Evil Wal-Mart Uses Capitalism To Lower Food Prices

The Whistler  •  May 30, 2008

The bastards.

(Fortune Magazine) — With gas, grain, and dairy prices exploding, you’d think the biggest seller of corn flakes and Cocoa Puffs would be getting hit by rising food costs. But Wal-Mart has temporarily rolled back prices on hundreds of food items by as much as 30% this year. How? By pressuring vendors to take costs out of the supply chain.
“When our grocery suppliers bring price increases, we don’t just accept them,” says Pamela Kohn, Wal-Mart’s general merchandise manager for perishables. To be sure, Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) isn’t the only retailer working to cut fat from the food chain, but as the largest grocer – Wal-Mart’s food and consumables revenue is nearly $100 billion – it has a disproportionate amount of leverage.

For all the flaming rhetoric about how Wal-Mart exploits poor people fanned by union activists the company sure does a lot to keep prices on goods low so that poor people can actually, you know, afford to buy them.
I mean, we wouldn’t arugala prices to get out of hand or anything.

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  • http://Array ellinas

    Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it and then report back.

  • robert108

    We are talking how they achieve higher profit from what is infused with salt and water.

    Since you don’t know what “profit” means, you are doing no such thing. WalMart neither “adulterates” nor “bastardizes” their meat, so you lie about that. The federal guy got a big laugh out of your use of “bastardized”, btw. He told me it had no meaning when applied to meat. WalMart’s meat prices are lower, not higher, so you also lie about “a premium price”. I guess you don’t know what “premium” means, either.
    I’m not going to waste my time on your lies, e man.
    You have no facts or logic to back up your spew, which is typical of lies.

  • ellinas

    e man/BB: If there is a grain of truth to anything either of you have alleged on this thread, there should be a full-blown investigation of WalMart meat by the USDA; is there? These are serious allegations, and maybe you two caped crusaders should follow through.
    Truth is the antidote to propaganda.
    robert108 on June 3, 2008 at 10:09 am

    Why should the USDA investigate a legal practise?
    We are not examining legal here. We are talking how they achieve higher profit from what is infused with salt and water. You are desperate.
    Robert108! Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • ellinas

    Just as I thought. All bluster and no action. Yoou are going to sit on your ass and let your fingers do the walking. Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • ellinas

    Robert108! Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • http://manoffireandlight.blog.co.uk/ ManofFireandLight

    BB and Ellinas, I understand what is meant, I just thought it was done to pork and beef rather a lot – it seems to be here, anyhoo.

    This is why I buy my meat from reputable local butchers. I expect supermarket meat to be of poorer quality and to contain excessive water and/or salt.

    BB, tell me about it, it’s hard to fry a steak when it is 13% water – you end up boiling the darn thing.

  • robert108

    e man: I am in the process of reporting your accusations to the USDA; I have inquired as to whether any of what you say is even remotely true.
    You have presented no evidence of either “adulteration” or “bastardization” of their meat, so we’ll see if there is any truth to anything you say.
    Still waiting for you to define “extra profit”, btw.

  • robert108

    Or save your time. You won’t find one. Just because it’s not legally actionable doesn’t mean it’s right.

    Who are you to judge for anyone else what is right?
    Your points are in error. As I have said multiple times, we are all free to choose where to buy our meat, so use your freedom to go somewhere else! Do you really need to control what others do?
    WalMart is selling to its customers, which is what businesses do. Get over it.

  • robert108

    Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

    It turns out it wasn’t necessary to do that in order to refute and expose your lies. I will waste no more time with your meaningless drivel.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    No, not all grocers do this. I’ve personally never seen this done for the marketing of fresh beef and pork, and quite frankly, with a family of seven, I buy quite a bit of it from a number of grocers.

    It’s intrinsically dishonest, and so far, I’ve got evidence that among major grocers, there is only one that engages in this disreputable practice.

    Wal-Mart.

    Deal with it. Yes, I am biased against makers and vendors of shoddy goods, and against big companies that suck at the public teat.

    For those who mistakenly believe that calling the USDA instead of looking at a dictionary is somehow “capitalism,” disdain for shoddy goods and those who make and sell them is a healthy sign of the existence and operation of a free market.

  • http://manoffireandlight.blog.co.uk/ ManofFireandLight

    I find it interesting that when I use the term “Proletariat” I am accused by 108 of being an elitist. Double standards?

  • robert108

    For those who mistakenly believe that calling the USDA instead of looking at a dictionary is somehow “capitalism,”I said no such thing; you lie here. I called the USDA as “research”, which revealed the untruth of your angry hyperbole. I busted you. Furthermore, I don’t use the term “capitalism”, so you lie there, as well. disdain for shoddy goods and those who make and sell them is a healthy sign of the existence and operation of a free market. Your contention that WalMart’s goods are “shoddy” is an unfounded allegation; they are following perfectly legal business practices. Why to you hate the proletariat so much, BB?

  • robert108

    I find it interesting that when I use the term “Proletariat” I am accused by 108 of being an elitist. Double standards?

    More personal attack in lieu of facts or logic. To answer your “question”: depends on how you use it. Duh.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    If I may break in to the pissing match here (ellinas, aren’t you a lady, and thus at a serious disadvantage? ), I beg to differ with the idea that adding 15% broth/saline solution to beef, and then labeling it only on the back in the 6-8 point fonts typically used in ingredients lists does not constitute “adulterating” the beef. From Webster’s:

    Adulterate: To make impure, spurious or inferior by adding extraneous or inferior ingredients.

    Now while we might not agree that beef + 15% water is impure (it just might be, though), certainly selling 14 ounces of beef and 2 ounces of broth is an inferior good to selling 16 ounces of beef, ceterus parabus. As a cook, certainly I know quite well that broth-injected meats behave entirely differently while cooking (and in an inferior manner as well) than pure meats. Certainly soaking meat in salt water (e.g. “ham) changes its usefulness.

    To fail to label it properly–on the front of the package and in big bold letters, not in 8 point font on the back of the package–does speak to the honesty of the Wal-Mart organization. Consumers do well to notice such things and avoid retailers who play such games.

  • robert108

    As far as defining profit I am not going to play your silly game, in part because you never respond to such challenges, and in part because you are attempting to insult my intelligence. You don’t know!
    However I am going to say this. If supermaket A,or butcher shop Aa sells,lets say rib eye steak at $7.00 per pound and Wal-Mart sells said rib-eye
    infused with a 15% saline solution and/or broth for $6.75 then I believe you are smart enough to calculate the chicanery and extra profit made by
    Wal-Mart. In the first place, there is no such thing as “extra profit”; it’s just profit. To calculate profit margin, you need to know the cost side of the equation, and that varies between vendors. Duh. To calculate total profit, you need to multiply the net profit margin X the number of units sold. You insult your own “intelligence”, e.

    As with most lefties, you are an economic know-nothing.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    2H9; no, it doesn’t mean that at all. While the USDA and FDA set the minimum requirements for labeling, that doesn’t necessarily limit Wal-Mart to putting the label on the back in 6 point font. While government minimums do tend to become maximums in practice, the regulations are rarely written so as prevent honest labeling.

    Plus, the only retailer I’ve ever heard of doing this to fresh beef is the bums from Bentonville. I have never, ever purchased fresh beef that has been treated this way from Safeway, Kroger, King Soopers (CO store), Cub Foods, Target, or local butchers and other stores. Honest, reputable grocers know that their reputation hinges on good products, honestly labeled.

    Nobody in government ever took a gun to the head of a Wal-Mart purchaser and forced them to provide inferior, adulterated products. They did that all by themselves, and then they wonder why people who care about quality don’t shop there.

  • pparets

    Wow, Ellinas!!

    When did a description of packaging/preservation porcesses become disingenuous?

    And do you always dive into the gutter when you think you have been insulted? I meant none. If you are a male, so be it. If you are a female, so be it.

    r108, of all people, can tell you with absolute certainty that I do not suck up to him or he to me.

  • robert108

    Simply note well that the pervasive tendency of the bums from Bentonville is to sell junk, and act accordingly.

    You lie; you present no evidence(other than your own angry hyperbole) that any of them are bums, and that what they sell is “junk”. It’s not what you like, so go elsewhere already! Nobody cares that you failed to read the label and got something you didn’t want. You thought you were getting a good deal, and found out that you got what you paid for. Grow up and take responsibility for your actions.

  • FlyOnTheWall

    They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans.

    Hannitized, they are undercutting the grocery stores because they found this is one way to attract customers. The second part is false. Grocery stores have generally paid crap wages for a long time and this had nothing to do with walmart. Walmart also pays much higher wages than most grocery stores. A couple facts to dance to.

    I avoid walmarts because I find them depressing (motif) and I LIKE to support the mom and pop places. (Choice, go figger.)

  • robert108

    Actually, Rob, it should be “market forces”, but you got the idea across. Good one.

  • 2Hotel9

    Bubba, that would mean that people would have to stop doing business with ALL retailers and wholesalers. Not just Wal Mart. USDA and FDA create the requirements for labeling, it is they who are being deceptive and misleading, if anyone is.

  • ellinas

    Robert108. Instead of lying about what I said, do what you said earlier: Take your sad ass and camera to Wal-Mart and see for yourself: No solution on the outside of the meat. It is inside. Now get your lying ass of the chair and head over to Wal-Mart.

  • 2Hotel9

    Bubba, you can keep spewing these lies as long and as often as you wish. That does not change the facts. ALL RETAIL GROCERS WHO DO NOT CUT AND PACKAGE THEIR MEAT IN HOUSE USE THE SAME TECHNIQUES AND PROCESSES. PERIOD. FULL STOP.

    Now, spew some more lies. It is quite entertaining.

    And for your enlightenment, I spent 8 hours today slaughtering and butchering lambs. And yes, they were done in the accepted manner of halal and kashrut. And no, I ain’t jewish or muslim. And the man I was working for is Hindi. Wrap your head around that shit!

  • robert108

    Not before they prunned and weeded the vineyards

    Thus depriving our own teenagers of much-needed employment.

  • ellinas

    You continue to both lie and exhibit your ignorance. All you do is bash America and Americans.
    Your words convict you.
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 04:58 pm

    Chief: Exactly. I don’t even think this guy has ever actually shopped at WalMart; he lying about that, as well, in all probability.
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 05:40 pm

    I challenge you and anybody else to point out my lies as to what I said about Wal-Marts meat.
    You have accused me of calling the saline solution/broth an adulterant thus implying certain ignorance and nastiness on my part. You have lied.
    My dear old friend winning a debate by making false accusations does one thing: It exposes you for what you realy are. A skillful debater albeit a common lier.

    _

  • ellinas

    Dearest Robert108. However I don’t believe you will find many of our own teenagers to prunne the vines,
    Because they are in school during prunning season, Which is during the month of January.

  • robert108

    BB: You forget the Doctrine of the Invisible Hand; you seem to have confused free enterprise with collectivism.

  • ellinas

    e: Nothing factual or logical, just lies and personal attack. Typical, like I said. Define “profit”, if you can.
    robert108 on May 30, 2008 at 07:09 pm

    This accussation comes from the master of the art.
    As far as defining profit I am not going to play your silly game, in part because you never respond to such challenges, and in part because you are attempting to insult my intelligence.
    However I am going to say this. If supermaket A,or butcher shop Aa sells, lets say rib eye steak at $7.00 per pound and Wal-Mart sells said rib-eye infused with a 15% saline solution and/or broth for $6.75 then I believe you are smart enough to calculate the chicanery and extra profit made by Wal-Mart.
    Have a very nice day.

  • robert108

    …but they are also creating more poor people.

    Can you give either a factual or logical argument to back this up?

    Since you are ignorant of economics, I doubt it, but would further tell you that we are using Chinese goods to support our own economy, but then you wouldn’t know anything about that, being economically ignorant.

  • Neiman

    Lucky 13:
    That was the public policy in Sonoma, a major wine growing area near Napa; but mainly because the rich owners of vineyards did not want low income people, like Mexicans, to shop in their tourist community and scare away the money.

  • robert108

    By the way I shop at Costco. It is much better than Sam’s Club.

    Choice is the hallmark of the free market.

  • Bat One

    ellinas,

    Don’t get so indignant. I wasn’t giving you grief, just alternatives. I wouldn’t buy cut meat at Walmart either. I get a lot of meat at a local butcher shop, and if I’m buying in bulk, I’ll usually get what I need at Sam’s.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    mygodyouredumb: Leftard’s autobiography in one compound word!

  • http://insanereindeer.blogspot.com/ Kenny

    And who are those vendors Wal-Mart is pressuring? The same Americans who have to shop there! Derp!
    My god, you’re dense.

    That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. I can just imagine that meeting in your head…

    “You either sell us your products at a reduced price or we won’t sell them back to you at a higher price!”

    Man you got something there fool.

  • robert108

    That’s a BIG slice out of their profits.

    Only if they choose to do business with WalMart; after all, it’s not compulsory. Apparently, they made the decision that a smaller slice of a very large pie is preferable to a big slice of a small pie. It’s a management decision, made on a cost/benefit basis.

  • ellinas

    And for your enlightenment, I spent 8 hours today slaughtering and butchering lambs. And yes, they were done in the accepted manner of halal and kashrut. And no, I ain’t jewish or muslim. And the man I was working for is Hindi. Wrap your head around that shit!
    2Hotel9 on June 4, 2008 at 06:25 pm

    Damn brother man! I wish I was close by.
    Any way you can send me some of that freshly slaughtered lamb?
    I sometimes do the same. I buy a lamb from a farmer(no older then 5 months) and slaughter it right there bag it take it home. The only thing I leave behind is the head skin and entrails. They are mouthwatering and very tender. I think that what is marketed as lamb at the grocery stores is actualy mutton judging from the amount of fat.

  • robert108

    And no, 108, the norm between vendor and customer is NOT competition, but rather cooperation.

    Nice mischaracterization, BB. I never made any such statement. The competition is between sellers, and it benefits the buyers. I don’t think it’s proper to describe the relationship between vendor and customer as “cooperation”, either; it’s more like a continuing negotiation, with the underlying understanding that if the vendor falls behind the competition(other vendors), he will lose the customer’s business. This is simply another aspect of the Invisible Hand Doctrine.

    It’s legitimate to want to get a good deal. Using one’s market power to squeeze vendors into bankruptcy is not. Entirely false; the reward of being successful is having greater clout in the market. It’s not monopoly, you know. Using one’s market power to force vendors to bastardize their products is not. You’re just making that up, since it isn’t happening, except in the deluded mind of e man. The article cites WalMart as using its clout in the market to get lower food prices for its customers. Nothing nefarious about that. You have been misled by a leftie trying to distract, out of his irrational hate for WalMart.

    As far as WalMart’s meat is concerned, it’s labeled, so none of your hyperbole applies.

  • ellinas

    He! he! he!. Got taken by Wal Mart.

    Rejoicing in the pain of others to serve your partisan crap. Nice.
    robert108 on January 22, 2008 at 10:55 pm

    This is what you said in a prior post.
    Do you wish to retract?

  • 2Hotel9

    The difference between butchered and packaged meat and butchered, processed, and packaged meat is the addition of water and preservatives. Look on the back side of the meat package and it will clearly state what has been added. And it is not just Wal Mart that does this. Want unprocessed meat? Shop at a store that does all their meat cutting in house. Lots and lots of stores do.

  • ellinas

    In the first place, there is no such thing as “extra profit”; it’s just profit.
    robert108 on May 31, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Dearest Robert 108. No matter how you define it, it is profit (extra or otherwise)above and beyond what they would have realised without bastardizing their meat cuts (injecting them with saline solution and/or broth).

  • robert108

    I avoid walmarts because I find them depressing (motif) and I LIKE to support the mom and pop places. (Choice, go figger.)

    Lockstep lefties hate it when people are free to act in their self-interest.

  • robert108

    BB: Competition is a bitch; someone wins and someone loses.

  • robert108

    e: For all you know(since I doubt you have even thought of taking a survey) WalMart meat buyers may actually prefer their meat that way, due to enhanced flavor(a possibility you haven’t even considered). If nobody wanted their meat that way, no one would buy it. Like I said; basic economics. You should take a course.

  • robert108

    People are paying a premium for water and salt.

    People are paying what they regard as the right price for the right product, you moron! Otherwise, they would shop elsewhere. Not only don’t you know what “profit” means, you don’t even understand how free people make free choices!

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    but they are also creating more poor people.

    The logic train left a long time ago, leaving poor Hannitized standing (drooling) in the station!
    His talking points say that Wal-Mart is evil, so there’s just no reasoning with him!

    They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans.(sic)

    So, the folks who work for Wal-Mart are above average Americans?
    Wal-Mart doesn’t pay union wages, but they pay above average wages.

    But I happen to love my country more than that.

    Yeah! The country of Unionistan.
    Don’t you love America enough to allow folks the freedom to decide what wage they’ll work for and where?
    No one is forcing anyone to work at or shop at Wal-Mart. Take your business elsewhere! No one is stopping you! Why do you hate the free market so much?

  • robert108

    First they hire Illegals to increase their profit, then they don’t want them seen in their communities.

    Actually, those invader parasites were lucky to even be here; their invading asses should have been shipped back to Mexico immediately. They steal something from us, then complain about the conditions they invaded to get.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    but they are also creating more poor people.

    The logic train left a long time ago, leaving poor Hannitized standing (drooling) in the station!
    His talking points say that Wal-Mart is evil, so there’s just no reasoning with him!

    They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans.(sic)

    So, the folks who work for Wal-Mart are above average Americans?
    Wal-Mart doesn’t pay union wages, but they pay above average wages.

    But I happen to love my country more than that.

    Yeah! The country of Unionistan.
    Don’t you love America enough to allow folks the freedom to decide what wage they’ll work for and where?
    No one is forcing anyone to work at or shop at Wal-Mart. Take your business elsewhere! No one is stopping you! Why do you hate the free market so much?

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Injecting meat with water is nothing new; my grandmother’s 1920s era home ec textbook warns that unscrupulous vendors will do this.

    Emphasis on “unscrupulous,” as when someone presents products in a deceitful way. Other examples of this include sheets; I’ve noticed that vendors today are counting both the warp and weft in thread count, so a 400 thread count sheet today is actually rougher than a 250 thread count sheet of 8 years ago. Another example is the “Schwinn” bicycles sold at Wal-Mart–Ignaz Schwinn would never have tolerated that.

    Yet another example is the abuses recorded by Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle” of Swift and other meatpackers–things that sometimes even exceed what goes on with “Le Mart du Wal.”

    Sorry, but “capitalism” does not excuse the businessman from the basic duty of honesty to his customers. I believe Smith warned about this, as does Bastiat. Just because “you can get away with it” or “you can turn a quick buck doing it” doesn’t mean it’s right, and it certainly doesn’t mean that people are wrong to protest.

    And no, 108, the norm between vendor and customer is NOT competition, but rather cooperation. Look at relationships between GM and its vendors if you want to see the results of a customer squeezing the last drop of blood from the turnips of its vendors. They lose billions annually due to this.

    Look up Bastiat on this, 108. It’s legitimate to want to get a good deal. Using one’s market power to squeeze vendors into bankruptcy is not. Using one’s market power to force vendors to bastardize their products is not.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    but they are also creating more poor people.

    The logic train left a long time ago, leaving poor Hannitized standing (drooling) in the station!
    His talking points say that Wal-Mart is evil, so there’s just no reasoning with him!

    They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans.(sic)

    So, the folks who work for Wal-Mart are above average Americans?
    Wal-Mart doesn’t pay union wages, but they pay above average wages.

    But I happen to love my country more than that.

    Yeah! The country of Unionistan.
    Don’t you love America enough to allow folks the freedom to decide what wage they’ll work for and where?
    No one is forcing anyone to work at or shop at Wal-Mart. Take your business elsewhere! No one is stopping you! Why do you hate the free market so much?

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    I believe you might be thinking about Hercules, CA. Back in 2006 the city council voted against Wal Mart building a superstore on property they had already purchased.

  • http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

    robert108. It seems that ellinas does not like this practise when WalMart does it. Should I ask if it is OK for lets say, some northern union grocery store?
    This is an approved FDA method. A person can read about additives. They can buy somewhere else. Free to choose–Milton Freeman

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    Mr. Generalization rants:

    Wal-Mart maybe “helping” poor people by giving them cheap crap made from China and reducing the cost of some food items

    I buy groceries almost exclusively at Wal-Mart now. I also buy books and an occasional DVD.
    No crap, Chinese or otherwise!
    But, Hannitized is a well known authority on (and purveyor of) crap, so I will defer to his expertise!

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    And who are those vendors Wal-Mart is pressuring?

    Pressuring. That’s an interesting, if somewhat loaded word! Other folks might call it “negotiating”.

    If you want to sell your product to me (Wal-Mart) I will give you this price.

    I do much the same thing when I buy a car.

    If you want to sell your car to me (proof) I will give you this price.

    If I don’t like the price or the terms, I walk away. Am I “pressuring” the car dealer? Well, yes! Depending on how much pressure there is on him to “make his nut”, he might take a lower price than he’d ideally like or than he would accept in good times!

    Am I “evil” for “pressuring” the car dealer? No. We’re either coming to a mutually advantageous deal or one of us will walk. Simple as that!

  • ellinas

    Bike Bubba thank you for your insightfull and brutaly honest post.

  • ellinas

    About 6 or 7 years ago, there was a city outside of San fran sick-o……
    lucky13 on May 30, 2008 at 07:46 pm

    I see a fan of Michael Savage here.

  • ellinas

    …..their invading asses should have been shipped back to Mexico immediately. They steal something from us, then complain about the conditions they invaded to get.
    robert108 on May 31, 2008 at 09:41 am

    Not before they prunned and weeded the vineyards

  • ellinas

    Lucky 13:
    That was the public policy in Sonoma, a major wine growing area near Napa; but mainly because the rich owners of vineyards did not want low income people, like Mexicans, to shop in their tourist community and scare away the money.
    Neiman on May 31, 2008 at 09:00 am

    Yet those same Mexicans lived and worked in the Napa vineyards.Shame on those rich owners of vineyards.
    First they hire Illegals to increase their profit, then they don’t want them seen in their communities.

