Following up on Andrew Young’s racist compliment of Wal-Mart:
1. Wal-Mart is pressuring its employees not to sign on to a court case alledging it forces them to work overtime pressure they say “borderlines on criminal witness intimidation,.”
2. Crime in Wal-Mart parking lots is disproportionately high. There’s a police incident at your local Wal-Mart every 1.5 days. Security patrols would stop most of it, but then there wouldn’t be “always low prices.”
3. We pay Wal-Mart employees’ health care costs via our tax dollars. Here in Georgia, there is one Wal-Mart kid on welfare for every four Wal-Mart employees you see in your local Wal-Mart. That’s fourteen times the number of Publix kids on the dole. (The ratio for Publix, a large supermarket chain, is one Publix kid per 24 Publix employees.)
I don’t know enough about the first point, but I can certainly speak to the other two–
1. If you’ve ever lived in a small-to-medium-sized town with a Walmart, you know that the parking lot is frequently a hangout for teenagers and other people with nothing to do. I don’t enderstand it, either. But I’ve observed it in at least two towns. Such hangouts do tend to have more crime. And if having the cops come by every other day isn’t stopping it, I’m not sure why you think rent-a-cops would.
2. The people who work at Wal-mart did not, in fact, quit jobs as lawyers and CPAs to come move boxes in a Walmart warehouse. Walmart hires the poor and the unskilled. The people willing to work for minimum wage at Walmart did not have health insurance before they came and would likely not have health insurance if they worked for minimum wage anywhere. The mere size of Walmart indicates that much higher precentage of supermarket employees are butchers, florists, pharmacists and high school kids. I’ve never understood the point of singling out Walmart for criticisms like this when it’s pretty obvious that the problem is near-universal for anyplace that hires unskilled labor. Do you honestly think that Walmart is worse, than say Labor-Ready? Nationally, the percentage of Walmart employees on welfare is about 5 percent, while the percentage for large retail firms is four percent.
The average Walmart customer household makes 30k a year. The average Target customer household makes 50k. Because of the corners it cuts, Walmart’s food is sometimes a third less than food other places. Poor families spend a disproportionate amount of their income on food, so this savings can be a big help.
Yes, Walmarts and big and ugly and tacky. I don’t want one in my town. But in the rural places where I’ve lived, those low prices are going to people who need them.
CC
Rent-a-cop patrols would cut down on the petty crimes just by driving through the parking lot now and again. (The cops come by after the fact.) They estimate it would cost Wal-Mart four cents a customer visit to make this happen. But they just don’t care.
Moreover, small town police departments can’t afford to spend all their time at Wal-Mart. Crime goes up when a Wal-Mart goes in. Why can’t Wal-Mart take some responsibility for its own parking lots?
I have an aunt and an uncle who work for Wal-Mart. One has a BA, the other two years of college. They are not unskilled. Both have health issues. Wal-Mart could provide them with (real) health insurance, but they won’t.
A college roomate also works for them now. In fact, most folks that I’ve known have a year or two of college under their belt.
What’s Labor-Ready?
That five percent is much higher than that four percent when you consider that Wal-Mart has 20% of US retail business.
Yes, they are certainly cheaper. I wouldn’t say tacky so much as dirty.
The problem with small town Wal-Marts isn’t just that they run small businesses out. It’s that it eliminates all those businesses as employers too. Pretty soon you end up with Wal-Mart as the major employer, turning the town into a company town.
I often get the impression from Wal-Mart defenders that the cheapness is the only consideration. All else is pardoned. I honestly don’t understand why Wal-Mart shoppers aren’t pissed about the mandatory overtime. Don’t they have friends and family who work there?
Labor Ready is a construction/industrial temp agency in my area. Fill out the forms in advance, then show up at 6am any day you want to work. Contractors send vans. Labor Ready guarantees sober able-bodied folks will be ready to meet the van. Speaking English may mean you end up in charge of the other guys. It’s where the really poor people work where I live.
