My coworkers are loudly singing the praises of Wally World at this precise moment.

[KamaAina]

One just bragged about telling someone off because he opposed Wal-Mart's anti-union stance. :eyes: Others are enraptured by those low prices -- even the ones who have to drive five miles each way to get to Sprawl-Mart.

Go ahead. Keep shopping there. Before too much longer, national grocery chains like Safeway will start closing older stores, like the one down the street from me, leaving me with no place to shop without riding transit. Won't that be swell? :sarcasm:

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I live in the true home of Wally World and my local IGA can beat them on price on about 50% of the

items. I would never eat meat nor 'cakes' from them.

[nosmokes]

4. so give 'em the facts

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/index_alt2.html

and then let 'em know they're heartless godless sonsobitches if they continue to spend their wealth there and will not get into heaven.

[Zephie]

13. Their cakes are the worst!

Every year my aunt gets them to give to people on their birthday and every year no one eats them except her. It's awkward.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. So they support Communisim?

cause most of the stuff for sale at Wally World comes from Communist China and is manufactured by Communists.

Show your support for Communists by sending them your American paycheck? Hmmmm

[KamaAina]

3. These people were talking mostly about the food at the Supercenters

that better not come from China, or half the office will be down with melamine poisoning. :eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. That doesn't come from China -

it comes from Central America, Chile, New Zealand...

[southernyankeebelle]

5. What to do people want from us. I hate to shop at W. M. but I live on a

fixed income. That is the only place I can afford to buy. I know there are many people in the same boat. I have relatives that work there. What about supporting them. They have to make a living.

[KamaAina]

10. Well, I have to eat

What do I do if Sprawl-Mart drives traditional grocers out of business? Move so as to be near them? (I don't drive.) :shrug:

[SoCalNative]

14. I fail to see how they could drive a grocery chain

out of business.

[SoCalDem]

19. easy.. they have been doing it since Walmart started up

They undercut on prices & the chains tried to compete by stiffing the union workers, and then the endless "mergers" started. Every time there was a "merger". older , less- profitable stores closed down, which forced locals to drive farther to shop..then a large pool of recently ousted former supermarket employees, put more pressure on unions to give back more concessions with the next contract.

The closed down stores often became non-union "privately owned" markets (around here they became Mexican markets..which I actually like:)...

Once there are only a few major markets in the area, they have less to compete with and places like walmart will always undercut them, so as sales drop, so do hours for the employees who are working harder than ever, with fewer raises & added health care costs... because they fear losing that union job..

15 years ago we had 2 Ralphs, A Safeway , a Vons and a Von-Pavillion, 2 Stater Brothers, a Hughes Market, a Smiths, 2 Food-4-Lesses, 3 Lucky Stores, an A & P close by....

and now with double the population we have lost MOST of those stores, but we have Costco, 2 Walmarts, 2 Targets, 4 Mexican markets, 2 Stater Bros , a Fresh & Easy, 2 Food 4 Lesses & an Albertsons.

[grace0418]

21. They lower prices on groceries until all the local competitors close. They're big enough

to take the loss for awhile (not to mention how little they pay their employees). Then when they have no competition, they raise their prices. Happens all the time.

[KamaAina]

31. They don't have to drive the whole chain out of business

just get them to retrench enough to start closing older locations (no in-store bakery, etc.) in less affluent areas like mine.

[SoCalNative]

15. Everybody

lives on a fixed income, even if you work

[napi21]

7. I NEVER shop at WM & if you really compare prices, you will find

other grocery stores are very competative in their pricing and actually BEAT WM prices on some items. I do the same thing with all grocery stores. I have 3 popular supermarkets withing the same distance of my house, and I always check the weekly ads for each one of them and build my meals for the week around those ads. I do much better on my food expenses than someone who just goes to WM and I get much better meats, produce & bakery items than those people do.

[Recursion]

9. Wal~Mart is invariably cheapest for little plastic crap

Groceries it seems to be about the same as everywhere else.

[nc4bo]

8. I hope they checked their receipts with the price on the shelves?

Walmart's getting very sleazy with that. In addition, sometimes name brands of the same item and size/weight is cheaper than the Walmart brand.

And lastly, not all Walmart's have the same pricing. Walmart A may have AAA batteries for $5 but a Walmart in the next town may be selling the same batteries for $7.

Buyer beware even at Walmart.

