Wal-Mart signifies all that is wrong in America

WalMart pays great wages and provides great benefits? Imagine that--here all this time I thought their low prices were based on underpaying their employees and driving US industries to produce goods out of the country.

Amazing what one learns in these forums...

Well, as you probably know outsourcing in one form or other has been going on for many years. Only during the past decade has it become visible to where people realize that it has become a detriment to employment. But let's not forget there was a time when you were supposed to believe that computers would create more jobs than it destroyed. That of course proved to be a falsehood.

Having been attuned to the military most of my adult life I am aware of the various loss of jobs that are a direct result of foreign competition. Hardware as basic as firearms to as complex as aircraft are now, increasingly being handed over to foreigners. I find this very dismaying.

A recent example was the awarding of a contract to Lockheed-Martin for helicopters. Their foreign subsidies will produce many of the components. They were selected over Sikorsky which pretty much has a well earned reputation for producing quality helicopters for the Marines as well as the other services.

I venture to say more than a few jobs in Connecticut will be permanently lost as a result of this contract award.

Unfortunately, this has become part of the American way of doing business. Thirty years ago it would have been unheard of to have foreigners involved in something as critical as producing weapon systems for our military. Today?

And of course while it may seem treasonous it isn't.

Does Wal-Mart mirror life or Does Life Mirror Wal-Mart.

We demand it, Quick, Easy, Cheap, Convenient, One-Stop, Bunch of Brands and pretty good Everyday Merchandise.

If you don't like it--don't shop there, PS as others point out that leaves out K-Mart, Target, $ General and a host of others. PS Stop Eating FAST FOOD on principles too, while your at it.

You all sound like the anti-slavery bunch who slept pretty good on Cotton Sheets and wore Cotton Clothes.

Can you NOT shop Wal-Mart or RATHER WILL you Stop based on MORAL objections (Not 5 of you, I bet can go 90 days without em)

Maybe you need to spend some time outside of Alabama before you speculate on life elsewhere. I couldn't even tell you where the nearest WalMart is...

D:

Then you are not one of the people complaning, are you?

Actually, I am. Because I take note of the world around me and read the newspapers. I don't like the way WalMart drives small businesses away, underpays employees, gets tax breaks from towns, then leaves for greener pastures.

I don't need to shop there to disapprove of their practices.

Our Walmart has given new life to a commercial center that was formerly anchored by Sears and was going downhill fast. It also lowered the prices at the nearby Target. Sears is still there, along with many new stores and restaurants.

I like being able to buy oil, filters, wipers, etc. at Walmart for far less than I can get them at Kragen, for example.

Plus, if it wasn't for Walmart, I don't know where I'd go to buy fishing gear and ammo. There wasn't anyplace worth a damn before they came along.

Is WalMart really a better place to ammo then a gun shop? I'll have to take your word on that, cjhsa, but it seems to me that a specialty store is always a better place to shop.

I could buy books at Walmart (if I shopped at one), but I'd rather go to a bookstore...

If there was a specialty gun shop around here worth going to, I'd go.

I'll be at the Sportsmen's Expo this weekend, so if anyone from A2K is going, be sure to look for me. I'll be the one wearing the camo shirt.

When in Michigan, I use the local shop, Jack's in Kalkaska. But they have such limited selection on certain things that I will drive an hour to get to Jay's in Gaylord, which is huge, and has everything.

Oddly, the Walmart in Petoskey, MI, has a worse selection of ammo than the one here in California. Very strange.

In a small town without any real traffic somebody might have the time in life to get to all the little stores he''d have to without WalMart there. On much of the eastern seaboard including the D.C./Baltimore region in which I live and in the traffic we have to deal with here, there just isn't.

That's a very good point gunga...I'd forgotten what a pain it was to drive around Annandale and Springfield...so in a way, what you're saying is it lowers fuel consumption and emissions.

About the only thing Wal Mart could add to improve things would be a large rectangular beer bar in the center of the store like Schweigmann's in Gretna, Louisiana. I'd probably visit Wal Mart more often than I already do if they did.

Buying anything at gunshops is problematical.

