Why do you Hate WAL-MART??
 

well i hate it cause today i went there to get some medicine, and when i was about to leave , some guy whistled at me. it was probably one of the most disturbing experiences of my life. ugh it was so gross. this guy was like in his 30s maybe 40s......ahhh!!!! it was gross, i never want to go back there. i already hated it, but now i'm really never going back.!!!!

Let's see:
Pro-censorship
super shitty labor practices
Most annoying ad campaigns ever

I have never shopped there and I never will.

30's isn't that old. ha. it doesn't sound that offensive to me, to be honest, to be whistling to a chick. but i'm a dude...tho i have never done that.

I have never whistled at a girl in my life (who in their right mind thinks that stuff works?).
Thanks for making me feel old, though. That was awesome.

But Wal-Mart sucks. they don't treat their employees very well. it's well documented via law suits from employees etc. Wal-Mart is number one in profits in the U.S and possibly the world. they can afford a few more bucks for their workers, give me a break. plus, they get the state to cover their health insurance. what the fuck is that? go to Target, they're blue.

okay i'm only 19. 30 or 40 compared to 19 is definetly alot older

For sure it is.
Creepy, but Wal Mart as an institution is much creepier than any creepy employees.

i don't hate wal-mart. i actually admire them for being so damn good at what they do (viz., keeping prices down) that they've been able to beat the hell out of all the competition.

their supposed "unfair labor practices" are in fact eminently fair; even though they aren't paying their overseas workers US minimum wage, their wages are an extreme step up from backbreaking labor in the fields simply for subsistence. on the charge that they "put small businesses out of business," hey, that's how capitalism works. and regarding the charge that they don't provide enough health care for their workers, would you rather they pay benefits like gm and endure loss after loss under the extreme financial pressure?

and regarding whistling pervert types, that could have happened just as easily . . . well, somewhere other than wal-mart. that's the guy's problem, not the corporation's.

Just being good at making money is no reason to admire a business.
The way capitalism works is by consumers supporting businesses that they feel comfortable supporting. It is NOT always just about who is cheapest.
Fuck a Wal Mart.

i don't hate walmart cause of the way they run the store or employees or anything like that. i just hate it cause you go in there to buy one fucking thing and it takes you like an hour to get your ass out of there. and the stores are so unbelieveably huge that it takes forever to get what you want. and that guy that whistled at me didn't work there, he was just some wierdo that was there.

uuh . . . a consumer, being rational and therefore egoistic, is going to feel comfortable supporting the company that offers the lowest prices. unless he's some social justice type. if he thinks the company's business practices are unfair or immoral or whatever, you're right, he doesn't have to shop there, but being good under capitalism MEANS making money by offering something of value, and if you're good at that, that is the supreme reason to be admired.

i dont much care for wal mart but your problems dont really have anything to do with them, if you only wanted one thing then why not just go to convience store?

also the wierdo is in no way connected to wal-mart

that's fair.

"would you rather they pay benefits like gm and endure loss after loss under the extreme financial pressure"?

haha..they r numero uno in profits, so have no fear of that happening.

Being a business that treats its employees well and does not show a consistent tendency to undermine the First Amendment is more admirable to me than just making a ton of cash. Making money via whatever means necessary, being predatory etc, is nothing to admire in my book. I am hardly an activist either, but it's pretty easy not to support this place.

and? does the mere fact that wal-mart is profitable necessitate that they be burdened with whatever demands society may impose on them? if workers want to negotiate with wal-mart for better benefits, that's fair. but if the workers have a right to DEMAND whatever pay they choose, independent of wal-mart's profitability, that is another situation entirely. wal-mart, like any business, is in it for itself; it is not its brother's keeper, and no one may legitimately force it to be.

and who say's they get to have state funded health insurance? why do they get seperate, special, treatment? capitalism is not based on unfair treatment.

if wal-mart treated its employees poorly, no one would want to work for it. and i'm curious to see how you'd argue that wal-mart "undermines the first amendment" . . . the first amendment establishes limits only on the power of CONGRESS, not private corporations. if wal-mart wants to practice censorship, that is its prerogative.

it's really an extension of a level playing field that, unfortunately, only the left makes an issue of. same reason millionaires pay same in taxes as someone making 200k.

Wal Mart will not offer any CDs with parental advisory stickers, make people change song titles for CDs their store carries, etc.
Yes, this is their prerogative as a private company, but I will not support a store that does this kind of thing.
If lowest prices are of utmost concern, why not just buy everything black or grey market?

i'll agree with you there . . . they shouldn't have state-funded health insurance, because no governmentally supported health care system should exist. not only does it monopolize health care, destroying competition and therefore quality, but it's immoral because it's funded by taxes expropriated from an unwilling public. but that's NOT capitalism; that's the welfare state at work.

