Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

I'm all ears...

Come on. The debate as to whether Walmart creates jobs or destroys them and there by grows or shrinks tax revenue has been going on for two decades.

[EJ]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

That is it in a nutshell. Walmart is by no means the only corporation receiving this subsidy but probably one of the largest and certainly one not afraid to put its money behind keeping that way.

When attending college I qualified for food stamps as did all of my utterly broke roommates. We all worked various odd jobs to make rent and finance our needs such as they were at the time -- food, gasoline, beer, more or less in that order.

I worked at Judy's waiting tables or washing dishes. Ed worked at the theater in Northampton. He got us tickets to boring French movies. Susan -- yes one of our roommates was a girl -- worked at the Gaslight. Can't recall where Mike, our 4th roomy, worked.

We all worked and we all cooked, sort of.

Ed specialized in Italian and Mexican. I was a two trick pony when my turn to cook came around: veggies and tofu or pepper steak. We bought our food cheap at the local coop.

Our favorite beer was Haffenreffer available even to the underaged at $5/case, aka Green Death.

One day my girlfriend got the idea to apply for food stamps so we all did. I received a book of stamps. To my eternal shame I purchased among other items steak from a market in Sunderland that I brought to my girlfriend's parents' home in Ashland. I guess I wanted to show off. I had to tell her father that I bought the steak with food stamps and he got angry with me. He was a good man. Though entitled to another year of food stamps I never collected any more. The $250 car I drove to get there I bought cash with money from a job I worked before college. When my parents died 20 years ago I inherited $40,000.

Last night I'm at Ocean State Job Lots in Waltham to buy tarps for $2.95. I could go to Home Depot and pay $8 but that, in my view, is wasteful. Mine is the only BMW in the parking lot. Judging by the dress code I'd guess I was in the company of men and woman who are not there for a bargain but for what they can afford.

Ran into an acquaintance at Target last week who immediately went to lengths to explain that he did not need to shop there but chose to.

How did each of us arrive at our situation? How did I arrive at mine? How did each of us get where we are? How much by luck? How much by effort?

The forbidden conversation in the United States is about culture and class and luck and what it takes to make good luck: hard work.

Is Walmart a cause or an effect of the American political economy?

[flintlock]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

I also buy their jeans. I wear a lot of jeans and I have found out the cheaper ones do just as good as job as expensive ones. We too mostly purchase food there along with dog food, some gardening things and other selected items. When we rented a house in Michigan last year that slept 44 (we ended up with no more than 35 at any one time) we bought towels at walmart for $4.50 each that were as good as any we had ever purchased at much higher prices. They came in a multitude of colors and they did not run or fade when washed. We also purchased a lot of the bulk food for the week from SAMS. Did I mention that I am biased Now if someone starts a thread on ALDIs we will really have a battle!!

I wish we had a Sams or Costco. Instead we have the third rate BJs. High prices and low selection. Sometimes I buy pants at Walmart for work. Ones that I will trash anyway. Some Camping gear. But you have to be careful as manufacturers will sell special Walmart only products there that are not always up to snuff but still carry a brand name. I find their TVs to be anything but competitive price wise. Tried to buy an Iphone there once and literally could not get anyone who knew how to. This is a megastore. Nobody there who could do it. Like I said, I'm no Walmart hater. They just seem like the typical big impersonal store to me. Its all about price with no pursuit of excellence at anything. I hate shopping so I'm willing to pay a few bucks more for lower hassle.

[GRG55]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Come on. The debate as to whether Walmart creates jobs or destroys them and there by grows or shrinks tax revenue has been going on for two decades.

The debate about whether automation creates jobs or destroys jobs has been going on at least since the Luddites protested the use of stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms starting in 1811. But I don't see anybody suggesting we should go back to hand looms (or horses and buggies either).

Maybe we should be arguing whether Amazon destroys jobs or creates jobs, as it seems to be challenging with a different retail model than the one pioneered by WalMart?

Napoleon I is reputed to have said: "L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers." I doubt we are going back to that retail model any time soon...

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Maybe we should be arguing about monopoly.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

The debate about whether automation creates jobs or destroys jobs has been going on at least since the Luddites protested the use of stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms starting in 1811. But I don't see anybody suggesting we should go back to hand looms (or horses and buggies either).

Maybe we should be arguing whether Amazon destroys jobs or creates jobs, as it seems to be challenging with a different retail model than the one pioneered by WalMart?

Well you just mentioned one of my other favorites. We buy more things at Amazon than any place else. BTW we also like Dollar General and Dollar Tree. You can buy 6 frozen soft pretzels (one of my big weaknesses) for $1 plus tax. Even better than ALDIs. Dollar General sells the same basic pretzels (different label) for $1.29. No one else is close.

[flintlock]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

When attending college I qualified for food stamps as did all of my utterly broke roommates. We all worked various odd jobs to make rent and finance our needs such as they were at the time -- food, gasoline, beer, more or less in that order.

