[TheForge] walmart (off topic rant)

[terry l. ridder]

hello;

rant below.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Ralph E Douglass wrote:

<snip>

ralph> 
ralph> Funny thing about Walmart and how folks see them. At leaast here in the
ralph> US of A, we are supposedly a capitalistic society, meaning in theory
ralph> that the customer demand is what drives prices. SO if we the consumer

that we live in a capitalistic society is a lie. the only reason walmart
ever built a store in dekalb, il is that fact that the mayor of dekalb
gave them a tax benefit package that he sold to the citizens of the city
of dekalb as providing more jobs. well guess what there are now less
jobs because 2 grocery stores have closed, one hallmark store, two
bakeries, one hardstore, two clothing stores, and others. they could not
compete against walmart given the tax benefits package they were given.
not only was walmart given a sweetheart tax benefit package the building
was financed with tif ( tax incremental financing ) ( the taxpayers paid
for it. )

walmart is now justifiably the target of the largest sex discrimination
class action lawsuit in u.s.a history. they pay female employees at all
levels less than the pay male employees. the wages they pay are just
above minimum wage to begin with.

i do not particularly like unions but the tatics walmart uses to keep
employees from unionizing border on criminal, they are definitely
unethical ( oh wait that is right there are no more business ethics in
the u.s.a. sorry i forgot. )

ralph> demand cheap prices, then why do we denigrate places like Walmart for
ralph> providing this? It is we who eventually drive the quality down with our
ralph> insesant demands for cheaper costs. 
ralph> 

then it is the we ( collective we ) that are just digging our own lower
wages and living standard by being really bad at math.

ralph> And this is not only Walmart, have you looked at who it is that is
ralph> providing most of the new machine shop tools? China, and for the most
ralph> part the quality is not quite the same as if was years ag. Why? Because
ralph> once again cost was the prime mover and so quality is out.
ralph> We need to start insisting on better quality and need to be willing to
ralph> pay for it so that it will be the driving factor in production.
ralph> My 2 cents worth of rant
ralph> 

which leads to people who want quality building their own equipment. i
am still working on building the gingery metal lathe and his other
equipment.

ralph> 
ralph> Ralph
ralph> 
ralph> 

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>