…to be able to go to a store, any store will do, and be able to have SELECTION of things not manufactured in China, Bangladesh, or some other place where the poor bastards making all this stuff get more than one dollar a day?
Sure, that’s why things get to be cheap at MalWart, and the zombies (i mean, customers) just pile in there on a daily basis
But I think the fact that it seems like nobody at all cares is what really bothers me.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2008.
Go read the article on the Herald’s website, main page about Earth day, and you’ll see that people do care, but the problem is that they want things to be cheap and well made. We can’t have both, so we end up buying cheap, and so stores sell cheap.
I read something somewhere about how people care less about things based on how many people are affected. I.E. they will be riveted to coverage of a baby stuck down a well but they wll pass over the stories about 200 people killed by a suicide bomber in some faraway country (or of the exploitation of hundreds of 1000s by the garment/crap industries).I guess the more people are effected the harder it is for it to even be real for the human brain. How can we wrap our mind around the numbers?
I agree with People. We tend to think with our pocket books and at the end of the day, cheap TV’s mean more money to buy DVD’s (or groceries, depending on your priorities, and all of which are available at Walmart). It’s hard to consider other people’s problems when yours are not solved, and for many people, they don’t have a lot of disposable income and are trying to get the most out of every dollar, even shopping at the Mega-low-Mart means ruining the environment, the country’s manufacturing base, hurting local business and any host of other things supporting these commercial conglomerates results in. It’s the heiarchy of needs, and personal well being in the short term (i.e. more bang for your buck) tends to trump moral and ethical concerns. Unfortunately, economic globalization has far surpassed political globalization so we have business telling government what it can and can’t do, not the other way around. And you can only trust business to guarantee profit, not human rights and environmental ethics. And sorry about the rant.
I guess I have it better then I thought, I work for Tourism NS and have access at a great dscounted rate, and sometimes even free, to our galleries and museums and am not lacking in the culture that our great province provides, I wish it was more affordable or more of a priority for people because those who haven’t been, really don’t know what they are missing!!
one problem is that a many unions (the auto industry has the worst ones) that feel they should look into a companies books, see what the profit they made was, and base the raise they feel they deserved is requested (i use that term loosely as they hold automakers hostage each year). That raise then cuts into the profit, and then the car that actually cost about $ X amount …. winds up costing $X amount plus $5000.The same goes on for things that are sold at Wal Mart. However, since the company doesnt have to worry about its workers demanding more because they make a certain amount, the cost doesnt get jacked up. Now the same product could be made here, at a price that is more than it costs to be made and shipped halfway around the world. Now should that company profit with a product being madehere, you can be assured that the workers in the plant will demand the raise, then that will keep the prices skyrocketin.
Walmart also decides what price it wants to sell certain items for (e.g. vlassic pickles) and forces the company to manufacture it for a price that still allows both companies to turn a profit. Now that is crazy to me. It’s to the point where walmart represents so many potential sales that magazines and music album covers often get walmart to approve them before they get produced so they can sell them in walmarts family friendly stores.
thats sorta the thing that happens when there is less and less places to sell CDs only any more. This is the fault of the same record companies that had the greed to tell stores a price that was so big that it would turn off customers and they would look to a different medium (burning tapes and cds and later iPods and the internet) to obtain the music. On the way something odd happened which made it even worse for the music industry. Wal Mart ordered the discs from the same companies and sold it at a loss. They charged over $2 bucks less for the same discs with the mentality that “if you buy this disk, you will get some other shit in our store and we can recoup this cost”. Music stores cant compete. In HUGE numbers, sunrise records, sam the record man, music worlds and shit like that have been dropping like flies. Wal mart became the meat and potatoes of the labels.This is an isolated incident really. I forget the documentary that i watched on the music industry. This was EASILY the most interesting part
It really isn’t an isolated incident. Wal-Mart has so many customers (world’s largest retailer) that manufacturers need to sell there, that means they need to meet Wal-Marts “standards”. Also, WalMart picks things (like CDs) that they want to sell at a loss to attract more customers. The Vlassic Pickle is another example, where walmart was selling gallon jugs for far less than a jar half the size at another store. Valsic’s sales soared and it’s profits sunk. With CD’s and Magazines, it’s not just the price, it’s the CONTENT that Wal-mart is controlling because they will refuse to sell magazines with provocative covers or certain CD’s with explicit lyrics or messages. On all fronts, WalMart marginalizes the profits of downtown shops and forces them closed…costing the community jobs. By buying things manufactured overseas using cheap labour, they are turing their backs on local manufacturers, forcing those to shut down and lay off workers. Walmart profits from the less wealthy who refuse to, or cannot afford to, shop elsewhere.
