[tomder55]

yeah because it's up to government to decide what a "reasonable return " is .

[paraclete]

Exactly, profit is a return for risk, in industries where there is no risk such as retailing a high return is exploitation and profiteering. Walmart got rich on the backs of collies, you just don't want to face it, who got rich on the deaths of the Bangladeshie garment workers? Capitalism and multinationalism stinks wherever it is found

[tomder55]

I'd say it's up to the business owner to decide if the rate of return is worth the risk. The more the government chips away at that return the less attractive it is to continue operating the business. Let the government continue to tax corporations at 35% or even more in cases where they want to double tax income earned over seas and we will continue to see corporations attempting to shield their income . Who wins ? Countries like Ireland that get it .

[speechlesstx]

exactly, profit is a return for risk, in industries where there is no risk such as retailing a high return is exploitation and profiteering. Walmart got rich on the backs of collies, you just don't want to face it, who got rich on the deaths of the Bangladeshie garment workers? Capitalism and multinationalism stinks wherever it is found

Good grief. Walmart got rich by making it affordable to buy what you need - and people like it - in DROVES.

Give Sam Walton the Nobel Prize

There is much to dislike about Walmart: the union-busting employee rules, putting mom-and-pop grocery stores out of business, all that plastic garbage it sells us, the shady business scandals. It's the mortal enemy of locavores, the big bad box store that environmentalists and community organizers demonize. But for all its manifold offenses, Walmart may have done more for poor consumers in the United States, and around the world, than any other business in American history.

The world's largest retailer, Walmart shrugs off the controversy for a simple reason: The stuff it sells is cheap. Beyond its immense buying power (which sucks profit margins from suppliers), its incredibly efficient logistics systems and sourcing from low-wage foreign labor allow Walmart to drive down the cost of making and shipping many of its products. And Walmart is only the most visible example of a far bigger phenomenon: Globally, even in places thousands of miles from the nearest blue-shirted greeter, more efficient production and transportation are reducing the prices of many of the basic goods purchased by the world's poorest people. If that's rapacious, Walmart-style capitalism, let's have more!

More than 1 billion people still live in the borderlands of absolute deprivation, scraping by on less than $1.25 a day. Nevertheless, many have more access to goods and services than they did only a few years ago (even if they're not yet buying their cassava at the Ouagadougou Walmart). That's in part because companies around the world have figured out how to make and ship the stuff that poor people want at lower cost, which makes lives better. Call it the global Walmart effect.

There are two ways to help poor people buy more of what they need. One is to help them make more money. The other is to make the money they have go further. And Walmart has proved incredibly adept at that second approach. Take food, for instance. Walmart is the world's biggest food retailer, and it offers foods at prices considerably lower than those at traditional supermarkets -- as much as 25 percent lower, according to economists Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag. Factor in all the other stuff it sells, and Walmart's overall impact on its shoppers' spending power is even greater.

Walmart's low prices come in part from relying on efficient production in developing countries. Of course it isn't just Walmart's procurement agents who are buying cheap stuff from Asia; pretty much the whole world is, including retailers from Bangalore to Bangui. That's because manufacturers in China, India, and elsewhere have become particularly adept at producing low-cost versions of goods demanded by "bottom of the pyramid" consumers -- otherwise known as the world's poorest people.

Think of the mobile phone. There are about 6 billion subscribers worldwide -- 86 out of every 100 people on the planet. And many of them are texting and calling on Chinese-made devices. China produced more than 1 billion mobile phones in 2012 alone. But it's not just telephones. China manufactures as many as four out of five of the world's bicycles, and it's the leading maker of penicillin, producing more than 50 percent of the global supply. A whole range of goods purchased by some of the planet's poorest people are now made at low cost in the Middle Kingdom.

What about India? A study found that generic companies based in India supplied 53 percent of the antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in sub-Saharan Africa from 2004 to 2006. In fact, one-third of Indian drug exports went to sub-Saharan Africa between 1999 and 2006. That really matters when World Health Organization estimates suggest public expenditure on drugs in that region averages below $10 per person each year. It also has a knock-on effect: Recent analysis by researchers Tamara Hafner and David Popp argues that African imports of antibiotics and other drugs from India and China reduce the price of identical drugs imported from high-income countries, suggesting fiercer competition is reducing costs.

