The Lies Wal-Mart Tells: Wal-Mart’s Expansion Practices

LIES, about LIES!!

“Lie #1: Wal-Mart Only Builds Stores in Communities That Want It”

This is a lie, when the use the word “communities”, they mean “an opposition group”, not the entire community!!  Can anyone tell us the reasoning behind building a store that will have NO customers?  There is none, TRUTH is, almost ALL stores have plenty of customers, after they open!!  This shows, that other than the “opposition group”, the rest of the community did want the store!!  Wal-Mart doesn’t just build stores for the FUN of it, they actually check before spending millions on a building!!

Why Did We See This Coming?

As surely as day follows night, just mention “opposition to Wal-Mart” and you will get RDS making his tired worn out “argument” about people “voting” with their shopping dollars!

I wish going forward we could put ALL future Wal-Mart development in this country on a mandatory referendum in any community where Wal-Mart proposes to build one of its Supercenters.  This would settle the debate once and for all.

hey screwed by how about we put all of your favorite stores like target,k-mart,all ufcw union grocery stores and other strip malls and big box stores that bring just as much or more traffic than walmart does through the same scrutiny and process when they want to build too?how come we never hear a dam thing from you walmart haters when these places want to build?

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So Wal-Mart checks before they actually spend millions on a building? Hardly! Al Norman of Sprawl-Busters calls it Wal-Math. Definition: “Wal-Mart may do the math, but their math never adds up right.” We all know that 2 + 2 always equals 4. But in Wal-Math 2 +2 equals 5 or 6 or 3. And if the store fails after their million dollar building goes up--what do they care? A corporation that large just simply closes up shop.
In the early 1990’s Wal-Mart tried to get in 15 miles away from where I live. Opposition formed IMMEDIATELY and I mean immediately. The majority of residents didn’t want them--but did they care? No. Wal-Mart tried for over 3 years to go there. Finally the town put in a building cap so they and other large developments can never get in.
I went to the public hearings where Wal-Mart presented their information and the public was allowed to question them. ALMOST EVERYONE THERE DID NOT WANT THEM! But that didn’t stop them. When their building permit got denied, they took that decision to court and they lost--not once but twice!
And what about their math? Wal-Mart claimed they fully expected to take in 1.8 million dollars in a year in that store.  What a joke! Those who live here knew THAT KIND OF MONEY DIDN’T EXIST HERE, THEN OR NOW.
And what about the economic impacts? This is what we heard. Wal-Mart FULLY EXPECTED TO TAKE 68% OF EXISTING RETAIL BUSINESS. They were not creating any “new” sales. They were just going to take sales away from existing businesses.
So Wal-Mart does their math? You couldn’t buy it by me!!

Jane,

“Finally the town put in a building cap so they and other large developments can never get in.”

So, you will NEVER know whether Wal-Mart’s math was correct or not, will you?

“ALMOST EVERYONE THERE DID NOT WANT THEM”

Mostly, the people who show up at these meetings are the ANTI crowd, normal people have ‘better things to do’ than fight progress!!

“THAT KIND OF MONEY DIDN’T EXIST HERE, THEN OR NOW.”

You just might be suprised, at how much money EXISTS in your area!!

“They were just going to take sales away from existing businesses.”

And, just how were they going to take sales from existing business, if the people DIDN’T want to shop there?

Jane,

Check out this math: 5,000 X $360.00 = $1,800,000.00 a year!!  So, unless your town is under 5,000 people, who would spend less than $360.00 each a year, YOUR math is wrong!!

Jane,

Think for a second.  If Wal-Mart “EXPECTED TO TAKE 68% OF EXISTING RETAIL BUSINESS. They were not creating any “new” sales. They were just going to take sales away from existing businesses.”

So you are saying that 68% of the people not only approve of the Wal-Mart, but they will shift their shopping to go there?  Sounds like the voting would have gone their way.

Also, “And if the store fails after their million dollar building goes up--what do they care? A corporation that large just simply closes up shop. “

Right.  So Wal-Mart is not greedy anymore?  They are so totally greedy that they extract every penny from their grunts, but they are ok with throwing away millions of dollars on a wasted new store?

WalMart typically gets millions in subsidies from local and state governments to build a single store. After they crap on local retailers who don’t get such largess, WalMart then dumps their
‘low wage no benefit’ associates onto the state for health care and welfare to make up for the living wages that the Bentonville ‘love of money’ psychopaths won’t pay.

Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once said, “I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We’re going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wal-Mart#_note-
iswalmartgood

“Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” PBS. November 16, 2004. Retrieved on February 24, 2007.

bbrd’s confession of restricting his movements to a Sam’s Club because of $4/gal gas is another nail in the coffin for the ‘consumer choice’ bull that gets thrown around by those who also claim falsely that WalMart doesn’t close down other retailers. It’s not competition or the marketplace, it is government subsidies in the billions that have gone to WalMart.

