The Wal-Mart Problem

[imprint]

we have a long way to go to catch up the the chinese, but i'm convinced we will be able to not match them, but best them at the american way of business, specifically manufacturing. we should all take note of wal-mart, because while so many of us may not like the way they operate their stores, they do have the right idea. they cut costs, they keep it cheap, they make it affordable. there is no way a foreign company could ever best a powerhouse like they are. if other american companies could follow similar practices, they would be able to sell their products on the shelves alongside chinese companies and outsell them, maybe even ship to them and outdo them at their own game. i am familiar with the fat that manufacturing firms haul around! cut that and we could excel beyond the overseas corporations because of their inability to ship large quantities of products as cheaply as we could truck them on our highways.

this is the free market, people. get used to it. besides, how many of you depend on the low prices of wal-mart? it is a solid part of our country and what keeps so many of the "disadvantaged" living well. (not to mention those of us that love to save a buck!)

[busterb]

You drive 20 miles to buy the flappin junk, then get home and a few days later it don't work, broke. Then drive 20 miles back to return it. Where in the fucks the great savings, with the price of gas.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by imprint

george Walker bush

ronald Wilson reagan

imprint i think the way you spEll is k00l

Originally Posted by Beestie

The list continues to grow.

That's nice, Beestie.

And to Imprint:

What planet did you just arrive from?

Busterb, precisely! Its cheap crap, manufactured under a communist system by companies that don't have to be competitive because the government props them up.

[xoxoxoBruce]

One thing it has done is kill Chinese workers at an alarming rate. Pollution is running rampant, lung cancer has become the prime killer and strange diseases are popping up like daisies.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

One thing it has done is kill Chinese workers at an alarming rate.

Alarming to us, part of their 10 year economic plan to reduce surplus population for them.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by wolf

Alarming to us, part of their 10 year economic plan to reduce surplus population for them.

I ran across this at a site called The Superficial. Emphasis mine.

Meg Ryan, star of such movies as Crap and Crap 2: the Craptathlon, will adopt a Chinese baby later today, according to OK! magazine. The adoption is scheduled to take place at an American consulate in China. An insider tells the publication, "The consulate will formalize the adoption and grant Meg's new daughter a visa and a social security number. They will probably be flying back to the US immediately after the process is complete."

China is like the Wal-Mart of adoptions. You touch down at the airport in Beijing and they just start throwing babies and fortune cookies at you. But good for Meg. Now all she needs to do is name the baby Lo Pan and teach it to shoot fire from its eyes.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

China is like the Wal-Mart of adoptions.

Well, if abortion and contraception become illegal in this country, maybe we can get Wal-Mart to offer adoptions. With %10 off discounts in the portrait studio and 1 free bag of diapers with each adoption (limit 2).

[elSicomoro]

I love "Big Trouble in Little China."

Speaking of Wal-Mart...

[fargon]

My Wife and recently re-discovered K-Mart, where you you can buy the same cheep crap you get at Wal-Mart for a few pennies more. As I sit here taking stock of clothing (im doing laundry) we are getting away from the wal-mart stuff my clothing is from Markos and Sons in down town La Crosse, and my Wifes clothing is from various other stores around town. We decided to get away from Wal-Mart. Not beacause of politics and policies, instead we want more quality for our money.

I just came across a study done by a state labor policy group at the University of California. They estimate that Walmart costs California taxpayers in the neighborhood of $86 million/year due to the fact that their wages are so low (54% of workers earn $9.00/hr or less) and the fact that they don't offer health insurance. Cali Walmart employees are more likely to be on foodstamps programs and get their health care via the highly expensive route of ER visits which the tax payer is left holding the bag (and the bill) for.

(I know, Beestie, I know. )

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by marichiko

I just came across a study done by a state labor policy group at the University of California. They estimate that Walmart costs California taxpayers in the neighborhood of $86 million/year due to the fact that their wages are so low (54% of workers earn $9.00/hr or less) and the fact that they don't offer health insurance. Cali Walmart employees are more likely to be on foodstamps programs and get their health care via the highly expensive route of ER visits which the tax payer is left holding the bag (and the bill) for.

(I know, Beestie, I know. )

I've already added Wal-Mart to the ever-growing list of institutions (and people, I'm proud to say) that, according to marichiko, lie and cheat. And, while we are on the subject of the list, as a consequence of your profound insights into our foreign policy as documented in another thread, I've sent a memo to Condi Rice that we need to dust off "Cold War" and "Domino Theory" and put them back into the forefront of our foreign policy doctrine where they belong.

But, getting back to the topic at hand, I have three questions:

1. Are you saying that California would be better of by $86M if Wal-Mart closed its doors tomorrow? The only way I can make sense of that assertion is to assume that everyone who works at Wal-Mart turned down a higher paying job to work there.

2. Did the study include in its calculations the income and capital gains California earns by virtue of its holdings (in various state-owned investment portfolios) of Wal-Mart stock?

3. Did the study offer a scenario whereby Wal-Mart raises prices sufficiently high to allow it to raise payroll expense enough to include health-insurance and wages not regarded as "low" and did such a scenario examine whether or not such an increase in its expenses and revenue would "wash out" or have a net decrease in overall profit sufficiently large enough to cause its business model to fail? Or, did the study just assume that Wal-Mart's profit margins are sufficiently large to absorb the increase in payroll expense without raising prices and without suffering a decrease in revenue (and a secondary hit on profit) as a consequence?

Alternatively, you can link the study and I'll answer my own questions.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Beestie

1. Are you saying that California would be better of by $86M if Wal-Mart closed its doors tomorrow?

It takes longer to fix things than to break them, so I suspect it would take longer than a day to build up the higher paying jobs that Wal-Mart destroyed.

Originally Posted by Beestie

I've already added Wal-Mart to the ever-growing list of institutions (and people, I'm proud to say) that, according to marichiko, lie and cheat. And, while we are on the subject of the list, as a consequence of your profound insights into our foreign policy as documented in another thread, I've sent a memo to Condi Rice that we need to dust off "Cold War" and "Domino Theory" and put them back into the forefront of our foreign policy doctrine where they belong.

Glad to see you're paying attention. What thread, BTW?

Originally Posted by Beestie

But, getting back to the topic at hand, I have three questions:

1. Are you saying that California would be better of by $86M if Wal-Mart closed its doors tomorrow? The only way I can make sense of that assertion is to assume that everyone who works at Wal-Mart turned down a higher paying job to work there...

Alternatively, you can link the study and I'll answer my own questions.

No, I am not making that leap of logic. I merely quoted what the study says tax payers must pay for Walmart workers. The figure is on page 10 here:

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/lowwage/walmart.pdf

[wolf]

What ever they are paying, it's less than if those folks were not working at walmart.

$9/hour is significantly better than the "minimum wage jobs" we so often hear about, too. If WalMart is as evil as people say they aren't wouldn't they be paying everybody federal minimum wage?