The generics effect is widespread: Basically, the things poor people want appear to be dropping in price faster than the stuff rich people want. It may even be that the bottom of the pyramid is benefiting from lower prices more than the luxury-buying elite. (That's not well reflected in global income statistics because the standard price indices used to construct these metrics are weighted toward luxury goods -- fancy cars and granite countertops, not bicycles and plastic sheeting.) In effect, the world's poor people are still very poor, but they aren't quite as poor as the stats would indicate.

That helps explain why many of the world's most destitute people own more stuff than they used to. Take Madagascar, a very poor country that has technically been getting poorer over time. Between 1992 and 2009, the country's real GDP per person fell from $843 to $753. But the percentage of households with a phone climbed from less than 1 percent to 28 percent, the proportion with a motorbike climbed from 4 percent to 22 percent, and the percentage with a television increased from 7 percent to 18 percent. People in Madagascar, as well as in much of the rest of the developing world, are living better and longer with more possessions to their name. That's true even if, officially, they are as poor as they've ever been. And Madagascar doesn't even have a Walmart -- yet.

Still, for all the "everyday low prices," whenever a new Walmart opens, local competitors really are often forced to shutter their doors. Imagine that happening on a global scale. Harvard University economist Dani Rodrik, for one, worries that Africa and Latin America are seeing their manufacturing sectors shrink, perhaps in part because East Asia has taken most of the global low-end manufacturing opportunities. And that may leave the rest of the developing world looking in vain for that first step up on the ladder to industrialization.

That's a problem, to be sure, but one that should, in theory, solve itself. As China gets richer, labor will inevitably get more expensive and factories will migrate. Some already have -- to places like Vietnam and Indonesia. And if retailers like Walmart continue to seek the cheapest, most efficient suppliers and manufacturers, those Asian production centers will eventually shift to Africa in search of cheap labor. That may take decades. But in the meantime, China's efficiency means that poor people's scarce resources can go a little bit further -- which is enough to put a grin on even the most dejected round, yellow smiley face.

But by all means, let's make it more expensive for the world's poor to survive.

[tomder55]

There are two ways to help poor people buy more of what they need. One is to help them make more money. The other is to make the money they have go further. And Walmart has proved incredibly adept at that second approach.

And in the US at least they have also mastered the 1st approach . Walmart hires many entry level employees in the communities their brick and mortar stores are located , providing opportunities to many low skilled workers. They have also pledged to hire an additional 100,000 returning Vets in the next 5 years. Yeah I know ,it isn't the greatest job in the world ,and it is not one I would make a career . ; but in today's economy, it's a job.. and might be enough to keep veterans off the streets and out of shelters.

[talaniman]

Good grief. Walmart got rich by making it affordable to buy what you need - and people like it - in DROVES.



But by all means, let's make it more expensive for the world's poor to survive.

Lets hope they can survive the next time a factory falls on their heads so we can get a dozen eggs cheaper.

Wal-Mart's killer rollbacks: The human cost of lower prices | rabble.ca

“Specifically to the issue of any corrections on electrical and fire safety, we are talking about 4,500 factories, and in most cases very extensive and costly modifications would need to be undertaken to some factories,” they said in the document. “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments.”

How many must die for you to get a cheap price?

Now it is clear the predictable price in blood that was paid for this decision. On November 24, 2012, 112 workers died in an horrific factory fire in Bangladesh at the Tazreen Factory that produced garments for Wal-Mart and other chains. Wal-Mart has claimed that the factory was no longer "authorized" to produce garments for it, but it did, somehow, continue to do so, and documents that have come to light clearly show that "as recently as September, five of 14 production lines at the factory were making shirts and pajamas for Wal-Mart "

[speechlesstx]

That vet hiring thing? Trumka's not happy about Walmart giving them a job.

Walmart’s recent announcement of a plan to hire returning honorably discharged veterans is more about public relations than honoring our heroes. That this effort was valorized by President Obama and Vice President Biden reflects an acceptance of economic failure out of line with America’s history or future.

We owe it to our returning veterans to make sure they are treated as the heroes they are, rather than as symbols used to “greenwash” Walmart’s eroding brand. After facing enemies abroad, is an $8.81 an hour part-time job the best we can offer returning veterans?

Already, working families and our economy are struggling against an epidemic of low-paying, low-benefit, part-time work. Instead of legitimizing that trend, we need to treat the talents of our veterans—and of all of America’s people—as a critical national resource.

We need businesses in this country to step up and make family-sustaining jobs available to returning veterans. Previous generations of heroes returned from overseas service to critical jobs in manufacturing, construction and public service, jobs that enabled veterans to help build the nation and support families. With the right policies, including those in President Obama and Vice President Biden’s American Jobs Act, we can live up to the standards of our past and empower our veterans for the future.

