Home Depot Founder: Retailers Who Don't Support GOP "Should Be Shot"

[catgirl]

Blog link from Huffington Post:

This is what Home Depot's founder Bernie Marcus said on a conference call yesterday:

If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.

It's nice to know Home Depot supports the death penalty for not contributing to their favored political causes.



http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1872

[enki23]

1. ok then... menards it is.

.

[TwilightGardener]

3. LOL! That's my first thought. Although I already pay Menards' light bill, since

we've been renovating our old house for five effin' years now. Lowe's for the higher-end stuff.

[Cha]

50. I hear Lowes is a Blue

Company..I hope I'm right on that.

[electron_blue]

11. dang. I'll second that.

[frylock]

2. and that's why i shop at lowes

[Schema Thing]

6. Me too, now. I probably spend at least 10K per year there in my business.

[snooper2]

13. Me too, $1000's a year remodeling...

Fuck Off Home Depot..

Hope you fuckers go under

[kiranon]

43. I'll stop shopping at Home Depot as of yesterday. Lowe's it is.

Or the local hardware/lumber store.

[uponit7771]

62. +1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[budkin]

63. Unfortunately Lowe's is almost as big a contributor to the GOP

I learned that in the BuyBlue days.

[babylonsister]

4. Yes, and I suppose it's the retailers' fault that the economy is in the

toilet. Poor lil guy is missing his profits. :cry:


Home Depot 3Q profit falls 31 percent

By ASHLEY M. HEHER – 1 day ago

CHICAGO (AP) — The Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest home improvement chain, said Tuesday that its third-quarter profit sank by nearly a third as shoppers scaled back on everything from custom kitchens to lumber and flooring.

The company also forecast a steeper drop in full-year sales due to the still-challenging housing and home improvement markets that are vexing the industry.

"You all obviously know that this is a difficult environment," said Chief Executive Frank Blake. "The view we had at the start of the quarter, that we might be nearing the bottom, ... gave way to the financial crisis in September and beyond."

more...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j7wwVpEOFjZVm9gar37DjIlOKZHQD94HED580

[Cha]

53. With a Founder like Bernie Marcus

I'm not surprised..thanks for the article, babylonsis.

[City Lights]

5. Thanks, Bernie, for giving me another reason to never set foot in a Home Despot.

Luckily, we have a Menards and a Lowe's near us.

on edit - Here's more "wisdom" from Bernie:

Near the top of labor's agenda is the Employee Free Choice Act, a.k.a. "card check," the legislation that will make it easier for workers to form a union by signing cards instead of by secret ballot in the workplace. Mr. Obama was a co-sponsor of last year's version of the card-check bill and has vowed to sign it when it is finally passed by the incoming Congress.

<...>

Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don't, and business doesn't want that to change. Consider the remarks made by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott at an analyst meeting on Oct. 28, when he was asked about the possible coming of card check: "We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

And hear the lamentations of the billionaires. "This is the demise of a civilization," moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. "This is how a civilization disappears. I'm sitting here as an elder statesman, and I'm watching this happen, and I don't believe it."

Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the "low hanging fruit" and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation's CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. "This is as important as anything that's ever happened to these companies. And they're not reacting, and they're not fighting. The old time fighters are gone."

<...>

Mr. Marcus may snarl, but he doesn't bark. His is the voice of a business class rediscovering its ancestral zeal for combat. Liberals should take heed. If they thought the "Harry and Louise" campaign that sank Hillary Clinton's health-care reform was dirty, they should know they ain't seen nothing yet.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705706314639537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[madwivoter]

17. John Menard (Menards) isn't any better

Political donations (the only Democrat he's donated money to is Ron Kind):

http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/John_Menard.php

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=7726

<snip>
John Menard can be, Nohl wrote, "cruelly demanding with employees." That's putting it mildly. Some examples:

Menards managers must sign agreements in which they consent to being personally penalized for things that go wrong. For instance, having 15 carts in the parking lot draws a $10 fine. And they must pay $100 per minute if they open late.

Managers are forbidden from building their own homes, as protection against the possibility that they may steal building materials. And private investigators have been hired to check whether employees who undertake even minor home-improvement projects are using pilfered supplies.

