[Vision2020] Walmart Gets Nod for Starting Work

[Garrett Clevenger]

Donovan satirizes:

"Now is the time to demand impossible standards of employers, and be as picky as possible about the kind of jobs we want."


Yes, let's bend over backwards for the Waltons. Instead of them relying on cheap labor in China, let's give them cheap labor here in Moscow! We need the jobs, after all, and who cares if we pollute the water manufacturing cheap stuff. At least Americans won't put toxins in stuff they'll sell to other Americans, right? We'll keep stuff even cheaper saving on fuel costs since we won't have to transport it half way round the world.

Yes, I want Walmart to keep growing and growing until all that's left are Walmart stores because their quality is sooo good, I don't really want accountability, and I love the Waltons so much I think they deserve a few more billion dollars. Who needs to make more than a couple bucks a day, anyway?


But seriously...

Walmarts sales are up 6.5% compareded to last year. The irony is, as people get poorer, they need cheaper things, and they're less likely to care why things are so cheap, and who's making the majority of the $$$. A terrible downward spiral.

Many people don't know or care that the family who owns Walmart is one of the richest families on the planet. As of last September, 4 of the top 10 riches Americans are Waltons on Forbes Riches Americans list, with a total net worth of almost $100 billion.

According to http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/54/400list08_Jim-Walton_JI38.html

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer: 7,300 stores, 2 million employees serve 200 million customers. Sales: $378 billion


Walmart may provide jobs in their ever-expanding business, and insure we have cheap stuff, but at what cost?

In order for the Waltons to become super-billionaires, most other people are losing out. There is a finite amount of wealth and resources, so to think that the Waltons could amass such wealth without causing other people to loss money is idiotic.

Someone has to pay for their billions, and while they may provide cheap stuff for the poor people they exploit, they are causing an unsustainable trade deficit supporting foreign companies that have lax labor and environmental laws who sell to Walmart toxic toys and food that Walmart then pushes on to poor Americans who in turn help cause the downfall of smaller, family-owned and independent stores, who can't sell as cheap stuff because they don't have the buying power, they actually try to pay their employees a living wage and they don't have the political clout to gain tax-breaks from towns so desperate to create jobs and have cheap stuff that they are willing to sacrifice downtowns to the holy Walton empire who will then be able to hire Americans because in order to compete with foreign labor we now are willing to work for nothing in polluted environments. Who needs high standards, anyway!

I can accept that if you don't know that the Waltons are exploiting people to make their billions you might support them, but if you're smart enough to put two and two together and give your money to Walmart, you are culpable in allowing Walmart to continue to drive American wages down, and possibly lower our labor and environmental standards in order to compete.

It seems rather selfish that in order to maintain access to addictive cheap stuff some would sacrifice the overall security of our country. Thus why the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. 

Fight for the right of poor people to have access to cheap stuff with one hand, drive the stake into the heart of poor people with the other. How ironic!

Now is exactly the time to start building the foundation of a new economic model, not continue to pour trillions into what obviously is a discredited system with Walmart leading the charge. (Charge it to future generations, that is...)

gclev