Wal-Mart

Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
Wal-Mart Increased Advertising More Than Health Care
Over the last two years (2004 and 2003), Wal-Mart has increased its advertising budget $724 million, which is more than half the $1.4 billion it spent in 2003 on health care -- the last reported year.
In fact, between 2002 and 2003, Wal-Mart put more new funds into advertising compared to health care. Wal-Mart increased spending on advertising by $290 million, while only increasing health care spending by $215 million for the same period. (note: this also occurred in 1999-98, 1998-97, 1995-96). (Wal-Mart Annual Reports and 5500 Filings)
Excluding his salary of $1.2 million, in 2004 Lee Scott made around $22 million in bonuses, stock awards, and stock options in 2004.
This $22 million could reimburse 3 states where Wal-Mart topped the list of users of state-sponsored health care programs, covering more than 15,000 Wal-Mart employees and dependents and costing state taxpayers between $21 to $24 million total. (WMT Proxy Statement and News Articles GA, CT, AL).
One Out of Seven Wal-Mart Employees Has No Health Care Coverage At All
This is nearly double the national percentage for large firms (firms with over 100 employees). In fact, we estimate that Wal-Mart accounts for more than 1 out of every 40 uninsured workers, who are employed at a large firm. (walmartfacts.com; Wal-Mart Annual Report; “Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Coverage: Sponsorship, Eligibility, and Participation Patterns in 2001,” Bowen Garrett, Ph.D., released by the Kaiser Family Foundation September 2004).
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Costs to Taxpayers
Download the Wal-Mart and Cost to Taxpayers fact sheet - PDF

Your tax dollars pay for Wal-Mart's greed

The estimated total amount of federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible in 2004 was $2.5 billion. [“Harper’s Index,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 310, No. 1858, 3/2005]
One 200-employee Wal-Mart store may cost federal taxpayers $420,750 per year. This cost comes from the following, on average:
$36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
$42,000 a year for low-income housing assistance.
$125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families.
$100,000 a year for the additional expenses for programs for students.
$108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP)
$9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance.
[THE HIDDEN PRICE WE ALL PAY FOR WAL-MART, A REPORT BY THE DEMOCRATIC STAFF OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 2/16/04]
Your tax dollars subsidize Wal-Mart's growth

The only thing I can really talk about in that article is health care and honestly unless more is disclosed about the actual coverage, waiting periods, elimination periods and blah blah the health piece is just a bunch of talk. However Healthcare is the number one cost to employer's aside from payroll. The low wages in Walmart also reflect the type of jobs that they offer🙁 It really puts a strain on any economy however on the plus side it does lower unenployment due to the huge job draw.

i'm kinda happy we dont have it over here in Aus, we have Target and KMart, neither of which could be described as world beating. They dont try to drive small businesses out of a job, when they (Target) opened in my town they opened "Country Target" which stock the basics, so if you want the other stuff you can order it in. they make a mint and dont shut other local people down. seems Wal-Mart just want to stomp on everyone and make money come hell or high water. on a humorous note, anyone seen the Southpark where Wal-Mart comes to town?

No but sto pby jib jab sometime and get a good laugh at the "jab" they take at walmart🙂

Well i noticed the wal marts up here (outside Toronto) are much less busier then they were when wal mart first came up here. They have had some trouble being allowed to sell groceries however some stores have limited stock of foodstuff. Also some in Quebec started to create their own union and then the wal mart closed down.

wal mart is the devil, but i cant help shopping there.... they have EVERYTHING!!!

Yeah, but make sure you have an hour or two you can devote to your supershopping.

omfg tell me about it.... sometimes i go to wal mart just to kill time

It's like it's own city. It has suburbia, its government section, and even its own ghetto.

Originally posted by botankus
It's like it's own city. It has suburbia, its government section, and even its own ghetto.

Pretty soon, well live there...they'll build apartments.. 😱

Originally posted by debbiejo
Pretty soon, well live there...they'll build apartments.. 😱

That would be cool. 💃

NO, IT WOULDNT

We'd be living inside the cancer... 😱

Originally posted by debbiejo
NO, IT WOULDNT

We'd be living inside the cancer... 😱

I stop shopping until you drop and go to bed. 😱 😆 💃 😆

From the cradle until your dead. 😱

Hey that rhymes....OH, so clever in the morning.

Wal-Mart: Post Modern Inferno

It always interested me how otherwise normal, caring, even deeply feeling and compassionate people can so easily be lured into evil doing. As if forgetting all that they do in their lives to oppose the forces of evil and chaos, and if offered the opportunity, would never be seduced by the dark side of the force, they nevertheless are willing to forget all that just for the purposes of convenience, wide selection and to save a few dollars. And really, it’s just a few dollars, which at the end of the year doesn’t add up to squat. Or at least doesn’t justify the ongoing existence of such an evil force that has been wrought upon this earthly dimension. Everyone is vulnerable to the powers of hell though, including me as I one day found out!

I had already become philosophically opposed to Wal-Mart and thought it ironic how, what was at its inception a very positive community-oriented family sort of business where everyone who worked with Sam Walton got rich, has now has become a Juggernaut that rips out the very heart and soul of many communities. I nevertheless actually walked into a Wal-Mart once. To be honest, it was more as if one day, after having already driven by the new Wal-Mart a few times, my car developed a will of its own and I was not able to dissuade it from steering right into their massive parking lot. As I say, I am opposed to the very concept of an enterprise that spreads like a virus throughout an entire country, killing something in the spirit of those who are its citizens. So it was with great consternation that this invisible force was guiding me, pulling me towards the front door.

