A New "Wal-Mart is Evil" thread...

[Point of Order]

Check out Frontline on PBS. A really good first 20 minutes about Every Day Low Prices. You can still catch the back 40!

 

[imjustagirl2]

I love my Wal-Mart today.

 

[pallister]

I love Wal-Mart every day (except for the 15 minutes I'm stuck in line behind someone trying to figure out how a debit card works to pay for a bag of Cheetos and a Dr Pepper at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday on my way home from work).

Really, though, pretty much everything I own comes from Wal-Mart, including Cheetos and Dr Pepper.

 

[Buck]

I won't buy anything at Wal-Mart except my Sunday go-to-meeting clothes.

 

[pallister]

I'd buy a car at Wal-Mart if they sold them there, as long as I never had to wait 3 hours to get my oil changed on a Saturday afternoon.

 

[Point of Order]

Enjoy those every day low prices made of the backs of Chinese youth at $.25 an hour!

 

[pallister]

Did the Chinese make that high horse you're on?

 

[Point of Order]

Did the Chinese make that high horse you're on?

High horse? I guess you just don't like to see how the sausage is made.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Which is why I was shocked to discover, when I took a good, long look at Wal-Mart's plan, that it's not only serious but seriously ambitious. Sure, it's common knowledge that Wal-Mart is now the world's biggest distributor of organic milk and purchaser of organic cotton. But over the past year, the company has been introducing other green commitments, vowing to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent by 2012 (on par with Kyoto Protocol targets), double the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet within a decade, make stores 30 percent more energy efficient, and cut 25 percent of its solid waste in the next three years. The chain has declared that all of its wild-caught fish will be sustainably harvested, and some stores are already beginning to source produce locally. Scott is committing $500 million annually to make it all happen, and he's urging the 60,000-plus suppliers that sell products in his stores to adopt similar goals.

http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200612/code-green-wal-mart.html

 

[hondo]

Enjoy those every day low prices made of the backs of Chinese youth at $.25 an hour!

Ever stop to think that labor in foreign countries is paid at the going rate, in those countries. Maybe $1 an hour is a living wage in Vietnam or Cambodia or the Phillipines.

 

[Point of Order]

Enjoy those every day low prices made of the backs of Chinese youth at $.25 an hour!

Ever stop to think that labor in foreign countries is paid at the going rate, in those countries. Maybe $1 an hour is a living wage in Vietnam or Cambodia or the Phillipines.

Well, Hondo, I did think about that, and I'll be damned. But Chinese currency (yuan??) compared to the dollar is kept artificially low by the Chinese government. Strike one.

 

[hondo]

Okay, that's one country. Do we know, for certain, that the wages paid to workers overseas for goods sold in the U.S. aren't living wages, or at least the same as our minimum wage?

 

[Point of Order]

Okay, that's one country. Do we know, for certain, that the wages paid to workers overseas for goods sold in the U.S. aren't living wages, or at least the same as our minimum wage?

80% of Wal~Mart's suppliers are in China, according to the 2004 Frontline story. 80%.

UPDATE: According to Google:

1 Chinese yuan = 0.127686198 U.S. dollars.
(Note: CNN reports tonight that the trade deficit with China swelled to a record $24.4 billion in October, as imports from there surged to $29.3 billion, also a record. I don't think the U.S. doesn't have a trade deficit with any other country - certainly not one anywhere near that high.)

1 Euro = 1.3192 U.S. dollars
1 Japanese yen = 0.00855724799 U.S. dollars (Yikes!)
1 British pound = 1.9522 U.S. dollars
1 Mexican peso = 0.0923071243 U.S. dollars
1 Russian ruble = 0.0380171762 U.S. dollars

 

[Clever username]

I try not to frequent a store where the stench of white trash gets caught in my hair.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

Bubbler, please, please, please re-post the Wal-Mart at midnight story.

 

[pallister]

I'm at Wal-Mart in the middle of the night every other week. I'm sure I could add to that story.

 

[Pringle]

Good recent documentary on the issue, "The High Cost of Low Prices."

 

[poindexter]

Someone needs to alert John Edwards' staff about this latest news.

 

[Pastor]

Wal-Mart is gross for a variety of reasons. I don't shop there at all.

I do like the steps they have taken to improve environmental standards. The company sees value in that and will therefore take the necessary actions.

Wal-Mart is well managed. I may not like some of their measures but they at least get the most out of every last penny.

 

[OnTheRiver]

I took the exact same list of groceries and did an experiement a few months back where I did one shopping trip at Wal-Mart, then three weeks later, I took the exact same list to a regional grocery store.

I purposely avoided advertised specials and didn't use coupons.

If it was an advertised special at Wal-Mart, I didn't buy it, and then also didn't buy it at the regional grocery store when I went there.

Wal-Mart came out ahead by a whopping $2.38 on the receipt.

Of course, I also spent 25 minutes in line there waiting to check out.

At my other store, where the groceries were $2.38 more expensive, I waited in line for 6 minutes.

I've quit grocery shopping at Wal-Mart not for any political reason, but just because 19 minutes of my time is worth more than $2.38.