Wal-mart(good or Bad)

[xcrider]

Walmart- do you like the store? I have grown up going there, but would rather pay a little extra to support a more local person if possible. Irritates me as they expand into other things. Auto service, furniture, banking,etc. When you walked into a small Wal-mart store(few and far between now) it was a friendly place, now It is very unfriendly and impersonal.

Trying to put something non-political and non-religous up.

[jrun]

Sooner or later you'll be giving birth in a Wal-Mart. Stock up now.

Even the Chinese love it.

[nordicrunner]

i have been to walmart a few times (mostly when i was younger and with my grandparents). i really didn't like it. crying babies and dirty floors have been my experience.

also, walmart is trying to put a super walmart, or something to that effect, in my small town. if it ends up coming to my town, people will probably come down from canada, and the traffic congestion will increase a lot.

[Zat0pek]

Here was my last trip trip to Wal-mart, about 3 1/2 years ago. True story, I swear.

We had just finished off our basement and part of it was a playroom for my daughters. We needed a TV for it. I was near a Wal-mart and decided to swing by and see what they had. I didn't want anything fancy, just a simple, cheap TV.

I found one I liked, and the price was better than I had seen at a couple of other places, so I decided to get it. They had to get it from the storeroom as they only had display models.

I looked around for someone. Then I looked some more.

And I waited.

And I looked some more. No one to be found to fetch a TV for me. Five minutes go by. Ten minutes.

Now its become a challenge. I decide to play it out.

A guy comes by and I tell him what I want. He says it will be a while and he disappears.

Fifteen minutes....twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes. No TV.

By now, there is a pretty good sized group of folks in electronics needing service, and they are getting mighty restless.

Thirty five minutes. Forty minutes.

At this point, I have an idea. I pull out my cell phone and call information for the number of this store. They connect me. Here is a transcript, as close as I can recall, of that conversation (after getting through the menu to a live person):

WM: Good afternoon, thank you for calling Wal-mart. How can I direct your call?

ME: I'd like to speak to the store manager, please.

WM: One moment please. *ringing*

MANAGER: This is (blank), can I help you?

ME: Yes, my name is Zat0pek, and I have a question. Can you see the security camera monitors from where you are?

MANAGER: (pause). Um...yes. Why do you ask?

ME: Could you take a look at the one showing the electronics department? Do you see the guy in the sweatshirt talking on the cell phone, waving his arm over his head?

MANAGER: (pause) Uhhhhhhhhh...yes.

ME: Well, that's me, and I have been standing here for forty-five fu***ing minutes trying to give you $300 of my money to buy a lousy television, and I can't get anyone to help me. Could you please send someone to help so I can go home and see my three year old daughter before she's ready to go to college?

MANAGER: (pause) I'll send someone right away, sir. *click*

I hang up and get wild applause from everyone that had been waiting. Guy shows up seconds later and I get my TV.

I haven't been back since, and I won't go back. Where I can, I vote with my wallet.

[jrun]

ME: Yes, my name is Zat0pek, and I have a question. Can you see the security camera monitors from where you are?


Do that in 'today's environment and the LL would have been scrounging for bond money and organizing petitions to get ole Zat0pek out of the slammer.

Good story, though.

[nordicrunner]

good story.

[running high]

good story.

Great story.

[Zat0pek]

Do that in 'today's environment and the LL would have been scrounging for bond money and organizing petitions to get ole Zat0pek out of the slammer.

Doubt it. This was in January of '02.

[xcrider]

Great Story. And similar occurances are why I avoid it as much as possible.

[MoMo]

Well, not to politicize it, but there are also very big questions about the negative impact Wal-Mart has on employees -- driving down benefits, exploiting foreigners -- on its suppliers -- paying so little, while waving mammoth supplier contracts, that it has driven several of them out of business -- and on the communities where it locates.

How do you balance Wal-Mart's low, low prices -- which help American consumers -- against the many negatives, which hurt many American workers? I don't have a total answer, I just don't like the place.

[exjersey1]

I was in one once and have no plan/desire to go back.

[Jwaksman]

Walmart is just the newest demon of the far left. Their last demon was Microsoft. It never really makes sense why they pick these companies - Walmart plays above average market wages, and all evidence points to the fact that it improves communities. I think has something to do with the misconceptions of Keynesian economics from the 1920's and 1930's that argued that higher wages were all that matters to an economy. The thing is, wages are a lot more complicated than just a nominal value. The fact that there is no evidence whatsoever of Walmart doing harm is just a bump in the road for unions, who are simply bitter that they're not taking their 3% out of every worker's salary...


I, for one, have never been to a Walmart. They don't exist where I live and I don't really have need for one. But I have friends from the midwest, where people live paycheck to paycheck, who absolutely rely on Walmart to allow them to live their lives as luxuriously as possible.

[MoMo]

You apparently don't know anything about the Wal-Mart business model, which steadily offers lower prices to its customers, but at the expense of driving suppliers into the ground. This can't be seen as an unalloyed economic good, though I suppose you might cast it that way.

[Jwaksman]

No, explain to me how they are forcing other companies to sell them products. Are they holding guns to the heads of the owners of Sony, forcing them to provide cheaper televisions?


If other companies are willing to sell them the goods then they are profitting. Walmart does not have nearly enough market share to dominate a market like, say, Rockefeller Oil used to...

[exjersey1]

Wal-Mart (http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html)

One paragraph of particular note:
Made in the U.S.A?
Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of the stores' items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops. In fact, only after Wal-Mart's "Buy American" ad campaign was in full swing did the company become the country's largest importer of Chinese goods in any industry. By taking its orders abroad, Wal-Mart has forced many U.S. manufacturers out of business. The chain was broadly criticized for being the primary distributor of many goods attracting controversy, including Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, Disney's Haitian-made pajamas, child-produced clothing from Bangladesh and sweatshop-produced toys and sports gear from Asia. Difficult working conditions also exist in the United States: In 1991, labor inspectors found labels for Wal-Mart brands being made in Manhattan's Chinatown. There, 16 and 17 year-old Chinese immigrants without permits had been working for one month without being paid.

[MoMo]

Obviously, Wal-Mart offers HUGE contracts to its suppliers. It does so at dirt-low prices that wouldn't make sense to the supplier if the contracts weren't so big. Signing such a contract can make or break a company.
But then, each time the contract comes up, Wal-Mart demands that the supplier either lower its price or improve its quality. This can be done up to a point. Finally, the company -- by now dependent on its Wal-Mart business -- reaches a breaking point. It can go only so low.
Wal-Mart then blithely packs up and signs a new contract with a supplier in, say, Honduras. When the Hondurans have driven down to the breaking point, Wal-Mart signs up with a Chinese supplier. Who knows where they'll go when the Chinese can't meet its demands.
Sure, the companies get some profits, but several ultimately have been driven to bankruptcy.
Is that really a great business model?

