Walmart

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Like I said earlier, it didn't go belly up. And do you mean this and other companies that have suffered because they paid their workers a living wage shouldn't have done so?

Please, please tell me how much better our economy has done in the past decade, since this company and the scores of others who have left our shores. Please show me the families who have achieved the American dream of homeownership, show me that people have been able to replace these lost jobs with other jobs with equal pay and benefits. Oh right you can't. Unemployment, personal bankruptcies due to medical expenses, financial collapse, foreclosure and housing collapse.

Gee, it seems that even Walmart can't compete these days. They can't lower their prices anymore either and their poor customers still can't afford what they are selling. Their earnings are down and so is their stock. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/are-weak-sales-a-red-flag-for-walmart-stock.html/?a=viewall

You do understand what a living wage means don't you? It's a minimum wage that allows one to meet their basic needs. It's not one that allows you to take fancy vacations, eat out ever other day, drive new cars, wear designer clothes, etc. It provides for basic housing, food, and clothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I went shopping at Walmart and they have all the same stuff you'll find at a Target, Harris Teeter or wherever. All the major brands: P&G, Johnson & Johnson etc. So why do DCUMers say that the store is full of crap? It's exactly the same stuff you buy at Giant on Conn. except you don't see pretentious people flaunting their dual degrees from HYP in poli sci/history.

Actually, many of the name-brand products you see at Wal-Mart are a lower quality than you see at other stores…the manufacturers produce a separate line for Wal-Mart to meet its price demands. They use more cardboard than plastic and more plastic than metal, thinner fabrics, single rows of stitching instead of double, glue instead of fasteners, etc. etc. Electronics have fewer features. Products have shorter warranties. And once manufacturers change what they do for Wal-Mart, they often start doing it for other stores, which is why the quality of so many consumer goods is shoddier today than it was 20 years ago.

Citation please.

Do you read the news? This is not a groundbreaking statement. Here are a couple of things from a quick google search:

http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~dukes/QualityReduction_2013.pdf
http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-not-to-buy-at-walmart-17-05-2011/
http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-11-is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart/
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart-product-quality-durability-longevity/

[Anonymous]

My issues with Walmart is that it is both the biggest employer of people on food stamps, and the company that raises the most revenue from SNAP benefit dollars. In a sense, SNAP benefits serve as a stimulus to Walmart so they don't need to pay their employees a living wage. On top of that, members of the founding family are among the seven richest people in the United states.

While other companies are just as bad in terms of their minimum wage workers, no other company operates on the sheer scale that Walmart does. I just think it's a symbol of what is wrong with this country right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Like I said earlier, it didn't go belly up. And do you mean this and other companies that have suffered because they paid their workers a living wage shouldn't have done so?

Please, please tell me how much better our economy has done in the past decade, since this company and the scores of others who have left our shores. Please show me the families who have achieved the American dream of homeownership, show me that people have been able to replace these lost jobs with other jobs with equal pay and benefits. Oh right you can't. Unemployment, personal bankruptcies due to medical expenses, financial collapse, foreclosure and housing collapse.

Gee, it seems that even Walmart can't compete these days. They can't lower their prices anymore either and their poor customers still can't afford what they are selling. Their earnings are down and so is their stock. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/are-weak-sales-a-red-flag-for-walmart-stock.html/?a=viewall

You do understand what a living wage means don't you? It's a minimum wage that allows one to meet their basic needs. It's not one that allows you to take fancy vacations, eat out ever other day, drive new cars, wear designer clothes, etc. It provides for basic housing, food, and clothing.

NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

[Anonymous]

Made in China. You know what - many replacement parts for our military airplanes, ships, subs, tankers, etc are made in China. DOD is just beginning to realize the craziness of everything made abroad. The scary part about shipping all manufacturing abroad is that if the USA ever went to war against China, China has already won. Who in the US will have the immediate facility and skills to provide the parts to repair or keep the equipment in working condition. Such shortsightedness on so many levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Made in China. You know what - many replacement parts for our military airplanes, ships, subs, tankers, etc are made in China. DOD is just beginning to realize the craziness of everything made abroad. The scary part about shipping all manufacturing abroad is that if the USA ever went to war against China, China has already won. Who in the US will have the immediate facility and skills to provide the parts to repair or keep the equipment in working condition. Such shortsightedness on so many levels.

Plus, China owns us - lots of our Treasury debt. But before you think I'm a Tea Partier, let me say that I'm grateful to China for funding our budget deficits. Sort of grateful, because I'm referring to Bush's huge deficits from all his tax cuts and wars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

Your missing the point. Lets say the average factor worker was earning $25 an hour. Is it better to have an across the board 20% wage deduction or close up the shop and layoff everyone? I $20 an hour job with benefits is way better than no job. And depending on where you live, a $20 an hour job is probably way higher than a living wage job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

Your missing the point. Lets say the average factor worker was earning $25 an hour. Is it better to have an across the board 20% wage deduction or close up the shop and layoff everyone? I $20 an hour job with benefits is way better than no job. And depending on where you live, a $20 an hour job is probably way higher than a living wage job.

If that's what you meant, you should have just said that. Instead you ranted about designer clothes and new cars (which you conveniently clippped off when you copied my quote).

I agree there's room for negotiation. But you slammed PP without trying to find out if there were wage reductions before the company was sold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

Your missing the point. Lets say the average factor worker was earning $25 an hour. Is it better to have an across the board 20% wage deduction or close up the shop and layoff everyone? I $20 an hour job with benefits is way better than no job. And depending on where you live, a $20 an hour job is probably way higher than a living wage job.

If that's what you meant, you should have just said that. Instead you ranted about designer clothes and new cars (which you conveniently clippped off when you copied my quote).