  • 2Hotel9

    e, Wal Mart stores do not cut their own meat. It is shipped to them, pre-cut, processed, and packaged. Beef, pork, and chicken This has been explained to you in 3 different threads over the last year and a half. So obviously you are continuing to screech this bullshit because you have an agenda. Just come right out and tell us your agenda.

  • lucky13

    About 6 or 7 years ago, there was a city outside of San fran sick-o that outlawed any Wal-mart from coming and putting up a store. I don’t remember the name of the town, but it was one of the richest towns in the Bay area. They said it was to keep the local stores from going out of business. I wonder was it the feeling of helping the overpriced stores stay in business, or was it a measure to keep poor people out of town. It seems to me that people against wal-mart are also against poor people. If you don’t like how much they pay employes then bitch to your congressman or women and increase the national minimum wage. People that make minimum wage need a place to shop too, its just now that people making good money shop there and Sams, and that bugs rich people or should I say the elite types. You know the white trash types that cling to guns, religion, and family values. The ones that wont be voting for Obama in 08, the far left would love to pass laws to try and put wal-mart out of business.

  • ellinas

    Like most lefties, you have absolutely no idea what “profit” is, in the real world. Spoken like a true ignoramus.
    robert108 on May 30, 2008 at 09:54 am

    There you go again, you lying old geezer.
    When are you going to stop?
    There was a time when I respected you. But you are like a one night stand: Nobody respects the morning after.

  • robert108

    e: Nothing factual or logical, just lies and personal attack. Typical, like I said. Define “profit”, if you can.

  • ellinas

    Thus depriving our own teenagers of much-needed employment.
    robert108 on May 31, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Dearest Robert108. I despise illegal imigration as much as you do. However I don’t believe you will find many of our own teenagers to prunne the vines.

  • robert108

    No matter how you define it, it is profit (extra or otherwise)above and beyond what they would have realised without bastardizing their meat cuts (injecting them with saline solution and/or
    broth).

    As usual, you’ve got it wrong. Without knowing what their cost is, you have no idea what their profit margin is, nor their total profit. You are just spewing your Marxist ideology about profit, in total ignorance of the reality.
    WalMart clearly labels their meat, so the consumer gets to choose whether he or she buys it, or not. No victims here, only your misguided victimology.
    Free people making free choices.

  • ellinas

    Dearest Robert108. All other things being equal, you have your opinions I have mine. Nice debating with you.

  • robert108

    The definition of profit is not a matter of opinion. You made a factual accusation(…bastardizing their meat cuts…, extra profits) without making a factual determination of either accusation.
    At the very least, that’s being dishonest.

  • robert108

    Back to the topic, here’s how it works: WalMart, in seeking a decent return, also ends up using its economic power to negotiate in favor of the consumer.

    It’s called “The Invisible Hand Doctrine”; you can Google it. It’s what makes the free enterprise economic system superior to all others.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    fixed price.

    Shop there frequently. Most veggies I see are sold by the pound.
    Again, infusing meats fresh and canned is not an exclusive problem to Wal*Mart.

  • robert108

    How often do you go to let’s say Safeway with a magnifying glass in tow, go to their fresh meat section, pick up a nice package of T-bone steaks
    turn it over and proceed to read the fine print? Are you sure it’s “fine print”, or are you just bullshitting, as usual? Anyone who doesn’t read the label on something before buying it is a fool.
    And being labled as such makes no difference. Of course it does; what a ridiculous statement! The bottom line is the “extra” profit they realize versus the non infused meat. Since you are ignorant of what “profit” is, you are simply lying again.

    I’m planning a trip to my local WalMart to take some pictures, and your lies will be exposed for all to see. Simply packaging meat with either water or broth is not “injecting” or “infusing”, so you lie there, as well. It’s time to shut up your lies with the truth.

  • robert108

    Those nasty facts: as the invasion has proceeded, teenage unemployment has skyrocketed. Not a coincidence, but cause and effect. The invaders now take the jobs that teenagers used to do to enter the job market. You can Google it.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    Only if they choose to do business with WalMart; after all, it’s not compulsory. Apparently, they made the decision that a smaller slice of a very large pie is preferable to a big slice of a small pie. It’s a management decision, made on a cost/benefit basis.

    Well said.

  • ellinas

    As far as WalMart’s meat is concerned, it’s labeled, so none of your hyperbole applies.
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 09:08 am

    How often do you go to let’s say Safeway with a magnifying glass in tow, go to their fresh meat section, pick up a nice package of T-bone steaks turn it over and proceed to read the fine print?
    And being labled as such makes no difference. The bottom line is the “extra” profit they realize versus the non infused meat.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    People are paying a premium for water

    Nearly every grocery store I know sprays water on their vegetables to keep them fresh. Do you not suppose that an added benefit to the grocer is whatever additional water weight that clings to the produce?
    Adding water to meat, fresh or canned, is hardly new nor exclusive to Wal*Mart.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    2H9; what ellinas notes. If supermarkets were injecting “fresh beef” with a brine, I think I’d have noticed the salty taste after 33 years of cooking it and being able to compare the end result with that from local butchers, and the meat I’ve butchered myself.

    Again, not everybody produces this shoddy good. Wet aging, carbon monoxide, and the like? You bet. Brine injection? No way.

    So it’s not “capitalism”, by and large, that Wal-Mart is using here. Deceit, yes. Cheapening the product, absolutely. Squeezing profit out of the transaction? You bet.

    Capitalism? Not so high on the list, sad to say, but it’s what you’d expect from a company whose MO is to demand tax concessions and eminent domain abuse in return for placing stores.

    Aren’t conservatives supposed to be against that sort of thing? Why no outrage? Hoping to get a promotion and wear a blue vest with a smiley someday?

  • ellinas

    Proof now you are being silly like my beloved friend Robert108. Infused with, and sprayed on are two different things. Go ahead and infuse cellery, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce etc with a 15% solution of water and salt to “enhance flavor” and see the results.
    Most if not all vegetables and herbs that I see sprayed with water are sold in bunches with a predetermined weight and fixed price.

  • ellinas

    Most veggies I see are sold by the pound.
    Again, infusing meats fresh and canned is not an exclusive problem to Wal*Mart.
    Proof on June 1, 2008 at 11:21 am

    Proof you are right. Most veggies I also see are sold by the pound. But not all. I was refering to the ones that are sold by the bunch, like green onions for example.
    Care to point out who else infuses their fresh cuts of beef with a up to 15% saline solution or broth? I am sophisticated enough to know the difference.
    Stop trying to insult my intelligence with nonsense arguments. It makes you look silly. The water drips off the sprayed veggies and one can certainly shake it off. But the saline infused meat? Methinks that you have been shaking your meat (masturbating) way too often and you confuse the two meats.

  • robert108

    Do you wish to retract your lies and your ignorance of what “profit” is? Instead of trying to spin something i might have written by chopping it up and quoting it out of context, why not have the spine to publish your opinion? BTW, you won’t succeed in distracting from the reality that WalMart is saving people money on their food by using market forces instead of the threat of govt coercion.

  • robert108

    Ask Pilgrim about Wal-Mart’s flavourfull steaks.

    He said, as I remember, that he no longer shops there. Free people making free choices.
    The most generous thing I can say about what you have written here is that your analysis is incomplete. You have lots of emotion, few facts, and no logic.
    If you are so desperate to be “right”, then you will have to do a considerable amount of homework on this subject.
    The bottom line is this: companies are free to do business the way they choose. If you don’t like what they sell, don’t shop there. Your uninformed opinions about profit are simply wrong, because you don’t even know the definiton of the term, and have no idea of how to calculate it. Therefore, any “conclusions” you may have drawn are fated to be entirely false. Educate yourself before you speak about a subject; you won’t appear so foolish then.

  • ellinas

    However I am going to say this. If supermaket A,or butcher shop Aa sells, lets say rib eye steak at $7.00 per pound and Wal-Mart sells said rib-eye infused with a 15% saline solution and/or broth for $6.75 then I believe you are smart enough to calculate the chicanery and extra profit made by Wal-Mart.
    Have a very nice day.
    ellinas on May 31, 2008 at 09:04 am

    As usual you are inserting a lot of variables to a simple equation in hopes of mudding the obvious to your advantage.
    For example: “e: For all you know(since I doubt you have even thought of taking a survey) WalMart meat buyers may actually prefer their meat that way, due to enhanced flavor(a possibility you haven’t even considered). If nobody wanted their meat that way, no one would buy it.”

    Ask Pilgrim about Wal-Mart’s flavourfull steaks.

  • robert108

    e man: You lied when you said WalMart was charging a “premium price”; that’s a direct lie, since they charge less. You said the meat was “infused” with a 15% saline solution; are you aware what that means? It doesn’t mean that 15% of the weight of the meat is saline solution. Another lie from you. The meat is not “infused”, either; the solution is added during packaging, and is on the outside of the meat, not inside of it, which is what “infused” would mean. You lie again. Your entire position is a lie.
    The worst part of your lie is that you are trying to distract from the truth that WalMart has lowered food prices with market forces, not govt regulations or subsidies, and that benefits low income people.
    You are the worst sort of liar, because you don’t even understand business, the free enterprise system, or even the word “profit”; and yet you spew toxic filth as if you knew something. You know nothing.
    The truth is, I gave you the benefit of the doubt; you used the word “bastardizes”, with is meaningless in the context of packaged meat. I used the word “adulterated”(which was the impression you were trying to convey), because I was trying to cover for your ignorance. No more.

    Consider yourself exposed as an ignorant liar.

  • http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

    robert108. There are some general population people here, but the reality is that many were mis-educated during the past thirty years. I have offered to take people to see what I am talking about, but they usually decline. Unfortunately, WalMart has had to “meet numbers” and I ran into one of those special quota persons about one week ago. She was incompetent just like most are. Shame too, there are plenty of people who would gladly do the job, but for AA.

  • robert108

    You continue to both lie and exhibit your ignorance. All you do is bash America and Americans.
    Your words convict you.

  • ellinas

    Your lie on this thread was that WalMart was making “extra profit” by “injecting” its meat with adulterants(beef broth and water are not “adulterants”), but there you describe it as “cheap ass meat”, so which is it?
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 04:10 pm

    Truth is I never said “adulterants”. Your attempt to adulterate the truth is both ridiculous and a bold face lie. Oh! and now I am bashing Americans. That is your specialty!

  • robert108

    My opposition and comments would be exactly the same.

    Why do you hate freedom, e man?

    Prove that WalMart “bastardizes” their meat. Or are you going to lie about saying that? How can you prove their meat is born illegitimately? (snicker)

  • ellinas

    robert108. It seems that ellinas does not like this practise when WalMart does it. Should I ask if it is OK for lets say, some northern union grocery store?
    This is an approved FDA method. A person can read about additives. They can buy somewhere else. Free to choose–Milton Freeman
    Chief RZ on June 2, 2008 at 05:38 pm

    Chief you may certainly ask. I do not give a rats ass wether it is union or non union grocery store.
    My opposition and comments would be exactly the same.

  • robert108

    Chief: Exactly. I don’t even think this guy has ever actually shopped at WalMart; he lying about that, as well, in all probability.

  • robert108

    Nobody in government ever took a gun to the head of a Wal-Mart purchaser and forced them to provide inferior, adulterated products. They did that all by themselves, and then they wonder why people who care about quality don’t shop there.

    As has been explained to you multiple times, competition in the free market produces all possible choices of products, qualities and prices. It is up to the consumer to make a cost/benefit decision about what they want to purchase, and how much they want to pay for it. Despite your efforts to make it so, there is no victimization here. WalMart exists(and is successful) because they serve their segment of the market. Would you prefer that they not be able to do so? That’s socialism, dude.
    If WalMart’s stuff wasn’t worth what they charge for it, no one would shop there. Since lots of people do shop there, you are wrong.

    If you don’t like WalMart’s products, don’t shop there; but don’t try to control others to prevent them from doing what they so obviously want to do.

  • robert108

    I had heard on the radio just this morning that Wal-Mart injects their meat with 10% water…

    Also, nothing about “fine print”, in fact, the print in the original article was large and quite readable. Also, nothing factual about “injecting the meat”, only “I heard on the radio…”

    Try again.

    BTW, “The Jungle” was populist propaganda, meant to inflame the public emotionally. Guess it worked on you, BB.
    In spite of your errors, this thread is about WalMart obtaining good food prices for all of us who choose to take advantage of them, and about WalMart using market forces(not govt coercion) to accomplish that.
    This whole “meat” thing is just a hater’s attempt to distract from the good that WalMart is doing.
    If you don’t like WalMart’s meat, don’t shop there; you have plenty of choices, due to the competition engendered by the free market in our free enterprise system. You are not “forced” to buy anything anywhere.

  • ellinas

    People are paying a premium for water and salt.
    Is that hard to understand?
    You know the answer,however you would never concede the obvious because God forbid someone else may be right.

  • ellinas

    Like I said before they are making the difference (profit) by bastardizing other products. Check their beef cuts. Under the package and in small print: “Injected with up to 15% saline and or broth to improve flavor.” Can anybody say why a good rib-eye, t-bone or any cut of beef needs that kind of improvement other than improving Wal-Marts bottom line?

  • docdave

    Yeah, Fred, the sky is falling. Got that straight from Henny Penny or was it Ducky Lucky. I’m glad you have so much faith in our capitalistic system that you are now cowering in fear.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Here’s the link to Pilgrim’s original post on Wal-Mart meats:

    http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/a_bit_of_a_caveat_if_youre_buying_meat_check_the_back_of_the_package/

    Back of the package, 108, and in fine print. Should we all need to read the fine print on every bag of sugar or flour we buy to make sure that Wal-Mart didn’t put sand in it, too?

    Good grief, I feel like we’re reading “The Jungle” again–well, as long as Swift notes that this meat came from a pregnant cow on the back of the can, and that it wasn’t able to walk when it entered the plant, everything’s all right!

  • Bat One

    Like I said before they are making the difference (profit) by bastardizing other products.

    ellinas,

    So, don’t buy those “other products.”

    If the quality of the beef you buy is important, either patronize a local butcher shop, or get yourself a Sam’s Club membership and check out the quality of their steaks. You will be pleasantly startled at both the quality and the price.

    Of course, if loyalty to the leftist, anti-Walmart cause is more important than the quality of the steaks in your fridge, you can always sit there and complain in between bites of your bologna sandwich.

  • Mickey

    The union argument against Wal-Mart is weak. There are plenty of related jobs at other retail department chains and most of them are also non union and offer equal pay and benefits. Let’s be honest here, it doesn’t take a degree to stock shelves, run a check-out or work in shipping and receiving. The real lesson here is personal responsibility. Work harder in school, move on to any type of secondary education and improve your options in life. If your future looks dim where you live, move.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    108, if you are truly an advocate of capitalism and free markets, why bother with the USDA? Simply note well that the pervasive tendency of the bums from Bentonville is to sell junk, and act accordingly.

    I do that. Pilgrim tells me that they sell adulterated, marinaded meat as fresh. I’ve noticed that any number of other products sold there are cheapened beyond recognition.

    Hence, I hope that Wal-Mart appreciates the fact that my truck isn’t inflicting wear and tear on their parking lots.

  • Fred

    This is a nice gesture, and I buy a lot at WalMart and Sam’s club, but it won’t last. This morning Dow Chem Ceo said he would raise the prices of everything they make by 20% as a result of fuel prices. http://dow.com/. Dow uses about 1 million barrels of oil/day and about 1% of all US Electricity. Their products go into everything – Check out the product mix here: http://dow.com/products_services/ . This rise will affect all their downstream customers who will in turn raise their prices. Other suppliers of basic materials like Dow will follow suit very quickly.

    The shit is hitting the fan people. Hope you’ve got your raincoat on.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    What Ellinas says, 108. Yes, Wal-Mart is free to sell junk meat and package it in a deceptive way. Smart consumers take notice.

    That’s called “capitalism,” friend. Socialism is when you claim that just because a package meets FDA/USDA requirements for labeling, that it’s somehow allowable and moral to sell a clearly inferior, adulterated product with essentially the same package used for real, quality products.

  • robert108

    Like I said before they are making the difference (profit) by bastardizing other products.

    Like most lefties, you have absolutely no idea what “profit” is, in the real world. Spoken like a true ignoramus.

    “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand…” – Bob Dylan

  • Hannitized

    Wal-Mart maybe “helping” poor people by giving them cheap crap made from China and reducing the cost of some food items, but they are also creating more poor people.

    I would say on balance that this is not a good thing. They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans. You want to support Chinas economy by buying from Wal-Mart, that is your choice.

    But I happen to love my country more than that.

  • ellinas

    Bat one. Rob is pointing out price lowering by WAl-Mart and is crowing about lowering prices. I dared point some hokus-pocus magic they use to make extra profit and I get this from you?
    Of course you are correct in saying I don’t have to buy their bastardized meat cuts. But why am I wrong in pointing out this?
    By the way I shop at Costco. It is much better than Sam’s Club.

  • ellinas

    The meat at WalMart is clearly labeled so those who buy it know what they are getting.
    robert108 on June 3, 2008 at 09:43 am

    Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • robert108

    I have called the FSIS(Food Safety Inspection Service), and they have no investigation of WalMart and told me that WalMart does not adulterate their meat.
    I also called the County Health Service closest to my nearest WalMart, and they told me the same thing.
    Looks like you were lying, which is no surprise.
    According to the relevant govt agencies, WalMart is in complete compliance with all laws and health regulations. As usual, you don’t now what you are talking about, which seems to be your style.
    If you have ever been to a WalMart(which I doubt), don’t buy their meat if you don’t like it. Duh. You have lots of other choices, thanks to our free market economic system. You really should find out about it.

  • ellinas

    Why should the USDA and FSIS(Food Safety Inspection Service), investigate a legal practise?
    We are not examining legal here. We are talking how they achieve higher profit from what is infused with salt and water. You are desperate.
    Robert108! Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • ellinas

    pparets go to your local grocer/ chain grocer and purchase a t- bone. Now go to Wal-Mart and purchase the the t-bone. Take your calculator and do a price comparison. A $0.25 cents per pound difference does not account for a 15% salt an water solution that Wal-Mart’s t-bone contains and you certainly cannot sqeeze off the offending to me additives.
    Further more why is it wrong for me to point out this when the title of the thread is: “Evil Wal-Mart Uses Capitalism To Lower Food Prices”

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Adulterate; to make impure, spurious, or inferior by adding extraneous or improper ingredients.

    American Heritage Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

    Now, 108, here is your task; go to ten good steakhouses, and find a single owner who will tell you that adding brine to beef does not render the product inferior, and that adding brine to steak is a proper thing to do.

    Or save your time. You won’t find one. Just because it’s not legally actionable doesn’t mean it’s right. Can you get some common sense about this here? Wal-Mart is free to sell dog food labeled as steak. Pilgrim, Ellinas, and I are free to say that this says some very negative things about the company, and our patronage of their business will resemble an empty parking spot.

    Got it?

  • robert108

    e man/BB: If there is a grain of truth to anything either of you have alleged on this thread, there should be a full-blown investigation of WalMart meat by the USDA; is there? These are serious allegations, and maybe you two caped crusaders should follow through.

  • ellinas

    I’m planning a trip to my local WalMart to take some pictures, and your lies will be exposed for all to see. Simply packaging meat with either water or broth is not “injecting” or “infusing”, so you lie there, as well. It’s time to shut up your lies with the truth. Truth is the antidote to propaganda.
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 09:40 am

    The meat at WalMart is clearly labeled so those who buy it know what they are getting.
    robert108 on June 3, 2008 at 09:43 am

    Robert108! Wal-Mart is open. Get your lying ass off your chair go and check the meat. Buy some cook it eat some and then report back.

  • ellinas

    ManofFireandLight we are not talking about proccessed meats like ham or sausages. We are talking about a what is considered a prime cut of fresh beef packaged and sold as such. Wal- Mart sell just such a cut infused with a up to 15% saline and or broth solution.

  • robert108

    e man: The burden of proof is on the accuser.
    BB: I’m going to consult the FDA to see if anything you have spewed here bears any resemblance to the truth. I understand that you don’t like WalMart meat; so don’t buy it. Others obviously disagree with you.
    Socialism is where the control freaks like you try to force others to adopt your values. The meat at WalMart is clearly labeled, so those who buy it know what they are getting. You just can’t stand that others don’t agree with your standards, I guess. As a Russian friend of mine used to say: Tough shitski!

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    MOFAL, stateside brine is often added to preserved meats like sausages, bacon, and hams, and sometimes also poultry, but rarely fresh pork or beef. (again, it really works against the cook when this is done….try to season a steak properly when it’s already soaked in salt and God-knows-what other adulterants)

  • http://manoffireandlight.blog.co.uk/ ManofFireandLight

    Is it really not common practice for retailers to sell meat injected with water/saline/broth? My mistake.

    It must just be in the UK

    http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/press_05_watermeat.htm

    http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=53590-water-injected-meat

  • 2Hotel9

    e, Bubba? Neither of you have proven that Only Wal Mart, and Wal Mart alone, sells processed meats containing water, salt, monosodiumglutamate or any other additive. All grocers use the same techniques. You don’t like that? Then shop at stores that do all their meat cutting in house. End of discussion. Or, as the Goreacle says,”The debate,,,is,,over.”!

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Wal-Mart is the epitome of how the free market works? You mean the eminent domain abuses, coaching of their employees on how to get welfare checks, browbeating of local governments for special tax breaks, and lobbying for more regulation of their competitors?

    Google it if you’re having trouble keeping up; yes, this happens, and often.

    Certainly there are some things that are admirable about Wal-Mart. Their distribution systems work amazingly, and they do at times do a great job of helping their vendors work more efficiently. However, to claim they’re some kind of paragon of capitalism simply ignores the fact that they’re just as likely to suck at the government teat as any other retailer with that kind of impact.

    And I lied? About what? Are you denying that 14 oz. of beef plus 2 ozs of brine is an inferior good to actual beef? Are you denying that doing this is historically known as cheating the customer?

    I made no lies.

  • robert108

    BB: WalMart is the epitome of how well the free market works. It just offends elitists like you. I guess the fact that they supply the proletariat without govt help just frosts your pumpkin. Too bad.
    Free people making free choices.

