Tendo City

You're so weird.

Wal-Mart is evil. I won't support their business practices.

Haven't I explained this enough times before?

I buy from Wal-Mart all the time. Cheap games = more money to spend on other games.

Yeah really ABF. They sell stuff CHEAPER. That's all I need. Don't make this some stupid religion.

Actually caring about the world I live in is far from stupid. The exact opposite, actually. But I wouldn't expect conservatives to understand, you don't care.

*slowly backs away, turns around and makes a run for it*

That was for people who agree with GR and Weltall, BTW.

So I'm a conservative because I like to buy cheap games, huh?

No, no, you misunderstand... I meant that I was directing that at the conservatives, not that I was calling you all conservatives...

Look, they aren't doing anything evil alright? They are selling stuff at a cheaper price because they have ways of buying it at a cheaper price. It's not "unfair", it's just that they are doing a better job of running their business. They provide cheaper goods and thus they DESERVE to have the customers they get.

Uhh...what do politics have to do with with buying things at Wal-Mart because they're cheap?

Please explain, ABF. I'm confused.

It's not videogames that are the problem with Wal-Mart, they're just an incidental thing. I'm talking about stuff like how how much of their stuff is from sweatshops, and how they destroy towns across america, and how they use blatantly unfair business practices...

Is there any proof of these claims?

I found proof of the claims being made!!

And NO, the picture isn't doctored, except where I accentuate where you can see the claims being made.

(DJ has a new rival as the board's grammar nazi! )

Nice one! :D

Oh well, it's not like Microsoft hasn't been accused [and convicted] of unfair business practices, and I still buy their products [even though I don't like them].

Quote:how they destroy towns across america

No kidding, man! I mean I saw on the news just a few days ago about how Wal-Mart destroyed FIVE WHOLE TOWNS in just a week! It's just insane the kind of things they get away!

Yeah those new transforming robot Walmarts are walking all over the place, Godzilla-style!

Sacred Jellybean Wrote:I found proof of the claims being made!!

And NO, the picture isn't doctored, except where I accentuate where you can see the claims being made.

(DJ has a new rival as the board's grammar nazi! )

Blast! I'll get you yet, Mr. Higgins!

There is also that thing that came out a little while ago about illegal immigrant janitors in Wal-Marts all over the place that were forced to work a lot of hours and got like one day off a year...

Quote:No kidding, man! I mean I saw on the news just a few days ago about how Wal-Mart destroyed FIVE WHOLE TOWNS in just a week! It's just insane the kind of things they get away!

Downtowns. And I've explained this before. Local stores have their prices undercut and in a lot of places they close so Wal-Mart is all that's left... especially in the south...

And as for sweatshops, well, given the prices of their clothing should anyone really have any doubt?

I believe the clothes there are made out of tissue paper, so no the low prices didn't surprise me.

Well yeah, quality is another issue they have.

Quote:Blast! I'll get you get, Mr. Higgins!

Get me get?

'Reminds me of an Invader Zim episode, actually.

Dib: "I can't just sit here and let Zim get away with his... with his... things he do! I mean..."
Gaz: "Things he <i>do</i>??"

Whatever it meant, though... NEVER!

That was supposed to read "I'll get you yet".

Quote:Downtowns. And I've explained this before. Local stores have their prices undercut and in a lot of places they close so Wal-Mart is all that's left... especially in the south...

The three Wal-Marts in my area are business magnets. Tons are stores are moving to where the Wal-Marts are at. In fact, at on location the are just about to finish a huge construction project that brought in, among other things, a Home Depot, a Target, a 12 screen cinema, and a several restaurants. Now, granted, the downtown locally owned stores are hit rather hard, but Wal-Marts pull in a lot of other stores.

Quote:The three Wal-Marts in my area are business magnets. Tons are stores are moving to where the Wal-Marts are at. In fact, at on location the are just about to finish a huge construction project that brought in, among other things, a Home Depot, a Target, a 12 screen cinema, and a several restaurants. Now, granted, the downtown locally owned stores are hit rather hard, but Wal-Marts pull in a lot of other stores.

Don't you love it when people who think they're disagreeing make their points for you?

