Kathleen Geier, one of the few reasons to read the Internet on weekends, has a good piece up on Wal-Mart and its threat to ditch DC if they pass a $12.50/hour minimum wage:
One of the most compelling-seeming arguments that the pro-Walmart forces have been making is that DC should reject the bill and welcome Walmart into the community, because Walmart would create much-needed jobs. So I decided to look at what the research says about Walmart’s impact on employment. Guess what? Contrary to the happy talk, Walmart does notcreate jobs. Actually, it kills them.
Here’s why: first, at the local level, all Walmart does is put mom-and-pop stores out of business. The overwhelming body of evidence, including the most rigorous peer-reviewed studies, suggests that when Walmart enters a community, the most likely result is a net loss of jobs; at best, it’s a wash. In fact, the biggest, best scholarly study about the impact of Walmart on local employment was done by an economist at University of California at Irvine named David Neumark, who is not exactly a wild-eyed liberal. He’s the kind of economist, actually, who writes anti-minimum wage op-eds for the Wall Street Journal.
The devastating impact Walmart has had on jobs becomes most clear when you go macro, and look at its impact not just locally, but on the national economy. In its relentless quest for low prices, Walmart strong-arms its suppliers to cut labor costs to the bone. What this has meant in practice is that many suppliers have been forced to lay off workers and ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas. Because of Walmart, countless jobs in the U.S. have been lost, mostly in manufacturing.
I’ll add my usual note whenever the great Satan is mentioned: Target is just as bad, but they’re Minnesota Nice about it. And both of them are free riders on taxpaying businesses who pay their employees living wages and give them decent healthcare benefits.
wormtown
Thanks for article. Any suggestions about good places to shop? I have a local hardware store, that I am thankful for, but beyond that…it’s all chains….Target, Macy’s or Wal-Mart. And, now I’m trying to avoid Amazon. I’ve heard Costco is good; but the closest one is at least 50 miles away.
c u n d gulag
Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, when I was going to college, I worked at our local Sears, at the Customer Service desk.
They were GREAT to us college kids.
They paid a decent wage, and we even had benefits, if we averaged over 20 hours a week. We got discounts – including on Ticketmaster, for concerts and show.
Kids who worked during college breaks, always got their job back, when they returned.
Then, Reagan was sworn in.
And I swear, the whole atmosphere changed almost overnight.
Kids came back in May from college, and found they no longer had a job being held for them. They could re-apply, and start over.
The store started treating people like sh*t, to the point where some people were talking about trying to bring in a union.
I was one of the people designated to go and shop around for suitable unions.
And then, a few days later, I came in, only to find I had been “laid-off.”
The election of Reagan, and his reelection, was a disaster – his 2 terms allowed for the continuation of the death-spiral Nixon started.
Reagan put gasoline on those flames.
And then came W – and he damn-near finished this country.
We are now the worlds best armed Banana Republic – thanks to banana’s Republicans (and the Whoreporatist Democrats, too)!
scav
Just costs, period. There are a lot of inferior products thus being sold chez W (and elsewhere as a result) because of their setting price targets for otherwise once independent companies. Companies pursue getting that account to their long-term detriment.
Jimmi the Grey
@wormtown: according to a facebook meme I recently saw WinCo is the place for food. $11/hr minimum, pensions and bennies and is less expensive than wallyworld.
Betty Cracker
@wormtown: I’m in kinda the same boat, but I just save up my big box shopping needs until I can get to the closest Costco. No more Walmart for me. Ever.
aimai
Costco is supposed to be good. I try to keep my shopping local but thats just not reasonable for a lot of people where there are no longer any downtowns and where shopping itself has been reduced to mere cost issues. I try to avoid Target since I found out they were no better than Walmart. I hate CVS because they are phasing out workers entirely and going to an automated system.
c u n d gulag
@wormtown:
Our local Hannaford has the same people working there, year after year – unlike the other stores nearby.
Ditto, our BJ’s.
And when I talk to the workers in both stores, they really seem to like their company and their jobs.
Btw – BJ’s is kind of closer to being a great company to work for, like Costco, than a sh*tty one, like Sam’s Club.
StringOnAStick
My BIL used to work at Target. The way they treat workers has to have been designed by psychologists in order to produce the most demoralized, zombie-like worker possible. I understand this is standard retail worker treatment, and wow does it suck.
RSA
I think the abstract of Neumark et al.’s paper is worth quoting in full (I’ll add emphasis):
TaMara (BHF)
Thank you for that. Because it’s so true. Grocery stores are no better. I worked for Krogers for 3 months while transitioning and the wage (laughable) scheduling (horrendous and made to not allow your to work another job, but keeping you at 20-30 hours), and “benefits” that only kicked in over 38 hours…(see scheduling) all meant to keep costs and morale low.
I finally quit, found a temporary job and prayed I’d find something permanent in my field before the temp job ended.
I have never looked at grocery stores the same way since.
MattF
Of interest:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2013/07/17/why-are-walmart-stores-such-a-mess/
A Forbes article, no less– the author loves Walmart but has noticed that Walmart stores have lately become dirty, disorganized, and understocked. I’m thinking that Walmart has crossed some red line separating ‘exploitative’ from ‘self-destructive’. And I think their threats against the DC government should be seen in this light.
