Norway Dumps WMT

I also call on any funds to do the same!!!
You are not helping yourself if you are invested in walmart and believe humans should be treated with dignity in the workplace because Walmart workers are not.
Please call your fund managers and tell them to stop investing in Walmart stock.
It’s in everyone’s best interest because if other companies start abusing their employees like walmart this will be tragic!!!

I’D SAY IT’S A WASH!

Kinda makes it even, Wonders.  Nobody gives much credence to what you say about Wal-Mart either!

I’m not sure why you bothered to make your last post, because it did NOTHING to bolster your support of Wal-Mart!

Oh well for those folks who didn’t see it the first time ;-)

Apparently Ms Halvorsen is a member of the Extreme left Wing Socialist party in Norway and has publicly urged a boycott of Iraeli products and supports Palestinian causes. Later she had retracted her statements about trade with Israel.

Norwegian Finance Minister and leader of the Socialist Left Party, Kristin Halvorsen, has expressed regret for her announced support for boycotting Israeli products, acknowledging that this may have contributed to uncertainty about Norway’s official foreign policy.

“As finance minister, I should not have advocated a policy which is not supported by a majority in the Cabinet. It is clear that this has contributed towards confusion and uncertainty around what is official Norwegian foreign policy. For this I have expressed my regrets to the Foreign Minister, the Prime Minister and the rest of the Government members. And I now express my regrets officially, in order to clarify, Halvorsen said to public broadcaster NRK on Friday afternoon.

Halvorsen said to the Norwegian daily Dagbladet on Thursday that she would urge Norwegian consumers to support her party’s planned boycott of Israeli products. “It has been a long time since I bought any Israeli products,” she told the newspaper.

In her Friday statement, Halvorsen said that she hopes that her regrets will be noted, and that her expressions of Thursday therefore will not harm Israeli-Norwegian relations, nor weaken Norway’s credibility in the Middle East question.

Just thought you should know exactly who this woman is before you formulate your opinions about the validity of the ministries attitudes toward Wal-mart.

I guess ethics and morality are not synonamous. It’s not as if Norway is the most morally upstanding country. Folks this is a country in which 4 years ago the former finance minister married his gay partner.  It’s also a country in which prostitution is legal. I doubt we should really be looking to Norway for guidance. About the only thing they do get right is that the sale of illegal drugs are penalized.

YOUR POST WASN’T WORTH READING THE FIRST TIME!

I guess ASSHOLES like you Wonders, are slow to get the message!

You just proved my point of the insults getting traded back and forth and of the lack of content in posts. I provided some factual content which WMW could have provided had they chosen to. But I know why they chose not to include this info. Because it weakens the argument. And instead of getting a response with other relevant content, only more insults. I’ve never once called anyone a derogatory term like that. I’m sure your post will stay however because after all this is WMW ;-)

How much does WMT pay you Wonders??  PHIL

I think you lack the insight to comment on this Wondersnevercease.
Kristin Halvorsens comment on boicotting Israel is one thing but the WMT is a completly different story. It is not her opinion she expresses about WMT it is the Council on Ethics for the Fund. They are who in reality govern what the Norweigan Oil Fund can or cannot invest in.
P.S. What is wrong with gay marriage? I find your lack of empathi disturbing.

All of the WMW Lovers

You missed the point of Wonder’s comments. Apparently WMW did see the point. That was why it was deleted the first time. Wonders pointed out the fatal flaw in this blog.

The Norwegian government is extremely liberal. Hating Walmart is a liberal issue. The Norwegian government is appealing to its liberal base. It is all politics.  It was very easy for Halvorsen to delete Walmart because it was doing all that well anyway.  She gives a good liberal explanation which makes the majority of the Norwegians happy.

Most of the US leans towards to middle. They shop at Walmart. The first indication when reading the WMW summary is to say “How awful”. Walmart must really be terrible. However, when this whole issue is put into context, this blog will change no one’s mind.

Looked at Ms. Halvorsen on Wikipedia. Her party had something like 8.8 % of the vote in the last election down about 10 % which would mean by Wonders standards that up to 19 % of the population of Norway can be classified as extremists at any given time--not including those who vote. I don’t know how disturbing that is for some but maybe when we’re done in Iraq we should clean house there? Of interest to me is the number of political parties there and the idea of forming coalition govts.--which would be nice right here in the good ole USA instead of just being stuck with the political incompetents and warmongers of our two party system.

Did you also happen to note in that very same arcticle that the other members of her party have expressed their desire that she should be relieved of her position?

“Many who describe themselves as being on the left side of the party have suggested that Halvorsen step down.”

Left side, right side, left spin, right spin.
No matter what we all know that Wal-Mart has a poor ethics record.

Ho hum Wonders. You really are a pest. It’s typical of political parties-- at least in most of the world--losing public support to consider their leadership inept--whether true or not. As an example there is quite the call for Blair to step down by his own Labor party in England. Ever hear of Gordon Brown? He’s the would be replacement. Now as far as Norwegian politics go I haven’t a clue. That is my fault of course. So I couldn’t tell you much about Ms. Halvorsen. But at the same time I intuit that you yourself aren’t too up on Scandinavian politics either. Maybe I’m wrong--but it’s my best guess. Personally when it comes to criticizing a world leader at the present moment I think our own--particularly the one sitting in the White House right now and his cigar chewing crony of a vp really are worth looking at. I think if I were to choose between Ms. Halvorsen (and not knowing a thing really about her) and them we’d have our first woman president right now.

Will Wal-Mart still carry our favorite ABBA CD’S ?

