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.

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.