Last week I wrote about how Coca Cola and other various food and soft drink corporations lobby Congress to halt any talks of improving welfare. It is a sad day when we cannot improve a system for the better of the country, but these lobbying efforts are not the only action that harms the American taxpayer. Wal-Mart also has there dirty hands in on the entitlement money, but in another way. Yes, Wal-Mart does lobby Congress to halt any improvements to welfare that will lose them money the long run, but they also do another very dirty trick with their workers and it is costing the American taxpayer handsomely. Wal-Mart's poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps. Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the...
In Deenu Parmar's "Labouring the Wal Mart Way," the author discusses the business practices of Wal Mart, their impact on systemic poverty, and on existing work unions. Their business model forces competition to align with them, or close up shop. Wal Mart hires workers that would usually have a difficult time finding employment. That said, they pay them well below a living wage. Staff are also subject to abuses like overtime without pay. Wal Mart is resolute in their feelings towards unions. Their hiring process designed to cut out union sympathizers. This way, they can prevent any retaliation from staff seeking a better work environment. If anti-union efforts are unsuccessful, they close the store. It also forces existing unions to take pay
But Wal-Mart’s care for us goes beyond that simple relationship. As many of us have seen if we have been to a Wal-Mart, they hire people who normally would not be able to get a job. The company knows that by broadcasting itself as positive and helpful in nature it can increase its revenue and in turn increase the amount of assistance it provides to us the consumer. “In 2004 Wal-Mart donated over $170 million. More than 90 percent of these donations went to charities in the communities served by Wal-Mart stores.’ Even more heartfelt than this, Wal-Mart was the leader in goods based relief efforts for victims of hurricane Katrina. “Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers.” And the first supply truck to arrive at the superdome was a Wal-Mart truck.
Its size, power, and low prices are what make Walmart so helpful to America. So why do some people think that Walmart is so bad for the American people? Many people believe that this is a true debate. Everyone has his or her own point of view. If you think about it, is Walmart really good for America? Walmart has made many changes since it was first opened in 1962, by Sam Walton. By August 31, 2014 there were 11,095, retail Walmart stores and there were 642 Sam's Club's. After going over all the facts, Walmart is good for America.
Wal-mart is currently the world’s largest company. It has seen continuous growth and financial success since it was founded in 1962. Today it is living off of a previous reputation of solid ethical business practices that are no longer being exercised. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart, was considered to be “freakishly cheap… Cost-cutting was an obsession in the Wal-mart culture… on business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared.” (reclaimdemocracy.org. 2006). This was only part of the reason for Sam Walton’s success.
One has to work hard to consider their values in particular issues and how strongly they feel. This is the choice many people make when they invest in mutual funds, and have no idea where their mutual funds are invested. Many vocal opponents to shopping at Wal-Mart might discover they hold investments in the Wal-Mart. There are 1050 mutual funds that are invested in Wal-Mart, some of the largest mutual funds in the world. There are many people who have no idea where their investments lie. If you want to be true to your value against shopping at Wal-Mart, you need to be careful to remove yourself from investments that support Wal-Mart. You have to review your investments and find out where your money is invested.
Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).
The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.
Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918 to Thomas Gibson and Nancy Lee Walton near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they owned and lived on a farm until 1923. The Walton's then decided that the farm was not profitable enough to raise a family on. So, Sam and Jame's (Sam's younger brother born in 1921) dad decided he would go back to being a Farm Loan Appraiser. Once this job started the Walton family moved out of Oklahoma and moved from town to town in Missouri. This would traumatize most children but for the Walton boys though it was no big deal. This could be seen when Sam was in 8th grade at Shelbina he became the youngest boy in the state's history to become an Eagle Scout and this was only a start of his many of accomplishments.
and 2000 for a spokesperson had publicly mentioned that more than two thirds of our people are not trying to support a family that 's why our jobs are designed for, and yet it seems that they 're low wages and 2000 for a spokesperson had publicly mentioned that more than two thirds of our people are not trying to support a family that 's why our jobs are designed for, and yet it seems that they 're low wages don 't even support those who aren 't trying to support a family. So who do they help? Walmart doesn 't provide adequate healthcare, the healthcare isn 't just for the family it is for everyone who would like good health. But while Walmart has its downs it also has a few pros, like their genius inventions such as the Telon, And their ingenuity have helped make and bring Walmart to the top. They have intelligently used their barcodes on products to bring about information, such as how many our soul, how many are expected to be sold, prices and even discounts. Then Walmart brilliantly patented the idea so if other competitors want to stay in the game, they have to buy this idea from Walmart just to keep up with Walmart. It 's pretty brilliant when you think about it. They also use a open price system where you are drawn into a department by the low prices they stick in front and you stay because you assume that other products in this department will have similar low prices, when in reality they might be more expensive than other
Within an excerpt from, “The United States of Wal-Mart,” John Dicker explains that Wal-Mart is a troubling corporation. Dicker begins his article by discussing why the store is so popular within the news in an age of global terrorism, coming to the conclusion that Wal-Mart has a huge scope in the United States and that it has more scandals, lawsuits, and stories than any other supercenter. Continually, he goes on to explain that Wal-Mart outsources jobs and their companies demands makes it hard for employees to have livable wages and good working conditions. Furthermore, Dicker addresses the claim that Wal-Mart provides good jobs, by destroying this perception with statistics showing how employees live in poverty and that their union scene
Besides all the points that I have stated, Wal-Mart has had to pay fines due to breaking Child Labor laws and Illegal Immigrant laws; fines up to $11.5 million for just those two types of laws. Wal-Mart is not good for this economy, for the people, and the company, in a whole, is criminal. If the people let Wal-Mart stay on the track it is on, the United States will not have anything but Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart will become a monopoly and put everyone, who started with something more than greed, out-of-business.
45 million Americans with low income rely on at least one of the many welfare programs. Of these government assistance programs, many of them deal with fraud and abuse. “Some cases of government assistance misuse are more blatant than others, but some aid recipients are using sneaky tactics that give other needy Americans a bad reputation” (calonia 1). Clearly, people are abusing the system in order to receive money they do not deserve. This makes it harder for people who need the welfare programs to get the money they need to support a family.
Living under poverty circumstances, workers most likely live in small apartments, drive beat down cars, and have filed for bankruptcy. However, at the end of the day they can't get low prices they cant even afford. Although I do not agree with this business model I have a job and it helps me pay for my expenses; I have no choice. Many others in my positions are losing out on gains that we can only hope to share on in the future. Critics should prevent Wal-Mart from opening new branches because ordinary families and their own workers will never in share in those gains under poverty conditions.
In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).
Walmart has had a long-standing presence in America society since the middle of the 20th century, seen as a place to get everything done, Walmart has become a fixation in our society. From grocery shopping, to changing your oil and even filing your annual tax returns, Walmart is always there, everyday. Started by Sam Walton in 1962, it began as a small operation catering to a small Arkansas community. It was started on principles very similar to small local businesses in small towns. Today Walmart has gotten a different, darker reputation. On the surface, Walmart may seem like the solution to everyday issues. Low-income families are attracted to the low prices, and people who work odd hours benefit greatly from the 24 hours a day that many Walmarts are open. Lately, Walmart has also managed to be publicly recognized as a store that sells many of today’s green products, including organic food, environmental conscious cleaning products, as well as, paper products made from recycled paper. However, underneath all this, Walmart has a different side. Exploitation of its workers is widespread amongst Walmarts who do not belong to a union, especially in the United States. Wal...