Wal-Mart’s January Sales Far Below Expectations

The disappointing sales figures do not bode well for WalMart,having been announced on this,the first day of the Chinese New Year 2008-coincidentally,The Year of the Rat.

Even the high-end sector, which has so far eluded the spending slump, took a hit...

What’s going on? Wouldn’t you expect consumer spending to slow from the top down? Wal-Mart’s same store sales have been in a “slump” for more than a year.

Recession: A significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting longer than a few months. It is visible in industrial production, employment, real income, and wholesale-retail trade. The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country’s GDP. ~ Investopedia

I hope nobody is expecting WalMart to realize their own contributions in creating this systemic downturn. Arrogance precludes the honest view and seeks to blame someone or something else-

“The retailer blamed weakness in post-holiday gift card redemptions and unfavorable weather for the sales shortfall.”

WalMart- The front door to economic hell.

If Wal-Mart i>REALLY</i> Wanted to Help the Economy…

they would bring back their “Bring it Home America” campaign and start to pressure their suppliers to bring it back to America and start building factories like there’s no tomorrow!

It is all about the economy stupid!  Wal-Mart deserves the major share of the blame for forcing companies overseas, outsourcing jobs to places like China, Mexico, Honduras Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.  This is why I’ll never forgive the Clintons.  Bill pushed for NAFTA and PNT status for China.  Hillary shows her true colors as well.  In India, she defended American outsourcing of jobs.  She said, “There is no way to legislate against reality.” She Voted YES on establishing free trade between US & Singapore, voted YES on establishing free trade between the US and Chile, voted YES on granting normal trade relations status to Vietnam, and
voted YES on free trade agreement with Oman.

Wal-Mart has had a downward effect on the economy for too long.  I think the “fair trade” monster they’ve helped to create, may be too big for even Wal-Mart to handle.

Screwedby: You think if HillBillary is elected,there will EVER be RICO charges filed against WalMart -wouldn’t they be a prime candidate considering their extensive sphere of influence on legislation,economics and labor issues?Why hsn’t someone pushed for this before? With all the various divisions,and corporations set up-including international and WalMart Mexico bank-wouldn’t this qualify for RICO?

“Beware of that profound enemy of the free enterprise system who pays lip-service to free competition - but also labels every anti-trust prosecution as a “persecution.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech in Chicago, Oct. 28, 1944.

FDR no doubt saw this attitude within his own party and now that the magnification of fiat, S & L and corporate money has intruded upon the likes of the Clintons long ago, the appetite for unrestrained globalism at any cost is beyond their own ability to control or comprehend. International capital was the same fight and problem mentioned in chapter 8 of Mein Kampf and the realities and consequences of national destructions just could not be avoided.

WalMart/Waltons and the politicians within their sphere of operations are internationalists who will not and cannot see reality outside of global theory, personal gain and a propaganda frenzy of basic denials and happy diversionary horseshit renewed daily while jacked up on media Prozac.

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”
Abraham Lincoln

WalMart- The Bushes, Clintons, Huckabee etc. Everyday low lifes, no matter the destructive costs to the United States of America.

Try it like this-

From Network (1976)

Arthur Jensen: “You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it. Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T;, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale; it has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality - one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock - all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.”

WalMart- Arthur Jensen, our all American hero/model.

SDV: Thank you so much for the script from “Network"-I recall Ned Beatty giving me chills as the fanatical network owner!  I thought I’d pass on a new essay by Chalmers Johnson,on AlterNet. Its a commentary on a new book called"The Bad Samaritain.” Here is an excerpt: 
Tom Friedman’s Folly: The Lies Behind ‘Free Trade’

By Chalmers Johnson, Truthdig. Posted February 5, 2008.

A new book on disastrous trade policies makes it clear that it’s time to dismantle the barriers that keep so much of the world poor.

Ha-Joon Chang is a Cambridge economist who specializes in the abject poverty of the Third World and its people, groups, nations, and empires, and their doctrines that are responsible for this condition. He won the Gunnar Myrdal Prize for his book “Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective” (2002), and he shared the 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize for his contributions to “Rethinking Development in the 21st Century.” The title of his 2002 book comes from the German political economist Friedrich List, who in 1841 criticized Britain for preaching free trade to other countries while having achieved its own economic supremacy through high tariffs and extensive subsidies. He accused the British of “kicking away the ladder” that they had climbed to reach the world’s top economic position. Chang’s other, more technical books include “The Political Economy of Industrial Policy” (1994) and “Reclaiming Development: An Economic Policy Handbook for Activists and Policymakers” (2004).

His new book is a discursive, well-written account of what he calls the “Bad Samaritan,” “people in the rich countries who preach free markets and free trade to the poor countries in order to capture larger shares of the latter’s markets and preempt the emergence of possible competitors. They are saying ‘do as we say, not as we did’ and act as Bad Samaritans, taking advantage of others who are in trouble.” Bad Samaritans is intended for a literate audience of generalists and eschews the sort of exotica that peppers most economic writing these days .  This is a lengthy eassay,but well worth a trip to read both the ENTIREessay,but for the exceptional commentaries provided by the bloggers at the end of the article.

Thank You SDV and ddrb!

Some great contributions from the two of you!!  I share your feeling about “getting the chills” when I heard Ned Beatty’s character expounding on the new world order.  That has always left an impression with me… unfortunately at the time I saw it… I didn’t know what movie I had tuned into.  I’ve always been meaning to try and find out… now, thanks to SDV, I gotta go get the video.

Thanks for your information on Ha-Joon Chang, ddrb.  This is going to get filed at the front of Tom Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat.” I pick it up from time to time, it’s hard to read something by someone I fundamentally and politically disagree with.

Here’s the Link

For anyone who’s interested, here’s the link to the Chalmers Johnson essay that ddrb cited.

Who’s interested?  Same old people we see here everyday?

Mick: So? Why are YOU here? Why don’t YOU contribute something,ANYTHING ,except criticism?

Same old people we see here everyday?

We are a small but dedicated group hell-bent on slaying the Beast of Bentonville, Mick.

Were you expecting a Wal-Mart site selling Seikos?

Speaking of “same old people”, I sure hope a tornado didn’t get Bob (RDS). Tornados are considered “acts of God”.

Speaking of “same old people”...

I’ve been holding my breath up until now.  I’ve been wondering how long it would take for somebody to drop “the name that shouldn’t be mentioned"… _D_

He might start to think we actually miss him?

Where did Bob go?

R E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

dd mentioned it first but RDS (Bob) did stop posting about the same time those tornados hit northern Arkansas.

Disagree with him as I might, I don’t wish him ill.

“I don’t wish him ill”

Nor do I.  I’m just relishing the silence.  Don’t worry, he’ll be back.  I like to think of his absence as a disease that’s in remission.