I’m not sure why Wal-Mart causes the crime, so I’m not sure why they should have to pay for it. If, say, you have a crazy ex-wife stalking you and you move to a new town and all of the sudden the cops have to come to your house all the time, should you have to pay for private security? Walmart may be concentrating the crime, as in, if you want to rob somebody and you know a bunch of easy-to-intimidate teenagers hang out at the Walmart in the next town over, that may make it worth the drive over. Thus two or three towns worth of crime may concentrate in the town that is getting the tax revenues from the Walmart that also draws customers from the neighboring towns, but I don’t think that’s all that unfair.
Many stores have private security because they think more people will shop there if their stores are safer, but that is a business decision not a public good decision. To act like Walmart is evil for not making it is weird.
I use economic arguments to respond to Walmart criticisms for a few different reasons.
1. I can’t really answer the other stuff. I mean, tell me that a vibrant downtown is nicer to have than a big ugly box store, I’m going to agree. But world peace would be nice, too. It’s not a reality.
2. Most of the arguments against Walmart are essentially economic in nature, but one sidedly so. That poor people benefit from the low prices and seem to want to work there doesn’t seem to come up much.
3. Most people I’m arguing with genuinely don’t understand that “real†grocery stores don’t move into inner city neighborhoods and if you keep Walmart out, nobody else is going to rush in and sell fresh vegetables to the poor at a price they can afford. “Why don’t they buy organic food at the farmer’s market?†is a more common response than you would think. Everybody understands “poor people like stuff they can afford.â€
I wish your family members luck in finding better jobs that are more suited to their skills. I don’t know why Walmart shoppers aren’t more offended by the working conditions, and I certainly support Walmart getting busted when it actually breaks a law that was not written exclusively for Walmart. But I see such a disparity between the hate all my middle class friends have for the place and the fact that when a Walmart recently opened just outside Chicago 20,000 people applied for 500 jobs, that I have to think this is more a class thing than anything else.
After all 90 percent of the reasons people hate Walmart apply to middle-classs-friendly Target and you just about never hear people criticizing Target for anything.
Ooooo, oooo, do you have the welfare stats of Whole Foods employees?
Your dollar can be a powerful voice and vote. I choose to use my precious dollars to support the makers of goods with a conscience. I also choose to live without a lot of things, rather than buy them cheaply. I’m a firm believer in the truism that you get what you pay for.
Well, according to this: http://www.organicconsumers.org/Corp/wholefood.htm
Whole Foods won’t endorse better working conditions for growers.
And according to this:
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2003/Whole-Foods-No-Unions15sep03.htm
They are heavily anti-union and have some nasty corporate practices.
Here’s:
http://www.labornet.org/news/0105/ufcwhol.htm
more about them breaking up unions.
From that last article:
“Particularly disturbing about Whole Foods is that its success stems from commodifying progressive values for profit-deceitfully creating a public image of social and environmental consciousness, the company targets people who want to feel politically aware without actually engaging in struggle for change. It may be the very pinnacle of co-opted politics: politics you can purchase.”
Give me Walmart any day.
CC
Danielle works at Whole Foods.
There’s always a Walmart security van driving around the parking lot at the Walmart I go to.
CP, I’ve never seen one before. I wonder if that’s an arrangement with the university, Norman being a college town and all?
[…] He sums the book up with this sentence, “Religion declares that we are separated from God, that we are ‘outsiders.’ Grace tells us the opposite; we are already in unless we want to be out.â€Â Nathan also states that the theology of this book challenges much of what people learn about God in the church but that it, “takes books like Spencer’s to challenge what we take for granted in our theology and our lifestyles. So I won’t critique his theology, I’ll leave it up to the theologians to do that.â€Â (For a great theological response to Burke’s book see Scot McKnight’s post on it. ) Making Chutney picks on a popular target these days, face it a lot of us can’t stand Wal-Mart. He points out that there is one “Wal-Mart kid on welfare for every four Wal-Mart Employee you see.†[…]
there is also a walmart security car patroling the walmart in the small town I live in (we have a small college here, but they’re too small a college to pay for Walmart! . ) Maybe it’s local store policy on security? this town is way too poor and small for a Target (we do have an applebees though!)
None of the Walmarts I ever heard about were in an innercity – all are in either smalltowns or subburbs. What’s the percentage in innercities??? any other bigbox stores in innercities?
Back when Sam W was alive, Walmart had a good program of trying to promote “Made in America” products. That hasnt been the case since.