[Zat0pek]

while waving mammoth supplier contracts, that it has driven several of them out of business

This argument in particular against Wal-mart really sticks in my craw.

I don't blame Wal-mart; I BLAME THE SUPPLIERS.

If its a bad deal, then its a bad deal; don't do it. I know of one small business that made a particular hardware item that Wal-mart wanted to carry, and they did. But in textbook Wal-mart style, after they carried the product for a year, Wal-mart tried to renegotiate the deal and really put the screws to this small supplier in take-it-or-leave-it terms.

To Wal-mart's surprise, this little supplier told them to pound sand and pulled his product out of the store. His comment was that he was in business long before Wal-mart discovered him and he didn't stay in business by doing stupid deals.

Wal-mart was unable to find a suitable replacement for this item, and came back a year later with much more fair terms, and the guy never had a problem with them again.

Why do suppliers let Wal-mart push them around? Greed. Not on Wal-mart's part, but on the SUPPLIERS part. They are so eager for the sales volume that Wal-mart offers that they sell their souls to the devil to get it. I have NO PROBLEM with suppliers that get driven out of business because of Draconian Wal-mart deals. They had it coming if they were stupid enough to do that. Just like the guy mentioned above said, they were in business before Wal-mart's contract.

I have cases (by the way, Wal-mart does the same thing to law firms they hire; they go through law firms like crazy) that I don't take because I know that in the long run I couldn't afford them. Every business has to face that decision.

Bullies will do what the people they pick on let them get away with. Best way to stop a bully is to hit back. I have no patience for people or institutions that lack sufficient backbone to stand up for themselves.

[MoMo]

I agree, up to a point, zat.
My brother-in-law -- big flower-grower -- was one of those who told the arrogant Wal-Mart negotiators to take a hike. He said they couldn't believe that he turned them down.

But not everyone (consider the Hondurans) is in a position to say no.

It's a race to the bottom, leaving bodies strewn along the way.

[Jwaksman]

One of the interesting things is that people always talk about the huge Walmart profits. They argue that Walmart is paying really low wages so that they can make huge profits. Unfortunately, facts are never a barrier for capitalism-haters. In reality, Walmart actually makes very low profits. It runs about a 3.5% annual profit, which is very low for the industry.


And that is very good evidence of why it is good for a community - it manages to make things much for efficient. Imagine for a second that instead of a town getting some product from Walmart it got it from a small boutique. Now, no small business is going to have annual sales of over $1 Million, that would be insane. Let's say that the boutique makes about $500,000 a year (that works out to several hundred dollars per hour), which would be an incredible business. If they operated at a 3.5% profit margin, like Walmart does, they would only be making $17,500 a year. And that's supposed to pay the guy who owns the store as well as people working in it??


No, of course the company would make a much higher profit margin.

Walmart is great for communities because it can use its huge size to buy products in massive quantities from the cheapest sources. That means that it can sell them at low prices while also paying above-market average wages.


So, what generally happens when Walmart moves in is that people who were making minimum wage at local boutiques go to Walmart for higher wages. Then, the people who own other shops typically make their stuff more specialized or luxury-oriented.


Socialists like to trot out the few people who sell their stores and go work at Walmart. And, yeah, those people are losing out from Walmart. But in counties of hundreds of thousands of people, should we make everyone else suffer to make this one person's life better? I think not...

[MoMo]

Socialists?

You get more and more ridiculous.

[Jwaksman]

Thanks for not discussing the arguments that I made...

[Zat0pek]

I agree, up to a point, zat.
My brother-in-law -- big flower-grower -- was one of those who told the arrogant Wal-Mart negotiators to take a hike. He said they couldn't believe that he turned them down.

But not everyone (consider the Hondurans) is in a position to say no.

It's a race to the bottom, leaving bodies strewn along the way.

I disagree with your closing. It may take time and be a bumpy road getting there, but eventually what goes around does, in fact, come around. Wal-mart is nothing without its vendors. Sure, there will always be exceptions (like your Honduran example) but they can be just that - exceptions - if the vendors would wise up.

Jwaks is right about one thing - the far left loves to hate Wal-mart. But I bet a whole bunch of them shop there.

[mzungu]

when a retailer takes over a large percentage of the retail market through pricing strategies and so forth, suppliers are then limited in their options. that is, monopoly conditions enter. more importantly here, american suppliers of stuff used at wal-mart are not going to be in much luck when it comes to alternative orders, because foreign suppliers are going to beat their prices. labor costs in china, india, and other asian countries are 10% or less of labor costs in this country. but if suppliers are in difficult straits here, and we can feel sorry for some of them, it is much easier to feel sorry for workers who have no other employers in the area and are not allowed their unionizing rights at wal-mart. moreover, wal-mart workers make an average of $13,000 per year, and hundreds of thousands of wal-mart workers are on welfare; why should the government subsidize their non-living wages? strangely enough, i read in the new yorker that walmart's business model is actually under some assault, because they are themselves facing declining profit margins due to competition from other major retailers. they have become enormous and their owners are all among the world's richest people, but there are some problems in the offing, according to the article i read, but i forget the other details.

as far as service goes, zat, that was a very funny story.

[mzungu]

in jwaksman's world, everyone who disagrees with him on economics is a socialist. it is good for consumers for consumer items to be cheaper and more plentiful. however, it is even better for consumers to have good paying jobs, because good paying jobs account for basically 100% of their income, whereas consumer item spending (retail stuff) accounts for a very small percentage of their total spending. rent accounts for 25-50% of spending for many people, and utilities for another 10%, much more in sum than their retail spending. in other words, cheap goods are always helpful, but not more helpful than good jobs. and wal-mart pays less than the smaller businesses it replaces and it has the effect of reducing profit margins for american supply industries, making lots of jobs either disappear or pay less.

[MoMo]

Clearly not just the far left, zat. Any small town being taken over by Wal-Mart views it with mixed emotions.
As do I.
I have shopped there, but try to stay away when I can --
not out of principle, but for exactly the reason zat described. It's a big, soulless, inefficient place where you pay a price for your savings.

[xcrider]

Clearly not just the far left, zat. Any small town being taken over by Wal-Mart views it with mixed emotions.
As do I.
I have shopped there, but try to stay away when I can --
not out of principle, but for exactly the reason zat described. It's a big, soulless, inefficient place where you pay a price for your savings.

