Wal-Mart C or D? (a free trade and economic globalization thread)

http://nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/asia/07CHIN.html?hp
http://nytimes.com/2003/12/07/national/07OHIO.html (related to above)
http://nytimes.com/pages/world/worldspecial4/ (collection of stories)
http://nytimes.com/2003/12/07/weekinreview/07LOHR.html?8hpib

on wal-mart specifically:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12962
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,423053,00.html?
http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2002-09-04/feature.html/1/index.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089532/

Nine former janitors filed a class-action racketeering suit against Wal-Mart a few weeks ago. They accused Wal-Mart of systematically cheating them and others out of social security benefits, overtime, etc. The cleaning crews were mainly illegal immigrants employed via a third-party countractor so I guess Wal-Mart figured they could get away with it. But anyone looking at the numbers could have seen what was going on. This is the world's largest company, conspiring to cheat the poorest and most vulnerable members of society out of the money that they worked for.

i personally only buy products crafted in dank ateliers with at least 100 years of history

Wal-Mart engorges itself as a broker for cheap imports, destroying American manufacturing jobs and paying its workers about half of what unionized workers make. To drive labor costs down even further, Wal-Mart offers cut-rate health insurance (if any at all) and employs illegal immigrants who are more easily cheated out of their already substandard wages. Wal-Mart does all this while burnishing an image of itself as a home-grown, all-American retailer -- a friend of the working class. It's a load of shit and I would drive five miles to avoid them.

Oh, and I haven't even gotten into what they do to encourage sprawling, automobile-dependent development.

Moreover, some economists note, lower prices for the kinds of basic goods on sale at Wal-Mart superstores, like food and clothes, are of the greatest benefit to the less affluent. Grocery prices, for example, drop an average of 10 to 15 percent in markets Wal-Mart has entered, analysts say.

I tend to see globalization (as currently practised) as a total, grinding dud. It is a classic case of short-sightedness and personal greed driving decisions that can only rationally be made using far-sightedness and cooperation.

The blame for this situation applies across the board. But the solution, if it ever comes, must be through grassroots organizing and basic coalition building. This must include building alternate channels of communication than mass media and alternate models of capital investment than international banking and the WTO.

However, as I grow older, I tend to believe more and more that, however smart humans may be as individuals, as a group we are a blind, seething mass of ignorance, doomed to manuever ourselves over every available cliff. Some pretty steep cliffs are on the near horizon.

Thanks for the book recommendation, Aimless, I'll check that out. I've read Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz, need to give that another look-through.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/weekly_article/union_walmart_showdown_in_vegas.html

But I'm not losing a wink of sleep over the nostaligic concern for small time retailers who have been eradicated by Wal-Mart. Had Wal-Mart not done it, the Internet would have. Yes, it's convenient to patronize the small guys at times, but frankly I'm tired of showing up at Ace Hardware in a pinch only to find that some pipe I need for the shitter is out of stock and I'm going to have to make a trip elsewhere to a retailer that has a distinguished inventory. That doesn't happen to me at Home Depot.

I have a lot of empathy for the buggy whip shops of the world--I grew up in a rural town of less than 4,000 people--but times are a changin'. The retail world will be vastly different in a decade, and I predict that places like Wal-Mart will be essentially distributors more than retailers.

FWIW, I am one of those lucky people who actually has done business with the Wal-Mart corporate office in Bentonville (well, I've been there pitching to them twice, but my brother in law has done lots of business with Wally World for years and we've talked about dealing with those fuckers at length.) The facilities look like a giant tool shed. Very low fi, more like a tractor dealership than a billion dollar industry. The legend of them being cheapskate motherfuckers is totally OTM...everyone there is obsessed with leveraging every penny to the hilt. Negotiation with them is unbelievable: they tell you what they will pay and what they expect out of you on every level. In return, they basically guarantee you sales. And I give them that--they sell like motherfuckers, too.

Overall: Classic.

1a) They pay painfully low wages to their employees.
1b) They have been caught at least twice monkeying with the accounting so as to pay their employees even less.
3) They've been caught at least once, shipping in illegal aliens to do their janitorial work (and, of course, paying them even less.)
4) Because of the disgruntled nature of their workforce, you NEVER get decent service there.
5a) At Wal-mart, You can buy a gun to commit suicide with
5b) But you can't buy any metal albums to inspire the urge to commit suicide.
6) Same goes for Tiger Beat, because we all know that Tiger Beat is pr0n!*
7-100) all the other things brought up by everyone else in this thread.

Good things about Wal-mart

1) Their mascot was cute the first couple of times they used him in an ad.

* = I Don't know if thats true now, but I've heard that it was true when Sam Walton was still alive.

I just purchased a couple of things for our kitchen -- a crock pot and an automatic can opener. You want to know how much I spent for both? $20. You want to hazard a guess where I got them? That's right -- that same Wal-Mart Supercenter that gets derided by the likes of you. You know what I felt as I was getting these items? A huge sigh of relief that I was able to find such bargains at the same time as I was able to purchase a couple of gifts for family members AND my regular grocery shopping. Super Target does the same thing to me, too, and to be honest with you, I would be an even bigger advocate for the Targets of the world because I find them more higher-end than Wal-Mart and because they're not as crowded, but either one would probably get looked down upon around here.