I recall hearing of at least one company from the USA that refused to sell products (lawnmowers?) to Walmart, because Walmart sets the price and the quality to their suppliers, and this company didnt want to allow that – tough call, since Walmart is the leading buyer of conusmer goods in the US.
another problem that some places are fixing (although you might argue this is a “anti-walmart law”) is the move across town leave empty large boxstore and parking lot blight.
CC- While in your case, your upper middle class friends might indeed have “Class” reasons for their choice not to go (although due to the far-right takeover of the Class War termology, I usually flinch when i hear talk of that); but Walmart is a classic example of a company verging on monolopy status (which target, kmart, etc arent). Therefore it is “special” in that way. Up to recently, they’ve always catered to working class- middle class tastes – but you never heard that much Walmart bashing (hey, Kmart got the Class War stuff); it’s only when it begain to verge on monolopoly status (and Walton died); that this concerns started. I personaly feel that history shows the danger of Monolopies.
Is it fair to ask that Walmart keep its parking lot safe –
or is it fairer that Walmart ask taxpayers to pay more taxes to keep their parking lot safe?
(anybody know what percentage is or isnt self-patroled?)
etc etc. Of course, I believe that housing developements need to pay for sewer lines too……
What does Walmart have a monopoly on? As far as I know Walmart doesn’t sell anything that other stores don’t sell and I’ve never seen a town with a Walmart that didn’t also have other stores. If the only place in town that sells lawnmowers other than Walmart closes, you can still drive to the next town over to get a lawnmower. That’s not a monopoly.
Of course, with all the talk about the “digital divide” and how poor kids cannot possibly be prepared to get good obs when they grow up without teaching them about computers when they are young, it’s probably worth noting that Walmart sells laptops for $478. That’s sounding to me like it could be dangerously close to selling affordable computers to low income people. That only they were doing it doesn’t constitute a monopoly however.
Walmarts have tried to move in to several inner cities that I’ve heard about but are frequently blocked by city councils who like to tell their upper middle class voters that they kept Walmart out. Last one I heard about was in Chicago.
And yes, the police provide a certain level of security to everyone and every business. If you want more you have to pay for it. But the same basic level of social services are available to everybody.
Let’s take this out of a Walmart context.
Let’s say your favorite local Italian restaurant becomes a teenage hangout and there start to be fights in the parking lot. Do you really think the cops are going to say “Ooh. Luigi’s has had two fights this week already. We shouldn’t have to go break up another one. If Luigi wants police protection, he should hire private security.”?
Of course not. If Luigi wants young families to start bringing their kids to his restaurant, hiring private security wouldn’t be a bad idea. (Though I might just give a big discount to policemen in uniform to encourage cops to be eating there all the time.)
But nobody would expect Luigi to hire security to keep out ordinary crime.
So why do we have to make special rules for Walmart?
CC
The Luigi’s analogy seems a stretch. Let’s say instead it was a strip mall or an office park. And then let’s say that petty crime in the town has gone up, say, one third since the new strip mall came into town, and that, say, 90% of the increase is from the new strip mall or properties adjacent to it.
Would that change your mind?
We are getting our first two Wal-Marts here in Atlanta now. One is on the border of a historically upper-middle class residential area and a light industrial zone, the other in a historically working class suburban-type area. The one in the nicer part of town has had to make all sorts of site modifications to blend into the neighborhood without looking like a strip mall (namely, a bricked in parking garage). (I don’t know about the other Wal-Mart site.)
This isn’t, however, special treatment. Atlanta recently did the same thing to a Target/Lowes development closer to my house. Cities are tired of big box retailers leaving their empty lots dotting their highways. It hurts property values. Now retailers will be less likely to leave their more expensive facilities behind for one a half mile down the street, and the neighborhood gets a strip mall that doesn’t look like, well, a strip mall.
In any case, creating laws that govern a specific corporation that controls 20% of its business sector hardly seems an undue burden for it. (And I don’t think anyone here has said “monopoly.”) Why can’t we regulate chain retail the way we see fit? If Wal-Mart doesn’t like it, they can move to the nation-state down the street. It’s not like they have to do business here. Whatever rules we set our the ones they have to play by.
I’m happy to hear that some Wal-Marts do have private security. I’m curious to know how this is paid for (by Wal-Mart, town, community association, strip mall, etc.). Perhaps this is a rising trend?
