Eduardo Castro-Wright on “Consumer Choice”

This speaks of a pretty insidious insight into human nature.  He’s saying that if you arrange things in a pretty manner, people will feel good and spend money.  There was no indication that Wal-Mart intends to help anyone.

Very nice.

To Steve Reed above me:
Do you not know economics? Business is not about helping people, the bottom line is all about the profit in the end. If the business is being successful, obviously they are doing something right. If there was anything actually wrong with Wal-mart, people would not shop there. The problem is that people obviously do not understand how much good a Wal-mart really does!! Wal-mart provides jobs and cheap goods, while helping a country go through something similar to what America did (It’s called the industrial revolution, for those uneducated), and we did something exactly as bad as the sweatshops east of us, and now look how powerful America is today!

Feel free to E-mail me at adramelech727@gmail.com, I’ll be happy to give you TRUE reasoning and fact, not the crap that this website tries to brainwash you with.

Correction, Calvin:

Wal-mart provides (cheap) jobs and cheap goods...

There, that’s better. After all, Wal-Mart is the standard bearer for the race to the bottom.

What’s good for Wal-Mart is BAD for America!

“Choice” is exactly what Walmart doesn’t provide. For any given product the choice is limited. It has to be, Walmart already stocks thousands of products, imagine if they provided real choice for each of these items.

Restricting choice is also part of their business plan. In order to get the economies of scale, they need to buy in bulk and they need to deal with few suppliers so that they can pressure them to keep prices low. Many products are made to Walmart’s specs so they need to buy enough of the item to cover the startup costs.

Take any product you wish and then see how many different choices Walmart offers.  I just did it with TV remote controls. According to the web site they offer 55 choices, but only four are listed as “in stores”. A few more are listed as “in limited stores”.

In addition the prices aren’t really that great. The top item is a Harmony 670 which they list for $128.42. Other online sellers are offering it for as low as $85 (plus shipping).

Walmart has limited choice and low prices only on items where prices are well known. Their marketing is one of the biggest con jobs in modern history.

to Ken V, cumulative average worker pay is $10.21 per hour, meaning it’s NOT a cheap job when the average fast food place pays minimum wage, so your argument there is worthless.
To Robert, what the hell are you thinking? Is this a joke? “Keep suppliers few so that they can keep pressure to keep prices low” there’s no logic in that! that’s an attempt at brainwashing! Wal-mart has many more choices than other stores, and by having so many different suppliers, they feel pressure to keep prices low. Of course they won’t have all 55 remote controls in every store, because it costs different amounts to have products in different parts of the country! Use better logic, especially when the item isn’t even selling for that much. Also, I can’t find the harmony 670 for $85 brand new, those are all used prices on websites which people complain of excessive amounts of back ordering. Wal-mart has many choices and low prices because of this, and their marketing scheme is the same as every other store.
All that this website is doing is supporting a Wal-mart conspiracy! stop wasting your time on here and go do something, learn about economics, think for yourself, and then you’ll realize that Wal-mart is pretty standard. And to those of you who refuse to see the light of day, I’m off to buy a PS3 and an HDTV from Wal-mart, just so they can continue to thrive.

Calvin: How coincidental that you have begun posting here today,for the first time, stories about Taco Bell . According to today’s Crooks and Liars: ~~~~~~~~"John McCain attacks Obama in another low brow ad, but uses Taco Bell to attack Obama with. Since Rove and his pals have been calling Obama an elitist who eats arugula salads and goes to exotic places—the use of Taco Bell only weakens their argument...."~~~Note: Rick Davis,McCain’s manager has drawn the ire of both Ohio residents and AFL-CIO for his and McCain’s part in a DHL deal that cost Ohioans THOUSANDS of lost jobs.(The entire ad can be viewed at Crooks and Liars website,plus a link to the DHL story.)

