Posted on 05/02/2006 11:56:46 PM PDT by Joe Bfstplk
Wal-Mart is the only corporation in the world that I know of or have ever heard of that is hated because it is successful. What do these critics want Wal-Mart to do? Fail? Start selling $300 shirts like Saks Fifth Avenue?
Of course, some of the hatred is coming from unions, which have tried but, so far as I know, failed to unionize Wal-Mart's work force. That one thing tells you that it must be a much better deal to work for Wal-Mart than its critics let on. Some of the disdain comes from leftist snobs who think they should run the lives of the peasants who work and shop there.
I am a small-town guy who has hated to see so many locally owned small businesses go under, but that's not Wal-Mart's fault. That trend started years ago with suburban sprawl (a major contributor to the energy crisis, by the way), suburban shopping malls, strip malls and all the other discounters that preceded Wal-Mart in prominence. It was caused by the American public's preference to buy based on price, rather than on service or quality. It was caused by local politicians converting the National Defense Highway System (the interstates) into suburban and urban commuter systems by routing them through instead of around the cities.
Wal-Mart is one of the best-run corporations in the world. The individual consumer has no clout with suppliers and manufacturers. Wal-Mart uses its enormous buying clout to get consumers the best price at the best quality possible. Being a supplier to Wal-Mart is no picnic, as the company is quite demanding.
It's not Wal-Mart's fault that much of its merchandise is manufactured in China. The late Sam Walton went to extraordinary lengths to help American manufacturers, but Wal-Mart doesn't control any corporation except itself. The move to China is not coming from Wal-Mart, but from greedy manufacturing corporations that love cheap and controlled labor. If your competitor is selling an American brand-name product made in China cheaper than you can buy one here, and if the customer says, "I don't care where it's made as long as I can afford it," what are you going to do?
More recently, Wal-Mart has been slammed for not providing what its critics think it should in the way of medical insurance. Well, why is General Motors flirting with bankruptcy? Why is Ford Motor Co. in financial trouble? Why, for that matter, is the federal government in financial trouble? The stinking hag in this room that everyone is ignoring is the high cost of medical service.
You can't provide low-cost health care or low-cost medical insurance for a system run by millionaire doctors and six-figure hospital administrators, and that has 1,200 percent profit margins for drugs and medical devices. The health-industry attitude is, we'll profiteer like crazy, and you people find a way to pay us. If Congress were not a bought-and-paid-for whore, America could join the rest of the industrialized world with a reasonable health-care system.
Health-care costs are one of the key factors in making American manufacturers uncompetitive. Now that the state of Maryland has presumed to dictate what kind of benefits Wal-Mart provides, if I ran the company, I'd close every store in the state and put the property up for sale. This is just one more ploy in the anti-Wal-Mart crusade.
We have reached a sick and perverted point in our culture when honesty and success bring attacks, mainly from people who either don't know what they are talking about or have a hidden agenda.
Millions of Americans who earn low wages from other employers rely on Wal-Mart to help them stretch their family budget. Wal-Mart has kept faith with those people. I've never found a dirty store, a rude employee or a defective product in a Wal-Mart store.
If you prefer to pay more than something's worth in exchange for some phony ambience or fancy label, go right ahead. In the meantime, get off Wal-Mart's back. It's one of the few entities in this country that is doing the right thing the right way for the right reasons.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but wal-mart has no obligation to anyone but its shareholders.
I don't think America was destroyed by proper market pricing prior to free trade and Nafta. In fact, it boomed. Curious, that. Curious how companies prior to free trade and Nafta helped make this the wealthiest nation in the world without selling us out. Apparently, trade deals in the modern age are like an ethical circumcision license. Screw america for profit is the new moral highground in the RNC. Pretty sick.
It isn't nonsense. It's a legitimate and proper beef. It just isn't the one you would like to make this about because you can argue the strawman. But, you have to either circumcise your ethics and conscience or face the truth in the argument I offered. Imagine that, actually dealing with the truth on a public forum.. how quaint.