Some of us need these places. Some of us wouldn't be able to make it without these places being here. So please lay off your guilt trips, because you know damn well you wouldn't be laying them on if you couldn't afford much else.

*mutters something about having tunnel vision and being overemotional about things*

But they are probably evil.

Globalization and economic change are happening, and I think it's important to be aware of the hows and whys, both on a micro and macro level.

Actual real poor people don't buy crock pots and, holy shit, automatic can openers (most useless invention ever). Or, at least they shouldn't be. Besides, there are better deals to be found and yard sales/thrift stores, where people dump off the excess of globalized industry. If wal-mart closed down, people could subsist a year or two off people's unwanted junk at yard sales, there is so much mass-produced crap out there.

The exile wrote a good article on all this

http://exile.ru/169/169010101.html

I have no real knowledge or opinion on Wal-Mart either way. Does it pay its employees any less than, say, Tesco or Sainsbury's over here, in relative terms?

-- Chris B. Sure (formerlypoopsmcge...) (webmail), December 8th, 2003 5:08 AM. (Chris V) (later) (link)
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been polishing the lizard a bit then lately?

*Nelly, of course

Ha, er....oh dear chris, don't tell them for fukc's sake!!

It's not going to be any fun for anybody, especially for the UAW et al. who are already fucking over the domestic industries that write their grossly inflated paychecks. They're just going to fall harder.

Free trade foes are right when they say that globalization is going to lead to lower wages for everybody. Yeah, and automated manufacturing is going to lead to famine. It's a shame that the bottom rung of the pay scale is always hit first, but that's a result of having dispensable skill sets, not because everybody hates low-income households.

My personal view on the Wal-Mart experience is simply that I have no interest or patience to shop in a filthy shop with poor service among people who will trample a woman nearly to death in the rush to buy a $30 DVD player. I've done my time in Wal-Mart SuperCenters all over this country and I have no further interest in finding out how much I can save.

on the road trip this summer, we wanted to buy the new liz phair album. but in all the little towns between st. louis and biloxi by way of nashville, there were only wal marts. bram thought this was ok, but i wanted to hold out for at least a target or kmart, because of the censorship thing. we found one in gulf shores mississippi and bought it there (and had a great conversation with the gay clerk about oppression and censorship in small towns).

after listening to it, and visiting a wal mart for research purposes, we discovered that they do sell the CD, but the song 'HWC' (hot white come) is just deleted. no mention of that, of course. the album is just one song shorter in walmart land. which i thought was creepy.

Jesus, it's as if the laws of capital were yet stronger than those of nature. Low-income households have skills witheld from them you maron!! Poor ppl aren't born 'low-skilled' for christ's sake. Anyway how skilful do you have to be to turn the late 90s boom into this slump? Without a helpful peer group most of the top fromages wd be in the gutter too.

Don't worry about not knowing enough about "free trade" or "globalization." The select group who could be considered "experts" can barely configure context and explanation in a way anyone around here could comprehend. Thanks for asking for a discussion.

First, defining those concepts is hardly a beginning point because they continue to change with the advance of technology. So saying you're "against" or "for" "free trade" is a misnomer at best; it probably more describes your general political philosophy towards those issues.

Second, there are armies of economists and financial analysts on both sides of those issues who will argue empirically for the cause. The problem I have is that most daily newspapers (and to an extent, the Financial Times, the WSJ, and even the Economist) tend to cover both of these issues you raised on an anecdotal basis that does not allow for in-depth examination of the implications of free trade and globalization. Most beat reporters are not nearly qualified to examine these issues themselves, and their editors do not have the leeway to run 5,000 word stories either. The result is that you get reporting on financial and economic matters designed to sell papers/magazines--not reporting designed to competently examine complex issues. Furthermore, the people who are probably qualified to discuss issues like this--experienced economists, financial analysts, academics--end up writing opinion columns that give very short thrift to empirical examination in order to serve polarizing political agendas i.e. dumb everything down to black and white. Hence, a guy like Krugman ends up "reckoning" in plainspeak while whitewashing all the subtleties out of his intellect. And without subtleties, he's just another dude with an axe to grind. See also: Limbaugh et al.

What you're going to hear most on these issues is probably simplified explanations loaded with anecdotal evidence, and most likely these quips will be heavily shaded by political opinion as much as anything else. Of course, most issues are like this, and it can hardly be expected that you run out and get a PhD in economics or finance or whatever just to participate in a discussion about free trade and globalization. The only point I'm trying to make is keep that in mind whenever you're "learning" what there is to be known about these two highly complex issues, especially if your forum to do it is ILX. The reams of Google experts tend to reduce any issue to black and white nearly immediately.

Well, yes I did -- why the sarcasm? The existence of grants no way makes society a level playing field as you seem to think it does. So ball's in your court, bucko.

