a foot on my neck and a gun to my head forcing me to shop at wally wurld!!   I have two grocery stores here in town that have lower prices on food and better quality. And i know that my shopping here in town keeps a few of my fellow citizens with a paycheck. There are some items at wally wurld that the local mom and pops can't come close to on price. Have we had a few mom and pops close?? Yes-but fer damn sure NOT all of them. Last time i checked the business world overall is a VERY fluid thing. Always changing and always evolving. It may not be polite but it is simple-adapt or fall by the wayside. RIDE SAFE.

[MarkT]

The reason walmart is doing so well, is because of the degradation of values in our society (sound familiar lately?) - folks will sell out their ethics - if they have any - for a few pennies saved.  Very few people IMO don't know about walmart's ethics - that is, the lack of the same.  IOW they will tolerate the known bad behaviors for a (low) price.  And most aren't running a small store that is being, or has been killed by the evil empire.  To survive running a M&P business now requires a business model that doesn't compete with WM on price.  It would be best to not sell anything that the evil empire sells.  And forget about walk-in traffic driven by what used to be a downtown with stores generating traffic by their close proximity to each other.  Their doors are all closed, so if you depend on walk-up traffic, better get on board at the mall now anchored by the evil empire.



I WILL NOT SHOP THERE.   There are SIX - COUNT EM - SIX - walmart "supercenters" within 20 minutes of my rural house.  DO YA THINK THEY HAVE ARRIVED AT RETAIL SATURATION YET?  .  They just built another one THREE MILES from my place, on the edge of a small rural town of 1500 souls. There is now NO POSSIBILITY of the dead town center reviving.  

It saddens me that the majority of the comments in this thread about walmart, are about simply saving a few bucks without regard to walmart's destruction of small town America - and their other horrid behaviors. Yes I know, in these tough times, a few bucks can make a big difference.  So the decision becomes, what is your price to support compromised ethics?  Unfortunately, it's bigger than that - YOU ARE MISSING THE BIG PICTURE. To begin with - after walmart drops their prices below cost to put the other stores in the local market out of business - what keeps them from setting their prices in the stratosphere when the competition is gone?  Did you notice last year, that the Supreme Court THREW OUT the women's complaint about discrimination, ON THE BASIS THAT THEIR SAMPLE WAS TOO SMALL TO REPRESENT ALL WOMEN EMPLOYEES OF WALMART.  What chance did these poor women have, up against the unlimited legal resources of THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMPANY?  Do you know, whenever walmart is ordered to produce evidence in the discovery phase of every lawsuit, they SIMPLY REFUSE TO PRODUCE AND THEN PAY THE COURT ORDERED FINE FOR CONTEMPT.  Which might be six figures, but it's peanuts to their bottom line, and a pittance compared to the ramifications of what the court might order as a result of the discovery evidence.  THEY NEED TO BE FINED IN THE BILLIONS.

Did you notice in the news last year, walmart announced a BIG increase in employee health care co-pays, with a reduction in coverage to their full time employees (of course, part timers get no health care). I'm recalling, it was around a 40% increase in cost.  Analysts reported, WALMART IS WAY OUT OF LINE WITH THE REST OF INDUSTRY, HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE 5% NOT 40.  They said it appears to be a corporate decision to boost walmart's bottom line.  The already underpaid employees interviewed, said they will have to choose between food and health care.  Food will get the nod, and their health care will now be emergency-room care, and other welfare methods. Guess who pays for that?  YOU DO!  

Dave Lippman has assembled the points better than I can.  ITS NOT JUST A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE, OR SAVING A QUARTER HERE AND THERE.  IT'S ABOUT AMERICA, AND OUR WAY OF LIFE - WHICH HAS BEEN, AND IS BEING KILLED BY WALMART.

From Dave Lippman:

Let's talk about why

I
HATE
WAL-MART

I don't like whips, I don't like chains
I don't go choppin' up my neighbors' brains

UP AGAINST THE WAL-MART

Wal-Mart is the nation's (and the world's) biggest retailer. But the problem is not just Wal-Mart - Toys R Us, McDonalds, Microsoft, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, the Gap, Kinko's, Circuit City, Home Depot, Nations Bank...all wipe out the smaller, more local competition. Why? Because they can. McDonalds in the Eiffel Tower, K-Mart in Greenwich Village - is this our destiny? Read on....

Only a company of their size can buy direct from manufacturers, cutting out the distributor. They buy so cheaply they can resell to other stores at cheaper than wholesale. Thus they can ruin the competition through PREDATORY PRICING.