What a great job I did at starting a new non-political thread. Hey,
This pretty much sums up my view as well. The Wal-mart of 15 years ago-great idea. The one today -people think they are getting bargains, but at what cost. Few like working there, but many small downtown stores close due to competition. Lowest price always, easy return policy, are items of the past. And you will never get the service that you get from a smaller retailer. And the buy American thing walmart does is almost non-existent. Again, don't think this is what Sam had in mind.

Heres an article mzungu may have been refering to
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P118085.asp?GT1=6469

[Jwaksman]

Let's pick apart these points one at a time:


First of all, you charge that Walmart pays lower wages. Did you present evidence? No. You say that the average worker makes $x per year. Well, how many of them are part time? What do fulltime workers make?


Walmart pays above market average wages, as I said before. Why aren't you complaining about Starbucks? They pay less per hour than Walmart. What about the Gap? Why aren't you complaining about Old Navy?


The fact is that people choose to work at Walmart because they get higher wages than they were under their old job (or maybe they were unemployed, making no money at all).

People then choose to shop there because they like the selection and the prices.

I find that arguments against capitalism always work under the assumption that everyone is a sheep and doesn't know what's good for them. Luckily, people aren't as stupid as you think they are. They know what's for their own good, and they will shop & work where they think is best.


Finally, you charge that Walmart's business model is bad and they aren't making enough profits because they're run poorly??? Well then, I suppose you should apply to be their new CEO!!

[mzungu]

i shopped at wal-mart once in 1999 before i had any idea about what effects they had on society. at the time, i knew of it only as a joke of bad taste, like kmart. i tell you something, i don't shop at businesses whose effects i cannot support. for example, i have dropped completely any fast food purchases since reading fast food nation about three years ago, despite really liking fast food (this allowed me to see that the food is much better at nyc restaurants and delis). when i could invest anywhere i wanted back around 1996 or 1997 i put it into a socially responsible mutual fund and was repaid a nice 280% in two or three years.

[xcrider]

Let's pick apart these points one at a time:


First of all, you charge that Walmart pays lower wages. Did you present evidence? No. You say that the average worker makes $x per year. Well, how many of them are part time? What do fulltime workers make?


Walmart pays above market average wages, as I said before. Why aren't you complaining about Starbucks? They pay less per hour than Walmart. What about the Gap? Why aren't you complaining about Old Navy?


The fact is that people choose to work at Walmart because they get higher wages than they were under their old job (or maybe they were unemployed, making no money at all).

People then choose to shop there because they like the selection and the prices.

I find that arguments against capitalism always work under the assumption that everyone is a sheep and doesn't know what's good for them. Luckily, people aren't as stupid as you think they are. They know what's for their own good, and they will shop & work where they think is best.


Finally, you charge that Walmart's business model is bad and they aren't making enough profits because they're run poorly??? Well then, I suppose you should apply to be their new CEO!!

They keep many of their employees under full- time to avoid paying benefits, and Walmart is one of the largest employers in our town. Makes a big difference. Suburb oF chicago- who cares but when your town is 10-20,000 it makes more of a difference. And I have plenty of friends who have and do work there. They do because not many other options.

[mzungu]

Let's pick apart these points one at a time:


First of all, you charge that Walmart pays lower wages. Did you present evidence? No. You say that the average worker makes $x per year. Well, how many of them are part time? What do fulltime workers make?


Walmart pays above market average wages, as I said before. Why aren't you complaining about Starbucks? They pay less per hour than Walmart. What about the Gap? Why aren't you complaining about Old Navy?


The fact is that people choose to work at Walmart because they get higher wages than they were under their old job (or maybe they were unemployed, making no money at all).

People then choose to shop there because they like the selection and the prices.

I find that arguments against capitalism always work under the assumption that everyone is a sheep and doesn't know what's good for them. Luckily, people aren't as stupid as you think they are. They know what's for their own good, and they will shop & work where they think is best.


Finally, you charge that Walmart's business model is bad and they aren't making enough profits because they're run poorly??? Well then, I suppose you should apply to be their new CEO!!

this thread is about wal-mart; that's why the complaints are about wal-mart.
the wages i mentioned ($13,000, the exact figure is between 13k and 14k) are for full-time workers at about $8/hr, which is roughly their average wage. starbucks offers health insurance to its workers, unlike wal-mart. there is no argument here against capitalism and i am not going to reply anymore to your continual claims to that effect, such as that any people opposing you are socialists. walmart's business model is reviewed by james surowiecki, i believe, in a recent article, where he states EXACTLY what you stated on the last page, namely, that their profit margin is low for corporations. their business model has been extremely successful in the past, obviously, where success is measured by market share, # outlets, profits to owners, but they are becoming much less profitable as a percentage of revenues.

but in reference to your claim about anti-capitalists considering people sheep who do not know what is in their best interests, that is pretty funny, because that is exactly the premise of adam smith. his claim is that no one knows what is in the best interests of themselves or of society as a whole. so, adam smith would be an anti-capitalist by your definition. of course, smith argued that by an invisible hand all of the selfish interests of the people would work together to promote the good of the people as a whole.

[Jwaksman]

Mzungu, I suggest you re-read Adam Smith. You even contradicted your argument about him in the same sentence: "so, adam smith would be an anti-capitalist by your definition. of course, smith argued that by an invisible hand all of the selfish interests of the people would work together to promote the good of the people as a whole."


Yes, people do what's in their own selfish interest. They buy the best products at the lowest prices.


People seem to want the impossible. They want a company that has low prices, pays high wages, and only buys products from other countries.


Well.... I want a Lamborghini in my garage. How about we sit around and pray to God and see who gets what we want first....



Walmart makes only a 3.5% profit! Do you realize how low that is??? These aren't greedy people trying to make every last penny off of their poor workers. They simply cannot pay higher wages without raising prices and laying off workers...

[Zat0pek]

Clearly not just the far left, zat. Any small town being taken over by Wal-Mart views it with mixed emotions.

You haven't been in many small towns lately, have you? Wal-mart is greeted with excitement and anticipation by a significant majority. It is almost always an improvement in selection, price and employment opportunity over what they had before.

Nobody ever points out that the little businesses in small towns that are hurt by Wal-mart can't afford to pay well, either. Wal-mart usually pays better than the comparable employers in that community. I remember a shirt-tail relative of mine being so excited because when Wal-mart came to town, she got a job with them that paid her almost $2 an hour more than the little shop she was working in at the time.

[Jwaksman]

this thread is about wal-mart; that's why the complaints are about wal-mart.



