Walmart squeezing suppliers profit margins and driving their operations overseas which drives more of the domestic population into unemployment. I'm a tad conflicted between wanting to support the local economy and saving money on cheap stuff. Is it or is it not in our national interest to buy local or are we putting ourselves at a disadvantage unnecessarily by paying more for locally produced goods?
https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don’t change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to “Buy American,” has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That’s nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. “One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks,” says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. “Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So–wham!–you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing.”

I don't buy cheap shit from Walmart. Seems like a good way to get bed bugs.

I think it depends on the product. If it's related to national security, it should be created here. If it's related to health, we should ensure that we can easily manufacture it here if necessary and/or have a stockpile.

especially since they are a giant corporate welfare bitch.. nn to get crabs as you feed it.

Walmart (at least the Walmart Superstore) near where I live, has an excellent meat dept. Top of the line.

it's a real problem, even a major structural problem that change the face of a society.
burn it, and i want to see wives , naked upper body, dancing in circle, singing pagans songs while being under the lights of the fire.

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Jul 26 2020 04:34am

When I was a kid, I can remember Walmart moving into Moultrie, GA. Back then, Sam Walton was still alive and when you entered the store the first thing you'd notice were huge displays of Made in America gear. Of course, they were still a loss leader and local businesses were forced to downsize (which affected several of my aunts and uncles who worked for local department stores and had to find new jobs) and many mom and pops, especially in the downtown square, were forced to shutter their businesses forever. In fact, it took from the 1980s until the mid 2000s for the downtown square to go from empty shell of a town into a walkable, shoppable place where people gathered to socialize. Outside of the annual Christmas lights display at the courthouse, that is. And, to be clear about it, it took a massive effort of community and government promotion and subsidization to restore the old town square. Now that Walmart's nearly entire operation is based on neoliberal globalization and exploitation of what is essentially slave labor, they continue to prevent local businesses from thriving and they force rural, mostly conservative communities into cycles of inescapable poverty and despair. It's incredibly unfortunate that the people in these Walmart economic zones have no real representatives in government, because their social values dictate their votes and their economic needs are not supported by the party which disingenuously endorses their social values.

Anyway, fuck Walmart.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 26 2020 12:53pm

Shame on your neighbors for not supporting local businesses.

I've refused to do business with WalMart for years already. Fuck 'em.

In other WalMart news, they called the police on a couple shopping in a store here in MN for wearing masks (now required statewide as of yesterday) with swastikas on them.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/07/26/two-shoppers-banned-from-walmart-after-wearing-nazi-flag-face-masks-inside-store/

What possesses people to not only purchase something like this but to think it's a good idea to wear it in public...now they can't shop at their favorite store.