Has anyone ever wondered why the US had such a massive supply of low end labour that was so easy to exploit? Walmart ends up being much more of a symptom than a disease.
Well, I was just trying to make a point. When it comes down to it, passion trumps profits. That’s why we should follow the same guidelines within society. Public policy should trump private industry. Basic necessities within our society should be maximized. Food, Housing, Healthcare, Environmental Conservation, and Education are the priorities.
If we as a people provide those things for ourselves, then what is Walmart? It’s just a store providing us with things we don’t really need, but we can enjoy. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. But, too often the mindset of this country is that private industry should be the ruler.
In reality, that’s the way it is. Corporations are running shit. So when someone says to raise the minimum wage, others say it will cut into profits, and we have a power struggle. Is Walmart doing the country good or bad? It’s a very complex issue, and frankly it’s not one that Walmart should be responsible for.
I think that meme is overplayed. He raised wages because he was having trouble retaining workers, and it was too expensive to train them. He wasn’t some altruist trying to prime the pump of the economy.
But anyone who wants to cite Henry Ford has to cite his inability to change with the times, and his utter failure later in life. Not to mention his Nazi sympathies. He was a youthful genius who turned into a nut later in life.
Exactly. The idea that Walmart sells nothing but cheap junk is total bullshit. I was in one today. The pharmacy aisle is primarily comprised of the exact same brand names you’ll find anywhere else. So are the lightbulbs, the grocery aisles, the toy section, etc. The Crock Pots are the same ones I saw at the cooking store down the street. The Miracle Grow garden soil is the same stuff sold at our local nursery. They do sell cheap plastic pitchers and rakes and the like, but the vast majority of their stock is the same stuff you’ll find at any other retailer.
… You do know that the United State has some of the highest-cost labor in the world, right? Wal-Mart didn’t exploit anything or anyone. It made an offer people were free to refuse, and the wages it paid to workers have little to do with the value it provides. They’re not heroes, particualrly. But neither are they the “bad guys” (and I’m not saying you said that; just in general). They saw an opportunity and took it. And frankly, if it were a problem, it would have been a problem decades or even centuries ago. This isn’t exactly the first time people complained about low-wage competition. And it’s never been relavant, because wages can never be too low - goods can only be too expensive. And Wal-Mart makes goods very, very inexpensive.
Let me just state this to Senorbeef and sundry: Whenever your economic views start involving villains, you’ve made a mistake along the line. The big problem today isn’t low pay. It’s unemployment and people who simply left the workforce, and that didn’t happen because of a sudden shift towards evil on the part of anybody. Not even big nasty bankers. It took millions of people, bankers and politicians and buearucrats and ordinary joes, to make a massive bubble. Now we’re living with the consequences.
The right and left may have disagreements about how to fix said problem, but we shouldn’t disagree over the cause: a lot of people betting on a “sure thing.” Economics tells us there is no such sure thing. Not even T-Bills.
Yeah, but how much of this has to do with the Walmart’s influence. If you’re a big brand name, you’re going to do business with Walmart, and you’re going to make products according to Walmart’s desire. What choices do small companies have if all the manufacturers are the same ones that work with Walmart?
When you talk about conspicous consumption you have to take into account all of the throw away items – primarily the packaging on everything, plastic bags, etc.
I mean look at bottles of water or soda. They could implement a policy stating to bring your own bottle and fill it up at the dispensary. Something like that could drastically cut down on waste, pollution, and protect the environment. But that would affect the bottom line and they won’t do it.
It really isn’t a problem of the Walmartization of America. It’s the fault of the government and the people for letting them get away with this shit. However, at this point they have caused a lot of damage and it is going to be difficult to undue.
No idea. You tell me.
No. Your hypothesis fails and fails hard because that is not what is actually going on in the real world of middle and lower middle class people making retail decisions. Specifically the glib assumption by you (and many others in this thread) that Walmart is offering noticeably lower quality goods for the consumer dollar. The fact is that they are not, other than some limited fresh produce categories and a somewhat limited selection Walmart’s food and retail goods are exactly the same as 99% of the other vendors in the retail universe catering to the middle class and lower middle and underclass class cohorts.
This is a very critical point. People in those cohorts are (in general) getting as much or more for their money than with competitive vendors. Walmart offers brand name merchandise at reasonable to bargain prices. As long as that fact remains in place all this arm waving about Walmart being on the decline is abject nonsense.
I’m not a huge fan of Walmart’s practices but trying to pretend they don’t offer compelling deals for quality brand name merchandise to people with limited funds and limited time (re their integration) to shop is incorrect.
ETA - I see Labrador Deceiver made the same point.
I approve of the Walmartization of America. My own anecdotal experience of Walmart:
I lived in Reno, NV where there are 6 Super Center Walmarts. I bought all my groceries and clothes for cheap at Walmart Super Centers for less than anything here in California.
I now currently live in Los Angles, CA where the there are only 2 Walmarts in the San Fernando Valley. I can’t buy my groceries and clothes at the nearest Walmart because it is too far. So I have to spend much more money on food and clothes at competition stores like Target and Ralphs.
I approve of the Walmartization of America.
Simple as that. Make stuff cheap and I approve.
Why don’t you tell us, with cites?
You think WalMart is responsible for Americans’ fetish for bottled water? That is to laugh!
Also at the time he did not have much competition for mass produced cars so he could afford to build in the higher labour costs into the end price, now imagine is Walcars opened a low cost factory with a highly efficient supply chain, yep wages etc would have to reduce to compete with the new cars.
