Wal-Mart and the “Free” Market

“The stock market is such a good approximation that most economists believe that it efficiently prices all of the stocks traded on it in the long term. But we know this isn’t true in the short term. Large institutions like pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds can force stock prices up or down based on their trades, so they sometimes set the prices and everyone else just has to live with them.”

Type in Plunge Protection Team into your Google search engine and begin to know what is really going on to manipulate stocks and prevent deep market corrections. The PPT was formerly known as the Whitehouse Working Group on Financial Markets set up by the Reagan crowd in 1987.

Beyond insider trading and backdating stock options, and after Citi and Sandy Wiel were leading the way blowing through Glass/Stegal like it was rice paper, the SEC is at best the Bush team taking another dive for corporate America.

When capitalism does not behave itself and they start to rip each other off, wars are usually the result. War reparations payments from the 91 Gulf War and the $300 billion plus interest owed by Saddam to the Saudi and Kuwaiti wealthy families are why you are really looking at more than $4/gal for fuel. The American taxpayer getting shafted for the ‘club’ wealthy interests of Bush family friends around the globe. Chumps at the pumps to pay for another managed financial inflation to benefit a select few.

WalMart through the Waltons are another example of Bush connections to allow Bentonville to ride roughshod over the American worker. This is also why you don’t want Hillary Clinton operating the levers of the Federal Government. Anybody remember her cattle futures trading scam or her ripping off Madison Guarantee S & L for around $60 million?
Yes OK, Neil Bush did Silverado S & L for $200 million but pops was in office so he could steal without worry. This is the type of ‘financial and market capitalism’ that is and has been really going on in the United States.

WalMart- Go ahead and call the police.

cutting off community in the and one day, him.

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The entire concept of a “free market” is just that, a concept and as Paul Maidment points out, exists only in “the imaginations of economists”. I suppose you could call the “free market” a perception and not a reality.

In an appearance on MSNBC (4/08/08) CNBC’s business bunny Erin Burnett referred to Wal-Mart and Costco as “bottom feeders” and the beneficiaries of consumer’s trading down due to the failing economy.

There seems to be a confusion of concepts. 

Free markets are defined differently by different people.  Some say freedom from government intrusion.  Some say freedom from competition.  It depends.  But these markets do exist in varying degrees.

The concept economists use (at least all of my professors the whole time I was getting my economics degree) is that of a perfectly competitive market. 

Different things.  There are entire schools of thought that deal with entrepreneurialism and the like, and they’ve covered everything, and much more, than was covered in this article.

Some say freedom from competition.

Could you be a little more specific as to who “some” are? A economy of monopolies? A money-grubbers wet dream!

...my economics degree...

You sound like another graduate of the Ayn Rand/Adam Smith-On-Crack School of Economics.

As long as the US has the Federal Reserve making good on high roller’s losing investments, this is not a free market by any rational definition.

How is Wal-mart going to steal Target’s customers? Im sure isaac mizrah would love to sell his clothing for $.30 If becoming green is Lee Scotts solution then there is no way that they will ever attract loyal target customers.

Hillary Clinton recently suggesting “breaking up” OPEC. With WalMart filing as 80/20 companies in various individual states to avoid paying state taxes on profits made in those states,could WalMart be considered as a candidate for anti-trust action,RICO statute violation?

With WalMart filing as 80/20 companies in various individual states to avoid paying state taxes on profits made in those states,could WalMart be considered as a candidate for anti-trust action,RICO statute violation? ~ddrb

How can one blame a company for working within the law?

“Wal-Mart retained at least 8 lobbyists to ply its issues on Beacon Hill, which ranged from legislation regulating the retailer’s credit cards, to preventing big box stores from selling gasoline below cost. Wal-Mart weighed in on bills related to electronic identity theft, the use of radio frequency identification devices, and private check cashing services.

But the retailer also paid Bay State Strategies and Holland & Knight to lobby against H. 3756, Governor Deval Patrick’s “Act Improving the Fairness of the Tax Laws.” The Governor’s bill contains a provision that would require Wal-Mart to pay millions of dollars in state income taxes that the retailer has dodged by creating “sham transactions” that it pays to itself.

