Wal-Mart Discussion

[Epicurus8a]

@ usually_quiet,

And when your children and grandchildren can only find minimum wages jobs with no benefits (due to the Wal-Mart effect), you'll have yourself to thank along with the other shortsighted Wal-Mart shoppers. Duh!!!!

[usually_quiet]

@ usually_quiet,

And when your children and grandchildren can only find minimum wages jobs with no benefits (due to the Wal-Mart effect), you'll have yourself to thank along with the other shortsighted Wal-Mart shoppers. Duh!!!!

Only obsessed idiots like yourself hold Wal-Mart responsible for the current labor situation. If Wal-Mart disappeared tomorrow most consumer goods sold in the US would still be made somewhere else, and retail employees would still have a terrible wage/benefits package and be unorganized.

Every major retailer in the USA mostly has merchandise made somewhere else and if they offer benefits, most of the people working there don't qualify and those who do can't afford to pay their share of the cost of getting them.

The standard work week for retail employees in my state is 30 hours with one 15-minute break per 6 hour shift. It has been that way for at least 25 years, long before anybody here ever heard of Wal-Mart. This is done specifically so they can't have a half-hour lunch break or qualify for benefits.

...and I don't live in a right-to-work state, by the way. In fact, it is heavily unionized, just not retail businesses, since most retail employees are part-time and joining a union can do nothing for them except reduce their already tiny paychecks.

[Epicurus8a]

Click the links in my sig and learn something for a change grasshopper.

[sambat]

Gotta get a sig, so that everyone can appreciate my stern rectitude and commitment to the cause.
Then I can patronize people that I'll never meet by pointing them on the road to enlightenment.

[usually_quiet]

Click the links in my sig and learn something for a change grasshopper.

You should really associate with a classier group of fanatics. Wal-Mart should be thanking them for their help in discreding the anti-Wal-Mart crowd and growing their business. Tell your buddies that receiving two mailings disguised as greeting cards, plus a phone call, all in two days time is not just ineffective and wasteful, but downright ticks people off to the point that they want to drive 10 miles out of their way just to shop at Wal-Mart.

You think everyone that does not share your obsession is just uninformed? Think again. Even without going to those sites, I'd need to have lived in a cave not to have heard numerous negative stories about Wal-Mart's business practices, etc. Wal-Mart gets more bad press than anybody else, but they are certainly not the only retailer around that behaves badly. If you proudly boycot Wal-Mart you should be boycotting all of the big retailers for the same reasons. While you are at it, boycot all the small retailers too. Many of them sell goods manufactured by slave labor in China, make people work off the clock, ignore safety regulations, and try to intimidate people injured on the job into dropping lawsuits. A few years ago I worked for one that did all those things.

Retail goods made in China and other developing countries have been predominant on retailer's shelves for quite some time, and not just ar the low-end. Heck, I remember buying a bedspread made in China at Marshall Field's in 1992, and noticing that much of the better clothing I bought from them was made there too.

It's far too late to attempt to shut the barn door, esecially by focusing on only one large retailer as the source of all evil. Not only has the horse run out of the barn, but the barn has already burned to its foundation. I have always lived in the Rust-Belt, and have watched manufacturing and engineering jobs evaporate for my entire adult life. The process began thirty years ago, and won't halt until it becomes prohibitively expensive to import goods. Laws and market forces are really the only things have any effect on large-scale trade.

[Epicurus8a]

Unfortunately this matter goes MUCH deeper than we are allowed to discuss on this forum. But I will try to sum things up by simply saying, "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." And Wal-Mart shoppers & supporters are definitely part of the problem. Some are just too poor to shop anywhere else, while others are just ignorant twits who don't give a darn. (Its easy to guess which category "grasshopper" falls in.)

@Varth: I wholeheartedly suggest you buy your merchandise from a retailer with a conscience. Preferably one owned by a local business person - instead of a family of billionaires whose only goal is to acquire ALL the money on the planet.

[usually_quiet]

Actually, you are wrong about which group I belong to as well. In spite of bieng well-educated I don't make enough money to shop at high-end department stores anymore, except in the clearance aisle.

[Webster]

Unbelievable !!! the last 11 posts on this tread do not have anything to do with the OP question...

[samijubal]

What's new? Business as usual.

[edDV]

And all sort sighted.

[MJA]

Unbelievable !!! the last 11 posts on this tread do not have anything to do with the OP question...

thanks to Epicurus8a the troller

just kidding Epicurus8a

[Epicurus8a]

Actually, you are wrong about which group I belong to as well. In spite of bieng well-educated I don't make enough money to shop at high-end department stores anymore, except in the clearance aisle.

Oops, my bad. Sorry my statement was vague... You seem like a well rounded person whom is another victim of the "Wal-Mart" effect. Like you I agree the last 30 years have been tough one almost everyone. But unlike you I'll never give up - even if they build one down the street from me.

[TBoneit]

Unfortunately this matter goes MUCH deeper than we are allowed to discuss on this forum. But I will try to sum things up by simply saying, "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." " And Wal-Mart shoppers & supporters are definitely part of the problem. Some are just too poor to shop anywhere else, while others are just ignorant twits who don't give a darn. (Its easy to guess which category "grasshopper" falls in.)

@Varth: I wholeheartedly suggest you buy your merchandise from a retailer with a conscience. Preferably one owned by a local business person - instead of a family of billionaires whose only goal is to acquire ALL the money on the planet.

I disagree with the "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." That's the sort of thing thrown out to try and guilt people into doing something. When I see that statement I know right away there is no better logical argument to be had.

I get people coming into work here and they try and guilt me into donating by saying it's for the children. Don't you want to help children. It doesn't work. I'm not donating anything to some "Charity" that uses 99% of the donations it collects for fund raising.

I'll buy where I want and I'll buy what I want. Money is in too short a supply for me spend 1 cent more for something on a vague moral principle. I don't go to Sam's club, I prefer Costco. Nothing against or for either, Just what is convenient.

So please take your Off topic blather, fold your high moral ground tent and go away.

[Epicurus8a]

blah, blah, blah ... fold your high moral ground tent and go away.

Eat a rock.

BTW, I would have been content to stop at my first post if it wasn't for the subsequent personal attacks.

[offline]

Keep it civil please guys & gals

[Conquest10]

@Varth: I wholeheartedly suggest you buy your merchandise from a retailer with a conscience.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Preferably one owned by a local business person - instead of a family of billionaires whose only goal is to acquire ALL the money on the planet.

Please. Local businesses are the worst when it comes to how they treat their workers. They usually have 1 person doing the work that at a larger retailer is handled by 5. Pay is minimum wage at best (since they use that bs line that they are a local business and don't have that much money to pay better).

Oh, and name one retail job where workers receive benefits (aside from supervisors).

[Epicurus8a]

Please. Local businesses are the worst when it comes to how they treat their workers. They usually have 1 person doing the work that at a larger retailer is handled by 5. Pay is minimum wage at best (since they use that bs line that they are a local business and don't have that much money to pay better).

Oh, and name one retail job where workers receive benefits (aside from supervisors).

My brother's store is one example. Good pay and benefits for all employees



This thread was split off without my knowledge. Furthermore I never intended to start a fight of any sort, I was simply defending the myself against the personal attacks. I've decided its best to follow Mark Twain's advice, "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."

Mods, please lock the thread.

[offline]

Thread locked on Epicurus8a's request.