Wal-Mart haters, take a look at this

[Thomas Veil]

An interesting article from TomPaine.com about how CostCo stores are succeeding and posting a healthy profit by not doing it the Wal-Mart way.

But the great piece of reporting (and public service) that Holmes and Zellner perform is that they actually run the numbers and get beyond the rhetoric. They compare Costco to Wal-Mart's Sam's Club, the unit with which it directly competes. Costco, which has about a 20 percent unionization rate, pays workers 40 percent more than Sam's Club and gives them comparatively superior benefits (for example, health care and profit-sharing plans) to Sam's Club.

Costco, surprise, has a lower turnover rate and a far higher rate of productivity: it almost equaled Sam's Club's annual sales last year with one-third fewer employees. Only six percent of Costco's employees leave each year, compared to 21 percent at Sam's. And, by every financial measurement, the company does better. Its operating income was higher than Sam's Club, as was operating profit per hourly employees, sales per square foot and even its labor and overhead costs. Here's a quote to emblazon for corporate America: "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business," says Costco CEO James D. Sinegal.

Full article. (http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10226)

Think Wall Street will pick up on this idea? Will American business realize that you can't simply cut and layoff your way to profitability? That if you put more dollars into people's pockets, they can buy more things, thus stimulating the economy?

Think they'll finally get it??

Me neither.

[IJ Reilly]

Think they'll finally get it??

Me neither.

Oh I see, it's a rhetorical question...

No, I don't think they'll get it. And why should they? Their entire business plan, and a wildly successful one at that, is predicated on treating human beings as accounting units, both here where they sell things, and abroad where they have them made. You might as well hope that Microsoft will suddenly decide to stop violating antitrust laws. Put them both in the category "ain't gonna happen."

[Taft]

Oh I see, it's a rhetorical question...

No, I don't think they'll get it. And why should they? Their entire business plan, and a wildly successful one at that, is predicated on treating human beings as accounting units, both here where they sell things, and abroad where they have them made. You might as well hope that Microsoft will suddenly decide to stop violating antitrust laws. Put them both in the category "ain't gonna happen."

I think the problem is corporations with too much power. I read a Slashdot post (I know, what a traitor I am hanging out with the linux community. Shock! Gasp!) yesterday which I think hits the nail on the head.

Rather than plagiarize it, I'll post it here for your perusal. It is in reference to Microsoft and how they are starting to look at court costs and settlements for all of their illegal tactics as just the cost of doing business. Enjoy.

Taft


Revoke their corporate charter.

Corporations are not people. They are a legal fiction granted by the state for the purpose of shielding investors from liability. This is necessary and proper when a project is so big that investors can't be expected to be responsible for day-to-day operations.

A long time ago, probably when we still spelled jail "gaol", we would revoke a corporation's right to exist if it exceeded its rights as set out in their charter. Then after a bit of judicial activism, corporations became "people". They don't have the right to vote, but have the right to free expression. They can lobby the government that gave them the right to exist to change the laws. And most importantly, we no longer believe we have authority over these creatures.

Many corporations, if the "three strikes and you're out" principles were enforced would be abolished. Corporations routinely get away with murder, or at the very least criminal negligence causing death. I'm not making this stuff, or saying it to be inflammatory. Remember Bhopal? There are many more examples [uneptie.org]. And how about Thalidomide [thalidomide.ca]? Tobacco companies whose executives consistently lied? Often the corporation only gets fined or settles out of court.

Microsoft could probably be split into smaller units with little harm to investors and no layoffs. The only thing that would be sacrificed would be the legal fiction of Microsoft.

The question is, how long will we allow these serially criminal entities to operate unchecked? How long until we recognize that sovereignty means we can re-assert our rights and dissolve them?

[SlyHunter]

If Wal-mart didn't have a good business plan that made their stock holders allot of money they wouldn't hire as many people as they do and the unemployment rate would be higher. It is not the employers fault if people don't train themselves so that they can qualify for jobs that takes real skills and instead end up at places like Wal-mart. If you want higher pay then go out and get higher level skills so you are worth that higher pay.