Right, Walmart sells out US companies for profit. Undermining the economy and scuttling the country, we are to believe, is ok if a profit motive is involved. So, lets get to it. We all need to announce to the World media that we're going to dig up all the spies we've put to death in this country for treason since it's inception and pardon them, move them and rebury them in a place of honor with full military honors because, hey, a profit motive was involved afterall...
I'll put a fine point on it, and it is this: This is America. WalMart is an American company. And they have an obligation to this country whether you can see past profit motive or not.
The only obligation a company has is to obey the laws and pay required taxes. Anything else is icing on the cake.
If you want wal-mart to change its ways, then lobby for different laws.
I was tickled by a story from Mexico City I read on FR last week, discussing the popularity of Wal-Mart there for the low prices.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Companies in this country have a responsibility not to sell out the country for profit. If you don't like that, tough, it's your problem. They do have that responsibility. The older generation and the ethical amongst the new still know that. Those of you that seem to have forgotten what ethics and patriotism are do get it. You just would rather make profit than be loyal.. Again, see the Rosenburgs.
Oh, give us a break. Walmart brings cheaply manufactured chinese junk into the country to undercut local pricing and drive Americans out of business with their means of making a profit.. slave labor rates vs. US labor rates. This all used to be a common sense discussion before Greed overtook the political machine full bore and the politiciams stopped listening to America and started pandering to business. What's next? Why don't you go sell your mother if profit motive is all that matters?
And btw, US wages were never unreasonable. Nor is your opinion on them worth anything. They were arrived out through supply and demand. Or are you arguing that supply and demand was unfair?
Okay, this is a small point, but it bugs me: it's The Rosenbergs and not Rosenburgs. With an "e."
I'd also remind you that they broke the law, were caught and punished. But there was a law on the books that they broke.
That said, companies are machines. Those who work for them are not going to risk their careers (i.e. house, cars, kids' education, etc.)by making a morally correct but unprofitable choice.
That is the harsh, grown-up reality. If you want a company to act counter to profit then pass a law. Otherwise the company will continue to pursue profit in any way it can.
Don't give Havoc more ammunition...
26 Feb 1974 A U.S. Senate report reveals Ford Motor's involvement in Nazi Germany's war efforts, for which CEO Henry Ford received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Adolf Hitler himself. After the war, the car company was paid nearly $1M reparation by the U.S. government to compensate for one of its plants that was bombed within the Reich.
Hey, what's a law when profit margin is involved. You're supposed to curse, spit and say something about "regulation" aren't you... Don't let's get religion now and try to explain it away. Where'd the profit at any cost mantra vanish to?
Companies are not machines. Companies are a collection of people with and without ethics. Those people work for a living - yes even make profits for the greater good of the whole. But that does not diminish their responsibility to act in the better interests of this nation instead of their raw greed. Law or no law. For people who complain endlessly about proliferation of laws and regulation, it's interesting that you find God on those subjects when hit with harsh reality.. and then only to handwring. It's pretty pathetic that one should have to argue legal/illegal vs right/wrong when it comes to the greater good of the nation. Especially when this rot is coming from the GOP who should know better. You should know better!
And if the public had known about it, Ford would have been finished. That's the part you neglected to mention.. Probably because you know it's true and doesn't help you.
As far as I know there are very few laws regarding profit margin.
Also, I don't believe "profit at any cost" on a personal level. I don't even believe in profit at any cost for corporations. I believe that some money should be poured back into R&D etc.
But you're dead wrong in your view of companies. They really are "machines." If you expect them to act in a moral fashion then you're in for a lot of disappointment.
Ford was a weird, weird guy. But that's pretty common for technologically oriented folks who are focused on their discipline.
Havoc Mind: Hire Me. It doesn't matter if I have no marketable skills. You must hire me. It is my birthright as an American.
If you don't like that, tough, it's your problem. They do have that responsibility.
Havoc Mind:Hire Me. It doesn't matter if I have no marketable skills. You must hire me. It is my birthright as an American.
The older generation and the ethical amongst the new still know that. Those of you that seem to have forgotten what ethics and patriotism are do get it.