Read the news. All they ever do is bash Walmart for low wages. The fact is that the big reason is because they won't allow unions. The unions are really afraid because they're being pushed out of the private sector altogether. Unions are becoming obsolete, and they're getting desperate. Companies weighed down by unionization simply cannot compete on the market anymore...

[Jwaksman]

You haven't been in many small towns lately, have you? Wal-mart is greeted with excitement and anticipation by a significant majority.



But don't you realize that know-it-all elitists from the northeast and west coast know way more about what normal Americans should want and do with their lives than they do. Those silly Kansans.. they just don't know what's best for them!

[mzungu]

it depends on where you're talking about. there have been successful attempts in many rural places to stop wal-mart, including vermont. but you ivy league elitists think that you know better than blue collar workers what is good for them.

[Zat0pek]

as far as service goes, zat, that was a very funny story.

Thanks. I'm a Target kinda guy now.

[Jwaksman]

Who are you talking to? I say let the market decide. If people don't want a Walmart then the walmart won't be built. They're not stupid. You do a ton of market research before you build a gigantic superstore. They build them where people want them.


I wouldn't force a town to take a Walmart anymore than I'd force it to get rid of one. Again, you operate under the assumption that everything must be FORCED. What is your obsession with FORCING things on people?


Why can't people just live and let live, and choose to do what they want? Let's live in a liberal society.

[mzungu]

target--their primary competitor now?

i'm going to look for data about walmart now and test whether the claims here are supported. first thing i found is from a pro-wal mart, free market fundamentalist article.
"Wal-Mart is an employer that pays relatively low wages compared to most jobs or careers, and that engenders a sense of loathing from people getting paid those wages. But Wal-Mart is not unlike any other retailer in the respect that it, for the most part, provides jobs and not careers."

[xcrider]

Thanks. I'm a Target kinda guy now.

I wish we had a target, the nearest one is 2 hrs away.

[mzungu]

a few examples of walmart illegality:
This week the Washington State Department of Ecology issued a $64,000 penalty to Wal-Mart Corporation for continued and serious violations of Washington state?s water quality laws.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/news/1996news/96-015.html

----------------

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that a $6.8 million consent decree with retail giant Wal-Mart Stores was signed today by Federal District Court Judge Garland Burrell in Sacramento, Calif. The decree resolves the EEOC's lawsuit, Case No. S-99-0414-GEB DAD, which alleged that Wal-Mart's pre-employment questionnaire, "Matrix of Essential Job Functions," violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Parties to the decree also have agreed to settle 12 other ADA lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart in 11 states.

http://www.eeoc.gov/press/12-17-01.html

---------------

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that Judge William D. Browning of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona has held Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in contempt of court and ordered the nation's largest retailer to pay $750,200 in fines, produce and air an explanatory television advertisement, and provide significant remedial relief. The Court Order charges Wal-Mart with failing to comply with a Consent Decree settling an EEOC lawsuit on behalf of two hearing-impaired employees under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

http://www.eeoc.gov/press/6-14-01.html

[mzungu]

"Last Sunday, my adult son and daughter joined me for a visit to the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Salina. We spent an hour and a half wandering among the hundreds of red, blue and yellow "Always Low Prices" signs. We checked many of those prices and then went home to do some calculating.

Our conclusion: A single parent employed full-time at Salina's Wal-Mart and raising two children aged 4 and 12 does not earn enough money to supply the family's basic needs by shopping at that same Wal-Mart.

According to the personnel manager at Salina's Supercenter, a cashier earns a starting hourly wage of $6.25. After Social Security and Medicare taxes, the paychecks for a month would total $1,016 for a full-time 176 hours. (That's 40 hours a week, which would put this cashier in a better financial position than the many employees who work 32 or fewer hours a week. Of course, hourly pay rises eventually, but the 2001 PBS report "Store Wars" found that most employees have left by the end of their first year.)

We calculated the amount that our hypothetical three-member family would spend each month if as many of its essential needs as possible were supplied by our local Supercenter. The bottom line: They would need an absolute minimum of $1,136 per month to cover housing, food, transportation, health care and miscellaneous expenses. Despite our best efforts, we exceeded our cashier's monthly income by $120. We couldn't have come even that close had our cashier's family not been eligible for a State of Kansas child-care allowance that covers all but $22 per month in child-care costs for such a family living on so low a wage.

To determine needs, we used published studies on an "adequate but austere" budget for a family with one adult, one preschooler and one school-age child living in Salina. But we slashed some of the published budget items by as much as 38 percent, based on the "Always Low Prices" we found at the Supercenter. And we completely eliminated anything we could do without.

Take a look at the details of our budget and try to decide if you could find a way to cut it and make ends meet."

[mzungu]

"Taxpayers pick up slack for cheap Wal-Mart wages

California paying $86 million to subsidize underpaid workers

San Francisco - Wal-Mart low-wage policies are costing California taxpayers $86 million annually to provide health care and other public assistance that the greedy retailer's underpaid workers cannot afford on their own, says the University of California at Berkeley.

The study by the university's Institute for Industrial Relations estimates that Wal-Mart employs roughly 44,000 California workers who make an average of $9.70 per hour - 31% below the $14.01-per-hour average of other large retailers with at least 1,000 employees.

The analysis is based on the premise that Wal-Mart's paltry pay scale forces the retailer's workers to supplement their incomes with Medicaid, food stamps and other taxpayer-backed assistance programs at an unusually high rate.

California taxpayers contribute an average of $1,952 per Wal-Mart worker, the researchers find. This is 39% more than the average public assistance cost of $1,401 per worker at other large retailers who have at least 1,000 employees, the study concludes.

"People understand the benefits of Wal-Mart - they have lower prices," says Arindrajit Dube, a research economist who co-authored the study. "What might not be obvious is those low prices are fed by taxpayer-funded compensation."

Wal-Mart rejected that notion, saying that it has 60,500 California employees and pays them an average of $10.37 - a figure still far below the average for other large retailers in the populous state."