Professor
I will urge you to analyse this situation holistically. If they reject the living wage proposal in DC: Will Wal Mart offer the potential employees a) health insurance and b) sick pay or will the employees rely on welfare benefits to exist? If the answers are NO, NO, YES then Wal Mart would be privatising Profits and socialising Costs! Which is what is popularly known as Capitalism.
wghenrich
Wal-Mart Needs to pay a living wage just like Cosco otherwise the Taxpayers will keep helping out Wal-Mart employees with health care and food stamps…http://www.seasidepostonline.com/
Smiling Mortician
@Professor: Wal Mart would be privatising Profits and socialising Costs
No need for the conditional: it’s their current business model.
Fuck the fucking Waltons, and the horse they rode in on.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF:
The author loves WalMart because WalMart seems to be run according to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Treat your workers like family…exploit them! Once you have their money, never give it back!
The Mammon worshipers are destroying this country…turning it into a slightly more advanced third world hellhole, and frankly will not be fully satisfied until the 99% is living like medieval serfs…living and dying in the dirt.
Schlemizel
@c u n d gulag:
I know he gets a lot of hate around here for being insufficiently pure but people really should read Michael Moore’s auto biography. In addition to a lot of the background that explains how he got to where he is there is a chilling chapter on a job he did as a journalist covering a meeting St. Reagan’s people held in Mexico to explain to American companies how they could easily ship jobs overseas and even get federal assistance to do it.
That really was the beginning of the end for us.
cmorenc
@scav:
The inferior products INCLUDE many consumer electronics e.g. televisions, DVD players etc. Several of the name manufacturers of these products have two assembly lines for products, one of which uses cheaper-quality components for products bound for big discount stores, another of which uses better-quality (but moderately more expensive) components, bound for other retail outlets, but for the same purportedly identical item in an identical box.. Remember that when you go to Wal-Mart to purchase a big-screen TV.
Schlemizel
I did an engagement at Target a few years back and found some troubling things. When I started every manager had a goal set for them for the number of jobs they needed to move to India. That was taken off the table when the Dem control COngress removed the tax incentives. I left shortly after that so I don’t know how that particular program is going.
They also contract a huge number of Indian programmers from Tata & one other place. They rotate in here for a 2 year stint then return home to be replaced by another person from there. These are jobs that could be filled by American workers but it is cheaper and helps keep wages lower here.
The ‘best’ part is because of the time difference and the cultural difficulties Target has had to hire additional management and/or force employees manage Target India workers.
My gig was to design, build and proof of concept a security process and then train the Target India people. A lot of 4AM con calls & a lot of frustrations. I heard they gave up on getting it done over there a year or so ago & moved the work back here. I wonder how much money they ‘saved’ in this whole process.
Schlemizel
@cmorenc:
I believe they also have their own product numbers for these products so as to prevent exact comparisons when shopping.
BTW – this is doublely stupid on the manufacturers part; if I buy a TV from wally & it is a POS I don’t blame wally I blame the manufacturer & avoid their products in the future
Jennifer
As I noted in another thread yesterday, but this time without the math errors:
Wal Mart’s profit margin runs about 3.5% and their annual profit is around $16 billion. Of that $16 billion, over $2 billion, 1/8th or about 12.5% finds its way into the pockets of the Waltons. So every $10,000 spent at a Wal Mart generates $350 in profit for the company, of which $42 goes to the Waltons.
If you do the math on it, Wal Mart’s overall revenues represent annual sales of almost $1500 for every man, woman, and child in the country. So your average family of four is spending some $6000 in Wal Mart stores each year. In reality, some are spending a lot more than that because Wal Mart is the only game in town or because they’re so cash-strapped that the nickel they save on this or that product compels them to do all their buying at Wal Mart. I’m sure there must be millions of families who are spending that $10K per year there, and ponying up their $42 of tribute to the Walton clan, each year.
What gets me is that those “low low prices” that suck people in aren’t, in reality, enough lower to really make a difference in most familiy budgets. I walked through a Wal Mart grocery story not long ago, just to look at prices. In general, most items were $.05 or less below prices at Kroger – in other words, not enough to amount to anything unless you’re buying hundreds of items, and even then, it doesn’t add up to much.
I personally haven’t purchased anything from a Wal Mart in going on 20 years. They pissed me off by refusing a refund on a defective item…this was about the time they started the change into evil empire after the death of Sam Walton. Made me mad enough that I just said “piss on you.” Of course, since then I’ve found plenty of other reasons not to shop there – the way they treat employees, the way they rape communities, how fucking unpleasant the stores are, the (lack of) quality in the goods they sell, and this, which I think most people don’t factor into their “low prices” calculations: since the early 90s, Wal Mart has increasingly abandoned stores in low-income neighborhoods in favor of locations near new McMansion neighborhoods. When I moved to Little Rock, there was a Wal Mart about 3 miles away. In their desperate flight to cozy up to the noveau riches, the nearest store is now about 10 miles away…in a high traffic area that takes me 20 minutes to reach by car. I figure a trip to Wal Mart and back would burn up a gallon of gas, so right off the bat I’ve got to “save” $3.25 to break even on a trip to one of their stores, At an average savings of $.05 per item, that means unless I’m buying more than 65 items, it’s costing me MORE to shop at Wal Mart than it would for me to just go to Kroger and buy the shampoo etc at the higher price.
Not to mention that the rapacious fucks who are pocketing $4.20 of every $1,000 spent at Wal Mart sure as fuck don’t need any of MY money. I’d pay more just to keep it out of their hands, even without any of the other reasons I have for not shopping with them.
boatboy_srq
@c u n d gulag: Hannaford, despite its imminent hugeness, still runs like a family store. I’m acquainted with the former head, and cannot imagine her doing the sort of things the Waltons do with their company – or raising children who act like the Walton heirs. The folks I have known who work for Hannaford seem of the same spirit.
