Do you think Wal-Mart is evil?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, November 27, 2005 20:12
VIEWED: 21084
PAGE 10 of 17
Oh yes. I would gladly wish them out of work. If that's evil, well then I have one question, does evil take mastercharge?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Mastercard is just another division of Evil Inc
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
It was a buffy:faith quote
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:As quick as I am to point out the 'evils' of a corporation, I am also glad to hear a positive story like this; Wal-Mart employs people, most of them good, and this is proof on the individual store level.
Originally posted by SpaceRacer:
Wal-Mart took her back the day she was ready.
Thanks.
Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Police: Wal-Mart site raided
Quote:
About 125 arrested on immigration violations at Pennsylvania construction location. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - A raid by federal, state and local authorities at a Wal-Mart Stores construction site in Pennsylvania netted about 125 arrests for alleged immigration violations.
Schuylkill County Capt. Dennis Kane confirmed the raid to CNN. USA Today reported that the workers were working on a million-square-foot distribution center in Butler Township, in eastern Pennsylvania.
Kane said immigrants who were arrested were taken to nearby Philadelphia. The county police worked in conjunction with Pennsylvania state police and federal immigration agents, he said.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/18/news/fortune500/walmart_raid/index.htm
?cnn=yes
This isn't the first time that Walmart has been cited for immigration violations, and not the first time that Walmart has broken labor laws.
---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
On the subject of whether Wal-Mart is capitalist or socialist, I don't think it qualifies as capitalist any more.
Indeed, Wal-Mart is the beneficiary of direct government largesse at every level.
Consider, that when it opens its stores, it generally negotiates tax holidays, site servicing, land grants or leases with the local municipalities and governments.
Well, here's the thing. It costs money to set up a site for Wal Mart, to ensure that it is serviced with electricity, sewer and water connections, etc. These Big Box store locations are extremely expensive to municipalities in terms of servicing, simply because they suck up large amounts of square feet in empty locations and often have large but erratic consumption. So basically, every time one of these big box stores opens up, its costs are being subsidized by the homeowners and working people in the town, who are not being asked if they want to assume this burden. It's not pay as you go.
But it gets worse. Wal-Mart, using its 'brand' and often using pressure tactics and a variety of legal and extralegal bribes, often gets its land and services for free, and often negotiates tax holidays.
Which means that the local tax base is screwed further. Not only are tax payers subsidizing the whole of Wal-Mart's establishment, but they municipality is lacking the fair property taxes that Wal-Mart should have paid. Now, if other businesses had moved in, they would have paid taxes. Wal-Mart means that the town's budget shows a real loss. To make up that loss, two things happen, services and quality of services decline, and the tax burden gets heavy on those who have not negotiated sweetheart deals... ie, the average homeowner.
It gets worse of course, because Wal-Mart frequently wipes out local businesses who are tax payers. As they go down, the tax base actually declines, as Wal-Mart enjoys its free ride.
Wal-Mart has also proven very good at sucking up government money in various ways. Its estimated that each Wal-Mart store receives a half a million dollars a year in employee subsidies in one form or another. Half a million a year per store is not small change. Programs which were designed for the needy, the destitute, designed to help people turn their lives around, are being manipulated by Wal-Mart to improve its bottom line. By shoving its costs and employee expenses onto the government, rather than paying it themselves, Wal-Mart becomes a government subsidized operation.
Now, I'll ask you as a taxpayer, do you feel happy that your tax dollars are going towards subsidizing a giant corporation that gives its execs million dollar bonuses?
And of course, do you think that Chinese slave labour goods arrive magically on America's shores? No. Wal-Mart lobbies for labour laws and trade laws that serve its own interests, and spends a great deal of money to do it. Government acts for Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart acts for government. Only the working guy is screwed.
Now, reading quickly over this thread, I've noticed that some dicklover feels the need to disparage liberals and the left. Well, I'm a Canadian, I've worked all my life, I've paid mortgages, run my own business and worked for others, I've always paid my own way and I've helped people where I can. Let me say that the problem with American liberalism is that they lack guts, but that's a forgiveable sin. The problem with the American right is that they're a bunch of self-pitying, dishonest whiners who, as far as I can tell, don't know what real work is, and don't know what real values are. Now, I ain't really interested in making this a big grand political debate, I'm just setting out where I'm from.
So Wal-Mart make a lot of money? Good for them. Its easy to make a lot of money when you don't play by the rules, when you cheat and rob people. Ask any crack dealer.
The fact of the matter is that I expect any company to pay its fair share of taxes, I expect it to obey the law... Wal-Mart does neither.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Should also be pointed out that lots of businesses get "sweetheart deals" from local government. I know someone commented elsewhere about the use of eminient domain law by some cities to buy people's homes and then sell the land to some business in a sweetheart deal. I think that's just plain wrong. IF the city needs land for public works, schools, roads etc it MAY have some rights to do that (which is why "fair compansation" is in the US Constitution) BUT improving your tax base is not a good enough excuse IMHO.
And what is it with sports teams? In the US sports francises are money making machines, why should cities and their tax payers foot the bill for building stadiums etc? Especially in cases like here in Dallas with the Rangers where the team gets to keep the building???
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
These are all the definitions of socialism in the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary. As you can see, oddly none of them apply to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is not an economic or political theory. It does not advocate state ownership or control of private property or the means of production. It was never even mentioned by Marx. It is not a 20th century English or German theory or totalitarianism. In fact, it is a complete misuse of the word to claim that Wal-Mart is socialist.
socialism n.
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
guild socialism n.
: an early 20th century English socialistic theory advocating state ownership of industry with control and management by guilds of workers
national socialism n.
: NAZISM
state socialism n.
: an economic system with limited socialist characteristics introduced by usually gradual political action
utopian socialism n.
: socialism based on a belief that social ownership of the means of production can be achieved by voluntary and peaceful surrender of their holdings by propertied groups
-------------
Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Valdron,
Hear hear! Well put. Also, Walmart interferes in local politics to set up such a support system.
Too bad no one drowned it in the bathtub when it was still small.
Now things have definitely gotten out of hand. Captialist? Socialist? I don't know, this has hellmouth written all over it, I think perhaps we should consider sending a slayer after it now. Maybe two. Faith tactics might just be the order of the day.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Got a camera?
Great. Here's me giving a rat's ass for half baked dictionary definitions of socialism.
Wal-Mart and its ilk is the oldest kind of socialism, which is the socialism that involves
the rich and powerful manipulating the system to enrich themselves further. Specifically, by getting the rest of us saps to subsidize them or just transfer our tax money directly to them.
If you want a name for it, call it corporate socialism.
As for my creed, I subscribe to the cause of common sense, which sadly enough, ain't all that common.
As for Wal-Mart, I imagine that it'll eventually go the way these sorts of critters always do. It'll load up on debt, buying everyone and everything in sight, then it'll make a bunch of bad management decision, then after its well and truly wrecked and polluted the landscape, it'll have a crisis, hold its shoppers and employees hostage and demand that government bail it out.
Worked for General Motors, didn't work for Enron, and won't work for anyone in the long run.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME