[Vision2020] Walmart Gets Nod for Starting Work

[Donovan Arnold]

Garrett,

Wal-Mart isn't exploiting anyone anymore than anyone else. All your crap is made in China, not just the stuff you pull off the Wal-Mart shelf. Wal-Mart doesn't pollute anymore than any other business. Wal-mart pays the same or better than other retailers. 

The fact that Wal-Mart sales are increasing as people get poor should tell you how vital is in providing jobs and services to the poor and disadvantaged than anyone else. 

Wal-Mart isn't perfect. I don't think any business is. But it doesn't do anything its competition doesn't do. It does lots of good things as well, such as providing jobs, affordable goods, jobs for people others won't hire, it has drastically reduced the costs of over 200 prescription medications to $4, it helped find 1000s of missing and lost children, It donates billions to charitable causes. It doesn't waste millions on luxury for managers. 

Tryng to blame Wal-Mart for Chinese labor laws and US trade agreements with China is misguided. If Wal-Mart stopped buying from China the conditions in China would worsen, not better, and Wal-Mart's competitors would gladly use those same factories to eventually drive Wal-Mart out of business. Wal-Mart is working within the system that the US and China has created. 

Your opposition to Wal-Mart has not stopped them. It has only just moved the jobs, taxes, and resources to Pullman, because they know Wal-Mart is actually more of a blessing than curse despite its problems. 

I think it is the intention of some of Moscow's residents to drive all the jobs it can over to Pullman or out of Moscow. I am not aware of any job that Moscow is willing to accept unless it is not supported by taxes. 

Best Regards,

Donovan

--- On Mon, 3/9/09, Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc at verizon.net> wrote:
From: Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc at verizon.net>
Subject: [Vision2020] Walmart Gets Nod for Starting Work
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Monday, March 9, 2009, 11:00 AM

Donovan satirizes:

"Now is the time to demand impossible standards of employers, and be as
picky as possible about the kind of jobs we want."


Yes, let's bend over backwards for the Waltons. Instead of them relying on
cheap labor in China, let's give them cheap labor here in Moscow! We need
the jobs, after all, and who cares if we pollute the water manufacturing cheap
stuff. At least Americans won't put toxins in stuff they'll sell to
other Americans, right? We'll keep stuff even cheaper saving on fuel costs
since we won't have to transport it half way round the world.

Yes, I want Walmart to keep growing and growing until all that's left are
Walmart stores because their quality is sooo good, I don't really want
accountability, and I love the Waltons so much I think they deserve a few more
billion dollars. Who needs to make more than a couple bucks a day, anyway?


But seriously...

Walmarts sales are up 6.5% compareded to last year. The irony is, as people get
poorer, they need cheaper things, and they're less likely to care why things
are so cheap, and who's making the majority of the $$$. A terrible downward
spiral.

Many people don't know or care that the family who owns Walmart is one of
the richest families on the planet. As of last September, 4 of the top 10 riches
Americans are Waltons on Forbes Riches Americans list, with a total net worth of
almost $100 billion.

According to http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/54/400list08_Jim-Walton_JI38.html

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer: 7,300 stores, 2 million employees
serve 200 million customers. Sales: $378 billion


Walmart may provide jobs in their ever-expanding business, and insure we have
cheap stuff, but at what cost?

In order for the Waltons to become super-billionaires, most other people are
losing out. There is a finite amount of wealth and resources, so to think that
the Waltons could amass such wealth without causing other people to loss money
is idiotic.

Someone has to pay for their billions, and while they may provide cheap stuff
for the poor people they exploit, they are causing an unsustainable trade
deficit supporting foreign companies that have lax labor and environmental laws
who sell to Walmart toxic toys and food that Walmart then pushes on to poor
Americans who in turn help cause the downfall of smaller, family-owned and
independent stores, who can't sell as cheap stuff because they don't
have the buying power, they actually try to pay their employees a living wage
and they don't have the political clout to gain tax-breaks from towns so
desperate to create jobs and have cheap stuff that they are willing to sacrifice
downtowns to the holy Walton empire who will then be able to hire Americans
because in order to compete with foreign labor we now are willing to work for
nothing in polluted environments. Who needs high standards, anyway!

I can accept that if you don't know that the Waltons are exploiting people
to make their billions you might support them, but if you're smart enough to
put two and two together and give your money to Walmart, you are culpable in
allowing Walmart to continue to drive American wages down, and possibly lower
our labor and environmental standards in order to compete.

It seems rather selfish that in order to maintain access to addictive cheap
stuff some would sacrifice the overall security of our country. Thus why the
rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. 

Fight for the right of poor people to have access to cheap stuff with one hand,
drive the stake into the heart of poor people with the other. How ironic!

Now is exactly the time to start building the foundation of a new economic
model, not continue to pour trillions into what obviously is a discredited
system with Walmart leading the charge. (Charge it to future generations, that
is...)

gclev



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