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I wonder what kind of connection they had to the community.
I wonder what kind of friendships the owners and workers had with their customers.
I wonder what kind of donations they might have made to charity and local organizations.
Mom and pop stores generally tend to have closer ties to the community they are in and thus have greater benefits than just low prices. As opposed to corporate giants like Wal-Mart who usually force their way in and don't give a damn outside of the big customer base.
Also, you can't just say that the mom-and-pop stores deserve to be closed because they don't pay their workers low enough. Better they pay higher wages and keep their workers out of the income threshold for welfare, as well as giving them options for where to shop, as opposed to Walk-Mart who pays their workers low enough that they can get welfare and likely are forced to shop at their workplace as well due to low funds.
You will find that most of the mom and pop type shops did not trade stocks on Wall Street either like Walmart. The ones cheering for Walmart love the centralization of power on Wall Street.
The millions of mom and pop type shops across the country gave more power to local communities and small business.
Also, Walmart would not exist today as it does were it not for Communism in China. The average Chinese do not have the freedoms and rights to fight back against their exploitation unlike Americans.
The Walmart supporters want to turn us into Communist China where the average American has no freedoms and rights to fight back.
It is also ironic they spin this into a liberal issue and also claim that most of the poor are liberals, and most of the people shopping at Walmart are the poor. It does not compute.
It is not a right or left issue anyways, but one of what is best for our country.
The Walmart cheerleaders are only concerned what is best for their investment income.
The same type of people that almost brought the country down in 2008 because they were more concerned with fattening their wallets than the health of the nation.
Especially since our species is only here because we stopped roaming around, built communities, and worked together to better everyone's lives. Social Darwinism is a unique kind of irony. It says every man for himself but Darwin would tell you species who work together live longer and happier lives.
I'm pretty sure Wal Mart pays taxes to help pay for those things...
It used to be. Thinking conservatives like yourself understand this. But we've entered a time in American life where its all about what helps the individual over what is best for society. Conservatism used to balance the two. Not anymore.
Historical Conservatives were all for doing what was great for the country and their fellow Americans.
It is now all about how they can extract as much wealth out of their own countrymen and destroy the country in the process.
Walmart is bad because the business model it presents is both brutal and economically unsustainable, and because the spread of that model throughout the economy can eventually have disastrous effects.
What is their "business model? (if you know and can explain it)?
Why is it "brutal?" Why is it "economically unsustainable (Walmart has been around for a good many years)?
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Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
WalMart is able to deliver those low prices by paying miserable wages and offering few, if any, benefits.
Walmart "delivers" those low prices" by volume buying and operating on a very small mark-up (almost all retailing relies on a very small profit margin). The benefits Walmart offers are very good, and their health insurance plan was reported recently to exceed any "Obamacare" plan.
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Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
The more companies emulate Wal-Mart, the poorer Americans will get.
Explain how that works, when our dollars go farther at places like Walmart? We get more for our money.
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Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
People with little money can't buy very much, which ultimately slows economic growth.
Jobs and business expansion are what build economic growth. You have the cart before the horse.
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Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
Wall-Mart's massive market share also enables it to strong-arm suppliers into delivering goods at wholesale prices that are too low to be sustainable.
More rhetoric. I don't think you know what you are talking about. No one sells at prices that cause them to lose money.
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Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
Even producing goods in China costs something. Wal-Mart's unrelenting pressure to cut prices makes it harder and harder for its suppliers to make money.
If that were so, they wouldn't sell to Walmart, and Walmart would be out of business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
Wal-Mart also extorts tax subsidies from towns and cities desperate for jobs, and puts independent retailers out of business. This last is extremely important, because starting small businesses has long been an important path of upward mobility in this country.
Many towns and cities offer tax incentives to get businesses to locate there. They WANT Walmart. Walmart is good for a community, and Walmart supports the communities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogersParkGuy
In the short term, shopping at Wal-Mart may save you some money. But in the long term, the more the Wal-Mart model spreads the less prosperous we will all get.
Funny, we don't see that happening. When a Walmart goes in, many other businesses also open up around it. Walmart is a "magnet." It brings prosperity to an area.
You are full of baloney. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.
Out of curiosity: Do you have a background in marketing and sales? You don't seem to have an understanding of retailing (my wife spent many years in retailing for an upscale department store chain in Southern California. She was a General Manager ... worked her way up from sales associate.)
And who is the king of bailouts? Wasn't it Obama who orchestrated all those?
Bear Stearns - Bush 2008
Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac - Bush 2008
American International Group (A.I.G.) - Bush 2008
Auto Industry - Bush 2008
Troubled Asset Relief Program - Bush 2008
Citigroup - Bush 2008
No, buying cheaper goods is deflationary. If anything buying at WalMart will also make goods elsewhere cheaper.
Goods may or many not become cheaper, but there's a lot more in a person's personal budget than just goods.
For the record, I don't care how Wal-mart does their business, but it's absolute poison that a rich established corporation should get free incentive money from any government to do what is normally a part of their business.
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