 |
| |
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
This is for JohnT. The reply I was writing in the A/C forum thread couldn't be posted in time for it to be locked due to all you spammeisters.
JohnT used as an example, a post in the Straight Dope forum where he said Wal Mart was just like every other corporation and one day it would fail.
What makes Wal Mart like GM and Sears?
In fact, it's not even fair to compare it to most of your examples, like Piggly Wiggly, Sears, K Mart...these are grocers and dept stores and are probably failing specifically because of Wal Mart.
(I'm not registered at the Straight Dope, btw)
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
quote:
It gets local government to condemn land for its use so it doesn't have to bargain with the land owners. |
Maybe in some cases. But I can show you 99 out of 100 Wal Marts that communities eagerly welcomed.
quote:
It demands tax concessions from local government to build a store. |
I wouldn't know, there haven't been any new store around here very recently.
quote:
It doesn't provide health benefits, so its workers have to crowd into emergency rooms, public health clinics and county hospitals to get health care. |
IIRC at least half of Wal Mart employees (all of them, full and part time) get health benefits, probably more than "mom & pops" would give them.
quote:
It pays below market wages, causing many of its employees to apply for food stamps. It uses preditory pricing tactics to drive competing businesses into bankruptcy. |
Wal Mart pays well over minimum wage for starting positions and has a policy to promote from within. Many times they hire unskilled adults who would otherwise have difficulty finding employment.
quote:
All in all, it's a gigantic corporate parasite which sucks the economic vibrance out of any community it touches! |
Examples, please, good sir.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
flash9286
|
|
quote:
IIRC at least half of Wal Mart employees (all of them, full and part time) get health benefits, probably more than "mom & pops" would give them. |
According to Store Wars( a PBS mini-series im guessing) less than half of Walmart employess buy their health insuracne becasue it is so expensive( they pay 35%, almost double the national average).
quote:
Wal Mart pays well over minimum wage for starting positions and has a policy to promote from within. Many times they hire unskilled adults who would otherwise have difficulty finding employment. |
Yes, but after two years of being employed walmart employees make 25% less than other retail employers that work with unions.
Also their we give back to the community campaign is total bullshit. They ranked last among major discount retailers, donating four-tenths of a percent of its earnings, well behind its competitors.
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html
|
|
| |
|
|
|
JohnT
|
 |
Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:37
|
|
Did ya check out the link, MrMitchell? Here's the entire post which should answer your question:
...............
One of the things I really don't understand about all this Wal Mart hubbub is why people don't understand that Wal-Mart, like all corporations, has a limited shelf life, soon, within most of our lifetimes, to die (or worse, become irrelevant) like Sears, Montgomery Ward, A&P, Winn Dixie, Piggly Wiggly, Kmart, and a whole host of other national and regional players.
Back in college I once calculated Sears revenues accounted for a full 2.1% of the US GDP in 1972... today, Wal-Mart's revenues are at 2.6% of US GDP. Sears dominated the American retail landscape for 100 years, and then nearly died, to be purchased by a discount retailer that itself was in bankruptcy two years prior to the "merger." And Sears just wasn't a mega-corp, it was an American Icon, the institution that made it possible for housewives in the prairie to get pot-bellied stoves, starched cotton shirts, the latest perfumes, and a whole host of "luxuries" quickly turned into necessities. Not to mention the catalog itself, a book put to many, many uses.
Today Sears doesn't mean **** to people, a company largely supported by their financial services division, but still not worth saving from the likes of Kmart. Poof, gone, now no longer a proud organization that benefited our nation but a brand, a name for the marketers.
And Sears isn't the only one. From the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties, A&P opened up over 14,000 grocery stores, wiping out local grocer after local butcher after local baker (I don't know what happened to the candlestick makers - sorry.) They ignited a fiery storm of protest (overwhelmed in the greater story of the Depression, FDR, and Hitler) much like the one heard today, and are now no longer a market maker but a market taker, reduced to a regional grocer of 105 stores in New York/New Jersey.
So what about Wal Mart?
Of their $287 billion in 2004 revenues, they have an operating income of $17 billion, or 5.96% of gross revenues... many people here expect their stock portfolios to do better than this (so they then load up on Wal Mart. ) After taxes, etc, you end up with a mere 3.4% return for your efforts.
But for the company, it gets even worse. They pay out 21% of their income in dividends, leaving them with retained earnings of a paltry 2.7% of gross revenue! Sorry for exclaiming twice in consecutive sentences, but that's horrible! The damn inflation rate in the US is 3.15% for March, meaning that with bad planning on Wal Marts part, their entire profit could be spent on inflationary pressures rather than increased capital improvements, acquisitions, R&D, and the all important "improving your cash position."