It does seem that Wal-Mart is a different animal after Sam Walton died.
CC: I assume that you’re not really asking me to define what a monolopy is, and how they operate, and the dangers of them; so therefore I’m not sure what you’re saying. And as noted above, I used the word “verging”. Certainly Ive read complaints from SUPPLIERS arguing this very point, that Wal-mart was “forcing” them to do things that they would rather not do. I dont have the time or desire to look this up for you (at least one was direct from a supplier himself), but the lanwmower was (i thought) pretty well known. Not so? With the percentage of the market that Walmart has, it would (as i said above) be close to suicide for a company to tell them no. Is that a fair deal for a $500 computer? All I know is that Mrs SCU works in a county where the median income for a household in the county was $26,598 – and even if they had a Walmart near by (they dont, but not for lack of trying), not many of them could afford even $500 for a computer. (you’d also need a printer, ink, etc).
So Walmart should get the same police drive by every two hours that most stores get? Fine with me. I dont see why I should pay more taxes for them to get extra services. Why should Walmart be allowed to have special rules that the rest of us cant get?
Would I demand that the strip mall pay for extra security?
No. If the businesses in the strip mall were committing the crimes, they should be punished for them. But otherwise I don’t see why crime is their fault. Correllation doesn’t equal causation.
Would I shop there myself if they had a bunch of crime but didn’t hire extra security?
Probably not.
If other businesses have to make site modifications to fit in to yuppie neighborhoods, I don’t have a problem with Walmart following suit. What I don’t like is, for example, when the State of Maryland passes a “fair wage” law written so carefully that it only applies to the University of Maryland and Walmart, then the legislature exempts the University. So the only business that has to follow it is Wal-Mart.
If a “fair wage” is truly a “fair wage” then the laws requiring it should apply to more than just the business that voters like it when you keep out.
StevenR said monopoly.
The most concise definition of “monopoly” I found was: Monopoly
A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. By definition, monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition – which often results in high prices and inferior products.
I can’t think of a product that is only sold at Walmart. So I don’t know how this applies. I don’t know why a supplier of say, hammers, who didn’t like Walmart’s policies couldn’t sell to Home Depot, for example. And I’m not sure why Walmart can’t say, for example, “we want the music we sell to be family-friendly, so if you want us to sell your music, make a radio-edit version of your CD.” I’d rather buy a non-radio edit version, but I don’t see why Walmart can’t make that rule if Wal-mart wants to. That’s not a monopoly, that’s running your business the way you think will be most profitable and I can understand why it’s convenient for a parent to be able to buy any album Wal-Mart sells without worrying about what kinds of language his/her teenager will be listening to.
I didn’t say $500 was affordable for all poor people, though the Census’ last big report on Poverty showed that 97 percent of poor people have at least one television and televisions run a few hundred dollars, but it’s a lot more affordable. $500 is about as much as one would pay for a cheap cell phone and a year of service if you don’t make too many calls.
Again, I do not want special protection for Wal-Mart. The original argument is that because there is lots of crime in Wal-Mart parking lots, Wal-Mart should be forced to pay for private security. I was just pointing out that we don’t make other businesses pay for security just because people commit crimes in their parking lots. Though apparently Chutney wants to.
CC
From http://forums.securityinfowatch.com/showthread.php?t=188:
Having worked for WM, I can relate that for stores that have a “Walmart Courtesy Guard,” which is a uniformed associate who patrols the parking lot in a marked patrol vehicle with rotating yellow light (Which shall be kept on at all times), this associate is not the traditional sense of a “security officer,” which is why the term “security” is completely missing from his job description.
His purpose is to drive around, help guests with putting in groceries, etc. He is strictly to make guests feel more comfortable (Notice I did not say safe) while in the parking lot.
Some Walmarts contract Securitas to provide an “observe and report” guard for this mission. Their mission has nothing to do with the in-store loss prevention associate, they are simply a visible symbol of comfort for the average walmart shopper in the parking lot.
Upon observing a “situation,” the guard will report the situation over the radio to the Customer Service Manager on duty, who will then decide if the police are required. After the police are dispatched, the guard will return to patrol.
Not all Walmarts are slated for a “Courtesy Guard.”