I think qprogeny might listen to a little AM talk radio on occasion.

(just ribbing you; don't get upset)

that's fair. it all comes down to personal preference. my point only was that if one believes wal-mart is being unfair, the only legitimate way to stop it is not to shop there.

regarding the black market concern, as i understand it the black market tends to be in blatant violation of copyright laws (like the booming pirated dvd industry in china). when i say that those who offer the lowest price possible while still making a profit should be extolled, i mean those who can do so while still respecting intellectual property laws and other legal protections.

haha . . . no, but i do read a fair bit of ayn rand. rib away.

u lost me there. you're agreeing that why wal-mart shouldn't have state paid for health care. what's that have to do with a welfare state?

because state-funded health care is inherently part of the welfare state. if the government helps wal-mart pay its healthcare benefits to its workers, it can only do so by getting the money from taxpayers -- i.e., by holding a gun to their heads.

the only legitimate functions of a government are to protect its citizens' rights from foreign invaders and domestic criminals and to arbitrate disputes through a judiciary. to get the government in the business of protecting its citizens from anything else (unemployment, disease, poverty, financial insecurity after retirement, etc.) is to establish a welfare state; that's why the private sector exists.

My point too. Which is why I don't shop there. What anyone else does is not my concern, nor can I control them.

i respectfully completely disagree. we've seen the results via the Enron's of the world

I'll bet qprogeny wants to see all roads privatized too. Boy, would that be fun.

"the only legitimate functions of a government are to protect its citizens' rights from foreign invaders and domestic criminals and to arbitrate disputes through a judiciary".

my, that is simplifying it a tad, no? (haha..ribbing)

I would have punched him in the face if I were you.

Anyways, a guy shot himself at my wal-mart. I'm trying to find an article on it, but can't.

I really have no problem with Wal-Mart other than the fact it takes away business from mom and pop shops. If you are fucking poor with three kids shopping at Wal Mart is survival.

enron wasn't the result of corruption as much as stupidity. from what i understand enron invested a bazillion dollars on off-the-wall speculative nonsense and then its corporate leaders wouldn't listen to advice when they were told that the company would plummet as a result . . . the only corruption was the cover-up, which of course should be prosecuted, but that's why we have a criminal justice system.

and no, privatized roads would suck, simply because the logistics would be a nightmare. i don't have a problem with the government contracting private companies for construction and maintenance, but there should still be rules and regulations simply to streamline the process and make it less confusing when you're traveling interstate (or inter-province, depending on where you live).

yeah, totally. screw welfare, medicare, medicaid, social security, food stamps, unemployment, income taxes . . . small government all the way.

What about public schools?
Get rid of those and we could get a sweet little underclass going then, boy.

not really. the only legitimate functoins of a government are those which the people determines to be, if we understand "legitimacy" to mean representative of the people. the libertarian creed is not intrinsically more valid than any other political ideology. in a democracy, it's up to the voters to decide what kind of government they want, whether it be socialism, social democracy, neo-liberalism, anarcho-sindicalism or whatever...

the problem i have with ayn rand is that being a second-rate thinker she turned philosophy into dogma. actually she wasn't as bad as her followers, who take every word ever uttered by her as some sort of divine revelation. (im not saying you're one of them by the way-- i'm talking about those ayn rand groupies i met in college)

i think enron was about de-regulation, or "get government out of the way" so we can operate in the name of capitalism, albeit phony, and small govt. u know theyturned off the fucking electricity to like half of california to up their value. who will stop them? the law,the government.

yup, public schools should go. the reason is that the government has a vested interest in teaching its citizens what it wants them to hear . . . also because the government should not be in the business of supporting ideas. look at ward churchill . . . should taxpayers be forced to support what that nut has to say? obviously not. as for the charge that it would create disparities in opportunity among income classes . . . that's why charities exist. plus under competition there would be pressure on every school to keep tuition low, and the decreased taxes from the elimination of the already inflated and wasteful expenditures on education would help defray the cost for families. look at monopolized public education now, with its zoning laws and teachers' unions with their impossible regulations for firing members . . . essentially, telling a kid where he's going to go to school eliminates competition among schools and thereby discourages schools from being the best they can be, which is the major reason why public schools are so abysmal, at least in the us of a.

As opposed to private schools, most of whom teach what Jesus wants you to hear.

i hate walmart because i hate all faceless multi national corporations that take everything from the small guy and make it so there is no choice but to go to walmart. btw i am british, but walmart owns plenty of chain stores over here as well.