Tom, what gives you the right to 'lose patience' with the working poor? On a daily basis you see people who signed up to be cannon fodder and are okay with that; on a daily basis I see people who would find your solution was one compromise too many.

(x-post rosemary, nobody should buy a crock pot. They're ugly and they smell)

At any rate the future of the labor market is going to look more like Wal-Mart and not so much like General Motors, and everyone is going to have to deal with that one way or another.

I got my I'm OK Jack horseshit for only $13.99 when the MSRP was over twice that! The first thing to come into my mind was that SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE MUST BE SUFFERING HORRIBLY.

Unless you have not other food cooking device, you don't really need a crock pot, and therefore its wasted money. Also, I doubt that crock pots are the most energy (=> money) efficient cooking method, but maybe I am wrong. Even non-poor people should avoid them unless they are dedicated crockpotters, because they just take up space.

Limited use kitchenalia is very common at yardsales.

So...

http://www.tvtome.com/images/people/16/6/64-861.gif
:
http://www.wal-martchina.com/english/images/wm/samwalton.jpg
::
http://www.linsdomain.com/Derek/i,claudius/zeus7.jpg
:
http://www.aje.org.uk/daf/graphics/question-mark.gif

Right?

Well I think the risks and rewards are at different paces and ranges. In the Army you might die but you also have the chance at enlarging your skill set much more so over a period of time won't necessarily at McDonald's. If you have a family to support you might not like to take that chance you will be blown up but if you don't, well, you undertake the risk.

What is the alternative? Is there an argument that the existence of a relatively content welfare state stagnates social mobility? At what price is the price too high?

As always, I agree with Phay about the effect of mega stores on local economies, town planning and landscapes. Yuck.

One thing I don't understand, and I admit ignorance about how unions are formed and move into industries, is why unions haven't been able to make inroads into walmart yet. Are workers threatened with firing if they organize? Isn't that illegal? Or are they bombarded with propoganda that tells them that the unions will do worse things for them?

Why bother firing people when you can just make them unnecessary? (eg - meat sections of WalMart not existing anymore)

As a California union member I'm more than a little offended.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Yes, there are problems with unions. Pointing out that unions have problems doesn't make the WalMart problem go away, though - so unless you're gonna try to analyze the WalMart/free trade/globalization stuff while incorporating union difficulties, why the praeteritio?

It's fantastic that the LA Times did a comprehensive overview of Wal Mart. I'm going to guess--sorry, I don't have time tonight to go wade through Lexis--that there's never been a story that large or comprehensive on the unions in California, or how their very pervasiveness dominates the state and employment's every economic activity. I'm going to guess there's never been an indepth series like that in the LA Times, despite the ballot initiatives and other issues that have been prominent in the past decade in California. So my point is that yes, two wrongs do not make a right but it would be helpful to readers if all the wrongs were covered similarly. And they certainly weren't in that guy's column. Are you optimistic that at some point he will write a critical piece on unions someday? I'm not.

I bring all this up because the nature of this globalization discussion relies upon acknowledging all sides of the issue.

As for offending you Ned, it was unintended. I am sorry if this is the case, but I do not regret pointing out the obvious.

I'm not saying that my union -- CUE, for UC clericals -- can't have flaws. As it stands, the infighting drives me batty sometimes. The idea that it's suffering from corruption or rather that it must automatically do so because it's in California, however, does not make me happy.

One day you will be WalMart.

Blount otm.

BTW, I am a former union member as is my father (though not in California.)

having never shopped at a walmart supercenter I don't know how they compare. I shop at the most ridiculously expensive market in town though because it's closest to my house and I'm a snot.

Blount otm."

Do you know how I know what you can find at yard sales? BECAUSE I SHOP AT FUCKING YARDSALES. GOD FUCKING FORBID ME TO EXPECT POOR PEOPLE TO BE THRIFTY LIKE ME!!!!! THEY SHOULD ALL SPEND WHAT LITTLE MONEY THEY HAVE ON USELESS KITCHEN GADGETS! BECAUSE IT HELPS THE ECONOMY THATS WHY!!!!!

Fucking peabrained shits, all of you.

How is what you're saying any different than the conservatives who try to tell people on food stamps what they "should" be buying?

As I was heading for the exit in my car, I saw her pushing her cart and heading for one of the yellow lines, trying to push the shopping cart all the way home, completely oblivious to all the warning signs around her. (Many of them even had the warnings posted as graphic cartoons for people who couldn't even read and she didn't even comprehend those!)
I decided to hang back and park with my lights off to watch her.
Sure enough, she approached the yellow line still bitching to her kids about the maple bacon incident when ZAP! The right front wheel of her shopping cart locked up on the yellow line and sent her big fat black body spilling over the front edge of the cart and knocking it and all the contents over the side. Her milk, eggs, bread, and yes...her precious maple bacon all were knocked over and spread out in the parking lot.