[mzungu]

"Wal-Mart pays an average hourly wage of $8.23 an hour, according to independent expert statistical analysis, which falls below basic living wage standards and even below poverty lines.
Wal-Mart claims an hourly wage of $9.68 an hour is its national average, though that still equals poverty levels for workers. Since “full time” at Wal-Mart is 34 hours a week according to company policy, full-time workers make a mere $17,114.24 a year—below the federal poverty level for a family of four.
The most common Wal-Mart jobs earn less.
A sales associate--the most common job classification--earns on average $8.23 per hour ($13,861 annually)
A cashier—the second most common job—earns about $7.92 per hour ($11,948 annually)
Sales associates and cashiers combined account for more than a third of all Wal-Mart jobs.
The world’s largest and richest retailer—with more than $250 billion in annual revenue--can afford wage increases. Wal-Mart could pay each employee a dollar more per hour if the company increased its prices by a half-penny per dollar. For example, a $2.00 pair of socks would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would annually add up to $1,800 for each employee.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson told USA Today on 1/29/03 that their pay is close to or equal to union wages.
Union Wages

Grocery workers are paid an average of $10.61/hour based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) reported in 2002 that United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union-represented workers in the supermarket industry earned 31% more than their non-union counterparts. Women have a 33% advantage with UFCW representation.
IWPR research showed that UFCW-represented supermarket workers are two-and-a half times as likely to have pension coverage than non-union workers and twice as likely to have health insurance coverage than retail food workers without union representation.
The excerpt below is from the June 11, 2003 Wall Street Journal--New Recipe for Cost Savings: Replace Highly Paid Workers; In a Tight Market, Employers Are Finding Job Seekers Willing to Take Lower Salaries

At Wal-Mart Stores Inc., managers are judged in part on their ability to keep payroll costs at a strict percentage of sales, according to former managers. Some say that puts extra pressure on higher-paid workers to be more productive. "You keep people making $10 an hour to a high standard," putting more pressure on them for small mistakes, says Lyndol Jackson, a Wal-Mart manager until he left for another job in 1998. Often, those workers quit and can be replaced less expensively, adds Mr. Jackson, who lives in Memphis, Tenn.

Former Wal-Mart cashier Dana Mailloux, 33, worked for eight years at a store in Fort Myers, Fla., moving up to $9.15 an hour. Last fall (2002), her manager called her and more than a dozen other longtime employees into his office and told them he had to lay them off because of lack of work. That same day, Ms. Mailloux says, she passed a room with six new hires, red vests in hand, filling out paperwork. Returning to the store that weekend, she says, she saw newly advertised positions listed on a bulletin board. "Basically, I was thrown out like a piece of trash," says Ms. Mailloux.

Once a worker gets pushed out of a job, chances are his or her next position won't pay as much. A 1992 study for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research found displaced workers earned an average of about $1,200 a year less than they would have earned if they had stayed in their previous job, even after five years.

Overtime

Wal-Mart faces 38 state and federal lawsuits filed by hourly workers in 30 states, accusing the company of systematically forcing them to work long hours off the clock. A July 2000 internal audit of 128 Wal-Mart stores found 127 were "not in compliance" with company policies concerning workers not taking breaks. The audit found workers nationwide didn’t take breaks 76,472 times in a one-week period.
On December 19, 2002, a Portland jury issued its unanimous verdict that Wal-Mart violated federal and state wage-and-hour laws by forcing employees at 18 Oregon stores to work overtime without pay from 1994 to 1999.
In a class-action suit in Texas, on behalf of more than 200,000 current and former Wal-Mart workers, statisticians estimate that the company underpaid its Texas workers by $150 million over four years by not paying them for the many times they worked during their daily 15-minute breaks. (NYT, 6/02)
Wal-Mart settled a suit in Colorado in 2000, reportedly for $50 million to 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart hourly workers. The terms of the settlement were confidential, and the company will say only that the actual amount is far less than has been reported.
More than 8,000 pharmacists filed a class-action lawsuit in August 2002, charging that Wal-Mart owes them $200 million in pay for "off the clock" work.
On May 31, 2003, a "tentative agreement" was reached between Wal-Mart and hundreds of pharmacists suing the discount retailer for nearly $45 million in damages. A judge had already ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, in a 1999 summary judgment, that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. had violated labor laws by not paying its pharmacists overtime and shorting their paychecks for two years. The agreement overrides a trial that was set to decide the dollar amount of damages for the underpaid pharmacists. The case was filed in 1995 on behalf of four Colorado pharmacists and grew to 596, who alleged they had routinely worked "off the clock" for Wal-Mart doing paperwork and other chores. Typically, their work lasted 60 hours, not the 40 hours indicated on Wal-Mart's records, according to the complaint. They allege Wal-Mart's failure to pay them overtime compensation--by improperly classifying them as salaried workers--was willful and that the retailer intentionally shortchanged its employees.
Indiana is one of the first states to allow a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores over its labor practices. Any hourly employee who worked at an Indiana Wal-Mart or Sam's Club from Aug. 1, 1998, to the present can join the suit. Wal-Mart is the largest nongovernmental employer in Indiana. For the three Indiana stores reviewed in the internal audit, workers skipped breaks 1,699 times, according to the court record.
Store Managers

Store managers earn bonuses based on earnings. Since the corporation dictates the inventory and operating expenses, managers’ only recourse to stimulate profits is essentially by putting a tight lid on wages.
Wal-Mart expects its managers to increase sales each year, yet decrease labor costs by two tenths of a percent from the prior year's figures.
Joyce Moody, a former manager in Alabama and Mississippi, told the New York Times that Wal-Mart "threatend to write up managers if they didn't bring the payroll in low enough." Depositions in wage and hour lawsuits reveal that company headquarters leaned on management to keep their labor costs at 8 percent of sales or less, and managers in turn leaned on assistant managers to work their employees off-the-clock or simply delete time from employee time sheets."

this and many pages of fact sheets at this website below.
the wages i referred to $8.23 equalled $13,861 above, a salary for a sales associate.
http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/fact_sheets_and_backgrounder/walmart/wages.cfm

[exjersey1]

Walmart's CEO earned 17.5 million. Their hourly employees average around $7.50 per hour. At least 1/3 of Walmart's hourlies are part-timers who work less than 28 hours/week, meaning they're ineligible for medical benefits. For the eligible ones, if you want insurance through Walmart you'll pay at leat 35% of the plan's cost, about twice as much as even the most tightwad employers would require.

They absolutely engage in saturation store-building; the problem comes when they close an under-performing store. Since their facilities are enormous, the only potential customers for a closed Walmart would be another large retailer, and Walmart's policy is not to sell to them. There are cases where shuttered Walmarts have been torn down at taxpayer expense.

I don't live in a rural-type area, so it's pretty easy for me to avoid Walmart or any other store I choose not to shop at, or don't like for any reason.


edit:
Holy crap Mzungu, either I got distracted by work while I was typing, or you were entering like a madman.

[Zat0pek]

i'm going to look for data about walmart now and test whether the claims here are supported. first thing i found is from a pro-wal mart, free market fundamentalist article.
"Wal-Mart is an employer that pays relatively low wages compared to most jobs or careers, and that engenders a sense of loathing from people getting paid those wages. But Wal-Mart is not unlike any other retailer in the respect that it, for the most part, provides jobs and not careers."

mzungu, while you're looking, see if you can find any data on Wal-mart wages compared to other employers in the same community. My admittedly subjective experience has been that Wal-mart pays at or even considerably above market wages in the same town when they are in small communities.