WAL-MART REPORT CARD

Human Rights       F
Diversity             F
Community          F
Ecology              F
Spirituality           F


The trend of mega-mergers and huge chains is wiping out small business everywhere, and with it the distinctiveness of local cultures. Not just in the U.S., but all over this great varied planet. Chains are everywhere, and who benefits? Not the small business, not the small town, not the individual - only a few guys pretty high up in the chain's food chain. Consider: Wal-Mart's annual sales are larger than the entire Gross Domestic Product of 161 countries! Do the Wal-Math: They are bigger than most nations, yet they have no government that answers to the people it affects. They are unaccountable to anyone. Democracy must include the ability to control those who control us!

WAL-MART RULES

If a town declines to welcome GodzillaMart, the next town over will take it, pulling trade and tax dollars out of local coffers. The town has no choice - the terms are dictated by the retail giant from afar. Is this right, fair, or decent? Is this Middle American family values? No more mom and pop stores here. The nation is being covered by a Wal-to-Wal-Mart carpet, the nation blanketed not with daisy chains of wildflowers, but something more like kudzu. Welcome, Weed-Mart.
Big businesses put their money in big banks, taking it far out of town. Money spent in a chain store leaves town on the next electronic transfer, while money spent in a local store circulates in the community seven more times before leaving. In other words, chains use local workers and consumers as a colony, extracting their wealth and exporting to the mother country. Sound familiar? Can you say American Revolution?

BUT IT'S CHEAP AND CONVENIENT!

YES. For shoppers. But guess what: Democracy, human rights, and social justice are never cheap, and seldom convenient. If we shop conveniently while Rome burns, we'll have only ourselves to blame when they've reduced our workforce to workfare and our towns to malls, our culture to cookie-cutter sameness.

YES. IT'S CONVENIENT TO HIRE CHEAP LABOR.
But there are harmful, hidden costs to convenience.

SMALL BUSINESS PEOPLE...

...end up working in a department of Wal-Mart, nostalgic for their homey store and friendly neighborhood shopping experience. And lots of these jobs are part-time and without benefits.Who are the pillars of your community? The merchant, the banker, the principal, the poet, the police chief, the alderman.....None of these people can decide what sort of town you'll have. ONLY Wal-Mart CAN. Megastores tear the social fabric.

SMALL TOWN LIFE ALTERED

Downtowns destroyed, the shopping experience robbed of its community flavor, reduced to Downtown in a Box. Shopping malls are all the same - you could be anywhere in the country (or world), except where you really are - your town.

THEY'VE GOT US...

...filing through their aisles and checkstands in orderly fashion, buying their wares and buying their revision of the flavor of our lives. Perhaps we've forgotten what it was like to walk instead of drive, to encounter our neighbors on foot instead of in traffic. Perhaps we've forgotten the vibrancy of civic life - the discussion of issues, the (God forbid!)...

POLITICAL ACTIVITY

that takes place on city streets. In a privately owned shopping mall, it's illegal to pass out leaflets telling shoppers about the suffering of the workers who picked the strawberries, sewed the sneakers....This separation of commerce from social responsibility means that we don't get to vote on basic human rights where it really matters, where we have power: at the point of sale.

STAY IN YOUR CARS.
DO NOT TALK TO STRANGERS.
DO NOT QUESTION THE WAY WE'VE ORGANIZED
  YOUR SHOPPING FOR YOU.
SHOP TIL YOU DROP.
HAVE A NICE DAY.

WHAT ABOUT THE WORKERS?

The concentration of ownership and power, along with treaties like GATT and NAFTA, means more and cruder exploitation of workers everywhere. Jobs flee America as manufacturing is done by people like Wendy Diaz in Honduras. Diaz told Kathie Lee Gifford what it was like to earn 31 cents an hour, allowed to go to the bathroom only twice a day, be cursed and screamed at, and be able to do nothing about it. There is one unionized Wal-Mart - it's in Ontario.
Wal-Mart's "Faded Glory" t-shirts were made by workers earning 23 cents an hour. Faded Glory indeed! One wishes to ask Wal-Mart, in the famous words asked of Senator Joe McCarthy, "Have, you, at long last, no human decency?"
Most of the workers in these cheap or slave-labor factories around the third world are WOMEN - or GIRLS!. Think FAMILY VALUES here. And two-thirds of employees in the retail industry are women. Retail is marked by low wages, low benefits, poor health care, and powerless employees. The United Food and Commercial Workers led a Women's Day protest against Wal-Mart; according to UFCW Vice President Patricia Scarcelli,

    "We cannot change the economic condition of women until we change the wages and working conditions in the retail industry. And we cannot change the retail industry until we change Wal-Mart. They will not have our consumer dollars to wage war on our paychecks."

The White House, under pressure from workers' movements around the world, has instituted a Task Force on sweatshops, pushing for independent monitoring and a living wage. Wal-Mart has refused to join in. They have also opposed health care reform and minimum wage increase, and defied the embargo on Haiti's former military regime, paying workers 14 cents an hour. Why? That's their job. What's ours?