Cite, PDF document, skip all the crap in the front and go to page 33.
Don't get me wrong - they're currently doing well, and things are proceeding and growing at a nice clip... but they're not so large as to be unaffected by externalities such as bad management or somebody else coming up with a "better way", as every single one of the above listed retailers found themselves to be.
Here's my prediction: Some Asian store is going to come out of nowhere, supported by a home or regional market of 300,000,000+ and kick Wal Marts ass, just as Toyota is doing the Big Three. You wait and see. And then people will really be yelling!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...05&page=4&pp=30
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
quote:
Here's my prediction: Some Asian store is going to come out of nowhere, supported by a home or regional market of 300,000,000+ and kick Wal Marts ass, just as Toyota is doing the Big Three. You wait and see. And then people will really be yelling! |
Why would they need to? If you believe what everyone says, Wal Mart is already Asian except in name. IIRC they're China's biggest exporter...I have no doubt they will establish Wal Marts in China.
quote:
today, Wal-Mart's revenues are at 2.6% of US GDP. |
That number will grow. There is nothing in the immediate picture that may possibly slow them down.
quote:
Don't get me wrong - they're currently doing well, and things are proceeding and growing at a nice clip... but they're not so large as to be unaffected by externalities such as bad management or somebody else coming up with a "better way", as every single one of the above listed retailers found themselves to be. |
Until society is totally changed, Wal Mart is the only "better way"...if someone could find any new place from which to squeeze out inefficiency or add value, it would have already been done. Now, if the rise of the Internet dismantles brick and mortar retailers, that is the only thing I can see stopping walmart, but those predictions kind of fell out of style with the burst of the tech bubble.
There are some things like Lee Scott's outrageous salary that aren't good for walmart, but since Sam has passed, it is a cost of doing business, you have to pay good executives a lot of money or they'll leave. As long as he's not fcking up the growth walmart is going through, his salary makes more sense under that light.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ben Kenobi
|
 |
McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:37
|
|
Dunno about that. The walmart in Universal city not only knew where the product was, but could show me when the next shipment was supposed to arrive, simply by looking at their handheld. That was very cool!
Last edited by Ben Kenobi on 25-07-2005 at 02:13
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
quote:
1. Traffic
2. Unhelpful employees who don't know where stuff is, much less make product recommendations
3. Boring shopping experience |
1. is pretty much unavoidable. Cities build infrastructure around Wal Marts to fix it. (Or Walmarts get built around infrastructure.)
2. Every chain has some dumbasses in it. Most Wal Mart employees I've dealt with are very helpful.
3. If "boring" means "no unwelcome surprises that cost you in time or money" then I'll take it.
Besides, not everything sold in Wal Mart is made in China. Many local US manufacturers have big contracts with Wal Mart and they would be smaller and worse off if they didn't. (A lot of them are in Arkansas.)
Personally I think it would be great if Wal Mart bought everything in the USA, but that would drive prices up, which would mean the lower and middle class would effectively be poorer because they couldn't purchase as much. People don't realize, Wal Mart is not running away with huge profits on everything it sells, even if something is made by a Chinese guy for 10 cents a day they're still looking at every point from raw materials to sitting on the shelf for a place to cut costs.
EDIT: I've got several things from Wal Mart sitting on my desk. Their home countries:
USA (duct tape)
Mexico (candy)
USA (rubber bands)
Canada (deoderant)
USA (batteries)
USA (playing cards)
China (belt)
Mexico (glue)
China (a notebook)
USA (a book)
Walmart supports probably thousands of American jobs for that duct tape, rubber bands, batteries, and cards alone; and thousands of high paying Candian jobs for that deoderant; and Mexico is a lot better than China.
I'll try to find statistics on country of origin for Wal Mart products...
Last edited by mrmitchell on 25-07-2005 at 03:18
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Jonny
|
 |
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Nov 2000
time: 23:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by mrmitchell
Walmart supports probably thousands of American jobs for that duct tape, rubber bands, batteries, and cards alone; and thousands of high paying Candian jobs for that deoderant; and Mexico is a lot better than China. |
Perhaps, but at what cost?
Wal-Mart, due to their gigantic scale of operations, pretty much gets their way in negotiations with suppliers. Eventually, they will make their suppliers provide them with their products at such a low price that the manufacturers are forced to cut jobs or move overseas to cut costs.
Yes, Walmart may be supporting domestic jobs now, but what about later down the road?
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
24-07-2005 22:06
Walmart excels at exporting its expense to the general public. 
ACK!
Then two of three who were running for re-election were turned out of office. The mayor barely survived, but he was running against a write-in. Now, there's a recall effort to toss out the other two. 
PEOPLE POWER! 
should be outlawed just for the way they treat people working for them
Smiley 
|