It was truly a sight to behold. She looked like a huge black blob encased in spandex lying in the middle of spilled groceries and a shopping cart with her two kids standing over her.
There was a slight moment of silence. An uneasy silence. The kind of silence you feel right before Old Faithful erupts or the Space Shuttle launches. The silence you experience when you know that all hell is about to break loose.
"MUTHAFUCKA!"
"What the hell kind of sheet is this? What the hell is this bullsheet?"
Just then, her 10 year old said, "Momma, all the stuff spilled!"
"NO SHEET, MUTHAFUCKA! GODDAMN DIS BULLSHEET!"
With that, she got up and started to walk back into the store. She didn't bother to pick up any of her groceries or even turn back to make sure that her kids were following her. All I saw was 210 pounds of black ass walking to the store saying, "I'm going to tell them muthafuckas a thing or two...sheet...dey aint heard the end of dis sheet..they better come out here and clean dis sheet up...."
I could just imagine the impending scene in the store.
I considered going back into the store to pretend I was shopping some more just to hear the scene she would make but I had a better idea.
I put my car into drive and slowly drove away from the parking lot, making sure that both my tires ran over her precious maple bacon.

REINSTATE SLAVERY!!!!

RA!

Jesus H., fletrejet. You expect us to all be concerned about the Imminent Doom of the World By Fossil Fuel Loss and then come across like this kind of holier-than-thou prick on something far more immediate. Thanks, I'll pass.

I don't think anyone on this thread would disagree with this sentiment.

I'm not entirely sure why putting restrictions on government-issued assistance is a "bad thing". Though I don't think it's necessary; when my mom and I used to go grocery shopping buying high end items or cigarettes or booze was last on our priority list, and I can't imagine we're alone. I'd rather them be asking to put limits on what can be purchased with the food stamps than taking the handful of bad examples who go around buying smokes and booze and holding them up for everyone to see as the "standard" of the welfare class, trying to evict everyone from the system because of a few abusers. It's a compromisary system and I'd rather have been deprived of certain items, be it brand name products or ice cream, than to be deprived of everything.

This is in some ways kind of similar to the poor people disadvantaged to get out of situations mini-debate upthread, cos yes, George W. Bush (who is becoming like the "Nazi Law" as far as I'm concerned) is a jackass and yes, he was admitted to a great Ivy League school on the basis of who he is but just because there are some rich people who are getting buy simply on parental notoriety doesn't exactly mean that everyone else gets fucked in the ass by the man in return. It's not easy but, for me personally, I'd rather bust myself and make that compromise and give up things and fight than stay at the McJob, just like some people choose to join the military or some people take out millions of loans. This is done every single day and is not remotely unusual and yeah, it'd be nice if the US educational system was set up in a way that was a lot kinder to lower-class children but it's not like it's some kind of hideous caste system (as several other ILXors can attest to).

fletrejet is wrong and right at the same time. I don't think millionaires should own automatic can openers!

I unfortunately have nothing to say about the exact question presented as thread topic as I've never set foot in a WalMart and know next to nothing about their policies. We don't have stores like that in Manhattan and I don't drive so I don't get out to them. I like the Targets I've been to, they are very similar?

Haha who is debating dropping out of school again! Not me, no never.

anyway right-to-work for union-busting laws is like right-to-life for abortion-shutting-down laws.

i mean people have a right to work in EVERY state -- hell, they're compelled to in order to y'know, eat.

what right-to-work laws target is closed shop contracts which are products of real honest-to-god collective bargaining and assert that the collective bargaining is valid for the *whole* shop and thus keep employers from bringing in scab labor.

how a closed shop contract a fucking corrupt conspiracy!?

haha also origins of labor ties to mob in certain unions (ties which do, yes, suck, and also i think are far less than they used to be) was that labor needed muscle to defend it against corporate attack.

not that this matters at all to this thread now, really.

(mob ties and labor unions is another "Nazi" point to me--it's highly overrated and exactly what Sterling said. The only times Unionization makes me uncomfortable is when they get into wage/benefit wars with employers and people I know get massively screwed over because they have to picket and stay the line and get jacked while doing it, whereas if they weren't unionized they wouldn't be doing it--meanwhile "every man for himself" isn't exactly a system that proves to work either)

Two options: either you're incredibly dense or you're deliberately misrepresenting me.
I'm not for the 'big welfare state' and never once said that I was.

All I said was that the present system did not in any way resemble a level playing field. Ally is right up to a point: of course there are ways out of poverty but a) this is only going to be for a minority because the system is fundamentally hierarchical and b) the more subjective (perhaps) point that a system which provides a level playing field for those who bust a gut for it is still unfair.

Welfare is better than poverty; socialism is better than welfare.

Anyway, the poor will stay poor under a system of capitalism in the main. Just because there are exceptions doesn't make life any closer to a Dickens novel.

Wrong.

I'll get to you in a little while, Blount. But your post is pretty jumbled and I need another ten cups of coffee.

You are correct that my ideals of self-reliance and self-responsibility fully support the right to organize freely; indeed, that is why I joined a union at one point in my life. But you are construing Wal-Mart's intent of self-preservation in this area. I am not ignoring acts of self-preservation that are fraudulent at Wal-Mart, but to assign corruption as the main or only reason to oppose unions or Right To Work is egregious.