Now Wal-Mart hasn't killed our downtown, but that's because I think it attracts somewhat different customers... and while it's always busy the downtown is doing okay too. At least for now. But Home Depot just opened across the river and Lowe's is building in town... it could hit the local lumber yards pretty hard...

Whatever.

Anyway, there's ALSO Target! That's exactly like Wal-mart.

Quote:Wal-Mart is all that's left

:hmm:

My point of course GR is that that is indeed a place with lots of stores. Mostly chain stores. All the ones you mentioned are chains... and they are succeeding at the cost of local businesses. That's what Wal-Mart does, first it arrives and then it puts the local stores out of business so that you can't go anywhere else...

So? If I had been GOING to the local stores that might be something I care about, but I'm NOT going to them because I'd RATHER shop at Wal-Mart or Target! I fail to see why I should care.

And therein lies the problem... though I can't see how you could not see...

It is quite disturbing that you do not understand that the idea of big multinationals taking over everything is a bad one... disturbing and sad. Success does not mean quality or good anything! I do not understand how you can just ignore the fact that these companies to so many awful things and say "but they are successful so that's fine". That idea is so utterly absurd...

You don't care that these companies are taking over. That scares me.

Taking over what? If they start providing bad products, I'll just buy them from someone else. And there WILL be someone else mind you. Target and Wal-Mart at the very unrealistic least will be competing with each other too much. "Damn you Wal-Mart and you're... products that I can afford!"

If I actually believed Wal-Mart was doing things like opening illegal sweat shops, that'd be another story, but as of yet I don't see any proof of these claims. If they WERE proven, I'm fairly sure the company would be shut down.

Opening? No. They just ask Asian companies for clothes, and the companies provide them. Cheaper the better, and don't ask too many questions...

Oh, and the thing I mentioned about illegal immigrants doing janitor work in a whole bunch of Wal-Marts with one day off a year is true. It was in the news a week or two ago. As is the fact that they kill local businesses... but you wouldn't understand that, you don't have pride in anything... destroying businesses doesn't bother you at all? You sure have one messed up value system.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Opening? No. They just ask Asian companies for clothes, and the companies provide them. Cheaper the better, and don't ask too many questions...

Oh, and the thing I mentioned about illegal immigrants doing janitor work in a whole bunch of Wal-Marts with one day off a year is true. It was in the news a week or two ago. As is the fact that they kill local businesses... but you wouldn't understand that, you don't have pride in anything... destroying businesses doesn't bother you at all? You sure have one messed up value system.

You're a liberal. The only reason it makes you unhappy that businesses are being destroyed is because another business is doing it, and not the federal government. :D

The issue with illegal immigrants isn't Wal-Mart's problem, since they were contracted workers and not on the company payroll. The contractors are the ones in trouble.

Right, like conservatives do so much for small businesses... the tax cuts might help a little but I think getting them access to free, or at least cheaper, health care for their workers would help more. You know, like they have in the rest of the first world?

A Black Falcon Wrote:Right, like conservatives do so much for small businesses... the tax cuts might help a little but I think getting them access to free, or at least cheaper, health care for their workers would help more. You know, like they have in the rest of the first world?

Giving people the free health care that Europe does would also require taking seventy percent of employee's paychecks for taxes like Europe does, which would ruin our economy like Europe's is ruined.

The issue here isn't what conservatives do to help, it's what liberals do to destroy. Conservatives are busy enough preventing that. Small businesses are merely another facet of capitalism, and liberals, in theory anyway, despise and abhor the capitalist system and would love nothing more than to see it end forever, but tolerate it because it works so incredibly well.

But neither liberals nor conservatives can save small business. Small and independent business ownership is dying merely because the modern economic existence has decreasing demand for it. There was a time, in the past, when individual merchants decried the first joint-stock companies (what we call 'small business' today, but such certainly was not the case then) because the efficiency and profit-vs-risk ratio of forming a corporation was far greater than could be achieved by single businessmen, thus, the only ones that survived were, as today, specialists. Such change has benefits as well as downsides, but in the end, it works, and works well.

That's a part of how economics works. It has little to do with liberal and conservative, and much more to do with how socio-economics changes and merges as time goes on.

Somewhat. But big business wouldn't be anywhere near where it is today without the help (both from regulations and from lack of them, and more of the latter than the former) of the government... and you disparage Europe but on a whole it's not in as bad shape as you suggest. If it was the Euro wouldn't be going up against the dollar, that's for sure... you just need to convince yourself that they're doing badly to be able to justify why your small business-destroying (Republican policies are VERY good for big business) policies should continue...

See, health care is the biggest problem small businesses face. Well, that and insurance against lawsuits... it's very sad to see so many doctors leave fields they love because they can't afford the insurance if a patient decides to sue... but as for health care, prices are spiraling out of control. Companies are reacting by cutting or getting rid of benefits... bad for everyone. And then there's the 40 million uninsured. Europe doesn't have any of those problems. Yes, taxes are higher, but you get a big, big return for your money...

There's a reason that all the Democratic candidates have health care as one of their top priorities. The Republicans have shown that they do not want to do anything to actually work on the problem. And before you mention the recent Bush perscription drug bill, it's just a payout to big companies and the drug companies, not actual help for the people who need it. As per usual for Bush.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Somewhat. But big business wouldn't be anywhere near where it is today without the help (both from regulations and from lack of them, and more of the latter than the former) of the government... and you disparage Europe but on a whole it's not in as bad shape as you suggest. If it was the Euro wouldn't be going up against the dollar, that's for sure... you just need to convince yourself that they're doing badly to be able to justify why your small business-destroying (Republican policies are VERY good for big business) policies should continue...


See, health care is the biggest problem small businesses face. Well, that and insurance against lawsuits... it's very sad to see so many doctors leave fields they love because they can't afford the insurance if a patient decides to sue... but as for health care, prices are spiraling out of control. Companies are reacting by cutting or getting rid of benefits... bad for everyone. And then there's the 40 million uninsured. Europe doesn't have any of those problems. Yes, taxes are higher, but you get a big, big return for your money...

There's a reason that all the Democratic candidates have health care as one of their top priorities. The Republicans have shown that they do not want to do anything to actually work on the problem. And before you mention the recent Bush perscription drug bill, it's just a payout to big companies and the drug companies, not actual help for the people who need it. As per usual for Bush.

I disagree. Big business is where it is because of demand. How do you think Wal-Mart, a company that began as a single store in Bumfuck, Arkansas, became the most powerful and wealthy business conglomerate in the world in less than forty years? Much of it is due to Sam Walton's uncanny business sense, but most of it is due to the almighty force of consumer demand. People like to buy stuff cheap, so Wal-Mart sells stuff cheaper than anyone else. They can do this because they so skillfully manipulated a vast network of business operations to produce things at lower cost. They do everything possible to cut the lowest overhead possible. Now, I'll be the first one to agree that this is done as often as not by some questionable means, but that's not the point. The point is that they have the power to do this because they were able to grow this fast and this far. As I said before, Wal-Mart started as a single store, definitely a small business by any standard, and honestly, until about ten years ago they weren't nearly as powerful as now. The government has honestly had fleeting little to do with it either way, in anything other than a peripheral manner.

As for Europe? They're stable, I'll give you that, but there is absolutely no growth over there. Their economy is stagnant, as is their society and culture for that matter. The only reason they can play Big Brother and provide a living for everyone is because they tax people to death. So yes, people get free healthcare, and in return, every bit of economic growth and innovation they benefit from is either directly caused by America or is paid for by American dollars. Europe can't afford to do it on their own. If America tried the same free-lunch-for-eternity bit, our economy would go down the crapper and then governments would not be able to afford to be welfare states because there would be so much less revenue to tax. There would be less revenue because the only companies that could possibly survive in the same fashion as now are the ones that provide mundane goods. The explosive luxury goods industry, automotive, scientific, basically any private sector industry that doesn't directly provide sustenence goods to people will be hurt badly and probably killed... just like in Europe. And then what? Is it worth having free health care for everyone if in fifty years the system is no more advanced than it is today because growth is crippled?

The short answer is no. And it's this lack of foresight by liberals that makes people like me angry.

You're right about one thing: Europe is heading for a big problem. Their population is aging rapidly and they are losing population, meaning more and more burden is falling on a shrinking tax base, supporting a huge elderly population expecting everything nearly free for life. They can do it now but we'll see how it will work in a couple of decades... the US also has a major problem with Medicare going bankrupt, even with our dramatically lower levels of funding, but at least we have a growing tax base because of immigration and could afford to bring the taxes to a level where we might be able to stabilize things. Europe can't keep adding taxes because their tax burden is already very high... it'll be interesting to see what happens.