[gmoney]

24. Pricing varies by neighborhood at some chains

I shop a fair amount at Walgreens (no relation to WalMart) for snacks and "personal care items" and various other stuff. One store in a basically middle to upper-middle class area, another in a "low rent" area of town, and the prices at the "low rent" store are routinely 20% higher than the other store. My guess is that they justify it because of higher security costs and greater shoplifting loss, whether or not that's actually true. Both are right across the street from Kroger stores, so they do have competition, but I'd guess the Kroger prices are higher downtown as well.

Same deal with Taco Bell... the urban one's pricing is generally 20% higher across the board.

So, I'm guessing WalMart and other chains vary their prices, depending on location.

[napi21]

11. I NEVER shop at WM & if you really compare prices, you will find

other grocery stores are very competative in their pricing and actually BEAT WM prices on some items. I do the same thing with all grocery stores. I have 3 popular supermarkets withing the same distance of my house, and I always check the weekly ads for each one of them and build my meals for the week around those ads. I do much better on my food expenses than someone who just goes to WM and I get much better meats, produce & bakery items than those people do.

I also don't have to deal with all the angry customers that WM seems to attract.

[Zephie]

12. Well OBVIOUSLY you should stop being a lazy bum...

And get a damn car! :sarcasm:
...Actually we'll probably be getting those there one of these days soon too.

[JuniperLea]

16. They are part of the problem...

When you buy all that crap (and I do mean CRAP) at Sprawl-Mart, you support all the jobs we sent to China and make it all the more likely those jobs won't come back.

[grace0418]

18. Not to mention all the government assistance used by Walmart employees (because they

don't make enough to survive) costs all taxpayers money in the long run.

[grace0418]

17. I was in Trader Joes buying sugar a few months ago. I hardly ever use it except to

make preserves and do holiday baking, so I don't need a lot. But when I buy it, I prefer it to be minimally refined and from sustainable sources.

Anyway, I'm in line at Trader Joes and another shopper approaches me and says "You can buy a bigger bag of that cheaper at Walmart." I don't know whether he meant just sugar in general or that particular brand of sugar. But I replied "Thanks but I don't shop at Walmart."

I don't know if he misunderstood or if he thought I didn't know where one was (thankfully there aren't many in Chicago) so he repeated himself, then told me where one was. Again I replied "Thanks, but I do not shop at Walmart." He got kinda huffy at that point and said "Oh well, you stand on your principles, I'll go save some money."

"Sometimes 'saving money' comes at a price," I replied, "like when manufacturing jobs all go overseas for those 'always lower prices' and half of Walmart's employees have to get food stamps to survive. Do you think that doesn't cost us all in the end?"

At that point it was my turn to be checked out and I turned away. The cashier looked at me and just chuckled and shook her head. My neighborhood isn't exactly the Walmart demographic so I don't know what this guy thought he was going to accomplish, but give me Trader Joe's ANY day of the week. Whether it's prices, politics, variety, quality, or atmosphere, it's superior to Walmart in every way. I know not everyone has a TJ's but no matter where I live, Walmart would be the last place I shop.

[immoderate]

20. No TJs in south Florida...

I miss those chocolate covered cherries. Yum!

--imm

[grace0418]

28. I'm in love with the chocolate covered "power" berries.

I don't know if they have the cherries any more, they change stuff out a lot (my only major complaint with them).

[Cleita]

23. For what it's worth, I have noticed since doing the

majority of my shopping at Trader Joes I spend less money on groceries than at any of the big Supermarkets, even with club cards, coupons and specials thrown in. I'll bet if you shopped one week at TJs and another at Wal-Mart you would find over a period of three months that you spend less money at TJs.

[grace0418]

25. I'm certain of it. And you get better quality, more interesting stuff.

There so much interesting stuff at Trader Joe's, I can't live without it anymore. My husband and I always talk about moving out of state. Whenever we find somewhere interesting, my first question is "Is there a Trader Joe's nearby?" :)

[SheilaT]

22. I have not been inside a WalMart in

probably eight or ten years by now, so I never have the opportunity to compare prices there. But I certainly read that very often when actual comparison shopping is done, overall WalMart is NOT the cheapest. I also hear stories that many of the goods they sell, supposedly identical to the same goods elsewhere, are actually more shoddily made and wear out/fall apart much sooner.
:shrug:

I do know that by shopping carefully, using as little pre-prepared foods as possible, my grocery bill is reasonable. Like so many others I need to live frugally, and my income has dropped in recent years. But buying crap, whether its food crap or plastic crap or any other crap, is not a way to save money.