Question (with much love): Has any of the pro-Wal*Mart folk on this thread actually worked at Wal*Mart for any serious length of time?
No one complains about Target because Target doesn’t have the impact on the economy that WalMart does.
This article from Fast Company from a few years back sealed the deal on my staying away from WalMart. They’re not just bad for “Mom&Pop” shops, they’re ultimately bad for the suppliers who need to do business with them to compete.
I haven’t, but I don’t think the anti-Walmart folk here have either.
And I’m not sure what that has to do with the questions at hand. I will happily concede that working for Walmart sucks. My guess is slightly less than being a maid in a cheap hotel and slightly more than being, say, a fast food cook.
I won’t argue that people who say working for Walmart is unpleasant and that the pay is low. I wish everyone who works there a better job. But the realities are what they are and that the job sucks.
I will say that the sort of cheap populism that these arguments exhibit is not the correct approach. Villanizing Wal-Mart for random shit that you wouldn’t expect any other business to treat any differently is silly.
Honestly, can you imagine getting on the internet and complaining that any other busines has crimes in its parking lot and that that business should be forced to hire private security because the fact that people hang out in a parking lot is the business’s fault?
Can you imagine a state passing a law that only applies to any other retail business?
I don’t think you honestly can.
Because politicians know that by going after Wal-Mart they can look populist and like they care about the workers. (Hint: If they really wanted poor people to have healthcare, they could have passed a law giving it to them. Demanding that Wal-Mart give people health care at great expense when they wouldn’t do so themselves is a cheap ploy to make you shut up.)
CC
CC
The shear size of Wal*Mart separates it from your average terrible jobs/employers. They also take much pride in their enormous size and the incredible volume of cheap crap they peddle. They love citing numbers that dwarf their competitors who suffer financially at the hands of the monster retailer that is Wal*Mart. You see, in many towns Wal*Mart shuts down business that offered things like health benefits. So, not only does Wal*Mart not offer things as basic as health plans, but it makes it harder for competitors in regions to offer them. Wal*Marts huge size makes it special.
Wal*Mart will move into a region where they no they will not make money, if it means closing one more of it’s competing business. Super Wal*Marts compete with everyone imaginable.
I worked at Wal*Mart for several years. I know how they work. They use people. They will work just enough hours out of you to make a profit but remain free of health care benefits. They do it hundreds of thousands of people. They use the economic situation of the lower classes to build their now global-based empire. Saying Wal*Mart is ok because the people it uses are poor anyway is about as weak as it gets. It sounds like something Barbara Bush would say.
Sorry for the typo! The “no” in my last comment’s 2nd paragraph should be “know”.
((Saying Wal*Mart is ok because the people it uses are poor anyway is about as weak as it gets.)))
It would be, if that was what I had said.
It’s not.
What I have said is:
1. What Wal-Mart is doing sucks, but they are not doing anything that many other business aren’t. If you want to force all large businesses to provide healthcare for all the fast-food workers and hotel maids, campaign for legislation that says that. If you really want to put your money where your mouth is, campaign for universal health care so you are paying to give everybody health care directly rather than through higher prices. But going after only Wal-mart is silly. Winn-Dixie, Target and every other chain that screws people over must laugh their asses off because we all have such high standards for Wal-Mart and nobody cares what any other large chain does.
2. Wal-Mart’s low prices mean that poor people who shop there can raise their standard of living. When you worked at Wal-Mart, you probably spent a much larger portion of your income on food than you do now. That’s true of most people who don’t have much money. The fact that Wal-Mart sells food at prices often 30 percent lower than the grocery stores means people get a lot more for their money. Poor people really do benefit from low prices, especially on food. Please consider that before you go off on the standard rant about how low prices are evil. You can afford to think that way now.
3. Do we ever say “Whole Foods will move anyplace it can make money, even if it hurts any existing businesses in the area?” Do we say that L.L. Bean will mail it’s clothes anywhere, even if doing so hurts other clothing stores all over the world?
Again, the anti-Walmart folks have crazy, crazy standards for how they expect a business to behave, ones that they wouldn’t seriously expect any other business to live by.
CC
(What Wal-Mart is doing sucks, but they are not doing anything that many other business aren’t.)
Wal*Mart’s size is something others are not doing.