  • ellinas

    pparets you are being dissingenious! Quit sucking up to him. As far as your attack on my manhood, I realy don’t care how you perceive me. By the way if you insist you can suck my clit any time you’re ready.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    2H9, if what you say is true, than why haven’t I ever experienced it in 20 years buying food for myself and my family at a dozen different grocery chains in about a dozen states?

    No, not everyone does this. Just the vendors of shoddy goods. Places like Wal-Mart.

    And yes, I’m fully aware that calling Wal-Mart’s stuff the junk that it is makes me a Communist in your eyes. I guess by that logic, it was wrong for me to criticize chocolate I had one time that was the next best thing to pickled hog doots. They had other customers, after all.

    Oh, and wait a minute; that was in East Berlin, so now I’m a Commie for insulting Communist chocolate.

    Is Wal-Mart allowed to sell pickled hog doots without being criticized for it, but the East Germans were not, just because it’s in a free market?

    Really, guys, you need to get yourselves to a basic logic book, and stop buying pickled hog doots at Wal-Mart.

  • robert108

    Wal-Mart is the epitome of how the free market works?

    Yes. I explained why I said that, and you have yet to refute that argument. All you are doing, in a fashion typical of lefties, is to try to distract with sensational-sounding, unfounded allegations. I asked both federal and local officials if there was anything at all about WalMart’s operation that was under investigation for any wrongdoing, and got a definite “no”. The lie you told was to label WalMart’s meat as “adulterated”. I asked the officials specifically about adulteration, and they said it was not adulteration, that the grade of meat sold and the condition it was in were correctly labeled and perfectly legal. Adulteration is illegal.
    I’m not going to waste any more of my valuable time chasing down any more false allegations against WalMart. If you really believe they are doing something wrong, report it to the proper authorities. Otherwise, you are simply venting your spleen for personal emotional reasons, and that’s of no concern to me.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    ??? 2H9, I’m still waiting for an explanation of why I’ve never, ever tasted a boatload of extra salt in any fresh beef or pork (or for that matter, chicken or turkey) I’ve ever bought or cooked in 33 years of cooking and 20 years of buying food.

    Just because everybody plays by the same FDA/USDA minimums doesn’t mean that everybody is content with the minimum standards of quality. Sorry, I’ve been shopping and cooking for far too long to believe your line of bull on this one. I know better.

  • robert108

    pp: All this noise from e man the troll is simply to try to distract from the fact that WalMart is successful in giving people what they want for an affordable price. Everything he/she has said is a lie.
    WalMart is using market forces to lower food prices at a time when the Dem Congress has raised the price of food and energy with their socialistic practices. It’s called contrast.

  • pparets

    r108: I think e-man is a e-she. Ellina S. Other than that, meat is kept fresh by any number of means in the packing/grocer network. All are legal, none are dangerous and none adulterates the product.

    But, you’re right, ellinas doesn’t want to know the truth about preservation or profit.

  • ellinas

    2Hotel9 I am very aware that Wal-Mart meat arives pre-cut and prepackaged. So does lamb from New Zealand and Australia. No brine there. Walmart simply tells their supplier what to do.
    No agenda, just trying to infuse some truth to a certain distortion.

  • 2Hotel9

    Bubba, you can keep telling yourself whatever lies you want, it does not change the facts. Stores that do not cut their meat in house receive it pre-cut, processed with preservatives/water/brine/what have you, and pre-packaged. End of story. Period. And Wal Mart is not the only chain retailer that does this. THEY ALL DO.

  • ellinas

    ManofFireandLight, I’d love to, but this horse is more stubborn than a mule. I have been trying to make him drink some real water yet he prefers to quench his thirst with cheap whiskey thus being in a state of drunkedness is unable to discern the truth.

  • http://manoffireandlight.blog.co.uk/ ManofFireandLight

    E, please stop flogging this horse.

  • robert108

    …and then I would point them to the actual examples in the article, which make very clear that the major part of what they’re doing is to squeeze the profit out of their suppliers.

    Nice way to try to emotionalize it, but pure bullshit. WM is negotiating from a strong position; their “suppliers” choose to be so, rather than to be suppliers to other stores; it’s a free market in a free country, a fact about which you seem to be ignorant. In your zeal to smear WM in some way, you have lied about everything, including this crap about “squeezing”. Those suppliers can go elsewhere, but they don’t. Nothing compulsory, except in your ignorant mind.
    I have spoken to no “publicity department”, so all that crap is another lie you made up. I spoke to several health departments, and they exposed your lie. Since you don’t understand the nature of competition in the free enterprise economic system, you are seemingly incapable of understanding the reality here, instead preferring to live in your little populist dreamland, where big companies are “evil”. Pure bullshit.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    108, yes, the PR department of Wal-Mart would dispute this–and then I would point them to the actual examples in the article, which make very clear that the major part of what they’re doing is to squeeze the profit out of their suppliers.

    Put another way, my wife was told as she was going through college that if she wanted a career in PR, she would have to jettison that nasty honesty thing. Sorry, it ain’t me who’s lying, and the very article linked makes that very clear.

    Reading your comments, one would think it was news that Wal-Mart squeezes the profits of their suppliers and sells goods that the vast majority of their competitors won’t touch. Would it be too much to ask that you join us in the real world?

    And 2H9, you still owe me an explanation of how I’ve been cooking for 33 years, and buying food for 20, and I’ve never, ever seen evidence of injecting fresh beef and pork with brine, except from Wal-Mart. Come on; it’s not like you can hide the fact that your steak tastes suspiciously like ham. Again, care to join us in the real world? Reputable vendors do not inject fresh beef and pork (or lamb) with brine, period. It’s rightly regarded as an adulteration of the product, even if it doesn’t happen to be illegal.

  • 2Hotel9

    How much imported lamb do you buy?

  • robert108

    I’m fully aware that calling Wal-Mart’s stuff the junk that it is makes me a Communist in your eyes.

    You’re lying again. I actually have you pegged as a populist, if that is germane to our discussion.
    Even though all your allegations have been refuted, you continue this angry rant against WalMart. You continue to manufacture things to try to justify your corrosive anger against a company which is succeeding by supplying the demand of the public. I pity you.
    I’ll waste no more time with you on this subject.

  • 2Hotel9

    I do believe you are correct. The lamb I have bought in stores bears little resemblance to what I spent yesterday with my hands on. Wish I could send you some, I only got 2lbs for us, the rest is all claimed.

  • 2Hotel9

    I’ll type this very slowly so you can understand what you have already been told repeatedly. No, screw it. I’ll cut and paste what you have already been told and are mentally incapable of comprehending.

    “ALL RETAIL GROCERS WHO DO NOT CUT AND PACKAGE THEIR MEAT IN HOUSE USE THE SAME TECHNIQUES AND PROCESSES. PERIOD. FULL STOP.”

    “Stores that do not cut their meat in house receive it pre-cut, processed with preservatives/water/brine/what have you, and pre-packaged. End of story. Period. And Wal Mart is not the only chain retailer that does this. THEY ALL DO.”

    “Bubba, all retailers do practice the same techniques when it comes to prepackaged, processed meats. You don’t want that? Shop at stores that do all their meat cutting in house. Period.”

    “All grocers use the same techniques. You don’t like that? Then shop at stores that do all their meat cutting in house. End of discussion. Or, as the Goreacle says,”The debate,,,is,,over.”!”

    Their you go. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  • ellinas

    2Hotel9. No one is talking about ham, corned beef and the plethora of prepackaged preprocessed meats. We are simply talking about a cut of beef that is marketed/appears to be fresh but is infused with water and salt. I personally have never seen a t-bone, rib-eye,rib steak, chuck roast,london broil, prime rib,Flat Iron Steak,Book Steak, Butler Steak Lifter Steak Petit,Steak Top, Chuck Steak,
    Boneless, Blade Steak, Chuck Eye Steak,Porterhouse, Sirloin Tip Steak,Flank Steak etc, etc, except for Wal-Mart.
    Is it illegal? No. Is it clearly labelled? No.
    Does it produce a greater profit than non brine infused/added beef? You bet your sweet ass it does.
    Does anyone forces anybody to buy it? No.
    Does it lower the living standards of Americans? Hell yes.

  • robert108

    Like you say:Truth is the antidote to propaganda.

    Exactly, and you were lying in that post. The way you posted it, you gave the false impression that what you said was what I said, which was another lie.

    How do you all think they make their billions? Not by selling first rate meat.No, they make their money by selling products to customers who willingly pay for them, just like any other business. Not by selling first rate anything. Cheap ass meat for cheap ass customers. You’re bashing Americans there, not WalMart. By the way check out their produce prices. More expensive than regular grocery stores. Yes, they’re lower than supermarkets, which is why they get the business. You lied there, too.

    Your lie on this thread was that WalMart was making “extra profit” by “injecting” its meat with adulterants(beef broth and water are not “adulterants”), but there you describe it as “cheap ass meat”, so which is it? Since you have no understanding of what “profit” is, you don’t know what you are talking about. Once again, in our economic system, things are worth what people pay for them, and no one is forced to buy anything at any particular place, because our system is competitive, and consumers have choices. WalMart is successful because it gives people what they want, at a price they are willing to pay. If you don’t understand that simple concept, you should stay away from discussions that involve economic issues.
    It just shows you up as a liar.

  • 2Hotel9

    Yes, every grocery retailer who recieves their meats prepackaged does it. Lie to yourself all you want. Don’t lie to me.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    BB: Competition is a bitch; someone wins and someone loses.

    Actually, the great liberal (meaning conservative/libertarian today) economists like Smith and Bastiat note that the defining characteristic of capitalism is not competition, but cooperation. Those who run what should be a cooperative enterprise as a competition quickly find that “the other boys quietly take their marbles and go elsewhere.” If you don’t leave a little bit on the table, what reason is there for your vendor to say “hey, let’s do this again?”

  • robert108

    Most of the anti-Walmart stuff out there is simply regurgitated union bile, and not thoughtful economic analysis.

    Yes; the “outrage” of the lefties is very selective; they never complain about corrupt union practices or govt rigging of markets to the advantage of their supporters or favored groups, but squeal in anger that a businessman makes a profit to feed his family, pay his employees, etc.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Wait a second here; does anyone here really believe that a company like Walmart–renowned for cost cutting and pressuring its vendors on price–actually left 30% fat on the table and only now identified it all?

    Sorry, I don’t buy it. Wal-Mart is relentless this way. It’s not just cutting costs (as the article makes clear, by the way), but also significant cuts in profits for its vendors. From the article; Bushwick potatoes saw a 10% rise in costs to produce, but realized only a 5% increase in prices paid.

    That’s a BIG slice out of their profits.

  • Bat One

    Wal-Mart maybe “helping” poor people by giving them cheap crap made from China and reducing the cost of some food items, but they are also creating more poor people.

    H,

    Au contraire, my liberal, snobbish friend. The premium $8 bath towels are of no lesser quality than the $20 ones sold at Macys and Saks. The TVs, and other electronics are also the same as are sold elsewhere, whether they are manufactured in China, Korea, or Taiwan. The house brand dog food is made by the same Ralston-Purena as makes the other premium brands. The packaged food items, from Campbell’s soups to Planter’s nuts are the same as are found in any Safeway, Kroger, or Alberson’s.

    To follow up on an earlier comment, you are certainly free to shop where you choose, or not, and spend your money as you see fit. As are all of us. And you are just as surely free to criticize those whose ideas are not in harmony with yours. But if all you have to offer is ignorant partisan drivel, you have no business expecting to have your criticisms taken seriously.

  • ellinas

    Instead of trying to spin something i might have written by chopping it up and quoting it out of context, why not have the spine to publish your opinion?
    robert108 on June 2, 2008 at 11:27 am

    Might have Robert108? Might have? My dear man that is exactly what you said. I cut nothing and did not take you out of context. And for all it’s worth here are the posts (your’s and mine)for everybody to see:

    He! he! he!. Got taken by Wal Mart. How do you all think they make their billions? Not by selling first rate meat. Not by selling first rate anything. Cheap ass meat for cheap ass customers. By the way check out their produce prices. More expensive than regular grocery stores. But I better stop before I get accused of hating american buisiness.
    ellinas on January 22, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    He! he! he!. Got taken by Wal Mart.

    Rejoicing in the pain of others to serve your partisan crap. Nice.

    Truth is the antidote to propaganda.
    robert108 on January 22, 2008 at 10:55 pm

    Like you say:Truth is the antidote to propaganda.

  • robert108

    eceit, yes. Cheapening the product, absolutely. Squeezing profit out
    of the transaction? You bet.

    According to the people who actually are in charge of enforcing this, you are a liar. It’s not happening. As far as profit is concerned, unless you know their actual cost per unit, and unless you know their profit margin, you are just blowing smoke out of your ass. You know nothing. You are simply an ignorant hater on this thread, BB.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Um, Whistler, the real reason Wal-Mart pays those things is because the interstate commerce regulations apply to them (which does business across state lines) and not the mom & pops. They even do a fair amount of lobbying to get eminent domain land a la Kelo and even to increase the regulatory burden on themselves and their competitors.

    So to claim that all of this is simply “capitalism” is to over-simplify. Certainly taking a lower profit (which is what is actually going on, not huge cost-cutting measures) is a time-honored way of getting through a real or perceived recession. However, Wal-Mart’s an iceberg, and there’s a lot more below the surface than what the PR guys want you to see.

    And yes, part of that does include relentless cheapening of many products, to the point where vendors are driven out of business. This may be another case of “just because you CAN doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

  • http://insanereindeer.blogspot.com/ Kenny

    Wal-Mart maybe “helping” poor people by giving them cheap crap made from China and reducing the cost of some food items, but they are also creating more poor people.
    I would say on balance that this is not a good thing. They are undercutting the grocery stores who offered a lot of good paying jobs to average americans. You want to support Chinas economy by buying from Wal-Mart, that is your choice.
    But I happen to love my country more than that.

    The average grocery store is paying around 7 an hour. The average Wal Mart employee is making around 9.25. It’s true that a new Wal-Mart will put small businesses out of business, but there’s 2 things to consider there:
    1. Each new Wal-Mart employs hundreds of people. Assuming the average Wal-Mart puts 5 mom and pop shops down, and assuming they each have 10 employees (generous), the WalMart is still employing more people.
    2. Big businesses put small ones out of business in every field. Bob’s Screw Emporium simply can’t compete with Home Depot. Given the choice between Martha’s 30 year old gas station and QT, people will choose QT. Schnucks will always ground a mom and pop grocery shop under. Etc. It’s the nature of the beast.

    Wal-Mart is the best thing that has ever happened to our economy.

  • Bat One

    Kenny,

    Your remarks about Walmart and the economies of scale was very well said.

    It’s also worth remembering that each Walmart hires a good many more people than did the Mom ‘n’ Pops they displace, and pay one helluva lot more in sales tax, property tax and state and local income tax as well… not to mention workman’s comp and unemployment insurance, which are often beyond the financial abilities of those Mom ‘n’ Pop stores.

    Most of the anti-Walmart stuff out there is simply regurgitated union bile, and not thoughtful economic analysis.

  • http://insanereindeer.blogspot.com/ Kenny

    Furthermore the pharmacy is a Godsend. If it weren’t for them, my mom couldn’t afford her prescriptions for her cancer treatment. Getting various prescriptions for 5-10 dollars has made life easier on everyone.

  • robert108

    Nope; is not the “invisible hand” Smith’s way of describing the cooperation of innumerable producers to meet the needs of consumers in self-interest? And do not both supplier and consumer benefit from the
    transaction, if the market be truly free?

    No, it isn’t; it’s a statement about the superior results stemming from self-interest, not “cooperation”.
    The term “free market” means “freedom of entry and exit”. It has nothing to do with outcome.
    Sellers compete with each other to win the business of buyers; buyers compete with each other for resources; we have laws against what you describe, which are called anti-trust laws.

    Here’s a direct quote of the Doctrine of the Invisible Hand:

    A term coined by economist Adam Smith in his 1776 book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. In his book he states:

    “Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

    Thus, the invisible hand is essentially a natural phenomenon that guides free markets and capitalism through competition for scarce resources.

    Socialism, btw, subjugates self-interest for self-sacrifice, which is what you describe.

  • http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

    robert108. True, and in a free economic environment, prices go down, employment goes up and union murders are almost zero. UMW. Jock, his wife, children and pets. Where were the SPCA?

  • mygodyouredumb

    And who are those vendors Wal-Mart is pressuring? The same Americans who have to shop there! Derp!

    My god, you’re dense.

  • http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Bike Bubba

    Nope; is not the “invisible hand” Smith’s way of describing the cooperation of innumerable producers to meet the needs of consumers in self-interest? And do not both supplier and consumer benefit from the transaction, if the market be truly free?

    The trick is that you’re assuming that socialism actually implies cooperation; reality is that it doesn’t, as setting up a system that precludes self-interest and the price motive must be done by force.

    And force is not cooperation, unless you call a lash across your back “cooperating” with your slave-driver. I’m assuming you don’t. :^)

    No, real free markets cooperate in a very real way, and as such it makes me very uneasy to see the “one wins one loses” paradigm being given as one for good business. The opposite is the truth; both must win for free markets to operate.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

    We all know that grocery and department stores offered high wages before Wal-Mart took the helm.

    Oh wait, we don’t. Because that isn’t reality.

    The “reality based liberals” are just making shit up.

  • robert108

    Proof: The one thing the totalitarian lefties can’t stand, and that’s free people making free choices.

    Collectivism requires coercion; individualism only requires freedom.

  • Bat One

    That’s a BIG slice out of their profits.

    BB,

    And that’s no small potatoes!

  • 2Hotel9

    Bubba, all retailers do practice the same techniques when it comes to prepackaged, processed meats. You don’t want that? Shop at stores that do all their meat cutting in house. Period.

    You are making yourself look like an idiot by screeching like a leftard about how evil Wal Mart is, when ALL retailers who sell prepackaged, processed meat do the same thing.

    This is a dead thread. I am calling it at 17:06, EST.

    It is done. 33

  • robert108

    Does it produce a greater profit than non brine infused/added beef?

    Since you don’t know what “profit” is, nor how to calculate it, you don’t know the answer to that question; you are lying.

  • Juanita

    Way to go, Wal-Mart, thank you for helping Americans with lower incomes.

    • Jack10039

      Way to go, Walmart, for lowering American's incomes.

      • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

        They lower their incomes by lowering prices thus increasing their relative buying power? I'm guessing your parents dropped you on the head a lot as a baby.

        • liberal_larry10

          He's talking about distribution. Good lord you have to be clueless not to understand.

          Walmart is using it's power to demand their price which results in loss of revenue for disti, and increased revenue at WalMart. This is why WalMart is bad, because they pay their employees less than their competitors and it drives down the salaries of the industry in general.

          • Spanky2

            "This is why WalMart is bad, because they pay their employees less than their competitors and it drives down the salaries of the industry in general. "

            There are many approaches to running a successful business. Walmart uses one business model, other companies use other models.

            That said, one of the key practices of businesses since the beginning of time has been to drive costs lower, including wages.

            I can't come up with an example of a successful business that went out of their way to increase their costs.

            And it's not just Walmart that does this, every other major retailer of which I know tries to get the best price.

            Compare Costco and Sams Club. Costco pays their employees more than Sams Club does – and they're doing quite well in many retail metrics, such as sales per sq ft, profit per item, etc.. Sams Club takes a lower cost approach and is not doing as well. Eventually, Costco may greatly outdo Sams Club – or maybe it won't.

            That's the free market. The more we legislate how businesses operate, the less business we're going to see and the more inefficiencies we'll see.

          • liberal_larry10

            The fact that you don't understand the difference between Costco and Wal-Mart is all the reason I need to ignore you.

            Costco does not bully it's providers of business, or force them to move manufacturing overseas.

            You don't understand the concept of "creative destruction" and Wal-Marts role in destroying our countries traditional capitalistic model.

          • Spanky2

            Currently it is Costco's right to do that. If it pays off for them, great. If it's a better approach, other retailers will adopt that tactic.

            I think you'd be amazed, though, to learn that Costco does indeed encourage their providers to lower their costs.

            Second, I find the same number of foreign-made items in Costco as I do in other stores, so they do indeed purchase from overseas.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            WalMart doesn't force anyone to do anything. They can always do business with Super K-Mart, Stop & Shop, ShopRite, Super Target, and a myriad of smaller regional operations here in CT. I have three Stop & Shops, one ShopRite, one WalMart, one ALDI, and two Save-A-Lots. I also have the choice of eight dollar stores, many of which sell name brands for LESS than WalMart. BigLots for instance consistently sells name brand tuna packets for less than half of WalMart.

            You paint a picture of economic destruction with an energy similar to Neiman's running around proclaiming doom like a prancing ninny, and similarly, what you claim has absolutely no resemblance to reality right in front of all of us. Again, you're a tool, and seemingly incapable of being anything else.

          • liberal_larry10

            Wal-Mart influence on its suppliers can be felt in the cheap products it sells and the jobs it drives overseas. To keep prices low, Wal-Mart must source goods from areas of the world where employment standards are severely lacking. In fact, over 80% of Wal-Mart’s suppliers are from China. According to Duke University Professor Gary Gerreffi, “Wal-Mart and China are a joint venture.” Quintessential American businesses like Huffy, Mr. Coffee, and Master Lock have suffered under the weight of Wal-Mart’s pressure. With increased sourcing from India, local suppliers will increasingly have to meet unrealistic prices and quotas to satisfy their demands.

          • liberal_larry10

            WalMart Forces Huffy Bikes to Brake US Production. Despite decades of making bicycles in the United States, Huffy was forced by Wal-Mart price pressures to close three factories and lay off thousands of workers. The mayor of Celina, Ohio — where Huffy closed a large factory — said Wal-Mart's "demand for cheaper bicycles drove Huffy out of Celina." [Mansfield News Journal, 12/8/03]

            WalMart doesn't force anyone to do anything.

            ….what you claim has absolutely no resemblance to reality right in front of all of us. – Suitepatootie

          • di_da_is_alpha

            Huffys are crap, and not everyone can afford a Cannondale. Why do you hate the poor, and not want them to be able to buy an affordable bicycle?

          • liberal_larry10

            Not a very sophisticated or intelligent counter argument to the facts, Tweedle.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            It is an excellent argument, dummy. Wal-Mart sells Schwinn bicycles that are better than Huffy. Many of the parts on Huffys are made in China anyway, dummy. Cannondale bikes are made in the USA but cost around a thousand dollars. Poor people can't afford that.

