Do you know that shopping at Wal-Mart is HAZZARDOUS to YOUR health?

Question

Do you think Wal-Mart is hurting the capitalist market. How can Wal-Mart set prices. Supply & Demand no more?
To keep their prices low they require other companies to either lower their prices, outsource, or eliminate their product. Wal-Mart decides for these other companies what the ingredients can be. Wal-Mart told Coke cola our way or the highway. What is going to happen when Wal-Mart buys out all the other retailers; and then refuse to carry the product you or I want? We are being censored and most are not aware. I'd suggest that people read in the July edition of Harper's Magazine. Barry Lynn writes an Essay which I have found to be exactly what Wal-Mart is doing.

Answer 1

We are not all Americans for God's sake, I have never seen Wal Mart before.

Answer 2

Yes! Wal-Mart is hazardous to your mental health!
I know this discussion is about the economic side of wal-mart, and I happen to agree with something aforementioned: that wal-mart will dig it's own grave because of its dependence on China and it's employee practices. That is the nature of Capitalism. However, I'm more concerned with wal-mart because I live in a very affluent city where wal-mart does not exist within city lines. It's wonderful not to have it anchoring our town as it did where I grew up! Now, I don't own a car because I walk everywhere but I recently journeyed outside of that box for a trip to wal-mart for the first time in over a year. I went to shop for household items on the cheap and was completely depressed by the time I left. The poorest, slaving sector of our city live in the periphery where the rich don't have to mingle and they all shop at wal-mart. It's largely an ethnic shopping population and largely a fat one. There are televisions hanging everywhere and the noise is enough to drive one into fits. Prices are low but the goods are of poor quality and there is a general air of misery all around. Dour faces stalked the aisles and children ran wild. I was miserable.
Wal-mart's proliferation and willingness to stay open 24 hours a day has robbed the hardest working people in this country of the chance to spend their money elsewhere. I have read often within these responses that for many, there is no choice but wal-mart and that's disheartening. Wal-mart's undercutting serves only to keep the poor exactly where they are already. They employ the working poor and the poor shop there too, creating a cycle of dependence and no chance to effect change. I don't think they are hurting the capitalist market in the sense that the question recommends, but I do think that it sparks a great opportunity to examine a larger demographic in our country that earn a minimum wage but not a living wage.
One last rant: I think a North America Dollar (N.A.D.-- a unified currency that would raise Canada and Mexico's standard of living and curb US inflation) would serve to put Wal-mart out of business better than anything the market would do of its own accord and I think it would raise the standard of living for the poorest of our Americans.

Answer 3

Wal-Mart can be hazardous to your health, when you spend more money than you should and not take care of the family. I personally don't care for Wal-Mart. My sister works there and when something did not sell, they would throw it on the dump truck. There are people in these United States that are starving to death and they are able to throw money away every single day. I know for a fact, when you go to the register, the person there is required to scan things very fast. There are a lot of items there that are priced wrong in the computer. When they scan things quickly, you don't catch what you are truly paying for that item. Thanks to my sister, when I do go there, I try my best to be aware of the price of the items that they scan. I have stopped them on occasion because they were charging more for the item at the register than what the item was selling for. There are several reasons I don't like Wal-Mart. That is just one example!!!! Thank you for your question and remember what I have told you. You will see that I am correct. Any Wal-Mart employees what to give me some flack, it's okay. My sister tells me everything. Have a great day.

Answer 4

Wal-Mart is a very young monopoly. The cable industry and the movie industry have been monopolized much longer. Even though there are a number of different theaters and cable and dish companies in the country, they all have the same pricing structure. Also companies like G.E. and RCA have monopolized their prospective industries for 50 plus years. Also you need to get more information concerning Coca Cola and Wal-Mart's differences, it was most definitely a mutual problem. If you are sincerely interested, you might ask why Wal-Mart is mentioned as a monopoly but NEVER companies like G.E., Dreamworks, RCA (which is owned by G.E.). One more thing no company has bought out more competition than the entertainment industry. (cable, dish, theaters)

Answer 5

Don't worry too much. Wal-Mart is cutting its own throat. Just as the manufacturers who put all of their eggs in Wal-Mart's basket by making Wal-Mart their distribution network were eventually downsized out of existence or exported to China, Wal-Mart is relying too much on cheap Chinese labor to make up the low prices and high margins.

