For those that are interested.

[Cindy Dicken]

Some of us will find this of interest.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/

Cindy Dicken
Vivarium Concepts
http://www.vivariumconcepts.com

[melissa68]

Cindy,

Circleville (~45 minutes from Columbus) isn't the only small town in Ohio to feel this!

Melis

Originally Posted by Cindy Dicken

Some of us will find this of interest.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/

Cindy Dicken
Vivarium Concepts
http://www.vivariumconcepts.com

[Ryan]

The main thing that gets me is how little the people in other countries get paid by these companies shipping jobs over seas. The can barely survive on it. I wouldnt care quite as much abou the jobs going to other countries if they were getting paid a reasonable amount of money for their labor, but its not like that.

Ryan

[tkavan01]

i don't know if you can blame walmart exclusively for the exportation of labor to cheaper markets... but i'm sure they helped...

[RSines]

I agree... it is hard to believe one company could do that. But if any company could, its Walmart. We did a study here at school. Wal-Mart has the lowest price 97% of the time when they claim to. This is actually much higher than I expected. They use a variety of marketing techniques including penetration pricing. Penetration pricing is where a company purposely lower the price to consumers, below where it should be. One of the main reasons is to keep other competitors out, as well as increase the quanity demanded. Now in most cases this price is slowly raised once the threat of competition is gone. Walmart, however, never really raises their prices past market value.

So far this is the only company that hasn't hit a wall in its revenues. Wal-Mart is genius.

Ryan, i agree it is amazing when you hear of people getting such little money for working, but remember the value of a dollar when compared to their currency explains a lot of it. Even still, without minimum wage laws in foreign places the jobs will go to the lowest bidder.

-Richard

I hate walmart with a passion. I had a college economics professor predict that walmart will only last a few more years because of how they are run. I can only wait in anticipation, however there will be some other cost whore pop up.

I hate megastores.

[Scott]

I hate to disagree with your teacher, but I think a place that appeals to the "Lowest Common Denominator" among people is here to stay.

s

Originally Posted by wcumagic

... I had a college economics professor predict that walmart will only last a few more years because of how they are run. I can only wait in anticipation, however there will be some other cost whore pop up.

He was referring to thier accounting methods and the way they have grown. I dont remember the bulk of it, but something about the way they are running means it will collapse if certain world events or market issues come to pass. Perhaps china goes to war with taiwan (japan?) and exports from that country triple in price- there goes a LOT of walmart products and the cheap labor(I know it wont TRIPLE, but an increase of 10% would be disastrous). Maybe the govt passes laws about the way migrant workers are paid or have to work so walmart loses all their cheap help due to a law. Remember Sears and Roebuck? I dont remember what happened to them, but even the powerhouse Sears that dominated much of the american economy for probably 40 years or more can still come crashing down. Maybe they'll get nixed by the govt for being a monopoly. I think that will happen before much else.

Maybe its just wishful thinking :roll:

Maybe a good class action lawsuit

[Dancing frogs]

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion (of course), and I don't like mega-chain businesses any more than the next guy, and I'm not saying I'm a big fan of walmart either...but, I work in a plastics manufacturing (employee owned) that has grown 200% since I started working there (ten years ago) this growth is largly due to wal-mart becoming our biggest customer. If it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't be working six days a week. (well I can love em or hate em for that)
I will say they are tough to do business with, we have changed many things, from packaging, to the products themselves, just to keep our #1 customer.
Maybee wal-mart, isn't the real problem, maybee some of the companies in america just aren't-werent innovative enough to stay competitive with foreign markets with regard to price versus quality.
Gotta go, I see pitchforks and torches coming!