            You are a complete loser and have no common sense. You are nothing but a useful idiot for the progressive movement. You like to sock puppet because you are insecure and can't handle adversity. You are pathetic.

          • liberal_larry10

            Dipsh1t, Wal-Mart was selling the Huffy's, that's why they were dictating where they should manufacture their products.

            You are a complete fool.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            No. Huffy sells wholesale to WalMart, and WalMart sells retail. When the wholesale price is more than they want to pay, they can say no. It's everyone's right to say no to a purchase if they don't like the price. That WalMart tried to give them advice they didn't want to hear changes nothing. WalMart's financials show they know better than Huffy, but if Huffy wants to go it their own way, let them.

            NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO SELL THEIR PRODUCT THROUGH ANY RETAILER.

            THE RETAILER HAS A RIGHT TO CHOOSE THE PRODUCTS THEY WISH TO SELL.

            THE RETAILER HAS A RIGHT TO CHOOSE THE PRICE AT WHICH THEY ARE WILLING TO BUY AND SAY NO OTHERWISE.

            THE MANUFACTURER HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE THEIR PRODUCT ELSEWHERE.

            Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

          • liberal_larry10

            You are an idiot. The issue is Wal-Mart forcing them to shut down US operations, so Huffy could meet WalMarts Demands.

            Nobody is discussing rights, were talking morals here. Always have, always will. You don't have any morals, just like WalMart.

            You are a fool that takes yourself to seriously, and you can't even use proper English.

            You guy are struggling to attack my fair criticisms of Wal-Mart, and trying to intimidate me to shut me up. But you got the wrong person, and you are too stupid to know it.

          • di_da_is_alpha
          • di_da_is_alpha

            You are a treasure-trove of comic relief! Where to start ?!?!!

            1) /// "………. and you can't even use proper English." ///
            Those who live in glass houses…………………..

            /// "… yourself to [sic] seriously …."///

            /// "You guy are struggling to attack my fair criticisms ……." ///
            It should be "You, guy, are ……", or "You guys are ………".

            ……..should quit correcting other's grammar. You are one of the worst offenders, and as long as someone's meaning is understood, their grammar is good enough. Savvy?

            2) /// " The issue is Wal-Mart forcing them to shut down US operations,…….." ///

            Wal-Mart is doing no such thing. If Huffy can't deliver the goods with their present business model, tough sh*t. Maybe Huffy should try making higher quality bikes and compete with companies like Cannondale.

            3) /// "Nobody is discussing rights, were talking morals here." ///

            A liberal talking about morality!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH What is truly immoral is the government buying votes and enslaving people through dependency on government, or, slandering a business because it doesn't fit the model that your philosophical beliefs dictate.

            As far as rights, I'm glad you agree that Wal-Mart has the right to do business as they see fit as long as they obey existing laws, just as the people wanting the build the Ground Zero HAMASque have the right to build it. Wal-Mart is being smart, but, in my opinion, the Ground Zero HAMASque people are not. The Ground Zero HAMASque will push Muslim/non-Muslim relations farther apart. Many moderate Muslims agree with me. http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGdDiPVHBMmh4A4LBXNyo…

            4) /// "……. trying to intimidate me to shut me up." ///

            Mocking you, yes. Intimidate with the intent of shutting you up? Absolutely not !!!! There are many people who read these threads without commenting on them. Some of them are undecided politically, and I think that your obfuscations and distortions of the facts, as well as your just being flat wrong on the issues, will lead a vast majority of the undecided to become conservatives. Keep talking!!!!!!

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            So your great argument is to fault my English skills, when by the way I consistently have better spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure than you do, and by that you think you've won?

            Oh wait, you're going on about poor little you being attacked by us big bullies for your "fair criticisms". There's the other Neiman-esque touch. Self-righteousness with a veneer of sanctimony.

            Again, WalMart had no control in any way, and therefore was in no position to force anything on Huffy. Huffy still has numerous retail outlets willing to buy their crappy bikes at their over-inflated prices, and that too is a fact you cannot argue with.

            Huffy is in dire straights because they failed to compete with Pacific Cycles. One day, another manufacturer with multiple established names will eat Pacific Cycles' lunch and they will go out like Huffy or adapt. Simple as that.

            When are you actually going to get around to demonstrating in any way how Huffy had no choice but to price their bikes above what WalMart was willing to pay, and had no other retailers to sell through? Oh right, you can't.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            So you try to disprove me by that? That doesn't prove Huffy was forced to do ANYTHING. Huffy can sell to ANY retailer who wishes to buy their crappy bikes. That's any bike shop, any Target, any retailer who sells bikes. WalMart does not force or control Huffy. Huffy's pricing and manufacturing decisions are entirely their own. What you are essentially claiming is that Huffy has a right to sell through WalMart. They don't. Not any more than any system vendor has a right to force your bosses to sell systems they don't want to carry or at a price they don't want to pay.

          • liberal_larry10

            Speak English! Disprove "you by that"? You mean your argument with that! I am not trying to "disprove you, you illiterate, you exist". I am showing why your argument was flawed, and I have.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            You've done no such thing.

            FACT: Huffy has NO right to sell their product through any third party that does not wish to do so, and no right to charge more than that third party agrees to pay. If Huffy prices more than that amount, the third party is free to decline and turn away the product.

            You're cutting and pasting as if that means a damn thing. It doesn't. This is simple logic and fact at work. Huffy can whine all they want. If they set their price too high, WalMart has the right to say no. If WalMart sets their prices too high, I can say no and shop elsewhere.

            Everyone with an IQ above tap water understands this and accepts it.

          • liberal_larry10

            Advises Mr. Coffee to Move Overseas. Mr. Coffee — which won awards for moving manufacturing operations back to the United States — faced pressure to shift production to China even at the height of Wal-Mart's 'Buy American' program. After Wal-Mart demanded a $1 reduction in the wholesale price of a brisk-selling four-cup coffeemaker in 1985, Mr. Coffee executives scouted for factory sites in China — and executives say Wal-Mart encouraged offshore production even as it promoted its 'Made in the USA' campaign." [The Commercial Appeal, 6/8/01; Cleveland Plain Dealer, 11/14/04]

            WalMart doesn't force anyone to do anything.

            ….what you claim has absolutely no resemblance to reality right in front of all of us. – Suitepatootie

          • di_da_is_alpha

            Mr, Coffees are crap. I've got a Cuisinart. It's made in China, but has nothing to do with Mr coffee being Crap. How many of these jobs have to move because of labor unions?

          • liberal_larry10

            You are right, Wal-Mart sells crap to people while crushing their business and sending it overseas. Good point, genius.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            If Mr. Coffee was a high end product, it wouldn't have to move.

          • liberal_larry10

            Wal-Mart: Advises Supplier: 'Open a Factory in China.' To land a supply contract with Wal-Mart, the Lakewood Engineering and Manufacturing Company — a Chicago fan manufacturer — had to locate manufacturing operations in Shenzhen, China. Workers there make $.25 an hour — while the company's Chicago workforce earned an average hourly $13. [Los Angeles Times, 11/23/03]

            WalMart doesn't force anyone to do anything.

            ….what you claim has absolutely no resemblance to reality right in front of all of us. – Suitepatootie

          • liberal_larry10

            Musicians are at the mercy of Wal-Mart's stringent content rules, forcing many to create "sanitized" versions of their albums specifically for the discount chain.

            http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

            WalMart doesn't force anyone to do anything.

            ….what you claim has absolutely no resemblance to reality right in front of all of us. – Suitepatootie

          • di_da_is_alpha
          • Spanky2

            Where is it written that a store has to sell whatever foul or hateful language a musician produces?

            If a musician doesn't want to change his lyrics, that's fine, but Walmart should be forced to sell them.

          • liberal_larry10

            You sound like the Taliban.

          • Spanky2

            On the contrary, the Taliban (i.e., a ruling force) would tell the retailer what he could and could not sell rather than letting the retailer decide for himself. You've got it backwards.

          • liberal_larry10

            A difference without a distinction.

          • Spanky2

            Obamunists are North American Taliban.

          • Kevin Stowell

            You smell like sulfur, so?

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Not a single thing you said disproves what I said. Not one. NO ONE has a right to sell through WalMart. They are ALL free to sell through any retailer who will agree to their products and wholesale price. If WalMart doesn't want to carry a product that is their right. All you're doing is trying to make a nonstop inferrential argument that product manufacturers have a right to sell through WalMart and force WalMart to pay them any amount they demand. Only a lunatic would think that is remotely proper much less constitutional.

          • liberal_larry10

            Potatohead, it's not about rights, it's about morals and I have proven WalMart is forcing companies to move their operations out of the US to China, or other 3rd world locations so the slave labor rates can enrich WalMart executives.

            You tried to move the goalposts, but you were too fvcking weak.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            Forcing folks to pay more for a product than it is worth is immoral. Now, if someone wants to voluntarily pay an exorbitant amount for something, say, a belt buckle, that's fine, it's their choice.

          • robert108

            Only the govt can force people to buy things they don't want to buy. The present regime does that on a regular basis, through taxation, regulation and mandates.

          • Kevin Stowell

            I wonder if it's occurred to larry, the failed rocket scientist, that if he did deliberately overpay and we can assume the overpayment was applied to operating expenses, that would make things slightly cheaper for the rest of us. What was that?! larry's head just exploded? No, that would have made a popping noise.

          • liberal_larry10

            They wouldn't be going out of business if they were getting paid more than their product was worth.

            You have lost the debate. Deal with it.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            What? Who's going out of business? Are you responding to the correct post ? Huffy? If jackasses pay more than something is worth, then they have less to spend on other things, like say, Dominos Pizza. Then the Dominos Pizza folks would go out of business. Good lord, you are stupid.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Their product is worth X to them. To WalMart, it is worth Y. If they are not willing to price X at Y, then WalMart, just like you every time you go shopping, have the right to say NO to the purchase.

            You continue to argue indirectly through thread flooding and inference that this isn't true. It is, it always has been, and it always will be. If I want you to sell something for me, you have the right to say NO. SO DOES WALMART. If I want you to buy it at X and you say X is too high, bring it down to Y, and I refuse, you have the right to say NO to the purchase.

            Your NPD and psychosis are truly astounding. You refuse to accept it like a creationist arguing against the existence of dinosaurs and other planets. You know you're wrong, you know you can't argue directly, and so you just go on in circles avoiding it.

            If WalMart doesn't have the right to buy what they want and for the price they are willing to, NEITHER DO YOU.

            Pick one whenever your over-inflated sense of yourself floats back down to Earth.

          • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

            I will take Walmart over Kame-Apart anyday. :)

          • liberal_larry10

            This is not an opinion poll Goon, now STFU. :)

          • Patriot2Opine

            Hey achey,how ya been.

          • liberal_larry10

            Suitepotatohead, do you feel stupid now? Just curious, because you sure look stupid. Don't worry, I don't expect you to admit your error.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Only you would paint companies whining because WalMart exercised their right to choose what they will carry and what price they will pay as a win. Again, WalMart has the right to choose what they sell and what they will pay. That's not control of those companies. There is still a gigantic number of retailers of many sizes to choose from for those manufacturers. Nothing you said changes that. The only way it is control is if they have literally no choice because WalMart has total market control. THEY DON'T and you cannot prove otherwise without attempting to deny the existence of thousands of other retail companies.

            In short, you disproved your own argument and then claimed that disproof was a proof. What a tool you are.

          • liberal_larry10

            Again, it's about morals, and WalMart doesn't have any. You keep trying to change it to rights. Just as the Muslim have the "right" to build a Mosque, it doesn't necessarily mean they should.

            Wake. The. Fvck. Up!

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Forcing Walmart to carry products against its will or to pay against their will is immoral.

            WalMart has NO moral duty whatsoever to buy what they don't want to buy and spend more than they want to spend.

            Your argument is 180 degrees from reality, yet again.

          • Flame

            LL10: "Costco does not bully it's providers of business, or force them to move manufacturing overseas."

            While Unions bully their providers of business and force them to move overseas.

          • Kevin Stowell

            "While Unions bully their providers of business and force them to move overseas."

            In the end, bullying all of us.

          • Spanky2

            "The fact that you don't understand the difference between Costco and Wal-Mart is all the reason I need to ignore you. "

            What's really funny about that is that I highlighted the differences between the two firms and in no way said they were the same, other than in the fact that they both seek to lower costs.

            Costco is indeed otherwise very different from Walmart/Sam's Club.

            The retail marketplace is plenty big enough for a variety of approaches.

          • liberal_larry10

            Costco is indeed otherwise very different from Walmart/Sam's Club.

            Yes, Sam's Club and Costco have morals, Wal-Mart does not. Wal-Mart forces U.S. operations to shut down and move overseas and Costco and Sam's Club do not.

            Costco and Sam's club pay their employees fairly and take care of them, Wal-Mart does not.

            You just don't get it.

          • Spanky2

            If the pay isn't fair, don't take the job.

            If you don't like the benefits, don't take the job.

            "Costco and Sam's club pay their employees fairly and take care of them, Wal-Mart does not. "

            You reveal a tad bit of ignorance with that statement.

            Guess who owns and runs Sam's Club
            and pays the same wages
            and provides the same benefits
            as it does for workers at Walmart stores.

            By your lack of knowledge in this, you continue to reveal that you just hate Walmart regardless of the facts. You spout dogma and remain ignorant.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            No, they do NOT in fact pay their employees less than their competitors. You are as usual a bald-faced liar for claiming it. Stop and Shop, which has been a UNION shop since before I was old enough to work, pays MINIMUM WAGE to clerks, stockers, porters, etc. and that is with UNION AGREEMENT. WalMart pays ABOVE MINIMUM WAGE. In other words, they pay MORE than their competition.

            Why? Because like the good businessmen they are, they use their market position to negotiate the best prices they can get, and they pass along the savings to the customers, and have enough to spread to the workers as well. Stop and Shop, which has HIGHER prices, and DOESN'T negotiate tough deals, pays their workers LESS.

            If WalMart is so bad, why are so many thousands of companies fighting with each other to do business with WalMart? Why are there no loss of companies flush with workers, doing business with WalMart? The reality on the ground says you're a tool, but we all knew that already.

          • liberal_larry10

            Walmart Associates make less than comparable retail employees. With some of the biggest profits in the world, Walmart can do better by its people. Learn more.

            Walmart's health care is not good quality or affordable. Thousands of associates qualify for Medicaid and other publicly subsidized care programs..

            Walmart’s entry into an area depresses wages and displaces better-paying retail jobs, forcing small local businesses to close.

            http://wakeupwalmart.com/facts/

          • Spanky2

            OK, we know you copy and paste from propaganda websites.

          • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

            You're right because he isn't smart enough to come up with thoughts on his own.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            There's a difference between paying more than the next guy with a closed union shop who pays minimum wage, and paying the ridiculous wages that WalMart's critics want. Sorry, but a cashier is NOT worth $15 per hour. No amount of your cut and paste or name calling or anything else will change that. Besides, before you get on WalMart, which again, pays MORE than the minimum wage paid at a UNION competitor? Shouldn't you be insisting the union do better at negotiating? WalMart's employees don't negotiate and make more than minimum wage. Stop&Shop's employees are union and with all that interference in the market, still can't get wages as good as WalMart's.

            You are still a tool, still disproving your own arguments, then claiming victory. You're as big a retard as Dino, another psycho who disproves his own arguments and then claims victory.

          • liberal_larry10

            Sure….that's why you are obsessed trying to respond to my every argument, and only convincing yourself in the process. You can't change the reality by changing yours.

            Google search any information about Wal-Mart, every intelligent person sees the immoral decisions made by Wal-Mart that the other companies do not.

            You are only fooling yourself and you have committed to the level of denial that enables you to live in a world they shuns your ideas. You just think that if you can get enough @ssholes to think like you that it changes the reality, but it doesn't. Wal-Mart still acts immorally compared to the other companies.

            Deal with it.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            There's that narcissism again. You've been rickrolled d1ckhead. This thread is from 2008 and we've got you so exasperated in a desperate attempt to win your pointless victory over everyone else, that you're down to childish insults and cut/paste and flooding with multiple identical posts. You've been had you brainless idiot, and it took all of a few minutes of typing to do it.

            You assume you're better than everyone else, and therefore your opinions are the only moral ones, and therefore everybody who disagrees is not only wrong but immoral. You're like Neiman. You're so deluded with your imagined superiority, so full of yourself, you can't see straight. I stated bald facts that apply equally to you, me, your employer, and everyone else. You still want to argue NOT by reason, NOT by rationality, but simply trying to outlast me and the others.

            This is exactly what I said earlier. You will keep at it until you get the last word, and then you'll proclaim victory, when in fact, it was you who lost because we got bored with manipulating your sorry ass.

          • liberal_larry10

            Wal-Mart employs more people than any other company in the United States outside of the Federal government, yet the majority of its employees with children live below the poverty line. "Buy American" banners are prominently placed throughout its stores; however, the majority of its goods are made outside the U.S. and often in sweatshops. Critics believe that Wal-Mart opens stores to saturate the marketplace and clear out the competition, then closes the stores and leaves them sitting empty. Freedom of speech issues also come into play. Musicians are at the mercy of Wal-Mart's stringent content rules, forcing many to create "sanitized" versions of their albums specifically for the discount chain.

            http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

          • di_da_is_alpha

            Why do you look down on those that are not as well off financially as you? http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGdGm7Dm9MegEANodXNyo…

          • Spanky2

            It's great that poor people can find jobs at Walmart, because without that opportunity, they may have no income at all.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            WalMart, unlike the federal govt., is NOT a career place short of management. It is a LABOR business, at the bottom. In other words, it is a STARTER job. NO ONE (sane) expects to spend their entire life working at WalMart, nor expects $30,000+ a year in salary. It's the sort of place where 16-22 year old people work and learn discipline, showing up on time, following directions and orders, and the regularity of the workplace. It is NOT a paying the mortgage, supporting two kids, and paying a car loan job and NEVER has been. Not Sears, not K-Mart, not Target, not any of them.

            Those people are EXPECTED to move on to other jobs higher up the food chain. Whether manufacturing, nursing, IT, whatever.

            BTW, do you really think so many people would be relying on WalMart who don't really belong there at their age if the economy was magically fixed by Obama as he and you said it would be? Of course not. Only in a bad economy do people who once held higher paying jobs have to fall back on WalMart and the like. A bad economy just like the one Obama and company have managed to give us. In a strong economy, WalMart jobs are just starter jobs as they should be.

            That's so obvious even someone as stupid and self-deluded as you should be able to grasp it.

          • liberal_larry10

            You said Wal-Mart doesn't force anyone to do anything. But they force companies to move operations out of the US and they force musicians to sanitize their albums.

            They just don't simply choose to sell products or not, they make a demand or they cut you off. That is called forcing. That's achieving by strength. Look up the word, there are about 12 definitions and about 3 prove Wal-Mart forces others to do things.

            You lose. Deal with it.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Nothing you said changes the fact that WalMart DOES NOT have direct legal positive control over ANY of their suppliers. They are free to advise them as to how to lower their costs and prices, and the supplier is free to ignore or take the advice as they please. The supplier is free to approach HUNDREDS of other chains and THOUSANDS of smaller retailers as they so choose. They DO NOT have a right to sell through WalMart. Period. End of discussion.

            You're claiming that they have a right to force WalMart to buy what they don't want to buy and do so at a price they don't want to pay. They DON'T. You're claiming they have no choice but to do anything WalMart tells them. They DO have other choices. You're claiming that the only feasible retail outlet is WalMart. It is NOT.

            Do you ever get any oxygen to your brain?

          • liberal_larry10

            WalMart DOES NOT have direct legal positive control over ANY of their suppliers.

            Strawman! Nobody said they have control. We only said they force their vendors to move US operations. It's the type of immoral strong arming that is hurting this country.

            You keep stomping your feet and shouting like the little sissy sounding b1tch you are, but that is not going to change the fact that nobody is discussing rights, only morals. and Wal-Mart is absent the type of morals that keeps American companies in business and it's employees working.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            You're the only one stomping their feet and shouting. I bet you hate that the motorcar put the folks who made horse drawn buggies out of business.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            Force implies control. You know that and you're being dishonest, yet again.

            Again, because you keep ignoring this, NO ONE HAS ANY RIGHT TO SELL ANYTHING THROUGH WALMART. THEY MAY TAKE THEIR PRODUCT TO ANY OTHER WILLING RETAILER AT ANY TIME, OR MULTIPLE. WALMART HAS THE RIGHT TO SET CONDITIONS AS TO WHAT IT WILL RESELL AND WHAT PRICE IT WILL BUY IT AT.

            You song and dance is tantamount to insisting that HP can force a given integrator to carry their product line alongside Dell and IBM when they don't want to carry HP. You're insisting that the product manufacturer can set the price and force that integrator to buy it for resale. They can't. Period. End of discussion.

            When will you ever give up arguing patently wrong arguments? This is identical to the legendary camp thread where you argued something you knew damn well was not true, and did so with near-OCD passion, no matter that all you did was look dumber and dumber.

            NPD folks. Willie is the face of pathological personality disorder.

          • liberal_larry10

            Again, it's not about RIGHTS….it's about morals. And Wal-Mart has abandoned many of them.

            You song and dance is tantamount to insisting that HP can force a given integrator to carry their product line alongside Dell and IBM when they don't want to carry HP. You're insisting that the product manufacturer can set the price and force that integrator to buy it for resale. They can't. Period. End of discussion.

            It's only in your head that you think I believe manufacturers have a right to sell through Wal-Mart, they don't and I never implied that.

            And you are wrong about manufacturing and distribution. A manufacturer CAN set their price. It's called list pricing (in some markets it's called suggested retail price). Any reseller can sell beyond list, if they can get it. What resellers can not do is negotiate their buying price (discounted price). Buying price is determined, or set, by the amount of buying power they have that is pre-negotiated based on their reseller agreement which is standard across the board to all resellers in the channel.

            So the bottom line is you loose your buy price if you can't keep up to your promise to deliver on your ability to move the product, and you can not get a higher discount than your competitor if they are under the same reseller status terms (contract).