Wal-Mart is responsible for a large portion of the economic boom in China, and for the inflationary pressures accompanying it. Give it five years, and Wal-Mart won't be the price leader anymore. It won't have the power to buy out the other retailers, nor will it be able to offer the lowest prices anymore.

If only I could get my grandmother in Alabama to stop thinking they are a great American wholesaler.

Answer 6

I hate Wal-Mart! I never shop there unless I have to I absolutely cannot find the item anywhere else.
I boycotted them for several reason:
1) the reason you stated. Have you seen the episode of Frontline about it? (If not check out the site at the bottom---you can see the full show online.There is another documentary available on DVD about it too, which I have not seen entitled " Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" by Edith Arana, Red Esry, Rev. Altagracia Perez, and Donna Payton. Supposedly Wal-Mart attempted to have it stopped but was not able to. I do know people that work there tha were instructed not to watch it.)

2) extremely poor service. If you go in there looking for something, you can never find it & if you ask someone that works there they send you on a wild goosechase before you find out they do not even carry it! Last time I was in there, I went for two items, it took forty-five minutes & I was not able to get either one of them! One of the items [Scotchgard] they did not even know what it was! Then I lost money in the soda machine, but the line for customer service was wrapped all the way around to the corner of the store, filled with people wanting to make returns. I asked a manager if they could help me & they said waiting in that line was the only way to get my money back. They only had one of three counters open, but there were several employees just standing around gossiping. The manager could have at least sent people over to open the two other counters so people did not have to wait so long. I have had several similar instances when the employees are unhelpful. I work in customer service & it just makes me so mad that I bend over backwards to help my customers but that it is extremely difficult to get good service when I go somewhere. Like, when you ask their employees if there are any in back---they do not even check. They just say the do not. Or when you ask where something is and they say "If it's not over there I don't know where it is" .
3) Lack of selection. In most cases they only carry one name brand & their housebrand & the namebrand carried is not the one I use.
4) Some items (especially the clothes) are low quality. We used to call them "Wal-Mart-fall-a-parts growing up.
5) I can almost always find stuff cheaper somewhere else. I do not know why everyone thinks they are so cheap!

There is another reason, too but it might be considered slanderous so I will not relate it.

(Sorry for any typos, spell check was not working.)

Answer 7

I do know some of this and I am sure it is all true. I seldom if ever shop there as a result and only when I cannot get it anywhere else. I live in Arkansas and I know how big Walmart is in this state and now in far too many.
From what I understand most of their employees almost brainwashed because of the way they run their employee meetings.
The Walton family that owns Wamart gives very little away too. I read recently where Bill Gates gives more away every year than the Walton's have EVER given.
No, I am not a fan of Wally World.

Answer 8

Did you know that Wal-Mart is the largest consignment store in the US? This is how they make such huge profits. They don't pay their suppliers until the supplies leave the shelf.
And, I too, hate Wal-Mart. If I have to throw yet another hissy fit because of bad service, I'm sure I will be hauled away in handcuffs by security. I'm pretty sure there is a picture of me in the employee's break room.

Answer 9

CNBC had a two hour special last night on about Wal Mart and their economic impact across the globe. Very interesting. I am sure they will rebroadcast it, try to catch it.

I don't step foot in a Wal Mart if I can help it at all. Last night they said that losing someone as a customer for life costs them $200,000 in top line revenue. I am happy to spend my lifetime $200,000 at Target, Meijer, or even better, at a locally owned store.

Answer 10

If Wal-Mart wasn't there to take advantage of the markets, then some other store, like Meijer, would be; that's how supply and demand works... If any other stores were had the opportunity to do what wal-mart does, they would.