Why is disrupting communities good? Why is censorship good? Why is policing (driving jobs overseas) suppliers good? Who’s impersonating Jason?
Going back over the list:
Distrupting communities:
What’s bad about forcing rivals to close?
Why does it matter that Wal-Mart doesn’t increase the number of jobs - when the number of jobs is defined by the number of people? Why does it matter that Wal-Mart doesn’t increase tax revenue?
Policing the culture:
I’m not arguing its good; I’m arguing that they’re giving their customers what they want, and the businesses they replace did it too.
Dominating suppliers:
No idea what you’re talking about. Would you prefer Wal-Mart demand manufacturers charge you more for the stuff you buy?
For chrissakes, I’m in the odd position of defending the free market here…
Disrupting: Would you like more than one store to shop at? Higher paying jobs are swapped for poverty level jobs. Cool!
Culture: C’mon, covering up Cosmo covers? Removing Maxim and Stuff?
That’s Bible Belt stuff. Well, at least I can add to my gun collection…
Suppliers: One of the ways to lower costs is to cut corners, use cheaper ingredients etc… etc… End result: cheap, low quality crap. Woohoo!
Dude, come back to the Good Side! 
Well, the fact that many Wal-Marts do sell firearms is a clear indication that they are market sensitive (this would never happen in California), so there’s no reason to believe that every single Wal-Mart refuses to sell Mature rated material. Besides, how can a company sell guns in some stores and then turn around and not sell GTA3 in some stores? I’d be asking: So, you can’t buy a game that simulates shooting a gun, but you can buy an actual gun? That’d make no sense.
Disrupting: Would you like more than one store to shop at? Higher paying jobs are swapped for poverty level jobs. Cool!
How many hardware stores were in these towns before Wal-Mart arrived? 1, maybe 2.
As to higher-paying jobs/poverty level - that’s the market. If you don’t like it, the way to deal with it is to adjust things after the fact with taxes or whatever.
And the more I think about the censoring problem, the more I can’t see a solution to it. You can’t legally force them to stop it, and small-towners have made it clear they like it.
Seriously, what’s the suggested alternatives here? Ban Wal-Mart from opening stores? Convince people to shop elsewhere, even though they’ve already made it already clear they prefer Wal-Mart?
Suppliers: One of the ways to lower costs is to cut corners, use cheaper ingredients etc… etc… End result: cheap, low quality crap. Woohoo!
Wal-Mart doesn’t cut costs by filling their cereal boxes with sand. They cut costs by increased efficiency, buying in bulk, etc., etc.
… not paying their employees a living wage … buying goods from third world sweatshops…
… not paying their employees a living wage … buying goods from third world sweatshops…[/quote]
As I said, you have a point on wages, but I don’t follow how that matters too much. Don’t see the difference on the third world; everyone does that too.
And for that productivity number from the chart above, it doesn’t really matter how much the input goods cost.
Continue to buy at competitors while they still exist!
Might want to take up with the small towns, then.
Wal-Mart is only doing what it can to survive. For many cities, they are the best paying jobs around. If they started paying a competitive wage, even their own employees won’t shop there.
Your argument ignores some basic facts, too. For instance, Mercedes is doing very poorly right now. Sales are way down and so is quality control, to the point where the company’s Chrysler brand was deemed more reliable in the recent Power survey. And McDonald’s stock price has been skyrocketing most of the year. Price matters, especially in an economic downturn.
Your argument ignores some basic facts, too. For instance, Mercedes is doing very poorly right now. Sales are way down and so is quality control, to the point where the company’s Chrysler brand was deemed more reliable in the recent Power survey. And McDonald’s stock price has been skyrocketing most of the year. Price matters, especially in an economic downturn.[/quote]
So does alcohol. My cousin told me to buy Budweiser 3 years ago. I should have listened.
No, they could survive with unionized workers. The grocery chains do. By fighting the unions they are positioning themselves not to “survive” but to come in and undercut the grocery chains.
Do you really think Wal-Mart with it’s buying clout and supply chain wouldn’t be able to compete with grocery stores if they paid union wages? They’d still have the edge.
Gee, I wonder if there’s any truth to stories like this?
From http://www.walmartsucks.org
Last spring my attorneys told me that WAl-Mart had a secret life insurance policy on my husband with Hartford Ins. in the amount of $300,000 which they had collected on shortly after my husband died. In l993-94 Wal-Mart took out 350,000 secret life insurance policies on low level employees who also had their health insurance with them. They called these policies dead peasant policies or dead janitor policies. When an employee died WAl-Mart collected, not the families.
Most of the site is typical rage-against-the-machine type crap, but that was an interesting story from a widow.
ian
It makes sense for Wal-Mart to collect, they’re paying for the policies, not the employees.
I don’t get it, this is a common practice? My employer contributes to a group life insurance policy for me, but my family collects if I die, not my employer. If my employer had a secret life insurance policy taken out on me that meant that they would derive some benefit from my death–I think I would want to shoot them first before they got to me. Work them harder. We get a cheque if they die!
The mailing address for that site’s legal fund is in Newfoundland, where Wal*Mart has certainly had a profound impact on smaller retailers that have no capacity to deal with a corporate machine and where, with an unemployement rate of 20-40% depending on the year, people will take any job that is offered. There are few opportunities elsewhere for workers.
ian
Yes, but usually only for upper-management staff.
As incredibly icky as it sounds (“off your employees and cash that check!”), the consensus after it made its way around the blogs a while back is that it’s just used to dodge taxes; lots of companies do it. Nothing to see here, move along.
More on Wal-Mart and censorship.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,55955,00.html
They’re also hypocrites. You could, in fact, buy GTA: Vice City at Wal-Mart, because they knew it would sell a boatload of copies. But woe be to the smaller publisher or developer who can’t pony up the sales figures.
I’m torn on this “censorship” issue. Normally I pull back pretty hard when people use the word censorship, because most of the time people scream that when it isn’t truly censorship. In most cases, my feelings would be that a company has every right to sell whatever magazines or books or games or whatever they choose. And I would argue that isn’t censorship. If I run a store, no one should be able to force me to sell anything I don’t want to sell, no matter what my motives.
But Walmart has so much power that I am conflicted in this case. Do I really think that if Wal-Mart doesn’t sell Maxim, that’s a horrible thing? Should they be forced to sell Maxim, or Vanity Fair, or Hustler, or Good Housekeeping, if they don’t want to? Fundamentally, no. But I fear that their power can have an effect that we wouldn’t be real happy with in the future.