A couple of weeks ago, I watched a documentary on two cities fighting walmart building stores in their area. One place was in AZ and the other was in CA. Some their reasons were decent, such as traffic concern and klling off smaller business. But, overall, I thought it was just kinda stupid. Especailly in the CA, situation, here is a chance for your community to have a business come in and provide jobs and put money into your area! Yet these same people will holla about the need for access to the same store they just ran out. Yes, I realize that walmart has cost quite a few jobs, but haven't they also provided a few themselves. Especially in areas like where I'm from(Houston county). They have given people who, probably wouldn't be working or have limited options a chance to have a decent job. From the walmart dist. centers to the stores, I know several people who have made quite a nice living with walmart(especially women.) Before walmart, the only job option the average person had was TDC. Now, I know they flood the stores w/ cheap products from china and I'm not crazy about that. However, i think that unions and politicians attacking them are full of ****. Yeah, you won't make a fortune there, but so what. If you want a better job, then move up or take what you've learned at walmart and find another job! FWIW, I rarely go to walmart(long lines), but I think they have done just as much good as bad in this country. It's almost as if just because they are one of the biggest companies in the world all of the sudden they are bad. Does anybody here hate them and why?
Hate is too strong of a word. You actually do a nice job of stating the problems with Walmart and then simply dismissing them. I think the loss of local business (entrepreneurs, small businesses and all that stuff we tell ourselves we care about) and their poor record with labor practices are legitimate concerns. I preferred the days when you would drive down a little town's main street and see local shops and diners. Those get boarded up when the Walmart comes to the area. And the stores are eyesores. But, what the hey, it's the market and there's not much I can do about it. I have nothing but sympathy and support for those communities who want to preserve something of their individuality and resist the trend toward make every part of America Anywhere USA.
i hate them because their customer service is non-existent. wait, it's worse than non-existent. they go out of their way to offend you. i gave that place more chances than it deserved but i avoid walmart at all cost. but it's not just walmart. home depot has also joined the "to be avoided at all cost" mantra. this is what did it for me at home depot. besides there never being any help, i finally find a guy. i ask him a question and he says... "dude, this aint even my section" and walks off. yep, walmart and home depot deserve no one's business.
I've found that the people who really complain the most about walmarts are the ones that wouldn't be shopping there. That sounds obvious. What I mean is, some people have to shop at walmart to afford basic things for their families. And many people wouldn't have a job if not for a walmart. but the people standinga gainst these stores are much better off. Walmart may be a lot of bad things like the original post outlined, but they provide jobs and offer a substantial quality of life upgrade to many people.
Home Depot is definitely worse. I can't imagine they are providing jobs either. At my local hardware store, there are 3 guys there to help and answer questions. At Home Depot, I often can't find anyone working in the entire store.
my problem with walmart and the likes is where they decide to put some of their stores. some communities just don't ******* want you there. is it really necessary for each walmart to have their very own personal 10 mile radius?
Wal-Mart is a vehicle being used by several groups, most notably unions to further their agenda. Wal-Mart is not their real concern, but it is difficult to communicate their message, and it's not clear people would buy it anyway. So the tactic (a clever one) is to villify Wal-Mart on a variety of topics. If the groups can stir up enough hatred for Wal-Mart they may, at the right moment, be able to translate that hatred into polical action such as unionizing retail workers in many companies, enacting socialized medicine legislation, enacting legislation to protect mom and pop stores, undermining free trade and so forth. It's too hard to communicate all of this and much of it would sound stupid. Instead you say "Wal-Mart" and the crowd howls. It's revolutionary tactic 101. The language of war is "Remember the Alamo", or the Maine or Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Logic is not a good tactic. This method is used effectively by many. I intentionally used it above when I said "socialized medicine". I could have said "HillaryCare". Liberal is probably the best code word of all. NeoCon is one. If a politician's name can become code they have a problem. Every President suffers from this. Gingrich, Cheney and Hillary also are code words. Most of the serious attacks on Wal-Mart are also attacks on Target, Sears and whomever. The war is not against Wal-Mart; it's against all big retailers. The executives at Target are pleased that they weren't chosen to be the code but they know that the real threats to Wal-Mart will hit them too. It's not like the onerous fixes will be Wal-Mart specific.
I don't get the "I hate Walmart" crowd either. If anything, hate the Walmart-shoppers who keep them in business and the mom&pops out. Consumers hold the key to each and every business' survival.
I don't like Wal-Mart b/c the stores are an absolute zoo. Also, it replaces the locally owned mom & pops shops. I'd much rather have higher prices and profits from the store staying local, then lower prices and corporate profits leave the town. Kind of like replacing all the local homeowners with a bunch of renters. Not good for the town, even if the rent payment is cheaper than the mortgage payment. The leasing company wins, not the town.
My sister is part of the anti-Wal-Mart brigade, or should I say army. I asked her to justify the Wal-Mart specific charges. As I drive to the Wal-Mart about twelve miles from here in the little town of Fayetteville, Tennessee I pass dozens of retailers. I'm hard-pressed to believe any pay much more than Wal-Mart, give much better health care packages, have much better reirement and so on. It's not like everybody wants to work at the Piggly Wiggly, McDonald's, Ace Hardware, Top Dollar or whatever instead. Nope. Wal-Mart is just code for all fifty of 'em.
