Portland Divests From Walmart

a reply to: jmdewey60

I would hate to live life as you do, in serious depression because some one made it and you didn't. Hundreds no thousands of companies have started the same way as Sam Walton did, one dollar at a time. Sears and Roebuck...KMART....Selber Brothers...Macy's...they all didnt have someone give them money other than a bank and if you honestly believe that at 4 years old bill or Hillary Clinton was able to influence Walmarts growth from 1950 as one store into the conglomerate it is today you are delusional.

As for Waste management, I have no idea, but considering where the mob is today and their influence which is certainly less than what it was I highly doubt your entertaining theory. Walmarts story is highly documented as are the many other examples I provided and show exactly what one person is capable of.

a reply to: DJMSN

if you honestly believe that at 4 years old bill or Hillary Clinton was able to influence Walmarts growth from 1950 as one store into the conglomerate it is today you are delusional.

According to Wikipedia, it was started in '62, incorperated in '69, its stock publicly traded in '72.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company rose from a regional to national giant.
en.wikipedia.org...

Also, about Bill Clinton

40th & 42nd Governor of Arkansas
In office
January 11, 1983 – December 12, 1992
en.wikipedia.org...

coincidence?

a reply to: CB328
Wal-Mart pays their employees so little that many have to get help from the Government to be able to feed and clothe their families. So the American people have to basically make up the difference for Wal-Marts low wages. These greedy companies like Wal-Mart need to step up and pay fair wages. I mean how much money does this Walton family need. They are already billionaires. I'm all for free markets and I'm a strong believer in the American way of life, but these greedy a-holes are ruining this country. The Greed in America is getting bad and with things like "Citizen United" giving the Super Pac's the right to buy their own politicians, the poor in this country are not even able to elect somebody who represents them. I think more cities and states should stand up and pressure these corporations to do right by the American people or go some place else. There is no reason anybody working a 40 hour work week should have to get food stamps, free medical or subsidized housing to raise their families. This is why we need a higher minimum wage to force the greedy board members to pay their employees and not make the American taxpayer have to pay part of their employees wages. I'm proud to be from Oregon. Were getting fed up!

a reply to: jmdewey60
Yes it is. Sam Walton was a smart man who took one store from a small town and grew it into several which developed into the conglomerate it is today. He didn't need the Clinton's for help to make the company as it was already on its way long before the Clinton's became anything other than backwater politicians, and the Walton family are strong Republican supporters.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

It just doesn't add up...not everything is a conspiracy. The Walton's are normal people who pulled off the American Dream...like Ray Kroc who took McDonald's to new heights and built a billion dollar business...this from an immigrant who worked hard to have something nice...worked out for him pretty well so far you think ?

And there are literally thousands of others who have done the same thing and imagine this...they did it on their own without help from a couple of small time politicians whom by luck of their own made it to the big time.

originally posted by: pointr97
This could actually back fire, badly, remember the TPP......one that gives corporations the ability to sue a government for harming their profit making..............

I'd like to read about that. Link, please. Thanks.

a reply to: CB328

Not very well known, or advertised, that the fat cow Hillary is still calling shots at the above board rail. Yes, Hillary Rodham still works for them.

My personal experience with WM is that it is a very much a cult existence. I've worked 3 of them, but only heard their weird once. It is like a cult. What job has ever told you to chant a company motto? I'm not #ing you. They get into prayer circles.

Walmart has been trying for the last decade to install a distribution plant in my area... The promise is that they will offer jobs for $15/hr, pure lies. Sale is pending as they are building.

Guess what?

My sis's ex gave away the land in my area for the asking price, which my sis had a right to. Crazy price like 5k/acre. # you not. X 200 acres. Land was going for 20k an acre, now it's going for 60k/acre, good for him that he has much more acreage.

My sister had the foresight to recommend nothing more than to have part-time rights when she got divorced. She had a chance to say no to Walmart, instead of a voice when it came to community property. I would've been fine with her arrangement, save for the fact of the money that she borrowed and never paid back. Instead, her ex sold the property to Walmart, and holds more property that even her son won't touch.

Even if my rant was emotional, it can't detract from the reality of what a Walmart is really like. Take away $36M and see if they suffer. They may bitch, but it won't stop the machine. They still collect money for the promise of jobs. Tax relief=promise of minimum wage work, part time. They need poor people and gov money.

