I should be SHOT. I went to Walmart

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally posted by turbo6bar
I believe we are in total agreement, and note that I am not using green text.

Cool that we're cool, most excellent in fact that we're in agreement....but, AW *****.....that means I'm a literal old man being lame. Crap, oh well, I guess you are what you are!

[Mike Andrew]

I avoid Walmart for one simple reason:
They have clothed themselves in the homespun American image of Sam Walton, yet are China's 2nd largest trading partner. Last time that I checked, China still had missles aimed our way.

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
Hey you still got those ones in San Pedro that are going "from the $300s" (two months ago, I'm pretty sure the sign said "from the high $300s" and two months before that I think it said "from the $400s"). Hang in there.

Long Beach Tower? The one in "Gone in 60 Seconds"? That one's about a half mile from my place and is one of the smaller, more boring-looking condo development units now. Personally I think the guy developing the Aqua and whatever that other one is down from it's gonna' lose his shirt, if he hasn't already but that's just me. There's plenty of stuff coming on the market just in time for the RE market to go "boom". Prime pickin'.

Although there's gonna' be the stage set for one helluva class war over the next few decades - all the yuppie types in the half-million $$$ condos and multi-$$$ houses along the waterfront over towards Naples and the ghetto rats living 20-to-a-shack living 6 or 7 blocks north. Should make for interesting times.

Yeah they are packing $300K to one million $$$ condo's into downtown San Pedro which will fit in nicely with the nine square blocks of low income housing a few blocks away... conveniently located for all your crack, hoes, and illegal firearms shopping needs!

Don't get me wrong I love sixth street and I am a regular at the San Pedro Brewery and Senfuku (sushi) however there is already an uproar in the local papers about the impending culture clash.

[}{arlequin]

every time we go to vir we stop by the wally over there b/c you can buy big jugs of motor oil for a lot less. no, it's not just the buck-fiddy in savings... it's a surreal trip for us city folk as well.

the characters in there are really fun to look at, not to mention the fact that the place is completely packed on a fri/sat night. i'm talkin' hard-to-find-parking packed. it really is "THEEE" thing to do for them over there. (seriously, don't tell me you suddenly *need* all this crap on a friday night ). it's the place to go to see and be seen. it really can be more entertaining than the movies i guess....

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Mike Andrew
I avoid Walmart for one simple reason:
They have clothed themselves in the homespun American image of Sam Walton, yet are China's 2nd largest trading partner. Last time that I checked, China still had missles aimed our way.

Would they nuke their trading partner?

[Mike Andrew]

Nah, they'll just keep using the trade surplus to buy more paper until they can collapse our economy.

[74-911]

Originally posted by Mike Andrew
I avoid Walmart for one simple reason:
They have clothed themselves in the homespun American image of Sam Walton, yet are China's 2nd largest trading partner. Last time that I checked, China still had missles aimed our way.

We've developed a "we're not going to hurt each other are we?" relationship with China... we buy all the crap they produce and they buy all the debt we are running up. Don't recall the exact figure but China is spending a huge amount of the money they make off us to buy our debt. These massive deficits we have run up the past few years don't come for free. We quit buying their stuff, they quit buying our debt and watch interest rates explode. It benefits China immensely for us to have low interest rates. Nothing is as simple as it seems....

[Superman]

Originally posted by nota
I donot mind the wellfare cases and trailer trash at the stores
what I donot like and the reason I willnot shop there
is their anti living wage stance, zero benefit, mostly parttime, anti union ideas
paired with the anti american forced exporting of jobs CORP policys they inforce on supplers and the effect they have on small towns killing older city centers and the mom and pop stores

in short wallmart is evil and is totaly anti american

All of you know I'm going to agree with Todd and Nota. But I just had to post this quote up and comment because of the last line in the quote. WalMart's business practices are absolutely, positively NOT anti-American. They are the caricature of American. They are the epitome of what's heroic in unbridled capitalism. Crushing the competition is icing on the cake, even if it's not necessary. That's just the tone here. Getting and using your stranglehold on suppliers is totally in keeping with America's commercial and competitive posture. We idolize businesses like Wal-Mart. And yes, this kind of thinking will destroy the middle class. It will placate the lower class and make the upper class financially independent. But it will eliminate the middle class. The part of America we see in the Norman Rockwell paintings.

All hail the winner! Bummer about all those poor losers.

[Vipergrün]

Nota originally said

"in short wallmart is evil and is totaly anti american"


This looks to be a memorable thread in the making....

So, what's worse, Walmart having a viable trade relation with China and selling decent products and a decent price, or companies like Nike, who exploit(ed) child workers to make friggen shoes they sell to gangbangers for $150.00 a pop? And guess what, that gangbanger most certainly did not work hard for the cash to buy those Air Jordans.

Tell me that a shirt that the Gap sells is better than one from Walmart....they probably came off the same cargo ship.