H. 3756 would close this tax loophole, forcing Wal-Mart to pay at much as $5 million in state taxes that it has previously dodged. Patrick refiled his legislation in January, 2008, saying, “Under the current system, small businesses are at a disadvantage, while larger corporations avoid paying their fair share.” One of the main larger corporations not paying its fair share is Wal-Mart. And the corporation is paying big bucks to lobbyists to keep it that way. According to the Governor’s office, closing this one loophole would generate another $271 million in revenues for the Commonwealth in FY 2008.

On December 28, 2007, the Commonwealth’s Study Commission On Corporate Taxation, reported that multi-state corporations like Wal-Mart were allowed to “shift income out of corporations engaged in business in the Commonwealth to affiliates in low-tax jurisdictions, thus reducing Massachusetts taxes paid.” The legislation opposed by Wal-Mart eliminates this shifting of income by adopting “combined reporting,” under which affiliated corporations engaged in unitary business activities combine their incomes and apportionment factors and file as one entity.”

The Study Commission concluded that “combined reporting would modernize the corporate tax structure in the Commonwealth and would reduce opportunities for tax avoidance through transactions among affiliated corporations.” ~~~~~~Huffington Post~~~~~~~~~ Note:A little background on the very recent 2300 word last minute amendment (written by WalMart lobbyists ) to the Massachusetts combined reporting legislation, ALLOWING 80/20 status in Massachusetts. It helps when your lobbyists are writing the law,Robert,along with acquiescent accomplices,better known asLlocal,state and federal politicians....doing a job ON their constituency INSTEAD of doing a job FOR their constituency.

Robert J. Trenwick;

It’s too bad, that people like ddrb, don’t understand that corporate taxes ultimately come from customers, who are also taxpayers.  Raising the taxes on the corporation = raising the taxes on taxpayers.

Charles: Are you saying WalMart is paying over $208,000 in Massachusetts lobbying fees to enact legislation to SAVE the customer taxes? That WalMart sets up REITS in Italy to SAVE Illinois tax payers’ money? North Carolina? Why does the Multi State Tax Commission recommend all states go to combined reporting?

Wal-Mart routinely dodges state and local taxes, meaning money spent at a Wal-Mart store won’t end up in your community. Wal-Mart actively works to challenge property tax assessments and creates complex real estate arrangements to obscure how much taxes the company owes. When Wal-Mart dodges its tax burden, it takes precious revenues away from cities and states to pay for roads, schools and other services. In turn, individual taxpayers are forced to pay more to make up the difference (which takes more money out of their pockets) or get by with less. ~~~~~~~~David Nassar,WMW

...RICO statute violation?

To my knowledge the only RICO suit brought against Wal-Mart so far, was in connection with those illegal immigrant janitors back in 2002.

Link

who cares kenny boy big deal.your favorite stores have more lawsuits against them than walmart does.

hey ddrb all your favorite high cost stores like costco and etc dodge taxes regularly so shut up about walmart doing it you hypocrit.

...your favorite stores have more lawsuits against them than walmart does.

CALL!

Put up or shut up, Matthew. Show us one “store”, company, or corporation* that has more pending lawsuits than Wal-Mart.

Answer me, Matthew, don’t run and hide.

*Not to include the US government.

i>Wal-Mart now ranks second behind the U.S. government as the most-sued organisation in the world. The supermarkets chain was sued 4,851 times last year - once every two hours...There are 9,400 cases pending against Wal-Mart in the U.S. court system. The curious phenomenon has created a micro-economy for lawyers across the U.S...The lawsuits are many and varied: slipping on just-cleaned floors, sex-discrimination claims from workers, a woman who was killed by a rifle bought illegally from the store by her husband. Even when the store is found liable, it still continues its legal trench warfare..."The store has this folksy, down-home image that makes you think Gee, they’re just like us. But then you try getting what you think you have coming and they are ferocious.”....</i> (08/16/01)

Ken V: That last sentence in your above post,reminds me of the Clintons.

ddrb;

[Charles: Are you saying WalMart is paying over $208,000 in Massachusetts lobbying fees to enact legislation to SAVE the customer taxes?]