Walmart is about eliminating inefficiency not just low wages.
To call Henry Ford an altruist is naive at best.
Since I don’t know if I can manage to get this back on track, I may have to give it a try another way in the future with more research and not use walmart as an example since it just seems to confuse people that this is meant to be an anti-Walmart thread.
My intent was only to use Walmart as an example of the sort of extreme cost cutting, worker-hostile policies we’ve seen in the entire economy. My aunt was recently fired from her job, at which she was a good, long time worker who fully earned her salary, so that she could be re-hired as a consultant to do the same work for less pay/benefits. No one wants to hire someone a few years from retirement, so they knew she had little choice. Ironically she ended up spending most of her time training her outsource replacements in Mexico (which wasn’t related to the fact that she was going to retire - they’re trying to make the younger people train their own replacements too).
I have another friend who works at a grocery store where they’re deliberately cutting their hours down to under 28 a week, because in their contract if they average less than 30 hours a week for a quarter, their pay and benefits can be cut. They’re hoping that either people will quit so they can hire new people at a lesser salary, or if they stay aboard, that they’ll be able to reduce their benefits in accordance with the letter of their contract. So he’s now stuck making less money (due to fewer hours) so that in the future they can jack up his hours again but pay him less.
These sorts of policies are hostile towards the average worker in a country, which ultimately reduces the wealth held by the average person. Productivity as a whole is going up with technology gains, but only the investors and owners are benefitting from these increases. Worker compensation is either flat or actually regressing for the first time in US history. When you involve the fact that health care is tied to job security, people’s very health and lives may dictate that they don’t have the freedom to seek the best opportunity for them, they may become trapped, which empowers their employer.
Our economy has kept growing because not all of this happened at once, it’s been a gradual process, and because there are real gains in technology and automation that don’t rely on labor. However, that growth has entirely gone to a few people at the top. We’re getting to the point where the average person can no longer afford to be a good consumer in this economy. What good is supply and capital and big businesses with no market and no demand?
That, I think, is why we’re in a situation in which corporations are sitting on their biggest cash reserves in history, not reinvesting it. That’s why we’re at a greater point of wealth disparity than at any point since the 20s. The crisis of 2008 wasn’t a recession in the sense that we’re used to. We borrowed to keep up the facade of the strength of our economy, and it eventually caught up with us. This is the new normal. Outsourced jobs aren’t coming back, and they all won’t be replaced by more skilled and better jobs. Companies aren’t going to start showing a concern for their workforce. The average person is not going to regain economic power.
During these transitions, the wealth creation of the country was such that the few at the top were able to loot the rest of the system and gather an insane portion of the wealth. But we’re reaching the point where the average person has such little economic power that we can’t afford to buy the products and services to drive the economy. Ultimately, Scrooge McDuck is going to be poorer for all of this, and so will the rest of us. The economy runs best when the average person has something to offer and purchasing power, when money gets passed around and cycled and not just piled up at the top. Without some radical changes, we’re not going to get back to what previously made the US economy great.
Of course, there is also the Amazon effect which is where people with an internet connection realized Wal-mart was ripping them off and started ordering Chinese crap straight from Hong Kong.
One interesting side note: ebay is also full of cheap electronic parts from China and HK, and I’m talking crazy dirt cheap. If you try to buy something like a K-type thermocouple your search will be flooded with hits from those guys for 1 cent (buy now says $1.39)!
But it’s possible to click, “show only North American sellers.” If you do, your search will be flooded by retailers pushing the “made the USA” concept, and they appear to make money selling the same thing for $2.
And what was it that made the US economy great? Would you feel better if there was another world war so everyone else’s factories could be destroyed?
Right, I have to explain the complexity between Walmart, manufacturers, and other small businesses with cites. But it’s ok for you and others to say that 99% of the stuff Walmart sells are the same things as any other small businesses, and it has nothing to do with Walmart’s influence. It’s quite evident that Walmart has a lot of power. Does that not seem the least bit suspicious?
The point about the water bottles was about selling cheap, wasteful crap. A point that some are trying to deny. It’s not about blaming Walmart.
What is efficient about repeatedly creating goods that take up valuable resources and throwing them away? Plastic bags, bottles, elaborate packaging, disposable anything you can think of, etc… This happens on a grand scale. They can set policy to prevent it if they like.
SeñorBeef, you’re correct on a lot of points. However, sometimes I wonder if its actually the best thing for us all in the long term. Everyone is going to learn a hard lesson. Our country and it’s corporations exploit the rest of the world as much as possible. We are using resources at an alarming rate, and at least a depression would slow it down. So how can we feel bad for ourselves and our plight? Should we even wish for a return to the normal economy?
Relevant commentary this week from James Howard Kunstler. (Who is a crank or a visionary, depending on your faith in the potential of “alternative fuels” to functionally substitute for fossil fuels.)
I am talking about their internal inefficiencies and those of their suppliers, supply chains, wages etc.
What you are talking about is efficient use of long term resources used in manufacture etc, this is for government to regulate, the market won’t.
On the topic of things like packaging, let’s look at plastic bags. Consumers like them and will continue to use them unless there is legislation to ban them as in now happening around the world. Yeah yeah I know you use a nice string bag but the majority of people don’t.
Walmart are a very efficient way to ship mass market goods to end users at a reasonable cost, their economies of scale actually drive down gas usage etc. So not all doom and gloom but as they say economics has no soul.