Once inside the cavernous structure and after I had passed the retarded "greeter" who was drooling with this silly, almost constant and demonic smile on his distorted face, I took a few more steps and with an unexpected sense of foreboding creeping up from my subconscious, I thought perhaps I was standing on the precipice of hell itself, or at least before one of it's portals or entry ways. Seriously though, I felt as if all my vitality was somehow leaving my body, like maybe what a hypoglycemic would feel if their blood sugar got too low or something - and as I directed my gaze upwards, I could see the patterned array of long industrial sized fluorescent light tubes as they dizzyingly repeated themselves over and over to the asymptote of some hellish infinity. After having walked some distance into the belly of the beast, I could feel the energy being sucked out of the top of my head and suddenly I knew I had only minutes to somehow find the right direction to run in and hopefully make it back to the entrance doorway. After approaching a clerk for direction, I was chilled to my core to observe that same mindless smile on her face and the lack of any kind of sparkle or life in her eyes. In a monotone voice and with an almost robot-like manner, she directed me to the front checkout lines and didn’t seem surprised when I hurriedly darted away. For only one moment I thought I saw the emergence of life in that pretty woman’s face, as if there was yet some aspect of the old, pre Wal-Mart personality struggling to get free of the soulless hollow that now contained it. I could not linger though as I was engaged in my own struggle to escape before my eyes rolled back in their sockets as some inscrutable yet knowing thing was trying to do the same to me.

Finally at a distance I saw the light pouring in through the glass panes that looked out at the normal world. Yes! Yes that’s the place I need to be! That old familiar place which now seems so much more like a fading memory, where people are healthy and have color and warm blood flowing in their veins, with even warmer hearts and in spite of all the bad out there I knew there was so much that was good as well. So much potential for greatness out there where there’s at least a chance at happiness, at finding love – and where one is free to roam at will, because only out there, NOT in here, does one HAVE a will. With this thought I steadied myself, discovered newfound determination and somehow gathered sufficient strength to oppose the probing and pulling from those damn “light fixtures” above. Somehow, and perhaps with a good deal of luck or divine intervention, I managed to make my way out of the twisting and turning maze of aisle ways and gaudy distraction of all manner and bazaar taste. Determined to deck the bastard if he got in my way, I staggered past the retarded Sentinel of this most hopeless place, him still smiling, still drooling, but now with a kind of subtle yet chilling, clear and knowing demonic hint to his eyes. To my surprise he didn’t attempt to approach me, or even say a word, thus sparing me from the vile mist of his “Have a nice day” spray, perhaps due to the presence of my invisible Guardian Angel as she stood at my side warding off would be deamons , with a hand upheld in a determined “Stop”! Finally, there it was, the portal out of this lowly place. With my last ounce of energy I literally fell onto the handle of the door marked “Exit Here” and as someone who was about to drown finally breaks through and above the waters surface, I breathed fresh air for the first time in what had seemed to be an eternity! Yes yes that’s the smell of freedom! I gulped it in like a man starving, breathing in deeply the smell of self-determination and of all that is fresh and good in this goodly world! At that moment of exhilaration, I could hear in the back of my mind, a glorious chorus singing the 4th movement of the Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy”.

Yes Ludwig, we made it! We lived through a visit to Wal-Mart. And I shall NEVER go back. Ever! It’s not because I hate that place, it’s business philosophy, or lack thereof, because I do. I will never go back because I fear that place and what it does to the people who work there, who shop there and who live near there. If you’re not, you should be - afraid that is. It almost happened to me. It could happen to you. Be afraid. Be very afraid!

I go to Wal-Mart for the bargains not for the politics. Thanks to their great prices I was able to compile my TV shows DVD collection.

I have no severe problem with Walmart. I don't go their because it's too crowded and I often get trapped between two fat women who take up the whole isle on either side of me.

Plus I get a headache after about 15 minutes in that place because of the yelling of annoying little brats and having to walk cautiously because people just dart in front of me at all times.

Originally posted by WindDancer
I go to Wal-Mart for the bargains not for the politics. Thanks to their great prices I was able to compile my TV shows DVD collection.

How very un-Batman like Mr. Wayne. 😕

Originally posted by BackFire
I have no severe problem with Walmart. I don't go their because it's too crowded and I often get trapped between two fat women who take up the whole isle on either side of me.

Plus I get a headache after about 15 minutes in that place because of the yelling of annoying little brats and having to walk cautiously because people just dart in front of me at all times.

Very funny.

Uh, which reminds me, I mean, my story above isn't for real, well, except for some elements, like the feeling of being drained somwhow while I was in there, and actually that happened in one I was in in Santa Barbara, CA a year ago not here in Michigan. The new one by me was just a turn off because it's too damn big and freaking freaky! i really do despise their business practices and choose not to ever shop there. The welfare of everyday people, including me, are more important than saving a few bucks. Unless you're really in the margins, I don't know how anyone can justify going there based on whats bee said abouth this corporate Juggernaut on the preceeding pages. My opinion.

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but did any of you see 'Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes' from south park?

dear lord was it funny!,I only want to mock wal-mart now.

http://www.tv.com/something-wall-mart-this-way-comes/episode/372424/summary.html

Yeah, that was one of the best episodes that season.

I loved the running joke of everyone shitting all over the place when they'd die, I was rolling.

Originally posted by BackFire
Yeah, that was one of the best episodes that season.

I loved the running joke of everyone shitting all over the place when they'd die, I was rolling.