Walmarts Latest Scheme to Replace the Middle Class With an Underclass Forced to Buy its Shoddy Goods

[madokie]

Almost 30 years ago, as the U.S. was bleeding jobs, Walmart launched a "Buy America" program and started hanging "Made in America" signs in its 750 stores. It was a marketing success, cementing the retailer's popularity in the country's struggling, blue-collar heartland. A few years later, NBC's Dateline revealed the program to be a sham . Sure, Walmart was willing to buy U.S.-made goods — so long as they were as cheap as imports, which, of course, they weren't. Dateline found that Walmart's sourcing was in fact rapidly shifting to Asia.

This year, Walmart is back with a new "Buy America" program. In January, the company announced that it would purchase an additional $50 billion worth of domestic goods over the next decade. This week, Walmart is convening several hundred suppliers, along with a handful of governors, for a summit on U.S. manufacturing .

This sounds pretty substantial, but in fact it's just a more sophisticated and media savvy version of Walmart's hollow 1980s Buy America campaign. For starters, $50 billion over a decade may sound huge at first, but measured against Walmart's galactic size, it's not. An additional $5 billion a year amounts to only 1.5 percent of what Walmart currently spends on inventory.

Worse, very little of this small increase in spending on American-made goods will actually result in new U.S. production and jobs. Most of the projected increase will simply be a byproduct of Walmart's continued takeover of the grocery industry. Most grocery products sold in the U.S. are produced here. As Walmart expands its share of U.S. grocery sales — it now captures 25 percent, up from 6 percent in 1998 — it will buy more U.S. foods. But this doesn't mean new jobs, because other grocers are losing market share and buying less. What it does mean is lower wages. As I reported earlier this year, Walmart's growing control of the grocery sector is pushing down wages throughout food production .

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/walmarts-latest-scheme-replace-middle-class-underclass-forced-buy-its-shoddy-goods

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. People have no idea.

They say that to move the manufacturing back to America, America needs to be competitive with China in terms of labor costs. So recently I went to a site and checked out cost of living, and wages in China. The wages were very low, (less than our minimum wage in many cases) but so was the cost of living. We're talking $300 a month for rent, $0.50 for Mocha, $0.89 for beer, $14 for bus pass that costs $50 here, basically a price cut across the board of 50% for everything, except for Levis Nike and Fords.

But the American globalists don't want to talk about that, they just want the 50% reduction in wages for Americans. What they don't say is that every American business has to cut its prices by 50% after that to provide a standard of living remotely comparable with China, or basically to maintain civilization. So that means every business owner, every land lord getting their income cut in half to fulfil the globalist agenda. But they try to cover this up. "Don't worry, cutting the wages of your customers in half won't have ANY effect of what they can spend at your store!" And they get away with it. Its stunning.

[greymattermom]

3. if all prices are low

This is a currency, not a wage issue.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. Could be, I've heard that about China.

But the picture is pretty complex, other things, particularly real estate, is way more expensive, and owned by the rich. (Their wealth inequality is about the same as ours, by Gini index). But there is one entirely separate economy for the working class and one for the rich, that's how it looks. Its a strange picture.

[Demeter]

7. +10 to the tenth

There's a lot of things about the plan to reduce the US to 3rd world economy that doesn't add up. But these aren't people with a capacity to look at the bigger picture, and their insignificant part in it. They can only steal and destroy. They cannot create and grow. They are worse than bored monkeys.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. .

.

[leveymg]

4. Walmart = Antitrust violation on a Titanic scale. Break it up.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for labor. n/t

-Laelth

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

6. I read a book titled 'The Walmart Effect'

That explained how they just screwed all these suppliers that got hitched to them,much like their workers,much like the governments that have to prop up their business with welfare payments to their workers. These people have to unionise to survive ...they will at least stick up for them. It's a national disgrace working people can't meet their costs of living. My father had an expression he'd used a lot that was "two bob millionaires" in describing how people with a bit of money in their pocket suddenly felt they were better than other people and forgot we're all in it together. Call me a pinko but capitalism isn't working!!!!

[dmr]

8. Reminds me of how they screwed Vlassic pickles

An excellent expose from December, 2003:

http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

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.

- More at link -

[onethatcares]

10. I read something similar

about the Huffy bikes it sells. At first Huffy was happy to sell as many units as they would buy, then the meeting about Huffy shedding a part of their profit came in, then the profit margin got slimmer and slimmer and the only way Huffy could provide the product and stay in business was to buy cheaper parts from guess where?.

I notice when they are building a store they advertise for help but want to only employ those companies that have "Walmart experience".

That's probably a hint about the hit the companies are going to take.

a gallon jar of pickles would go bad in my house before they were eaten. That would be a win for wm.

[tjwash]

11. I'm playing necromancer on this thread - you NAILED it!

The Olympics have been spammed every commercial break with walmart "creating jobs" ads that are this exact thing...