Abomb-baby said:
What about all the poor and working poor who shop there because if they didn't they literally wouldn't be able to make ends meet from month to month. Why is it any different going there as opposed to going to a small independent record store that only pays minimum wage and doesn't have a union? Am I missing something here? Wal-Mart has created 1000's of jobs that would have otherwise NOT been created. Besides, Most retail Unions are fairly impotent. I mean, its not really hard to find someone to stock a shelf or ring a cash register. A strike threat is an empty threat...
I agree with this. Some people just don't have the perspective.
Wal Mart has become the villain because of cheap prices that put smaller businesses under.
They can charge less, because they can buy more volume.
They can buy more volume because they have the money.
How did they make that money?
By starting like everyone of those poor 'mom and pop' chains that everybody feels so insufferably sorry for.
How did a farmer like Sam Walton become so bloody god damn rich?
First, he built stores, paid his employees better and had better benefits compartively. Then he started pricing low, making minimal profit initially. He made the big money when he expanded. Volume.
So he starts to make money, starts buying in volume, so he can sell cheaper. 1-not only is this a service to the less fortunate to be able to buy products that don't have fucking ridiculous profit margins (including some of those mom and pop stores) but 2-it's also a pure business strategy. So yeah he is a big bad capitalist, but he's also giving more back to the communties than Joe and Fred's Dsicount store on the corner because they can offer better product. Tell Joe and Fred to find another business, that's the way it works, fortunately or unfortunately. Joe and Fred are concerned about their own wallets and their 8 employees, why should I give a shit?
The difference between them and Sam Walton was pricing, always was and always will remain. Nobody can compete now with Wal Mart because they didn't grab that market share. Don't you see? He started off giving back to the people. Maybe we don't all admire everything that Wal Mart does, but why shoud I feel sorry for Joe BLow because he can't compete with Wal-Mart? You are not ENTITLED to run a successful business in this country.
Any company, Sears, Target who the hell ever could have done the same. They have been left in the dust because they wre more greedy, that is the truth. Wal Mart is a big bad evil empire because it was created by the needs of the marketplace, just like Microsoft, not by some dark hand of capitalism.
Consequently, all Wal Mart has done is create jobs, in a time when GM and other corporations are sending manufacturing jobs overseas. The service industry still is feasible because of places like Walmart.
It's like the moron geeks who bitch about Bill Gates and Microsoft, all he did was make something that everybody in the world wanted to own. You can't please everybody, especially those with no fucking perspective at all.
I find this thread at the same time that they announce the closing of GM plants across the country. In addition to thousands of other jobs that have vanished up into the stratosphere, where the big corporate fatcats are cashing their same checks, meanwhile giving the working class the middle finger. And yet people bitch about fucking Wal Mart. Maybe we should be bitching about how fucking congressmen across the board sold out our working class years ago, and now one of the few refuges for the blue collar worker is being lambasted. Makes sense.
Not only do these people who just got laid off need to find work, who knows they may end up working at Wal Mart for substantially less money, but it's about as secure as anything else short of a professional desk job.
I can tell you they will probably be shopping at Wal Mart, because there is nothing principled about taking a stand against the big bad evil Wal Mart when you struggle to feed your family and yourself.