How do you feel about Wal-Mart?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-04-2008
How do you feel about Wal-Mart?
383
Wed, 11-26-2008 - 6:23pm

I read this op/ed (it's tied in with the automotive industry issues) http://www.indystar.com/article/20081119/OPINION12/811190304/1301/ARCHIVE the other day and it got me thinking. I've always heard about the lousy way they treat their employees but...it's their prices that keep me going back. Since I've moved to the South it's been even worse. They have Super Wal-Marts here where there is a grocery store in the Wal-Mart.

Now, there was an article the other day in my local newspaper with the mayor asking people to do their Christmas shopping downtown and buy local to support our mom & pop stores. Now, I'd love to do that but I have three kids and you know where I'm going.

Part of me really doesn't like what Wal-Mart stands for but the other part of me feels like "why should I pay more when I know I can get it cheaper there?"

Any thoughts?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Tue, 12-02-2008 - 5:42pm

>>> You're absolutely right. But that doesn't make me wrong for choosing to find North American manufacturers of quality products and rewarding them with my business.

It's great to support the home team. Go USA!

>>> Perhaps if Americans made more of an effort to buy locally, the US's GDP wouldn't be 80% debt, and the economy wouldn't be in the shape it's in now. The Holy Grail of the lowest price actually comes with a high price tag.

I usually buy the best product for my needs...sometimes that's American, sometimes it's not, but I'm all for leveling the playing field for American businesses and lowering taxes to keep them local and competitive.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Tue, 12-02-2008 - 6:01pm

"leveling the playing field for American businesses and lowering taxes to keep them local and competitive."

that ain't gonna be happenin' any time soon! ;)

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2008
Tue, 12-02-2008 - 7:00pm

Walmart is a cancer in the retail system.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2008
Tue, 12-02-2008 - 8:50pm
I have never gone into that crapheap of a store - one can deny that bouncing, petulant smily face!!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-04-2008
Tue, 12-02-2008 - 10:03pm

>>I'm lucky, though, that I can shop at Target, K-Mart, Ross, Marshalls, TJ Maxx & Fred Meyer...not to mention Costco.<<

I have those stores around me too. I don't shop exclusively at Wal-Mart but it really is most convenient to get household stuff and the bulk of the food shopping done there all at once.

I know this is going to sound lame but I worked for a manufacturing co for many years. I went into a bloomingdales and saw a product that they were selling for twice the amount that we had sold it to them for. Every time I see something I get that little voice in my head that says "Oh, I wonder how much that cost them to make" And yes, I know how they ALL have to mark up their stuff to pay for their taxes, employees, electricity, phone service and their massive bloated CEO's and what ever else they have.

But, I have been thinking it over and probably when my kids are grown and my life somehow gets to get back to be my own I know I will welcome the time to shop around when there isn't just so much to buy!

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-07-2002
Wed, 12-03-2008 - 1:34pm

I don't shop exclusively at Wal-Mart but it really is most convenient to get household stuff and the bulk of the food shopping done there all at once.


I understand that.

 nwtreehugger  

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2007
Wed, 12-03-2008 - 2:14pm
Yeah, I worked for Penney's Distribution center years ago.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2008
Wed, 12-03-2008 - 3:02pm
I don't shop at Walmart because I don't like the way they treat their employees including those that they employee overseas in sweat shops.

 

 

Guild Member since 2009

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-04-2008
Wed, 12-03-2008 - 8:18pm
Penney's distribution as in J.C. Penney? Very big customer of ours. Made in Usa sounds like something my company would've done. If I'm not wrong, I think there was once an issue with our product; people were complaining that our stuff was from overseas but our company claimed that the box was what was from overseas, not the actual product inside.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Wed, 12-03-2008 - 8:49pm

Oh my, that's quite a response you have to my post.

">>> LOL! That's a new one!! Let me see, our Fox Republican government imposed an unprecedented increase in regulation over the past 8 years. Uh huh. And that's what precipitated the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression. Uh huh uh huh.

You think it was the "free market" that pushed lenders to give loans to "poor folks?" LOL! It was the "dopes" (Democrat officials and politicians everywhere) that created the regulations to stop the banks from "red lining" and give loans to those poor people who couldn't otherwise afford to buy homes."

Your portrayal of what happened is fantasyland. Your blaming and namecalling of the Democrats for what happened on Republicans' watch is even worse than that.

">>> Just like Bill Clinton pulled us out of a downturn early in his Presidency and then went on to run a budget SURPLUS.

Bill Clinton pulled out of something, but it wasn't an economic downturn. LOL! Clinton was the lucky beneficiary of the dot.com boom which generated a BOOMING economy...before it burst, right before Bush took office. In fact, he got elected on a lie...just like Obama. Clinton promised a middle class tax break just like Obama and he lied, just like Obama will."

So let's review your reality. Clinton's surplus was dumb luck. Bush's worst economic collapse since the Great Depression was dumb luck again. You've got to be kidding me.

">>> Imagine that, a fiscally responsible politician who is smart and knows how to oversee our economy. That's something new after the last 8 years.

LOL! Are you referring to Oblahblah? When did Obarney magically receive his economic expertise? So far, the Obamessiah has agreed with everything that the "dopes" and Paulson have suggested...and the results...pretty much what we would have expected from people who don't have a clue. Thank the gods, we have the Obamessiah, who has less of a clue than everyone else in the country."

The fact that you are trashing our President-elect before he has had the chance to serve a day in office is a joke. Did you know that President Obama already is taking the time to attend more intelligence briefings per week than our sitting President. I can't remember - are you the one who keeps "not" comparing our President-elect Obama to Hitler?

Anyway, let me fill you in on a secret that everyone but you seems to know. It's no coincidence that we are in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, we are in an unnecessary war, and our federal government has been totally incompetent over and over from the inept reaction to Katrina to not lifting a finger to stop 9/11 despite all the warning signs. Bush and the Fox Wal-Mart Bush Republicans have proven themselves a lazy, incompetent, corrupt failure. This is one of the worst bunches of politicians in American history.

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