Costco is how Sam’s Club could run if Walmart gave a BLEEP about their staff. Much higher salaries, decent benefits and at least semi-regular schedules. Part of the difference is that Costco is entirely a member-driven retailer: the big box for the members who shop there is all they do. Walmart, in contrast, jumped on the members-only retail model late with Sam’s Club, and did exactly with that what they do with the other stores.
I don’t know if anyone recalls this, but there was some excellent journalism on how Walmart nearly put Vlasic out of business. See this excellent takedown by Charles Fishman describing how Walmart’s fixation on Teh Cheap nearly killed a brand: Vlasic’s trade-show display-piece suddenly became a Walmart staple, and in doing so drove prices so low it took Vlasic years to recover. And the article showcases how Walmart caters to disposable everything: consumers would buy the big jars (cheaper than much smaller ones at the grocery) and throw away over half the product – and still save money over the smaller ones at the grocery – and then go buy more. It’s no wonder that we’re wasting so much in the way of resources, when the much-more-for-far-cheaper encourages that behavior.
Walmart is so Dickensian it isn’t funny.
c u n d gulag
@Schlemizel:
I happen not to be that camp – I like Moore. Most of the time.
And thanks, I’ll see if I can get it at my library – they display all of the new crap from the Reich-Wing writers. I had to have them order Rachel’s fine book, so I imagine I’ll have to with Moore’s, as well.
burnspbesq
Is there an unwritten Balloon-Juice rule that says that the Two Minutes Hate has to be directed at Walmart at least once a month? There isn’t a shred of information here that’s remotely new.
The common characteristic uniting everyone who is slamming Wal-Mart in every anti-Walmart thread in the history of this site is … affluence, or at least sufficient income and wealth that they can afford to turn up their noses at Walmart’s products. Millions of Americans don’t have that luxury; Walmart’s US sales are as high as they are for a reason.
It’s one thing to say that, on balance, the negative externalities associated with Walmart outweigh the positive impact it has had on the purchasing power of poor and working-class consumers. That is my view. It’s quite another to pretend that that positive impact doesn’t exist.
c u n d gulag
@boatboy_srq:
If I were physically capable of handling it, I’d love a job with Hannaford. It seems like they’re both employee AND customer friendly.
Comrade Mary
I know solidly middle-class Canadians who LOVE to shop at Wal-Mart so they can stock their expensive homes with cheap stuff. It’s not just poorer people who shop there.
As a freelancer with a wildly variable income, I mostly shop local or half-decent Canadian chains, but the one exception has been contact lenses. A Wal-Mart optical department has been cheap, close and helpful.
No more. I’ll use Clearly Canadian or else I’ll finally bite the bullet and get a Costco membership.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Our reliable apologist for economic nihilists weighs in.
Comrade Mary
@cmorenc: Look out for model numbers when you research consumer items like that. WM and other big box stores will have a slightly different number from the base model.
I Heart Breitbartbees
Longtime lurker, first time poster. C U N D Gulag was lucky to get out of Sears when he did. After the merger with K-Mart, things have deteriorated further. Before some idiot says it’s just a local problem, I’ve seen this across a wide variety of stores. Even worse, I hear every day how much better this is than working at any store owned by the Waltons of Arkansas. I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say that Sears has converted me from the conservative beliefs of my youth to something more than a bit farther left, but that’s only because I also remember Dumbya Bush and his cabal of war criminals.
Also, I’ve really been meaning to get this off my chest, but I know some here are opposed to voting for Green Party and other third party candidates for any reason. If you’re one of those people, blow me. If you’re in the National Socialist cesspool of Florida, which typically rests on a knife’s edge in a national election, you have a point. Those freaky tree-hugging hippies can hold their precious noses and vote for someone who sucks less than someone with an “R” behind his or her name AND has a credible chance of winning. However, if you’re in John Cole’s West Virginia, Massachusetts, Alaska, Hawaii, or any other state that has about as much chance of flipping party affiliation as Joan Rivers has of becoming a Playgirl centerfold, who gives a shit? There needs to be a good push from the left to counter the push towards the far right that has occurred since Nixon, and they’re more credible than most.
boatboy_srq
@Jennifer: One thing that everyone forgets is that Walmart’s early model included a “Made in USA” focus. There was originally a heaping helping of patriotism baked into the Walmart brand. It’s so out of date I think it died with Sam. Too many people were sold on that early and keep on buying based in part on that – even though Walmart itself is one key reason Made in USA hasn’t been on their shelves in well over a decade. There’s a presumption that, even if the store staff aren’t paid well, buyers are still supporting domestic production, and it’s entirely unfounded.
Oh, and speaking of Walmart’s “always lower prices” advertising – check this out.
boatboy_srq
@c u n d gulag: They ARE hiring – in New England…
Suffern ACE
@burnspbesq: and before there was Wal-mart, our poor were mostly living in log cabins with dirt floors. They hadn’t figured out how to provision the poor people properly in our society until Wal-mart came along.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: I think the two minute’s hate toward Walmart is abundantly justified and bears repeating often. The negative impact of Walmart on poor and working-class consumers outweighs the benefits of lower prices “on balance” the way an anvil outweighs a banana.
And plenty of affluent and middle-class people who have other choices still shop at Walmart. When they stop doing that and put those plutocratic leeches out of business, I’ll stop complaining about Walmart.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
And I always thought regularity was a good thing.
You know taking an actual shit on a regular basis instead of taking a bullshit on a regular basis.
Burnsy. Have you fixed wally world yet? Then there is still much to complain about.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Ruckus: No, I’m not going to make a joke about a yogurt brand shilled by Jamie Lee Curtis or some other boring product shilled by that chick from ESPN.
