Don't Shop at Wal-Mart

““OH...kay...let me know if I can help.”

XL never misses a chance to hold down over-privilaged young collage liberals down for others to taze. Is that the help yer talking bout? LOL!”

“sure, ty! you teach?”

“I think Nigal is starting to channel salebored.”

“oh yeah Stove, i can see us now, 5 o'clock news. . .

nah, it's darrell doin 'at!”

“Tilt, i'm still looking for things i want at wal-mart just to annoy you! ;O)

oh, i think this would feel great!

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4633920

or maybe just one of these and a good pair of hands! LOL!

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4633920
last edited: 2/09/07 3:22:20 PM”

“Buy a gun from Walmart then. That should drive him nuts.”

“unfortunately Nigal, they don't see those online. :o(”

“I just bought one of these..

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5533647

and I am going to get this for my daughter for her birthday..

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5513977

Gotta LOVE Wal Mart!!
last edited: 2/09/07 3:28:57 PM”

“ABSOLUTELY Nurse Goodbody!”

“It annoys the people who've been put out of work much more than me...

Check out the link then see what you think.”

“everyone votes with their OWN feet of course.”

“It's not just the jobs I think about. For example, when the Chinese had their successful satellite shootdown recently, I wondered how much we contributed to that by buying Chinese products. The imbalance in trade is truly astounding.

I think it's worth considering because it might come back to bite us you know where.”

“More on that Chinese anti-satellite weapon... Your Wal-Mart Dollars at Work?


http://celestrak.com/events/asat.asp

Initial analysis by CSSI just after this event was first reported shows pieces in the debris cloud ranging from 250 km in altitude up to 3,650 km, posing a threat to many operational satellites, due to the polar orbit of the debris cloud. Potential conjunctions with satellite payloads currently on orbit can be found by searching for "FENGYUN 1C DEB" using SOCRATES. Using the SOCRATES run from February 10 at 1300 UTC, it predicts 887 occasions where a piece of FENGYUN 1C debris will come within 5 km of a satellite payload in low-Earth orbit over the next week—over 10 percent of all predicted conjunctions over that period. We are now routinely seeing 800–900 conjunctions within 5 km over a seven-day period between the FENGYUN 1C debris and payloads in Earth orbit.”

“We will be fine, so long as we remember our special hats.”

“Good luck wif dos Hats dere!


Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapon

China's Asat Test Will Intensify U.S.-Chinese Faceoff in Space

China Asat Test Called Worst Single Debris Event Ever


Remember 'Duck and Cover'?”

“"Your Wal-Mart Dollars at Work?"

Or Wok; however, I digress.

Shop WalMart

Support Communism”

“Tilt is so silly.”

“LOL! You'd think Walmart was the only store that sells Chinese products. So do the anti-Chinese, Anti-Walmart people check everything they buy to make sure they have no Chinese products? Where was that cell phone made?”

“I remember when people didn't like Communism. They'd raise hell on C-SPAN every morning, denouncing everyone to the left of Reagan as a Commie... Oh, wait --- they still do, LOL

But then they get off work and head to Wal-Mart, Target, etc. to buy cheap Chinese Thermoses and coolers, or the occasional HDTV.

The rationalization for buying Chinese products to make the world safer doesn't seem to be working.

Oh well ----”

“I have a car that was made in Korea.”

“Only Tiltypoo would post something about Chinese anti-satellite weapons on a Wal-Mart thread.
Weird.”

“Not really Comrade Kevin - hero of the revolution. When do you expect your Red Army medal to arrive? You've paid for part of the Chinese space program - weapons too.

Nigal - true - but Walmart is leading the way and forcing others to follow.

SC - that'll be made in South Korea.”

“I try Nigal. I try very hard to buy products made in the USA. It's awfully difficult now a days. If I can't I go for stuff NOT made in China. I don't always succeed but I have put quite a bit of stuff back that's made in China.
The stuff most difficult to get not made in China: Christmas decor and electronics.”