[IJ Reilly]

Rather than plagiarize it, I'll post it here for your perusal. It is in reference to Microsoft and how they are starting to look at court costs and settlements for all of their illegal tactics as just the cost of doing business. Enjoy.

Thanks. Sure, I've known this for a long time. Microsoft's number one goal has historically been the elimination of competitors, and they'll do it by any means available, legal or otherwise. They've been paying off violated companies since the mid-1980s. Stak, Apple, Sun, Netscape, the list goes on and on.

[blackfox]

If Wal-mart didn't have a good business plan that made their stock holders allot of money they wouldn't hire as many people as they do and the unemployment rate would be higher. It is not the employers fault if people don't train themselves so that they can qualify for jobs that takes real skills and instead end up at places like Wal-mart. If you want higher pay then go out and get higher level skills so you are worth that higher pay.
All people have a right to not have to live in poverty and to the dignity that goes with that...just because people do not have specialized skills does not mean they have nothing to offer...I applaud CostCo...

[SlyHunter]

All people have a right to not have to live in poverty and to the dignity that goes with that...just because people do not have specialized skills does not mean they have nothing to offer...I applaud CostCo...
Where did you read that in the constitution? Or the bible even?

[takao]

Where did you read that in the constitution? Or the bible even?

hm you put the bible on the same level as the constitiution of a country ?

how many constitutions are there world wide ? a few hundreds ? do you know them all ?

perhaps it was only his own personal opinion or just ethical thinking ?

[wwworry]

If Wal-mart didn't have a good business plan that made their stock holders allot of money they wouldn't hire as many people as they do and the unemployment rate would be higher. It is not the employers fault if people don't train themselves so that they can qualify for jobs that takes real skills and instead end up at places like Wal-mart. If you want higher pay then go out and get higher level skills so you are worth that higher pay.

walmart has a good plan for the people that own walmart. just look at the ten richest people in America, I think five of them are Waltons. Isn't it odd that the richest people in America pay their employees like crap?

Why do you think Walmart has a positive effect on jobs in America. My understanding is that they put a lot of local stores out of business and most of the stuff they sell is made in China.

Also there will always be poor people in America. It's the nature of the system. Rather than blaming people for being poor maybe we could be educating them and providing good public transportation, or are you against public transportation and education?

[Desertrat]

Aw, now, wwworry, you can do better than "Rather than blaming people for being poor maybe we could be educating them and providing good public transportation, or are you against public transportation and education?"

Seems to me that our public education system is pretty much available to every kid, and those kids whose parents really care seem to do fairly well. The problem sure isn't availability or money per student.

Public transportation? Please define it as you see it, and give us a structure. How would you route any of it, and how are the costs borne?

:), 'Rat

[skunk]

Seems to me that our public education system is pretty much available to every kid, and those kids whose parents really care seem to do fairly well. The problem sure isn't availability or money per student.

Public transportation? Please define it as you see it, and give us a structure. How would you route any of it, and how are the costs borne?

:), 'Rat
A little complacent on the education front, I think. Other countries seem to manage public transportation. There's plenty of dosh over there, it's just all being spent on your crazily overfunded war machine.

[SlyHunter]

A little complacent on the education front, I think. Other countries seem to manage public transportation. There's plenty of dosh over there, it's just all being spent on your crazily overfunded war machine.
overfunded war machine?

U.S. military forces were cut to their lowest levels since before the Korean War. And while America's remaining military forces operated at a high tempo, it was on humanitarian missions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, earning the term "foreign policy as social work."

