on Walmart
 

Since we keep going back to the same old toon in the other thread. I'll move this topic.

Okay, I've always heard both arguments about Wal-Mart, either
1. That it stimulates the economy by providing low-priced goods and gives people better quality of life than they could otherwise afford, and that it employs people that frankly might not be employable in other settings
or that
2. It keeps prices artificially low by paying substandard wages, by encouraging part-time employment to avoid providing benefits, and that it decreases competition by maintaining these prices that no one else can match. There are also allegations that workers are expected to work off the clock, etc etc.

so, really smart people, what's the story?

Dunno, but Walmart is the only place we'll be able to buy the new AC/DC album.

AC/DC and Walmart

Okay, this gives me a chance to vent. I hate when people say Tarjay instead of Target. It's not that funny.

I think both are true.

The economic impact of walmart will vary depending on the existing economic climate before the wal-mart arrived. My swag is that Wal-mart helps backwoods small town places that do not have many other commercial alternatives, and it may hurt communities that are already well developed, densely populated. However, those densely populated areas need jobs....and wal mart provides those jobs.

A wal-mart built out in the middle of some random town in Oklahoma, sitting off a major highway would likely be an economic boon.....locals don't have to drive 20 miles to get certain goods, teens have a place to work, people have greater access to products they would otherwise not have.

I know that folks in parts of LA fight the arrival of new wal-marts because they allegedly kill the blocks and blocks of mom and pops that already serve the local community.

Leaving the toons behoind? That's dithpiccable.

Besides Sams Club and the internet (which is available to everyone all around the planet)

The story is that a place like Wal-Mart encourages our unsupportable consumption by making everything so cheap and cheaply. Their toasters last one year, their lamps two. They're also a product of the suburbs, absolutely car-dependent, gobbler of land, terrible for town planning centered on quality of life. They're impersonal and soul crushing; physically depressing atmospheres. Wal-Mart has single-handedly bankrolled the rise of China, whose citizens are paying the environmental price.

If we consider the following values worth supporting, Wal-Mart does not: sustainability; quality; community; personableness; human connection; sensitive built environment . . . But, in return for the sacrifice of those values, we do receive cheap diapers, laundry detergent, and bath towels. For many, the trade is surely worth it.

What Walmart does is create a local monopsony (not monopoly), i.e., they are the only employer in some areas, and hence they can pay as low of wages as they want because they don't have competitors.

However, a really smart guy, Obama's director of economic policy has produced research demonstrating that Walmart actually helps the poor by providing low-cost goods.

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/w...rogressive.pdf

I haven't read the paper but it does sort out both effects (low wages/low prices).

Right, this is exactly what I was wondering. I've noticed in the past that Wal-Mart is almost like a old-time company store. They set the standard for low wages in the area, then people go pick up their walmart paychecks, have no choice but to line up at wal-mart to buy all their stuff for the week, load it up on their Wal-mart credit card with their 5% employee discount, and support the very institution that's in part keeping them impoverished with substandard wages.

Well, Sam's Club is just the Walmart version of Costco, so that makes sense and it's no surprise that one could buy it at the AC/DC website.

Oh here we go:

The increased purchasing power the poor get from Walmart's low prices outweigh the alleged reduction in wages. The poor benefit disproportionately because they spend a higher % of their income on food.

And if you're a liberal like me, you shouldn't worry about "corporate welfare" and the government paying benefits for the poor instead of Walmart. This way the poor get cheap stuff and the government will compensate for their low wages through Medicare. Double bonus for the poor.

Hence Bayh and Richardson were wrong to protest, but at least they're not complete Walmart bashers. Biden and Edwards, go stick it (I know Edwards is gone but I wanna stick it to him one more time).

Obama-Walmart '08

really, this is a veiled anti-Mormon post. Shame on you.

#1

#2 sounds like Ayn Rand's looters complaining because another company is kicking their ass

People can and do argue both sides of this issue.

I read a pretty interesting book last year - The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman (Penguin, 2006) that tackles some of them.

[Someday, I promise to have an original thought instead of just listing someone else's book. But at least I'm still reading.]

Fishman makes no secret about his anti-Wal-mart agenda, but he does a decent job of giving their side of the story where Wal-Mart actually agreed to reveal information, and he admirably, but begrudgingly includes some of their counter-arguments towards the end. He is especially impressed with Wal-Mart's innovative and creative approaches to efficiency.

What impressed me most about Fishman's book was some of the statistics. For instance, Americans spend $36 million an hour, 24 hours a day at Wal-Mart (according to the back cover). 93% of Americans shop there at least once a year, and a Super-Center has about 120,000 items for sale.

I just got back from Wal-Mart to buy canning supplies. Did I miss anything?

Did you spend $36 million?

No. And neither did the people in the store with me. After all, as a priest in my ward said when I suggested he work there, "it's the black and mexican wal-mart."

Yikes. Did you lay the smack down?

politely, yes. after all, he is one of the only "full" whites among the YM.

Wow. You've got your work cut out for you, but I'm glad you're still trying. Maybe those kids will be grateful someday.

that guy's just a journalist.