“The supremely ironic thing is... the people who never watched "Is Wal-Mart Good For America" on FRONTLINE... (and won't go to the website)... because they say the show is "put out by a bunch of dang Commies!"”

“So says the two leading Commies on TT.”

“I have an american flag on my house...I bought it at walmart and it was made in china. :)”

“There ya go!

I caught a Chinese baseball at a game last Summer.


I wonder... If you buy an apple pie in a couple of years, will it be made with Chinese apples?”

“CHINESE ROCKETS?

History lesson

in the 1990's the Chinese couldn't get a rocket off the ground...then (as a reason for the Gorelick Memo that would give us 9/11) a big contributor to the CLEENTONS named Loral Aerospace began illegally providing technology to the Chins....covered by gracious illegal donations to the Dems and the 42nd Administration and covered by Sec Com Ron Brown they were able to provide the necessary technology to make the chinese able to launch an orbital system and thereby....put nukes ontop of any city in America....

Thank you Billy, Hilly and the libs of America.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/7/7/150106.shtml
last edited: 2/22/07 9:22:37 AM”

“For Sure, Ms. Sass.

Are there any gear companies left in the States? A listing of the remaining US manufacturers would be handy. Some years ago now, I got a Sequel Twilight jacket and pants for three season use and was saving up for a Storm King jacket... and they went out of business.

At least ArcTeryx is on the same continent... [raspberry]”

““So says the two leading Commies on TT.”
StoveStomper
7:48:27 AM
2/22/07

The ironic thing is that Comrade Kevin does to actively and financially support communism than both the "leading commies on TT" combined.”

“YAAAWWWWN...Y2 whats the dif?

Some pay money that goes to the PRC ofcourse making them a HUGE supplier (and I have found that when people are economically depending on me they tend to be just a BIT reluctant to blow me up.

The others support the goals of the PRC by seeking more and more government control over our lives.....”

“SHOPPERS BEWARE: THE TRUTH ABOUT WAL-MART
Wal-Mart is now the world's biggest corporation, having passed Exxon/Mobil for the top slot. It hauls off a stunning $220 billion a year from We the People (more in revenues than the entire GDP of Israel and Ireland combined). Wal-Mart cultivates an aw-shucks, we're-just-folks-from-Arkansas mage of neighborly small-town shopkeepers trying to sell stuff cheaply to you and yours. Behind its soft homespun ads, however, is what one union leader calls "this devouring beast" of a corporation that ruthlessly stomps on workers, neighborhoods, competitors, and suppliers. Despite its claim that it slashes profits to the bone in order to deliver "Always Low Prices," Wal-Mart banks about $7 billion a year in profits, ranking it among the most profitable entities on the planet.
Of the 10 richest people in the world, five are Waltons -- the ruling family of the Wal-Mart empire. S. Robson Walton is ranked by London's "Rich List 2001" as the wealthiest human on the planet, having sacked up more than $65 billion (£45.3 billion) in personal wealth and topping Bill Gates as No. 1. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way -- by roughing people up. The corporate ethos emanating from the Bentonville headquarters dictates two guiding principles for all managers: extract the very last penny possible from human toil, and squeeze the last dime from every supplier. With more than one million employees (three times more than General Motors), this far-flung retailer is the country's largest private employer, and it intends to remake the image of the American workplace in its image -- which is not pretty.

Yes, there is the happy-faced "greeter" who welcomes shoppers into every store, (although the greeter at my local Wal-mart doesn't always look so cheerful) and employees (or "associates," as the company grandiosely calls them) gather just before opening each morning for a pep rally, where they are all required to join in the Wal-Mart cheer: "Gimme a W!" shouts the cheerleader; "W!" the dutiful employees respond. "Gimme an A!" And so on.