I have a strong hunch that Wal-marts wage data gets skewed because wage data from a Wal-mart in a town of 10,000 people - where ALL wages are lower - gets mixed in with wage data from comparable employers that don't locate in small towns (eg Target, which I only see in large suburban areas). In other words, if both Target and Wal-mart pay exactly market wages, but Wal-mart often locates in small towns with lower market wages and Target only locates in suburban areas with higher market wages, I would expect Wal-mart wage data to look "worse" by comparison because a portion of its wage data includes markets with lower wages that Target doesn't go into.

[Jwaksman]

I doubt mzungu will present that data. Because Walmart wages are higher than the wages of the communities they enter. It makes sense. If you want to pull workers away from other places, you have to charge higher wages.



As always, when arguments fail, bring in the anecdotes... I can find anecdotes about how great Walmart is. But what's the point? Anecdotes don't prove anything.


The fact is that if Walmart breaks a law somewhere then they should be punished. If they pollute water, then punish them for breaking the law. But don't allow special interests to keep Walmart out of areas that could desperately use it because it's not in the best interests of the wallets of the Union Mob Bosses... This is a free country. If you don't the store then don't shop there or work there. It's your own decision...

[MoMo]

You haven't been in many small towns lately, have you?

In fact, I have. Like I said, MIXED emotions.
Not just jumping in the streets.

[MoMo]

And I assuredly am not an East Coast elitist.

I am a Midwestern transplant, as middle-class as you get, product of a big state university in the Midwest, who happens to be living, at the moment, on the East Coast.

Now, if jwack wants to suggest that the coherence of my posts qualifies me as a member of the elite, I'll accept that. :D

[Zat0pek]

San Francisco - Wal-Mart low-wage policies are costing California taxpayers $86 million annually to provide health care and other public assistance that the greedy retailer's underpaid workers cannot afford on their own, says the University of California at Berkeley.

:rolleyes: Where to start. . .

First, its Berkeley. 'Nuff said.

Second, why single out Wal-mart? Thats true of EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYER paying the same wages, from Taco Bell to many nursing homes. This is part of that shrill far left screeching about Wal-mart that Jwaks was talking about.

Third, this is true even of the state! In the class action that I have referenced before, one key component of our litigation is the underfunding in the wage compenent of the reimbursement rate. At a meeting between some of my clients and the state social services agency we later sued, the issue of wages came up. My clients (who provide services for the developmentally disabled) routinely lose workers to fast food restaurants that pay better. The director actually said that the best alternative was to make sure that our workers were aware of all the public assistance that was available to them!

It is extremely disingenuous of Berkeley to target Wal-mart, and this is precisely the kind of "news" and "studies" from "academic institutions" that defies credulity and highlights their bias.

[Zat0pek]

In fact, I have. Like I said, MIXED emotions.
Not just jumping in the streets.

Gotcha. Just checking.

[exjersey1]

One of the interesting things is that people always talk about the huge Walmart profits. They argue that Walmart is paying really low wages so that they can make huge profits. Unfortunately, facts are never a barrier for capitalism-haters. In reality, Walmart actually makes very low profits. It runs about a 3.5% annual profit, which is very low for the industry.


And that is very good evidence of why it is good for a community - it manages to make things much for efficient. Imagine for a second that instead of a town getting some product from Walmart it got it from a small boutique. Now, no small business is going to have annual sales of over $1 Million, that would be insane. Let's say that the boutique makes about $500,000 a year (that works out to several hundred dollars per hour), which would be an incredible business. If they operated at a 3.5% profit margin, like Walmart does, they would only be making $17,500 a year. And that's supposed to pay the guy who owns the store as well as people working in it??


No, of course the company would make a much higher profit margin.

Walmart is great for communities because it can use its huge size to buy products in massive quantities from the cheapest sources. That means that it can sell them at low prices while also paying above-market average wages.


So, what generally happens when Walmart moves in is that people who were making minimum wage at local boutiques go to Walmart for higher wages. Then, the people who own other shops typically make their stuff more specialized or luxury-oriented.


Socialists like to trot out the few people who sell their stores and go work at Walmart. And, yeah, those people are losing out from Walmart. But in counties of hundreds of thousands of people, should we make everyone else suffer to make this one person's life better? I think not...

Jeff, the 3.5% was NET profits as of 1/04 reporting. Their gross at the same reporting period was 24%. As of Jan. 05, their net is up to 3.6% and the gross is up to 24.5%. Those are both healthier figures than many, if not most, large retailers.

And perhaps you could cite your sources for the "higher wages" claims. I don't find that documented anywhere.

[Sebrle]

Walmart's CEO earned 17.5 million.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050215/datu054_1.html

[Zat0pek]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050215/datu054_1.html

No doubt a bit of a self-serving press release, but the point remains. After all, if Wal-mart doesn't point this out, who will - Berkeley?

From the article:




Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Announces Total Charitable Giving for 2004 Exceeded $170 Million; Touched 100,000 Organizations
Tuesday February 15, 3:15 pm ET Largest Corporate Cash Giving Foundation in U.S. Focuses on Local Giving, Children and Community Efforts

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- With more than 90 percent of its charitable giving targeted at local communities, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=wmt&d=t) - News (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=wmt)) today announced that for its fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2005, cash donations through Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and the Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation exceeded a record $170 million.

"While we support many organizations and national causes, it has always been our goal to look for ways we can help improve the local communities where our Company associates and customers live," said Betsy Reithemeyer, vice president for corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. "At the end of the day, it is our associates who make it happen. They bring to us many of our grant recommendations, and in turn, volunteer their time to make a difference in their community."