Try the ammo store, ammoman, or gunbroker:

http://www.ammoman.com/

http://www.ammoinc.com/

http://www.gunbroker.com

If all that fails, there's always your friendly local redneck gunshow:

http://listings.shotgunnews.com/gunshow

Aside from that and saving money, WalMart's buyers are smart and opportunistic and you often see interesting things in WalMarts which you'd never find in ordinary department stores. Once in the WalMart in Aberdeen Md., for $70 apiece, I found a bunch of hand-cranked Singer sewing machines, gorgeous and brand new, exactly as if the date on the calendar were 1885. I saw a manager type doing something and asked him about it, since I'd have guessed it was some special sort of centennial deal or something.

What the guy told me was astonishing. He said that Singer still sold large numbers of such in Borneo, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, and a hundred places in which electricity was not guaranteed, that a bunch of them simply missed the boat they were supposed to be on at the docks in Baltimore, and that a WalMart buyer happened upon them and simply made somebody a good enough offer.

It's no mystery that they seem to succeed in life.

2 years ago Christmas I saw these wooden soldiers in Wal Mart from "Nutcracker." 17" tall, made in China. I paid about $8 apiece for them. Well made, nicely painted detail. Those soldiers were far underpriced. The four of them are so nice.

I didn't bother to put them away with the rest of the stuff after Christmas. One stands guard on top of the grandfather clock, another one on a bookcase and one at each end of my roll top desk.

D:

"underpays employees, gets tax breaks from towns, then leaves for greener pastures. "

I deny none of this, but my spouse and I are also underpaid persons by people who also receive large TAX breaks and what I don't understand is why you all are focusing on WAL-MART, Where there are other options to shop.

Since you don't shop there, you cannot be criticized for your views, but for those who continue to shop there, either go somewhere else or stop complaining.

Other companies in my State (Alabama) seek and receive such benefits. We gave one BIG one to Mercedes, by the Way and Gulf States Paper, and others who came (bethlehem Steel) to town for the jobs, they held us hostage.

I have seen small towns die as a result of INDUSTRY leaving, what about NAFTA? Any thoughts there?

Tax breaks for industry are a ticklish problem for many municipalities. Countless cities and towns have been burned by flighty companies that roost and then find a better deal.

Points well-taken about WalMart not being unique in underpaying employees, screwing the towns for tax breaks, then cutting and running. The focus is on them, though, because they are so huge and having such an impact on the U.S. consumer patterns--and the entire economy.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050103&s=featherstone

Not everyone can choose to shop elsewhere.

"Al Zack, who until his retirement in 2004 was the United Food and Commercial Workers' vice president for strategic programs, observes that appealing to the poor was "Sam Walton's real genius. He figured out how to make money off of poverty. He located his first stores in poor rural areas and discovered a real market. The only problem with the business model is that it really needs to create more poverty to grow." That problem is cleverly solved by creating more bad jobs worldwide. In a chilling reversal of Henry Ford's strategy, which was to pay his workers amply so they could buy Ford cars, Wal-Mart's stingy compensation policies--workers make, on average, just over $8 an hour, and if they want health insurance, they must pay more than a third of the premium--contribute to an economy in which, increasingly, workers can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart.

To make this model work, Wal-Mart must keep labor costs down. It does this by making corporate crime an integral part of its business strategy. Wal-Mart routinely violates laws protecting workers' organizing rights (workers have even been fired for union activity). It is a repeat offender on overtime laws; in more than thirty states, workers have brought wage-and-hour class-action suits against the retailer. In some cases, workers say, managers encouraged them to clock out and keep working; in others, managers locked the doors and would not let employees go home at the end of their shifts. And it's often women who suffer most from Wal-Mart's labor practices. Dukes v. Wal-Mart, which is the largest civil rights class-action suit in history, charges the company with systematically discriminating against women in pay and promotions [see Featherstone, "Wal-Mart Values: Selling Women Short," December 16, 2002]."

"Not everyone can choose to shop elsewhere. "



As "D" likes to point out I live as Rural a life as anyone (not always though) and w/INTERNET and other options, you can cut way down on WAL-MART and many others, IF you really want to.

For about 3 years I lived in a town where WAL-MART ENDED UP being the largest EMPLOYER in town for MILES. NAFTA was blamed for the shut-down of 11 industries leaving and the town would have completely died without WAL-MART. PS. My house in that town is STILL for sale...

Again, The only point I am making is that alot of people want to complain, but FEW make efforts to DO anything.