Behind this manufactured cheerfulness, however, is the fact that the average employee makes only $15,000 a year for full-time work. Most are denied even this poverty income, for they are held to part-time work. While the company brags that 70 percent of its workers are full- time, at Wal-Mart "full time" is 28 hours a week, meaning they gross less than $11,000 a year. Health-care benefits? Only if you've been there two years; then the plan hits you with such huge premiums that few can afford it -- only 38% of Wal-Marters are covered. Thinking union? Get outta here! "Wal-Mart is opposed to unionization," reads a company guidebook for supervisors. "You, as a manager, are expected to support the company's position. . . . This may mean walking a tightrope between legitimate campaigning and improper conduct."

Wal-Mart is in fact rabidly anti-union, deploying teams of union- busters from Bentonville to any spot where there's a whisper of organizing activity. "While unions might be appropriate for other companies, they have no place at Wal-Mart," a spokeswoman told a Texas Observer reporter who was covering an NLRB hearing on the company's manhandling of 11 meat-cutters who worked at a Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Jacksonville, Texas. These derring-do employees were sick of working harder and longer for the same low pay. "We signed [union] cards, and all hell broke loose," says Sidney Smith, one of the Jacksonville meat-cutters who established the first-ever Wal-Mart union in the U.S., voting in February 2000 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers. Eleven days later, Wal-Mart announced that it was closing the meat-cutting departments in all of its stores and would henceforth buy prepackaged meat elsewhere.

But the repressive company didn't stop there. As the Observer reports: "Smith was fired for 'theft' after a manger agreed to let him buy a box of overripe bananas for 50 cents, Smith ate one banana before paying for the box, and was judged to have stolen that banana." Wal-Mart is an unrepentant and recidivist violator of employee rights, drawing repeated convictions, fines, and the ire of judges from coast to coast. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has had to file more suits against the Bentonville billionaires club for cases of disability discrimination than any other corporation. A top EEOC lawyer told Business Week, "I have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for the law."

Likewise, a national class-action suit reveals an astonishing pattern of sexual discrimination at Wal-Mart (where 72 percent of the salespeople are women), charging that there is "a harsh, anti-woman culture in which complaints go unanswered and the women who make them are targeted for retaliation." Workers' compensation laws, child-labor laws (1,400 violations in Maine alone), surveillance of employees -- you name it, this corporation is a repeat offender. No wonder, then, that turnover in the stores is above 50 percent a year, with many stores having to replace 100 percent of their employees each year, and some reaching as high as a 300 percent turnover!

Then there's China. For years, Wal-Mart saturated the airwaves with a "We Buy American" advertising campaign, but it was nothing more than a red-white-and-blue sham. All along, the vast majority of the products it sold were from cheap-labor hell-holes, especially China. In 1998, after several exposes of this sham, the company finally dropped its "patriotism" posture and by 2001 had even moved its worldwide purchasing headquarters to China. Today, it is the largest importer of Chinese-made products in the world, buying $10 billion worth of merchandise from several thousand Chinese factories. As Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee reports, "In country after country, factories that produce for Wal-Mart are the worst," adding that the bottom-feeding labor policy of this one corporation "is actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory-overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions."

Wal-Mart does not want the U.S. buying public to know that its famous low prices are the product of human misery, so while it loudly proclaims that its global suppliers must comply with a corporate "code of conduct" to treat workers decently, it strictly prohibits the disclosure of any factory names and addresses, hoping to keep independent sources from witnessing the "code" in operation. Kernaghan's NLC, acclaimed for its fact-packed reports on global working conditions, found several Chinese factories that make the toys Americans buy for their children at Wal-Mart. Seventy-one percent of the toys sold in the U.S. come from China, and Wal-Mart now sells one out of five of the toys we buy.

NLC interviewed workers in China's Guangdong Province who toil in factories making popular action figures, dolls, and other toys sold at Wal-Mart. In "Toys of Misery," a shocking 58-page report that the establishment media ignored, NLC describes: 13- to 16-hour days molding, assembling, and spray-painting toys from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. or even midnight, seven days a week, with 20-hour shifts in peak season. Even though China's minimum wage is 31 cents an hour -- which doesn't begin to cover a person's basic subsistence-level needs -- these production workers are paid 13 cents an hour.

Workers typically live in squatter shacks, seven feet by seven feet, or jammed in company dorms, with more than a dozen sharing a cubicle costing $1.95 a week for rent. They pay about $5.50 a week for lousy food. They also must pay for their own medical treatment and are fired if they are too ill to work. The work is literally sickening, since there's no health and safety enforcement. Workers have constant headaches and nausea from paint- dust hanging in the air; the indoor temperature tops 100 degrees; protective clothing is a joke; repetitive stress disorders are rampant; and there's no training on the health hazards of handling the plastics, glue, paint thinners, and other solvents in which these workers are immersed every day.

As for Wal-Mart's highly vaunted "code of conduct," NLC could not find a single worker who had ever seen or heard of it. These factories employ mostly young women and teenage girls. Wal- Mart, renowned for knowing every detail of its global business operations and for calculating every penny of a product's cost, knows what goes on inside these places. Yet, when confronted with these facts, corporate honchos claim ignorance and wash their hands of the exploitation: "There will always be people who break the law," says CEO Lee Scott. "It is an issue of human greed among a few people."

Those "few people" include him, other top managers, and the Walton billionaires. Each of them not only knows about their company's exploitation, but willingly prospers from a corporate culture that demands it. "Get costs down" is Wal-Mart's mantra and modus operandi, and that translates into a crusade to stamp down the folks who produce its goods and services, shamelessly building its low-price strategy and profits on their backs. Worse, Wal-Mart is on a messianic mission to extend its exploitative ethos to the entire business world. More than 65,000 companies supply the retailer with the stuff on its shelves, and it constantly hammers each supplier about cutting their production costs deeper and deeper in order to get cheaper wholesale prices. Some companies have to open their books so Bentonville executives can red-pencil what CEO Scott terms "unnecessary costs."

Of course, among the unnecessaries to him are the use of union labor and producing goods in America, and Scott is unabashed about pointing in the direction of China or other places for abysmally low production costs. He doesn't even have to say "Move to China" -- his purchasing executives demand such an impossible lowball price from suppliers that they can only meet it if they follow Wal-Mart's labor example. With its dominance over its own 1.2 million workers and 65,000 suppliers, plus its alliances with ruthless labor abusers abroad, this one company is the world's most powerful private force for lowering labor standards and stifling the middle-class aspirations of workers everywhere.


Using its sheer size, market clout, access to capital, and massive advertising budget, the company also is squeezing out competitors and forcing its remaining rivals to adopt its price-is-everything approach. Even the big boys like Toys R Us and Kroger are daunted by the company's brutish power, saying they're compelled to slash wages and search the globe for sweatshop suppliers in order to compete in the downward race to match Wal-Mart's prices.
How high of a price are we willing to pay for Wal-Mart's "low-price" model? This outfit operates with an avarice, arrogance, and ambition that would make Enron blush. It hits a town or city neighborhood like a retailing neutron bomb, sucking out the economic vitality and all of the local character. And Wal-Mart's stores now have more kill- power than ever, with its SuperCenters averaging 200,000 square feet - - the size of more than four football fields under one roof! These things land splat on top of any community's sense of itself and devour local business.

By slashing its retail prices way below cost when it enters a community, Wal-Mart can crush our groceries, pharmacies, hardware stores, and other retailers, then raise its prices once it has mono- poly control over the market. But, say apologists for these Big-Box megastores, at least they're creating jobs. Wrong. By crushing local businesses, this giant eliminates three decent jobs for every two Wal-Mart jobs that it "creates" and a store full of part-time, poorly paid employees hardly builds the family wealth necessary to sustain a community's middle-class living standard.

Indeed, Wal-Mart operates as a massive wealth extractor. Instead of profits staying in town to be reinvested locally, the money is hauled off to Bentonville, either to be used as capital for conquering yet another town or simply to be stashed in the family vaults (the Waltons, by the way, just bought the biggest bank in Arkansas). Why should we accept this? Is it our country, our communities, our economic destinies -- or theirs?