That is exactly what i’m saying.  Where do you think walmart’s money comes from?  Does it fall from the sky?  No, customers provide it through profit from purchases, therefore, if walmart needs ‘more’ money to pay ‘more’ taxes, it comes from the customers, through ‘higher prices’ and guess what, customers are also taxpayers, therefore, the taxpayers end up paying the tax bill for walmart.  It’s called logic and common sense.  Walmart would be using customers money to pay those taxes, get it yet?

Charles: In the states where WalMart has used REITS and PICS to avoid paying the tax on WalMart’s profits from goods sold in those states,has WalMart returned the taxes off the profits to ALL the states citizens,not just WalMart shoppers? ? Remember ,these are taxes that are being diverted away from ALL the citizens of those states-NOT JUST WALMART SHOPPERS. Why would the MultiState Tax Commission recommend combined reporting as a measure to CLOSE tax loopholes if it would put MORE burden on the taxpayer? The entire purpose is for the state to reap benfit from revenue generated in that particular state. Believe it or not Charles, there is a frame of reference bigger than WalMart. The 2300 word amendment in Massachusetts would encourage foreing corporations to register as 80/20’s also,further bilking the rightful tax revenue to the state.

Correction:"foreign"

kroger aka fred meyer kenny boy go investigate yourself i already have bud.i know many former fred meyer employees and they were treated far worse there than walmart has ever been accused of treating workers.they have had numerous lawsuits against them in the past and have a high volume pending now.

That’s your ‘proof”?

What I find hilarious is that after a couple of years of shifting though pro Wal-Mart posters, you have emerged as the best they can come up with.

In your honor I will run this equally literate quote:

“wal-mart is one big piece of shit with a door” ~ ananomous

Ken:“wal-mart is one big piece of shit with a door” ~ ananomous

Ken V in Texas~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And m att hew is the Greeter.

SDV: re: Your comment at top of thread:~~~~~~~~~~~

“As Mike Whitney reported at the end of October in 2006 — a day before Halloween — the US was then engineering the drop in the dollar to “improve competitiveness” — ie subsidize US exports in a flawed attempt to reduce the growing balance of trade gap. The result was summed up in the headline: “The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day.”

Whitney saw then what our media has still yet to report or understand.  Read on:

“The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America’s debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment.”

This was months before the subprime meltdown in August 2007, or the more recent hike in food prices and oil prices. Their plan, blessed by business and the banks, was implemented step by step. The consequence was intende

Whitney quoted Richard Daughty from “his prescient article, The Phase of Impact” the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept have already manned the battle-stations.

Here’s an excerpt: “Mr. Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, by virtue of his ascension to the throne, now the head of the shadowy President’s Working Group of Financial Markets (which was created by Presidential Order 12631) and he is insisting that they meet more often, namely every 6 weeks!

This whole Working Group thing was originally set up as a fallback, ad-hoc, if-then defense to deal with possible economic emergencies, but now they are routinely meeting every 6 weeks. He has even ordered Jim Wilkinson, his chief of staff, to ‘oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis’! (Wall Street Journal)

Now let’s fast-forward to the present, well after this widely foreseen crisis erupted. As oil prices climb, the public is angry. And who do they mostly blame? The oil companies and the oil producing states, of course. They have no clue that this crisis was the consequence of decisions made by the Bush Administration to devalue the dollar with its “crisis manager” Jim Wilkinson playing a central role.

Political writer Jerry Policoff questioned the “politicized polls” on who is responsible for the oil hikes. He noted that most people and pollsters don’t realize that the fall of the dollar precipitated all of this.

I asked him if he thought this squeeze had been orchestrated.

His response:

“I don’t think there is any doubt about that, and the Saudis said as much when Bush asked them to rev up production to bring down the price. Their reaction was pretty much that the U.S. should stop undermining the value of its own dollar before asking other countries to take a financial hit on oil.”

And sure enough, once again, as AP reported, last Friday, President Bush “failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices.”

The President’s own bombast was also faulted for driving oil prices higher, as Bill Scher noted, “Bush’s saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which prompts speculators to raise prices.”(Common Dreams,May ‘08)