Jennifer
@burnspbesq: Excuse me, but, bullshit.
As noted, Wal Mart isn’t that much cheaper – not enough that it means the difference between getting by and not getting by.
I can see where people in rural areas might have little choice of where to shop once Wal Mart blows into the biggest town in the county and puts everyone else out of business, but no one really needs to shop at a Wal Mart based on prices alone. People have a lot more shit than they had 50 years ago. They could buy less shit for a slightly higher cost and get along just fine, at least according my experiences and those of everyone around me back in the 60s and 70s. “More” does not = “better” as your statement assumes.
scott (the other one)
@burnspbesq:
Yes. Because in so many communities they are now the only game in town.
“Yes, okay, fine, he raped you. But why do you not even talk about how he bought you dinner first? Why are you so focused on the negative?”
Roy G.
The implicit idea behind Walmart, Target and Costco is that anybody can fulfill the 20th Century American Dream and consume to their heart’s content there because the prices are so low.
Here’s a novel idea: buy less crap.
omnipresentoverlord
Yea but Target is a slightly higher end job killer. So it’s all good
beltane
@Jennifer: I agree. People have been trained to think Wal-Mart provides exceptional value, but this is really not the case. Considering the often appallingly poor quality of their merchandise, their “low” prices are somewhat high in real terms. If one wants to enjoy the pleasure of buying large quantities of junk for small amounts of money, yard sales and thrift stores are a better option.
beltane
@Roy G.: Costcos prices aren’t super low. They offer high quality at a reasonable price, but never advertise blockbuster sales or dirt-cheap prices.
Gretchen
I work for a small, family-owned business that went for the WalMart account about 7 years ago. My boss told them it was a mistake, that we’d hire a bunch of people and buy a bunch of equipment and we’d be stuck with it when they got our product 10 cents cheaper. They wouldn’t listen, forced him out and hired a guy who said he could do it. Our business was up 30%, and the new guy brought the WalMart way with him. It went from being a friendly company that cared about its employees to “shut up and be glad you have a job at all”. We had a turnaround time clause with a penalty for anything that was late. We got so good we rarely paid the penalty, at which point WalMart dumped us – they were counting on the profits from the penalty. We had to lay people off, and are still paying for the space and equipment we bought to service them. And we still have the lousy-for-employees atmosphere.
Davis X. Machina
@c u n d gulag:
Hannaford’s had a long relationship with Sobey’s, the grocery giant in the Canadian Maritimes. This left its mark on its corporate culture.
YellowJournalism
@burnspbesq: I grew up in a community that was ravaged by Walmart. Local family businesses crumbled under the pressure to meet Walmart’s prices while not having the connections it had and while trying to give employees decent wages and benefits. Our downtown is a joke now. Only a few niche businesses remain.
When the competition was mostly gone, the prices started mysteriously going back up. One of the businesses shut down was a craft store. Mere months after it shut down, our Walmart stopped carrying half the craft selection and raised prices on what was left. The store started to get shabbier and shabbier until just recently when they decided to invest and turn it into a Supercentre that I’m sure will kill off local grocery stores and any small businesses left. And in a few years, we will see the quality of the Supercentre go down.
Fuck Walmart. My parents had to move away from the community they grew up in and raised their children in at a time when thy should be looking toward retirement because the jobs are no longer there.
Violet
Wal-Mart is expensive for taxpayers. Wal-Mart costs the state and/or federal government money:
This is the fact that needs to be repeated everywhere. Wal-Mart costs taxpayers money. Wal-Mart takes money out of YOUR pocket, whether you shop there or not. Wal-Mart won’t pay their fair share. Wal-Mart depends on the government. Takers. Moochers. Soshulists.
Maude
A Costco is being built close to Walmart here. People are hoping Walmart goes down.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@burnspbesq:
Ojkay, Burnsie. Walmart does a few good things, but the overall net impact that Walmart has on the economy and the community still demand a Carthaginian solution to the Walmart issue.
Happy now?
Davis X. Machina
When they came up here in the ’90’s — and we had Ames, Bradlees, Caldors, Zayres, you name it — this was not a corner of the world under-served by discount retail — people were so excited, they’d drive down from Augusta or South Paris to get to the Scarborough store — right past the Ames, Bradlees, Caldors, Zayres….
It wasn’t just the prices — and some of it was the sheer size. But a lot of it was cultural. The rest of America had WalMart. It came from the heartland! From Arkansas! People talked about it on CMT!
(Remind me sometime to talk about Bean’s v. Cabela’s…. you are where you shop.)
aimai
@burnspbesq: A new study has come out confirming what people suspected. That’s why there is a new post.
Josie
Okay, y’all talked me into it. I’ve been wavering on spending the $55.00 to join Costco. I just did it. There is a Costco near where I work, so I’m curious to see how their prices measure up.
Davis X. Machina
@Maude: Our local WalMart SuperStore is right across the street from a Hannafords, and next door to a Shaws. Both have kept soldiering on — for a decade now. The Lidless Eye in Bentonville never sleeps, it just waits…..
Schlemizel
@burnspbesq:
There was always K-Mart for cheap crap. Wally has produced many more people who need its cheap prices & are struggling even then. Having seen the devastation wally caused in rural America there is nothing they have done that could equal it.
I have told this story here before but it is a favorite of mine because it woke my libertarian free-market friend to reality. He claimed no company would do this because empty stores are to big a loss. Then he did some reading & found out it is true.
