400 jobs; 10,000 applicants

Why can't you just say, "You misread my post" and leave it at that? It would have ended the conversation amicably.

Instead, I get more pomposity and condescension from someone I've never disrespected on the board. You're acting like JDV with better grammar. Thank you. I think we're done.

 

It is possible that the consumers cannot afford to spend more to obtain the better quality and are thusly only spending on the short term instead of the long term.

As it currently stands, the average savings account in this country is negative. That doesn't exactly jive with what you are arguing here.

I'll just go ahead and throw these cause and effects out there and see what you say:
1. Wal-Mart has a practice of selling only censored products that fall in line with their values. If you recall, there was a lawsuit regarding the selling of edited movies. What kind of impact does that have on society as a whole when the content provider only allows their message through?

2. Wal-Mart has created somewhat of a monopoly for itself. They generate a ton of wealth and are able to expand their empire. With that they are able to spend more money lobbying as well as donate more to campaigns. It has already been proven that Wal-Mart almost exclusively gives to the GOP. More money increases the likelihood of a candidate winning. In return, candidates pass legislature that furthers Wal-Marts ability to expand wealth/influence.

It hasn't reached a level of hysteria yet, but this cycle is obvious. A company that has an agenda, a failure conservative agenda, as well as an agenda that doesn't favor the general employees, merely the board, should not have this much power and influence.

 

Actually, Ragu, you consistently come across as believing in an ethical system that posits unfettered capitalism as its basic principle. You do that with statements such as "Wal-Mart has no responsibility to anyone but it's owners who run a business to profit." And demanding that people waste their time scouring the net for evidence to prove to you that Wal Mart is a shitty place to work, something that any reasonable person would accept as prima facie, well, that's just silly. Honestly Ragu, I consider you one of the board's better posters, and I've often appreciated your contributions on various things. But as soon as the topic turns to economics, your bizarre Randian daemon takes over and yeah, you pretty much resemble a literate JDV, both in tone and in Byzantine twists of sophistry to deny the obvious.

 

To the original point of the thread ... the other 9,600 can come up here, live in a growing city with a vibrant economy and find jobs no problem. We have restaurants and stores closing regularly because the labour shortage is so bad that there's no one to apply for the jobs.

 

It's ironic that Wal-Mart helped create the economic climate where 10,000 people are applying for 400 jobs. And we're supposed to say, "Gee thanks"

And quite frankly, anyone who claims that an alleged 3% drop in prices (wherever that came from) offsets Wal-Marts poverty level wages is clearly living in another universe.

 

I'm not going to wade into this Wal-Mart mess, but this remidns me of a story here in Toronto about 12 years ago or so ago when rumours were out that one of the car plants in the GTA (can't remember if it was GM in Oshawa or Chrysler in Brampton) was looking to add a third shift.

The company denied it vehemently but that didn't stop thousands from lining up in the dead of winter to apply for jobs that didn't exist.

 

This argument will continue going around in circles until Wal-Mart goes out of business. That said, I have no problem with their employment practices. Nobody's holding a gun to these people's heads and making them work there, and if they don't like their jobs, they can go get more marketable skills and do something else that pays better.

My real problem with Wal-Mart is its flouting of imminent domain laws.

 

http://walmartwatch.com/pages/healthcare


Who pays for Wal-Mart workers' health care? Wal-Mart, right? No, we all do.

Despite Wal-Mart's mammoth profits, the company actually burdens us -- taxpayers -- with its workers' health care costs. In a disturbing nationwide trend, more state studies are revealing that Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of taxpayer-paid health care. The scope of this corporate failure is massive: Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States, with over 1.3 million associates, yet they fail to give health insurance to 54 percent of its employees.

"So here's how it works: Wal-Mart offers insurance, but aggressively shifts the cost onto its employees. The low-wage workers then pass up the unaffordable coverage and turn to the states. If this isn't exactly company policy, it is at least company philosophy. CEO Lee Scott, at the company's recent ''summit'' for the media, even described it. He said some state health programs are 'so lucrative that, in fact, it's hard to be competitive with them and certainly extraordinarily expensive to be competitive with them.'"
Editorial, Miami Herald 6/11/05

 

It's about time someone stood up for Walmart! Where would we be without that company? They make more in profits in a single year than all of their employees for 100 years will make in a lifetime. Now if the fuckers would just send me Part 5 for my daughter's toy kitchen, which cost me $140, I could let her play with the fucking thing before she starts college.

 

Some of the details in this thread -- 400 jobs, 10,000 applicants, shitty pay, shitty benefits, poor treatment -- made me think someone had started up a newspaper. I think the biggest difference is that you wouldn't get a desk or phone extension at Wal-Mart.