Larry

“Ho hum Wonders. You really are a pest.” That sort of statement is below you. You recently made a comment that my statements had become more “hysterical”. You are making more and more attacks on individuals rather than attacking their argument. Wonder’s and my comments were absolutely correct. This whole blog is political and has nothing to do with Walmart other than the fact that it is an attack on Walmart.

Paul

Sorry Paul if it disturbs you but it wasn’t meant in a nasty way. I don’t mind arguing with people who don’t believe or think the same way that I do. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me nor do I think all of this is life and death--so I can be flippant at times. Anyway it is at most in this case a very mild rebuke to which afterwards I commented on his comment.

I feel the need to make comments about some of the accusations against the Norwegian Government. (made by “wondersnevercease")

#1 At the time being we have a political coalition consisting of SV ("Socialist" Left party) AP (Labour Party) and SP (Centre Party) SV is just a part of that coalition. AP is also officially on the left side, but truly their politics resembles centrum ideas, at the most extreme.

#2 SV, which currently has the Finance Ministry position, is not a socialist party. The past years they’ve moved towards a centrum strategy. In Norway we call them “Social Democrats”, not Socialists. The few Left Wing Extremists we have are located in a party called RV or ("Red Voting Alliance"). This party had 1.2 % of the votes in the 2005 election, which isn’t even enough to get one mandate in norwegian politics.

Calling SV, the political party, socialist - is just plain wrong.

#3 About the last finance minister who had a gay marriage. What is morally wrong with that? Religion should not dictate ethics. Compassion and sensibility are far better tools!

#4 Prostitution is not entirely legal in Norway! The buyers of sexual services are criminalized and risk penalty. We do not have laws about selling sexual services, but that is an concious act against organized prostitution (which you get with criminalization of prostitutes).

Finally i would just say I’m proud of the withdrawal from the Wal*Mart franchise Funds.

This was an interesting read. I was actually just checking out this site because an exam I am about to sit is focusing on Wal Mart’s strategy, and there was a whole range of ethical issues raised in the case. This site was also mentioned in my text book.

Anyway, I am from Norway, and Tomas did a pretty good job summing up the political situation in Norway at the moment. That Norway’s ethics can be discussed is a given. No country is perfect, but I personally think this action sends out a signal that Norway as a country do consider its investments seriously.

And contrary to what some of you think, the finance minister Halvorsen, does not do this to gain popularity among the average Norwegian citizen. It seems that these days there is a trend for Norwegians to politically fall more to the right, and are more about the personal gain than ethical concerns. That the government takes a stand and, let’s face it; probably lose out on future enormous gains from Wal Mart, is admirable in my book. And I’m not just saying this because I am Norwegian.

In my day, we would not have pulled out of any funds, we would have conquered all of you. Unfortunately, our ships are retired.

I think the majority know Wonders that bringing this issue up over and over again by the present administration and it’s croinies is just a ploy to bring their wavering base back into line. They really don’t give a sincere damn about your feelings religious or otherwise. From my own personal standpoint this marraige business is about as small potatoes as it gets. Iraq. The federal budget deficit. The trade deficit.
Energy. Health care. Immigration and border and port security. Disaster relief (particularly for our own disasters). These are real issues. Flag burning and gay marraige don’t really amount to much---the first because it’s a rarity anyway and the second because it’s divisive for no good reason at all.

Hmmm, WMT stock goes over $47 for the first time in a while and the Norwegian government sells its shares while it can. Not a bad idea.

If I were them, I’d put that money in bonds for a few years to see how Wal-Mart’s “strategy of change” is paying off. Then possibly reinvest.

Smart financial decision, nice political act. Politics at its finest!

Harr!

I like the Social Democratic systems in Scandanavia a lot (for the most part) and this strengthens that belief.  Basically, from the point of view of people like Wondersnevercease, even ideas that are Centrist or a little Liberal are considered to be WAY over to the Left.  It’s pretty funny.  The Scandanavian systems are Social Democratic, which is a “mild” form of Socialism (although many of them will reject that label because it has pretty much gotten to the point where people use it in a way that has nothing to do with it’s original meaning, as well as Socialists that are further to the Left).  People are free and society is very just compared to some other countries.  Norway was rated the best place in the world to live by the UN for several years in a row.  Also, the fact that someone criticizes the actions of Israel does NOT make them automatically antisemitic, and that’s irrelevant to the situation.  Also, it just goes to show the hypocricy of someone that yells about freedom one minute, and then wants to limit the freedoms of a whole segment of the population (gays), even though they are hurting no one, and trying to ban freedom of [removed]flag burning amendments) the next.  Isn’t America supposed to be “The land of the free”?  I guess that freedom only extends to capitalists/corporations to pay low wages and treat their employees like crap and people that are just like you, but not others.  No different than people that say they’re Christians one minute and then denounce and spit on the teachings of the man that they claim to follow the next.  In any event, though, Wal-Mart is in the wrong and they are being properly singled out for it.

Well if you take many of the programs instituted during FDR’s time that helped (along with WW II) pull us out of a depression---many of these programs such as social security and many since our so called safety net are forms of socialism. We have a capialistic economic system that has gone hand and hand with it and what we’ve been seeing for some time even before Bush 2 is there has been an effort from certain big business interests to tip things towards a Milton Friedman style capitalism which is intent on undermining the balance provided in our society by these safety net programs. That balance though had co-existed for a long time even though capitalism for most was a great thing and socialism was some kind of a slur. The question is what kind of a society for ordinary people are we going to have? This stuff about going back to school and lifting yourself up may work for some but the intention is to leave a good many (maybe even the majority) out in the cold.