Do you think Wal-Mart is evil? by chrisisall

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Do you think Wal-Mart is evil?

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:12
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VIEWED: 15003
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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 9:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Chrisisall:
You must see On Deadly Ground, it's one of Steve's funniest (unintentionally) movies, and it actually has something to say about big companies (they're Evil)

*Is amused by the idea of Corporate Hollywood saying something bad about corporations*
Hey, if it makes 'em money and that's all that matters.

still sticking with the evil definition. If someone cares more about money, theirs or their bosses than humanity, well, give 'em a contract for 25 years good luck and they'll sell you their soul.
I understand what's being said, but corporations are people, albeit groups there of. Saying it's a faceless entity is just removing blame, hey, reckon I can use the victimless crime excuse for downloading music/films/games?
No.

Plus, Finn:
Again why I respect your opinion (even when you disagree with me believe it or not

).
Don't worry about the Troll (sure your not) Troll boys flatulent posturing was funny for a while.
I LOL'd at some of your replies.
Difference was I was laughing at him, and with you

More insane ramblings by the people who brought
Remember, the ice caps aren't melting, the water is being liberated.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 6:49 PM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch,

I agree, and yeah, I recall. My changes would be very subtle, not a "you'll pay for this" kind of thing, but more of a "we won't let you kill them" kind of thing. Basically how this would work is everyone has a right to compete in an open field, so you can't send someone out of business. Certain industries which work at cross purposes would be valued by their benefit to society or their impact on the world. Clearly medical research companies are more important and less damaging than logging companies, not to mention more profitable, so logging companies would have to stop clearcutting rainforests. Two companies in direct competition would have to play by decent rules of trade or be banned. This is starting to sound like fair trade, and generally I don't like fair trade because, well, because it's a good name for a bad idea. But if it were actually fair, then sure.

Here's a local situation that came up, which I had some mixed feelings about.

As an art student I paid rediculous amounts for supplies, about $150 a semester for paint and stuff. Walmart came in and started competing at about 10% of the price. The town made an ordinance against walmart selling art supplies, and the price went back up again. Upon closer examination there were several things going on.

1) Walmart sold products at a loss to attempt to put the art store out of business. Some of the products they sold also turned out to be made from slave labor, just like canvas and stuff. The paints were mostly American, and labor-safe or whatever.

2) The art store was exploiting the university, with extensive price gouging on items required for classes. It also used it's pull with local goverment to enact an ordinance which was biased in its own favor.

Clearly there was abuse on both sides.

Here are some basic rules:

1) No one can sell products at a loss to undermine a competitor's business.

2) No one can sell products which do not adhere to the rules of of standard business practice, ie. no slave labor.

3) Everyone should have the right to compete fairly in an open market.

The regular cost for the supplies at art stores elsewhere turned out to be around $45 a semester for the same stuff, not $150 or $15. Walmart probably would have also been in the $45 range if it had competed honestly, and the art store probably could have survived in that range.

The added condition is that small businesses should be given an edge if the large business threatens to become the only supplier for the item.

Here's why:

An art store services an art community, in this case, primarily the college art community. It has a sort of obligation to carry all of the items that are needed, whether individually they are profitable or not. If it fails in this obligation, its customers will go elsewhere.

Walmart has no such obligation. An executive decision at either national or local walmart offices could suddenly change walmarts available products, and does all the time. Walmart might suddenly decide it has more profitable use for the floor space, or might change something in its distribution and suddenly some art supplies are no longer available, or possibly all art supplies are no longer available. Our local walmart did this with it's sewing section kind of spontaneously, as it has done with other sets of merchandise. Suddenly it loses interest. If there was no other fabric store in town, suddenly fashion students would be out of luck.

In general, conglomerate businesses are blatantly bad for the economy. So it's sensible to make the rules in a way which favors smaller businesses because more different competitors means more competition. But, outside of the basic survival of business, and fair practice, even places like walmart might have a place in competition, because if they can compete fairly, maybe they can keep the price competition sane.

Largely my problem is more with Lee Scott than with the concept of Walmart, but I'm not thrilled by the concept of Walmart. Overall though, it's no different than the concept of KMart which is no more attractive. But bear in mind that KMart, at least here, did not put companies out of business simply by its presence, and if it aided in the process of ther deaths of other businesses, it didn't do so intentionally to the best of my knowledge.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 6:58 PM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch,

PS.

Isn't telemarketing banned? I thought they banned it. One of the jobs I had once was as an efficiency expert. One of the tasks I was called upon to do was to analyze this company's direct mail program. In analyzing the efficiency, I found that the total cost of making a sale exceeded by about 10% the profit made from that sale, on average, and that this had persisted steadily over 2 years of data. I advised the firm of the fact and that the best course of action was to abandon the direct mail program forthwith, in the intrests of saving some cash. They saved some extra cash in response to that by firing me.

Pushy sales has never really been an effective tactic. It may not always be as bad as the case I descibed, but it's always annoying. I agree about the wasted time. Here's an idea:

Ban direct marketing altogether. Junk Mail, SPAM, Telemarketing. The lot of it. Door to door sales can go also. And while I'm at it maybe door to door preaching.

Oh no.

I just had a scary thought.

Telepreaching.

Does it exist? Has anyone had this experience?

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:03 PM

DREAMTROVE

On Deadly Ground isn't a masterpiece of cinema, but it's heart is in the right place. I don't think the making of money is the root of all evil, it's suppose to be the love of money. The making of money as the most important thing is sometimes valid if you have something expensive you need to do.

But the love of power, for me, more than the love of money is the root of dick cheney. Um, I meant all evil. It's important to bear in mind that the big evils, especially in human terms, have been done not by corporations seeking profit but by governments seeking power.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 9:05 PM

FLETCH2

It's interesting the social importance of shopping.