But still, even limited free coverage is far better than none at all...

Conservatives just do not care about people. Sick and dying old people not getting the care they need? Oh well, they should have saved more money. Poor people starving because working three jobs can't feed their family? Oh well, they should have had three jobs and gone to college too because anyone who can't move up the ladder (ie 99.99% of poor people) is a lazy bum and deserves what they get. Medicare? Evil program wasting government money to help people who are sick...

Oh yeah, and cheap goods are best, no matter where they come from. Now that position is also held by many moderate Democrats, like centrist Clinton... he supported NAFTA and free trade, big time... but that is just not the right way to do it. Oh, we should have free trade, but we must link it to wage, freedoms, and rights minimums. It is cruel to say that we don't care that Indonesian workers are in sweatshops just so we can have shoes and t-shirts a few bucks cheaper. And I know that Americans love how we get all our cheap stuff from China but because people cannot be expected to know which Chinese stuff is normal and which is slave or prison or sweatshop labor, the government needs to do it... confronting China is by far the biggest problem. We have such a massive trade deficit with them that we can't, even though they're one of the world's worst on worker's rights, accident rates, prison labor, labor laws, safety, etc, etc... but I don't know what we can do. Do we even have any leverage? At this point we can't credibly say we'll raise tarriffs on their goods, because we're so reliant on them...

I know that part of Wal-Mart's price advantage is the company's massive size... but I also know that part of it in some areas is deliberate underpricing, below their costs, just to destroy the competition so that when the little guys close they can then raise them... that's very common practice for chain stores.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Conservatives just do not care about people. Sick and dying old people not getting the care they need? Oh well, they should have saved more money. Poor people starving because working three jobs can't feed their family? Oh well, they should have had three jobs and gone to college too because anyone who can't move up the ladder (ie 99.99% of poor people) is a lazy bum and deserves what they get. Medicare? Evil program wasting government money to help people who are sick...

Yet, liberals are against private investment. It's true that people can't save enough money for their own needs, because SSI and Medicare deductions kill that. They have to pay for everyone benefiting now. It's a terrible way to operate and it's no wonder the system is failing. Yet, liberals want to extend and preserve it no matter what, even though it obviously cannot work anymore. They do everything they can to scare people from making private futures investments, when that is truly the answer. They will not even budge to allow governmental assistance on the matter. They want full control over the tax income, and are dooming future generations for it.

And, with the poor, it is again the liberals who, in the name of compassion, think that providing a living for someone poor is the answer to destitution, when the reality is that not only will such a program only ensure beyond any doubt that the poor stay poor, but that we can't afford to do it. But as with investment, they don't budge. They do whatever they can to make sure the poor cannot move up in the tax bracket. It's like you people want to prevent them from earning a living for themselves.

And then you fail to mention that many federal student loan programs offer enough money to get an education and to make living slightly easier to those with the desire to better themselves and with the prudence not to screw up their lives by having four kids by the time they're 22. I understand that some people truly do have no way up because their youthful indiscretion stymies them, but there's no reason the rest of us should pay for a quick and very impermanent fix to their mistakes.

As for Medicare? It's a necessary evil now because it is so deeply entrenched. But we definitely do need to find a better alternative and slowly phase medicare out. It can't last.

Quote:Oh yeah, and cheap goods are best, no matter where they come from. Now that position is also held by many moderate Democrats, like centrist Clinton... he supported NAFTA and free trade, big time... but that is just not the right way to do it. Oh, we should have free trade, but we must link it to wage, freedoms, and rights minimums. It is cruel to say that we don't care that Indonesian workers are in sweatshops just so we can have shoes and t-shirts a few bucks cheaper. And I know that Americans love how we get all our cheap stuff from China but because people cannot be expected to know which Chinese stuff is normal and which is slave or prison or sweatshop labor, the government needs to do it... confronting China is by far the biggest problem. We have such a massive trade deficit with them that we can't, even though they're one of the world's worst on worker's rights, accident rates, prison labor, labor laws, safety, etc, etc... but I don't know what we can do. Do we even have any leverage? At this point we can't credibly say we'll raise tarriffs on their goods, because we're so reliant on them...