I agree there's room for negotiation. But you slammed PP without trying to find out if there were wage reductions before the company was sold.

If you had read all the posts, you would of seen that's what was originally stated. Then the topic of living wages was brought up. Followed by you getting involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

Your missing the point. Lets say the average factor worker was earning $25 an hour. Is it better to have an across the board 20% wage deduction or close up the shop and layoff everyone? I $20 an hour job with benefits is way better than no job. And depending on where you live, a $20 an hour job is probably way higher than a living wage job.

If that's what you meant, you should have just said that. Instead you ranted about designer clothes and new cars (which you conveniently clippped off when you copied my quote).

I agree there's room for negotiation. But you slammed PP without trying to find out if there were wage reductions before the company was sold.

If you had read all the posts, you would of seen that's what was originally stated. Then the topic of living wages was brought up. Followed by you getting involved.

Oh please. You are belligerent and confrontational, for sure. That doesn't give you license to re-interpret and distort the thread. You're the one who interpreted PP's father's company's "living wage" as providing "designer clothes" and "new cars." Those were your very own words.

I'm done with you. Not because you're patently stupid. But because it's impossibly to debate people who lie, even about simple things like thread posts that anybody can go back and check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Love your condescending tone. I also appreciate how, when PP describes the unemployment and bankruptcies that result from the demise of US-based companies, your best retort is to charge that PP thinks everyone deserves "new cars" and "designer clothes."

Those darn unions, fighting for the rights of factory workers everywhere to wear Chanel and drive Mercedes!

You Tea Partiers can't argue honestly to save your lives.

Your missing the point. Lets say the average factor worker was earning $25 an hour. Is it better to have an across the board 20% wage deduction or close up the shop and layoff everyone? I $20 an hour job with benefits is way better than no job. And depending on where you live, a $20 an hour job is probably way higher than a living wage job.

If that's what you meant, you should have just said that. Instead you ranted about designer clothes and new cars (which you conveniently clippped off when you copied my quote).

I agree there's room for negotiation. But you slammed PP without trying to find out if there were wage reductions before the company was sold.

If you had read all the posts, you would of seen that's what was originally stated. Then the topic of living wages was brought up. Followed by you getting involved.

Oh please. You are belligerent and confrontational, for sure. That doesn't give you license to re-interpret and distort the thread. You're the one who interpreted PP's father's company's "living wage" as providing "designer clothes" and "new cars." Those were your very own words.

I'm done with you. Not because you're patently stupid. But because it's impossibly to debate people who lie, even about simple things like thread posts that anybody can go back and check.

Again, go back and read the posts. The PP stated they were highly skilled workers. They now had new jobs in the services area but at lower wages. Here, I'll quote it for you:

My father and the few executives who ran the company were not the sob story. Those who suffered mightily, are the highly skilled blue collar workers who lost their jobs, their pensions, etc. Most of them have never been able to replace that income. They have taken up service oriented jobs that do not pay what their manufacturing jobs once paid.

That quote implies they were paid above a living wage. And common sense implies a highly skilled blue blue color worker earns more than a living wage, contrary to what the PP stated. So I pointed out to the PP what a living wage is and isn't. Now if you want to argue what a living wage is or how I described it fine.

[Anonymous]

Walmart smells like BO and depression

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They also have terrible labor practices.

+1
This is why I never shop at Walmart. Their stuff is shoddy, yes, but the way they treat their suppliers, and hence their suppliers' employees is reprehensible. Shop at Target and pay a few pennies more. Workers deserve a living wage, even in developing countries (especially in developing countries), but Walmart keeps them impoverished forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walmart smells like BO and depression

Just like all the BigLaw firms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Walmart is the world's largest corporation. It's size dictates the way the global economy does business -- period. My father ran a household name (everyone in the US knows it) manufacturing company in the US. When they lost their contract with Walmart because they refused to continue to lower the cost of their product, which was already causing a loss at the company or to make a cheaper product, Walmart said good riddance. They then gave the contract to a small manufacturer in Indonesia.

What happened to this extremely large manufacturing company? Well, after the loss of the Walmart contract, my father laid off 400 employees immediately. Over a two year period, he oversaw the shut down of the last US manufacturing plant of this company.

The plant was put up for sale. An Indian manufacturing company purchased the guts of the plant. They literally bought almost everything inside the plant, including bricks that were needed to make certain items. What didn't they buy? Anything that protected the environment. The left behind the machines that took the lead out of the air, they left behind the equipment that tested the water before it left the facility which would monitor for mercury, etc.

This is just one example of a once premier US brand that no longer exists in the US. This is what we are paying for in the lower prices. Study after study shows that most Americans just want their cheap socks and underwear.

Bummer. The brand just went belly up, huh, rather than move overseas and continue operation?

Regardless, yes, I like my cheap Tylenol, ziplock and cotton blend socks. I do not wish to overpay .30 more an item for these things so 1. "Your father" can maintain an executive salary of x+1 and (2) so that Kenny in Ohio can hang onto his job manufacturing socks. Kenny needs to retrain in IT or health care.

I'm a Christian, and what you wrote is completely contrary to my religion. I believe in helping others, even if there's a cost to me. If it were simple to retrain workers, and cheap, there wouldn't be loads of laid-off, unemployed, partly-employed, underemployed workers whose manufacturing jobs moved overseas.

The price of those cheap socks and other goods is too high for the environment and for the good of our social fabric in this country. Pay more for goods made by ompanies that treat their employees fairly and pay them well enough to live decently. Those crappy socks you love so much were made by workers who barely have enough to eat, have no decent housing, no access to health care, no health insurance, no future. I couldn't wear those things in good conscience.