Havoc Mind:Hire Me. It doesn't matter if I have no marketable skills. You must hire me. It is my birthright as an American.
You just would rather make profit than be loyal.. Again, see the Rosenburgs.
Havoc Mind:Hire Me. It doesn't matter if I have no marketable skills. You must hire me. It is my birthright as an American.
Gee, Dumb2003 jumping threads to pester me again. Who would have imagined that..
Companies don't have a will of their own, nor a conscience. The peeple running them do. And, yes, they are expected in America to operate in an ethical fashion. It just seems that many more nowdays resort to what they can get away with instead of doing right for right's sake. But, then, that is what we get when people abandon proper ethics for money.
Lets look at the Tale of the Tape, shall we? For starters:
Companies are a collection of people with and without ethics. Those people work for a living - yes even make profits for the greater good of the whole. But that does not diminish their responsibility to act in the better interests of this nation instead of their raw greed.
Who said this? Hint: It may sound like Karl Marx, but it is someone much closer to you.
Ford was generally an ok guy by all that I've read. The guy paid High wages knowing that people couldn't buy his product unless he paid enough that they could afford it. In today's world, that is truly rare.
Now you're talkin'. Stalin knew how to handle successful capitalists!
Send em off to Siberia for some re-education!
Then we'll see if these capitalist pigs still want to offer a quality product for a good price.
Let's not and just imagine you aren't here, jumping threads to pester me because that's what you do and is the only reason you're here as your initial post displays. And here we were talking about people with no ethics.. Gee.
> Capitalism is good.
> Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Capitalism isn't good. No.
>Capitalism is OUTSTANDING!
I'd keep it as
"With people, Capitalism (Free Trade) is as good as it gets."
> Clothing quality is about the only beef I have with Wal-Mart. I think it's a great store, overall.
But at their prices, I could practically afford to wear the underwear once and throw it away.
What's the beef with capitalism, traitors in this country have always employed capitalism in selling us out. Lest yet another person scalping the treason-lobby playbook be allowed to muddy the debate with strawmen, we'll state that it is not capitalism on trial here.. but rather patriotism and ethics.
Capitalism is not being questioned.. To quote a true statesman, "It is their judgement that has been sorely lacking" (That's Zell Miller for those in RioLinda).
How is Wal Mart destroying American jobs and American companies? I submit to you American unions along with some bad management at companies are destroying more jobs than Wal-Mart. Look up the problems GM and Ford are having for a great example of this vs their non union, job producing Japanese counterparts that are BUILDING NEW FACTORIES in AMERICAN communities.
None the less these Wal-Mart bash threads are fun to read. The Protectionist/Buchann wing of FR is fun to spar with on this issue.
You really take posts that expose you personally, don't you?
You have yet to justify your socialist postings -- this time I made sure I kept the posts in the poliival arena.
There is no reason to attack me because I exposed you for the Socialist you are.
Maybe you could refer me to a specific example of this "sorely lacking judgment"?
"Proper Ethics" being employing Havoc, who was a MS Windows "Expert" (who somehow thinks he is outside the dime a dozen box they are in) and now works in a 7-11 slinging slurpees.
The fact his "marketable skills" have been replicated across multiple continents (in his case -- ready? -- MEXICO) and he has never bothered to upgrade them is lost.
Anyone who thought MS "skills" would take them beyond 1 step above burger-flipping deserves his/her life.
I would normally pity him, but his arrogance makes me laugh at him instead.
This would almost be a valid argument if Walmart were the only company to sell Chinese imports.
See my post 81 for Havoc's agenda
Okay, for the sake of argument, let's assume that companies once had a conscience. I don't believe this to be so, but let's assume it's true.
That over! No more conscience for companies! They can no longer depend on market share, loyalty from employees or even limited competition. Any company of any size is now operating on a global stage with ultra thin profit margins.
Also, Ford may have paid his employees enough to afford his cars, but again, he was weird. He established something called the Sociological Department at Ford. Basically, the company could drop in on any employee, at any time they wished to check out living conditions in the employee's home...again, he was a weird duck.
