Wal-Mart donates $15,000,000.00 to relief efforts in Katrina AftermathBENTONVILLE, Ark., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Following President Bush's announcement today that former Presidents Bush and Clinton will lead anationwide fund-raising effort to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart President and CEO Lee Scott contacted President Clinton and the White House and committed $15 million from Wal-Mart to jump-start the effort. As part of this commitment, Wal-Mart will establish mini-Wal-Mart stores in areas impacted by the hurricane. Items such as clothing, diapers, babywipes, food, formula, toothbrushes, bedding and water will be given out free of charge to those with a demonstrated need. Wal-Mart previously donated $2 million in cash to aid emergency relief efforts and has been collecting contributions at its 3,800 stores and SAM'S CLUBS,and through its web sites [http://www.walmartfacts.com, http://www.walmart.com,http://www.walmartfoundation.org, http://www.walmartstores.com, http://www.samsclub.com]. Through its Associate Disaster Relief Fund, the company will also give displaced associates immediate funds for shelter, food, clothing and other necessities. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Wal-Mart Stores, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and SAM'S CLUBS in all fifty states. Internationally, the company operates in Puerto Rico, Canada, China, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, United Kingdom, Argentina and South Korea. The company's securities are listed onthe New York and Pacific stock exchanges under the symbol WMT.
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I take back everything I ever said about the negative influences of Wal-Mart, and the ancestors of Sam Walton. Apparently, I was wrong when I said that Sam failed in one thing, . . instilling a little of his own character in his offspring. I was SOOOOO wrong! Obviously, I missed it.
Now, that character is showing, when America needs it most. Sure, some jerk-meat leftist will say it's not enough, but until Ben and Jerry's, or Move-On.org, or Bill Moyers, or Michael Moore, or Al Franken can match those dollars, I'll put my support behind Sam's offspring. I'm sorry I missed it so far. Mea Culpa!
God Bless,
Dan'L
posted by Charter Membership VRWC at 1:08 PM
3 Comments:
EMPTY DOWNTOWNS. This happens in three different but related ways. First, there's the clobbering of Main Street: Wal-Mart moves in on the edges of towns, and the much smaller downtown merchants, unable to match its prices, soon go under. Second, there's the miserable wage and benefits package offered by Sam Walton's creation. And third, there's Wal-Mart's purchasing strategy, which seems to be about buying American-made products only as a last resort -- to the point that today Wal-Mart, by itself, is China's eighth-largest trading partner!
You could make the case that we are well on our way to becoming "Wal-Mart Nation." But maybe we don't have to be. Consider Costco (COST), Wal-Mart's most notable competitor --- whose much more sensitive and noble business model actually serves as a boost to the national economy and to its shareholders.
Costco's pay scale begins at around $10 per hour and averages $16. After four years, a Costco cashier can earn $44,000 [counting bonuses], which is significant purchasing power. In comparison, Wal-Mart's average hourly wage is a miserly $9.68. To appreciate the impact of this 65% difference in average wages, University of California at Berkeley researchers recently concluded that in 2003 Wal-Mart's low wages and benefits for its employees in California compelled taxpayers there to give these employees $86 million in food stamps, health-care, and housing subsidies just to stay above water.
UNCOVERED WORKERS. Overall, only 38% of Wal-Mart's nonsupervisory workers receive health-care benefits, according to the United Food & Commercial Workers Union. The company won't disclose how much of its total workforce receives company benefits. It does say 56% of employees in the core U.S. Wal-Mart unit, which excludes operations such as Sam's Club, receive company benefits. Judging by any reasonable standard, it's clear Wal-Mart has left American taxpayers the burden of picking up a huge tab for its uncovered health-care costs.
Wal-Mart has gone so far as to actively instruct its employees on how to apply effectively for government health-care programs like Medicaid. Costco, on the other hand, covers 85% of its employees' health-care costs. Costco is even pilot-testing a program offering discounted health-care plans to its customers in California who are either self-employed or cannot get coverage at work --- about 1.5 million people.
Not surprisingly, Costco's employee turnover is only about one-third that of Wal-Mart's, and Costco's customers are loyal almost beyond measure.
And yet Costco has operated this way while also satisfying Wall Street investors. Wal-Mart, of course, dwarfs Costco in size --- heck, it dwarfs even General Electric (GE) and Microsoft! (MSFT) --- but Costco may in fact be the much better-run company. Wal-Mart operates 5,332 stores with annual sales of $288 billion, or $54 million per store. Costco has 452 stores with annual sales of $48 billion, or $106 million per store.
WAKE-UP CALL. Costco is a living example that a company can be extremely profitable and competitive and at the same time not destroy everything and everyone in its corporate path.
Wal-Mart's success has come at an enormous and painful cost to our national and local economies. From its boarding-up of Main Streets to its failure to pay workers fairly, to its imposing on taxpayers welfare costs for its underpaid employees, to its material contribution to our obscene ballooning trade deficit with China, this "Wal-Martization" of America is leaving us with an economy increasingly characterized by a gaggle of cheap imported consumer goods, shoddy employee practices, and insensitivity to communities.
It is beyond time for all Americans to wake up from this nightmare and support those companies --- Costco, for example --- that believe that companies and their CEOs have as much responsibility to employees, customers, and the nation as to shareholders. And it is way beyond time for us to take our support away from those companies that believe otherwise and do more to aggrandize management than to serve employees and their communities.
"I take back everything I ever said about the negative influences of Wal-Mart"
Dan "Gullible" Larsen soldout to Walmart for 15 mil. on 09/02/05.
R.I.P. Dan
But, of course, Tim Schmidt has NO PRICE that he'd sell out for, . . . after all, . . . HE'S a "PRINCIPLES" kind of guy! (or at least, THAT'S the way he treats everyone else's money, . . . (See: taxpayer's dollars), and to a good Liberal, there's nothing more important than those kinds of finitely defined principles, . . . Right Timmy??
God Bless,
Dan'L
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