(Wal-Mart’s low prices mean that poor people who shop there can raise their standard of living.)
Poor people shop with food stamps (now a card). As long as you are shopping with food stamps the standard of living is not being raised, it just means you can get more mileage out of your food stamp card. The government (taxes), as you know, funds the food stamp program. People who work at Wal*Mart stay on the food stamp program. Sound circular? It is.
(You can afford to think that way now.)
I can afford to think that way now? CC, what do you mean? My family and I still shop with a food stamp card … and it’s not at Wal*Mart. Yes, I still am a “poor person.” Wal*Mart NEEDS me. That is my point. It needs me to work there; it needs me to shop there. It needs me to be poor. They are making billions. Slice it up anyway you like it but this is a huge retail corp. that uses “low prices” to feed of the lower class. That’s no rant, that reality. Is Wal*Mart alone? No. It is the biggest.
As our society continues to shift toward a service oriented economy the effects of Wal*Mart and others like it will become profound. That’s OK … we can always ship in Mexicans to do the dirty work. They are poor after all, and their standard of living would be improved, right?
(Do we ever say “Whole Foods will move anyplace it can make money, even if it hurts any existing businesses in the area?†Do we say that L.L. Bean will mail it’s clothes anywhere, even if doing so hurts other clothing stores all over the world?)
You obviously do not understand the Wal*Mart philosophy. I watched a small Western PA town (Kittanning, PA) be shut down by a medium-sized Wal*Mart. Literally. It used to have a lot of businesses in it (similar to the ones you mentioned in your 3rd point) and a huge amount of local-run family businesses. Wal*Mart shut them all down. All of them. IUn fact, downtown Kittanning, PA turned into nothing.
Please … Wal*Mart has a very successful business philosophy. Wipe out all competition and put up a social system by which profit can be made.
Dontcha hate it when work gets in the way of blogging?
Anyway, I guess that all leaves me wondering why size is such an issue and why size alone means Walmart should be handicapped. Walmart is big, but grocery store chains are plenty big too and no one demonizes them for not providing health care.
I’ve lived in several towns with Walmarts including Barnwell, South Carolina, population 4,874. I’ve never even seen a town that is only a Walmart, Walmart having destroyed every other business. I’m sort of mystified that a Walmart could do that in one town and not have done it anyplace I’ve seen. I’m not doubting you, I’m just curious why it would happen in one place and not others.
When a Super Walmart came to Laurinburg, North Carolina, population 15,000, I wrote the story for the local newspaper where I went around and interviewed the managers of the town’s five grocery stores. Four weren’t scared, or said so, and Winn-Dixie wouldn’t talk to the press. Nearly five years later, all five stores are still there and appear to be fine. The downtown stores sell nicer clothes than Walmart and art and insurance and other stuff Walmart doesn’t. As far as I can think, the only things in L-Burg that have gone out of business are a Kmart and a chinese restaurant. The Kmart is probably Walmart’s fault but no great loss, and I doubt they had anything to do with the demise of Fong’s.
I don’t doubt that Walmart needs poor people just as Whole Foods needs yuppies. Both are target markets. I guess that’s feeding off the lower classes in some sense, but the lower classes also feed off of Walmart’s low prices. Again, I’m not sure why this relationship isn’t mutually benficial.
If people in Mexico want to come here, work hard and improve their lives, I don’t really have a problem with it. The standard of living in Mexico does suck.
(Dontcha hate it when work gets in the way of blogging?)
Yep. I have not one, but two jobs to blog around.
(Anyway, I guess that all leaves me wondering why size is such an issue and why size alone means Walmart should be handicapped.)
Wal*Mart does not deal in low prices, as you seem to think. Wal*Mart’s low prices are a direct result of their wheeling and dealing in sheer volume. Volume is directly related to the amount of cheap crap sold. The amount of cheap crap sold is directly related to the amount of sales by the competition (the less THEY sell the MORE Wal*Mart sells). So, Wal*Mart wipes them out and owns sheer volume to which they can super profit off of “low prices”. Yeah, low.
(If people in Mexico want to come here, work hard and improve their lives, I don’t really have a problem with it. The standard of living in Mexico does suck.)
LOL. So you don’t have a problem with raising a human being’s level of poverty from 3rd world poor to American poor. Good for you.