McCain Should Fire Lobbyist Who Killed Ohio Jobs

by Seth Michaels, Aug 11, 2008

Thousands of Ohio jobs are at risk because of a proposed shipping-company deal that would close DHL operations at an airport in Wilmington.

The process that has resulted in DHL’s threat to close its operations at the Wilmington airport demonstrates how corporate interests and lobbyists win out over communities and workers—and Sen. John McCain’s campaign is at the heart of it.

The deal was made possible in 2003, when McCain and high-priced lobbyist Rick Davis, McCain’s current campaign manager, both pushed to allow the German company Deutsche Post to take over DHL and get around antitrust laws. Davis’ lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, was hired to help both companies deal with Congress, where objections over DHL’s foreign ownership arose. Davis and a partner earned their firm $185,000 for the DHL-Airborne Express work that year, and $405,000 more from Deutsche Post for work on other issues in 2004 and 2005, Senate records show. 

The U.S. House of Representatives will hold hearings about the proposed restructuring of DHL’s air transportation plans. U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, says the House will work to make sure antitrust laws are upheld and jobs are protected.

Not only does it have the potential to impact an estimated 8,000 jobs from the Wilmington, Ohio, area, but the loss of competition may have serious implications for Ohio consumers.

If this deal goes through and Deutsche Post is allowed to abandon companies it reorganized to serve it, 10,000 employees in southern Ohio will be thrown out of work, leaving many communities devastated.
The DHL/UPS deal raises major antitrust and competitive concerns that deserve careful scrutiny.
Sen. Barack Obama has met with Wilmington’s mayor and residents who could be affected by the massive job losses. He’s urging a White House investigation into the deal.

McCain is standing by Davis, his campaign manager. While claiming to offer “straight talk” to Ohio workers, McCain isn’t mentioning his role or that of Davis in laying the groundwork for these potential job losses~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@ Mr. Garner

As unusual as this is around here (or on the Internets in general), I’m going to attempt a logical argument.

You state that the average worker pay for Wal-Mart (in the USA, I assume? Or is that worldwide?) is $10.21 per hour. Assuming a 40-hour work week, that comes to a gross pay of $408.40 per week, or a gross pay of $21,236.80 per year. Again, this is gross pay - before taxes, any health insurance deductibles, etc. I don’t know how to estimate an average net pay. So we’ll just stick with the gross for the time being.

<a >Wikipedia link</a>

According to the above link, which cites the most current U.S government poverty rates, that gross $21K pay is sufficient to support the bare necessities of life in the continental United States for three people at most - maybe four, but that’s really pushing it, I think. And again, that’s just the bare necessities - I don’t think it allows for saving money, purchasing ‘unnecessary’ goods, health care needs, etc. Just food, clothing, and shelter - that’s all it covers. And I would remind everyone that ‘unnecessary’ goods are part of what keep our economy running and create jobs. If people can’t afford cable television, then the cable companies lose money, for example.

Taking another tack: <a >federal minimum wage.</a> Presently it’s $6.55 and next year it’ll be $7.25. That means that the Wal-Mart average of $10.21 is just a few dollars more than the minimum wage. Some have argued that the minimum wage is still too low - that in terms of real value the new minimum wage is lower than it has ever been.

And yet another point of view: Wal-Mart encourages its suppliers to outsource production to cut costs. <a > causes Bangladeshi girls to work 14 hours per day, 7 days per week, at thirteen cents per hour.

So yes, I think it’s fair to say that Wal-Mart jobs are ‘cheap’ jobs.

And in regards to product selection, it’s been documented over time that Wal-Mart is extremely aggressive in dealing with suppliers. <a >A number of them</a>, including Newell Rubbermaid, I believe, actually opened offices in Bentonville in order to deal with Wal-Mart more effectively. Others, like Snapper, refuse to deal with Wal-Mart at all.

Crap. No links allowed, I guess. Sorry.

...cumulative average...

What the Hell does that mean?

I’ve been an oilman all my life and this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. ~ T. Boone Pickins