I used to shop there, and even, almost tried to get a part time job there. After what I've learned... I despise the company. I try to spend my money more sensibly, yet I let my gf go there. It is actually cheaper. They're too tough a nut to crack.

I have crazy stories if you want to be persuaded to not shop there...

a reply to: dfens

Hillary Clinton does not currently work for Walmart. She worked on the board of Directors for 6 years. She was invited to be on the board by Mr. Walton himself as he was under pressure to diversify and offer more positions to women by his wife and other groups. She was the current wife of the Governor of Arkansas her husband Bill and as a lawyer a good fit. She made very few contributions if any and has never spoken publicly about her tenure there.

No one is taking money away from walmart, at least read the article. The city of Portland decided to no longer invest their money in Walmart stock off which they made plenty of money. Walmart will not even notice because as soon as that stock is sold, someone else will purchase it as it is a good stock to own.

a reply to: DJMSN

Walmart takes money out of the local economies and funnels it to their headquarters and on Wall Street. The small mom and pops don't trade on Wall street and keep all the money circulating locally.

I am against the consolidation of power be it government or big business because when they get big enough have a bad habit of infringing on our freedoms to serve themselves and the well connected.

We see how that is working out with TBTF banks, Multinational corporations, Big Pharma and so on that own our government.

Let's call this what it is. Walmart is anti-union. The Unions slader Walmart. The Unions finance Democrats campaigns. Portland's Government is made up of Democrats who want to be re-elected. There. Plain enough that even a Common Core student can understand it.

By the way, Google "union staff employees and minimum wage".

a reply to: jacobe001

You seem to forget about the local tax dollars that Walmart generates in a small community which adds up to a great deal and is more than all the Mom and Pop stores combined who also do not come close to providing that number of jobs that Walmart does. Many Mom and Pops do not hire outside of the family if they hire anyone at all and always use the fact that they are small and cannot pay any more than minimum wage.

The money that Walmart does move out of the local realm goes on to the national arena where it continues to generate tax dollars both their own contributions and from the investors who make money and their are loads of them. Walmart is also a heavy investor in the local economies they are in providing support to local school districts, hospitals, and veterans groups.

The Mom and Pops I have worked for are all stingy miserly people who cheat customers and the local government on taxes and in every other way they possibly can. I don't care much for big government nor big business but when they are not breaking laws and they contribute back to an economy they make use of then they are welcome. Many in this thread have accused Walmart of being a monopoly when they do not even come close to that definition, just smart business people and started as a Mom and Pop in small town America.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Certainly plays a huge part in the campaign against Walmart. Largely why the West has not seen a lot of Walmart unlike the rest of the country. I just don't understand, here is a man, one person, who started with one store in a place no one else wanted to be in small town America and because of hardwork built into the American Dream and now the same individuals that are pro Mom and Pop want to dismantle it...Unions are what needs to be dismantled.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
Let's call this what it is. Walmart is anti-union. The Unions slader Walmart. The Unions finance Democrats campaigns. Portland's Government is made up of Democrats who want to be re-elected. There. Plain enough that even a Common Core student can understand it.

By the way, Google "union staff employees and minimum wage".

Not by a Long Shot.
Unions are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to who is "selecting" our men we choose from to run for office.

www.opensecrets.org...

Lobbying - Ranked Sectors 1998-2014

Misc Business $6,078,960,580
Health $6,008,970,746
Finance/Insur/RealEst $5,987,751,654
Communic/Electronics $4,928,429,581
Energy/Nat Resource $4,462,152,496
Other $3,184,831,387
Transportation $3,059,318,830
Ideology/Single-Issue $1,965,929,158
Agribusiness $1,809,056,698
Defense $1,730,989,688
Construction $656,221,136
Labor $594,160,648
Lawyers & Lobbyists $415,404,522

a reply to: DJMSN

I'm all for the decentralization of power and giving it back to the people, individuals, communities and small cities.
Not concentrated on Wall Street or in the Government as it is now.

Big Business and Big Government have gotten way to big and powerful where they are working hand in hand stealing our freedoms and livelihood to grow even bigger.