I know that part of Wal-Mart's price advantage is the company's massive size... but I also know that part of it in some areas is deliberate underpricing, below their costs, just to destroy the competition so that when the little guys close they can then raise them... that's very common practice for chain stores.

I agree. It's getting to the point where businesses can, with some upfront cost, create manufacturing plants that do the same jobs, at probably the same rough cost. But old habits are hard to break, I suppose.

Our trade relationship with China can be seen much simpler though. While we do have a huge deficit in trade with them, their entire economy is completely dependent on our demand for their goods, to a greater extent than our economy is dependent on their supply. If there were a total stop it would hurt us badly and totally cripple China, but we still have the upper hand and I can't imagine that there isn't some leverage in our favor as a result. It's just a matter of how it could be utilized to help the overall condition and that's something I don't have an answer for.

You sure can fling insults... Who says I don't have pride? I certainly do have pride in my nation for instance. However, I fail to see what some business failing has to do with pride. Why should I take offense that someone I never met and likely never will meet failed? They have nothing to do with me except for living in the same town. That's sheer coincidence, nothing to attach an emotion to. My TOWN has nothing going for it that I really should be proud of except being an American town, and that's just American pride right there. What's wrong with analysing and quantifying emotions anyway? :robot:

However, in all seriousness, the people at the Wal-Mart company worked hard to get where they are (and until I see a little more evidence than a refference to some news show without even a name, and if it's local I'll ignore it because local news is notoriously inaccurate at times) so why should I say "get out of here with your... stuff that I can afford and your... 20 ton drum of coolant for 99 cents"? Businesses come and go all the time. Any business in the same field as another is attempting right there to kill the other one. Even without big business, small businesses die all the time anyway. The cause? Same thing, some other business comes along with better prices or selection and the first doesn't get enough customers to survive. Sure I care peripherally about them finding a way to support themselves afterwards, but I'm not going to out and out blame the competition. That's how capitalism works. You ban big business, and little businesses, as I said, will die out just the same. They just all won't be loosing to the same company. The customers run the market. You need to realize that. Let me ask you this, when K-Mart declaired bankrupsy and everyone thought it was going to die out, did you feel the slightest bit of the caring you think I should feel? I bet you didn't. I bet you were even happy about it, because it was an "evil big business company getting what it deserved". If Wal-Mart really IS doing horrible inhuman stuff like illegal sweatshops and such, then as I said, I'd completely change my mind about them. Otherwise, leave them alone. They are doing a good job providing a wide selection at cheap enough prices.

As Weltall said, specialty shops seem to survive well enough because, within their specializations, they each provide a much wider selection than any super store.

Wal-Mart has done a lot of good for this area, especially at a time when everother industrial facility is closing it's doors. Many new retail stores are moving in and creating lots of new jobs, so instead of becoming a run-down place where everyone's moving away because they can't find jobs, Sherman [a town I live near] is quickly becoming one the biggest shopping centers in North Texas! I wouldn't say it's only because of Wal-Mart but they were the ones that started the trend. It's no coincidence that all the new stores are being built by a Wal-Mart.

Yes, people sure will appreciate the extremely low-paying, dead-end, mostly part-time jobs that Wal-Mart offers, for sure...

And as for DJ if you don't want to care there's nothing I can say...

Well, except for this. So you have national pride but not pride in other things? What's so different? It's fine to love America but weird or shortsighted to love Nintendo or the Red Sox? Huh?

And as for sweatshops... it's hardly just a Wal-Mart thing, or something you can avoid. All kinds of stuff comes from South Asian sweatshops and we don't know what is what... there is no way to know. Well, except that the cheaper it is the more likely it is, I think... (for things like clothes anyway) the only way to really know is to inspect the factories, and most of these companies announce inspections well in advance so the place can be cleaned up for the visit, and then go back to normal afterwards... as I said it's not in the companies best interest (to its cheap prices for consumers) to really look into it hard...

I'll say more later, Weltall. :)

Quote:Yes, people sure will appreciate the extremely low-paying, dead-end, mostly part-time jobs that Wal-Mart offers, for sure...

I just want to make it clear that Wal-Mart brings in a lot of other businesses, you just seem to have this idea in your head that once Wal-Mart moves in all the other stores leave.

