Buckdog

If the internet can help call out Wal-Mart for its manipulations and connivances during this election cycle in the US, then I'm all for it.

What an accursed place to shop. The people look as though they'd rather be elsewhere and the store is as inviting as a discount store in a warehouse--a down-market Zellers if you will.

Yes they sell lots of cheap goods--and I use the word cheap in the other meaning. But cheap doesn't necessarily mean "value for money".

Time was there were department stores who hired many full-time people and prided themselves on the knowledgeable staff.

Times change and now no employer wants to hire people to work over the minimum number of hours after which EI and CPP kick in. This means there are reduced operating costs but the business is so full of part-timers that nobody has a handle on the situation.

Gotten a straight answer from you phone or cable company recently?
If you can answer "no" to that, I've made my case.

Wal-Mart, don't get me started.

I really like Wal Mart, not because im a far right nut (according to dog) but BECAUSE I actually think its good for the world. Wal Mart is successful because consumers love Wal Mart. A grassroots campaign against the company only exploded because local merchants (that often got away with highway robbery) could not compete with the service levels offered by Wal Mart and decided to bitch and moan when their rackets went down.

Wal Mart does everything a normal business does anywhere in the world. It just happens to be the best at it.

Consumers save $200 billion a year thanks to Wal Mart. That rivals Canada's social programs.

And before you attack me as a conservative lap dog, as you usually do LD, If I have to ill list off all the corporations I firmly believe are evil- and its a pretty long list.

The problem with the money they are saving in slightly lower costs is that that when you centralize the supply side of it all the money goes to the same place whereas if the supply side were more dispersed amongst the populations of the local areas the wealth would also be abit more evenly distributed. This would lead to a higher general wealth ofthe population rather than the disparity. Small business is the backbone of the American economy, Once you begin to Corporatize it and make it a huge entity it should be treated as such. Large global corporations don't generally have loyalties to the countries they operate in as they are inherently designed to work for the benefit of themselves rather than society.

As to the grassroots campaign, I can say tht isn't the only reason it exploded. Alot of the things you read about Wally World are actually true. Treatment of employees, scheduling all of that. I worked at a walmart, while nothing really happened to me other than hasseling from the back occassionaly for this or that. I heard my share of stories about not getting paid for the hours you worked, etc etc.

I'm not saying they are en evil company or whatever but they definately need to change their attitudes regarding unions and stop skirting the law.

I dunno bout highway robbery form local merchants or where you shop but my local merchants are pretty competitive with walmart and the service is better, Lines are shorter and you can actually find things.

I'd gladly pay a little more for Walmart to implement some better policies regarding healthcare, wages, overtime pay, gender pay yadda yadda yadda.

As for Canada's Social programs, you ever lived there? It's a pretty nice place. Healthcare is pretty cheap, even for Americans happening to live or visit there. In fact I'm trying to get back.