“People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.”
Helen Keller

While Wal-Mart makes twice as much profit as Costco, Sinegal believes its better business to make a nice profit, but not a killing, and to invest more in Costco’s 92,000 workers. “I don’t see what’s wrong with an employee earning enough to be able to buy a house or having a health plan for the family,” he says.

Costco CEO Says Higher Minimum Wage Means ‘Better Jobs and Wages’
by Mike Hall, Jan 31, 2007

The Costco chief certainly knows what he’s talking about. His successful venture, launched in 1983, now has 130,000 workers and operates 504 stores, where the average worker makes $17 an hour and the lowest-paid earns $11 an hour. It’s good business sense says Sinegal.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/01/31/
costco-ceo-says-higher-minimum-wage-means-better-jobs-
and-wages/

WalMart- Lies in the Zeitgeist will save us. Costco must not be allowed to continue to embarrass our business model.

SDV,

“People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.”
Helen Keller

Is that why YOU don’t ‘think’?  And why you just ‘cut and paste’ other people’s comments on your beloved COSTCO, over and over and over and over again?

of course jane target,home depot,ufcw union grocery stores and your favorite stores do the same thing walmart does and we never hear crap from you at all.explain that one?where is your concern about target and etc taking busines away from everyone else?why are you so quiet on that?

funny scott you never piss and moan when you favorite stores like target and ufcw union grocery stores move in and take business away from others.explain that?

so what scotty boy if walmart takes business away from others so does all the other stores you favor and shop at regularly too.

If it bothers you RDS, I will never believe it is because you are having a ‘conscience’ attack. Your devotion to WalMart is irrational and far beyond the scope of normal. Since you cannot respond to any factual material about Costco and their business model favoring people as labor with family ‘living wages’ and 92% paid health care coverage, perhaps you and the greater imbecile vantress should think of it bothering you as the only reason I post the articles with their citations.

“The real trouble is a callousness throughout the whole mood and the collective conscience of the American people.”
Robert Welch

WalMart/Edelman- We hire internet frauds and fakes.

SDV,

“WalMart typically gets millions in subsidies from local and state governments to build a single store. After they crap on local retailers who don’t get such largess. . .”

They often seek tax reductions, but this is not the same as direct payments to build.  Generally, from what I understand, they get a lower tax rate or a tax holiday.  So it is still ridiculously expensive to build a 200,000 square foot building, along with the parking lots, drainage areas, etc.

So it’s still a bad business decision to build a store that has a high expected failure rate.

Costco

I wonder what Costco would look like if it tried a Wal-Mart type of store?  That would be the only real way to answer whether or not the Costco model should be applied to Wal-Mart. 

They are drastically different stores, and serve different customers.  A Sam’s/Costco might have what, 4,000 SKUs?, vs 100,000 in a supercenter?  These serve different customers, and require a drastically different business model. 

Question for Costco fans--Do they sell anything made overseas?

Another RDS Defect is Revealed!

“...normal people have ‘better things to do’ than fight progress!!”

That’s another one of your major defects RDS.  You equate Wal-Mart with “progress.”

I wonder what Costco would look like if it tried a Wal-Mart type of store?

Never saw such an animal...right now, the “Wal-Mart type of store” is only done by two other big players (Kmart and Target), and what’s left of the regional guys.

That would be the only real way to answer whether or not the Costco model should be applied to Wal-Mart.

In some of the reports I’ve read, Costco is often categorized as a “specialty retailer”—meaning they are intentionally differentiating themselves from the “Big Three” discounters. 

They are drastically different stores, and serve different customers.  A Sam’s/Costco might have what, 4,000 SKUs?, vs 100,000 in a supercenter?  These serve different customers, and require a drastically different business model.

True, also it should be noted that while a lot of people, here call a typcial WM Supercenter a “warehouse”, it is Costco that better fits that description.

A typical Costco store (excluding gas lanes) runs about 200K square feet, which runs close to that of a typcial WM Supercenter.

There is one exception that differentiates the two - Costco, like WM’s Sam’s Club, is a true “working warehouse” with forklifts and Hi-Lo machinery on the same floor space which shoppers frequent, every day.

Question for Costco fans--Do they sell anything made overseas?

As I said the other day, I shop at Costco farily regularly, and I can say with the straightest of faces that the majority of their non-food merchandise is made in—you guessed it—China.

Thanks bbrd,

That helps clarify some thoughts.  Since Costco is more of a warehouse operation, it’s run much like a warehouse.  A good comparison might be to compare to Wal-Mart Distribution Centers.  I’m pretty sure those people get paid a wage much closer to Costco people.

Does anyone know how wages and such compare to either WM DCs or Sams Clubs?

Does anyone know how wages and such compare to either WM DCs or Sams Clubs?

Good luck on that, Scott—most of the people here latched-onto what was a typcial wage for a P/T WM worker, and exploited that as “the norm”, across the board…

Also, another reason why Costco’s wages may appear high is:

1.  Domestically, Costco only operates about 1/10th the number of stores that WM does (globally, it’s in the 500s)—and those stores tend to be on the fringe (suburbs) of some of the nation’s biggest population centers (New York, L.A.)