Wally opened a store near a couple of smallish towns near the wife’s grandfather. It had the expected results of gutting both towns retail business (one of those towns is now only a handful of old people & nobody s going to replace them) a few years later they opened a second store nearby that also gutted neighboring communities. People could not understand as there was nt enough business for two stores that close together. Wally knew what it was doing, it closed one store & now a hug swath of that area who have no choice but to drive 30-40 miles to shop for anything.
pat
@Davis X. Machina:
So what about Bean vs. Cabela? I buy a lot of stuff from LLBean and I send a lot of it back. (if you have their visa card the return shipping is free, as is the card) The quality isn’t nearly what it was a decade or two ago.
Davis X. Machina
@pat: Short version: Cabelas is for Americans. Beans is for liberals. Beans won’t sell you pink mossy oak camo onesies for baby girls because they hate America.
pat
@Davis X. Machina:
Huh?
There’s a Cabela’s about 50 miles from me, I’ve been in it a couple of times. Womens’ section practically non-existent, a huge display of stuffed game animals on the back wall, giant boxes of junk food…. Well, maybe that’s the idea.
Violet
We have a very new Wal-Mart near where I live. I think it’s less than a year old. I’ve been in it once or twice (I got given a gift card) and even new it looks dingy.
Davis X. Machina
@pat: Telling you what my students say. (The crossroads store where i buy my morning coffee is always 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the number of deer tagged each fall for the state. It’s that kind of town….)
Loviatar
@c u n d gulag:
I wonder how many of the Obama pragmatist on this site were Reagan Democrats in the 80s.
Davis X. Machina
@Loviatar: Eleven. I counted them.
Yatsuno
@Josie: Did you check if you have a discount on membership through your work? I know there are sales people at Costco who go around working on that with businesses since it’s a winning proposition for them. Might be worth checking and I think they refund the difference in the membership fee.
If anyone has a WinCo nearby, go there. Employee owned and the prices beat the tar out of everyone including Wal-Mart.
Loviatar
@Davis X. Machina:
Heh heh you made a funny.
————————–
What I keep trying to point out is that while you guys may now call yourselves pragmatist you continue to support a politician whose policies differ only slightly from those espoused by Reagan. With the added benefit that going forward we will continually here from Republicans; well even Democratic President Obama…
Good job Obots.
greenergood
I like this, but not living in the US of A cannot verify if true, but hope so:
http://www.nationofchange.org/company-lower-prices-and-better-benefits-walmart-1376229055
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Loviatar: I wonder if you remember how long it took to shift from what, in retrospect, seems a very liberal Richard Nixon to the far-right Reagan and the absolute insanity you see today. Am I going to write IHB & BHO 4-Ever with a bunch of hearts surrounding it in my Trapper Keeper, next to crude drawings of cupids and cute fluffy bunnies trying to wreck the happiness of a rhinoceros? Am I going to play “In Your Eyes” outside President Obama’s window, although that dubbed over the much cooler Fishbone John Cusack was really playing? No. Has President Obama at least stopped the worst of the bleeding? I think so, and while it’s not ideal, at least it’s an improvement. Even better, he finally understands the nature of his enemy and how to confront it, or at least, now has the freedom to do so. Today’s America was not created in one administration. These problems took far longer than five years to create, and they will take far longer than five years to fix, assuming they’re fixed at all.
Yatsuno
@greenergood: That’s the place I mentioned above. The stores are not flashy and they have relatively few sales, but they don’t need any. They’re great for stocking up on canned goods and their meat and seafood sections are excellent. Their one weak area is produce, but I get that at QFC anyway.
Ruckus
@I Heart Breitbartbees:
WTF?
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Ruckus: My brain went to a joke about a regular digestive tract and bodily functions. So sue me. lol
I Heart Breitbartbees
@greenergood: At least one or two people in this thread have verified this story and adore their local WinCo stores. I wish I had one in my area, but at least we finally have a grocery chain that doesn’t treat their employees like crap, unlike a store that shall not be named *cough* WalMart *cough*.
Ruckus
@Loviatar:
I keep asking the question, who is better and who is more liberal?
And I hear only a few voices with fantasy candidates.
What politician is available, willing and able to be better? It’s obvious, to me at least that if a candidate could be found it might be possible to elect them to the presidency. Got any names?
Ruckus
@I Heart Breitbartbees:
No worries, I just didn’t follow the line from burnsy to me to you.
Trakker
Wow, so much anger at capitalists acting like good capitalists. Hell, yes, WalMart pays shit wages and screws their suppliers and puts smaller stores out of business, etc., ect. Hell capitalists are SUPPOSED to do this if they can get away with it. Where is it written that capitalists must pay their employees a living wage with benefits if they can get away with paying people desperate for work poverty wages, and getting society (us) to supplement their income out of our own pocket so their workers don’t starve? We let them get away with it.
I’m angry at the Waltons, sure, but I’m angrier at a stupid society that believes capitalists are supposed to act nice and compassionate and patriotic. That would make them suckers, not capitalists. Instead, we’re the suckers.
Josie
@Yatsuno:
Thanks for that info. I will check tomorrow.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Loviatar: Nah, the Reagan Democrats are all the Brogressives writing ‘I <3 Rand' over and over in their Ronnie Raygun White Privilege Slambook(tm).
Jasmine Bleach
@I Heart Breitbartbees:
But the problem is that the O-man is supporting things like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) (i.e., NAFTA on steroids) that has the very real potential to make today’s labor-crushing corporatism look like child’s play. Obama is in no way the savior here. He’s a corporatist, plain and simple.
I’ve never shopped at WalMart, and refuse to ever do so.
