More Evidence: Slave Labor Not Cheap Enough; Walmart Has Ninth Straight Quarterly Dec

[Lumi]

More Evidence: Slave Labor Not Cheap Enough; Walmart Has Ninth Straight Quarterly Decline in Sales

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=490><TBODY><TR><TD width=200><!-- Author Condition -->Mac Slavo
<!-- Date -->
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
August 16th, 2011
<!-- Web Site condition -->SHTFplan.com


As if the lowest consumer sentiment in three decades wasn?t enough, the largest retailer in the world provides yet more evidence that the consumer in the United States is being unabatedly destroyed:

?company comments about consumer spending showed the split between upper-income consumers who have jobs and are little affected by rising costs for food and other essentials, and lower-income shoppers who are struggling with stubbornly high unemployment and rising costs.

?This is exactly what we continue to see quarter after quarter. There?s just significant bifurcation here,? Edward Jones retail analyst Matt Arnold said.

Wal-Mart said same-store sales at its U.S. discount stores, by far its largest business, fell 0.9 percent in the second quarter, the ninth straight quarterly decline at domestic stores open at least a year.

?They?re trading down to stretch their budgets, buying a lower-priced brand of detergent, moving from branded canned goods to private label, and purchasing half gallons of milk instead of gallons,?

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke said in a recorded message.
Also, more shoppers are relying on government aid to help pay for food and other necessities, Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said on the call.
​

When the retailer selling the cheapest goods in the world manufactured by slave labor can?t boost sales growth, then you know there?s a problem. If anything, consumers should be shopping at Walmart in droves, putting competitors out of business. Even if consumers wanted to buy more (non-essential) goods, they couldn?t.

Millions of jobs lost. Millions more left to lose. Credit for everything except college tuition is almost nonexistent. Wages and benefits are deteriorating. 401(k)?s and savings accounts have been tapped. The value of homes, the leading investment product of America?s middle class, have been wiped out. The country?s gross domestic product, the key measure of economic growth, has collapsed.

We are on the brink of the next phase of this crisis, when the last of the easy money (for Main Street) runs out, is going to be nothing short of financial Armageddon, because the government will have no ammunition to counteract the next market collapse.

<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>AKPC_IDS += "10939,";</SCRIPT>
<!-- Article Information BOTTOM -->Author: <!-- Author Condition -->Mac Slavo<!-- END Author Condition -->
Date: August 16th, 2011
Website: <!--Website URL Condition -->www.SHTFplan.com<!--END Website URL Condition -->

 

[Trench]

I've been saying for years... Who do all the job-exporting corporations think they're going to sell their products to when the middle-class is gone?

Answer: They don't care because they can't see beyond their quarterly spreadsheets.

Greed has made the human race short-sighted and stupid. A curious species, we humans... :SIB

 

[Duff Miver]

Since Sam died, WalMart has been shooting itself in the foot.

WalMart sales are down YTD, but

Target is up 5.8%
Costco is up 15%
Amazon is up 51%
LL Bean is up 5.7% (and gave their employees a 5% bonus)

I avoid WalMart as much as possible because of their slave-wage policies. I think others are doing the same. Target treats it's employers somewhat better than WalMart, and Costco blows Sam's Club away with their wages and benefits.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands.

Costco was the first company to grow from zero to $3 billion in sales in less than six years.

eighty-five percent of Costco's workers have health insurance, compared with less than fifty percent at Walmart and Target

Costco is proving that a company can prosper without treating it's employees like dogs. I gladly spend my money there and haven't spent a penny in Sam's since Costco opened here.

I also spend my money with LL Bean, which is proving that decent treatment of employees is good business. They don't report profits, but they have grown from nothing to $1.5 billion in sales and have zero debt.

And here's how they treat their employees -

" Wages and benefits now are excellent for Maine; full-time employees have a dental insurance plan and Blue Cross/Blue Shield medical and disability plans. The company picks up 70 percent of the medical and dental costs and 100 percent of the disability.

But it is the profit-sharing system that boggles the minds of outsiders. Profits are shared on a straight line, as a percentage of wages earned that year. If it's a 10 percent profit sharing, it's 10 percent for vice-presidents and 10 percent for shipping clerks.

One more example: I know a woman who worked at Lowe's for a while. One day she showed up working in the bakery at the Publix where I buy groceries. I asked why she had changed jobs. She said, " Lowe's treats it's employees like dirt. Here we're treated like human beings." I could buy groceries at WalMart and save a few pennies, but I buy everything at Publix.

Money is everything only to people like Maggot.

 

[Lumi]

I would rather nail my dick to a 2 X 4 than deal with Walmart.