I support Wal-Mart's right to run their business at their discretion as long as it is not fraudulent or criminal. The problem I have with Right To Work is that the State is given far too much oversight in employment (or not.) I have no problem with unions forming, but union membership should not be mandatory--the union does not shoulder near the financial risk in employment that the corporate entity does, and having the State intrude on this matter goes beyond my tolerance for intrusion.

In that light, I think it is well within Libertarian thinking to be opposed to State-mandated compulsory unions. I do not know the Official Libertarian Stance on this as I am not at all active in the party--their general principals appeal to me so that's why I vote that way.

Maybe not, but its members, ie employees whose jobs will be scrapped for a 0.2% dip in dividends *do* shoulder the financial risk.

But even the most union-infested business have non union members (not including "management", obviously) and if the business goes down the shitter because it can't be competitive then EVERYONE loses. Consider Eastern Airlines and the union problems that played a role in that airline's downfall, for example.

Again, I'm not opposed to unions at all in principle--what bothers me is when the State mandates it.

Expand.

I also would like to know the backgrounds of some posters? Not for like some big classism reason but I've noticed that every time I've gotten in on this argument/debate, online and in real life, the people most likely to claim that people working out of poverty are some kind of rare exception, a fairy tale story, and not something that could be actually achieved by a lot of people, are people who've never been in that position to begin with. Very rarely did I ever deal with anyone in any social services offices who didn't believe they were going to get out of their situation, but the people who were supposed to be the supportive socialists were the ones who seemed most convinced we couldn't and I find this an interesting juxtaposition.

I haven't had enough coffee by far today to be really coherent on this issue...

This thread makes me want to listen to the Manics! What have you all done! democrats say...

1) It's great to see boxcubed back!

2) In The Ladies' Paradise, Zola details the rise of the first superstore in Paris in the 1800s (the store, The Ladies' Paradise, is actually a fictional amalgmam of two or three big department stores of the era) and contrasts it with the specialized niche stores that had defined retail shopping for the last 200-1000 years. It's easy to forget that the modern shopping experience had to be invented e.g. keep moving the stock around so that the customer gets confused and passes by things she would have never dreamed of buying; put "impulse items" near the register; provide waiting areas and refreshments for tired-out husbands or marathon shoppers - all these things were invented in Paris more than 100 years ago, as well as the basic capitalist concept of efficiencies of scale. The LP had so much turnover that they could shave their prices down to nothing, even losing money on entire products ranges, knowing they'd make it back later through customer loyalty. The goal was to get people to buy things they weren't planning on getting, either because the prices were so low, or because they looked so enticing.

In the book, the little umbrella makers and dress shops that line the street opposite the LP are portrayed as dour little high-priced hovels, unable or unwilling to manufacture the type of shopping fantasia the LP offered. They clearly represented the past, the LP the future. Are we still in this paradigm? What would have to change for small business to be able to compete with the "category killers" like Wal-Mart and Home Depot?

Dumb cunts same du-umb questions

Yeah, fair point it shd be expanded, I was just reacting to the totally pro-captalist stuff upthread. The point is that with unequal access to resources society is more of a battlefield than it needs to be, and there are therefore more casualties than there should be. As for specifics, erm,

well I don't know what I'm scared of, or what I even enjoy...

The problem with socialism in my mind is that, while a great idea and a noble concept, I don't think there's a way to work it. I don't see any evidence that instincts don't run counter to full-scale socialism; ie the "What's in it for me" clause.

for me, if someone makes it and others didnt, it is a question of why did the others not.

or, perhaps this comes down to: did society fail the others, or did the others fail society? why do less people from poorer backgrounds make it? and does the existence of so many poor people impact society at large as well as the people themselves

*i think i am trying, partially at least, to apply this to a US situation, which seems quite a bit different to here in the uk (i hadnt seen such large amounts of poverty in the west until i went to america)

This is not to say it is impossible or that a person like myself couldn't instead choose to go to a state school, and America has some very fine public institutions.

haha xpost! I wrote this before I saw yr question, gareth. I think putting more effort into health/education is a good idea! Our state sponsored health system for welfare recipients/low income families is very difficult to use and very shit, basically. The only places they'll pay out for are sketchy clinics.

The thing is, in my case, I already pay an exorbitant amount of taxes (I get hit by NYC, NYS, and federal government) and I'm not really sure where the hell all this money is going because NY's public schools are terrible, our subways are constantly in need of more money, and our state health system is undesirable. NY isn't funding its own army so what gives? I don't have answers to these questions so I'm not sure how to apply taxes further--taxing higher here seems unreasonable. How does it get paid for in other countries? Etc etc

I don't really have time for this thread today though, I have to enroll in my benefits program.

xpost

xpost hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha fair enough, I probably should fund that all myself, I did date enough of them.

on a salary of about £20k, you will pay around 4-5k tax a year, and then council tax will be around £400-800 a year depending on how many people in property, where it is, how valuable it is etc

(this I guess kind of helps along the point I made earlier about how I don't think a lot of socialist programs will work without heavy handed government intervention cos it just doesn't run with what seems to be human instinct)

Tracer is OTM! Enrique I still have no clue what you're trying to say at all!