I once lived in a section of Holland that had an interesting rule. You could only replace a restaurant or a bar, you couldn't add a new one or convert an existing building to other use. So for example, to open a McDonalds you had to have a buiding already designated as a restaurant (or but a pre-existing restaurant and replace it. There were other rules governing the placement of larger stores, so in effect they legislated a boutique society of small shops and small shop owners.

It was interesting, and while definately more expensive for items that favour big stores -- electrical goods etc -- was actually not that much more expensive for most items.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 7:00 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
On Deadly Ground isn't a masterpiece of cinema, but it's heart is in the right place.

I would urge all here to rent it; it's a great 'vent' movie, plus the fights are pretty good, Segal wasn't fat back then.

Chrisisall

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 8:20 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Interesting discussion.

I think it sums up that Wal-Mart is a negative, by whatever name.

An idea that I had is that profit is necessarily the difference between the value of the work done and the cost of the item. In broad terms, the person who does the work will never be able to afford the thing they make. So the person that builds a Mercedes can only afford a Volkswagon, the person who builds a Volkswagon can only afford a bicycle, the person who builds a bicycle can only afford shoes, and the person who makes shoes goes barefoot.

That is played out internationally every day. Americans can't afford American-made products. They buy Chinese. And jobs in America are exported and production is hollowed-out. It's a race to the bottom, hidden by the the illusion of maintaining purchasing power by importing cheap goods.

And the Chinese BTW buy from Vietnam.

One person suggested that rather than having businesses like now, cooperatives might be the way to go. Everyone who works owns a share of the company, so that at least indirectly, profits return to the workers.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 9:20 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Americans can't afford American-made products. They buy Chinese. And jobs in America are exported and production is hollowed-out. It's a race to the bottom, hidden by the the illusion of maintaining purchasing power by importing cheap goods.

This right here may be the most important point made on this thread!
I'm amazed this economic house of cards has stayed up as long as it has. It may be that the illusion is shrinking, but it is still a necessary illusion we must cling to. Where will it end?
With everyone on this planet just barely above the poverty line (a very GOOD thing for all those now below it), and upper-management acting as the overseers for their corporate kings.

Rue, is this too pessimistic?

Chrisisall?

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:23 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

My vision is that we are birds in a cage, fluttering and pecking for a perch. We think we are acting of our own free will in our own interests, but we neither own nor control the cage.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:46 PM

FLETCH2

Henry Ford paid his workers above the market rate for their labour so they could afford to buy some of the cars he built.

One detail that is missing from economic discussion centered on profit is the idea that manufacturing "leverages" your economy.

For example. Imagine a US owned company making a product in the US with a 25% profit. The profit may only be 25% but 100% of the value of that item stays in the US. The other 75% of materials and labour gets spent and respent "trickle down" style. Let's say the manufacturing worker uses some of his pay to take his girlfriend out for the traditional "Dinner and a Movie," The money he spends helps support farmers, waitresses, cinema ushers and actors -- and that's just round one, the waitress has her hair cut, the cinema guy uses a bus to get to work.... That money moves around the economy leveraging the value of the initial manufacturing job.

Now assume the company decides to make things in China because they can make 40% profit. Assuming they can repatriate it all that's 40% back in the US, but the other 60% is flowing around some other economy. In Smith's example, writen before the industrial revolution had really taken off, agricultural goods were seen to be equivalent and they were, so the wool/wine comparison was simple.

A service industry job adds value, it does not create wealth, it is at best a secondary consumer of wealth created in other industries. Large stock is placed on the fact that service industries "take up the slack" for missing manufacturing but they don't. If nobody in a country makes anything -- if no wealth is created-- then nobody will have the money to use service industries.

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Thursday, November 24, 2005 1:23 AM

WHEDONFANUK

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Thursday, November 24, 2005 1:25 AM

WHEDONFANUK

I go to Asda everyday... They live of my cash....

But when I was in Canada this year I went once a week to wallmart...100% love future shop wish we had one in the UK....

:: WhedonFanUk ::

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Friday, November 25, 2005 9:03 PM

DREAMTROVE

There are a few monkey wrenches in the system though.

Walmart is not a functional business. If it had to pay Chinese workers actual Chinese workers wages and give its own workers benefits, etc. It would have to fold because it would already be losing money, the whole unfair business thing aside.

Most American could afford non-walmart. It's just cheap consumer goods. I can't think that this line of reasoning will lead to anywhere that supports any of my own points, nonetheless I think it's true.

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 12:14 AM

DRX

Wally-World is evil for a couple of reasons in my book...

1. Anything I would want there is all the way at the back of the store, and I seem to be unable not to find at least a few things in between what I want and check out which I don't need but will buy. This makes what I came to get to expensive even if it's cheaper than anywhere else.

2. It's open 24 hours so no matter how many times I swear off Wal-Mart for good I always end up going back when I decide I need something at 1 a.m. Plus it's always fun to see the weirdos who shop there in the middle of the night until you realise you ARE one of the weirdos shopping there in the middle of the night... man i hate when that happens.

3. Checking out. Always takes forever. There can be hundreds of people shopping and only 2 check out people. Even when your being a late night weirdo it still takes an eternity to get your toothpaste(came for), book, tire guage, 150ft. of rope(surely I'll need it for something), grill lighter, cat toy, microwaveable bowl/storage thing, bag of reece's cups, and spare shoe laces checked out.

DMX

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:12 AM

MELMOTH

Evil? Surely.
At least I always get depressions and cynical thoughts whenever I enter one.

Melmoth

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

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