When Wal-Mart Profits, Main Street Loses

Spin this Grossman

A fund-raising committee for Senator Clinton’s 2000 campaign has agreed to pay a $35,000 civil penalty and to concede that reports it made to the federal government understated by more than $700,000 donations to a California celebrity gala held to benefit her Senate bid.

The agreement between the committee, New York Senate 2000, and the Federal Election Commission ends the campaign finance regulation agency’s inquiry into a complaint filed in 2001 by an entrepreneur who financed the fund-raising concert, Peter Paul.

“The civil payment assessed to New York Senate 2000 resolves the question of underreported in-kind contributions, and there will be no further action on this matter,” an attorney for the fundraising committee, Marc Elias, said.

The conciliation agreement, ap proved at a Federal Election Commission meeting last month, has not yet been made public. However, three sources with knowledge of the terms outlined the deal to The New York Sun.

Under the agreement, the committee will amend its public reports to show that Paul’s in-kind gifts to the fund-raising concert were understated by $721,895. The committee and its treasurer, Andrew Grossman, agreed that there was probable cause to believe that the filings violated federal campaign finance law. However, the committee claimed that it relied on “reasonable processes” to verify the data it filed.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, said the senator was not available for an interview yesterday.

Holly J in Lansing:

Your point is?  What does anything you “cut and pasted” have to do with the way Wal-Mart is profiting and and systematically destroying what may be left of America’s so-called “middle class?”

Spin this Holly:  According to a report by the director of the Los Angeles port about a year ago, $36 billion in goods comes into this country from China, while only $3 billion or so is exported from this country in the form of raw materials like scrap metal and cotton.  Some people try to spin this as “fair and balanced trade.” The same report stated that Wal-Mart has 6,000 suppliers, and 80% of those are in China and other countries.  In the meantime, America’s trade deficit has now topped $700 billion dollars.

Explain how this is good for America Holly.  If you can, then you should be the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve and not Ben Bernanke.

Screwed - you are.  You’ve cut and pasted that tidbit on three other threads, and you copied it from something another poster said.  Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E?  I knew you could.

Holly - I agree with you that this is an interesting story.  It doesn’t quite do anything for the point of this blog, but it was good reading, and it reflects poorly on some of the things that Mr. Grossman has recently said, including his comments about WM having “ethical lapses”.

And now, in some Cut & Pasting of my own - who is the Institute?  Well, in their own words:
“America’s Future insists that the question of falling wages and rising insecurity be placed at the center of our national debate. We challenge those who suggest that nothing can be done and expose the conservative agenda that has made things worse. America’s Future works to revitalize a progressive agenda, and fights to make this economy work for working people once again. We engage citizens, activists and political leaders in a renewed debate about the kind of country — and the kind of world — we want to build for the generations yet to come.”

Some (certainly not all) of the founders include:
(and reveal my impression of any work published by this organization - killing trees for wasted paper!)

Morton Bahr - Communication Workers of America
George Becker - United Steelworkers of America
Moe Biller - American Postal Workers Union
Thomas Buffenbarger - Machinists Union
Bob Chase - National Education Association
Douglas H. Dority - United Food and Commercial Workers
Edward Fire - International Union of Electronic Workers
Thea Lee - AFL-CIO, Assistant Director of Public Policy
Jay Mazur - UNITE
Gerald W. McEntee - AFSCME
Cecil Roberts - United Mine Workers of America
Andrew Stern - Service Employees International Union
* John J. Sweeney - AFL-CIO
Richard Trumka - AFL-CIO
Stephen P. Yokich - United Auto Workers

Another example of WMWatch bluffing on a small pair?  I think so… good thing I’m holding three Aces.

Oops ... my commentary on the “about us” statement:
The economy is working for working people ... how about the lowest continuous unemployment rate for the last several years ...

Go ahead, Screwed ... release the insults ... it seems to be the only damage you can make to my case, and it’s pretty weak, really.

JJ in Main Street USA:  I’d love to play you in a game of poker.  You obviously know less about playing cards than you do about the many ways Wal-Mart is SCREWING the country!  The fact that you hold “three aces” means nothing!  You also didn’t specify if there were any “wild cards” JJ.  When it comes to Wal-Mart there are lots of wild cards out there.  If I were you JJ, I’d fold, because I hold the other Ace.  Since you think you have such a great hand JJ, I’m assuming we’re playing aces high.  So my Ace-King-Queen-Jack-10 (all the same suit), or Royal Flush beats your Full House if you even have one.  But since you are the one who is bluffing, I’m raising you!