I live in an town that has a large outlying area that is pretty rural and our super Walmart draws every single lower class country person of every race for miles and miles and miles. The vast majority of them don't work there. I think there is little question for them that cheaper groceries and other items are a net plus in their lives. My wife and I were snobby at first about shopping there until we were forced to one day and realized how much less expensive groceries are there (a lot less) and now that is where we go too.

I think it depends on where it is located. I can see how in a city or even a nice suburb those jobs are not very good. But in a small town with a lot of unskilled uneducated labor, that is actually a pretty good job for a lot of people. No question Walmart is a net plus in my small town, not least of all for the tax revenue it provides. Certainly it has hurt a few small store owners who it has put out of business.

dude there's so many fat people in Richmond. I was down there a couple of weeks ago. Rivals West Virginia. Goodness! I'm willing to bet it's rural America that's driving up national obesity rates. If we were to examine only metropolitan areas, we'd be more comparable to Europe.

I didn't mean to imply that they *all* work at Walmart. I meant that Walmart is so powerful it keeps the wages across the sector down, and all of those employees, regardless of employer, have no choice but to shop there.

It's interesting that you and your wife, and my husband and I, came to opposite conclusions. When we realized (1) what percentage of our budget was going directly to walmart (it was staggering) and (2) how absurdly low the prices were compared to the rest of the market and (3) what kind of business practices they're using, we decided to - as much as it's possible anymore in Oklahoma - discontinue shopping there. It's not worth the 10-15% savings to us.

Well as I have to remind people sometimes, I am a Ute so that makes me morally inferior. I wouldn't say that much of our budget goes there. Just groceries. Baby supplies and most other things come from Target. Safeway for pharmacy goods. Also, and I am guessing here, but I doubt they can hold wages down where I live with a Target, Lowes, cabinet plant, uniform distribution center and other large employers of unskilled labor in town.

Maybe if I knew more about their business practices you could change my mind, but I have enough libertarian in me to think that people are making what they are worth and if their skills command a better wage then someone else will pay it to them. It is not as though Walmart has no competition, at least where I live.

Right. I'll make a note of that. I actually didn't realize you were a Ute. That explains things. (just a joke) Besides, I'm married to a hippie. If there's any self-righteousness to be had. It's in hippiedom.

So, here's how it happened: we used to only have one credit card. We used it for everything and then we paid it off every month. Anyhow, so at the end of the year they sent us an itemized statement of how much we had spent at each retailer. It was mind-boggling.

I live next door to Arkansas, and WalMart has shut out the competition. There's one on every corner. Albertsons pulled out of the state last year. So it's likely a different impact on the local economy than what your community sees.

Incidentally, I didn't mean to imply there was a right or wrong to shopping at walmart. I just thought it was kinda funny that you guys went into it with a sort of preconception the place, and the prices won you over; whereas we were all "yay walmart" but ended up changing our minds. Maybe the Gordons are becoming snobs. That would explain it.

honestly where we live, Wal-Mart is by far the closest. And if you drive a ways, you get to a place with less selection and higher prices.

I'd love to be in a place where Central Market (As Whole Foods is to Wal-Mart, Central Market is to Whole Foods) was something we could afford. But that would probably triple our food bill.

Right, that's what I'm trying to point out. I'm not sure if it's the same out west. But where I live, Wal-Mart really is effectively the only option. You have to go out of your way (literally and figuratively) to shop anywhere else. And that started to freak us out. Wal-mart is great but do we really want it to be the only option? Not so much. and it's getting to be that way here. So we decided to start trying to support other retailers.

Within a five minute drive from my house we have a Super Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target and Meijer. All of them have their advantages. When we want food where quality is essential, like produce or meat, we go to Kroger or Meijer. Where quality is independent of the store, like with boxed goods, we usually go to Wal-Mart for the price advantage. When I want popcorn to snack on while I shop, we go to Target.

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:

time to move.

Indeed.

Yeah, journalists never write anything.

journalists don't know how to sort out the opposite effects and determine which is greater.

Have you read the book?

No, have you? If you have, maybe you can tell me if he cites more peer-reviewed studies than the one by Goetz (and the Basker one it attacks) on page 165.

http://books.google.com/books?id=oq2...sult#PPA159,M1

First, why is he citing the one study that studies Walmart's impact on poverty? The Walmart->poverty causal chain is a mile long with an array of intermediate factors. Why no studies on factors Walmart has a direct impact, i.e., wages and prices?

That's probably why Goetz does doesn't even know why he found what he found. He only has three "possible reasons."

http://cecd.aers.psu.edu/pubs/PovertyResearchWM.pdf

Second, Walmart chooses its counties based on market conditions, it doesn't choose them randomly. To keep costs low they may choose areas with lower potential for wage growth (hence slower poverty reduction). That'll bias the results.

Dam apologist is cherrypicking.

Oh the horror! A company choosing its locations based on analysis of where it can be most profitable. Stone them!

Wow, of all the reason to hate wallie world, he chooses the fact that they want to be profitable?

Spoken like a true liberal.

I wouldn't hire you as my business advisor.

Have you guys read anything I wrote? I love Walmart!