The state of Wal-mart: sovereignty

Either nationalize it, or sit back, and watch it grow.

I dont see anything else you can do.

www.pbs.org...

www.reapinc.org...

Close to 1 out of every hundred workers in America works at Wal Mart, and another , and another 330000 worldwide.
and I qoute

Wal-Mart's sales in 2003. In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."

Here's a link to the PBS Frontline "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" video i mentioned previously.

Originally posted by esdad71

Saying a gas or electirc compamy is not a monopoly is notcorrect. Try and go somewhere else for your water, electric, sewer and gas. You will wind up urinating in bottle, defecating in the bsuhes and taking showers at the local gas station.

Read my post more carefully next time. I said that those companies ARE monopolies, but WalMart is not. I am just pointing out an obvious double standard.

Walamrt works their employees like slaves( just ask one), are pushing out small and medium size businesses with low prices and overstock and there are major legal battles when they attmept to build in certain places. 2 in the last 3 years here in St Pete.

Slaves? Please be intellectually honest, noone is forced into their job. If they do not like working at WalMart they can get a job at ANY OTHER RETAILER with the same skills.

So, having major legal hurdles before being allowed to build a store is evidence that you are a nefarious institution? So I guess builders in general fall into the same category. Many of them are sued and sued and sued again to prevent projects.

thank you also for the definition of soveriegnty, I thought Wal mart was it's own nation. C;mon man, make a better arguement.

Your rebuttal is "I thought WalMart was its(sic) own nation." I really don't see how to explain this to you if you do not understand what a sovereign nation is. C'mon man, how about you actually put forth an argument, instead of just reasserting the absurd.

Do you even remember whem Wal Mart proudly announced eferything eas made in America.It was, and now, as someone else pointed out, they purchase from the far east at lower rates than to buy domestically. In a nut shell, wal mart sucks for the little guy, but at least we can all get a new filter for our brita water purifiers at 4AM.

Like I said in an earlier post, WalMart has established a certain image. Selling items that were made in America, and being "all-American" was that image. If you buy into that image you are a sucker, 'nuff said. However, what is wrong with selling cheap products from Asia?

Originally posted by WolfofWar

Lets break down what Wal-mart is. Wal-mart is a supply chain that provides retail consumer goods. Food, pharmacuedicals, clothing, electronics, etc. Now, when the retail chain, Wal-mart, is able to push out all competetion in an entire town, ripping out Main streets businesses and cutting prices so low that only Wal-mart will survive, well what exactly do you call that?

Monopoly (n)- exclusive control of a commodity or service that makes possible the manipulation of prices.

Your point is taken that in limited cases (small towns) WalMart can become the only show in town. I still don't see what the problem is. The townspeople then get everything they need at one location for lower prices. However, if Walmart decides to start "jacking up" the prices as you earlier suggested they will be met with competition from other retailers.

Microsoft was charged as a monopoly because they made it so that you could "only" buy a computer with a windows OS. Wal-mart is doing much more then that, it is underselling and eliminating all competition.

You misunderstand what happened in the Microsoft case. Microsoft was charged with "unfair practices" in what was termed by media as a "monopoly case" because they put a free browser (internet explorer) in their OS package. The suit was brought by a Microsoft competitor, Netscape, who claimed the practice was unfair since Microsoft crushed them with the free browser. Now, who benifitted from that the most? Microsoft, who now includes a free browser in their software, or the people (consumers) who buy that software? Not everything is black and white, capitalist and socialist, moral and immoral.

Now, is it a sovereignty yet, no. But given years of unchecked growth? who knows.... Entire urban cities? States? Countries? ... What happens when 20 dollars out of every hundred is spent at a Wal-mart, or 40? maybe 50? How about 70?

Is Sears & Roebuck a sovereign state yet? Back at the turn of the 20th century you could buy just about ANYTHING from Sears, and many general stores went out of business. Farmers could just order through the mail.

Also, just for alittle information, Your Water and Electricity companies are not businesses, they're utilities run by the state, so they can't by held under the scrutiny of the monopoly police.

So the crux of your argument is that privately owned entities should be tightly controlled and reigned in, but we should trust the state to be good and not charge us too much. Private=bad Public=good. Your double standard arises from too much black/white thinking.

... but I firmly believe that we are slowly becoming depending on Wal-mart, both economically and on a personal level.

Not me, I prefer Costco.

Originally posted by Raideur
Either nationalize it, or sit back, and watch it grow.

I dont see anything else you can do.

Once again the "either or" fallacy. Or, maybe Walmart will grow and grow until some other retailer becomes the next in a long succession of America's cheap goods darlings.

Nationalize it? Do you have any idea what actions like that would do to foreign investment in the US? I doubt it.

edit: pluralization

[edit on 22-12-2005 by informatu]

Originally posted by esdad71

In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."

WalMart's market capitalization is at just over $200 Billion. It's price to earnings ratio is a respectable 18.87 and its stock is expected to increase roughly 20% next year. I would suggest that instead of complaining about WalMart you purchase shares.

Notice that the numbers used by the CFO didn't mention General Electric, because they made even more than WalMArt. Why don't we hear anything about that though? Why all of the focus on WalMart? Read my previous posts and I think you will find out.

No one is complaininmg, I am pointing out facts. Just like the fact that hte trade deficit will be so large with China that we wil ahve to stop importing goods for Wal MArt, prices will go up, and by that tie the smaller stores will be gone, This is common sense.

Wal-mart may be used by the NWO people as a way to manipulate the public and control food staples in most geographical regions, but since we have no proof of it.

I'll just give my second opinion, that's that Wal-mart is a monopoly that has MASS potenital to hurt the public economicly. It makes deals with somewhat "shady" businesses and then allows Chinesses labor to make most it's brand products(like "Target", "MEIJER",etc.) products.

Since most (MAJOR)stores whom all have contracts with the UFCW have deals that could hurt thier medicaid and other programs this has caused some political conflict in the retail industry. Although Wal-mart employees get better benefits for less hours than most of the stores in deal with the union thereby causing the conflict.

Also, most of these major department stores outsource their management making the "forced" Gen X and Y workers less motiviated to improve themsleves and even less motiviated to get a college degree or to push these companies and the Unions to make all the deals avilable(since most can't make meetings often.). But that's just what I learned in retail in a year. I'm not saying where I work, until I don't work there.

BTW, it goes without saying I wish Wal-mart was more respectful to its female employees and allowed them as much oppuritunites as their male counter parts. Also, the stores changed their contracts with UFCW from the "Wal-marty" to other ones, to not be pushed into bad press by the UFCW and other special intrest groups in Washington D.C., etc.

Anyone ever think of changing our tax laws to make it more profitable to manufacture in the good ole US of A. Companies go overseas because it helps them with their bottom line. Maybe if we helped them compete with the overseas market, they just might stay here. America taxes the hell out of anyone making money. Hell, if I owned a large industry I'd move it to where I could make the most profit. I'm not saying the USA has to beat everyone else...but hell, give the manufacturers a fighting chance.
I honestly believe that manufacturers would stay here, if the stood a fighting chance against India, China, Mexico...etc. Call me idealisic, but would you rather face the backlash of moving overseas, or stay here (with a change in the tax laws, to give you a fighting chance)
Me personally...I'd stay here...but if going overseas is going to make save enough to make it worth the hassle...I"D GO...any smart business person would.