Wal-Mart's radical remaking of our labor standards and our local economies is occurring mostly without our knowledge or consent. Poof -- there goes another local business. Poof -- there goes our middle-class wages. Poof -- there goes another factory to China. No one voted for this . . . but there it is. While corporate ideologues might huffily assert that customers vote with their dollars, it's an election without a campaign, conveniently ignoring that the public's "vote" might change if we knew the real cost of Wal-Mart's "cheap" goods -- and if we actually had a chance to vote.

Much to the corporation's consternation, more and more communities are learning about this voracious powerhouse, and there's a rising civic rebellion against it. Tremendous victories have already been won as citizens from Maine to Arizona, from the Puget Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, have organized locally and even statewide to thwart the expansionist march of the Wal-Mart juggernaut. Wal-Mart is huge, but it can be brought to heel by an aroused and organized citizenry willing to confront it in their communities, the workplace, the marketplace, the classrooms, the pulpits, the legislatures, and the voting booths. Just as the Founders rose up against the mighty British trading companies, so we can reassert our people's sovereignty and our democratic principles over the autocratic ambitions of mighty Wal-Mart.”

“please hold
last edited: 2/22/07 10:17:22 AM”

“oy vey
last edited: 2/22/07 10:24:31 AM”

“China upsets U.S. apple cart

Devinder Sharma

In 15 years, the Asian giant has made a remarkable leap to become the world's largest producer of apples.

CHINA HAS flooded the United States market with not only textiles and garments but also apple juice concentrate. China is now seeking quarantine approvals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the export of fresh apples. A red tide of apples is therefore expected to sweep America.

Scouting for cover, the U.S. apple industry is now demanding protection for domestic producers. At the same time, it is planning to find a market for apples in countries such as India....

...Such has been the surge in the import of apple concentrate that American growers lost an estimated $135 million in 2002 alone. Despite the imposition of anti-dumping duty to the tune of 51.74 per cent on Chinese apple concentrate beginning May 2000, imports continue to pour in. In the last five years, the share of Chinese apple concentrate in the U.S. apple juice market has risen to 45 per cent. The industry is now crying for help...

... From being a country with practically zero production to become the world's biggest producer of apples in the next 12 to 15 years is spectacular by any yardstick. So much so that China not only tops the world's apple production chart but its total output surpasses the combined production of the next ten top producing countries, including India. The U.S. has been relegated to the second position. China now accounts for 50 per cent of the world's production.

Barely 15 years after it started planting apple trees, China's exports of apple concentrate to the U.S. increased by 1,200 per cent. With the rise in exports, the price slid from $7.65 a gallon in 1995 to $3.57 a gallon in 1998. While the apple producers and the industry cried aloud, the consumers were happy. Supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart procured the concentrates at rock bottom prices, packed them into cans and bottles, but did not pass on the price benefit to the consumers in the same ratio as they gained from the reduction in import prices. That the Chinese apple concentrate could still be cheaper after the imposition of anti-dumping duties tells us how low the cost of production has been...

http://www.thehindu.com/2005/06/02/stories/2005060201501100.htm”

“o crap --”

“"LOL! You'd think Walmart was the only store that sells Chinese products. "

WalMart is responsible for 10% of China total export, alone. There are the biggest player in that market.

Perhaps you would like to explain why you think it is harmless to buy goods, (cheap ones that require you to replace them twice as often, savings? yea, sure) from a Communist country.

I'd also like to hear from someone how present day WalMart would be judged in the eyes of Sam Walton; a staunch believer and champion of the greatness of "American Way" and Capitalism and not really too keen on Communism.



As an aside; I don't care if you shop there or not. I choose for my feet to represent my feelings on the matter. While not completely rid of my consumption of Communist goods (due to the fetishistic orgy the Capitalists are having with Communism), I try to do the best I can to limit my funds going to a country that is using that money to create weapons to destroy me.