Walmart is a hell of an efficient business. They bring low prices to the masses. With that said I'll never set foot in one the rest of my life if I can help it. I've been in the Texas Walmart stores. They are nice and clean. The same can be said for my hometown store in Scottsbluff, NE. The stores here in the Seattle area are disgustingly dirty, lack an semblance of customer service and overall sell the lowest quality **** imaginable. They also SUCK as an employer when compared to other retail giants like Costco, Starbucks and others who treat their employees humanely in terms of compensation and benefits packages. So, the more power to Walmart as a business but I'd fight like hell them putting one in my neighborhood for the reasons above. Target may charge a marginally higher price but they have all of the things I respect in a retailer in spades over Walmart. I don't think they are evil but I choose not to let them get my money. I did read a statistic that Walmart is directly and indirectly responsible for 10% of our National GDP. I think that is very bad for a single company to have so much influence in our economyl.
Walmart (and other big box stores) often wins because they receive tax deferments to locate in an area. The tax you pay in those stores doesn't go to the schools or local infrastructure, it goes to paying for the operation of the store.
I applaud the hell out of Wal-Mart for taking a unique set of circumstances and parlaying them into a mighty retail empire. There would be no WalMart without cheap oil, or rapid and efficient telecommunications, or cheap foreign labor, or highly efficient supply chains made possible through a national freeway system that allows the **** to go from a dock in LA to store shelves in Florida in 36 hours, or hyper-consumerism that celebrates the accumulation of stuff whether affordable or not, etc. Whether Wal-Mart and the other big box retailers are sustainable is the real question. Will the warehouse on wheels still run smoothly on 5 dollar gas? What about 7 or 10 dollar gas? Will third-world factory workers always be content with a dollar a day? In my mind, WalMart and its ilk are nothing more than a creation of unique political, economic, and social circumstances that have the ability to tear down as fast as they built up.
Where do you live that Wal Mart provides a beter selection of grocery items? I find that hard to believe. I can't find simple items in the super walmart near me. I hate going to walmart but do on occasion as it is closer than an HEB. 70% of items sold in walmart are made in China (Per a segment I watched about a month ago on Cavuto on Fox. He was actually defending Walmart a bit) I dislike the quality of food items in Walmart. That is one of my major complaints. I also don't like the way that walmart goes into small towns and kills off locally owned stores. That has been mentioned above I know. It is different when walmart is in larger areas with other stores that can compete. Customer service is a joke. I heard a story this week about someone who bought an item and HAD A GIFT RECIEPT and they wouldn't honour the price on the gift reciept. I don't get that at all. The manager was upstairs in an office or something and wouldn't bother to come down and address the customer either. Walmart is glad it wasn't me there. I fall in the middle ground I guess. I don't like walmart, but shop there occasionally and realise it is a mixed bag of good business, but in many ways isn't positive either.
Wal Mart = more jobs Wal Mart = cheaper prices for mainstream America = de facto higher standard of living No wonder liberals hate Wal Mart. It does things the gov't wants to do, but can't.
I was a cart guy/cashier at Sam's Club (Owned by WM) for 6 years in high school and college (chances are good I checked some of you out if you ever shopped at the one near Gateway). It was an exceptional way to earn a living at that age, as the pay was very good and the hours were very flexible. I'd rank Wal Mart as a good place to work if one needs a 2nd income or is a high school/college kid. But that is about the only positive thing I have to say about Sams/Wal Mart. My gripes with Wal Mart: Worst customer service on the planet, long lines, no bags for groceries (at Sams), rarely a cart to be found, crowded stores, and horrible management.
wal-mart is free market efficiency at it's best. big demand met with supply obtained at the lowest cost. wal-mart gets products from china because WE will not make them cheaply here in the u.s. We want $8/hr at a minimum. They'll do it $0.60/hr. That's SIXTY CENTS AN HOUR. if you hate wal-mart, you're probably a communist.
wal-mart is everything that is bad for the middle class. i've watched at least 5 documentaries on wal mart and their practices. now, i will say that a couple of those were not really fair to wal mart, but there are some really ****** things they do besides all of the putting mom and pop out of business. 1. over 80% of the crime that happens at wal-mart happens in their parking lots. we are talking about thousands of crimes a year. several murders. wal-mart was sued for lack of security by a victim and it was found they hired a security consulting firm to assess the impact of additional security. it was found that by hiring an unarmed security guard to patrol the parking lot, crimes would be reduced to almost 0%. what did wal-mart do? not a ******* thing. 2. i have seen interviews with the chinese that work in their factories. they must pay rent to live in the "wal-mart" dorms, even if they don't live there. they are shantied up about 6 or 7 per dorm. they are threatened by management to lie about hours worked and time paid. they showed this stuff on undercover video (some of the talks by management) and it is really embarrassing that a company would do this. 3. they provide healthcare, but not a price there frontline employees can pay. 4. they are one of the worst polluters of the local environment. case after case after case of negligent storage of pesticides and other chemicals that ran off into local water supply. 5. each of the walton family is worth approximately 20 billion dollars. they have given less than 1% of their fortune to charity. walmart has a "help a fellow employee" program where you can contribute a portion of your check to go to this fund. if a fellow worker's hous burns down or whatever, they can go to walmart and possibly be given some cash to help out during their time of need. the walmart employees gave several milliion dollars to this account in 2006..... the walton's? $6000. it is a bad company, that does bad things, and doesn't give a rats *** about it's employees or the communities they move into.
