Wal Mart.. Good or Evil

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Ok.. We all know wal mart has great prices, huge selections, and a friendly atmosphere.. So who all is a fan of this corporation?? Before you answer there are a few things Iv discovered from various articles in newspapers and things I have had to read for school.

So how do are they able to sell items at such a reduced cost?

1. They pay there employees far less than most other retail / grocery store locations. They also do not offer benefits to very many of there employees.

2. They pressure suppliers, once a supplier is dependent on Wal Mart, they then demand that they sell them the product for a much cheaper cost or they will simply find another vendor to supply them the same product.

3. They employee illegal immigrants. (they claim they didnt know, and some of these people were actually part of a cleaning organization, but never the less)

4. They continue to get further and further from the original idea of buying American as they import nearly twice as much from china as they did before.

Here are a few links to things I have read.. I coudlnt find them all again.. but have a look for yourself..

Wal Mart Evicts Good Will

What Price Wal Mart

Is Wal Mart To Powerfull

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

I rlly dont care.....it's a buisness, they do what they need to to survive and make lotsa cash.

 

[mtxblau]

I'm against Walmart - they fund anti-choice/women groups on top of these other practices.

But hey, it's affordable. But in the meantime, it's killing other businesses.

Their market plan, though, isn't dissimilar to what Nintendo did in the '80s and '90s.

 

[Gallstaff]

Let them do what they want as long as I can buy my gamecube games there

 

[it290]

Wal-Mart is definitely evil. And everyone tends to have that 'who cares, as long as they're cheap' attitude until it affects them in some way. And it does affect a lot of people, whether it's due to businesses being evicted because a walmart is being built on their spot, or being forced out of business due to anti-competitive practices. They also do everything they can to crush unions.

It's not 'what they can do to survive'- Wal-Mart's strategy is one of complete domination. They're already the biggest retailer in the USA and one of the biggest employers, which means they have enormous power in both industry and government. This lets them build practically wherever they want and also do whatever the hell they want internally. They've already stated that they want RFID tags on all products they sell within a couple years, which is going to be a significant change (and one that could affect your privacy).

I've been boycotting them for the past six or seven years, and I don't plan on changing that practice any time soon.

 

[Gallstaff]

No offence but they're walmart, do you honestly think if a few thousand people boycott it'll shut them down?

And wtf is an RFID tag?

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Yes one thing i forgot to mention above is how they pick and chose what items they are going to sell.. You may say who cares its there store.. they can sell what they want.. while this is true if in the future wal mart becomes such a dominating retail store that there is practically nowhere else to shop do u really want Wal mart telling you what you can and cant buy?

You may not care today.. but something may happen that will make you care in the future.

Its all just something to think about.. and something that i feel is over looked by many people..

 

[stack99]

no amount of boycotting will ever stop any big business, however, the gloomy fact that we all might face, is walmart "evil" or not, has been cornering the "cheap store" market, by killing its competition and forcing them to eventually shut down... now right now there are like 3 major "discount" chains, walmart, target and some (not many) kmarts (at least where I am on the east coast) however, soon if walmart keeps going the way it has... there might be only one "discount chain" left, and then walmart would have no reason to lower prices and could go back to charging "normal" prices.... all I am saying is that this is basic economics... if you wipe out the competition you can control and dictate the market trend. I think someday we might miss all the stores that wallmart has killed.... we just might...

 

[aaron]

if no one boycotts them, then they sure as shit won't shut down. duh.

and no a few thousand people boycotting wal-mart wont' make them shut down, but that's not the goal. the goal would be to get them to back off a bit, i suppose.

did you know that Lowe's is a wal-mart corporation? and that sam's club is a registered automotive dealership in several states? what this means is that WM is trying to be the only store you'll ever need for anything. you can buy materials to build your house (you can even buy the land from wal-mart's real estate division, it exists) at Lowe's, you can buy yourself a car from Sam's club, and you can furnish your house, clothe and feed your family all through one company.

if this doesn't bother you, you're fucked.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

RFID Tags

Here is a brief article on these things

In summary they are small microchips that could soon be in anything that transmit information via a radio frequency. They require no power because they wait to hear a certain frequency then use the power from the intial transmition to send back data.

 

[dibz]

I hate wal-mart. They fired me for being Schizophrenic. Fuckers.

 

[Gallstaff]

That seems like a good reason....

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

schizowhat? what's that? I am guessing a disibility of some sort? sue....

 

[Gallstaff]

Multiple personalities

 

[mtxblau]

Originally posted by Gallstaff@Jan 21, 2004 @ 06:20 AM

Multiple personalities

Ah, no. That's something completely different.

 

[mtxblau]

Originally posted by dibz@Jan 21, 2004 @ 06:03 AM

I hate wal-mart. They fired me for being Schizophrenic. Fuckers.

That is a major offense. You'd certainly have a case.

 

[Gallstaff]

Not according to my medical dictionary

 

[ExCyber]

Your medical dictionary sucks. Schizophrenia as a distinct diagnosis is over a century old and heavily-researched (though not particularly well-understood, like most psychological illnesses), while it is not widely accepted among psychologists that multiple personailty disorder (aka dissociative identity disorder) even really exists.

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

so what exactly is it? I am confused....is it multiple personalities?

 

[mtxblau]

A medical dictionary would say that? That's a huge oversimplification, and a wrong one at that.

A simple answer is that it's a disease of the brain. People hear voices, or see people that don't exist, feel like they're being persecuted, etc. Other versions of schizophrenia causes those with it to essentially have no affect - that is, no emotions, movements, etc. They'll sit or lay for hours on end, simply not moving. Speech is affected, rendered sometimes incomprehensible.

MPD on the other hand is several people living in one body, in layman's terms. Each personality exists independent of the other personality - the patient does not know what the other personality knows (but may be aware of the existence of another personality). It's theorized that MPD arises under severe stress and intense withdrawl, but as ExCyber said, it may not even exist - rather, it may be manic-depressive/bi-polar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, among other things.

In sum, schizophrenia and MPD are nothing alike. In pop-culture, schizophrenia is usually referred to as 'talking to oneself' (although from the exercise we can gather the patient thinks they are actually talking to someone).

And gallstaff, throw that book away.