By the way JJ...good to see you can read the other threads. I didn’t see your response to my question anywhere.  Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself if all you pro Wal-Mart geeks would just answer the question instead of trying to side-track the issues with all of your meaningless posts.

Hardly a fan of Hilary or her husband. Then again neither am I a fan of W. I do however like Laura’s interest in literacy so I’ll substitute W.’s mother. I’m not a fan of hers. I am a fan of equal opportunity of the 2 major parties bashing. In any case Holly wants to turn this into a republican vs. democratic debate and ignore completely the subject of the thread. More or less I’d call it trolling. Seems as if she should take it somewhere else. In fact why doesn’t she e’mail Senator Clinton’s office?

Anyway to the subject at hand. Destroying local economies.
What else is it but greed? Nick used to come on here with his mantra “Greed is Good”. Practically everything WM does it does with its bottom line in mind. Unfortunately many of its customers have the same thing in mind. And it doesn’t matter to them whether institutions in their local communites that they grew up with disappearor not. It doesn’t matter whether the goods they buy are made here in this country. I’d call it a lack of civic mindedness. It’s easy to say there’s nothing made here anymore--I can’t find anything with a US label. But there are products out there. Sometimes you have to look harder.

Larry,

Great to see you still on the boards.  I’ve been remiss in my ‘duties’ to visit and read up.

People vote with their wallets, and have no forethought to the ramifications of their actions (aside from the Almighty Dollar).  Hrm, that may be the Almights Yuan after this is all over with.

We have been slowly tricked into the mentality of, “You dont need to do that manual labor stuff. We’ll do it here in China”

We have become complacent and lazy as we let others “do the dirty work”, and have become a country of consumers.  Well, a consumption economy cannot survive, let alone thrive.

Now to spin slightly off the topic, but hopefully circling around it… China is trying to play the “We are Capitalists” to the outside world.  Internally I’m sure we would see a different picture.  They radically control the fundamentals of their economy.  We cannot see the inner workings, because it is behind a Red curtain.  Are they really that cheap in production, or are they in such control that they only appear to be more competitive?

Why are we seeing the Haves and the Have-Nots in China grow at a massive rate?  The gap between them is huge (as is the gap growing in Mexico).  These gaps will cause civil unrest (or should I say MORE unrest), and could lead to ever growing problems.  But hey, it’s not our problem, right?  That is, until everything you want to buy is suddenly gone, because you’ve become reliant on another nation for the very food on your table.  (Food imports on another show).

Bottom line.  Local production and Local Economies are what in the end will drive us forward, not shopping ourselves out of a job.  Wal-Mart is the antithesis of this thought, and all major retailers are following their lead.  But since they are playing follow the leader, it’s the leader you want to take down.

Talk about declining benefits. Despite the thousands of customers our small-town supercenter brought in for the Christmas season, the employees weren’t so lucky. 2005’s year-end bonus was 100% depleted by the insane policy (sales-accidents=bonus) held by the company. I had the pleasure of going to the back with a family member employee and seeing the huge, looming “YEAR END BONUS: $0.00” sign less than a week before New Years. What a treat for those who had credit card bills to pay off (too many discounted presents purchased from daddy WalMart).

I’m sure everybody here knows our nations story of independence.  The English Empire starts colonies that produce the raw goods of manufacturing and then shipped them to England where the consumer goods are made, and returned to the colonists with a huge mark up.  Profits are kept by the wealthy owners while the poor are stuck in work houses to pay off their debts.  At the same time taxes are collected on the sale of these goods to finance British wars of conquest around the world.  Early Americans fight back with boycotts and the “Home Spun” movement, keeping the wealth at home… Oh, and then there was the revolutionary war too, led by and for the benefit of the American aristocracy, with a pittance paid to the foot soldiers.
Today’s parallels? Capitalists are still moving the means of production where ever they can best benefit from a co-operative government, enslaving their workers, and shifting the taxation to the lower classes while waging wars for profit.  Enticing recruits from the lower classes with the posibility of college, and (ever diminishing) veretan benefits if you survive.
The solution, grow your own food, join a CSA, make your own cloths, distill your own ethanol for gas, or better yet get a bio-diesel co-op going.  Reject the Wal-Mart consumer culture, declare independence!

Very nice Article!

thanks