This didn't all start in a vacuum. And rationalizing about how things are "Now" doesn't excuse how we got here.
I took a "Mongoose" bicycle into Wal-Mart to get adjusted the other day.
While I was waiting in Customer Service, the greeter asked me if I knew where the mongoose was from.
I did not know.
She told me it was a cat-like carnivore from Asia.
She should know.
The greeter was 88 years old. Turns out she lived in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Her late husband was high up in the World Bank.
I mean high up.
As I stood there listening to this dignified lady's life story, I was incredulous. For the last 10 years she worked as a greeter because she loved people. As I continued to stand there listening to her, my face was towards the folks coming in the door.
I observed how she treated each person with dignity and respect and love.
You see, these were her regular customers.
Each of them said hello to her.
And each had a unique need.
Some of them needed to know how to take something back to get a refund. Others were employees coming to work. One black lady employee came in carrying a coke and complaining of feeling ill. The greeter called her "honey" and reminded her that she could get an electrolyte (like Gatorade?)to help her feel better. Other customers were reminded/admonished to bring in their receipt when they were returning a product.
The greeter told me that when she broke her hip and was out for several months, people lined up outside the store on the day she came back !!!
I know why. This dignified lady radiated love and care for folks.
As I stood by her on that sunny Seattle springtime Monday morning, I realized that I was experiencing one of those moments in life where I saw a unique perspective of goodness in people.
I wasn't the same for the rest of the day.
And still am not.
EVERY DAY LOW PRICES AND TRANSCENDANT ENIGHTENMENT!
What a deal!
Ping to 86 for your competition.
I am sure Zell and Rush appreciate your taking specific quotes and applying it to any situation you don't like/understand.
Actually what you are saying is that so long as we allow 'free trade' as opposed to freedom to trade (quite something else), the mandate becomes one of "subvert your country for profit and ethics be damned". Good, we're on the same page - people with no ethics forcing "no ethics" upon us all against our wishes.
As for ford, he wasn't weird, he was a realist. You can produce a product all you want. If people can't afford it, you have no market. So, Ford payed a wage that allowed people to afford the product and thusly expanded his market by default. Greedy people tend to lose sight of the fact that money hoarded is stale, but money spent grows like wildfire. The Dims have been historically too dimwitted to note that too - or have neglected it to purposedly undermine
the American people. Now you're basically telling me that the no-ethics none of the time crowd (Elitist GOP bluebloods) are really of no more use than the piss-christ.
For all the heat over patriotism with regard to the left, I find it simply amazing that it doesn't bother you all when Companies are unpatriotic. Again, all that matters to your crowd is the profit - oh, and maybe once in a while saying whatever you must for sake of public opinion..
What, you're still here? Don't you have cars to chase?
Don't you have slurpees to sling?
Got any calls to have a company to have you use your "skills" to help them? Oh wait -- your "skills" are a dime a dozen. Learned Spanish to communicate with your replacements from Mexico?
Your inability to compete in the open marketplace explains your hate for the capitalist open marketplace.
You can fire off insults to me -- but I am employed in the IT industry and you, little boy, have to give 12 year old children change for their hot dogs.
Because your skills are a dime a dozen.
I didn't say that people have no ethics. I said corporations I no inherent loyalties to a country. And once again, they're machines. They're not patriotic, friendly or aimed at "family values." They're machines.
For example, wal-mart is a machine that buys cheap crap in China, India, etc. and puts in on shelves for sale in large buildings. Less frequently, they open a new large building to create more shelves for additional cheap crap from China and India, etc.
That's all the wal-mart machine does. The company exist for no other reason.
apologies with the typos on the last post. having problems typing tonight.
Dare I say if Ford were alive today, he would get eaten like a guppy in a shark tank. That whole assembly line idea allowed him to be so much more efficient that he could afford his excentricities.
A lot of those guys were just nuts. Ford was pretty batty. So was Howard Hughes. Shockley was a bit of a wack job. The list is pretty long.
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