Applying vague utopian etc to schools though, the problem of European state funding is partly the astonishing money-eating bureaucracy.

20% taxation on $100K income doesn't seem excessive to me fwiw. But then I am a filthy commie who pays abt a third of his £40K pa in direct taxes and thinks he probably should be paying more.

xpost

I'm not posting my actual salary on ILX but feel free to attempt to do the math.

The thing is, I wouldn't care so much if I saw any indication whatsoever that these funds were being used to improve anyone's life at all. But I see no indication of this, unless you're a business and Bloomberg is trying to move you in. Or you hate smokers, since he's spent like $8 billion on anti-smoking measures.

xpost don't be sorry, like I said I didn't mean it to sound quite as sarcastic as it sounded!

I could go on and on about what happens to a lot of your federal tax dollars but I don't think you want to hear it.

I thought everyone basically had their taxes direct debited here in the US too? I mean I suppose you can opt not to pay but I don't think anyone ever does that.

hahaha blount otm.

Basically american labor at the base level is overpaid. There are literally millions of jobs that could be done more cheaply overseas or even in different parts of the country and the quality of work would not suffer one bit. See outsourced IT and call center work to India for one commonly-cited example and the proliferation of auto manufacturing plants throughout the Southeast US (no UAW strongarming!) for another - there are a great deal of American workers, bluecollar and otherwise, who are getting paychecks that are ridiculously inflated if you look at the global marketplace for similar jobs. NB this has been true for years but now thanks to the telecommunications revolution of the past decade or so it's coming to call.

We are losing a tremendous amount of intellectual capital as well. Lots of folks used to come over here, go to school, professionalize themselves in a field and then stay here and become citizens. Not so anymore. More and more foreign students get the training and education they need and then go back home, because they can get the same jobs or similar ones back at home and if you factor in the cost of living in America vs. most other countries it actually turns out to be more lucrative in many cases.

American companies are starting to feel the pinch from this, which is why even though the economy appears to be recovering from some statistics we still aren't seeing all the new jobs we need popping up. Companies are having to watch their bottom line very closely to stay profitable, even in the current carefree spending environment.

Eventually what's going to have to happen if American companies want to stay competitive in a global marketplace is they're going to have to start paying less for people. The worst part of this adjustment is that it will, as I stated, hit the low-income brackets first and then trickle up. There will be a period where everything is going to suck really bad for everybody. Eventually, however, things will even out once again and the cost of living will decrease to match - the point is that right now we are all living in the lap of luxury w/r/t the kind of goods we can afford and the pricetags we can put on them and this cannot be sustained if costs of materials and labor start becoming more equivalent across the globe.

Of course a devaluation of the dollar will throw all of this right down the shitter and that looks like a possiblity as well. Dear Berlusconi, please continue to be a disreputable dirtbag and keep the Euro sketchy.

Eventually what's going to have to happen if American companies want to stay competitive in a global marketplace is they're going to have to start paying less for people. The worst part of this adjustment is that it will, as I stated, hit the low-income brackets first and then trickle up.

Assumes *so much* already. Competition as you surely know is a myth made possible only by US power, funded by, yes, your big taxes. If you want to know about competition, a Wal-Mart thread is an ironic place to start.

Anyway this is the wrong thread but I already did that, Tom! For charity! Except it was a bike wash, not a car wash, so it was Harleys instead of big vehicles. And these ILX motherfuckers didn't pony up a DIME so the photos are forever lost to the internet, tough for all of you.

wow that sounds like the worst euphemism ever.

Enrique could you explain what you meant by your last serious post and how it relates to the topic at hand? I've re-read it a couple times while throwing around these distraction techniques and I'm still not any closer to figuring out why you said what you did--competition in the American market vs. global competition are two very different things and one is not the same as the other.

Right, like in China and the US and Russia! Right!

If Wal-Mart is the Soviet monolith then Target must be the USA?

Seriously I have no more time for this bullshit, I have work to do. Later.

I suggest you read this first.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/06/30/business/30WAL.jpg

(That's Halle Barry, Wal-Mart board member David Glass and Susan Lucci getting down at a June 4 shareholder meeting.)

Uh, Wal Mart's exerting quite the macro influence already, dipshit.

WalMart sucks. I wouldn't stop there if I was dying of thirst in the desert.

That isn't true.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.

The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.

The accompanying text read "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The bottom of the advertisement announced that the ad was "Paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future-Major Funding by Wal-Mart (Bentonville, AR)."

The ad, which ran May 8 in the Arizona Daily Sun, was "reviewed and approved by Wal-Mart, but we did not know what the photo was from. We obviously should have asked more questions," said Daphne Moore, Wal-Mart's director of community affairs. She said the company will also issue a letter of apology to the Arizona Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, members of Congress and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union criticized the company for the advertisement.