I worked at Judy's waiting tables or washing dishes. Ed worked at the theater in Northampton. He got us tickets to boring French movies. Susan -- yes one of our roommates was a girl -- worked at the Gaslight. Can't recall where Mike, our 4th roomy, worked.

We all worked and we all cooked, sort of.

Ed specialized in Italian and Mexican. I was a two trick pony when my turn to cook came around: veggies and tofu or pepper steak. We bought our food cheap at the local coop.

Our favorite beer was Haffenreffer available even to the underaged at $5/case, aka Green Death.

One day my girlfriend got the idea to apply for food stamps so we all did. I received a book of stamps. To my eternal shame I purchased among other items steak from a market in Sunderland that I brought to my girlfriend's parents' home in Ashland. I guess I wanted to show off. I had to tell her father that I bought the steak with food stamps and he got angry with me. He was a good man. Though entitled to another year of food stamps I never collected any more. The $250 car I drove to get there I bought cash with money from a job I worked before college. When my parents died 20 years ago I inherited $80,000.

Last night I'm at Ocean State Job Lots in Waltham to buy tarps for $2.95. I could go to Home Depot and pay $8 but that, in my view, is wasteful. Mine is the only BMW in the parking lot. Judging by the dress code I'd guess I was in the company of men and woman who are not there for a bargain but for what they can afford.

Ran into an acquaintance at Target last week who immediately went to lengths to explain that he did not need to shop there but chose to.

How did each of us arrive at our situation? How did I arrive at mine? How did each of us get where we are? How much by luck? How much by effort?

The forbidden conversation in the United States is about culture and class and luck and what it takes to make good luck: hard work.

Is Walmart a cause or an effect of the American political economy?

Good question. I was trying to come up with a way of saying the same thing. I believe Walmart as we know it today(vs Sam Walton days) is at least partly an effect of political decisions on Welfare and immigration in the past. While they would still exist as a company and be thriving, they might possibly not be quite as huge without things going the way they did. Its not as if they planned it that way but rather played the game to the best of their ability, as is their job. But its our job to push back when necessary and not to let that threaten our very economic existence. The trend of more and more people on government assistance isn't healthy. How do we reverse it?

[GRG55]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Maybe we should be arguing about monopoly.

The Parker Brothers game? Or the completely non-existent "monopoly" in USA consumer retail? There's a reason that most goods are cheaper in the USA than practically anywhere else in the world. Competition.

And if you look at WalMart's latest financials and outlook you'll see they have plenty of it...

[flintlock]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Well you just mentioned one of my other favorites. We buy more things at Amazon than any place else. BTW we also like Dollar General and Dollar Tree. You can buy 6 frozen soft pretzels (one of my big weaknesses) for $1 plus tax. Even better than ALDIs. Dollar General sells the same basic pretzels (different label) for $1.29. No one else is close.

Same here. By far Amazon.com gets majority of my money. Way too convenient! Free streaming video. Shows up at my door in two days. Items in stock. No surly employees to face. No commissioned salesman pushing me to buy a warranty. If i have a problem just send it back at their expense. I can email them and get an articulate response. I even sell items of my own there. Dont know for a fact but I would bet the average employee does a lot better there than at Walmart. How can that be possible?(sarcasm)Retail just does not make sense for some things anymore. I even buy some electrical parts there for my business. Saves time and they have things in stock unlike local suppliers. Usually cheaper too.

[GRG55]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Same here. By far Amazon.com gets majority of my money. Way too convenient!

Thank-you gentlemen. I rest my case.

And given the trajectory of its business outlook, and what you both have said here about your changing shopping habits, it should not surprise anybody if WalMart's domestic employee levels go into decline as it tries to cut costs further to compete.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Almost all Walmart debates are proxies for debates about the larger economy itself. When I lived in Japan you could get in a Walmart cab which took you to the Walmart bus line that stopped in front of a….Walmart and the coupons on the bus gave you discounts at the Walmart pharmacy.

America will probably never have a zaibatsu economy, but it might get a few steps closer with Amazon.

Five companies are making shoes in Arkansas. Sam Walton goes to one and says, “I’ll buy and sell more of your shoes than you ever dreamed of and you will still make a ton of money, but you have to lower your prices.” And, years later there’s one shoe company. Competition?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

I wish we had a Sams or Costco. Instead we have the third rate BJs. High prices and low selection. Sometimes I buy pants at Walmart for work. Ones that I will trash anyway. Some Camping gear. But you have to be careful as manufacturers will sell special Walmart only products there that are not always up to snuff but still carry a brand name. I find their TVs to be anything but competitive price wise. Tried to buy an Iphone there once and literally could not get anyone who knew how to. This is a megastore. Nobody there who could do it. Like I said, I'm no Walmart hater. They just seem like the typical big impersonal store to me. Its all about price with no pursuit of excellence at anything. I hate shopping so I'm willing to pay a few bucks more for lower hassle.