I wonder if Trumka has compared prices at unionized grocers at say, Vons and Ralph's with Walmart. I have. Don't expect those struggling families to buy groceries there.

[talaniman]

Documents Undermine Walmart Account on Deadly Bangladesh Fire | The Nation

Nova also called Walmart's role in the 2011 Dhaka meeting “especially revealing.” He described Walmart's position as “1) We know these factories are unsafe. 2) We know it will cost substantial sums to make them safe. 3) We are not going to pay for this. 4) We are going to keep using the factories anyway.”

“Walmart's greed and arrogance appear to be boundless,” said Nova. This is a company that siphons billions in subsidies from US taxpayers, that has made billions in profits on the backs of Bangladeshi workers, then scoffs at the notion that it should be asked to pay one dime to protect those workers from dying in factory fires while they sew Walmart clothes.”

What part of profits over people is it you don't understand?

[tomder55]

That vet hiring thing? Trumka's not happy about Walmart giving them a job.



I wonder if Trumka has compared prices at unionized grocers at say, Vons and Ralph's with Walmart. I have. Don't expect those struggling families to buy groceries there.

What a surprise ! A union thug doesn't like that workers aren't filtered through his organization. Again , no one is saying an entry level job at Walmart is a career.. and even if the Vets decide to make working at Walmart their career ,they come into the job with a skill set that gives them an edge when advancement opportunities present themselves.

[speechlesstx]

And you of course think Walmart, Gap, Target and every other company that buys products from Bangladesh should be responsible for safety standards instead of Bangladesh. Very unfortunate, but not Walmart's fault. My question to you is what do you want those poor to do to earn a living when those big retailers start buying product elsewhere? I know, they can go work in the toxic waste industry.

[talaniman]

Workers need all the union thugs they can get to overcome the profits before people corporate thugs.

[talaniman]

And you of course think Walmart, Gap, Target and every other company that buys products from Bangladesh should be responsible for safety standards instead of Bangladesh. Very unfortunate, but not Walmart's fault. My question to you is what do you want those poor to do to earn a living when those big retailers start buying product elsewhere? I know, they can go work in the toxic waste industry.

That's why the big retailers are there in the first place, NO WORKER SAFETY LAWS. What are those workers supposed to do if NOBODY gives a crap about their safety?

Form a union and demand it? Hmmmmm!!

[speechlesstx]

Workers need all the union thugs they can get to overcome the profits before people corporate thugs.

But you don't mind those union thugs making a killing off their members backs in forced union dues, not to mention using those dues to also promote a political agenda many of those workers don't espouse, or just plain going around the country harassing innocent people. We don't need unions any more, Tal, this ain't the 1800s.

[speechlesstx]

That's why the big retailers are there in the first place, NO WORKER SAFETY LAWS. What are those workers supposed to do if NOBODY gives a crap about their safety?

Form a union and demand it?? Hmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!

That isn't why they buy there, Tal. Nice spin but far from reality and as I hinted at before, you FAIL to acknowledge the millions of workers that can EAT because they have a job. Go ahead, unionize and nanny them and see what happens. I think it'd be an eye-opening experiment for you.

[talaniman]

WRONG, as long as there are corporate thugs extracting wealth off the backs of workers, and writing laws for more corporate welfare, you will always need a union. You would love to bring back slavery wouldn't you?

[talaniman]

That isn't why they buy there, Tal. Nice spin but far from reality and as I hinted at before, you FAIL to acknowledge the millions of workers that can EAT because they have a job. Go ahead, unionize and nanny them and see what happens. I think it'd be an eye-opening experiment for you.

Despite right wing talking points there is no such thing as the nanny state. Just victims of corporate greed.

[speechlesstx]

You would love to bring back slavery wouldn't you?

That was totally uncivil, irresponsible, offensive and undeserved.

[talaniman]

That was totally uncivil, irresponsible, offensive and undeserved.

Tom can defend himself.

[speechlesstx]

There isn't a post by tom on this page thus far and your response is directed at my statement that "we don't need unions any more." Not cool, dude. Not cool at all.

[tomder55]

Here was my last comment on this thred
What a suprise ! a union thug doesn't like that workers aren't filtered through his organization. Again , no one is saying an entry level job at Walmart is a career ..and even if the Vets decide to make working at Walmart their career ,they come into the job with a skill set that gives them an edge when advancement opportunities present themselves.
Is that the one that gives you the notion I want slavery here ?