Wal-Mart Takes On the World

[kysrsoze]

Facing mounting legal problems and having reported its first quarterly earnings miss in seven years, retail colossus Wal-Mart has looked almost vulnerable in recent weeks. But anyone predicting the retail giant is on the decline had better think again, industry analysts say, as its recent overseas expansion is expected to pay off handsomely.

http://msnbc.com/news/995008.asp?0cv=CB20


Great, so now they can f*ck the whole planet by paying sub-sub-sub-poverty-level wages in other countries and putting all those mom&pop shops out of business too.

[goforit]

1. The Bad just seem to get "Badder"

:argh:

[jpgray]

2. Wal-mart has to be stopped. (nt)

[alexwcovington]

3. It's like napalm for the global economy

or Agent Orange for high standards of living.

[DrZhivago]

6. Wal-Mart will not have anywhere near the same level of success

in underdeveloped countries as it does here. The cost of maintaining (and moving/selling)their inventory will be astronomical compared to their sales. People in 3rd world countries don't have the disposable income we do. They don't commute as much and generally don't have the need for a Wal-Mart type store. Wal-Mart would only make any money because of the novelty factor of having a Wal-Mart, but it would fizzle as other successful american chains have fizzled.
Hopefully moving into underdeveloped countries will lead to the demise of Wal-Mart as we know it. Let 'em open one in Beijing!

[okoboji]

8. actually ....

there is already a Wal-Mart opened in China...

http://www.wal-martchina.com/

and guess where most of the workers live? In an apartment complex that is part of the store.

[sasquatch]

10. "Owe my soul to the company store"

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Amazingly

WallyWorld contributes 2.3% of the GNP for our country. Wal-mart is just one path on the roadmap for us on our way to a total depression.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. When the Oil runs low ...

... and the price goes high, where will Wal-Mart be?

Wal-Mart uses interstate trucking to move its merchandise around. Of course, so does every other retail store in the country.

So in five or ten years, when the price of oil skyrockets from the added expense of pumping the deeper oil up out of the ground, what will happen to Wal-Mart?

Like the rest of the retail-chain world, they're living on borrowed time. They want to make hay while the sun shines. Wal-Mart will fall hard when the economy changes from global back to local while we scramble to find new energy sources and compensate for what we've used up.

That would be a good thing, except for the fact that unless our leaders start planning for it now, such a change in energy prices would put the economy in the toilet. If Bush hasn't managed to do it before that time.

--bkl

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. Don't bet on it

Wal-Mart has distribution centers all over the place. They rail most of their goods from the ports as far as they can and their trucks dont have an excessive average length-of-haul. Fuel costs add up, to be sure, but they wont have that much of an impact. With a fleet as large as they have now, they can command truck and engine manufacturers to build them what they want. High fuel costs will be made up in the same way they make up everything else. Force suppliers down and keep wages depressed. It is an amazingly simple, yet treacherous strategy.

[specimenfred1984]

9. WMT Soon Hiring illegal Americans

They'll hire poor Americans who fleed the US to clean WMT parking lots in Germany. These Americans will be republicans who lost everything when they invested in "The Bush Economy".

They will spend the rest of their lives misunderstood as they attempt to explain to Germans that "it's all Clinton's fault". There only saving grace will be neo-Nazi groups who will accept them only after bizarre S&M hazing rituals very similar to the Skull & Bones initiations.

Sadly, the idiot repukes will also be referred to as "Ameri-trash" and many will be jailed after being arrested in a large Wal-Mart Germany sting. Lacking any legal support, they'll rot on a cold cement floor.



Ahhhhhhhhhh, yawn, Man, I just had the greatest dream!