i'm not a fan. tim thinks they are an evil company. they are a fact of life, especially in certain regions of the country. they are walmart. (i must now rinse my keyboard for typing that) apparently, they sponsored a truly independant study & conference about themselves. they stepped completely out of the way, and whatever results came about, they acknowledged. here are some choice quotes revealed in these 10 independant studies: (The 10 papers are to be presented by economists, urban planners and other experts.)
"One study concluded that Wal-Mart's giant grocery and general merchandise Supercenters brought little net gain for local communities in property taxes, sales taxes and employment; instead, the stores merely siphoned sales from existing businesses in the area."
"Michael Hicks of the Air Force Institute of Technology and Marshall University found that each employee of Wal-Mart caused "the average state to expend just under $900 a year in Medicaid benefits."
"A study of the San Francisco Bay Area also presents a mixed picture. UCLA researcher Randall Crane and his coauthors found that once Wal-Mart established itself as the region's leading grocer — the company is already the national leader — it would probably depress grocery store employees' wages by hundreds of millions of dollars. But, they found, the company also would save shoppers hundreds of millions of dollars by offering cheaper food."
11 comments:
Have you read "Nickled and Dimed..."? Quite a quandary, we want cheap prices but we complain when wages are too low to support them.
i haven't read that, although i keep seeing references to it. it's difficult knowing where to shop. i stopped shopping @ walmart a few years back, and am hearing a lot of similar rumblings about target. so, i'm leaning away from them.
but, say i want groceries. every supermarket is a chain, and probably has bad business practices. and there's no guarantee that if i bought things from a local butcher that it is any different. i'm trying to hook up w/a local organic farm for veggies, but what about the rest?
so, where do you buy detergent? does any operate under ethical business practices?
basically, i've decided that i am not looking for the lowest price. i look for a quality product @ a fair price. or, in the case of our civic hybrid, we paid more to have the responsible product, despite the fact that i loved my jeep and would love to still have one.
this doesn't help me know who isn't screwing my local economy.
I know it isn't without faults, but I think that stores like whole foods are a good option. We also have one called PCC, that is a coop. It is more expensive, but I try shopping there. I also think that what you buy matters. I like to buy organic from smaller companies, rather than a division of Kraft foods.
The Walmart in our area is so huge, it is like a megalopolis! It is one of the supercenters you mention in your post. Beside it is Sam's Club, and a McDonald's, and all of the other things that go with a Walmart. I hate going in there, and have refused to shop at Walmart, eventhough the cheap prices would be easier on our super tight budget. However, we do still shop at Sam's club... even though I hate to admit it. I loved the Cosco, and there isn't one anywhere around. I know the Sam's club is evil, but are other wharehouse club stores like cosco too? I always thought that they treated their workers well.
-Malisa
Part of me thinks this whole "treating the workers badly is a little out of proportion." My sense from reading "Nickled and Dimed" and other articles on the same topic seemed to indicate that many (I want to say most but can't back that up) workers at places like Wal Mart were second earners or teens, a husband or wife who just needed some extra hours for whatever reason or a teen working part time. Mandating offering them a "living wage" (my extreme left friend defines that as around $14 an hour) would drive up prices more than we could imagine and defeat the purpose, furthering the need for two workers in the family. Again, I don't know whether I'm right or wrong, but this is the sense that I got.
I read an article awhile ago that came out when some central valley city ( I don't remember which one) was trying to keep out a Walmart. The article said that many times the company makes business deals with cities to get tax breaks and in return the company supplies jobs for a minimum of two years. After the two years when the tax break is over, Walmart pulls it store out, and builds one a few miles down the road in another city, with which they have another deal. I guess this has happened a lot in L.A, leaving many stores to sit unoccupied. Just seems sneaky, but maybe a business person would say that is just good business?
-Malisa
but anyone that believes in doing things ethically would say it's wrong.
i've heard that info about walmart & l.a. it was in the frontline documentary on walmart. and with a metro area like l.a., moving to another city can be like a block, where the new locale cuts you a tax free deal. but the tax base, and any local jobs in that last little city are now gone. and repeat.
Do they just abandon the building? Those buildings can't be cheap?
ah, but they more or less are. they are tax free. so, yes, there is construction cost, but that's less than paying property tax on a big concrete box. and, many cities will offer other incentives (like $) to build in an economically depressed area. so, walmart moves in, builds a building, stays for say 5 years tax free, and then when they're about to pay tax, they get another sweet deal, move a few miles down the road in the metropolis area, and abandon the old building.
it may not be cheap, but it's cost effective.
I see, I just don't know enough about this stuff.
Did you see the 20/20 special on Wal Mart last night, I tuned in for about 10 minutes. I like Stossel, read "Gimme a Break" and loved it, he hosted and took the side of Wal Mart, which I expected him to. Although like I said, I only saw a few minutes so he may have been balanced.
i would have liked to see that. it's not often you hear the someone publically take the side of a behouth like walmart. it's easy to take the negative side.
that's part of why i found the initial story interesting. they sponsored studies, and got mixed results. put 'em all out there, too.
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