Eldon Helget, a Menards lumber yard manager in Burnsville, Minnesota, felt he needed to build a new home to accommodate his wheelchair-bound daughter. So he accepted a demotion with a $15,000 salary cut. When John Menard learned of this deal, he fired Helget. And then, when another lumber yard offered him a job, Helget had to go to court to get out from under a Menards contract clause that barred him from working for a competitor for a year.

Menards is aggressively anti-union. Norm Baumann, a former assistant store manager in Wausau, said he was made to attend a day-and-a-half-long seminar about fighting unions. "If a person had ever worked at a union shop, you couldn't hire them," Baumann told the magazine, adding that he once had to fire two promising management trainees because they had worked in high school as baggers at a unionized grocery store.

Dissent or disagreement of any kind is not tolerated. Steve Faber, a former store manager in Iowa, said he suddenly began getting negative reviews and was ultimately replaced (he was offered a lower-paying job but quit instead) after he questioned a new rule requiring managers to pay a $200 deductible if a delivery driver they hired was in an accident. (I'm not making this up.)

According to former store manager Scott Bropst, Menards once deducted $2,000 from the bonus of a manager in North Dakota, on top of reducing his pay, because he put in just 35 to 40 hours -- not the required 55 -- when his wife gave birth to triplets, two of whom eventually died.

Menards has a long history of being an environmental scofflaw, paying at least $3.8 million in fines since 1976 for ignoring or violating state law. In 1997, John Menard was caught using his own pickup truck to haul ash contaminated with chromium and arsenic to his home, to toss out with the regular trash.
<snip>

Just sayin....

[City Lights]

23. Thanks for the information!

I hadn't heard that about Menards. All the horror stories I've read about home improvement stores have involved Home Depot.

I guess that leaves Lowe's...unless you've got something on them. ;-)

[madwivoter]

33. The option is to choose the lesser of the available evils

Sometimes people don't have a choice and have to shop at stores they would prefer not to.

We try to shop at our local (smaller) hardware stores, there's a Lowe's in the area but it's about 50 miles away, we'll use them when we have a bigger home improvement project.

[enki23]

28. jesus, you can't fucking win with these assholes.

i'll try to minimize all of them, i guess... but jesus. seriously. i don't hate business. i just hate the vast majority of businessmen.

[Doremus]

67. OMG! That guy puts Scrooge to shame.

He sounds like a creature without a decent bone in his body. Pure evil.

It would be sweet justice to watch him get his someday. If there are no other casualties in the economic crisis, I hope his company gets hammered out of existence and that sick freak can't do diddly about it. Employees, current and former, would give a standing ovation and so would I.

May it be so.

[thoughtcrime1984]

69. Yep, he is strongly disliked right here in his hometown of EC.

Your post about sums it up. He terrorizes employees, thumbs his nose at the law, and doesn't donate any of his billion$ to charitable causes. A reeeaaalllll Munson.

[Cha]

60. Liberals have taken heed and this one will

not shop in a fucking Home Depot again. Liberals need home improvements, too..which they seem too dense to realize:silly:

[jobycom]

7. Well, to be fair...

He might have meant only to wound them, since he wants to fire them after shooting them.

Funny how so many businessfolk are so in love with the party that has caused all their problems.

[Bake]

24. He must be a lousy shot!

He wasn't much better as a CEO. I'm sorry, I meant "elder statesman."

What a freakin' EGO!!!!!

Bake

[WI_DEM]

8. I never go to Home Depot anyway and now never will.

[xultar]

9. I already don't shop there. I will make sure EVERYONE hears this.

[Cha]

57. Thank you! What an awful thing for the Founder of Home Depot

to think much less say.. on so many levels.

[high density]

10. This guy wants all the money to flow upward...

Which of course leaves nothing left for the people who would actually consider spending money in his store.

[1corona4u]

19. HELLO???

read the thread, he has NOTHING to do with HD anymore. Jesus. I know the OP wanted to start some shit with this post, and seems to have worked. As I said below, HD is a VERY diverse workplace, and I will staunchly defend them in this regard.

This comment came from the FOUNDER, who is retired, not the people running the stores. Get a grip people.

[catgirl]

46. No, I didn't post this to "start some shit"

The conference call was about "card check". Please read the article before you start accusing me of this. Obviously Marcus still carries some weight, or he wouldn't have been on the call.