            You are wrong, as always.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            You're still hung up on my voice as if you think saying that stupid childish insult at all gets to me when in fact it doesn't. Why would it when you'd have to have a measure of respect on some level and you clearly don't? Why would it when the bikers respect me and cut a wide berth around me? Why would it when the street punks won't hassle me and walk the other way quickly? Why would it when I'm not a preening egomaniacal narcissist like you?

            Anyone else knows that it wouldn't bother me. Only you are obsessed with this sound of my voice thing and all I can guess is that you have the hots for me. Sorry to break your heart, but I'm happily married. Dino might be open to your advances if you can bail him out.

          • Proof_Positive

            "Again, it's not about RIGHTS….it's about morals"
            Sock puppets trying to lecture someone else on morals? That there's comedy gold!

      • ndoldman

        another sock puppet or another multi account of loser larry to pat himself on the back

      • Kevin Stowell

        Way to go, Walmart, for not passing on higher costs to the rest of us because of artificially and arbitrarily inflated compensation packages for your employees.

      • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

        Hey Jackoff,
        Do you have facts to back that claim up? Just wondering.

  • liberal_larry10

    Walmart isn't happy just destroying small businesses, now it wants to go after the supply chain and all of those Americans who are employed actually distributing the product.

    Why do conservatives hate capitalism?

    • ndoldman

      a lot of food distributors are strapped by union contracts. did you ever think that the contracts may also be a problem.

      • liberal_larry10

        A lot of food distributors are not union. And even if they were, unions help people get paid for their hard work. I rather pay more for cereal than pay for unemployment checks.

        You Conservatives constantly destroy jobs and wonder why the unemployment rate is so low.

        Unbelievable.

        I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE PRICE OF CERIAL OR FOOD! I have a problem with the unemployment rate. Stop endorsing big corporations that put people out of work.

        • Greg in Alabama

          You mean a big corporation like the DNC?

          • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

            The same DNC which passed the "stimulus" bill which has done much to impede economic growth.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            One and the same. larry likes spending more for something than it's worth. I wonder why? He would rather some union boss who produces no wealth whatsoever get the money that larry could be spending elsewhere in his community. It's the same with Keynesian economics.

            The politicians take your money in the form of taxes, take a cut for themselves, and then give it to their crony CEOs who contribute to said politician's campaign fund. It's wasteful and only the politicians and their buddies get rich.

          • Proof_Positive

            You should hear him talk about his $800 knock off belt buckle!

          • di_da_is_alpha

            $800? Wow, I bought a leather belt at, you ready for this, Wal-Mart of all places, for about $15, two or three years ago. It came with its own buckle.

          • Kevin Stowell

            That makes you about 53.3333 times smarter than larry. Of course, I'm comparing lingerie to belts.

          • Kevin Stowell

            I only paid $275 for my first car and it contributed immensely to my earning capacity, being the tool that a POV usually is. Even adjusted for inflation, it wouldn't have cost much more than larry's belt.

          • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

            "He would rather some union boss who produces no wealth whatsoever get the money that larry could be spending elsewhere in his community."

            That and the organized crime that unions are often connected with.

          • Kevin Stowell

            Pigs gotta eat, too.

          • ndoldman

            Right and the old saying is Pigs get fat Hogs get slaughtered.

          • Kevin Stowell

            As well they should be, hopefully, in November.

          • liberal_larry10

            larry likes spending more for something than it's worth. I wonder why?

            Because I would rather pay what food really costs so these people can have some sort of retirement.

            You guys are economic illiterates. Well all end up living in Somalia when you guys are done destroying the country.
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0

          • Patriot2Opine

            Hi there larry. Perhaps you could take us through the cost chain and distribution of a bushel of corn. Would you do that for us? If you can do it successfully, I will for one take something you say with a grain (no pun intended). Otherwise, go fill the empty headed left with your stupidity.

          • liberal_larry10

            Patriot. Go ahead and read about what happened to Vlassic, and how their brand was devalued after doing business with Wal-Mart, then kindly STFU.

          • Patriot2Opine

            How about that bushel of corn or you can STFU smart guy.

          • liberal_larry10

            Communist China loving, Girl Scout bashing piece of trash.

            You are cowardly.

          • Patriot2Opine

            Avoiding the obvious I see. Bushel of corn larry.

          • di_da_is_alpha

            Oh, you told him. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
            HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
            HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

          • Patriot2Opine

            The animus you project is sort of telling larry. How is that old pooch of yours?

          • Proof_Positive

            If this is the same guy, his butt sniffing dog Crisco Boy has gone to doggie heaven.

          • Kevin Stowell

            "You are cowardly." Typed like someone who would be an authority on cowardice.

          • Spanky2

            "Go ahead and read about what happened to Vlassic,"

            It's a fact that businesses risk the losing the perception of quality when their products are sold at discounters.

            I know of a pet food firm that decided not to sell at Walmart but to stick with selling through pet stores. That strategy has paid off well for them – they've been able to maintain higher profit margins.

            All that is their free choice, however.

          • Patriot2Opine

            There is a loss due to multiple choice as well. Vlassics decision was nothing more than a poor decision or risk taken to broaden their market.

            Had they advertised specifically regarding the product now sold at Wal-mart, they would perhaps have had better success.

          • Spanky2

            That's true! Fortunately, we still have the option of taking risks in order to improve profitability. Sometimes firms win and sometimes they lose. That's what drives us forward.

            Once the liberals regulate every aspect of our business, there will be no risk taking and society will wither at the hands of untouchable bureaucrats.

          • Patriot2Opine

            Agreed. We will go the way of the Romans I fear.

          • Spanky2

            Prolly a faster exit than the Romans had, as the Islamofascists and liberals continue their joint ops destroy the country.

          • Patriot2Opine

            Still waiting on that bushel of corn, larry. If you don't know it is ok if you use an open book. Just tell me you need more time.

          • liberal_larry10

            The Vlassic Pickle example is all you need. Your stupid challenge can be provided by many examples of vendors who harm themselves (and America) for doing business with Wal-Mart.

          • Greg in Alabama

            Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy–although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

            What now Larry?

          • Patriot2Opine

            So what you are saying is you can't do it right? It wasn't a challenge it was an interview in essence. I have made a determination based on your inability to do this that you are a progressive mouthpiece with no cognitive abilities. Therefore you are irrelevant and fail.

            You obviously speak from a preprinted response card. Go back to CAP, HuffPo, Media Matters or whatever rock proglib site you belong to and tell them you failed.

            C ya.

          • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

            You do no such thing. You spend more so you can brag about it and paint yourself as a big person. If you had the slightest idea of what charity was, you'd save the money and donate it to a work-bank type of charity which gave a job to the poor, instead of padding the wallets of the union bosses. I will repeat for everyone. In CT, WalMart consistently pays MORE to start than Stop&Shop which has since the 70s been a UNION shop, and paid minimum wage by default. You pay more so the money can go to someone OTHER than the workers. So, the only reason this can be is the one in line with your displayed personality issue: you're an empty worthless piece of human debris inside, so you compensate with narcissistic preening in hopes that if you can delude everyone else into believing you're great, you might actually become that.

            You won't. Never ever works. Give it up. You're an idiot, and you're penny and pound foolish.

          • Flame

            You and your progressive friends are free to move and live in Somalia where you should fit right in since loser unions and their thugs are no different than dictators and their pirates/thugs.

            I'll be staying in the freedom loving States, where I can cling to my Bible and the Constitution.

          • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

            "I'll be staying in the freedom loving States, where I can cling to my Bible and the Constitution."

            Same here. I'll add my gun to that list as well.

          • liberal_larry10

            Nice stretch Greg. Any other ridiculous comments?

          • Greg in Alabama

            What stretch Larry. The DNC is a corporation and they have put millions out of work. You don't say a word about that.

          • Spanky2
                      Guns don't kill jobs.

                      Liberals do.

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  Fine, go pay more for your cereal and stop telling us what we ought to do with our money. If you want to pay more, feel free to shop at the most expensive stores and give them extra money until you're all out or happy with yourself. Me, I'm shopping where I get the maximum for my money and you aren't getting in the way of that.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    You will shop there because you are unemployed and live beyond your means.

                    You will shop at WalMart because you rather people earn less than pay the correct amount for a product that pays appropriate wages to the manufacturer and distribution channel.

                    This type of nonsense will destroy consumerism and will encourage prosumerism and the capitalistic society we are based on will be destroyed, not "re-invented" as economists like to pretend occurs when Walmart destroys markets.

                  • Spanky2

                    Just paying more for a product does not guarantee that more money flows to workers or producers. A lot has to do with efficiencies and economies of scale.

                    Walmart has done a lot at forcing suppliers to modernize and become more efficient. And they've done a lot for the environment.

                    For example, the made trucking companies install separate cab AC units, so that while truckers wait in their parking lot to load/unload, they don't have to run the tractor engine, just a small AC unit. That saves a lot of energy and reduces pollution.

                    They also have, through the use of automated systems and better planning, reduced waste and over/understock conditions. That helps the consumer.

                    They are forcing lightbulb manufacturers to manufacture more CFL bulbs, something that should excite the environmentalists.

                    When you get down to it, the main objection against Walmart is that they are non-union. Hooray! I hope they can stay that way. Unions have driven more jobs out of the country than any other single factor.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Just paying more for a product does not guarantee that more money flows to workers or producers.

                    No all the time, that's why unions exist.

                    Walmart has done a lot at forcing suppliers to modernize and become more efficient.

                    And forced a lot out of business, or overseas.

                    I don't care what they do for the environment. I am not saying every single thing they do is bad. I am simply saying their business model is hurting America far more than it is helping. But, what ever.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    When you get down to it, the main objection against Walmart is that they are non-union.

                    That's bullsh@t. It's not that they are non-union. It's that they don't give their employees health insurance. They drive businesses to manufacture overseas. They run some companies out of business. They are "creatively destroying" the capitalistic structure of America while we can't afford it.

                    Their timing is off, and you are too ignorant to understand this argument.

                  • Spanky2

                    "They drive businesses to manufacture overseas. They run some companies out of business. They are "creatively destroying" the capitalistic structure of America while we can't afford it. "

                    With scant few exceptions, virtually ALL businesses operate that way when they can.

                    You obviously know nothing about economics and business.

                    We live in a global economy. The glory days of the 50s & 60s when the US was THE global manufacturer (while Europe and Asia recovered from having WWII on their own soil) – those days are gone forever.

                    The sooner people switch from whining to innovating, the better chance we have at prevailing in the future.

                    BTW, do you wish that your children could have a satisfying, high-paying career manufacturing shoes or garments, or do you mind that there are people in the world who would LOVE to have jobs doing that – and they'd starve to death without those jobs?

                  • liberal_larry10

                    I rather we let immigrants come to this country who would love to do the manufacturing here, and the money stay here.

                  • Spanky2

                    Last I heard, we do indeed allow immigrants to come here. However, we're not really interested in having unskilled labor, which does not add as much to the country as does skilled and/or educated labor.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    You only believe this because you are en economic illiterate. Watch it start happening in the next 10 years.

                  • Spanky2

                    Huh?

                    We've had legal immigration for the last 500 years, so having people come here legally is nothing new.

                    Unless the Democrats succeed in giving amnesty to illegal immigrants on in opening the flood gates to foreign labor, your goal of flooding the market with unskilled workers isn't going to happen – and even if it did, it would not fix our economy, just strain our social support systems.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    Another failure larry.

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    So you're admitting union labor is over paid and lazy?

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    I seem to remember having health insurance when I worked for Wal-Mart. Silly me!

                    They seem to think they give health care benefits.
                    http://walmartstores.com/careers/7750.aspx.

                    * Comprehensive Medical Coverage with no lifetime maximum
                    o 80% coverage for eligible services
                    o Preventive care includes an annual checkup for each covered family member, immunizations for children up to age 18, and more
                    o Pharmacy benefits coverage includes $4 generics, brand name and specialty drugs
                    o Ask Mayo Clinic Nurse Line – a free, confidential 24-hour nurse line
                    o Life with Baby Maternity Program is a free voluntary wellness program to help from pre-conception through early child development with your own registered nurse
                    * Dental Insurance
                    * Resources For Living® — a confidential counseling and health information service that’s free to all associates. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
                    * Business Travel Accident Insurance
                    * Associate Eyewear Program
                    * Company-paid life insurance and Business Travel Accident insurance
                    * Financial planning guidance and will preparation
                    * Optional life and dependent life insurance
                    * Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D)
                    * Critical illness and accident insurance
                    * Short- and long-term disability coverage
                    * Illness Protection (sick time)

                    What do you know, Larry is wrong.

                    Oh and the company I work for does business with Wal-Mart and they have never asked us to move overseas. Funny that, you think I would remember something like that.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wZBk1Hjl60&fe…

                    Sure Greg. All of those companies being forced to open shop over seas is just made up malarkey right? You idiot. Not every company they do business with is in that situation.

                    You are being an idiot.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    I'm telling you about my experience in THE REAL WORLD. Calling me an idiot doesn't change facts Larry. I see you had nothing to say about being wrong on the health care statement. It seems you like to screech about things you know nothing about, then when you are called on it call people idiots.

                  • Flame

                    Unions have forced more jobs overseas than Walmart and every other big company combined.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    Fail

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Take the ring out of your nose, larry.

                  • Spanky2

                    "No all the time, that's why unions exist. "

                    Unions exist to extort money from business and to drive down productivity while increasing the ranks of their gangs.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Thank you for showing your complete idiocy. You have officially become a fool.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    If your statement about unions was true, then the union that covers the workers for Stop&Shop would see them paid MORE than minimum wage and MORE than WalMart. THEY DON'T. New Stop&Shop employees are on probation for 30-90 days at which point they MUST join the union or else be fired on the spot. That's how it was when I worked there as a teen and that's pretty much how it remains. For this, you get a promise of a pension in fifty years when NO ONE works there in that low-end job for their entire life. It's a STARTER JOB. You get to be paid MINIMUM WAGE which the union takes credit for. You get WORSE health coverage than WalMart. You get NO more protection with respect to labor situations than WalMart and are STILL hire-at-will which means FIRE-AT-WILL.

                    Your delusionality is bordering on schizophrenia at this point. You're painting a picture 180 degrees from reality.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Still repeating the same lie as usual. Been employed as a tech writer for quite some time now. Nice try.

              • Jack10039

                nd:

                In the real world the entire food distribution industry busted the unions long ago. You're just trained to hate working people.

                • Spanky2

                  "In the real world the entire food distribution industry busted the unions long ago. "

                  That's blatantly false, but it would be great if it were true.

                  A lot of warehouses and DCs are union-staffed.

                  And many grocery clerks are union, too. Of course, I avoid them whenever possible. When I go to a union store, I look for self-checkout. When a clerk invites me to use an empty lane, I tell them flatout that I prefer to use a non-union self-checkout system.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    That's because you are a conservative @sshole. That explains a lot about your point of view and your political persuasion.

                  • Spanky2

                    I gave you a thumbs up for that.

                    It's an honor to be hated by people intent on destroying the country.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    All you have at this point is name calling because you can't argue against the reality on the ground.

                  • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

                    Oooh! Impressive display of vocabulary. Know any other tricks larry?

            • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

              The price increases are caused by market distortions, one of which is the ethanol scam and the other is the remaining effects of the speculative market in food which collapsed a while back.

              • Spanky2

                "one of which is the ethanol scam "

                That was one of the biggest scams of the century!

                When you take into account all the fossil fuels consumed to produce ethanol, there is a net energy loss.

                Even Brazil, which is the poster child for ethanol production, can only offset about 15% of their petroleum consumption (300Kbbl/day ethanol vs 2.1Mbbl/day oil). And they've got cheap labor, a 365 day growing season, unlimited water and sunlight and cheap land, etc.. Even then, they aren't doing all that well.

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  Food speculation was far worse. Here's just one article on it:
                  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators…

                  There's no reason for allowing markets to be driven strictly by speculators treating it like gambling addicts, going for a big jackpot, especially without regard to the effects on the consumers, and doubly not when it results in food price spikes that have NOTHING to do with supply or demand, but simply because people treated theoretical lots of food as poker chips. It's like the situation with oil and gas. Strategic infrastructure items should not be subject to this kind of thing.

                • Kevin Stowell

                  I've always been amazed at the larrys who got sucked into THAT one. The energy loss was known on that one going into the scam. Iowa farmers liked it, I guess, thanks to the subsidies.

                  • Spanky2

                    When Tom Daschle left Congress, he became a lobbyist for the corn industry, a job for which he was paid over $1M/yr.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    I seem to remember that was pretty much his first stop after leaving, wasn't it?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Even the Democratic Party doesn't argue that the farm world is massively distorted by subsidies. Only loony leftists in the streets like Willie would argue otherwise. We pay farmers to not grow crops and we cause untold economic damage to other nations which would gladly sell their food here at a price point below what our growers would, but don't, because the Dems think that paying farmers to short supply here is a great idea.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Good post. The Left just can't deal with freedom of any kind and that's always the recurrent theme with everything they do. After all, THEY'RE the "smart set.' ;o) Thouhg I don't generally care about things comedians have to say, P. J. O'Rourke had some pearls to cast before these swine:

                    Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
                    P. J. O'Rourke

                    The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
                    P. J. O'Rourke

                    There's something about Marxism that brings out warts; the only kind of growth this economic system encourages.
                    P. J. O'Rourke

                    You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.
                    P. J. O'Rourke

              • Flame

                Not to mention the globull warming scam, the health care scam, the bail out scam, et.al.

          • Jack10039

            Look, I like saving a buck as much as the next guy. But those low prices have a hidden cost for your town, including lower tax revenues, traffic problems, sewer disruptions, lower wages, and lot's more.

            Watch this move and learn something:
            http://www.walmartmovie.com/

            • di_da_is_alpha

              Yeah, I take the money I save at Wal-Mart and hide it my mattress. Sometimes I use a "C" note to light a cigar.

              Hahahahahahahahahah. Leave it to a progressive to not understand capitalism. Folks take those dollars they save at Wal-Mart and spend them in other places like; restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theaters, etc.; all of which leads to more jobs for other folks at; restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theaters, etc.

              Then those folks who now have jobs at; restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theaters, etc. spend their money at still more places, like; sporting goods stores, electronic stores, auto shops etc. Know what else? Taxes are payed at those places when money is spent there on goods and services. See how it works?

              • RetiredSailor1

                What if your state does not have a sales tax? Oh and what about the Fed do we now impose a Federal sales tax?

              • liberal_larry10

                That's the Walmart lie. If that were the case, so many small businesses wouldn't be going out of business when a WalMart's are built in smaller communities.

                • di_da_is_alpha

                  You are such a tool. Who tells you that Wal-Mart lies about WHAT I DO WITH MY MONEY. Do you repeat what your master tells you to say. Do they have to crack a whip or do you just grovel and obey like a dog? Don't you tell me what I KNOW.

                  I lived in a fairly small, rural community, and the only business that went out of business when a Wal-Mart opened there in 1996 was Fred Meyer. Not exactly a mom and pop store. The mom and pop stores stayed in business by offering more personal and specialized service. Competition is good for everybody, and those businesses that can't keep up, get stronger or go to work for someone else.

                  Don't pizz on my leg and tell me it's raining. Now jump. Your master would want you too.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    You can't spend your money on businesses that lose profits because Wal-Mart drives them to economic ruin.

                    Keep telling yourself lies while Wal-Mart neglects the healthcare coverage of its employees and enriches China, you communist loving, economic illiterate.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    China's economic enrichment is eroding belief in socialism and communism, ending through pure economic free will what we couldn't afford to do with nuclear war. As their old men in Beijing die off and the system continues to open itself up, eventually, communism will be entirely dead there. Their people will be prosperous and well fed and well off, the way you take for granted here in the USA. Capitalism and consumerism are doing the improvement of the world, the rising of the tide for everyone, that you idiot socialists could not make happen by snapping your fingers.

                    The reality on the ground is a permanent repudiation of you.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    When WalMart sends jobs overseas they are endorsing the communist China system and enriching themselves off an idea they say does not work. That's hypocrisy.

                    China's economic enrichment is eroding belief in socialism and communism, ending through pure economic free will what we couldn't afford to do with nuclear war.

                    Why do you endorse Americans enriching themselves off of Communist China's system that Wal-Mart says is better?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    And of course you resort to an outright lie. I just said that they were enriching themselves by helping the Chinese become enriched and more prosperous, a prosperity that Communism DIDN'T bring. Communists had to adopt CAPITALISM to get that money. Our way undermined theirs, and our way is what the Chinese want. They want stores full of products, and they want money in their wallets to buy them with. They want cars, and they want nice homes, and they want high speed Internet, and they want computers, and they want all the other things we have and that Communism couldn't bring them. We could. We win. You lose.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    I'll add that the third world, under tyrants and Communists, has NEVER EVER gotten any wealthier, any better off, any more stable, any more healthy, any more better in any way, by your way. NOT EVER. Why are you and yours so hot to leave the rest of the world lagging behind our standard of living? It's so you can feel like superiors, giving them table scraps, patting yourselves on the back for foreign aid packages and charity handouts.

                    You liberals are SCUM. You'd gladly see others suffer so you can feel good about yourselves.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    I just said that they were enriching themselves by helping the Chinese become enriched and more prosperous,

                    By selling out to Communist slave labor? Sorry, that is not what American stands for. That is the result of the socialist world Wal-Mart is propping up.

                    .. a prosperity that Communism DIDN'T bring.

                    And yet….Wal-Mart is demanding American manufacturing shut down in favor of Communist slave labor workshops?

                    You are an idiot. Always have been, always will be. And gay sounding as well.

                    The Chinese are loaning us money, you stupid@ss. They own us, you fool.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Obviously, you've never seen what China looks like these days. They have a national infrastructure build-out in full swing that has their cities equal to ours or Japan's. They have shopping malls, cars, a highway system copied from ours with improvements added, and a whole lot more. The bulk of what is made in China is NOT made by slaves or political prisoners, but in factories manned by PAID workers. You're continuing to repeat a long-disproven lie as if it was fact, and hoping that if you repeat it enough, it will become conventional wisdom.

                    Meanwhile, the Chinese and Indians are selling machine tools, industrial equipment, metal refining, and making loads of money because they haven't priced their labor out of all economic sense, unlike us.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Potatohead, I knew you loved communist China, you didn't need to write down just how much you look up to them.