I stopped going to Target about 6 years ago, when the security army there insisted that I place my umbrella, which was not wet (it had been raining earlier, but wasn’t when I went from my car to the store), into a plastic bag. I showed them it wasn’t wet, refused the bag, and they escorted me out! I vowed never to return to that gulag–I mean, WTH?
I stopped going to CVS recently when I read the story of their management requiring employees to give them information about their blood pressure, weight, medical conditions, etc., in order to charge the employees more for certain benefits. Alternatively, everything I’ve seen about Walgreens seems to show them on the decent side of things, although the quality of their stores varies widely in my experience.
Costco is very good.
Just go to as many local shops as you can. Support any that are starting up. If you can afford it, support farmer’s markets. Shop online for certain things if you’re not close to much.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Davis X. Machina: Wow, some of those names take me back. But it got me thinking. From my recollection, Gold Circle, Uncle Bill’s, Zayre’s, and Clarkins’, and Best all cratered around here long before Target and the Borg invaded the county. Hill’s and Ames held out but they still dropped well before the big boxes really became ubiquitous.
I’m wondering how much of Wal-Mart’s issues is simply avarice, or survival instinct born out of the discount retail rat race. Or a little of column A and a little of column B.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Trakker: I suppose one of the many things that makes me angry at the Walton dynasty of Bentonville is their ineptitude at capitalism. Henry Ford was a fascist, but only in the sense that he wanted the US to side with Germany in WWII and agreed with the bulk of their ideology. I’m not saying this to Godwin. I’m saying this for illustrative purposes. He hated unions with a passion that would make even Scott Walker and Mitch Daniels pale, yet he paid his workers, at minimum, twice the average wages of the time and provided other benefits that were very rare back then. He did this to build demand for his products and a loyal workforce, and that led to the long term thriving of his businesses, including what later became Kingsford charcoal (long since bought by Clorox). For all of his many, glaring, and severe faults, Henry Ford understood that his workforce was an investment, and that by treating them well, he would do better almost immediately. An avowed fascist and anti-Semite was a better person than Bentonville’s royalty. That is disgusting, and it exposes a shocking level of stupidity on the Waltons’ part.
Davis X. Machina
@Ruckus: Dennis Kucinich. Tanned. Rested. Ready.
If I learned anything after a decade at DemocraticUnderground.com, I learned the answer is “Dennis Kucinich”.
The actual question doesn’t matter so much.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Jasmine Bleach:
And those things will not pass because of the Teahadists and the responsible Left, so it’s little more than an intellectual exercise. I’m not in love with President Obama, but he’s what we have, and if you think he’s not better than Bush, you haven’t been paying attention.
fuckwt
@Loviatar: I actually was a Reagan Republican in the 80s, but I was only a naive teenager and was all about glibertarianism and blowing up other people’s countries (McCain didn’t invent that “Bomb Iran” song, we were walking around school singing it in 1979).
I stayed a Reagan fan until 1984 when he forced the states to raise the drinking age to 21… just as I was turning 18 AND walking down to the post office to fill out my draft card (he also brought draft registration back)– “get government off the people’s backs”, bullshit, he had he government crawling right up my ass. Mondale was the best option? Fuck that, I voted Libertarian. Iran/Contra was the nail in it for me; it became obvious to me his whole operation was crooked. Watching the media give Ollie North a blowjob was the first time I realized that the media is corrupt and useless too. And then the PMRC hearings (which made me hate the Gores), and all that. The whole culture had gone full jingoistic/fundamentalist and it was making me sick. By the time of the 1988 debacle, I was disgusted, Dukakis was the best option? I voted libertarian again. I realized the first Iraq war was a sham right from the start, just a Bush re-election gambit. Supported Clinton in 1992 just because I’d have enough of Bush and didn’t want him back for another 4 years, and wasn’t that keen on more wars, either. Don’t remember 1996 much, I was too busy making money, but after watching the Gingrich clown car show I probably supported Clinton again in protest. Then in 2000, there was no way I was going to support Gore after the PMRC, and no way I was going to support Bush because of Bush, and I wasn’t on the Nader train, so I went with Harry Browne (libertarian again), since I’d been voting Libertarian in local and state races since the 80s. Finally, around that time, being involved with the dot-com madness and VC’s, I discovered what true free-market capitalism is, stripped of all the pretense, realized the fatal flaw in libertarianism, and became horrified by it. It was just grift on a massive scale, and corporations are much more powerful than government and much more a threat to liberty; we NEED representative government to rein in private power. That’s the event that gave me a social conscience. That and becoming a parent, and being horrified again by the jingoistic flagwaving warmongering post-9/11 response, all those things happening at once, changed my perspective on everything. I literally had my Republican “friends” calling me a terrorist for not wanting to go to war and opposing the PATRIOT Act, etc, and they were only half-kidding. Supported Democrats in 2002, went to all the anti-war protests from October on, campaigned for Dean and then Kerry in 2004, finally changed my registration to Democrat in 2005, and I have been proud to be a Democrat ever since.
I like Obama. A lot. He ain’t no saint, and he’s just as bought and sold by corporations as any other member of our government, but not by choice, it seems. more by necessity. At least he is competent, has a conscience, tries to do the right thing, is intelligent, is diligent. That’s way more than I can say for most of the Presidents I’ve had in my lifetime. I think if you look at in context you can see why, on the trajectory we’ve been on, he’s headed in a much better direction. #1 priority right now is to take the stranglehold over our government away from Boner and Turtle in 2014. After that, if I had my choice, I think what we need is President Elizabeth Warren in 2016. I doubt that’d happen, but I’d sure love to help make it happen.