2.  Their NYC Metro and West Coast operations (legacy Price Club locations) have a long-running contract with the Teamsters Union.  Costco bought Price in the mid-90’s and “inherited” the union thing.  Rather than have the rest of the company go union, Costco decided to pay everyone the same, regardless of union representation.

It should be noted, that the oft-touted $17 wage is for long-time employees/management.  I’m sure your typical part-timer, there is making the same as any other warehouse operation.

of course costco gets govt subsidies too and sdv is always mum and quiet on that,but he will piss and moan about walmart getting the same subsidies making him a hypocrit.

Screwedby,

“That’s another one of your major defects RDS.  You equate Wal-Mart with “progress.””

Yep, me and about 250+ million others!!  You are in the minority here champ!!  As they say, “You are swimming against the current and going nowhere fast”!!  The defect is on your side of the fence!!

A good comparison might be to compare to Wal-Mart Distribution Centers.

Huh? Why not compare apples to apples? Sam’s Club vs. Costco?

If you thought bragging about your “economics” degree was going to give you credibility here, Scott, your subsequent posts have negated that.

Scott’s Tips:

1. Invest in mobile homes.

2. Shop at distribution centers.

Any more gems for us, bean counter?

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ken buddy people shop where they can afford to.

Nobody would continue to shop at WalMart if they didn’t have to go there out of the economic plight WalMart helped to create.

WalMart- We are a poverty engine as desperate America’s store of last resort.

“I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.”
Lily Tomlin

SanDiegoView;

[Nobody would continue to shop at WalMart if they didn’t have to go there out of the economic plight WalMart helped to create.]

So, you are saying that this country has been in an economic plight since walmart started, right?  Because, customers have been shopping there since they started.  And, I thought they said the 1990’s were ‘good’ times.  Also, what about all those RVer’s that choose walmart as a destination, tens of thousands of them, are they all ‘poor’ people?  You are the real ‘Fake’ here.

...what about all those RVer’s that choose walmart as a destination...

This is Nowhere!

“A tragicomic portrait of an un-landed gentry in search of a mythical America that is fast giving way to the concrete realities of mass-market placelessness.”

And when I read this critique of the documentary by George Cheney, Director of Graduate Studies, Dept of Communication, University of Montana, I felt as though he must know some of the pro Wal-Marters that post here!

At the same time, the film reveals several contradictions experienced by this group of people (and many of us): for example, expressing our freedom yet choosing sameness, simplifying life but trying to ‘have it all,’ valuing community yet spending time in ways that make community increasingly out of reach, and ‘rediscovering’ nature from the perspective of pavement.”

Ken,

I triple-dog dare you to make a statement like that over at RV.net

I triple-dog dare you to make a statement like that over at RV.net

I did browse the RV.net forums and see no need. Wal-Mart isn’t held in high regard by many RV’ers, free parking or not.

...expressing our freedom yet choosing sameness

Ken V,

“ Wal-Mart isn’t held in high regard by many RV’ers, free parking or not.”

Then, how do you explain this, from that site?

“Ever wonder who’s driving those RVs around the country? Well This is Nowhere provides the definitive answer, while also explaining why they all seem to love Wal-Mart so much.” ~ filmcritic.com

What does “They ALL seem to LOVE Wal-Mart” mean?  Does it mean as you say, “Wal-Mart isn’t held in high regard by many RV’ers”?

Let’s see, according to you:

All = Not many and,
LOVE = isn’t held in high regard!!

<a >Browse</a> for yourself and you decide.

Browse

Ken V,

FROM the site you posted:

“Sundowner1 wrote:

Let me Clarify myself!

I was raised to take care of myself, and this means to me not taking advantage of any situation that in any way infringes on another.”

Isn’t that basically saying “personal responsibility”!! 

And, aren’t YOU trying to ‘infringe’ on the lives of others by trying to close down one of their “Choices”?

… by trying to close down one of their “Choices”?

Yup, just like I hope to “close down” your choice of John McBush as our next president.

Or just like you closed down my choice of riding a motorcycle naked or smoking pot.

“I don’t smoke pot, it dulls my hatred!” ~ Darlene (Roseanne)

Ken V,

“Yup, just like I hope to “close down” your choice of John McBush as our next president.”

And, I guess your choice would be Obama, right?  Wonder who his VP choice will be?  Maybe his mentor Rev. Wright!!

“Or just like you closed down my choice of riding a motorcycle naked or smoking pot.”

It wasn’t me that closed down those choices for you, I have nothing against nudity and if you choose to smoke pot, I don’t care, just don’t do it where it can hurt other people, like at work, or driving a car or motorcycle!!

““I don’t smoke pot, it dulls my hatred!” ~ Darlene (Roseanne)”

That sounds like something SDV might say!!

RDS: If I may, I would LOVE to see Senator Jim Webb as V.P., AND John Edwards as Attorney General.

Or Sam Nunn from Georgia.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” ~ Verbal Kint The Usual Suspects

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