                • Spanky2

                  Do you think that Sears Roebuck was as evil when they started as Walmart is now?

                  Sears brought merchandise to people throughout the country at reasonable prices. The rural customer for the first time had access to merchandise that previously was available on to a select few, determined by proximity to suppliers.

                  Sears, however, hit the local general stores quite hard.

                  If you look back on the history of the US, Sears played a key role in the development of the country. Were they evil?

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Sears model was completely different than Wal-Mart's. You idiot. Nobody complained about Costco or Sears. You are not comparing apples to apples because you don't understand the difference between the models.

                    How many books were written about Sears business model? When did Sears decide not to take care of it's employees, threaten its providers or demand they manufacture overseas?

                  • Spanky2

                    The Sears (mail order) model was indeed somewhat different than Walmart (retail/online), I was not saying they were EXACTLY the same.

                    However, they fill the exact same role – both firms bring goods to areas that don't have access to them.

                    That reduces the need for local stores. It hurt the mom/pop & general store.

                    It allows the retailer to enjoy economies of scale and to negotiate better agreements with suppliers.

                    Sears bought and sold items from foreign suppliers.

                    In that sense, Sears and Walmart are identical.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Competition in the market place is one thing. Dictating where your providers manufacture, the cost they sell items to you and ignoring the moral responsibility to pay or provide health care to their employees or adequate to those that qualify are all moral obligations Sears and Costco do not violate.

                  • Spanky2

                    Sears provided health care when they started out? Interesting!

                    Again, Walmart provides health care benefits. I've proven that. You have not proven otherwise.

                    Please prove that Costco does not tell suppliers what to do but sits passively by and lets suppliers dictate to them.

                    And again, many things I buy at Costco are foreign-made – and are available at Walmart. Why is it evil for Walmart to sell them but good for Costco to sell them?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Costco damn well does negotiate hard, as do all the others at times. WalMart has merely done the best job of it. If they slipped to #2, the new #1 would within a year receive all the made-up horesh1t stories that WalMart has been hit with.

                  • Spanky2

                    It gets back to unions. Libs want 'em everywhere, especially in big companies where there are lots of voters than can require to contribute to their candidates.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Strange how the union can't manage better than minimum wage from Stop&Shop, but non-union WalMart pays more.

                    Not strange to me. I watched as the unions sold out the workers in manufacturing one after the other. Both the union bosses and the corporations made their money, and the rank and file got hosed for all their support of the union bosses. Betrayed. That's what ALL unions do. The top are better than everyone else, and the bottom are expendable. They're more predatory about it than any private company and only the federal government is worse.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    You keep repeating that same lie, but yet, not one of us has suggested that Wal-Mart should unionize.

                    Straw men, you can't make an argument with out them.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Dummy, NO employer pays health care coverage. This proves that you have no idea of how business works. If an employer pays for health care coverage, they take it of of the gross pay of the employees.

                    For instance, if an employer can afford to pay $40 K a year for a position, and the employers costs in benefits, including social security, workman's comp., paid vacation and holidays and HEALTH CARE, all cost the employer $7k, guess what? The gross pay for that position is going to be $33 K. Make sense to you?

                    Do you see why employers DO NOT pay for SS or anything else in the way of benefits?

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    "ignoring the moral responsibility to pay or provide health care to their employees or adequate to those that qualify are all moral obligations"

                    They're stores, Larry, not parents, individuals, or hospitals. My God, you're commie stupid.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Still repeating long discredited talking points doesn't make you any closer to winning the argument, but you go right on banging your head against the wall Will.

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  What are you smoking? We had WalMart move into Wallingford and NUMEROUS new businesses opened up within a mile of it which had overlap with their product lines. When K-Mart failed to keep their sh1t together and closed, WalMart moved to that building and made themselves into a Super WalMart with groceries. Stop & Shop remodeled and expanded two of their three area stores. We have numerous small stores, chain, franchise, and independent doing just fine. Target, despite their idiot ignorance of 'location, location, location' remains in business across the street from the mall. Best Buy and Borders do bang up business. There's been NO negatives to any of the local communities by WalMart coming in. Up in Newington/Wethersfield, the same thing applies. Big Lots, Ocean State Job Lots in Berlin next to Waldbaum's Food Mart. Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, Price Chopper, Raymour and Flannigan (arguably one of the most expensive furniture chains in the entire USA), Bob's (one of the highest quality and lowest cost stores ever because they buy from the same OEM as R&F and others, and put their brand on it instead and pass me the gigantic freaking savings), etc.

                  North Haven, New Haven, etc. all doing better with WalMart. All taking advantage of the traffic generated and putting in more and more businesses on those strips with overlap as well as other support fields such as gas, car washes, fast food, family restaurants, office buildings, bars, boutique stores, etc.

                  Up and down the center of CT, WalMart has only improved the economy and raised incomes of those in starter jobs, and provided part-time jobs to seniors that most other stores simply wouldn't, preferring instead to discriminate and only hire teens. We have Indians, Pakistanis, Koreans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Chinese, etc. opening their own stores and starting franchises. If WalMart was as bad as you want to believe, NONE of that would be happening.

                  And all this is despite the economic devastation of the Obama years. I can only imagine what it might be like if liberals got their hands off the economy and stopped sucking the money into their own greedy little hands.

                • Flame

                  Just curious and realize I shouldn't ask however could you please explain why Obama and the Progressives are doing everything they can to destroy small businesses?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Crony capitalism. The street clowns like Willie are the only ones who believe this claptrap about WalMart. Their party bosses aren't that supremely delusional.

                • Kevin Stowell

                  "That's the Walmart lie." Larry, have you ever actually had an Economics course or do you just play someone who has? That's an economic reality.

            • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

              Actually, the next town over has a WalMart and has higher property values and higher tax receipts. Our town passed on it and so most of the population shops in the next town at least once a week. The WalMart in Wallingford has produced NO traffic issues. When Shaw's failed to bring prices down and get their business under control, their space right next door to WalMart opened and ShopRite moved in within two weeks. There were no sewer disruptions there or at any other WalMart in the state of CT. They consistently have paid $1-4 above minimum wage, and make a point of hiring full time over part time.

              Not a single thing you went on about is true.

          • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

            Here in the Pittsburgh area we have one major food chain called Giant Eagle (many other smaller operators) that tries to go head-to-head with WalMart. I did a comparison shopping trip to both stores a couple weeks ago and found that for the typical things I buy, WalMart was about $8.00 cheaper on the total order. Same brands, same quantities, an actual apples to apples comparison. That said, Giant Eagle carries many specialty foods that we enjoy that WalMart does not, so at times it is worth going to them instead. Otherwise, the only incentive that Giant Eagle can offer to get people into their stores is a $.10/gallon discount on gas for every $50.00 you spend on groceries, or 1% off your food for every 10 gallons of gas you buy at their stations. It would take one heck of a lot of shopping and gassing up the car to make up the annual savings difference. And given that the two stores are virtually side by side in my area it totally negates the argument of gas savings in commuting time. On top of that, not only can I load up on groceries at WalMart, I can re-stock my ammo supply, pick up stuff I use for car care and many other things all in one trip. Anyone who doesn't recognize that as a value add is delusional.

            As to the employment practices of WalMart, the superstore in my neighborhood employs quite a few people, who for the most part seem quite glad to have a decent job in a decent environment with reasonable compensation and benefits. The township makes a decent amount o n taxes collected from both the store and the employees – everyone benefits. The other thing that always amazes me about the "unfair labor practices" crowd with WalMart is their total ignoring the fact that people line up to get jobs there, and they always have a back-log of applications. They must be doing something right.

            • Proof_Positive

              I used to shop at a Giant Eagle in Ohio that was about a mile from my house, until I happened into a Super Wal-Mart one day about a mile from my office. I could not believe how much cheaper groceries were there. American grown, American processed, American packaged, American delivered and American marketed groceries.

              The drips and dweebs bleating about China and "China lovers" are mind numbingly stupid.

          • RipVanBullwinkl

            Those sewer disruptions have more to do with what you're full of than anything Wal*Mart is doing.

          • liberal_larry10

            The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas.

            A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

            Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97–a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."

            Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement.

            Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S. manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.

            http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.ht…

            • di_da_is_alpha

              Did Vlasic lower it's prices when selling to Wal-Mart, if so, why? Or, did Wal-Mart take a loss on the pickles in order to entice folks into the store to buy other things? Last time I was in the grocery store, I saw Vlasic pickles, so obviously they aren't out of business. Are you such a stinkin' LOSER that you can't handle competition?

              • liberal_larry10

                Read the story and STFU, di_da. You can deny the negative loss in revenues all day for all I care.

                You are beyond hope. There is no convincing moron's like you. I am simply here to provide facts to the lies.

                • di_da_is_alpha

                  You spread the lies, just like you spread your buttcheecks for your master.

                • Spanky2

                  "You can deny the negative loss in revenues all day for all I care. "

                  How does a "negative loss" differ from a "positive loss" or just a loss?

                  • Flame

                    I do believe that is a double negative which would make it a positive in revenue. Seems LL has difficulty with the English language or is using the progressive dictionary again.

                • Greg in Alabama

                  They decided to sell for their pickle's for less Larry. It also sounds like they had other problems with their business model and Wal-Mart was an easy place for people like you to place the blame.

                  Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy–although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    If you want to sell at WalMart, they expect you to supply ALL of their stores and do it MASSIVELY. If you can't step up to the plate, don't approach WalMart. It's that simple.

                • Flame

                  You makes your choices and takes your chances. IOW every action (choice) will result in a consequence (good or bad).

                  You appear to be a loyal union type with the associated male bovine excrement like the carpenter's union and their Shame On campaign against any business that does not utilize union labor.

          • liberal_larry10

            Communist China loving conservatives support the exporting of American jobs so they can save a few dollars for cheap clothing:

            Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers–half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

            • Spanky2

              International trade was not invented by Walmart. People have been trading with lower-cost suppliers since BEFORE the first camel caravan made its way across the Sahara or the first Chinese junk sailed the Sea of China.

              Consider nails.

              They used to be made by blacksmiths, by hand and locally. And they were installed by the hand with hammers.

              Using your statements above, that is the ONLY nail-making and using approach of which you'd approve.

              Now nails are made by huge machines and many of them are applied via nailgun.

              To protect the local merchant, you'd have us all go back to shopping for nails with the local blacksmith and then hammering them by hand.

            • Spanky2

              International trade was not invented by Walmart. People have been trading with lower-cost suppliers since BEFORE the first camel caravan made its way across the Sahara or the first Chinese junk sailed the Sea of China.

              Consider nails.

              They used to be made by blacksmiths, by hand and locally. And they were installed by the hand with hammers.

              Using your statements above, that is the ONLY nail-making and using approach of which you'd approve.

              Now nails are made by huge machines and many of them are applied via nailgun.

              To protect the local merchant and union carpenter, you'd have us all go back to shopping for nails with the local blacksmith and then hammering them by hand.

              • Kevin Stowell

                "To protect the local merchant and union carpenter, you'd have us all go back to shopping for nails with the local blacksmith and then hammering them by hand."

                I suspect, for many of them, that's the plan. They can't deal with the stresses that a fast-paced, capitalistic society is and they want to devolve to that everybody-owns-a-bookstore-full-of-books-nobody-wants-to-read type of society like Flag.

                Cute little, pretentiously eclectic "villages where everybody's broke but on parity, materially, with everybody else. Saw plenty of those when I was in Germany, in the army, years ago. 'Course larry will still be king of the heap with his $80 belts 'cause HE'S one of the more deserving "good" guys, he cares.

            • Flame

              Unionization with it's non-stop demands for higher salaries/benefits and one of the top business tax rate countries is why more American jobs are sent overseas or out of business. The unions have destroyed GM and Chrysler were their whining and extortion to the point that GM and Chrysler cannot pay their bills thereby becoming government owned and operated organizations which is also known as Marxism.

          • liberal_larry10

            WalMart's low prices allows STUPID Americans to shop themselves out of jobs:

            "People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

            • di_da_is_alpha

              Then once Wal-Mart has put everyone out of work, who will shop there? Won't Wal-Mart go out of business? What I spend most of my money on at Wal-Mart is dog food and shooting supplies. I bought a Mossberg shotgun (made in the USA) there recently. Also ammo and cleaning supplies, but I still do business with a local gun shop (that, surprise, surprise, is still in business and doing well, even with Wal-Marts competition) for handguns, PDR, and 00 buckshot, things Wal-Mart doesn't carry. I also buy paper products. I bet 90% of what I buy at Wal-Mart is made in the USA.

              • liberal_larry10

                Then once Wal-Mart has put everyone out of work, who will shop there?

                Look man, go talk to people in the unemployment line. When you find those who have been put out of business because of Wal-Mart you can tell them of your morally conscience decisions when shopping at Wal-Mart.

                When our economic system collapses all around you, only then will you will figure it out…..maybe. Until then, there is no convincing you otherwise.

                Every time you shop at Wal-Mart, you harm someone. First the people who agree to work without the benefit of receiving healthcare. Second the companies who lose profits through Wal-Marts threats and demands, and now, the distribution chain.

                Wal-Mart is laughing all the way to their compound mansions while you pat yourself on the back for playing stupid partisan political games.

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  NO ONE has been put out of business by WalMart in the state of CT. Period. Not a single one. Nada. Zero. Zip.

                  Instead, at the same time as WalMart moved into the state, we got Big Y, Price Chopper, Big Lots, expansion of Stop & Shop, Target, Best Buy, and many many hundreds of others from mom and pops up to big chains.

                  If what you're saying was true, CT route 5 would be a ghost town from Hartford all the way to North Haven/Hamden. It isn't.

                  New Haven would be a dead zone and East Haven would be as well because of the WalMart down at Foxon. Instead, New Haven residents gets affordable goods they used to have to pay 25-50% more for. New Haven has to actually start considering lowering taxes on downtown businesses to let them compete unshackled.

                  No one is harmed by shopping at WalMart. You're a liar or a psycho, one or the other. Pick one.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    CONNECTICUT: 824 WAL-MART Workers Have Children in a State Heath Care Program

                    According to a report prepared by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research examining enrollment data for the HUSKY (Healthcare for UninSured Kids and Youth) program for children of low-income families, "The same employers account for the highest number of employed parents of HUSKY A [traditional Medicaid] and B [state CHIP] children. For example, Wal Mart employed the highest number of HUSKY A parents (824 in September 2004) and the second highest number of HUSKY B parents (79 in December 2004)."

                    Source: Robin K. Cohen, "HUSKY A and B – Enrollment and Employer Data," Connecticut Office of Legislative Research Report 2005-R-0017, January 10, 2005.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    A 6 year old state wide study with numbers in the hundreds ? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Major flaws in Wal-Mart study – small businesses are hurt

                    February 28th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under
                    A widely publicized study claiming that there is no evidence that Wal-Mart has had a negative impact on the small business sector is debunked. Careful review of the study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found fatal flaws and this paper highlights the problems. Since I am an advocate of localization I hope this study will be of interest.

                    None of the data presented here is causal: the fact that independent retail businesses declined in numbers and market share at the same time that Wal-Mart and other large-format retailers grew does not prove that one caused the other.

                    But it does make clear that the small business sector is not as robust as it was 20 years ago. Sobel and Dean’s sweeping conclusion that “there is no evidence that Wal-Mart has had a signiï¬ cant impact on the overall size, growth, or proï¬ tability of the U.S. small business sector” is unfounded.

                    We all appreciate a bargain but just like importing power exports dollars so too does buying from companies like WalMart. For every dollar we try to save we dig the local economy into a deeper and deeper crevasse.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Every dollar that is saved by shopping at Wal-Mart is spent at other local businesses. Competition is good. If the small shops can't compete, tough, let them start new businesses that can compete. Like I said in another post, it was K-Mart that put a lot of small stores out of business in my hometown in the early 1970s. Why don't you gripe at them?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Bonillatard is the energizer rabbit of stupid. He's still going and going and going, and he just can't stop himself. He's still arguing illogic and idiocy, still denying reality, still ignoring the rights of everyone to sell or resell what they choose and buy only at a price that suits them, and continuing to natter endlessly.

                    All this in a thread from 2008. If we keep this up, his head might explode.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    Still ignoring reality? Obviously.

                    Again, you're ignoring that there are literally thousands of other businesses competing with WalMart in a variety of areas with serious product overlap every single day and not being put out of business.

                    Again, you're ignoring that WalMart, like you and me, has the right to choose what price they will pay and refuse to pay a single penny more.

                    Again, you're ignoring that every other business including your alleged employers, does this very same thing.

                    Again, you're ignoring that WalMart, like your alleged employers and you and me, has the right to buy and resell only what we choose to.

                    Again, you're ignoring that NO ONE has the right to force anyone else to sell what they don't want to sell and that includes your alleged employers.

                    Again, you're ignoring that WalMart is a basic servicer job and not ever intended to be a serious adult job.

                    Again, you're ignoring reality. As you always do. You argue inane and patently wrong things, and you absolutely cannot admit you're wrong because it would come uncomfortably close to admitting your fallibility.

                    You're a loser Will. A complete and total loser, and that's all you're ever going to be. The amusing thing to me is that you will not be able to continue your narcissism binge forever, and eventually will crawl into a social hole to die to the world, because your pathetic true self-image will be unavoidable to you, and you're going to suffer with that.

                    Like everything else, that was your choice.

                • ndoldman

                  First Walmart offers health & dental insurance . I worked at Walmart for over a year and they were a great Company to work for, just didn't care for the retail work hours. second threats and demands? they put out a bid for X number of ? and the supplier figures how he can manufacture that product at a profit. 3rd if you didn't get paid to post bs on this blog would you do it

                  • Spanky2

                    Libunatic_Larry doesn't care about facts.

          • liberal_larry10

            For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough."

            The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers, strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young says–millions of dollars.

            The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.

            Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"–even $3.49 would have helped tremendously–"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.

            Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back off.' " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of pickles, for $2.79.

            • Greg in Alabama

              From your own article. You left it out.

              Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy–although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

              From reading the rest of your story they look they were experiencing a Levi Straus moment. In the story Levi's was basically going broke and decided to sell to Wal-Mart to make up for lost sales. The article tries to make out that Wal-Mart forced them to move overseas. The article pointed out that jeans were selling at a twenty dollar price point and Levi's didn't have one set of jeans below thirty dollars. Somehow that's Wal-Marts fault.

              • Flame

                Thanx for the Paul Harvey response, the rest of the story!!!

            • ndoldman

              Get off the pickles already we all know why you complain about them ! sex toys that are edible. the size pickles in that jar would make you and any of your friends jealous.

          • liberal_larry10

            WalMart casts a moral shadow across society:

            Wal-Mart perfectly embodies the process of “creative destruction” identified by Joseph Schumpeter as the engine by which one mode of capitalist production and distribution is replaced by another. And as Schumpeter made clear, every set of technological and organizational innovations not only reconfigures the economic landscape, but it also casts a cultural and moral shadow across all of society.

            http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/walmart/

            • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

              There's no moral quandary about the human drive to increase efficiencies. Your species has been doing it for about 200,000 years now. Making your world less efficient returns you to the old days where life expectancies were lower, poverty was widespread, there were two classes with a tiny elite and a gigantic servant class, people didn't get educated, and disease was rampant. Joseph Schumpeter's ideas only stated that intellectuals, such as self-styled know-it-alls like yourself, would interfere with entrepreneurship. Such is what you're doing. What it neglected is that intellectuals have a tendency to be so wrapped up in their pursuit of being right and winning, that they step all over the people at large, and stomp on their dreams of personal betterment.

              As the Soviet Union found, you can't do that forever and get away with it.

              China, India, etc. are chock full of people with the entrepreneurial spirit if you can't get yours up any more. They WILL overrun your self-satisfied socialism. They WILL stomp all over your intellectualism. Because they DON'T agree with you.

            • Flame

              Joseph Schumpeter: "He argued that capitalism's collapse from within will come about as democratic majorities vote for restrictions upon entrepreneurship that will burden and destroy the capitalist structure, but also emphasizes non-political, evolutionary processes in society where "liberal capitalism" was evolving into democratic socialism because of the growth of workers' self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions."

              See John Medearis, "Schumpeter, the New Deal, and Democracy", The American Political Science Review, 1997.

              It appears that USCB cannot even apply the "creative destruction" as defined by Schumpeter. Instead they twist it away from government (regulatory institutions) and unions (workers' self-management) and place it on entrepreneurship.

          • Spanky2

            Another terrible thing about Walmart is how they started giving away some antibiotics, and charging low prices ($4 or $10) for other drugs. This is terrible! It forces other retailers to lower their prices on drugs as well.

            Don't they care about the workers in the pharmaceutical industry? If they did, they'd charge much higher prices for medications!

            ;)

            • liberal_larry10

              Sorry we don't give you healthcare, but here are some anti-biotics!

              SEE? I can say stupid hyperbole sh@t that doesn't make an argument, too.

              • Spanky2

                Huh?

                Since when is Walmart responsible for giving out health care?

                They have indeed greatly lowered the cost of health care by reducing prices on medications and also by providing services. For example, many communities would have no access to inexpensive glasses and eye exams if it were not for Walmart pioneering the industry.

                Why do you hate lower costs for medications?

                • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

                  From Wal Mart's web site:

                  "When you become a Walmart associate, you can take advantage of a variety of benefits for you and your family, including:

                  Health & Wellness Benefits
                  •Comprehensive Medical Coverage with no lifetime maximum
                  â—¦80% coverage for eligible services
                  â—¦Preventive care includes an annual checkup for each covered family member, immunizations for children up to age 18, and more
                  â—¦Pharmacy benefits coverage includes $4 generics, brand name and specialty drugs
                  â—¦Ask Mayo Clinic Nurse Line – a free, confidential 24-hour nurse line
                  â—¦Life with Baby Maternity Program is a free voluntary wellness program to help from pre-conception through early child development with your own registered nurse
                  •Dental Insurance
                  •Resources For Living® — a confidential counseling and health information service that’s free to all associates. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
                  •Business Travel Accident Insurance
                  •Associate Eyewear Program
                  •Company-paid life insurance and Business Travel Accident insurance
                  •Financial planning guidance and will preparation
                  •Optional life and dependent life insurance
                  •Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D)
                  •Critical illness and accident insurance
                  •Short- and long-term disability coverage
                  •Illness Protection (sick time)
                  Financial Benefits
                  •Associate Stock Purchase Plan with a company match of 15% up to the first $1,800 purchased each Plan year
                  •Retirement Account Rollover
                  •Associate Discounts provides all associates have access to more than 250 discounts on good and services, including movie tickets, sports entertainment, fitness center memberships and more
                  •Bereavement and Jury Duty Time-off
                  •Military Differential Pay
                  •Associate Discount Card for Walmart associates, their spouses and dependents. Receive a 10% discount on regular priced general merchandise and fresh produce purchased at a Walmart store.
                  •Sam’s Club Associate memberships for Sam’s Club associates
                  •Paid Holidays, Vacation Time and Personal Time
                  •Walmart Profit Sharing and 401(k) Plan "

                  Somehow that doesn't sound like "without benefits". Yeah that Wal Mart is just running a sweat shop.