Cashiers at Costco make over $15 on average. Cashiers at Aldi make over $11 on average. Both are profitable retail outlets. But they won't be putting an entire extended family up at the top of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list any time soon. Amazon is even more confusing. They have never turned a quarter's profit. Maybe they never will. Just use market cap to fund underselling the competition and lose money day after day is the business model. Not to say the service isn't great and it's not incredibly convenient. But it does lead to absurdities. There are things you can get shipped for free from China that cost less than a US postage stamp. I tend to be frugal myself. I'll drop into a Job Lot, just like EJ, and stock up on seltzer and whatever other consumable odd or end is needed at the house. I found a bunch of Russian bars of Dove soap that hadn't been shrunk like the American product for less than the equivalent product in latin letters. Cool stuff. But I do find myself moving towards Amazon purchases more and more, which isn't a company known for treating its workers too well either.

That's the crux of the neoliberal dilemma, isn't it? We want cheap crap. We want decent middle class wages. Some places like Costco and Aldi seem to offer a way for us to have our cake and eat it too, although small biz retail folks may not be happy about it. For me, I can go to an Aldi or a Costco, but it's usually a traffic-ridden 25 minute drive. So I don't. And I know I probably should. So I just click that Amazon button again. At least I still shop in the local one-store grocer. But I suppose my point is that Aldi's prices are pretty low. So are Costco's. They can afford to pay employees a bit more. Costco also has only half the profit margin of Walmart. I think it's something like 3.4% to 1.7%. And they have fewer employees per store. The formula's not so easy. Retail margins are narrow. But remember when Wal Mart talked about opening up the smaller versions of itself in urban areas? They started doing it a little bit. Then they got into rows with city councils. Over and over again. They have such a miserly reputation in relation to their workforce that places like DC preemptively try to impose higher wages on them. So they just leave those markets alone. It would seem to me that they might do even more volume (hard to imagine, I know), if they'd just taper the margin a little bit and give way slightly on wages to the point they are not riddled constantly with bad press. Their supply chain management system is still industry-leading. Millions of new customers would even it out. If Machiavelli said it's better to be feared than loved or hated, the sons (and daughters) of Sam might have done well to take it to heart. Once your company is hated, even if only by a strong and loud minority, it is hard to undo the damage.

Also, flintlock, this one's for you:

[flintlock]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Thank-you gentlemen. I rest my case.

And given the trajectory of its business outlook, and what you both have said here about your changing shopping habits, it should not surprise anybody if WalMart's domestic employee levels go into decline as it tries to cut costs further to compete.

Havent they been on the decline? Or are they back? Sometimes I think its a case of "you can fool some of the people some of the time..." A lot of people have realized that there is something called value and it is not always all about price. You could say "even price has its price"! Also when Mexicans flowed back across the border during the recession, so did a lot of Walmart business. Dont know how much that has bounced back.

For me, the crappy shopping experience usually makes Walmart the last place I will shop. I just dont spend enough at any retail shop to justify it. I have no problem with people paying less. I Just realize it aint all a free lunch. We need to quit ignoring the rising number of "working poor" because they are not going to just go away meekly. I certainly dont claim to know the answer. I just point out the problems, I expect you smart guys to come up with the solutions.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

Almost all Walmart debates are proxies for debates about the larger economy itself. When I lived in Japan you could get in a Walmart cab which took you to the Walmart bus line that stopped in front of a….Walmart and the coupons on the bus gave you discounts at the Walmart pharmacy.

America will probably never have a zaibatsu economy, but it might get a few steps closer with Amazon.

Five companies are making shoes in Arkansas. Sam Walton goes to one and says, “I’ll buy and sell more of your shoes than you ever dreamed of and you will still make a ton of money, but you have to lower your prices.” And, years later there’s one shoe company. Competition?

Yes there is lots of competition. Amazon, Dollar General (also with a great distribution system), Dollar Tree, ALDIs among others are competitors. I also buy at Big Lots and at my Tennesee Cabin, Save A Lot. And of course there is always Target.

[vt]

Re: Walmart holds Food Drive for its Own Employees

EJ,

This remind me of my 13 months as a Vista Volunteer in 1971-72.

We were paid $75 a month and had to support ourselves on that (My first full time job in 1973 paid $750 a month for entry level),
Three of us managed to rent a two bedroom apartment (one slept in the living room on a fold a bed) in a rural area. Our neighbors were all poor.

I read the food stamp program started in 1964, but I didn't know it existed and don't know if my poor neighbors knew either.

You make do, just as those around you do so. Somehow a few get enough to get drunk, to some how get a used car (no other way to get a to a job 50 miles way). to get an old country home with many residents, or a trailer.

I know poverty; when you see it up close it stays with you. My wife was a single mother for 20 years until I married her. She was homeless for a couple of weeks and hardly ate for a few. I also took in her single mom sister and her nephew. The family sticks together and strives to breakout.

What's the solution? Not this:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...to-show-for-it

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...y-program-buck

The only way is to create new industries, new jobs, new careers. How do we do so? Government? Industry?

Either way governments have spent trillions and little has been gained.