By President Bill Clinton's second term, the incompetence of the international institutions he had earlier championed as founts of legitimacy was becoming apparent. NATO was substituted for the UN as the vehicle for action in the Balkans, and the U.S. launched a unilateral missile strike on suspected Iraqi WMD sites in 1998. Yet, as late as 1999, President Clinton was still claiming, "perhaps for the first time in history, the world's leading nations are not engaged in a struggle with each other for security or territory. The world clearly is coming together."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12995

I would use the term underfunded myself.

[pseudobrit]

A little complacent on the education front, I think. Other countries seem to manage public transportation. There's plenty of dosh over there, it's just all being spent on your crazily overfunded war machine.

Ironically, (or perhaps it's damnatory) if you join the military, the government does pay for your education.

[Sun Baked]

Wal-Mart, a Nation Unto Itself (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/arts/17WALM.html)

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE -- Published: April 17, 2004

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., April 13 — We already know that Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer. (If it were an independent nation, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner.) We also know that it is maniacal about low prices. (Some economists say it has single-handedly cut inflation by 1 percent in recent years, saving consumers billions of dollars annually.) We know that its labor practices have come under attack. (It charges its workers so much for health insurance that about one-third of them do not have it.)

But the more than 250 sociologists, anthropologists, historians and other scholars who gathered at the University of California here on Monday for a conference on Wal-Mart came looking for more than the company's vital statistics. Like archaeologists who pick over artifacts to understand an ancient society, the scholars here were examining Wal-Mart for insights into the very nature of American capitalist culture. As Susan Strasser, a history professor at the University of Delaware, said, "Wal-Mart has come to represent something that's even bigger than it is."

Indeed, with $256 billion in annual sales and 20 million shoppers visiting its stores each day, Wal-Mart has greater reach and influence than any retailer in history. "In each historical epoch a prototypical enterprise seems to embody a new and innovative set of economic structures and social relationships," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California here and the organizer of the conference. "These template businesses are emulated because they have put in place, indeed perfected for their era, the most efficient and profitable relationship between the technology of production, the organization of work and the new shape of the market."

In the 19th century, he said, the standard-setting company was the Pennsylvania Railroad; in the mid-20th century, it was General Motors; and in the late 20th century, it was Microsoft. Today's prototypical company, he declared in opening the conference, is Wal-Mart, which, he said, rezones American cities, sets wage standards and even conducts diplomacy with other nations.

"In short, the company's management legislates for the rest of us key components of American social and industrial policy," Mr. Lichtenstein said.

Wal-Mart has created a very different model from General Motors, he added, noting that G.M. helped build the world's most affluent middle class by paying wages far above the average and by providing generous health and pension plans. Mr. Lichtenstein said G.M.'s wage pattern spurred other companies to raise compensation levels, while Wal-Mart's relatively low wages and benefits — its workers average less than $18,000 a year — were doing just the opposite.

The company's pay scale and hard-nosed labor practices, said Simon Head, a fellow at the Century Foundation and author of "The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age" (Oxford University Press, 2003) mean that "Wal-Mart is certainly a template of 21st-century capitalism, but a capitalism that increasingly resembles a capitalism of 100 years ago." He added, "It combines the extremely dynamic use of technology with a very authoritarian and ruthless managerial culture."

[delete to end]

[zimv20]

I would use the term underfunded myself.
the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined spends on its military. if you still think it's underfunded, so be it.

[SlyHunter]

the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined spends on its military. if you still think it's underfunded, so be it.
Our troops are underpaid allot of them believe it or not actually collect wellfare.
And time and time again I heard Democrats complain that we didn't send enough troops into Iraq to do the job right. Well where were we suppose to get all these extra troops after Clinton shrunk the military like they did. We use to have a large enough army where there was no doubt we could defend ourselves from any attack from any country. Not anymore.

[pseudobrit]

We use to have a large enough army where there was no doubt we could defend ourselves from any attack from any country. Not anymore.

If $400B+ a year won't defend you from any attack, I'd hate to see what it would cost to be at such a level. Would you support a $2 trillion/year military budget if it meant we were at such a level of readiness?