Look for any small, local coffee shop, and just guess who moves in across the street and puts the small shop out of business.

If folks really want to make a statement, stop shopping Whole Foods and hit the corner market....can't do it, can you. I would venture to say that there is 90% in common between the groceries Walmart carries and the rest of the national chains carry. How about getting off the Peets and Starbucks coffee and going to the little cafe down the street.

If you want to become the "Millionaire Next Door", you'll buy that quart of Mobil1 for a 1.25 from Walmart, rather than 3 bucks somewhere else.

There are loosers, lowlifes, toothless, fat, skanky, slutty, ugly, trailertrash, Hispanic, Black, Asian, etc people in all corners of this country, and they would be there, even if Walmart were not...

Not allowing free trade, freedom of speech, freedom of choice...now THOSE are anti-American...

[bivenator]

I saw an ad on TV during one of the many football games for a song by some "young country" hat wearing goofball. the name of the song was Walmart Girls. Evidently an ode to the fine examples of women sterotypically found in WM. you can listen at walmartgirlssong.com. i have no affiliation with the site. the girls in the video are grid girls hot, i don't see those types too often at Wally world. enjoy

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Besides if/when China decides they've had enough of Taiwan's crap and goes to take it back, if the U.S. comes to their aid, watch 'em call in all the U.S. debt they're holding. Gas alone will go to $20 a gallon overnight. They own us and they damn well know it. They'll beat the world's "superpower" without firing a shot.

[billyboy]

Besides if/when China decides they've had enough of Taiwan's crap and goes to take it back, if the U.S. comes to their aid, watch 'em call in all the U.S. debt they're holding. Gas alone will go to $20 a gallon overnight. They own us and they damn well know it. They'll beat the world's "superpower" without firing a shot

We are on an impossibly slippery slope in more ways than one.http://www.augustreview.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1

[sammyg2]

The US was built on the premise of free trade economy with competition and supply and demand.
If a local mom and pop store can't compete with walmart because their prices are too high, they should go out of business.
That is the way it is. If you feel otherwise, you are leaning towards a communistic idealology instead of a free market.
Sorry if you don't like hearing that but it is the truth. If you are anti walmart because small shops can't compete with them then you harbor communist tendencies and are living on the wrong country.

And who gives a crap if they are doing business with China?
Nothing wrong with that.

[Superman]

That seems pretty simple Sammy. Does that ever make you wonder?

For example, why do you think the government maintains an office to prevent anti-trust behavior? The logical conclusion of the process you see Wal-Mart following......is an industry monopoly. If unfettered capitalism is so utopian and ideal, then why do we try to prevent companies from gaining enough clout to single-handedly control an entire industry?

[billyboy]

And who gives a crap if they are doing business with China?

Hope this is one of those quotes that are sometimes in Green, you know, sarcastic or tongue in cheek.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

What cracks me up is does NOBODY else remember the 90s when WalMart used to regularly strain it's own shoulders patting itself on the back for all the "Made in the USA" stuff it carried? Wally mart built its empire by marketing this kind of pseudo-patriotism and now "outsources" everything to China. Very "American" of them. The imbiciles that equate Wal-Mart with "red-blooded American capitalist enterprise" ought to be dragged into a back alley and smacked senseless with a live haddock - preferably one caught in U.S. waters.

Even their use of the red, white and blue color scheme makes me wanna' puke. The fact they'd even IMPLY that they do anything consistent with American patriotism makes me wanna' puke ('specially selling them sticky-magnet things that say "support our troops" - ever notice where they're made? That's right - CHINA!!!)

[Vipergrün]

Originally posted by billyboy
Hope this is one of those quotes that are sometimes in Green, you know, sarcastic or tongue in cheek.

What are the viable choices for obtaining goods? Mexico? Indonesia? American unions and their mob leaders? The US consumer is driving this, Corporate America is simply providing the vehicle.

[Dottore]

Originally posted by sammyg2
The US was built on the premise of free trade economy with competition and supply and demand.
If a local mom and pop store can't compete with walmart because their prices are too high, they should go out of business.
That is the way it is. If you feel otherwise, you are leaning towards a communistic idealology instead of a free market.

A simple mind is a dangerous thing!

[jorian]

A simple mind is a dangerous thing!

+1

Walmart flourishes in no small part to ignorance/apathy.

[Moneyguy1]

Yes, I do remember the "Made in America" hype of WallyWorld in the 90s. It was hypocritical then and they do not like to be reminded of it today.

Now, as taught in Economics 101, say we have a developing situation where competition will disappear over time. Sammy.....Guess what happens to prices and availability when there is no competition?

I, for one, will go to the smaller stores if for no other reason the knowledge and the service, neither of which the big boxes provide. THe few extra percent I pay is well worth the result. I dread the day I no longer have that option.