Walmart - Evil Corporation Or The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread?

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herbu

Audioholic Samurai
I would also never buy anything from wal-mart, on principle.
Just wondering, does your principle begrudge the:
> 2.1 million employees, (1.4M in the US)?
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers?
> millions of stock holders?
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock?
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Just wondering, does your principle begrudge the:
> 2.1 million employees, (1.4M in the US)?
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers?
> millions of stock holders?
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock?
I know we shouldn't talk about politics, and its my fault for starting it, but your post just begging for some light editing, so here are some suggested changes which add greater context:
> 2.1 million minimum wage, no benefit employees, (1.4M in the US) who constitute the bulk of
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers who do not constitute any of the
> millions of stock holders (future resident in hell)
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock and a combined wealth equal to the bottom 42% of Americans, doubtlessly earned through their hard work and labor.
 
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psbfan9

psbfan9

Audioholic Samurai
Just wondering, does your principle begrudge the:
> 2.1 million employees, (1.4M in the US)?
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers?
> millions of stock holders?
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock?
For fudge sake herbu, stop politicizing everything. :rolleyes:
 
ImcLoud

ImcLoud

Audioholic Ninja
Just wondering, does your principle begrudge the:
> 2.1 million employees, (1.4M in the US)?
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers?
> millions of stock holders?
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock?

OH BOY...
Walmart is the devil, lol

When they were "growing" they would send their "development specialists" into an area they did not service. Part of the process was of course finding the best location for where to put their store, which of course included where the competition was. So If I were building a new store, I would want to be as far from the competition as possible while still being close to the client, makes sense rite? I consider myself a "savvy" business man and it would be my first thought, if I sell taco's I want to be where there are customers but no tacos being offered by anyone else, a better way than competing with the competition is to not have any....

BUT that is not how wally does it, they build next door, the price shop and undercut to sell at a loss. Once the competition is gone they raise their prices back to profitable level... Putting the competition out of business because you have unlimited capitol is how you win at monopoly rite?

So this worked but as they grew they wanted more.. So how can we sell products cheaper with out losing money for the first few years while we wait for all the privately owned businesses to go out of business??? Lets strong arm the manufacturers with our buying power and force them to repackage the goods so we can buy them for much less than the competition, make us the same product, BUT as cheap as possible with our approved packaging and sell it to us for less than anyone else or WE WONT BUY IT, and if the largest retailer in the country isnt buying your product, you may as well not sell it...

There are a ton of reasons walmart sucks, none of which are because they are not good at business, they are definitely smart when it comes to the bottom line, but when it comes to treating people well, not so much...

Lets hire retired seniors and older {the sicker the better} door greeters, then let them sign a life insurance policy with the corp as the beneficiary, so when they die we get money.... We will look like heroes for hiring the dissabled and old and when they die we get paid, plus when they sign the insurance forms it looks like we are giving them free life insurance, lol...

Lets make sure we screen our employees so not to hire people who are sympathetic to unions, and if we ever get a union threat lets make sure it only happens once... {the butchers in walmart unionized walmart started the shut down every butcher shop in every store that day}... not that I am pro union...

Anyway I am pro small business, a walmart has the potential to put out all the small grocery stores, deli's, clothes stores, corner stores, ect

Think about it, when homedepot and lowes get rid of all the squeeky floor hardware stores, walmart, kmart, ect gets rid of all the small pharmacies, markets, clothes stores, shoe stores, electronics stores, automotive stores, ect. And then homedepot gets rid of or aquires lowes, and walmart does the same to kmart and target and then the larger of the two {walmart} gets rid of the other, then what? What keeps them from controlling the prices of everything we buy? Monopoly laws and structure in the US is a joke if you have money...

It will take a while but think about it, you will be working and buying everything from one place, they wont stop at clothes and shoes, next it will be gas stations, all your walmarts will have gas stations, then it will be furniture, then they will start selling cars, did you notice that a lot of walmarts are near condos soon they will be building condos and selling them. We will be living in a big walmart, maybe not in our lifetimes, but some day if it keeps going this way, walmart will sell you a condo, a car, and you will work there, they will finance you and control.. It will be like that kids movie wall-E get it wall-e wal-mart... we are screwed, disney called it... lol


Anyway, you shop there if you like, they sell junk, AND I am not sure about the rest of the country, but here you need to lock your doors and walk fast to the building, in other words- they don't attract the best clientele.

PS if you want to compare stats, like families making 40K a year are 42% of their customers, look up how much small business that deal in the same products as walmart and homedepot have suffered since they started their growth campaign...
And $40K a year for a family of 4 is around 150% poverty level, because them people work at walmart and don't make enough money to survive... $40K used to be a good income, now if you have a family of 4 you need to have a combined income of at least $110K not to be on the poverty chart, lol... If you want to live in a decent home, in a decent neighborhood, with decent schools, and security you need to be more around $200K per year for a family of 4 with 2 vehicles, and a 30yr mortgage.... Health care costs $20K to $30K a year for a family of 4 {private policy depending on eyes and dental coverage} !!!!!!
 
crossedover

crossedover

Audioholic Chief
were's the ive got a gripe to pick forum? always non pertinent and very rarely comical. whats next Bush is an oil family? lighten up francis'
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Lets strong arm the manufacturers with our buying power and force them to repackage the goods so we can buy them for much less than the competition, make us the same product, BUT as cheap as possible with our approved packaging and sell it to us for less than anyone else or WE WONT BUY IT, and if the largest retailer in the country isnt buying your product, you may as well not sell it...
Great rant Imcloud. Don't forget that manufacturers will also sell lower quality versions of the same exact product model. To bring this back to audio, I have read that Onkyo has done this with some of their AVRs. Same exact model, fewer features and lesser quality components than the regular model. And to be honest the speakers in the OP's post look like textbook white van specials.