[grace0418]

27. I have only gone there for work in the last decade. We used to have to go see

how our products were placed in the store. I always went in there with much trepidation. The Walmart near my office was so dirty and trashed. The majority of the shoppers were pretty icky too, yelling at their kids and dropping stuff on the floor when they were done looking at it. *shudder*

Anyway, it's a pretty common practice for Walmart to only have the lowest prices when they're driving competition out of business. Once they've accomplished that goal or successfully taken enough market share, they raise their prices. But the Walmart fans keep going.

I remember taking a cruise to Alaska a couple of years ago. When we stopped in Ketchikan, you could actually take an excursion to the local Walmart, I kid you not. All this beautiful nature around to explore (for which you paid a pretty penny to see) and people would actually choose to go to Walmart instead. Plenty of people were going, too. I lost my faith in humanity when I saw that.

[Freddie Stubbs]

26. I'm not sure what Safeway is doing wrong

Here is Florida Publix continues to expand, despite competition from Walmart.

[dmr]

29. My local grocery store is closing next month - a year after Wal-Mart

opened up their newly renovated store with groceries. I'm going to have to travel further to shop, but I certainly won't go to Wal-Mart.

I am very unhappy. x(

For the poster who mentioned Publix - Publix is just about the only thing I miss about living in Florida.
:hi:

[Lyric]

30. Wal-Mart does NOT have low prices.

It's just that, when you shop there, you're making someone else pay part of your bill. You know--low income workers whose wages, benefits, and pensions have been sacrificed in order to keep the prices artificially "low". Foreigners whose lands have been raped and whose children have been enslaved in order to manufacture the stuff you buy. THOSE people.

Of course, the other stores here aren't much different. How can they be? They have to compete with Wal-Mart. And so, they too pay shitty wages and exploit foreign resources and (often child/forced) labor in order to stay competitive. And all of this combines together to keep EVERYONE'S wages artificially low, thus reinforcing the NEED for a "cheap store" like Wal-Mart--because very few people can afford to shop elsewhere.

This is why, whenever someone asks "Is capitalism worth saving?", I say no. Even "well regulated" capitalism exploits people. The more relevant questions would be, "Are cheap consumer goods worth wage stagnation and pension losses? Are cheap consumer goods worth foreign children slaving away in factories to satisfy our lust for Stuff? Do we have the right to enslave and exploit others for the sake of our own comfort?"

Because even "well-regulated" capitalism REQUIRES at least some degree of ALL of those things in order to function as a system. The capital has to come from somewhere, and our own resources are very limited. In order to get more resources, we must seek them elsewhere, and in order to make a PROFIT from those foreign resources (which carry the expense of overseas transport, fees, tariffs, and safety regulations), we must buy those resources for far, FAR less than they're worth. There is no way to obtain foreign resources that is not exploitive. We selfishly take advantage of desperately poor people in order to feed our own capitalist, consumerist beast.

Is that hard to hear? Yep. That's why so many people block it out or try to rationalize it away. That's what the function of American xenophobia really is--to hate the "other" so that you don't feel guilty about exploiting him, enslaving him, and stealing from him.

So who are we to sit here on our high horses and criticize the "corporate whores"? They're only doing what we pay them to do, after all. How many of you are willing to give up your iPhones and laptops and plastic bottles and TVs and toys and games and everything that's manufactured with stolen resources and exploitive labor? Any volunteers? I'm sitting right here typing on an HP laptop that was manufactured in pieces all over Asia by peasants who could live for six months off the change lost in my couch. I'm certainly not an innocent--none of us are. I keep trying to figure out a way that we can retain our standard of living without crushing other people underneath of our feet, but I just don't see a solution. We either decide that our standard of living isn't worth it, or we decide that we're okay with some exploitation and slavery. Frankly, the guilt of knowing that I and pretty much everyone else here have chosen Option 2 is nightmarish to live with.

We think that we're so much better because we want slightly less abuse than our right-wing consumerist fellow citizens. That's rather like saying that we're "good" slave owners because we don't horsewhip our disobedient slaves. In the end, we still own slaves, right? How much better can we really be?

It's damned hard to live with.

[Dappleganger]

32. I look forward to the day when we have more money

so that shopping at Walmart isn't a necessity any longer.

We have to do both Publix and Walmart to keep under budget, there's just no way around it (even with little prepared foods).