January 13, 2005

• Have you ever noticed that walmart doesn't sell anything that can't fit in a house trailer?? why is that?
• Monkey filter loves Wal Mart.
• If I hadn't been watching the Dick 'n Bush show for the last 4 years, I'd be sensitive to spreading direct lies like this. I am not typing this. This is not a post. No Internet was used in the displaying of this post, which this is not. flip-flop! flip-flop! *shoots self*
• I like to walk through Wal Mart and see how loudly I have to say the word "union" before I am apprehended.
• The thousand-dollar question is: does anyone who might shop at Wal-Mart actually read newspapers?
• A Distorted Lens on Walmart Job Creation or Destruction (PDF) Disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of many of Walmarts practices, but I'm not gonna buy a dumbed down version of either side of the debate without the big picture.
• Further proof that Walmart head office simply does not get it, at all. These ads are a complete waste of money. No one with a lick of sense or suspicion is going to believe them. The ad says the company
• The ad says the company’s average pay is nearly twice the minimum wage Somebody must've read this book.
• The ad says the company’s average pay is nearly twice the minimum wage, that 74 percent of its hourly workers are full time and that Wal-Mart offers health and life insurance, company stock and a 401(k) retirement plan. Does that average pay include the CEO's salary? That just might bring it to twice the minimim wage. And what percentage of the insurance does the company pay? Wal-Mart is a virus on the American community. It sells below cost to oust any competition, and the stores are just plain lousy. There is nothing interesting about them.
• Tell me the MEDIAN salary.
• The easy solution for my fellow WalMart haters: don't shop there. That's been made a hell of a lot easier since we moved to Toronto, but back when we were in Missouri, WalMart dominated the junk housewares landscape. Thankfully, we've never been fans of buying plastic, already obsolete baubles and trinkets, which is primarily what they sell. I don't care if they actually sell at lower prices for certain items: I'd rather spend my money at a store with decent service that isn't owned by someone I find to have questionable morals, and to not purchase carloads of useless crap.
• WalMart: four of its Walton owners ranked among the U.S.'s ten richest people --Forbes.
• coppermac: Walmart has been making inroads into Canada for years now. My community is in the middle of a fight to keep them out, but it doesn't look promising.
• I've noticed them here, rocket, but they don't seem to be doing too well. There was a piece on Newsworld the other night indicating their sales were less than 50% of their projections over the entire country (and were worst hit in Quebec, I believe). Best of luck keeping the bastards out. If they do get in, you can always use an array of civil disobedience measures to harrass them, as I've seen happen here in Toronto.
• I would like to bow down to the Canadians for triumphing when Americans have barely bothered to try...
• "Have you ever noticed that walmart doesn't sell anything that can't fit in a house trailer?? why is that?" And what might be your point in saying that, HuronBob?
• A caller on the Ed something-or-other radio show [On America Left on XM sat radio] this afternoon said he used to work at wal-mart in the loss prevention department and said he had access to pay rates and said the rank and file make six something an hour, the department leads made seven something an hour. He said white people would make a buck or so more a hour more than non-whites. An asst manager would pull down $29K salary and the big boss store manager makes $200K. The guy was just a caller and could have pulled all of that out of his ass [and I could have paid better attention to the details so I had more precise figures]. But this doesn't surprise me about Wal-mart. Wal-mart's image campaign has been going on for a long while -- all of the recent TV ads are all about how great it is to work at Wal-mart, how great having a Wal-mart in town is, and shit like that.
• Big Davey... my point is that the merchandise sold at walmart tends to be fairly low quality and cheap and would probably be aimed at a demographic that is more likely to live in a mobile home than in a 500k house... it was a joke... or not..... take it as you wish
• Wal-Mart's Chinese imports reach $18 billion this year Thanks a lot, Wal-Mart. See you in hell.
• Ironic that ol' Sam started it to sell USA-made goods eh?
• Man, I hope that in some dimension of existence the people who create spinmeister damage-control PR bullshit like this -- who LIE to make their corporate masters look better -- pay some kind of karmic price for their moral cowardice.
• Wal-Mart's Chinese imports reach $18 billion this year Wal-Mart sure does love cheap labor.
• genial- A Washington Times op-ed is probably one of the last places you'll want to look, if you want the "big picture". Just sayin.
• Moe Tucker quit Wal-Mart to go on tour.
• I wonder how history will remember Wal Mart? No quality = no hope. There is no empire I would like to see fall faster than Wal Mart. They represent a lowering of standards and the elimination of competition based on quality. Think of all the wonderful things that could be created! I once knew a girl who would go to Wal Mart for fun. Guess the rest. "Hold on a minute, we have good jobs" This is the peak of arrogance. An executive saying that stocking shelves "twice minimum wage" is a good job. It's not a good job, it's relatively good economically, yes - but there is so much more to life! Jobs are paid slavery.
• I'll just say it really quickly: screw Walmart, long live Costco!
