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I would echo Charlie's points and suggest that Paul is putting a remarkably favorable spin on Wal-Mart offering any long-term benefits to the community. Sure, people can buy household items cheap and find lots of junk made by slave labor in foreign lands, but does the dollar or two saved here and there really in the end make a dramatic difference in people's lives, compared to the anti-union, anti-fair wages, anti-community environment that Wal-Mart creates? We're all conditioned to believe that capitalism provides so many wonderful benefits to the average person, such as cheap toilet paper or a steady supply of pampers, but I suspect that in total, the community is actually harmed dramatically by Wal-Mart and, to a lesser extent, Target, which still seems to have some scruples about its business practices. And bear in mind that we haven't even introduced the reams of data about how Wal-Mart tries to get around local regulations, stiffs subcontractors on payments, or, very typically, extracts all sorts of concessions from a community to get a Wal-Mart store built, then several years later moves to another community that offers a sweeter deal, leaving behind an empty big box that it may not be paying any rent on or getting a greatly subsidized rental deal. In many ways, just like the tactics taking place in the stadium games. One additional point, something that was only brought to my attention recently. Apparently Wal-Mart, under Sam Walton, was a completely different company than the one that has evolved since his death. As I was told, Walton insisted on made-in-the-USA products, decried foreign imports, and took care of his employees. (Perhaps this is why Walton's book was called "Made in the USA"?) But once the kids inherited the company, they brought in the professional managers who knew the only way to enrich their futures would be to create all this shareholder "value" at the expense of everyone else. So I guess St. Paul now gets to experience all the wonderful benefits that come from cheap goods imported from largely impoverished nations. Me, I want nothing to do with them. I'll never set foot in one (I barely go to Target as it is), and I hope that everybody on this list will consider doing the same. In fact, if Tim Erickson gets the St. Paul issues list to organize a boycott of Wal-Mart, I'll sink $100 of my hard-earned dough into the pledge drive. Tom Goldstein Mac-Groveland ----- Original Message ----- From: "M Charles Swope" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brionna Harder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 9:43 PM Subject: Re: [StPaul] Competing with Wal-Mart > E-Pledge-O-Meter (8:55 PM - 4/7/04) > ------------------------------------------- > |XXXXXXXXXX|XXXXXXXXX-|----------|----------| > ------------------------------------------- > > > There is a body of opinion that thinks that the Wal-Mart way of doing business is > dictated by the free > market. Well, it turns out that Costco competes with Wal-Mart but has a different > philosopy and does quite > well (both by its employees and its shareholders). The following is an excerpt from > an article in 'Business > Week' magazine: > "Costco's high-wage approach actually beats Wal-Mart at its own game on many > measures. BusinessWeek ran through the numbers from each company to compare Costco > and Sam's Club, the Wal-Mart warehouse unit that competes directly with Costco. We > found that by compensating employees generously to motivate and retain good workers, > one-fifth of whom are unionized, Costco gets lower turnover and higher productivity. > Combined with a smart business strategy that sells a mix of higher-margin products > to more affluent customers, Costco actually keeps its labor costs lower than > Wal-Mart's as a percentage of sales, and its 68,000 hourly workers in the U.S. sell > more per square foot. Put another way, the 102,000 Sam's employees in the U.S. > generated some $35 billion in sales last year, while Costco did $34 billion with > one-third fewer employees." It appears that there is no reason to cowtow to the Wal-Mart strategy of providing the lowest paid jobs imaginable. Charlie Swope Ward 1 _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