I don't shop at Walmart because I don't agree with their policies.
Unfortunately, when they are infested in my government, like Goldman Sachs, Monsanto and so on I as a citizen have no power to get them out, since our government is for sale to the highest bidder.

I boycott Wal-Mart and I think I am making the right choice as I do any place where a CEO make over 1000 times what the lowest worker does. Imports cheap Chinese goods and sells low quality foods helping to keep the world fat.

a reply to: jacobe001

Your numbers are for lobbying, not campaign contributions. Apples and oranges.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: jacobe001

Your numbers are for lobbying, not campaign contributions. Apples and oranges.

Is this better?

www.opensecrets.org...

Presidential Contributions by Sector

Agribusiness $11,308,149 $2,068,275 $9,206,214
Communications/Electronics $30,637,391 $20,725,228 $9,815,510
Construction $16,558,548 $4,179,990 $12,345,233
Defense $2,935,981 $1,141,330 $1,777,047
Energy & Natural Resources $15,081,653 $2,413,362 $12,634,841
Finance, Insurance & Real Estate $88,604,540 $20,437,371 $68,056,133
Health $42,169,947 $18,919,174 $23,181,356
Lawyers & Lobbyists $46,323,333 $27,969,192 $18,319,342
Transportation $8,708,964 $1,380,856 $7,313,986
Misc Business $59,061,292 $22,614,472 $36,287,299
Labor $505,561 $494,094 $11,217
Ideological/Single-Issue $31,366,557 $17,287,692 $14,029,353
Other $177,987,486 $91,951,390 $85,497,022

a reply to: DJMSN

thats the thing though
when sam walton started their were no mega corporations buying tens of millions of units at a time
you cant compete with that and you shouldnt be expected to
their business model relies on extremely high volume so they can purchase products for a huge discount and sell things cheaper than you can source them

there is no conceivable way to compete with a business as large as walmart is
once upon a time you could argue "just offer a higher quality product and better customer service"
except the average person doesnt have the money to buy higher quality products or better customers service because they either work for walmart or a company with business practices like walmart
a walmart workers financial situation pretty much dictates they buy the cheapest garbage available

so in your world where this is all somehow fair we may as well just call a winner because no one else is even going to start playing the game

a reply to: sirhumperdink

I worked for Wakmart so that should tell my income level throughout the years, certainly not rich by any stretch of the means. Walmart in my community has always paid above the minimum wage to start and I earned a raise after six months which applied to everyone, a lot of other places I worked didn't do that and in a couple cases I was asked to take a pay cut, from a business that was small but making record profits, just cheap miserly owners.

The three biggest department stores in the mid-1960s, both in sales volume and physical size, were Macy's, Hudson's, and Marshall Field, in that order. Hudson's, shown here, had 25 stories, 16 of them selling floors. Two of its four below-ground floors were basement stores, where 60 departments did up to 25% of the store's business. At its peak in mid-century, Hudson's employed up to 12,000 employees and welcomed 100,000 shoppers a day. It had its own telephone exchange (CApitol), and the nation's third largest switchboard, exceeded only by the Pentagon and the Bell System itself.

www.departmentstorehistory.net...

There were mega stores in America before Walmart started. They operated primarily in the Northeast...Sam Walton started in the south where no mega stores wanted to be and he started in the rural south where no one wanted to be. We can't punish Walmart because he was a smart business man. One of Sam Walton's first jobs was at one of the big competitors he has today...J C Pennys.

As for competition, it fairly easy to establish a niche in any market and to take advantage of it, the hard part is finding what that niche is. Many businesses compete with Walmart and do so successfully. I'm not here to defend Walmart and some of the things they pull off. The average salary of a managers salary working for Walmart is 85 thousand a year which in most areas of the country is pretty decent money. An assistant manager averages around 43 thousand which in the south is close to the median household income. And it doesn't take long to work your way up in Walmart, no major education needed just dedication and a little hard work.

They do lots of things well and could do lots of things much better as in paying the rank and file more...ask any business owner, the basis of being in business for ones self is to make money for El Numero Uno not the rank and file.

On occasion you find an individual who because of personal convictions that believes in giving everyone an opportunity to grow with the company. I worked for such a man not long ago, company made millions and so did he, he provided excellent base salaries and at the end of the year shared company profits, my first year in which I worked for him about 7 months, my bonus was over 10 grand. I wish Walmart would offer better stock incentives for the employes, say each store based on sales earned the same in stock which each employee had a percentage of, really doesn't cost the company cash and the employees come out better off than they were.