From the article:

Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don't, and business doesn't want that to change. Consider the remarks made by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott at an analyst meeting on Oct. 28, when he was asked about the possible coming of card check: "We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

And hear the lamentations of the billionaires. "This is the demise of a civilization," moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. "This is how a civilization disappears. I'm sitting here as an elder statesman, and I'm watching this happen, and I don't believe it."

Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the "low hanging fruit" and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation's CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. "This is as important as anything that's ever happened to these companies. And they're not reacting, and they're not fighting. The old time fighters are gone."

[1corona4u]

51. FORMER...."former CEO of The Home Depot"

enough said.

[catgirl]

64. Just like it says in the title of my post

What's your point/beef? I didn't call for a boycott, so lay off/chill out.

[1corona4u]

68. You need glasses....or something.....

the word FORMER does NOT appear in the title of your thread.

My point is; your post is drawing unnecessary fire to Home Depot, when there is NO reason for it. Bernie is NOT involved with the day to day management of HD, and has not been for 6 years. You've got people promising to boycott HD, because someone no longer involved with them made a stupid comment.

I have a lot of friends who work there, and they ALL voted for Obama, so I guess those who do boycott don't give a shit about other innocent people. Yeah, let's just punish everyone. :eyes:

Doesn't matter anyway, those who say they will boycott, and those that actually do, are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

[catgirl]

72. I can't control where people shop

Perhaps they try to support blue stores and avoid stores that always donate red. Maybe the
employees should act- that's what I would do.

Either way, there was a conference call with a big business slant, where stupid comments were
made dissing any retailer that donated to democratic campaigns. THAT'S where the outrage should
lie.

[Redbear]

12. For what it's worth. Marcus retired from Home Depot six years ago

He's just another billionaire.

[1corona4u]

15. Exactly.

[1corona4u]

14. Bernie has nothing to do with HD now...and hasn't for a long time.

By the way, Home Depot is a very diverse workplace. There is not discrimination whatsoever there.

[BeFree]

31. Well then

HD needs to take him out back and shoot him. Justice and karma, eh?

[Arugula Latte]

16. I need paint for the kitchen. I'm going to Lowe's.

[zulchzulu]

18. Home Depot has always given me the creeps

It wreaks of Repigs and the people always look like they've been ridin' hard and put away wet.

I go to Menard's or Farm and Fleet... no Lowe's around here yet.

[happychatter]

20. Lowes has better ladders

deleted text

he's not HD anymore, eh?

[yourguide]

21. Lowe's it is then.

[panader0]

22. I just e-mailed them to tell them

that I won't shop there anymore, and that Bernie's comment is going to result in a vast left wing boycott.

[1corona4u]

39. LOL....OMG

Yeah, that's going to happen. FYI, not everyone who works for HD is a republican. I have worked closely with them for the last 8 years, and from upper management, all the way down to associate, there are democrats, and independents in every store.

This is just ridiculous bullshit.

Shop where you want, who gives a flying fuck, but there is NO 'vast left wing boycott' happening.

I'll continue to shop there, BECAUSE I have about 40 friends who work there, and ALL of them voted FOR OBAMA!!!!!!

[RedLetterRev]

25. When BuyBlue.org was still alive

it listed Lowe's as Blue and Home Despot as Red as evidenced by their donations. I just checked and BuyBlue.org still hasn't come back online, unfortunately.

I haven't bought anything from HD for years because every time I got something from there, it had been pawed-over and put back on the shelf broken or incomplete. Screw that. If I'm going to pay a new price, I want new merchandise.

I always get what I want in Lowe's. I don't care who is or isn't at the helm of HD, it's still a shitty store with shitty merch, and the help have shitty attitudes. If Lowe's doesn't have what I want right then, they'll order it and get it to me, and I'm always treated like a human being. Plus, since I'm in NC, I'd rather support an NC-based business. Rain on a buncha HD. It deserves to die.

[Stargazer09]

42. I prefer Lowe's, too

The Home Depot stores I've visited did seem to be poorly run. Messy. It seemed like the staff didn't want to be there.

I liked the way Lowe's works with local contractors. Sure, I could get blinds and garage door openers installed by hiring my own contractors, but I don't know them and don't have time to go through the interview and estimate process. We just went to Lowe's and they handled the details, and we were very happy with the price and the work.

[wryter2000]

26. Yikes

I already hated that place, but now I have a good reason to stay the hell out of there. Darn it, they were the only place I could find my bell pepper starts last year.