In addition, I do very much love the fact that the exact same people on this board who throw around all of the Red Baiting on this board, have no problem with sending their money to a Red country.

FLMAO!


Have fun, Communist supporters!”

“And lest we forget who makes 20% of China's goods....

http://www.laborrights.org/press/childlabor_china_0505.htm”

“Horrific.”

“Yes, but it's okay now that the family got their $12,000. I hear that's a bit above the going rate for a 14 year old girl in China.”

“Did I read that correctly? They paid the 12,000 a piece, but shouldn't some CRIMINAL charges proceed after that?”

“Nigal - true - but Walmart is leading the way and forcing others to follow.

YEah but we can not simply say if Walmart wasn't selling product X made in China it wouldn't get bought. We'd simply buy it K Mart in stead. The Chinese stuff's gonna get bought weather it's at Wally World or where ever.”

“Yeah but if you overlook the rampant abuse of prisoner, children, the brutal "voluntary" abortions, the heinous treatment of the lower classes, and the abuse of North Korean refugees....the Chinese Communists are sweet people and we really shouldn't care that they were bribing the CRA#$ out of the 42nd Administration.”

“"YEah but we can not simply say if Walmart wasn't selling product X made in China it wouldn't get bought. We'd simply buy it K Mart in stead. The Chinese stuff's gonna get bought weather it's at Wally World or where ever."

With all do respect, and honesty, I really think you should read up on what's really going on over there, instead of making assumptions.”

“With all do respect, and honesty, I really think you should read up on what's really going on over there, instead of making assumptions.

I'm simply approaching this from the common sense aspect that a certain amount of product will be bought no matter what store is selling it. I know that when I go into Walmart for 6 things I normally come out with 12 but this can hardly be classified as the rise of communism.

And I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I preach up free markets but exclude such and such nation simply because I do not agree with them politically. This doesn't mean I load up on Chinese products either.

I would also be a hypocrite by preaching up the ballast of prosperity and quality through competition yet try to exclude China from the mix. Bad cheap Chinese products make for good cheap American products in the long run.”

“I bought a package of 3 socks from Wal-Mart I wish they had labeled them as disposable. Wear once and throw away. I put on a pair of new socks in the morning and that night I threw them away because half my toes were sticking out of holes. Three days in a row.”

“"I know that when I go into Walmart for 6 things I normally come out with 12 but this can hardly be classified as the rise of communism."

No, it's not Communism, it the "loss-leader" marketing strategy. Discounters depend on return patronage. They sell cheap goods for little, profit. While you are in the store, tey count on you to do exactly what you just did; spend money on stuff you don't intend on buying.

That's it in its simplist example. Loss-leader was actually a "product" of an American.

You'd know him as King Gillett, founder of Gillett razors.

"And I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I preach up free markets but exclude such and such nation simply because I do not agree with them politically. This doesn't mean I load up on Chinese products either."

That's understandable. However, I'll point out that the political feature of the issue neglects the military complication of the issue; to which the military aspect is the area of concern. I rather not have my cash going to places where they are building things that pose a threat to my family and country.

"I would also be a hypocrite by preaching up the ballast of prosperity and quality through competition yet try to exclude China from the mix."

Again, understandable. I think that since China has not fulfilled all obligations under the terms of its admission into the WTO, trade agreements should be looked at. The whole China/WTO situation has grown so lopsided that its become the veritable 5,000lb gorilla in the room.
last edited: 2/22/07 3:27:28 PM”

“I think that since China has not fulfilled all obligations under the terms of its admission into the WTO, trade agreements should be looked at. The whole China/WTO situation has grown so lopsided that its become the veritable 5,000lb gorilla in the room.

i do agree that the trade deficit is ridiculous and it's too the point if we pushed too hard it would be seen as an act of hostility. All have failed on this point.”

“i just dont like going to the walmart cuz its like stepping into the shallow end of the gene pool. then theres usually a mcdonalds inside. its like feeding time at the primate petting zoo”

“Hey, does anyone know it they sell trail runners at walmart?”