my point was the INDUSTRY as a whole was a victim of walmart and the similar types. Your pickle example while true, isnt representative as the pickle industry as a whole. Wal mart now can call the shots, simply because the labels need them. Its own greed was put in check by wal mart and the companies like it. I am not sure if what i am saying is coming off correct……. but the entire industy as a whole is more my point….
Ah, I see your point. I thought you meant that CD’s were the only example of walmart selling for less and hurting it’s suppliers.Wal mart is calling the shots for a lot of consumer product producers.
i mean yes, they have screwed some suppliers, but they can never affect jeans or dishes, or jewerly or anything like that liek they did the music industry. However the music industry is the only one that for years has been pompus enough to over charge us for shit, tell us that they are, but since we need music, had to pay it. This is kicking them back in the face. Look at the labels that no longer exist, have merged, or have been scooped up by some MEGA company.but yes, walmart ….. a needed evil. Suppliers could fuck ya like the music industy did, but someone always gets hurt. Without them…… its just so fucked. I recall life before these guys…. and i had just as many complaints that wal mart has fixed……. but they have affected other parts of life, economy……i really have no opinon here as i totally understand EVERY side of the Wal Mart coin
“i really have no opinon here as i totally understand EVERY side of the Wal Mart coin”Of course you do. You really don’t think a sentence like that would come off just a little bit smug? You are quite the character.Out of curiosity, how many facts do you need to form an opinion, if it is not ALL of them?
Call it smug, but i am being sincere in the sense that i know it is tough. My brother worked at a company that was swallowed in the whole scheme of things and what not, but i am part of the problem in the sense that i shop there for the convience of pricing. I understand how they can make a neighborhood prosperous by bringing in new traffic, i also see how they can hurt by undercutting mainstay stores…….. its just one of them things really, that hurts as many people as it helps….. for every argument one can make for, you can make one comparative, call it smug, but really, it is one of them things in life that you can look at your neighbor on one side affected negatively, and then look at the back yard and the clothes of the kids at the house on the other side……. and how that store has helped them…..call it smug, but you should really come to the same conclusion.
See, what you just said there…that’s the way to say “i really have no opinon here as i totally understand EVERY side of the Wal Mart coin” without sounding smug. Maybe it’s just the medium screwing up the message. Sorry. When I weigh the pros and cons of the walmart situation I have to land on more harm than good. i won’t deny that people are benefiting from being able to make their dollars go farther, but i really think there are some serious ethical, environmental and economic concerns surrounding this company that make it worth spending an extra 2 bucks for a CD if you can afford it. And check on our other convo. I posted but it didn’t show up on the side.
People are stupid…just one thing i ask about your post…. and i agree with most of it, but many of these companies…. were around prior to wal mart, in the department stores. Same thing, just builds the stores on a different scale. These stores have ALWAYS been around. There just wasnt a pride at shopping there.Remember K mart? That place sold the same shit as wal mart, but walmart decided to follow along get better quality products. Not the best shit, but better than Kmart. Then look what happened. K mart lost out and was scooped up.Really, the same products have always been around, but just not advertised to you like Wal Mart does. They are just more apart of society than Kmart or Woolco was.