Wal-Mart's philanthropic efforts last year assisted over 100,000 organizations, and overall, gave back $5 every second to support causes extending from disaster recovery efforts and educational initiatives to funding hospital equipment and treatment. Some of these efforts in 2004 included: * Community Grants: In 2004, the Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation matched $61 million in grants for organizations in 3,500 communities, helping to support organizations large and small, from local schools, YMCA and other youth programs, fire departments, libraries and more. The Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation's matching grant program is only one arm of the dollars given year round to local community services. * Education: In 2004, 3,500 teachers and schools were honored through the Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year Program -- recognized as the largest teacher recognition program in the U.S. In excess of $4 million was given to schools in Wal-Mart communities through local, state and national teacher of the year awards. In addition to assisting teachers last year, Wal-Mart provided through its Sam Walton Community Scholarship program $6 million in scholarships to 6,000 high school seniors who began college in 2004. * Military Support: Last year, Wal-Mart partnered with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation (VFW) to provide 900,000 Communications Kits to servicemen and women that included free phone cards, writing paper and envelopes to help them stay in touch with loved ones. The Company also made it possible for customers nationwide to send messages through Wal-Mart in-store kiosks in support of our military men and women. * Disaster Relief: Communities in need can't wait. That is why Wal- Mart has given millions each year to cities and small towns needing help due to unforeseen tragedies. Last fall, more than $7 million was given to assist communities and associates in hurricane ravaged areas of Florida and Alabama. * Literacy: Wal-Mart is committed to furthering literacy efforts nationwide. The Company provided $6 million in support of 5,000 literacy programs in 2004, and referred over 21,000 callers to services through the Wal-Mart Literacy Hotline (1-800-929-4458). * The World of Medicine: Children's Miracle Network (CMN), a national organization that directs funding to children's hospitals across the country, has always been one of the greatest benefactors of Wal-Mart giving. Last year the Wal-Mart & SAM'S CLUB Foundation's provided $3.9 million in direct support of the Children's Miracle Network. In addition to this support, grants and donations raised through Wal-Mart and SAM'S CLUB stores nationwide gave $30 million to CMN last year. * Child Safety & Missing Children: Last year marked a milestone of 120 children being recovered as a direct result of Wal-Mart's Missing Children Boards. Since this partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children began in 1996, Wal-Mart stores have posted the pictures of more than 6,500 missing children, of which three out of four have been recovered. Wal-Mart also continues to promote Code Adam -- a program created by Wal-Mart 10 years ago and used today by other businesses. The Code Adam procedure immediately alerts all employees to assist in finding children that are separated from their parents in a Wal-Mart or SAM'S CLUB.

[luv2run]

My view ... let capitalism reign. If somebody already said this, just don't say anything and let me think it's original.

[fentonfreshman]

Not a fan of Wal Mart, I get some food at Sam's Club though.

[luv2run]

My view ... let capitalism reign. If somebody already said this, just don't say anything and let me think it's original.I just read the thread, and Jwaksman said this about 2 pages ago.

Oh, well ... I'll just conitnue to pretend I was the first to say it.

*crosses arms and leans back in chair, nodding in time to the music*

[MoMo]

Completely free capitalism (which of course will never exist), could only redound to the RELATIVE disadvantage of this country.

I say that because we have, for several decades, enjoyed a huge RELATIVE economic advantage over other countries, thanks to a blessed geographical location that provides us both with vast resources and protection from war on our home territory, thanks to a history and culture that breed vigorous entrepreneurialism and creative productivity, thanks to a legal culture that provides protections for our intellectual products, as well as to an ethos of relatively hard-working ways.

But given COMPLETELY free capitalism (which of course will never exist), meaning total liberty to move goods, services and production modes to their cheapest points on the globe, we EVENTUALLY will see ourselves overtaken even in the high-end areas -- financial and creative services, intellectually driven production, etc. -- where we still now have an edge.

We see this happening already in China and India. Who would have thought, 10 years ago, the Indians would have grabbed such a big chunk of the software niche as they have. And China has shown that even shortages of natural resources are not a problem when you have the dirt cheap labor, and the incredible hard-working mentality, to compensate. Australia has now become an extension of China when it comes to providing coal or concrete; the Middle East increasingly is China's oil field.

I'd really like to know if anyone on here thinks that, say, 50 years from now, the United States will still have any relative advantage over such countries.

[Zat0pek]

I'd really like to know if anyone on here thinks that, say, 50 years from now, the United States will still have any relative advantage over such countries.

Yes.

[MoMo]

Why?

[Zat0pek]

Why?

I believe there is still a lot of untapped potential in this country. This economy and this country has an overdrive gear that we haven't pulled out and used in a long time. The most striking example is what we did in WWII. Fighting a war on two fronts across the globe and getting a late start, we ramped up a production never before seen and never seen since. I believe the economic and cultural machinery is still there, dormant beneath the surface, waiting for the right catalyst to set off the chain reaction. A lesser example would be the space race in the '60's. Confronted with a clear goal and clear competitor to achieve something that fired the imagination and the soul, we were once again able to find that gear and do something not done before and never duplicated since by any other country.

We got a clear look at that dormant spirit in those dark days following September 11, 2001. Suddenly there were no red states or blue states, there was only the United States. From the highway to the grocery store to the workplace, we suddenly were united. People were more polite. We focused on our collective interests rather than our differences. But, in the absence of an ongoing direct physical threat, the boundries eventually snapped back and we returned to our old selves.

This country is much like how most of us sleepily live our lives; working, doing okay, but in times of extreme demand or stress, we snap to attention with every neuron tingling and go to that "other gear" of productivity and creativity that surprises even ourselves. We have done our best in the last 30-40 years to "race to the middle" of mediocrity in many areas of this country under often (though by no means always) misguided notions of compassion and feelgoodism. Our emotions and base impulses have in many instances become more valued than our reason. But I believe that fire is still there. What it needs is a spark.

The question, then, is what is that spark that unifies us and inflames our collective passion to achieve something? What is that clear cut goal on which we all agree?

That's the part about which I'm not certain. You never know from where these things will come. It has to be something that affects us all in some way, be we Democrat or Republican, black, white or brown, man or woman, native-born or naturalized. It has to be something about which we all have a common interest. It has to be something direct and concrete. The existence of the untapped capacity, even when we aren't using it, is what sets us apart, and I don't see that changing any time soon, certainly not within 50 years, despite what the globalists think or say.

I believe most other nations lack the capacity for that gear, at least to the same extent it exists here. China isn't there yet, though they are no doubt making some strides. Western Europe isn't there because of their socialization to the point that they have lost many of the advantages of capitalism; they have succeeded in their "race to the middle." Certainly the Mideast lacks any such capacity.

There is, however, no doubt that our relative advantage may well shrink as the world becomes increasingly interdependent. But in that process, we cannot allow ourselves to surrender or abandon the characteristics that gave us that advantage in the first place. This nation remains a great experiment and in many ways, to tie together two threads, we are the Wal-mart of the world, the behemoth that both alternatively inspires and infuriates its competitors and even its friends. Its critics often have valid complaints, but its advocates equally so.

These things are ultimately far more determinative of our destiny than the mere empirical and quantitative criteria upon which the more timid souls among us rely.

[MoMo]

That's a wonderful answer, and I agree with much or most of it.