[TwilightGardener]

30. Yeah, and they do have Behr paints, which I like--although Valspar at Lowes is good too.

[XOKCowboy]

27. I'll still stop by for the hot dogs outside the exit...

of my local HD but that's all.

Here's a guy who took a good company and ran it into the ground and he still feels free to give advice. Lowe's it is.

[ORDagnabbit]

29. I'm done with home depot. n/t

[Javaman]

32. meh, he's panicing. his company is circling the drain and like most repukes

rather than take a massive pay cut and do the hard work to keep his corp together he chooses to go postal for his failures.

[skeewee08]

34. Lowes here we come!

[DefenseLawyer]

35. Arthur Blank, the co-founder and former CEO of Home Depot

gave a ton of money to President Elect Obama. But, like Marcus, he is retired and has nothing to do with the management of Home Depot anymore, so I am not sure where that leaves your boycott.

[bullwinkle428]

70. He also gave money to Romney, Lieberman, and the GA Republican party,

so he seems willing to spread his money around a bit...

http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/Arthur_Blank.php

[Connie_Corleone]

36. Loews is better anyway. I never go to Home Depot.

[tabbycat31]

37. home depot just lost a customer

Hello Lowe's

[AspenRose]

38. Well isn't he a little ray of sunshine

Lowe's is better anyway

[LynnTheDem]

40. Well there goes my planned shopping at Home Depot tonight.

Or any other night.

THANKS, BM, for letting me know where NOT to spend my money!

[1corona4u]

41. Sure, just take it out on the employees of HD...

because that's what will happen. If the 'boycott' happens. People will lose their jobs, or be cut back to PT, lose their benefits....yeah, you all know where to hit a company...:eyes:

Stupid ass idea.

[LynnTheDem]

73. They can all go get jobs at the competitors' businesses.

I spend my money as I deem proper.

Period.

[carnie_sf]

44. This is exactly why I like

local lumber yards and mom and pop hardware stores. A number one, you usually get to know the owner pretty well. Also they tend not to have the disposable income to get involved in national politics on a grand scale. It's time for America to kick the chain store habit.

[southpaw]

45. Not sure if Lowe's is any better

but at least they aren't Home Despot.

[catgirl]

47. They donate to dems

[1corona4u]

54. Yeah, let's just sort out the population by who they donate too...

:eyes: simple minds, simple solutions. :eyes:

[catgirl]

65. I was answering someone's question

stop harrassing people on this thread.

[Thrill]

48. HUH? I thought Arthur Blank was a big Obama supporter?

[AlCzervik]

52. Blank isn't Marcus. I worked for HD and the Expo design center for 7 years and it

once long ago was a good company to work for until Bob Nardelli took over. One day i was walking through flooring and on an end cap there were crockpots for sale, i knew that was the end.

[1corona4u]

55. I have to agree with you on that. I HATE Nardelli.

he really fucked up HD.

[Cha]

49. Rec'd! Remind me not to shop at home fucking depot.

..I will not support a$$holes like this.

[beachmom]

56. This guy neither heads nor owns Home Depot anymore. So don't stick

it to my city, Atlanta, based on a guy who no longer is associated with the retail chain.

I want to know who the nimrods on the other line were listening to him.

[RebelOne]

58. I haven't shopped at Home Depot since I heard Bernie Marcus

was a big Bush supporter. Lowe's is right across the street from Home Depot and that's where I always shop.

[jpak]

59. No more Home Despot for me - Hello Lowes

:hi:

[Sebastian Doyle]

61. Last time I went into my local Home Depot was in 2003

They had signs all over the place that said "we support the troops AND the president".

I haven't been in there since. If any retailers should be "shot", I'd vote for the ones who supported this goddamn slide into fascism. Guess that means YOU, Bernie?

[Erin Elizabeth]

66. Thank you. Just the push I needed to start supporting

the little hardware stores in my town. The two that are left. Or one. But I know there's at least one and it's out of my way, but I'll be DAMNED if I'm giving another red cent to Home Depot.

[PatSeg]

71. I haven't been to Home Depot in years

Marcus was a big supporter of Bush and cheered when Bush ranted against "frivolous junk lawsuits", because there have been so many against Home Depot due to negligence. Like very heavy items falling on customers and sometimes killing them! Very frivolous!