• Wal-Mart's Chinese imports reach $18 billion this year Remember what the star in Wal-mart's logo stands for... COMMUNISM! (actually not kidding)
• "fairly low quality and cheap and would probably be aimed at a demographic that is more likely to live in a mobile home than in a 500k house" in other words poor white people, especially those in the southeastern U.S. -- called rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, white trash and/or trailer trash -- the one broad group in America it's perfectly okay for everybody else to be bigoted against. I see. How about this as a general politeness rule: why not give my people as much verbal respect as is ordinarily given to blacks, Jews, Muslim, gays, Native Americans, etc. etc.? If you don't, then you have no valid moral reason to being called a "nigger", "spic", "fag", or whatever "non-typical" demographic fits you.
• Good point
• big davey- i'm not sure i understand what you are talking about, exactly. but let me know when walmart opens a store on rodeo drive in LA, or even michigan avenue in chicago. jet and ebony also target a specific, uhh, demographic. is that racist, too?
• I think the point was that people who live in house trailers are a significant target demographic, not that 'white trash' is to be derided for shopping there. But, feel free to imagine all sorts of racist innuendo in HuronBob's words. I certainly didn't see any, and I grew up within a stone's throw of two different trailer parks (which had people of many different races as tenants).
• HuronBob's a zombie, don't upset him.
• Wal-mart is very seductive to shop at, especially if money is tight. I went there this Christmas - it was across the road, and I needed to find some things fast. It is cheap. Where I live in the U.S., it's also the only store with affordable curtains. But those cheap prices are also what is making money tight for so many North Americans - it is a vicious cycle. If you cannot make enough money, you shop at Wal-mart, which pays its own workers (and forces its distributors and suppliers to be equally ruthless or loose their biggest customer) so little that they can shop no where but Wal-Mart, and even then, cannot afford much there. Their "grocery" section is almost entirely mass-produced prepared food - I don't see any lines of fresh vegetables, healthy meats. Just boxes of cereals, canned goods, etc. But I also find the argument that Wal-mart is worried about poor people laughable. They don't even care about people who don't own cars. Recently, a Walmart went up in Rexdale, and I attended the community meetings (not consultations - we were simply informed as to what would happen). The company had refused to become an anchor store for a local mall (one which held an ESL teaching centre, many small family owned shops and was the major place for senior citizens in the community to socialise), and instead replaced it with a huge box store, surrounded by a sea of parking. There are no sidewalks to the store - anyone who is a pedestrian (like most of the senior citizens who live across the street in a building) must brave the traffic in the parking lot. They refused to even consider putting in a stair case from the street to the store where it is close (there is a steep hill), forcing pedestrians to walk all the way around.
• There's a great article I like to point out for Walmart bashers. It gives you specific ammunition, which helps the bashing immensely, IMHO. Here are a few quotes: "As of last spring, the average pay of a sales clerk at Wal-Mart was $8.50 an hour, or about $14,000 a year, $1,000 below the government's definition of the poverty level for a family of three." and "Despite the implied claims of Wal-Mart's current TV advertising campaign, fewer than half— between 41 and 46 percent—of Wal-Mart employees can afford even the least-expensive health care benefits offered by the company" but the most damning is: "For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees."
• Thanks, invoke!
• Let's get into the difference between white trash and people who live in trailer homes! As a thread topic, it's a sure winner.
• BigDavey, the nearest Wal*Mart to me, in Panorama City in the San Fernando Valley, has a predominantly hispanic clientele, who are, stereotypically, much less likely to live in trailers than in small apartments, four+ people per bedroom. Either way, it is still interesting that W*M sells pretty large window air conditioners but no full-sized refrigerators, no sofas or mattresses but quite a few futons. They seem to have little interest in selling much to a clientele that live in full-sized houses. And I've known people who live in double-wide mobile homes on semi-permanent foundations worth less than $80K whose lifestyles are not supported by a lot of Wal*Mart's merchandise. I thought the "trailer house" comment was very apt, and not insulting to anybody.
• from the live poll... What do you think about the world's largest retailer? * 46047 responses Wal-Mart is great for communities, workers and finding the lowest prices. 21% It's a great place to pay less for goods, but workers get the short end of the stick. 22% Wal-Mart stifles independent businesses and eliminates competition. 58% interesting that so many msnbc readers feel that way.
• wow...I made Davey mad... sorry davey... didn't mean to offend you... Lived in a trailer myself for a while, but didn't shop at walmat...there weren't any, we used Kmart back then! The point was/is that walmart does not pitch to the same crowd as Saks..... which then determines the quality/price/type of product sold.... Don't make me get my zombie stuff on!
• Wow genial, I just read that WashingtonTimes article you linked. Eww. Talk about "dumbed down", that article fits it. I am amazed at the sheer amount of chutzpah required to claim with a straight face that Wal-Mart is good for the poor, and has helped the *country* keep inflation down. I suggest that an indirect subsidy of $2.5 billion a year just might help explain why they do so darn well. That is a $2.5 billion dollar transfer from american taxpayers to Wal-Mart's stockholders, every year. Think about it. Cheap underwear doesn't really seem like a reasonable tradeoff for our subsidy, does it? If what we want to do is subsidise food & clothing for the poor, then a direct investment seems more worthwhile and honest in my eyes.
• The UFCW currently represents Mal-Wart workers at the only unionized store in North America in Jonquière Quebec. Other certification battles are under way in Canada.
• Walmart is evil. The CEO is a lying barstard. 'nuf said
• Were Going to war! bring your Duns. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050406.wcantire0406/BNStory/Business
• Wal-Mart: The Newest Matchmaker