But I just don't know that we can rely on that spark coming to snap us back. Lacking it, we seem to laze and lag and drift further back (in relative terms). We don't really like to work the way we once did, or if we do, it's to pay for our third SUV or our 4,000 square foot house or the $40,000-a-year private-school education that's little more productive (in raw terms) than a $10,000 state-school education. We grow fat and we grow comfortable. We are raising generations of falsely self-satisfied youth, who find it harder and harder to move out of their parents' houses into a world where people no longer spoil them and fawn on their every exhalation. We spend ever-more non-productive income on security. And don't forget -- we grow older, and we do so faster than the peoples of many of the countries we're talking about. Our huge and mounting health-care costs can only slow our nation down.

Meantime, the incredible work ethos of the Chinese, to take one example, seems ingrained in them, and not about to change.

Maybe things WILL change for us, and maybe you're right about that American exceptionalism. Perhaps I'm too negative.

I suppose, too, that we may be in some ways the Wal-Mart of the world.

But somehow, I don't take as much comfort in the formulation,
"As goes Wal-Mart, so goes America" as I did in its original version.

[Zat0pek]

But I just don't know that we can rely on that spark coming to snap us back. Lacking it, we seem to laze and lag and drift further back (in relative terms). We don't really like to work the way we once did, or if we do, it's to pay for our third SUV or our 4,000 square foot house or the $40,000-a-year private-school education that's little more productive (in raw terms) than a $10,000 state-school education. We grow fat and we grow comfortable. We are raising generations of falsely self-satisfied youth, who find it harder and harder to move out of their parents' houses into a world where people no longer spoil them and fawn on their every exhalation. We spend ever-more non-productive income on security. And don't forget -- we grow older, and we do so faster than the peoples of many of the countries we're talking about. Our huge and mounting health-care costs can only slow our nation down.

It's always somethin'. Roseanne Rosannadanna

I agree that all of that is true. But then...its always been true to one extent or another, hasn't it? Yet, somehow, we keep on keepin' on.

People, and nations, rise to the occassion because they have to, not because they want to. I agree that we are getting fat and happy, bloated on the excesses of our past success. The entitlement mentality and the accepted, even exhalted, indulgence of all manner of personal appetites has worked wonders in creating a culture of shallow, superficial, self-centered citizens.

Yet, the same was said of the excess of the roaring 1920's, when the gnashing of teeth about cultural and moral decay was every bit as angst-ridden as it is today. But when confronted with the greatest economic crises in history, followed immediately by the greatest war in history, those same citizens found a way to make it work, and in the process, deservedly earned the moniker of The Greatest Generation. There will come a time when we will be tested again. We do not know how or when, but it will come. And when it does, I believe that the now-dormant spirit of this culture and its people will find a way first to survive, and then to succeed. The mavericks living among us will rear their heads again in respose to a crises, and the rest will follow.

But rest assured, that test, like the ones faced coming out of the 20's, will NOT be pretty. We just don't yet know what it will be.

[exjersey1]

Interesting points, Zat0pek.

I'd read your previous post and was amazed (to put it mildly) at your optimism. I think I agree with you more on this one.

[KenA55]

The spirit is there and ready- but compared to those past examples our ability to mobilize our industrial infrastructure is hampered just a tad by the fact that we essentially have abandoned it. In a real pinch we're going to have to rely on our ability to mobilize the infrastructures of our overseas providers, our rebuild our own from scratch. Not to mention the fact that we're going to have to mobilize our primarily desk-bound workforce to get out there on that new factory floor and actually make things. In the military sense, we have had the luxury, for a long time now, of being able to slowly and gradually turnover and modernize the stock of military hardware. We haven't had to face a situation where we're losing the toys faster than we're capable of replacing them. But when that day comes, and it will- I hope a very long time from now- all of the spirit in the world won't replace a thriving heavy manufacturing sector that can retool on short notice to rearm our country. There was plenty of that same spirit in Nazi Germany in 1939, you can count on that- but in the end they took on too many enemies at the same time and were spread too thin.

On the Walmart labor practices issue- It's getting very common in the fast food industry now, for management to cut hours once you've been around long enough to cost them a buck or two more an hour- and give those hours to the newly hired. Then you go work for the competition, who gives you the hours you need at a buck less, but who does the same thing to you in a year or two. The restaurants simply keep exchanging employees in that labor market to keep paying entry level wages to experienced workers. So Walmart isn't the only one playing that game, but they're the biggest, so that's where the front lines of that particular war lie. You don't need to be a Berkely radical to see the social depravity in such policy- but it's part of our ongoing policy of removing people from their role as taxpayer so they can join the ranks of the economically burdensome.

I'm frankly surprised, Zat, to see someone as otherwise clear-minded as you struggle with this one. It's really a pretty clear call, the evidence of our decreasing ability to collectively fund any worthwhile endeavor is everywhere around us. But you were also quick in the past to jump on the excesses of some of the pre-1980 UAW contract policy, not completely unjustified- but I do sense some possible anti-labor sentiment coming from your direction before. On that same vein, what are your feelings on scaling back our legal system to about 50% of its present size, considering the tremendous costs society bears for that particular bloated monstrosity, and so little positive product to show for the effort, not even an occasional Buick off the line?

[TJPatriot]

I haven't read a lot of this, however...

If you don't like Wal-mart, don't shop there. If you truly see it as a demon, get your friends to not shop there, either. Unless it's shown they're breaking laws all you can do is not shop there.

The US will be able to stay on top for a while because: We're workaholics. It's kind of funny. We go to school less than many other countries, but we work a LOT more. There is a lot more vacation time given if you work in Europe and such, but in the US we work people all the time. And some people enjoy doing the work, too. As long as this mentality exists here and not somewhere else, we'll be ok.

[KenA55]

I haven't read a lot of this, however...

If you don't like Wal-mart, don't shop there. If you truly see it as a demon, get your friends to not shop there, either. Unless it's shown they're breaking laws all you can do is not shop there.

The US will be able to stay on top for a while because: We're workaholics. It's kind of funny. We go to school less than many other countries, but we work a LOT more. There is a lot more vacation time given if you work in Europe and such, but in the US we work people all the time. And some people enjoy doing the work, too. As long as this mentality exists here and not somewhere else, we'll be ok.

The Oriental cultures make us look a little sad in this regard, as we do the Europeans.

[Dyenimator]

1. They're not unionized.
2. Not a family business.

[TJPatriot]

The Oriental cultures make us look a little sad in this regard, as we do the Europeans.

However, we as Americans believe that hard work can get us somewhere, so we also work hard (overall) so that we might advance. I do believe a problem Asia is having is that workers do not see a benefit in working hard, so they don't.