MUSIC

Wal-Mart tells the record industry what they don't like, and the industry produces special "clean" versions for sale by Wal-Mart - versions which are then resold to other retailers. Not to defend obscenity, but look who's deciding what's obscene? Is Wal-Mart your daddy? They are the biggest music retailer in the country - in many places, the only music retailer. Wal-Mart has become the W-chip, blocking or altering album covers and lyrics - not on your home television, but at the global level. Such power is never restricted to obscenity - it always leads to wider controls. They cause musicians to censor themselves in advance. Get Wal-Mart out of the censorship business!

THE ENVIRONMENT

The more concrete we lay, the more we get in a motorized box to drive to a great box to buy things in boxes to take home to our boxes...the more we box ourselves and the environment in. Mall means sprawl. Look at the landscape that is our heritage, our birthright, and decide if you want it malled. Do you want America to become Generica? Stop Sprawl-Mart.

IT'S INEVITABLE - IT'S PROGRESS.
YOU CAN'T STOP IT. IT'S MORE EFFICIENT.
IT'S CONVENIENT. I LIKE IT. GET OVER IT.

Well, God help us. Convenience and efficiency do not make it right. Placing a high value on economic effectiveness and a low value on human fairness and diversity is not the American way. It's not any way at all, except the survival of the meanest.

IT'S NOT PROGRESS!

Wal-Mart may have won this round, but David did beat Goliath in the end. Among those opposing Wal-Mart are the UFCW, FIEF (an international labor organization working against Wal-Mart's exploitation in many countries), and community organizations from Gig Harbor, Washington, Santa Clarita, California, De Land, Florida, Bath, Maine, Guelph, Ontario....to the fine folks at "Save Our Small Town Way of Life" in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

When you make decisions as a consumer, you may be cutting your own throat as a worker.

BE A CITIZEN

think, learn, and act. It's a matter of community vs. consumerism.....

BRAINS VS. CHAINS

For more information, check out the following websites.
www.wakeupwalmart.com
www.walmartwatch.com
National Labor Committee at www.nlcnet.org
Corporate Watch at www.corpwatch.org
www.sprawl-busters.com
www.theroc.org/boycotts/walmart.htm.
http://www.hel-mart.com/links.php
http://www.1worldcommunication.org/Walmart.htm

[czuch]

I was at the evil empire last weekend.
 The  young lady at the register counted back my change old style, not just dumped it in my hand so it was difficult to count and put back in my wallet. I was amazed and it actually stopped me in my tracks. I went to the manager and let him know she was worth watching for when advancement was available. My day was made by this cashier.

[Xtracho]

Exactly right, nothing more important than maximizing profit.  Let the American tax payer take up the slack in shelling out food stamps and emergency room type healthcare to the working poor. Don't like it, go work for Wendy's

Sarcasm noted. Wal-Mart or any other corporation has no duty to lessen the burden upon the american taxpayer. That's the government's job. Unless you favor government stepping in and forcing corporate america to do so. If so, then let's just do away with the issue and redistribute your earnings to those "working poor". Karl Marx would be dancing a jig in his grave.

Dave Lippman? You have to be kidding...right? 

[MP]

MarkT

I understand your viewpoint.  Very well.  Like I said, I like small shops!

I am just giving the facts as to WHY Walmart is thriving:  They are giving the consumer what the consumer wants!  Lower prices, convenience.

What is your "solution"?  Seriously.

I do not think just calling them "The Evil Empire" will work.

Should the gov't pass a law banning all large stores?

All Industries go thru this.

Auto companies, used to be hundreds of them.
Computer makers.  Used to be many.
etc. etc.

MP

[Valker]

A "reviving of the downtown" shops was mentioned. Most of those were dead before Wal Mart came in. I guess Malls were the evil empire then. This discussion is exactly like blaming Honda for the failure of Triumph, BSA, etc. back in the 60s and 70s. Was it Honda's fault that people wanted to ride bikes that went fast, were comfortable, didn't break down, and didn't leak? Change is the only consistent thing in business. I guess Xerox was an evil empire when more people bought their copiers than spirit master ditto machines? Digital cameras caused Polaroid to stop making cameras??? To blame a company for giving a customer what they want is ludicrous. If blame is warranted, blame the customers.
My town hasn't had a Burger King in 25 years, but it's not McDonald's fault. ???

[MP]

+1 Valker

Small towns were dying here LONG before Walmart came to town.  The big town, the big store, just has more to offer.

I think you should blame cars!  Seriously.

When you had to take a buggy to town, you did not go so far!

Good cars, good paved roads, allow us to go farther to get what we want.