                  • Spanky2

                    GMTA!

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Who pays for Wal-Mart workers' health care? Wal-Mart, right? No, we all do.

                    Despite Wal-Mart's mammoth profits, the company actually burdens us — taxpayers — with its workers' health care costs. In a disturbing nationwide trend, more state studies are revealing that Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of taxpayer-paid health care. The scope of this corporate failure is massive: Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States, with over 1.3 million associates, yet they fail to give health insurance to 54 percent of its employees.

                    "So here's how it works: Wal-Mart offers insurance, but aggressively shifts the cost onto its employees. The low-wage workers then pass up the unaffordable coverage and turn to the states. If this isn't exactly company policy, it is at least company philosophy. CEO Lee Scott, at the company's recent ''summit'' for the media, even described it. He said some state health programs are 'so lucrative that, in fact, it's hard to be competitive with them and certainly extraordinarily expensive to be competitive with them.'"
                    Editorial, Miami Herald 6/11/05

                  • liberal_larry10

                    GMTA!

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Looks like "bennies" to me.

                • liberal_larry10

                  Since when is Walmart responsible for giving out health care?

                  The fact that you ignore a direct immoral decision to game the system to avoid paying health care for it's employees, and at the same time deny government healthcare to those people is the very reason why conservatives are evil.

                  You don't care about American values and morals.

                  • Spanky2

                    Walmart's health care benefits have been posted twice in this thread. Consider reading them before you continue to reveal your lack of knowledge on the subject.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Watch this video about Wal-Marts health care program:
                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wZBk1Hjl60&fe…

                    Consider watching it before you continue to reveal your ignorance on the subject.

                  • Spanky2

                    You can't dispute the fact that Walmart offers a health care plan to its employees so you provide a link to a propaganda video.

                    I encourage folks who don't like working for Walmart to get jobs elsewhere.

                    You said that Walmart does not offer health care benefits. That's false.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    WalMart's benefits are actually better than many private tech companies. When employed there, between her insurance and mine, my wife had NO out of pocket charges at all. Yet, Bonillatard continues to claim the invented nonsense and present it as fact.

                  • Spanky2

                    It's the typical Democrat routine whereby if they repeat a big lie often enough, people will believe it.

                    For example, Clinton got elected in '92 by claiming the recession of which ran from July of '90 to March '91 was still going on, when in fact the recession was over long before the election. However, Clinton kept lying about the state of the economy. Then when he took office, he claimed it was his election that caused recovery.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    You're exactly right. The CBO claimed if the stimulus (euthanasia) bill was passed, it would retard the recovery and it would be made more sluggish, JUST AS IT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. Obama and company claimed otherwise and have been stating the economy is stronger than their own figures show. The media, other than Fox, report the left's talking points uncritically (except for AP which is schizophrenic and random) and the people without time and interest, eventually believe it.

                    It's just like with the left's portrayal of Bush and the economy under him. It was if not great, at least pretty darn good in the wake of the 9/11 hit. It went downhill over the nine months after the Dems took over congress in the 1st quarter of 2007 (elections held in fall, seatings the following year), and they portrayed the economic damage they did as having started all the way back to before Bush was even sworn in. The public eventually bought it. Obama got elected because he wasn't Bush and he wasn't Clinton.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Ignorance? You've spent most of this thread telling us that Wal-Mart had NO HEATH CARE PROGRAM. Now that's been shot down you move to the next talking point that "we" pay for Wal-Marts health care program. Yet you call us ignorant.

                    HA!

                • liberal_larry10

                  Lower costs for medications:
                  http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,…

                  If you really want to have a discussion about what could lower costs of medications and the creative destruction of the pharma industry, read this article.

                  Your efforts to avoid a serious debate about Wal-Mart and distract with your hyperbole shows you cant be taken seriously.

                  Why should Wal-Mart give it's employees healthcare? What a piece of trash you are.

                  • Spanky2

                    "Why should Wal-Mart give it's employees healthcare?"

                    Walmart indeed provides health care to employees (demonstrated in this thread) because of the free market. To retain employees, they have to offer that.

                    You argued that one of the reasons you hate Walmart is because they don't give health care benefits to employees. That is proven false.

                    Second, you dodge a fundamental issue about Walmart. They have indeed increased the level of health care in America by lowering the cost of prescription medication and by providing services like eye exams in a very inexpensive format. You hate Walmart so much – because they are non-union – that you are blind to the benefits of the firm.

                    Every business has positive and negative sides. By your refusal to acknowledge anything positive about Walmart, you reveal an untenable bias.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    I read your article and I'm curious as to what you think it means Larry. Could you give us a brief synopsis and tell us if "creative destruction" would be good or bad for the Phama Industry and manufacturing in the US?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    My medications cost HALF as much at WalMart as they do at CVS. Why should I pad the bottom line of pharmaceutical megacorporations? Is Bonillatard championing the obscene profit margins of big medical business now? Looks like it.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    He doesn't know what he's championing. He's like a parrot, squawking the cool sounding catch phrase of the day.

                    "Wwwwwaaaaaakkkkkkkk wal mart baaaad wwwaakkkk union goooood wwaakkwwakk wanna cracker."

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Polly wants crack.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Crack? I just thought of something, larry should name his next sock puppet "Phil McCracken". Heheheh

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Bro larry is McCrackin' me up.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Larry sucks. (Audience) How much does he suck?! Larry sucks enough to be a Hoover. . .-ite. Larry has completely changed the meaning of the name of the liquid runoff of cocaine processing from crack liquor to crack-licker.

              • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                WalMart does give health care. My wife got it when she worked there. You've been shown to be a liar on this over and over and over.

              • Kevin Stowell

                Hyperbolic, in this case. Adjective.

          • Spanky2

            Free market.

            "No liberal is against the Tech industry"

            Of course not, because they're greedy and don't care about the people put out of work by technological development.

            • liberal_larry10

              The technology jobs replace the manual labor, that's a win/win.

              Wal-Mart doesn't do that, dummy.

              • Spanky2

                Yes, a FEW tech jobs replace MANY manual labor jobs.

                One computer does the job of say 10 accountants or more.

                For example, a large insurance company in the 80s would have had hundreds of highly paid actuaries responsible for determining risk rates and premiums.

                Computers make it possible for even larger companies to get by with 90% fewer actuaries.

              • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                WalMart is a retail product provider, so your comparison is invalid from the start.

          • Spanky2

            Of course, no liberal would shop online, because that destroys local businesses and takes advantage of economies of scale just like Walmart does.

            If they did shop at places like Amazon.com or eBay, they'd be hurting jobs – and they'd be complete hypocrites.

            • liberal_larry10

              More Hyperbole. Many retailers offer on-line services. It was my job to help companies go online to extend the reach of their product.

              Don't be an idiot.

              • Spanky2

                It's true that if you buy from an online retailer you are not buying from a local brick and mortar provider who has more workers per sales dollar.

                You are hurting local businesses and workers. But you don't care about them.

              • Kevin Stowell

                You're obviously a hater, larry. Brick-and-mortar phobic.

            • Kevin Stowell

              "Of course, no liberal would shop online, because that destroys local businesses and takes advantage of economies of scale just like Walmart does."

              They probably do online more than anyone. Lazy and it makes them feel "special' having everything delivered to Fannie's and Freddie's homes.

              • Spanky2

                And they don't have to rub elbows with the lesser class of peons who frequent stores.

                • Kevin Stowell

                  Low-level snob appeal. Unwashed masses. It's a NAZI thang.

                  • Spanky2

                    That's one of the real objections that libunatics have against Walmart – sometimes commoners shop there.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    This just passed on to Mrs. Stowell, originally from Maxine the chronically crotchety old woman:

                    So after landing my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter, a good find for many retirees, I lasted less than a day……

                    About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids, Yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

                    As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, 'Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?' The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say, 'No, they ain't twins. The oldest one's 9, and the other one's 7. Why would you think they're twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?'

                    So I replied, 'I'm neither blind nor stupid, Ma'am, I just couldn't believe someone slept with you twice. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.' My supervisor said I probably wasn't cut out for this line of work

          • liberal_larry10

            What could Wal-mart possibly do to harm Girl Scouts?

            Wal-mart has copied the Girl Scouts’ two best selling cookie types, Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

            Wal-mart is selling Fake Girl Scout Cookies.

            Wal-mart has fake Girl Scout cookies in ‘beta’ distribution, on their way to a national rollout. Because the cookies are ‘reasonable facsimiles’ of the authentic Girl Scout cookies (I sampled them myself at BlogHer ‘09 last week) and are being sold at an everyday low price, these cookies are poised to snatch cookie sales right out of the hands of the Girl Scouts themselves.

            • Spanky2

              I think this is great! Before, the only time we could get Thin Mints was when the GSA was selling them. Now we can get them all year-round.

              It's a good thing that Boy Scouts don't sell cookies, because then liberals would have a real dilemma. They hate the BSA because they organization doesn't think it's a wise idea to have gay scoutmasters taking young boys on overnight or weeklong camping trips.

              • liberal_larry10

                I don't understand your poorly written criticism against liberals and the Boy Scouts. Sounds like you are making an immature gay joke.

                Is that what you are made of? Fag jokes?

                • Spanky2

                  I see you are avoiding the fundamental subject.

                  I like being able to buy Thin Mints any time I want them, not just once a year. What's wrong with that?

                  Do you think that other cookie manufacturers don't sell things that the GSA sells?

                  That's the main topic.

                  I mentioned the BSA to highlight that the liberal argument about the GSA and Walmart is basically bogus. Liberals don't really care about the GSA, they're just using them as a weapon against Walmart. If it was the BSA selling cookies, liberals would not complain about that, because liberals hate the BSA.

                  From my experience with youth groups selling items like cookies or popcorn, people buy the products as a way to contribute to the group, not because they want that lower-quality product for an inflated price.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Larry, I'm sure you are railing against Keebler for their Grasshopper and Peanut Butter filled cookies? The Girl Scouts didn't invent the mint cookie. Sorry.

                  • Spanky2

                    We all know the answer. He just hates Walmart because they're non-union. He is looking for ANY smear he can find. If they were union, he'd shut up, even if they employed only half as many people and charged twice as much.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Your simplistic theory is false because unions don't oppose Wal-Mart any more.

                    Also, if they just paid their employees fairly, gave them the type of medical coverage their competitors do, stopped strong arming their vendors and forcing them to go overseas, there would be no problem.

                    Unfortunately, Wal-Mart does all of those things, and more. So yes, they are hurting our country and Americans. I, for one, will not tolerate it.

                    I choose to never shop at Wal-Mart, I share information to educate those who are smart and care, and that is all I do. That is all a good American should do.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Reality sucks Larry…think again.

                    Your simplistic theory is false because unions don't oppose Wal-Mart any more.

                    http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100625/REA…

                    Walmart cleared a major hurdle to opening a second Chicago store Thursday. A community and labor coalition dropped its opposition after the Arkansas retail giant reportedly agreed to start workers at a minimum of $8.75 an hour and pay them between $9.15 and $9.35 an hour following their first year on the job.

                    New York labor officials were quick to cast aside any notion that the Chicago agreement meant Walmart was any closer to gaining a foothold in New York City.

                    “This is New York; this is not Chicago,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “They've got a long way to go before they would be welcome here.”

                    Every Wal-Mart store pay above the minimum wage so what do you define as "fair". They don't have a labor shortage so the workers must think their pay is fair. They are also happy with the Heath Care or they would find a job that fulfilled their needs. We have been doing business with Wal-Mart for 11 years and still have all seven manufacturing facilities in the United States. Some things are not economical to ship from over seas and travel by sea has long lead times that reduce your ability to react when sales are good or bad. In other words if you sale a lot of product you have a three to six month lead time before you can replenish. If sales are bad and your product is on the water, you have to pay to warehouse it. Its easier to do a just in time program from the United States with a two week lead time.

                    I share information to educate those who are smart and care, and that is all I do.

                    To put it charitably your information has been factually challenged at best so I wish you would stifle you impulse to share.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    GIA, thanks for proving unions aren't trying to unionize Wal-Mart, and instead oppose its destructive business model that lowers wages of average blue collar workers.

                    Thanks for proving that the opposition to Wal-Mart is their prevailing low wage salaries that must be fought for in order for Wal-Mart to drop a monstrosity in new business markets.

                    Furthermore, no statement was made that all vendors that Wal-Mart does business with are demanded to do manufacturing overseas.

                    I am sure that the shoes you sell are made here in America.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Now you are trying to weasel your way out of what you said. You clearly said there was no Union opposition to Wal-Mart. Now that you are caught, again, you are trying to change what you said with a little spin.

                    because unions don't oppose Wal-Mart any more

                    Just like you did when you said Wal-Mart didn't offer health care then switched to "we pay for Wal-Mart's health care" when it was pointed out you were wrong.

                    It must be nice to be able to ignore what you say from post to post.

                    no statement was made that all vendors that Wal-Mart does business with are demanded to do manufacturing overseas.

                    There is no qualification on that statemen below. So you stay true to your habit of "qualifying" your statements after they have been proven to be false.

                    Dictating where your providers manufacture

                    The Waukegan, Il store had three thousand five hundred applicants for 450 jobs. This was in 2006 long before any concessions to the Unions. Those applicants thought the wage Wal-Mart paid were fair. I think your rant about "the opposition" to Wal-Mart is as full of holes as the rest of your statements in this thread. How dare those people apply for a job with Wal-Mart. I guess unemployment is preferable to work.

                    I am sure that the shoes you sell are made here in America.

                    Finally, we have this. The "people's champion" Larry tries to insult me by calling me a shoe salesman. Selling shoes is an honorable profession. If I did sell shoes I would be proud to tell you I do so. What's wrong with selling shoes Larry. Why did you believe that would be insulting? That say's more about you than you can possibly imagine. Way to destroy your credibility as a "man of the people" Larry! Now I have to go back to work selling shoes so I can earn money for the family.

                  • Spanky2
                  • Patriot2Opine

                    How is Jane by the way?

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Do you know him?

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    I believe I do. His reactions next will say for sure.

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    Is this who I think it is? " Jane" gave it away.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    Could be. I sniffed his threads back a ways. Sure looks like him. Not many people call me Patriot and tell me to STFU right off either. I know I have been a little caustic lately, but thats Obama's fault. LOL

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    I know what you mean, I smelled him all the way at my house, I thought I'd check it out. LOL Have you figured out who his girlfriend is too? Let me know by email if you do.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    Will do.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Here is another of his sock puppets. I guess there were others here on this site, but it was before I followed someone else here. http://intensedebate.com/people/party_of_edd

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    He had a girl friend troll? One minute………………..better make it three, I have to go back a ways and looks…..

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Here was someone he defended and flirted with awhile back. She's been silent for some time, though………. http://intensedebate.com/people/Lady_Attorney

                  • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

                    Don't forget "Joe sixpack". I find it amusing that something I posted infuriated him so much that he went and created yet another profile.

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    Thanks for the links we're checking into those!

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    di_da, don't mean to be so cryptic. I will know in short order for sure. If so, this is an asshat from days gone by who has resurrected himself in his true persona.

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    Notice how he left. I bet he's thinking of a new account as we speak.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    TarzAnna, Queen of the Jungle (I know, rain forest–been a while since we've seen that–hope it doesn't mean I'm an ecosystemist).

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    If you're right about his dreaming up a new alias, maybe he'll choose something that describes himself appropriately, like maybe "ineffectual intellectual".

                  • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

                    GodHelpUsAll912 and Patriot2Opine –

                    If you folks have some prior knowledge and experience with the person we here at SAB know as Hannitized/Liberal_Larry10/Party_of_edd and some other names please let us know. WHile many if not all of us here are open to honest debate from liberals, sock-puppeting and multiple logins for the purpise of inflating one's own scores are not appreciated.

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    We're sure of Larry, we are checking into the others. Joe Sixpack is one too. We will let you know. He's been banned from many sites already, and he knows P2O and myself will call him out.
                    He usually will leave after he see's us, because we have too much dirt on him. Just be careful of any new monikers coming here. Him and his girlfriend is running out of sites to go to.

                  • Spanky2

                    I think I see one of the fundamental areas in which we differ.

                    It appears that you think that if Walmart did not urge suppliers to establish lower-cost foreign manufacturing facilities that such facilities would not get built and also that goods from them would not be sold inside the US.

                    That is an invalid perspective.

                    Walmart is doing these firms a huge favor by forcing them to remain competitive.

                    Consider two foreign retailers operating in the US: Ikea (furniture, household items) and Aldi (groceries). Most of the their products come from elsewhere. Because of that, they enjoy a cost advantage over retailers of similar items made in the US. If Walmart doesn't buy foreign, then someone else will – and wipe out Walmart.

                    Also consider the example of what happened in the camera industry. Kodak and Polaroid used to make all their cameras in the US. They resisted moving facilities overseas (eventually they did, but by then it was too late). Japanese and other camera making countries literally ate their lunch. If Kodak and Polaroid had switched to foreign manufacturing sites earlier, they might still be premier makes of cameras. Now they're pretty much out of the business altogether.

                    The point is that foreign competition is inevitable. By embracing it early on, firms have a chance at succeeding in the long run. By staying domestic-only and ignoring the advantages of foreign manufacturing, firms are often signing their death certificates.

                    Another thing you aren't considering is that Walmart is the largest importer of American-made goods into China. Trade is a two-way street.

                    If you tell China they can't sell their goods over here, then we can't sell ours there – and trade restrictions like that are what caused and prolonged the Great Depression.

                    BTW, GM's most profitable operation is in China.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Your conclusions are asinine. Stop trying to read my mind, because you suck at it.

                    Moving manufacturing to slave labor countries hurt's everyone but China.

                    Why not bring in immigrants and do the work cheaply in American and keep the money here?

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    Reading your mind is an impossibility due to your not having anything to work with.

                  • http://enigma-cypher.blogspot.com/ Enigma_Cypher

                    "I choose to never shop at Wal-Mart,"

                    I can just see how terrified that must make them.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Objet de haine du jour for the Left. Gauche (snicker), that.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    I like being able to buy Thin Mints any time I want them, not just once a year. What's wrong with that?

                    That's because you are just an @sshole in general. Wal-Mart has no morals and should not be going after the non-profit Girl Scouts by imitating their style of cookies. That is simply beyond the pale.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    As usual you ignore the fact that several other companies have been making thin mint type cookies for years. It hasn't hurt sales of GS cookies because people buy the cookies to help the Girl Scouts. I should point out that my GS and her troop sold their cookies in front of Wal-Mart. Those evil bastards.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    You can't deny that some people would not buy the thin if they were not available at Wal-Mart, and that if their only chance to get them was from Girl Scouts, that would be the only way to get them.

                    Wal-Mart boxes imitate the Girl Scouts boxes of Thin Mints. That's just wrong!

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    http://authenticorganizations.com/harquail/2009/0…

                    Do you even read the articles you use to cut and past your "facts"?

                    What box are they imitating again? The Girl Scout box?

                    From the article you didn't link to…(Google is a wonderful thing)

                    Wal-Mart Fudge Mint Cookies

                    <img src="http://i36.tinypic.com/1z4g47q.jpg&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

                    GS Thin Mint Cookies

                    <img src="http://i33.tinypic.com/2d9vj8y.jpg&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

                    The similarity between the bag of cookies from Wal-Mart. (pic from your article) and the thin mint box is striking. I can see how you would think that its wrong to imitate the Girl Scout cookie box. Good thing Wal-Mart didn't do that.

                    The comments in the article you didn't link to make this point.

                    Either way, the Wal-Mart Cookies seem to be in a bag, not a box. They look as if they are made to knock off Keebler and Hershey. If they wanted to go after the GS business, they would have put them in a box.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    Oh, oh, larry fails again. Try doing some homework and think for yourself. If you continue to read from the cards they give you, you will never be anything other than a monkey playing in your own poop.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    I take it back. Even most monkeys know better.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Everybody was dung foo fightin', those turds were fast as lightnin' . . .

                  • Flame

                    Now that explains the events at the Democratic National Convention.

                    I do believe I will acquire (not steal) your line! :)

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    It's yours.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    "From my experience with youth groups selling items like cookies or popcorn, people buy the products as a way to contribute to the group, not because they want that lower-quality product for an inflated price."

                    You bet. If I didn't want to help these groups, without variation, I could buy the same product much cheaper elsewhere.

                  • Spanky2

                    We buy popcorn from the local scout group every year.

                    And it sits on a shelf until the same troop comes by to collect food donations for the local food pantry.

                  • Spanky2

                    We buy popcorn from the local scout group every year.

                    And it sits on a shelf until the same troop comes by to collect food donations for the local food pantry.

                • Kevin Stowell

                  What's a mature gay joke look like?

            • badlands4

              Do you have proof that Wal-mart hurt the Girl Scout's cookie sales? I don't mean the economy hurting sales but Wal-mart specifically. If you have impartial proof(like the Girl Scouts showing the link between Wal-mart brand cookies and their sales, excluding what the economy is doing to sales.)please post it. I am always willing to look at impartial proof of an issue.

              People don't buy overpriced popcorn and wrapping paper during school Christmas fundraisers because it is a value or tastes good and people don't buy Wal-mart brand thin mints vs Girl Scout thin mints because they are cheaper. People buy Girl Scout cookies because they want to support the Girl Scouts in the same way people spend an obscene amount of money for junk when school kids knock on your door for the school fundraisers.