Someone could easily write a book about the social destruction that Wal-Mart causes and model it after Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. It would fit so well.
 
Rickster71

Rickster71

Audioholic Spartan
I know we shouldn't talk about politics, and its my fault for starting it, but your post just begging for some light editing, so here are some suggested changes which add greater context:
> 2.1 million minimum wage, no benefit employees, (1.4M in the US) who constitute the bulk of
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers who do not constitute any of the
> millions of stock holders (future resident in hell)
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock and a combined wealth equal to the bottom 42% of Americans, doubtlessly earned through their hard work and labor.

Where do you suppose these people would be working otherwise?... NASA?
Wall-Mart isn't forcing people to work there, nor are they forcing people to shop there.
 
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Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
I miss this being part of that speaker thread. :D

Do I like Walmart? Nope. Is it because I have concrete facts about poor business practices? Nope. It's because I fear if I go into one that one day I'd get trapped in the Aisle 2 Lard Pit, slowly (and I mean slowly - no one moves fast at Walmart) being surrounded and consumed by thick layers of oddly-dressed flesh, with my last breaths being of moist fungus...




Edit: Yeah, I know. That was overly generalizing and disparaging of some Walmart employees and customers. After all, when I wandered in there in 2009 looking for a blu-ray, there was one guy in a wife-beater sporting a mullet that looked pretty spry.
 
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mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
Just wondering, does your principle begrudge the:
> 2.1 million employees, (1.4M in the US)?
> families making less than $40k/year that make up 42% of their customers?
> millions of stock holders?
> Walton family that started the business in 1962 and owns over 50% of its stock?
Do they pay corporate taxes? How much?
 
ImcLoud

ImcLoud

Audioholic Ninja
Great rant Imcloud. Don't forget that manufacturers will also sell lower quality versions of the same exact product model. To bring this back to audio, I have read that Onkyo has done this with some of their AVRs. Same exact model, fewer features and lesser quality components than the regular model. And to be honest the speakers in the OP's post look like textbook white van specials.

Someone could easily write a book about the social destruction that Wal-Mart causes and model it after Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. It would fit so well.

that is what i was tlaking about when i said "re-packaging" they made hasbro use cheaper paints, plastics, ect in the toys they buy so they can get them cheaper!!!! This is actually pretty common now, Town fair tire buys lower quality tires with the same name, for example they good year eagles they sell vs somewhere like Bennys {not sure how many people know what bennys is} or other tire companies, the good year eagles town fair tire sells weigh 10-20% less than the ones that other stores sell!!!! They look identical but they are lighter and don't last as long... To me that is insane and should not be allowed. It may be hard to make it legal, but we should boycott these places so they know not to pull this sh!t or when people find out you will lose more than the inflated profit you cheated people out of..

Walmart and other big corps, break laws {overtime laws, out of date products, sales after recalls, improperly licensed pharmacists and fork lift operators, ect} because the fines they face "IF" they get caught are a small percent of what they save by breaking the rules and laws... In other words, say its a 20K$ fine for not paying overtime correctly, they do it to 30K employees for a year before they are caught, they say "oops" and pay $20K fine while in that year they saved 3 million by not paying the ot!!!!!

Do your soul a favor, support local small businesses. When I bought the generators for my shop last week I went to the local small engine company and had them order them, {these are the small residential type b&S units} I paid a few bucks more, but they delivered them, the service was amazing, and I got a genuine thank you from the owner of the company...
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Capitalism has a democratic aspect in that everyone votes with their dollar. Every purchase at Wal-mart is a vote and an endorsement of their business practices. The problem is not fundamentally with Wal-mart; it is with a large chunk of the public, or the 'polity' in this sense. Wal-mart can not really hide their nature at this point, and nearly everyone knows what kind of company it is, yet still so many shop there. So I don't think trying to educate the public will do any good. For too many Americans, convenience trumps ethics, and willful ignorance is like an infectious disease for these people (the same attitudes are used against global warming). The root problem is with the mores of the American people, and I think that any society which venerates capitalism to such an extreme inevitably instills these destructive mores in its people.
 
C

Chu Gai

Audioholic Samurai
I've done some shopping at Walmart and for that matter at HD, Lowes, Sears, Amazon, and local establishments. For some items, the local hardware store, which is now a Tru Value, is the better buy because of proximity, knowledge, service, and all that stuff. I know the owner and back in the day we'd run into each other at our sons' Little League games. I don't know if the people he employs have any hope for advancement, what their medical plan is, or earn. It may be that for them this is as good as it gets. I wish walmart's stuff at least when it comes to clothes was of better quality but then Macy's quality has dropped over the years. To me, they're just another option.
 
crossedover

crossedover

Audioholic Chief
Do your soul a favor, support local small businesses. When I bought the generators for my shop last week I went to the local small engine company and had them order them, {these are the small residential type b&S units} I paid a few bucks more, but they delivered them, the service was amazing, and I got a genuine thank you from the owner of the company...
Says the guy with a boat load of ID gear :p
 
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