My nearest Walmart is 60 miles away.  Town of 20,000.

That town laments that a lot of people are driving 100 miles, to get to the NEXT larger town, to get more options to shop. 

THAT town laments that their people drive 400 miles farther, to get to Miinneapolis, to get MORE options!

It never ends.  Business has to provide what the consumers want, or they are finished.

[MarkT]

MarkT

I understand your viewpoint.  Very well.  Like I said, I like small shops!

I am just giving the facts as to WHY Walmart is thriving:  They are giving the consumer what the consumer wants!  Lower prices, convenience.

What is your "solution"?  Seriously.

I do not think just calling them "The Evil Empire" will work.

Should the gov't pass a law banning all large stores?

All Industries go thru this.

Auto companies, used to be hundreds of them.
Computer makers.  Used to be many.
etc. etc.

MP

I don't have a solution that's viable.  I am also against too much government which we already have.  God forbid I get on the left's bandwagon.  You can't legislate ethics.  I'm just bitching about the dumbing-down of our society, and the loss of cultural differences - small town America and the excitement of new places, different sights, regional culture.  If it's all the same everywhere, what's the point of travel?  Reminds me of the comment overheard, from the little Japanese boy to his mother at a U.S. airport: "LOOK Mom, there's McDonald's here too!" 

Yearning for a different time, maybe in the past, I suppose.  WM, like the "Too big to fail" banks, is too big and thus has too much influence.  There might be some tweaks that could happen - like appropriate penalties that are (say) a percentage of gross sales, for illegal behaviors - like contempt of court for refusing to turn over court-ordered records. Maybe tweaking monopoly laws - but that's getting into Constitutional protections, and government involvement, a slippery slope with no doubt unintended consequences, a scary place.  I'm not king of the world, so trying to come up with real solutions that would go nowhere would just be a waste of time.   Meanwhile I can not support this company so I can sleep at night, and make sure some others have at least heard about WM's bad behaviors.

Thanks for asking in a reasonable discourse.  Maybe brainstorming discussions could come up with some answers.  Where it would go from there - who knows.  I know I don't want my world to have only walmarts to choose from and it's heading in that direction.

[Xtracho]

That didn't take long playing the Karl Marx card.   By the growing disparity in wealth in this country, I'd say capitalism is doing just fine. I would venture to guess that most folks on this board have more in common with the struggling  Walmart worker than the $16,000 an hour Walmart CEO. Alot of people pride themselves by being a Capitalist where in reality they only work for a Capitalist. Anyway you spin it, we are now competing with the the slave wage earners worldwide and in today's environment there is nothing we can really do about it.
Now I'm ready for the bootstrap card.  

You're the one lamenting and blaming corporate america for the government's tax code, welfare, and what ever else you want to blame them for. And imagine that....a Capitalist employing people....how novel an idea. You can't have it both ways pal. But like I said, bypass corporate america and hand over your earnings....start a revolution....or CHANGE as it was characterized by the incumbent. And the Karl Marx card? Your first post begged it. Whether or not anyone has anything in common with the "struggling" Wal-Mart worker is irrelevant. Unless it's to further your argument that corporate america should be forced by government to address the "disparity of wealth."

[Tropic traveler]

That didn't take long playing the Karl Marx card.   By the growing disparity in wealth in this country, I'd say capitalism is doing just fine. I would venture to guess that most folks on this board have more in common with the struggling  Walmart worker than the $16,000 an hour Walmart CEO. Alot of people pride themselves by being a Capitalist where in reality they only work for a Capitalist. Anyway you spin it, we are now competing with the the slave wage earners worldwide and in today's environment there is nothing we can really do about it.
Now I'm ready for the bootstrap card.  

Do tell, exactly what is your even handed solution to this horrible situation that has been created by Wal-Mart & the evil capitalists??

In this thread we've managed to point out all the terrible things that have befallen us due to WM but I'd like to see the thought process taken all the way to it's conclusion.
That would be fascinating. 

[MP]

Thanks, MarkT.

I feel most of what you do about the state of affairs.

I travel a lot.  I used to run truck all over the US.

I love eating local dishes.  But, especially on the Big Road, it is getting impossible to get any "local" food.  Every truckstop is the same!  Yeeeech!

I want southern food in the south, mex in the sw, seafood on the coast, etc.  But it is all fast food and pizza!  Yuck.

I try to support small, local shops and eateries wherever I go.  I am sure it is not enough.  I wish it was.  I can think of no solution, other than trying to support those stores, even though it costs us a little more.  The problem is, 99% of consumers will not.

I just do not see Walmart, or the other big box stores, as evil.  They are fulfilling the wants and needs of the vast majority of consumers.

God Bless Friend, and I love your exhaust you made for me!

MP