"It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful," said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the ADL.

That isn't true.

I'd drink my own urine first, I swear!

In the past few years, Wal-Mart has:

# Opposed the introduction of anti-terrorist "smart containers" and electronic seals for cargo containers coming into U.S. ports. The retail industry called them "feel good (security) measures."

# Opposed independent and regular inspections of supply-chain security practices around the world.

# Opposed tougher rules requiring Wal-Mart to let Customs know what it's shipping in and where it comes from.

# Opposed new container-handling fees to pay for improved port security.

...The essence of this policy is "trust, but don't verify" and that's just the way Wal-Mart and RILA want to keep it.

ghostwritten for the pres of the AFL-CIO (seriously wtf byline there), but interesting nonetheless. also, RILA is not in Washington DC, it's in Arlington VA, thank you very much.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c263/Huntsekker27/7814mario20land20walmart.jpg

lol

new desktop wallpaper!

The country is, what, 90% undeveloped, right? These Wal-Mart people care only for profits. That's right: profits. They seek to bring the percent of undeveloped land to 89%. Eighty-nine percent, do you not see?

I guess this really belongs in the Whole Foods thread more, but I'm posting it here too because of a relevant element:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070815/ap_on_bi_ge/whole_foods_wild_oats_7

Whole Foods set "ground rules" barring suppliers from selling directly to Wal-Mart. "It wants Wal-Mart to have to go through distributors because that raises Wal-Mart's costs," the document said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/03/18/walmart.racial.customers/index.html?hpt=T2

CNN) -- Victoria Arter was outraged when she heard the announcement over the Wal-Mart loudspeaker.

"Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers," she said a male voice announced. "All blacks need to leave the store."

"We waited and waited. Some people just left their carts in disgust and said they couldn't believe it," Arter told Philly.com, a CNN affiliate.

It was busy shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday at the Turnersville, New Jersey, Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Arter, a 29-year-old assistant bank manager who is black, didn't know what was going on, but she was not happy. Neither were other customers, who began dialing their cell phones and demanding answers from managers. Some were just quiet, still in shock at what they'd heard.

A few moments later, a store manager got on the public address system and began apologizing and contacted the local police.

This week, authorities have said they're investigating the episode as "a suspected bias intimidation crime."

Arter frequently shopped at the Wal-Mart, but she won't go there any longer, the told the Philadelphia online news source.

"It could have led to violence," Arter told Philly.com. "It could have triggered someone who was having a bad day. I don't want to be an innocent bystander to something because of someone's not-so-funny joke."

"I can't go back in," said Patricia Covington, who was also in the store and spoke to Philly.com. "I went to Target instead. I can't bring myself to go back in there."

She and her friend Sheila Ellington were checking out when they heard the announcement. An attorney, Ellington is also a member of the Gloucester County Minority Coalition.

Both were frightened, unsure of whether the person on the microphone was going to do something violent.

"This voice was controlled and confident," Ellington told Philly.com. "It didn't appear to be a prank."

The discount chain is "just as appalled by this as anyone," Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said. "Whoever did this is wrong and acted in an inappropriate manner."

Police and prosecutors are reviewing security camera video from the store. Any of the 25 in-store telephones could have accessed the public address system, although not all phones are within range of surveillance cameras, authorities said.

It's unclear whether the tape will be made public to help identify the speaker. The store has 700 employees; many are part-time. Some of the store's telephones can be accessed by customers.

Do they distribute Vice Mag in south jersey?

bcuz this feels like that brand of 'culture jamming'

I read this this morning. Dan, I'm curious. Do you think there is as much unbridled racial animosity as when you were younger or are there just a lot more shameless dipshits?

To be honest? The latter.

I have been to that Wal-Mart and it's located in a relatively affluent, upper-middle class section of jersey - thinking that yeah, this is probably the result of a bunch of shameless dipshits.

ha yeah, I was just going to post that I've been there too. That particular town is full of south philly eyetalians that moved to jersey once the block was "broken"

This seems to me to be a symptom not so much of racism gone rampant as it is of people (not necessarily just white people) watching biting, satirical black comedy, particularly in the form of Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle, and taking away the message that racial slurs/prejudices/stereotypes are now funny.

(the sad thing being that the end result between this type of jackassery and actual hateful racism is the same and the people doing the former don't seem to get that the fact that they don't really MEAN it doesn't actually matter to the people they are terrorizing)

the people doing the former don't seem to get that the fact that they don't really MEAN it doesn't actually matter to the people they are terrorizing

they also get REALLY defensive about it when this is pointed out

oh absolutely (and honestly it's kind of hilarious/satisfying when that happens because then you get to terrorize them in the opposite direction)

well then ur as bad as they are imo DP shame on YOU

Ppl in general need to learn that actions have consequences; one consequence of being an insensitive asshat about race and stereotypes is that people will call you a racist.

disgusting incident. something similar happened to a friend of a friend once. the friend worked at a McDonald's and got angry at something his manager said to him, so he made a sign that said "I HATE N*****S!" and affixed it to the door. Customers got angry and demanded answers and the kid told him that his manager made him put it up. It made the news and originally the news reported that management asked him to put it up, and then the manager found out and (rightfully) fired the kid and set the record straight.