              Most people that would buy store brands from Wal-mart or anywhere else will scrimp on another item so they can buy Girl Scout cookies or wrapping paper when a dad shows up with the order sheet or sweet little kids are sitting outside of any store, including Wal-mart.

          • Spanky2

            As a good liberal, I hate computer controlled lathes and milling machines!

            In the old days, it took a real craftsman to machine a piece of metal on a mill or lathe. Now, it's almost all done by computers. A journeyman could make a LOT of money, but not any more.

            Computerization of course drove down wages of factory workers (while improving quality).

            But as a liberal I hate that sort of thing. We must get rid of all computer controlled mills and lathes in order to bring back high-paying jobs in the factory.
            ;)

            • liberal_larry10

              Nobody is arguing about the development of technology or the advancements they create. You have no argument so you exhibit hyperbole to cover for your ignorance.

              • Spanky2

                Walmart is just applying technology to distribution and retailing.

                The principle is the same – they increase competition in the local area by bringing in products and services from afar.

                That's the same thing that computers do. BTW, where were the components in your computer made?

                • liberal_larry10

                  Asinine! What technology are they applying?

                  Wal-Mart and computers are a false comparison. You are reaching because you are ignorant on the subject.

                  • Spanky2

                    Computers "creatively destroy jobs."

                    Walmart does the same, by developing techniques to provide better inventory control, ensure more competitive pricing, and maintaining quality control.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Information Technology and tech companies replace manual labor with higher paying jobs.

                    Wal-Mart produces lower paying jobs and fewer jobs and puts people out of work by sending jobs overseas.

                    You are an economic illiterate.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    But people spend the money they save at other businesses, thus expanding the economy. That's what I said in my first comment. You are the economic illiterate.

                  • Hannitized

                    This guy isn't even on the same page? Huh?

                    What does IT have to do with Wal-Mart? Hello!!

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    You brought up IT Hanni and now you've taken your sock puppet off to argue what does IT have to do with Wal-Mart? Look in the mirror and ask yourself that.

                    This is why we ride you about having sock puppets Larry/Hanni. This is why what you are doing is wrong.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    GIA, take a break from breathing in the shoe leather and get back to me when you are on the same page.

                    Spanky compared computer replacing employees to Wal-Mart strong arming vendors to reduce price and move overseas.

                    That's not the same thing, that's just moving locations to slave labor countries.

                    Why not bring in immigrants and do the work cheaply in American and keep the money here?

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    You realize you just replied as Larry and not Hanni don't you? Why don't you stick with one sock puppet?

                    Actually he said that Wal-Mart uses technology to streamline their distribution system. He then likened it to the way computers are made. (That's why he asked you where the components in your computer were made) You kind of let that one blow over your head.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    YOU confused Hanni and Larry. I am the one who was debating the other blogger about IT. Hanni merely called him on his stupidity.

                    You are confuse, again.

                  • Proof_Positive

                    "YOU confused Hanni and Larry. " What's the matter, sock puppet? The little voices in your head not communicating?

                    <img src="http://i37.tinypic.com/345bhqc.jpg&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

                    "You are confuse, (sic) again."
                    Now, please mock someone else for their English skills!

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    You are confuse, again.

                    You are the same person Larry.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    I didn't word that very well. I should have said;

                    But people save money by shopping at Wal-Mart , and then spend those savings at other businesses, thus expanding the economy.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    What you said has nothing to do with how computers are used in WalMart.

                    Aside from that, your logic implies that illegal immigrants are good for the country for all the money we save! Right?

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Not if they send their money back to Mexico, don't pay taxes, including SS, and keep an American on unemployment, which costs money.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Those are the tip of the iceberg involved in allowing Illegals free reign in this country.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    According to your theory, illegals help the economy because they work for less and spend all that money that is saved gets spent on other things, enriching other businesses.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    What? English, larry, english. I'm not sure what you mean with that arcane statement.

                    What I'm saying is that when millions of people shop at Wal-Mart, they save money. Then they spend that money that they saved at restaurants and movie theaters . The restaurants and movie theaters then have to hire more employees.

                    These folks that they hire now have jobs and can afford to buy cars and stereos. The folks who worked at Wal-Mart can now go to work at other, higher paying jobs building cars and stereos.

                    Then Wal-Mart replaces those people with entry level youngsters just starting out,and older workers wanting to supplement their retirement income.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    What? English, larry, english [sic].

                    Hahahahahahahahaha! English is capitalized, you idiot.

                  • on the road

                    Didn't I tell you about glass houses earlier in this thread, dummy? What if my statement was about shooting pool, fool? Then "english" is not capitalized. Your statement, the one I was replying to, was poor constructed, dummy.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Yes. I imagine how much money is spent at all those other companies when people (who saved money by hiring illegal immigrants) shop?

                  • on the road

                    Are you advocating illegal activity, dummy?

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Everything purchased by an illegal includes sales tax. Every dollar they spend goes into the pockets of more Americans and helps the economy, according to your theory.

                    Your stupid, stupid, incredibly stupid theory.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    The ones that work send much of what they earn home, to Mexico, and they don't pay into SS or federal and state income taxes. Plus many are on government dole.

                  • Spanky2

                    "Everything purchased by an illegal includes sales tax. "

                    False.

                    In many areas where there are high concentrations of illegal aliens (Los Angeles, Phoenix for example) there are many businesses and stores which do not collect sales tax.

                    There is a huge untaxed underground economy among illegal immigrants.

                    Furthermore, by keeping more than the intended number of children in a domicile, they are not paying their share of property or state income taxes used to fund schools.

                  • Spanky2

                    I am intrigued but not surprised by the frequency of name-calling and personal attacks you employ. Do you find those techniques to be effective at swaying people to your position?

                  • Hannitized

                    I can see why those techniques are employed. You offered hyperbole to distract from the conversation, then you acted the jack-ahole when you snub tellers because of your political bias and then finally you pretend harming the Girl Scouts is not low-class.

                  • Spanky2

                    Intentionally harming the Boy Scouts of America, as liberals have done for years and continue to do every chance they get, is incredibly low-class.

                    The liberal anti-BSA movement is well documented.

                    Concerning GSA cookies, no one has demonstrated that Walmart's actions hurt them.

                    It has been argued that people don't buy products from the GSA for the products themselves, but just to make a donation.

                    Also it has been pointed out that other companies already make cookies similar to those sold by the GSA.

                    Thank you for setting up this opportunity to demonstrate the duplicitous nature of the liberal mindset.

                    You're clearly abusing the GSA for your own anti-Walmart agenda. You don't seem to care a bit about the facts of the situation.

                  • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

                    The sockpuppet is out again giving larry Liberal thumbs up. Yawn…

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Spanky, Hannitized is liberal larry. He has several accounts.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Not one of his many personalities is coherent.

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    Not many? Have you found any that are?

                  • Flame

                    Multiple Fractured Personalities aka a CRIS sufferer.

                  • Patriot2Opine

                    I may know exactly who this clown is now. I will do some digging. Achey, did you come out to play again?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    He already outed himself was William L. Bonilla. When we reposted the links to his professional information he gave us to brag about himself, he nearly wet himself and demanded we take down all of his info. Maybe he's so unhappy because he has to live with most of the city and the trans-island highway between him and the really good ocean views.

                  • Spanky2

                    Who is this William Bonilla?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    He's a narcissistic braggart who came to SAB riding a wave of ego to make himself feel like a conqueror. He's made a fool of himself a couple dozen times over, such as trolling a thread and then getting trolled when he did it, arguing for over 300 replies on the etymology of the word "camp". He's posted pics of himself to show how handsome he thinks he is, he's bragged about having sex with STD infected prostitutes as if using condoms makes him a sexual daredevil. He's just a minor salesman for a less than minor systems integrator in Hawaii last we heard, and has about the economic understanding of a three year old with brain damage.

                    He can't take being beaten in an argument, despite having no chance because of his self-delusion and ego-driven dissociation from reality. He therefore has a strong tendency to get into cut-paste, name calling, and distracting apple-orange and strawmen arguments over and over and over, extending threads for over a hundred replies at a time. People usually give up eventually, because trying tor reason with him is like teaching a pig to sing, and he then claims victory and dances around gloating over his non-existent victory.

                    That's who he is.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Cowards try to attack personally people they can not debate fairly.

                    He is someone that Proof and Suitepotato stalked because he is better looking than they are. And he did not post his link to his professional information, another right-wing extremist posted it to silence the opposition.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Here he is…………. William Bonilla, AKA liberal larry, party of edd and hannitized……………………………………………………………… He's gettin down…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCBT-rRHGmk&fe…

                  • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

                    how many fucken names does this clown have?

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    That's his ego again. He thinks that we are in awe of his looks and he thinks we are jealous over his male slut lifestyle. In reality, neither of us nor anyone else looks at him from any direction other than from overhead, in other words, we all look down on him and think he's a total assclown.

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    Cowards try to attack personally people they can not debate fairly.

                    Your own words condemn you Larry/Hanni.

                    You guys are economic illiterates.

                    ….kindly STFU.

                    Communist China loving, Girl Scout bashing piece of trash. You are cowardly.

                    Any other ridiculous comments?

                    you are too ignorant to understand this argument.

                    You idiot.

                    Thank you for showing your complete idiocy. You have officially become a fool.

                    That's because you are a conservative @sshole.

                    Communist China loving conservatives

                    Whistler you fvcking pussy!

                    I can say stupid hyperbole sh@t that doesn't make an argument, too.

                    conservatives are evil. You don't care about American values and morals.

                    Consider watching it before you continue to reveal your ignorance on the subject.

                    What a piece of trash you are.

                    That's because you are just an @sshole in general.

                    Asinine! …you are ignorant on the subject.

                    then you acted the jack-ahole

                    You are an economic illiterate.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Context. ;o)

                  • GodHelpUsAll912

                    P2O and myself remember this dude from another site. We lost track of how many accounts he has. He's been banned on many sites, so he has to make up new monikers. He has a troll girlfriend too.

                  • Flame

                    Are you sure it is a troll girlfriend and not his other hand? :)

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    Sources have told me her name is Rosy, aka Lefty Jurgens

                  • Greg in Alabama

                    I thought her name was Mary Jane Rottencrotch and that she wore pretty pink panties. Lee is disappointed.

                    <img src="http://i35.tinypic.com/107lylt.jpg&quot; border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    Ahh, he's failed to respond to my, our, torments lately. Since it's my Friday habit to unwind in here during the evening the predictably underemployed dolt has become silent and will remain so until well after happy hour is over in all of the time zones I observe on Friday. Then he'll be brave and bombard my spam box with his intense debate replies. Courage!

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Ahh, he's failed to respond to my, our, torments lately.

                    Was that supposed to be English?

                  • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

                    Nice picture. Yes!

            • RipVanBullwinkl

              "I hate computer controlled lathes and milling machines! "

              I sympathize, but try making an air foil pattern or a human femoral knee component from bar stock without them. The machinists skills are still there to produce the part, the weeks and/or months of calculations planning and stressing out over the tool path have just been taken away

              • Spanky2

                I was being sarcastic. Automation has provided many tremendous benefits, but the the angst of liberals and unions, has displaced a number of workers.

                • RipVanBullwinkl

                  I caught teh sarcasm. I'm not sure our "Liberal" friend did though. Hand that dumb A$$ a coordinate print out, a Bridgeport with a compound dividing head, and a print and the stupid **k would willingly turn $10k of titanium into recyclables in 5 minutes instead of asking for help… CNC….what's Obama got to do with this???

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  Nice sarcasm. Those of us familiar with machining know that ANY CNC machine requires a skilled machinist to set up, accurize, adjust, tune-up and otherwise make work right, but once we do that, we can run five or six and massively increase our productivity. My father has been in machining longer than I've been alive and even at his age can write his own CNC programs, and operate CNC machines.

                  If a skilled machinist can add CNC skills to his resume, he's worth far more than someone with great CNC skills and no real manual machining experience.

                  Here's my advice: learn to scrape ways by hand. It will endear you to the old timers.

                  • http://realitybasedbob.sayanythingblog.com/ realitybasedbob

                    CNC, did someone mention CNC?
                    I got one in January.

                    Heck of a tool.

                  • Spanky2

                    ITA!

          • liberal_larry10

            Comments from Spanky: All you need to know!

            And many grocery clerks are union, too. Of course, I avoid them whenever possible. When I go to a union store, I look for self-checkout. When a clerk invites me to use an empty lane, I tell them flatout that I prefer to use a non-union self-checkout system.

            Unions exist to extort money from business and to drive down productivity while increasing the ranks of their gangs.

            It's a good thing that Boy Scouts don't sell cookies, because then liberals would have a real dilemma. They hate the BSA because they organization doesn't think it's a wise idea to have gay scoutmasters taking young boys on overnight or weeklong camping trips.

            • Kevin Stowell

              "Comments from Spanky: All you need to know!"

              Pretty much. Frustrating, isn't it?

          • liberal_larry10

            Sig –

            Using technology in the enterprise market is good because it replaces manual labor jobs with tech jobs (or higher paying jobs). The company you work for can buy the software, hardware through distribution. Then sell and integrated the solution to Wal-Mart. I assume your company pays your healthcare? Yes, no?

            Now, imagine if Dell came in and sold what you are offering for 33% the cost, purchased all of their hardware in China, demanded the software be written in India and then your company paid you to sell the POS and WMS systems while working for minimum wage w/limited health insurance……. and then get back to me.

            • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

              Actually I no longer work for that company, but no, Dell could not do that since we had several patents on the technology being used. If they wanted to take the time and cost to do the R&D to develop their own and deliver it at a lower price – so be it. That's the free market, competition and capitalism. No one controls any market forever.

              As to my company paying my health care, not entirely no. Like most companies today, I pay a portion of the premium (25% currently, going up soon thanks to Obamacare, if the company decides to keep the plan at all) and they pay the balance. What it sounds like you want or demand, is that the company give their employees full coverage with no direct cost to the individual. That model has been tried thanks to the wage freezes in the 40's and the unions cooking it up as a way to make people think they were getting a better deal. Maybe then they were, but today all it does is suppress real wages. If instead of paying the costs of all these benefits, many of which are not wanted or needed (I don't need pre- or post- natal care for instance, nor do I want acupuncture, drug counseling or any of the other crap the government forces employers to include) in the vanilla plans forced on us by the government, the individual received that in wages they would have the means to shop their own plan and buy what suits their needs. But that would mean the government would have to give up control and people taking responsibility for themselves, something it seems many no longer want to do or are capable of.

              • di_da_is_alpha

                /// "…….. I pay a portion of the premium………" ///

                Actually, you pay it all. Your employer just deducts his cost for whatever gross pay your position is worth to him.

                • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

                  Yep – But getting people to understand that any job only has so much value to the employer is something that we just can't seem to make a large portion of the population understand. Some seem to have the idea that companies are just big benevolent societies that exist to create jobs and pay the employees. They forget that without growing and maintaining profits and a healthy balance sheet the company soon goes under. The difference between the socialist and capitalist writ large.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    Yup, and I notice that larry keeps saying that Wal-Mart won't "give" their employees health care coverage. The word "give" sums up a liberals understanding of business.

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    He doesn't have a clue WTF he's yacking about. After my father retired he took a job at a Walmart in Panama City just to keep busy, they provide health insurance and it's pretty good compared to what a lot of companies offer. His wife, my step mother, works there too, same plan and it takes good care of both of them. She's worked for Walmart since well before dad retired, after he retired they moved from Pa., Walmart located and set up a job in the Panama City store for her. That's some ****ty company, eh?

                  • RipVanBullwinkl

                    Heh, from the Liberal Larry POV I guess walmart denied my stepmother unemployment benefits by arranging a job for her in another city half way across the country before she and my father moved, those bastards!

                  • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com goon48

                    I like Walmart and I shop there and save a lot of money.

              • liberal_larry10

                The point is that manufacturing is not always as easy or as simple as stitching clothes together. You have a television, I assume? Watch "How it's Made" and see for yourself how different products are made and/or crafted. Some people spend their lives mastering a craft, as you do in your consulting/engineering or sales role.

                WalMart is demanding that those types of jobs pay slave labor wages so they can sell cheap things to poor people.

                If Dell were re-selling the WMS application, RFID tags and PowerEdge servers that host both the application and POS system running on a SQL or Oracle db, and demanded that all software/hardware be written and built overseas and then paid minimum wage salaries to their employees to sell the solution, it would crush the tech industry and reduce it to menial white collar work.

                You and I both know that would destroy our economy completely. Not to mention the quality of code writing and the deployment of the application as nobody worth their salt would stay in an industry that doesn't properly pay for the skill set to integrate those technologies and make them all work.

                You can pretend that destroying manufacturing wages isn't a big deal until it impacts the world you work in. Just because people in China are willing to do hard work for pennies does not mean the work is not hard and Americans should also work for pennies.

                • http://www.SayAnythingblog.com SigFan

                  You're right, there is a huge difference between a hand made Alvarez Yaeri and an inexpensive mass produced no name guitar. Unfortunately, most people can't afford the Alvarez, but a huge number can afford the latter. Same thing with anything else, if you can afford the Bugatti, buy the Bugatti, if not, buy a Chevy.

                  As to coders and applications development people, most of that is being jobbed out to India and Taiwan and Singapore and other places now, where people are in fact commoditizing software as they've done with just about everything when the market reaches the mass scale it has. The next "big thing"? Who knows, but for a time it will be rare and expensive, until there is enough demand for some entrepreneurial soul to figure out how to do it cheaply on a mass scale. That's the way it has always been, and unless socialism wins out and everything stagnates, the way it will always be.

                • di_da_is_alpha

                  /// "……….. so they can sell cheap things to poor people." ///

                  Why do you hate the poor?

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    Regressive logic says that if you spend like you're rich, you WILL BE rich. See also Obama administration.

                • Spanky2

                  I worked for a *major* computer manufacturing firm throughout the 70s.

                  We routinely subcontracted with Tata of India for work on operating systems and utilities. They did FANTASTIC work at a fraction of the cost.

                  This is nothing new.

              • liberal_larry10

                Why were all the comments deleted on this thread? Because Whistler recognized the arguments were crushing?

                • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                  No, because you never made them, or made them elsewhere and can't figure out the threading system and find them.

                • RipVanBullwinkl

                  More likely you're missing comments are just a figment of your overactive imagination. Nobody else has noticed comments being deleted and in the 6 years I've been around here the only comments I've ever noticed deleted contained pornographic images. Hell, some Liberal dipwad named "Buzz" even posted a readers thread titled along the lines of Kayne West is the dumbest n***** in the world, he was promptly banned, (which you whined about Billy, remember?) one of less than you can count on 1 hand to ever be banned from here, but his post was allowed to stay.

                • Greg in Alabama

                  They are under one of your other names? Perhaps a new one and you forgotten which name is which! That would be my guess.

                • Kevin Stowell

                  Polls show. . . you're full of crap, Larry.

          • Caedite_Eos

            "Show some balls!! "

            Why? Are you hungry?

          • Spanky2

            "Comments from Spanky: All you need to know! "

            And your point is what?

            Below are some of your gems from above. IMNHO, they summarize your approach to rational discussion of this topic pretty succinctly:
            You guys are economic illiterates.

            ….kindly STFU.

            Communist China loving, Girl Scout bashing piece of trash. You are cowardly.

            Any other ridiculous comments?

            you are too ignorant to understand this argument.

            You idiot.

            Thank you for showing your complete idiocy. You have officially become a fool.

            That's because you are a conservative @sshole.

            Communist China loving conservatives

            Whistler you fvcking pussy!

            I can say stupid hyperbole sh@t that doesn't make an argument, too.

            conservatives are evil. You don't care about American values and morals.

            Consider watching it before you continue to reveal your ignorance on the subject.

            What a piece of trash you are.

            That's because you are just an @sshole in general.

            Asinine! …you are ignorant on the subject.

            then you acted the jack-ahole

            You are an economic illiterate.

            What can we learn about liberal_larry from his posts?

            • Greg in Alabama

              That he is a lying sock puppet with no concept of irony or honor.

              • Spanky2

                It also appears that he leads with hate and name-calling.

                • di_da_is_alpha

                  Well, I cut him slack on the name calling cuz I do a bit of that myself. I try to do it in a mocking way, and not a hateful way, and since I don't KNOW that he's not trying to mock as well, I cut him slack. The sock puppet thing is dishonest though, and a bit strange.

                • liberal_larry10

                  I don't lead with it. I don't mind going there when you are throwing out idiotic hyperbole for the sake of being a douche, instead of debate.

                  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com suitepotato

                    You're the one not debating. ALL you've done is call names, repeat invented talking points that have been repeatedly disproven, and then called names some more because people refuse to agree to your delusional view of reality.

                  • liberal_larry10

                    Um, yeah Potatohead. I mean, it's not like books are written about Wal-Mart's immoral approach to the marketplace.

                    And nobody attacked Sears, Costco or the others for going after the market responsibly and according to American standards. It's all from my imagination.

                    Your jealousy of my good looks and charmed life has you in a rage.

                  • di_da_is_alpha

                    /// "Your jealousy of my good looks and charmed life has you in a rage." ///

                    If by "in a rage" you mean "laughing at my ineptitude and insecurity". And there are books "about Wal-Mart's immoral approach to the marketplace" ? I've gotta book too. It's about an old Indian burial ground where whatever is buried there comes back to life. Hahahahah.

                  • Spanky2

                    Checkout the poll a few posts lower.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    It briefly popped up when I was here earlier but wasn't able to get it back. I'll try again.

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    He's up to 86% B.S. and hate. Ha ha ha

                  • Kevin Stowell

                    "immoral"

                    Like a 'tard would know something about morality–bwaahhh hahaha

                • Kevin Stowell

                  Excelleeennntt.

            • Hannitized

              The stark contrast between your comments and mine could not be more apparent.

              My remarks are personal insults, your remarks reveal your deficient view of reality. Your frame of mind shows that you are incapable of logical debate because of your views on 1) The union 2) Workers 3) Liberals.

              You can't possibly argue intelligently when you make such stupid claims about the union that have no relevancy to how Wal-Mart chooses to do business.

              • Greg in Alabama

                Nice Job Hanni. Posting the exact same thing as your sockpuppet Larry. You don't even try to hide it anymore, do you?

              • Proof_Positive