Jasmine Bleach
@Trakker:
But there are plenty of corporations out there giving people living wages and benefits–Costco, WinCo, etc.–and they are doing extremely well from a capitalistic perspective. People are just asking–why can’t WalMart, etc., not act like total @-holes and do the same? In fact, with all their empty shelves lately, maybe they aren’t actually acting like good capitalists (they’ve gone too far).
The government is supposed to be there to regulate the capitalism so that everybody gets a fair shake. Government is, after all, a form of socialism. Which is a good thing. In theory at least.
Davis X. Machina
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: There was a big shakeout in discount retail but the survivors — here that would be Bradlees, and Caldor — were pretty good. Even though it was ancient and huge, KMart was the thin end of the ultra-discount wedge.
I think people kept getting poorer, and the stores stood still — stand still now. How many dollar store chains are there? They’re full of people who can’t afford to shop at WalMart.
Davis X. Machina
@fuckwt:
Elect the right Congress, and you don’t need an optimal president. Elect the wrong Congress, and an optimal president, and you still have a disaster on your hands.
It’s all about Congress. The biggest difference between BHO, LBJ and FDR is the party distribution of Senate and House seats each one was confronted with.
MakeMeAnOffer
We’re finally getting a Costco where I live and I can’t wait to check it out. I do still try and go to Farmer’s Markets and I have been a regular at Trader Joe’s since it came to town.
Walmart? I’ve been there twice in the past two years. The Walmart by me is dirty, dingy, merch all over the floor, crowded, rude/uncaring staff (although I can’t blame them, they work for shitty Walmart), etc.
I read a story not too long ago where it talked about all the problems at Walmarts across the country. The author visited the Walmart near their Arkansas headquarters and it was neat, clean, technologically-advanced, shelves stocked to the brim and staffed with happy, smiling employees. However, every other Walmart the author visited was dirty, messy, empty shelves all over the place, bored, unhappy employees. Looks like the Walton family only cares about the image at the flagship store.
Target I admit I go to, but I really, really hate their tamping down of their labor. I am trying to wean myself off Target.
Geeno
Man, I am so glad that I have a place like Wegman’s here. We don’t have Costco in Western NY, but Walmart got a toe hold back in when ol’ Sam was supporting the US made brands. Kodak film, in particular – here abouts, They created some habitual Walmart shoppers back in that day, but they haven’t been able to expand that base. Wegman’s has been in the top 10 best employers in America for a host of reasons, and they do nothing but give their customers MORE reasons to shop with and trust them. A big organic movement is their thing now -“our breads are becoming slightly more expensive, because we’ve gotten pickier about our suppliers in this era of rampant corner cutting in the food industry”- You put it to people that way, and they’re okay with a few extra cents – and Wegman’s does still provide other brands, if their rhetoric doesn’t appeal to you.
They deliberately try to cultivate the summer workers into permanent Wegman’s employees. I personally know a guy who went from stocking shelves in HS to programming their payroll system after college. They also use these workers to manage new stores when possible.
It’s the business model that works, but INHERITORS don’t see that.
Ruckus
@Davis X. Machina:
Someone who takes/took money from the enemy? He may be liberal in some ways but his voice got drowned out and useless by going to work for faux.
Also his age.
YMMV
Tripod
Living wages in the retail sector are a big fucking deal.
Burning down every Wal Mart in the country would do jack shit for rural, small town retail. Those were dead towns walking thirty years before anybody knew who the fuck Sam Walton was.
Betty Cracker
@Davis X. Machina:
That’s the truth. But it’s so much more personally rewarding to unfurl one’s progressive peacock display in front of supposed inferiors than to do the hard, dirty and obscure work of supporting school board and county commissioner candidates.
Davis X. Machina
@Ruckus: It was an accident. He didn’t mean it. He has to live somehow, because the PTB took his House seat away with redistricting. The fix was in.
I mean, come on, it’s Dennis Kucinich.
gene108
@Loviatar:
Because Mike Dukakis and Walter Mondale did so well in their Presidential elections, Democrats should’ve gone further to the left!
At some level most Democratic politicians believe government should work well for the people most of the time. Even Bill Clinton wanted to show that government could be efficient, without the “big government” programs of LBJ, which is why Democrats have made sure competent people run FEMA, for example.
It’s not a lesser of two evils for me. Democrats will push for equality, better social fairness, etc. but may not always get the desired result the Left wants for us to become a Scandinavian style society.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Loviatar:
I was not, not even close. As a kid, I supported Democrats, and even had to fight about that support when I went to work as an office page for Strom Thurmond (he wanted an African-American High School kid, and I got recommended).
And that’s a key point. Even though I came from a family that fought on the opposite side of Thurmond, who knew Thurmond’s (semi-)secret love child, they supported me going to Washington because it would burnish my ability to get into a good school, and to beat the expectations of the racists, like Thurmond, who 20 years before fought like mad to keep someone of my skin color away from any hopes of a better life.
This is part of why “purity police” burn me hot — by those lights, I couldn’t have worked for Thurmond because they would have made me a sell-out. Instead, it taught me a LOT, in a short amount of time, about the Conservatives of the day, and gave me a strong base to discuss issues with them up to today. It taught me to be a better Liberal, and a better fighter for our values, because I can speak to “Conservatives” in something like their own language (although that’s changed with the Tea Party…)
Fuck “purity”. There’s a system, and learning how to work it, how to apply intelligent pressure, and when to compromise to move the ball down the field beats the hell out of sitting at home complaining about politicians. If Dr. King had whined like some of this folks, I’d still be drinking from the Colored Fountain.