A job at Wal-Mart [and all the other businesses it brings with it] would be better than living off welfare or packing up your family and moving somewhere else on the off chance that might be able to find a job there.

But the jobs at Wal-Mart are generally not as good as the ones that they're replacing...

A Black Falcon Wrote:But the jobs at Wal-Mart are generally not as good as the ones that they're replacing...

Crap. I've worked for Wal-Mart, and two small, locally-owned retail businesses in the last five years, and my experience at those two wasn't better than Wal-Mart (one of them, in fact, was significantly worse). Neither of them paid as well, nor did they offer the amount of hours.

I'm department manager of Electronics at my store, and it's hard (very hard sometimes), and it doesn't pay as well as it should, but I get by, and it's a lot of fun at times.

It's not as though a Wal-Mart opens up and former white-collar employees making $40K annual are suddenly faced with $6.50/hr cashiering or starvation. It kills off maybe a hundred or so jobs and provides four times as many, giving at least some opportunity to people who otherwise sit at home collecting unemployment all their lives.

Quote:Yet, liberals are against private investment. It's true that people can't save enough money for their own needs, because SSI and Medicare deductions kill that. They have to pay for everyone benefiting now. It's a terrible way to operate and it's no wonder the system is failing. Yet, liberals want to extend and preserve it no matter what, even though it obviously cannot work anymore. They do everything they can to scare people from making private futures investments, when that is truly the answer. They will not even budge to allow governmental assistance on the matter. They want full control over the tax income, and are dooming future generations for it.

Totally insane. For proof look at pre-1940s America.

Yeah, middle class people sure did a great job of saving up money before Medicaire/SSI, yup! Oh wait, only in your demented imagination...

SSI and its related programs is one of the best programs the government has ever started. That alone easily would make Roosevelt one of our greatest presidents.

And the system isn't failing because it's a bad idea. Actually, it's in financial trouble because it's a good idea. It's failing because 1) not enough money is going into Medicare/SSI -- every time there's a budget problem money is stolen from it. 2) more and more old people every day. It puts a big strain on the system even in our system which isn't nearly comprehensive enough. (The only ways we have, long-term, to solve this are either to restrict benefits or raise taxes... there are no other options.)

Quote:And, with the poor, it is again the liberals who, in the name of compassion, think that providing a living for someone poor is the answer to destitution, when the reality is that not only will such a program only ensure beyond any doubt that the poor stay poor, but that we can't afford to do it. But as with investment, they don't budge. They do whatever they can to make sure the poor cannot move up in the tax bracket. It's like you people want to prevent them from earning a living for themselves.

And then you fail to mention that many federal student loan programs offer enough money to get an education and to make living slightly easier to those with the desire to better themselves and with the prudence not to screw up their lives by having four kids by the time they're 22. I understand that some people truly do have no way up because their youthful indiscretion stymies them, but there's no reason the rest of us should pay for a quick and very impermanent fix to their mistakes.

It's pretty depressing to see you continue to believe such delusions about poor people... I have said fifteen times before why this view of yours is lunacy so I don't see a point in repeating myself yet again.

As for the student loan part though, it's rare to get a full scholarship, which is what poor people would probably need (or full enough to pay the rest with a job), unless you play sports... and not many people get sports scholarships. And anyway, a lot of families need those people to work and can't afford to have them off in a school making nothing... after money that's the biggest reason they don't go as much.

Quote:I agree. It's getting to the point where businesses can, with some upfront cost, create manufacturing plants that do the same jobs, at probably the same rough cost. But old habits are hard to break, I suppose.

Our trade relationship with China can be seen much simpler though. While we do have a huge deficit in trade with them, their entire economy is completely dependent on our demand for their goods, to a greater extent than our economy is dependent on their supply. If there were a total stop it would hurt us badly and totally cripple China, but we still have the upper hand and I can't imagine that there isn't some leverage in our favor as a result. It's just a matter of how it could be utilized to help the overall condition and that's something I don't have an answer for.

I still can't understand why conservatives hate Clinton, given that he was so strongly middle of the road and a centrist who was quite pro business...

Anyway, maybe we could try something with China but it'd be tough... especially since a lot of Washington people seem to not care enough about this and think that because of the economic situation between our countries that they're untouchable...