Haha, thanks Miles. It’s true, you can’t just rely on buying the most expensive product on the market either. There’s always someone looking to rip you off.Homie, I’m not saying that Wal-Mart is THE problem (which is why i mentioned clothing stores and others), but definitely a large part of it. Dollarstores are a huge part right now as well. And I do remember all the other discount stores, but they haven’t always been around. For a few decades sure, but before that there were just small stores selling one or two of each item, the high end and low end still, but neither as bad as the stuff that comes out today. That’s why you can find a blender from the 50’s and it still works!Mass production is still a fairy recent idea (by recent I mean the latter part of last century recent, while we have been making and selling things for much longer) and with mass production comes less quality, and so cheaper prices. When is the last time you met the guy who built your furniture? Or the farmer who killed your chicken?
it is a problem, but the difference is nowadays, you have to meet so many people, the iPod guy, the computer guy, the dvd guy, the clothing guy. There is just so much more that people dont really need but all want. That has created the need for stores that cater to these things…… uthopian thought would have it that we dont buy this shit and just go out and hang out, but that isnt reality, hence you are here. Look what it took for you to make this post, likely a powerbar purchased at walmart or some bullshit cable was needed for your comp…… we are all as much to blame as any one else really. but i see your point on this….
must be the medium….. you see i look at it further than just the store though. How many areas have you seen a wal mart go to and stores that were making marginal sales, end up with super huge sales due to new traffic. You see it all the time. Many of them are the good guy that needed the break. Of course there are areas like penhorn and tacoma that lose that big store and end up with giant empty voids which are rarely filled. I also look at the jobs of the non unionized worker that is making some bullshit toy here in canada that is sold exclusively at walmart and really isnt turning a profit but corporate laws force walmart to sell X amount of Canadian made shit. So some guy goes to work in the factory and wont get shut down by some crazed money hungary union…… i see how wal mart benefits him. I see how some gardner gets a job selling some second rate plants that they sell in the summer, but i also see it hurting the local gardners….. That music thing i watched and how it did the six degrees of seperation like act on how the big box indadvertantly took over music america….. it was facinating. There is no real way i could convey what i saw without sounding smug. Sorta like if you watched that supersize me….. it was a bombardment of facts.
The problem with selling/buying cheap stuff is that in the long run, people are spending the same amount of money on an item, like say, a frying pan, but instead of buying one nice last for a lifetime frying pan for $50, they are going out once a year and spending $10 on a cheap, going to be ruined in a year type. This means that the consumer is spending the same amount of money, just spread out over 5 years, so the store is making the same amount of money, spread out. The problem? We now have 4 extra pans in the landfill.Even if you look at it from the industry side, you might think, but we have more jobs if we need to make 5 frying pans instead of just one right? Not always, because that one nice, well made frying pan takes just as many man hours to construct as the 5 shitty ones that are thrown together. Then there is shipping, it takes 5 times as many trucks to ship the shitty frying pans, which is more gas, and more enviromental problems. Especially if you consider that the nice frying pans can made made in smaller quanities in local areas. But people don’t want to, or can’t spend $50 right now on a frying pan, but they need one, so they buy one for $10. Walmart makes a killing because they know that people don’t make very much money, they need things to be cheap because they can’t afford nice things. How do they know? They employ a lot of those people and pay them shitty wages. The same goes for the clothing stores with poorly made clothes for cheap and min wage workers, and the electronics stores, etc.If people worked at making quality products, the stores could charge more for the product, but it would be worth it, and so the store would make more money, and could pay the employees more, and then they could afford the nicer well made products.
People, I like your style on the Coast. Good points, especially when applied to the types of stores selling these cheap-o goods. Krusty-brand electronics, tools, appliances, clothing all have discounted prices and discounted shelf lives. Unfortunately, they get you the other way too. I mean a $40 pair of jeans is probably better quality than a $10 pair…but I don’t think an $80-100 pair of jeans is much better than a $40. Same with frying pans. You get gouged at the boutiques and ripped off at the discount stores…it can be tough to find that happy medium.
Wow guys, I have to say when I’m at work I spend some time perusing the Bitch conversations, and this one was really interesting. Miles, Homie & People, you guys give some great insight and I just thought I’d pass on how much I enjoyed reading all of your angles. It’s nice to see threads like this one that are actually about an issue instead of digging at each other:)
Well who doesn’t like bitching about Wal-Mart? That should be a bitch thread all it’s own.