RevRick
As an aside, it’s worth noting that the Walton heirs possess as much wealth as the 120,000,000 Americans in the bottom 40%.
gene108
@Schlemizel:
From what I’ve read, the “business friendly” Reagan administration was so unprecedentedly business friendly it caught business off guard; they really did not expect government to give a green light to so much of what they proposed.
WereBear
Oh, so you are so high and mighty you don’t shop at Wal-Mart? Good on ya! Because no one gets away from Wal-Mart without getting ripped off.
I’m poor, AND I turn up my patrician Roman nose at Wal-Mart. Because everything they sell is crap; it’s all a rip-off.
Buying a cheap coffee maker and turning up three months later to buy another one… does it matter how cheap it is? When you are buying one every three months? If you say stuff like “Some people are so poor they have to buy at Wal-Mart,” YOU are part of the problem.
I can’t afford NOT to turn up my nose at Wal-Mart! Capiche?
Ruckus
@Davis X. Machina:
Some one with the gravitas to be president should be able to find a better place to land. He doesn’t know anyone who can help him out? He isn’t smart enough to know faux is the enemy? And you want me to trust him? I don’t think so.
Ruckus
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:
You make a valid point. Very valid.
And it is against my discussion with @Davis X. Machina: that it was OK for Dennis Kucinich and that he should get a pass for working for faux.
Except I see a difference. You were twenty, Kucinich is very much not. You worked in government, trying to learn more and did. What could Kucinich’s gain be by working at faux?
Bill Arnold
@cmorenc:
If this became common knowledge, it would be damaging to WalMart and possibly to the name manufacturers involved. I wonder why this hasn’t happened. (Not asking rhetorically.)
Personally I had no clue that this was a common practice. (Also, is there some documentation for this?)
Mnemosyne
@Loviatar:
I didn’t turn 18 until after the 1988 election. The first presidential vote I ever cast was for Bill Clinton. The only time I didn’t vote for a Democrat was when I fell for the “Republicrat” bullshit that fucking asshole Nader spouted in 2000, and I’ve regretted it every day since then.
But, hey, any lifelong Democrat who doesn’t agree with you must have voted for Reagan because shut up, that’s why.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
I live off disability, and I never, never shop at Walmart. It’s all in the budget and planning. Even better, the nearest Wallmart is a two bus ride away.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@TaMara (BHF):
My wife and daughter work in a department store whose retail chain was bought out by Kroger. Before Kroger: fair pay, regular raises, great medical coverage and stable scheduling with lots of full-timers on hand. After Kroger: rare to no raises, suck pay (whole departments where minimum wage is all you get), garbage self-insured medical ‘coverage’ where you will spend about one-third of your pay before they start to pay some of it, fewer full-timers, more part timers, erratic scheduling that can change from day to day, and fewer employees who have to not only cover their department but also have to cashier and work in other departments (last night our daughter said that she was covering the whole floor herself because they took everyone else to cashier).
They loved their jobs before Kroger and now they can’t stand the fucking place. I have a shitload of other crap I could say except that some of it may make it easy for Kroger snoops to identify them.
Kroger sucks donkey balls.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Mnemosyne:
I also turned 18 after the 1988 election. I’m in a very conservative region and grew up in a very conservative household. I’m quite the opposite now. Before some idiot, and I won’t mention Loviatar’s name, says “IHB used to be the enemy! He can’t be trusted! He flipped once! ZOMG!!!” No, I made excuses for the GOP for a long time until I finally couldn’t take it any more. It was a rejection of everything I had believed and furthermore, an acknowledgment I had been wrong for a very long time. It was hard and it took a lot of soul searching, but I simply could not be associated with the insanity any longer. I did what any liberal, what any rational, thinking person should do. I evaluated the facts, and when I found my beliefs were in direct conflict with the facts, I adjusted accordingly. It’s called being a mature adult, but I guess Loviatar was born perfect. Isn’t that right, Lovy?
@fuckwt: Your story is very similar to mine, though I’m younger than you. I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m smarter than most people here. I just happened to be younger than some, older than others, when we observed the same thing, the wheels coming off the economy. It doesn’t take a genius to see the Reaganite/glibertarian paradigm has been an utter failure. Anyone who’s watched the news at any point in the last dozen years can see it, and those who were observant enough saw it coming even before then. If anything, I’m shocked there are still dead enders who believe it works in spite of overwhelming evidence it is a failure almost on par with that of the Soviet system.
Original Lee
@Geeno: I LOVE Wegman’s. If it were possible to marry a corporate person, I’d be first in line for a marriage license.
I Heart Breitbartbees
@Original Lee: But would it be a same-sex marriage? I ask because we all know how much the GOP LOVES those.
Glocksman
@Loviatar:
Guilty.
Though I will say in my defense that I was twelve when I supported Reagan in 1980.
A twelve year old who at the time idolized Gordon Liddy after reading his autobiography.
I’ve changed quite a bit since then. :)
Glocksman
As far as shopping at Walmart goes, I avoid the place like the f**king plague.
Not out of ideological conviction, but because of the shitty customer service and ridiculously long lines.
In fact, the only time I go to Walmart is after work (4PM-2:30AM working hours) because they’re the only 24 hour grocery in town since early into W’s administration.
Schnuck’s and Buy-Low used to operate 24 hours, but not now, and that makes either Walmart or the one 24 hour CVS the only game in town for groceries at 3AM.
Joey Giraud
Capitalism isn’t about eating your own anymore then Science is about nuking a city.
Tripod
@Bill Arnold:
Because it’s FUD.