Thursday, July 27, 2006
This Made Me Happy
Chicago to Wal-Mart: Start paying something resembling a living wage and benefits by 2010, or you can forget about expanding here. Of course, Wal-Mart is hinting that this will mean that they won't be gracing Chicagoland with any more Wal-Marts and may close the ones that they have. To which the Chicago city council says "Tough. Costco already meets our wage and benefit requirements. Why can't you?"
Comments:
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Of course, Costco is more expensive. So, at the benefit of a few hundred people who might work there, the entire community has to pay higher prices. Sounds totally fair and exactly what I'd want in a tough neighborhood.
Ever drive by the Midway Walmart? Ya, that's what they're giving up.
Ever drive by the Midway Walmart? Ya, that's what they're giving up.
Oh, great. The "I'm some guy, so accept my word as holy writ" gag.
Look: "I think so" may be a fact, but it's not a meaningful fact.
The two stores tend to sell different stuff. Costco is upscale, selling high-quality goods. Walmart is downscale, selling what often amounts to junk. There's not a huge amount of overlap. It's called market segmentation. So, since I happen to be in the market for a television, let's take that as an example.
Online Costco offers TVs starting at $240, so if you shop at Costco, you can find a cheapie. In the more middle range, you can get a 23" Phillips LCD HDTV for $570. If you look Wal-Mart, 20-25" HDTVs. Wal-Mart doesn't show any Phillips TVs with comparable specs. You can get an ILO of similar specs for $448.
Is that a better deal than the Phillips? I doubt it.
But maybe you could make a case based on price tag. What would be hard to make is a case when you add in the amount those socialists at Wal-Mart extort from states and municipalities, the amount they steal from their employees, the illegal aliens they hire--requiring American taxpayers to spend money on border patrol-- and the lives they crush, especially among Chinese slave laborers but also among Americans trying to unionize.
Wal-Mart is a rogue outfit.
Chicago will do well to tell them to go reproduce hermaphroditically.
Look: "I think so" may be a fact, but it's not a meaningful fact.
The two stores tend to sell different stuff. Costco is upscale, selling high-quality goods. Walmart is downscale, selling what often amounts to junk. There's not a huge amount of overlap. It's called market segmentation. So, since I happen to be in the market for a television, let's take that as an example.
Online Costco offers TVs starting at $240, so if you shop at Costco, you can find a cheapie. In the more middle range, you can get a 23" Phillips LCD HDTV for $570. If you look Wal-Mart, 20-25" HDTVs. Wal-Mart doesn't show any Phillips TVs with comparable specs. You can get an ILO of similar specs for $448.
Is that a better deal than the Phillips? I doubt it.
But maybe you could make a case based on price tag. What would be hard to make is a case when you add in the amount those socialists at Wal-Mart extort from states and municipalities, the amount they steal from their employees, the illegal aliens they hire--requiring American taxpayers to spend money on border patrol-- and the lives they crush, especially among Chinese slave laborers but also among Americans trying to unionize.
Wal-Mart is a rogue outfit.
Chicago will do well to tell them to go reproduce hermaphroditically.
this is aimed directly at party opposite who blabered.....
"So, at the benefit of a few hundred people who might work there, the entire community has to pay higher prices."
thats EXACTLY the kind of thinking that has us by the short hairs bub.
ever hear of the community supporting the community? there's only one way out of this mess...
DECENTRALIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
......support our neighborhoods and the people that live in them.
"So, at the benefit of a few hundred people who might work there, the entire community has to pay higher prices."
thats EXACTLY the kind of thinking that has us by the short hairs bub.
ever hear of the community supporting the community? there's only one way out of this mess...
DECENTRALIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
......support our neighborhoods and the people that live in them.
The national minimum wage for adults (aged 22 and above) in the UK is £5.35 per hour (well, it will be on 1st October: right now it's £5.05). That is, $10 an hour.
What Walmart is paying is not much more than the legal minimum a business in the UK has to pay a 16-17 year old kid. It's less than the legal minimum a business in the UK has to pay an employee aged 18-21.
In the UK, Walmart operates as Asda. Strangely enough, they seem to be doing just fine, even though they are required to pay, at a minimum, the kind of wages they are claiming they can't afford to pay in Chicago.
What Walmart is paying is not much more than the legal minimum a business in the UK has to pay a 16-17 year old kid. It's less than the legal minimum a business in the UK has to pay an employee aged 18-21.
In the UK, Walmart operates as Asda. Strangely enough, they seem to be doing just fine, even though they are required to pay, at a minimum, the kind of wages they are claiming they can't afford to pay in Chicago.
Excellent point, Jesugislac.
Government creates a level playing field, companies compete, and the best (according to the public's taste) win.
What Wal-Mart wants is the power to set create a playing field where its rampant lawbreaking sets its goal 10 feet above that of the lawful.
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Government creates a level playing field, companies compete, and the best (according to the public's taste) win.
What Wal-Mart wants is the power to set create a playing field where its rampant lawbreaking sets its goal 10 feet above that of the lawful.
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