They made an arrest:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7338759

I just get the image of some 17 year old white kid with a hoodie, and a phony Creole accent and a backpack getting teary eyed as he's being handcuffed and saying such tripe as "I ain't racis', I have 2 black friends! I thought this was America! you can't do this, my dad owns a dealership!"

2 minutes of hate and stupidity lands you (possibly) in jail or with a hefty fine at least.

hearing a ton of 'let walmart come to nyc' ads on the radio, only a matter of time I think

Third Time's a Charm?

Oh my god I had the worst experience ever with this shitty store over the weekend. My sister lives in the middle of nowhere, where Wal-Mart is pretty much her only option and so she registered there for her baby shower. We went Saturday afternoon to pick up her gift. After standing in line for ten minutes at the customer service desk, which seemed an obvious place to find out about a registry, we were told to go to the jewelry counter. After waiting there for another twenty minutes for someone to come to the counter, she tells us to go to the electronics desk. We go there, wait a few more minutes for the guy to get done rining up a few customers. He tells us they don't do registries at Electronics and we need to go back to customer service. Not wanting to go through that again, I ask if there is some sort of supervisor or manager we could talk to. He calls for someone, she shows up and tells us that she has no idea what a "registry" is, we must be mistaken. After assuring her that there does indeed exist such a thing as a "registry" for their store, she finally decides to call the store manager. The store manager turns up and is, thankfully, super friendly and she walks us to where the baby registries are printed out - the electronics desk! Turns out the guy working there just didn't want to deal with us. So the store manager prints out the registry and we pick out the gift, excited that we can finally get the hell out of the store. In line at the register, the cashier fucks up the transaction three(!) separate times, having to call for help and restart every time. My wife was concerned that the cashier wasn't properly scanning the registry to remove the items we purchased, but she assured us it was taken care of. Finally we get the hell out of the store and back home, hoping to never ever have to set foot in that store ever again. But as my wife found out last night, the cashier didn't properly scan the registery and the items we purchased weren't removed. To wrap this up, my wife spent 90 minutes on the phone with Wal-Mart hoping to resolve the issue and get the items removed from the registry, only to learn that we have to take the items back to the store, return them, and repurchase them in order to have them removed.

So, basically, yes Wal-Mart, you have a shitty reputation. But if this is our experience for one visit in over a decade, then the reputation is 100% deserved. Hate this store so much, even more than I already did based on all their shitty business practices.

almost put this in the quiddities thread cuz i didn't know where else to go, but there's some choice (that is, horrible) quotes from bad person analysts in here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

vs

Despite Costco's impressive record, Mr. Sinegal's salary is just $350,000, although he also received a $200,000 bonus last year. That puts him at less than 10 percent of many other chief executives, though Costco ranks 29th in revenue among all American companies.

"I've been very well rewarded," said Mr. Sinegal, who is worth more than $150 million thanks to his Costco stock holdings. "I just think that if you're going to try to run an organization that's very cost-conscious, then you can't have those disparities. Having an individual who is making 100 or 200 or 300 times more than the average person working on the floor is wrong."

but the waltons have been blessed by god, u see

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/26/why-can-t-walmart-be-more-like-costco.html

it is not without shame that I link to a mcardle article but I think people do tend to overlook the 'how many jobs' side to these things.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/15d18a8d43be631d73fd9736e55ae6e6/tumblr_mmyh5j3gmg1qzab0no1_500.jpg

Wal-Mart Asks Workers To Donate Food To Its Needy Employees

The problems posed by Wal-Mart all cluster around the fact that it is built upon a mass of impoverished workers both here and abroad. The Wal-Mart business model, no matter which big retailer adopts it, just means that many more working poor. The C/D divide here is whether you concentrate your attention on "working" or on "poor".

Last week, 50 people were arrested after protesting the retailer's pay at a store in Los Angeles.

Wal-Mart turned a profit of $15.7 billion last year.

That's what I call BOOM! journalism

Female Associate: Hey Steve, I've been thinking, if a union were to get in to Walmart, things really would not be that bad.

Steve: Here's the thing about unions Jenny, there really are no guarantees. I remember when I was a kid my dad was part of the auto workers and they went on strike for 6 months and he had to walk a picket line that whole time. I would hate to see that happen to anybody here in our club.

Female Associate: Wow thank you Steve

Steve: You bet!!

http://gawker.com/walmarts-anti-union-dialogue-is-great-you-bet-1506493461

looool

btw p sure there has NEVER been a six-month UAW strike, trying to confirm

prob not in a wal-mart worker's dad's lifetime anyway

Female Associate: I wish I had a name :-(

o wait she's called Jenny, my bad.

Or maybe she isn't called Jenny and the manager is just making up a name at random, confident that the fear induced deference the company requires from its employees means he won't get called on it.