[thatwendigo]

overfunded war machine?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12995

I would use the term underfunded myself.

Oh, that's a laugh. David Horrowit'z little Conservative rag as a believable source? You might as well have been throwing the PR announcements of Baghdad Bob at us, for all the credibility he has.

Our troops are underpaid allot of them believe it or not actually collect wellfare.

Blame Congressional and Pentagon pork, and administration corporate kickbacks, if you must blam anything at all. We maintain the world's largest military budget, and it's bigger than the next fifteen countries combined.

And time and time again I heard Democrats complain that we didn't send enough troops into Iraq to do the job right. Well where were we suppose to get all these extra troops after Clinton shrunk the military like they did. We use to have a large enough army where there was no doubt we could defend ourselves from any attack from any country. Not anymore.

When? How many?

Show me some figures here. How many troops, and at what cost, can we "defend ourself from any attack from any country?"

[Dippo]

Our troops are underpaid allot of them believe it or not actually collect wellfare.

I can't believe that. Do you have any proof?

My father is in the military and he gets paid pretty well and he's not even an officer. Of course I am all for military raises :D

[skunk]

We use to have a large enough army where there was no doubt we could defend ourselves from any attack from any country. Not anymore.
This is nonsense. What you have is an offence budget, not a defence budget. You want to be able to attack any country in the world. Defence is MUCH cheaper.

[takao]

SlyHunter , the USA spends more on defence than all other 15 NATO countries together....and the american soldier is (AFAIK) the best payed soldier in the world

how much does a normal private,corporal,sergeant earn ? the salery of an MZ ("Militärperson auf Zeit" = service with limited time) _here_ i would consider as a joke in normal life

untill your a seargent you earn a few hundred euros...
as a private we got ~238 euros a month but we were only conspripts,
as private first class i got ~282 euros
1.5k for staff sergeant
a leutnant starts at 1.6k euro a month

the US Forces are far from being underpaid or underfunded sorry :rolleyes:

[pseudobrit]

Our troops are underpaid allot of them believe it or not actually collect wellfare.

Maybe we should sterilise our troops so they stop having children they can't afford.

[SlyHunter]

SlyHunter , the USA spends more on defence than all other 15 NATO countries together....and the american soldier is (AFAIK) the best payed soldier in the world

how much does a normal private,corporal,sergeant earn ? the salery of an MZ ("Militärperson auf Zeit" = service with limited time) _here_ i would consider as a joke in normal life

untill your a seargent you earn a few hundred euros...
as a private we got ~238 euros a month but we were only conspripts,
as private first class i got ~282 euros
1.5k for staff sergeant
a leutnant starts at 1.6k euro a month

the US Forces are far from being underpaid or underfunded sorry :rolleyes:
As an E-4 I think I made about 600 bucks a month back in the early 1980's. But then I wasn't married didn't have kids and was able to eat in the commissary. I could blow thru that money without worrying about keeping some back to insure the rent or other expenses got paid for there were none. For the married E-4's things were diffent and they I don't think got paid more than 400 or so dollars a month than I did.

On a side note Ft. Polk had 4 homes reserved for Generals, all were empty while I was there and all were reported as being a yearly expense of 1 million bucks a year. That was back during the 1000 dollar toilet fiasco, I believe it was the Clinton years but that doesn't matter. They could have wasted less. Too many times we had to go without air filters for our radios, fuses, light bulbs, toilet paper (allot of privates forgot how to go to the grocery store and buy their own), etc simply because it was close to the end of the month and we weren't issued any new supply money till the next month.

[Sayhey]

Maybe we should sterilise our troops so they stop having children they can't afford.

I think that policy just might decrease the rate of soldiers who reenlist. It does bring together eugenics and world domination in a way that we haven't seen since the thirties. Might be a good idea. I'm sure SlyHunter will tell us if it is.

edit: SlyHunter, you keep using the word "allot" when you mean "a lot" - just thought I'd let you know.