I’m on a break from my second job until September 15, but I do have one.
(((LOL. So you don’t have a problem with raising a human being’s level of poverty from 3rd world poor to American poor. Good for you. )))
Umm…
If you have a plan you’d like to share for raising everybody in the world to a non-poor standard of living, I, for one, am listening.
If not, then what’s wrong some hard-working people improving their lives somewhat?
CC
The ethics of what you are proposing have nothing to do with a final solution to the world’s “non-poor standard of living,” or whatever it is you are trying to get at with that one … In other words, what you are suggesting is that unless I come up with a solution for the globe’s poverty it IS perfectly acceptable to knowingly profit off of the base work poor people are willing to do in their attempt to improve their standards of living (some call this exploitation)? I don’t have the time or desire to unpack that one. Besides, aren’t we talking about Wal*Mart? :)
I didn’t say what I was proposing would fix everything. You were the one who was laughing at me for saying that people making small improvements in their standard of living was a good thing:
“LOL. So you don’t have a problem with raising a human being’s level of poverty from 3rd world poor to American poor”
I was just saying that absent a plan for really making everything equal, going from third world poverty to American poverty really is a significant improvement. Judging by the low-income housing development my mother works for, many American poor people have enough to eat, a place to live, some have air conditioning, DVD players and cell phones. Their kids can get scholarships to college and have a better life. I’m not saying this is tantamount to a luxurious life at all, but I’m pretty sure it beats the heck out of third world poverty and people getting the chance to make that change isn’t something to be laughed at.
CC
when i had a wedding, i had to hire a rent-a-cop because i expected the congregation of a certain number of people all in one place at the same time. this was because of a county law, but i think it reflects the fact that we generally expect that such congregations sometimes lead to mischief. i don’t think that it’s arguable that wal-mart is not responsible for (and profiting from) this type of congregation.
the problem, CC, is that it’s not the town that the wal-mart builds in that dies — it’s the one 30 miles away. the one that isn’t getting a red cent of tax revenue from the megalith. not the one with a population large enough to sustain 5 grocery stores; the one that barely supports one the size of a convenience store.
now, i wouldn’t argue that wal-mart is the only reason that small-town america is dying, but it’s definitely a factor.
i also think that there are smarter policy decisions that our legislators can make than specifically targeting wal-mart. there are plenty of folks, as you point out CC, who work for large, medium and small companies (both for-profit and not) who live on shitty wages and have inadequate health care, if any. we don’t get all up at arms about the idealistic young college grads who work 80 hour weeks for planned parenthood or legal aid for $18,000 a year and shitty insurance (if they can afford it).
arbitrage will happen. but the brilliant thing about markets (if we don’t screw them up) is that they tend to right themselves… wages in third world countries are rising, etc. wal-mart banks on economies of scale — i don’t get why the government doesn’t use the power of economies of scale for the public good more often.
raise the minimum wage and offer universal, affordable health care. to everybody. *that’s* the policy imperative and the moral one, in my book.
I don’t think you having to hrie security for a couple of hours for a wedding is quite comprable to Walmart having to have secuirty all the time.
That said, if a Walmart is having a special event, they should probably have security. Last time I was in one was Christmas Eve and they had security then. (My current town doesn’t have a Walmart. But I spend Christmas at my in-laws’.)
FWIW, there are more comments on Walmart, including a really thoughtful one from Joel at my site.
CC
While I love the feeling of small towns that have little stores, I prefer to go to a mega center store for my household/auto/grocery/pharmacy needs. I think that is a reality that we have to face. People want supercenters and warehouse shopping. Small, local stores are becoming a thing of the past for a reason – people don’t want to go to four places for errands when they can go to one.
Ladies:
Please keep your purses out of the shopping carts!!! I saw many stolen and many “snatch and runs.” I wear a jacket with pockets under my coat and I do not need a purse. Lock up makeup, etc. in your car. Take only the card or 2 that you will need and very little money.
I saw a crack addict with one of those photo phones looking in my cart and at me, as I was checking out. He was not buying anything, but he was looking to see where I had my purse, and I gave him the “look”, and he waved the phone at me and moved on. I am a senior citizen and they think we are easy targets, but they better think twice.