The bottom line is, Walmart cannot be punished for good being good at business and its the epitome of the American Dream. Is it fair to say, your too big, you're no longer able to operate. I'm not one to say you must pay a certain wage as I am a firm believer that if you work hard you will make what you worth and since I have worked for a variety of different businesses over the years and always started low and worked long enough and hard enough to make a more than comfortable wage. Lots of individuals believe they should make more than they are worth from the beginning.

Americans have a bad habit of living beyond their means, credit cards maxed out, two if not three brand new cars in the driveway, kids with every conceivable electronic device known to man and cell phones and cable for every room. Not necessary and with proper planning and living, one can have all of that, you just have to wait a little longer and work a little longer, too many of us want that 20 dollar an hour pay and work less for it. Sam Walton struggled to get where he is today, he milked the family cow, bottled the excess and delivered it to his customers, had a paper route and eventually borrowed money to buy a variety store and built it into what it is today. Mr. Walton died in 1992 when Walmart enjoyed sales of 50 billion, what the revenue was I don't know and how much was profit, not sure but its not cheap to run an empire. Most of the money today comes from Wallstreet, people investing in the stock, a person who bought a hundred shares of Walmart stock in 1980 would be a billionaire today.

a reply to: DJMSN

so in essence
sam waltons business practices were successful because he did not have to compete with sam waltons business practices

and somehow being the first a#$h&le on the block affords this guy your praise as some kind of genius businessman

the fact of the matter is the system is fundamentally flawed and when companies like walmart become entrenched and grow as large as they have there is no competing with them
and that is not conductive to a freemarket or ultimately a free society

living beyond their means....... im sure thats why walmart costs the taxpayers of 6.2 billion dollars in public assistance every year .....all those lousy employees living beyond their means..... meanwhile the owners ..... the mere facilitators of trade...... rake in their fair earned share of 36.64 billion dollars in profits (2012)
the reality for most is quite different from your experiences there
what position did you have and more importantly when?

walmart and companies like walmart are successful because they are exploitative parasites that have grown so large and entrenched they can not be removed without harming the host

a reply to: sirhumperdink

Sam Walton competed with thousands of businesses as Walmart does today. You are not making sense...grocery store chains compete with Walmart, retail giants compete with Walmart and thousands or tens of thousands of Mom and Pop stores across the country compete with Walmart EVERYDAY.

Walmart has an excellent business model one which took years to hone, the just in time delivery systems is in practice by almost every business today from GM to Toyota to Costco. Sam Walton worked for retail giants like J.C. Penny's before he bought his first store, they are a retail giant still around today and having applied for a job there I know they suck as they didn't even want to pay minimum wage but strictly commission...bah humbug, but don't see anyone lining up to attempt to cry them out of business.

It a successful business who has more competitors than anyone else as they all are gunning for the dollar that Walmart is getting. Facts are he started as a franchise owner of Ben Franklin's and then broke away and built his own brand...Ben Franklin's are still around today so he competes against them still today not to mention Macy's, Dillard's, and countless others.

Take the energy of your complaints against walmart and put them into an idea of your own in how to make the American Dream work for you...next thing is people will be complaining against ATS for being too big, whoops sorry already happened, don't forget Google and Microsoft, complain against them too for having the unmitigated gall to work hard and build something that has benefited everyone

And I was a stockboy about 7 years ago, made 9.50 an hour which is over the minimum wage, as for Walmart costing tax payers public assistance, its not Walmart giving somebody money for freaking nothing that's the liberal government who feels they have to support somebody who can't afford one child much less 2 and whats wrong with working more than one job to make ends meet? I did it, as did my Mother, I had a full time job when I worked at Walmart full time as well and had another part time job.

No one has to work at Walmart they choose to do so and no one has to shop at Walmart but they choose to do so, facts are, we are spoiled rotten. Look at the immigrants who come to our country, they saved money in their own countries and open small businesses when they arrive and eventually they own more than one, I know several gas stations that most people would consider to be a conglomerate all owned and operated by as man who came to this country 12 years ago, now worth more than most because of hard work and sacrifice.