Wal-Mart profit misses forecast; outlook weak

cnn.netscape ^ | May 12, 2005 | Reuters

[BluH2o]

Walmart is too big. Not much room to grow.

Actually visited their first store ... opened in Bentonville, AR the summer of 1950 called Walton's 5 & 10. The store front is on the square in the middle of town and in addition to Sam Walton employed 4 people. Fast forward to 2005 (55 years later) and just a short distance away are the headquarters for WalMart. A large complex designed for function, not looks, it certainly comes across as modest when you think corporate headquarters. Across the street is a WalMart super center.

[wideawake]

Except for 6 they're all taken care of.

Remember - the best use of an American's time and talents is stamping plastic picture frames out of molds. That's the kind of rich, rewarding career that Wal-Mart's sourcing policies destroy.

Remember also that it is illegal for a Wal-mart employee to seek a higher paying job or a job with more benefits.

Keep in mind that mom-and-pop stores usually pay $50-100 per hour to their employees and provide them with full health insurance benefits and pensions. That's why so many people are lined up to get sweet jobs in corner bodegas.

[bfree]

That's great! LOL!!!

[explodingspleen]

And if China decided to put a complete trade embargo on all goods destined for the USA?

Then there would be no more toys in our cereal! NOOOOO! WE CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN! IT WOULD RUIN MY LITTLE SISTER'S LIFE!!!!!

Well, maybe we one of the hundreds of other nations we trade with could trade to remedy our cereal-toy-crisis?

The joys of a global market. . . .

[wideawake]

And if China decided to put a complete trade embargo on all goods destined for the USA?

Their economy would collapse and we would re-source our supply from Mexico or India and wind up paying 5-10% more for those goods for the first year or two.

Economic Warfare anyone?

The Chinese government realizes that starving masses are hard to control. They're not going to economic war with anyone.

Setting the Yuan against the dollar?

If the Chinese floated the yuan against the dollar the value of the yuan would rise, making labor in China more expensive and it would cause an outsourcing of jobs away from China to countries that have a US dollar peg.

Forget it, go watch corporate sponsored news. They'll inform you...

Shockingly, you are even less informed than the average talking head.

[Monterrosa-24]

You're right. Conservative and Southerners have traditionally favored low tariffs which is a lot different from no tariffs.

Let's look at the Chinese worker making clothing for Barbie Dolls. Let's compare their living/working conditions not to American workers but to Taiwanese workers. There is a big difference in Taiwan's favor. The toy triangle slaves of China are not becoming lower middle class. The growth of the middle class in China is not from workers.

Liberals love China because of free dental care etc. But the Chinese toy triangle workers are bereft of freedoms, overworked, underpaid, and have a short life expectancy. We benefit from cheaper clothing for Barbie. Liberals love to feel guilty about slavery in the Old South. Liberals love today's new slavery with free dental care.

[bfree]

If he's not a union guy, then he must be in college. Where else could he learn such nonsense!

[HamiltonJay]

Ah yes, here we go again, if you don't agree with free trade, you are ignorant of economics. Please, I suppose tarriffs and bilateral trade agreements and the folks who wrote the constitution and sustained this and every other nation state for hundreds if not thousands of years were all ignorant doofuses? Be serious.

[explodingspleen]

rotfl... going to have to submit my resume to a few of those corner bodegas. ;)

[timtoews5292004]

I couldn't have said that better myself. excellent points.

[wideawake]

Sounds like an argument a democrat would give.

Nope - it sounds like a statement an honest republican would make when confronted with obvious fact.

On the other hand, only a Democrat would cheer to see a key American business falter and only a Democrat would use the word "corporate" as an epithet.

[joesnuffy]

Trouble there is a secular humanist middle class reverts
back to communism...or worse..

[explodingspleen]

Ah yes, here we go again, if you don't agree with free trade, you are ignorant of economics.

Yes. If you just flipped through the pictures of a standard macroeconomics text you would see that a nations's production possibilities curve increases dramatically trading with even just one other comparably sized nation. Free trade == bigger economy. That isn't a philosophical point... that's just a mathematical fact.

I suppose tarriffs and bilateral trade agreements and the folks who wrote the constitution and sustained this and every other nation state for hundreds if not thousands of years were all ignorant doofuses? Be serious.
I believe it was 1806 that Jefferson brilliantly decided to embargo trade with Europe. Nearly sacked the economy and the embargo was repealed the next year. Nope, Jefferson didn't know much about economics at the beginnin of his presidency, but he sure learned a good lesson by the end. Is it so much to ask that you would realize what was empirically proved 200 years ago--the economy is better off with free trade?

[bfree]

Thats right. We should do business with every country that oppresses the right of people to organize. Good job.

right to organize what? A union? You make no sense what so ever. Do you even have a job? Or is this just textbook philosophy?