Amount of people Walmart "helps" by offering lower prices(even if the "quality" of said products is lower, the poor people can still OBTAIN said products) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The amount of people who are "screwed over" when walmart comes to town.
Honestly, if a poor family only have $100 to their name, they are going to get a helluva lot more "bang for their buck" at Walmart than at "OrganicStore2k12". Walmart also has very large staff, giving a lot of people jobs(and opprotunities to move up if you have even a reasonable work ethic).
People who hate Walmart are nuts.
Sorry, man, but Walmart is part of the problem for the entire country:
Keep in mind these are State-wide averages, so they won't necessarily account for parts of a state that are more expensive than others (eg. the big cities). However, it should still give you an idea of how minimum wage isn't a real living wage.
And it's not just Walmart that is the cause of this, the cost of everything for living has gone up so much that few families can live without both parents working.
Honestly, if a poor family only have $100 to their name, they are going to get a helluva lot more "bang for their buck" at Walmart than at "OrganicStore2k12". Walmart also has very large staff, giving a lot of people jobs(and opprotunities to move up if you have even a reasonable work ethic).
Not really. Although WalMart claims to have "everyday low prices" more often than not they are more expensive than competitors on many items. There's a reason that many communities, even those that could use the 'job' (not diving into that fallacy) have barred WalMart from setting up shop.
Not really. Although WalMart claims to have "everyday low prices" more often than not they are more expensive than competitors on many items.
Do you shop at Walmart often? Maybe it's your area, but around here, Walmart is the cheapest on nearly every item, usually by at least 10%. And if they aren't, they have a no questions asked, no ad needed price match guarantee...
Sorry, man, but Walmart is part of the problem for the entire country:
Keep in mind these are State-wide averages, so they won't necessarily account for parts of a state that are more expensive than others (eg. the big cities). However, it should still give you an idea of how minimum wage isn't a real living wage.
And it's not just Walmart that is the cause of this, the cost of everything for living has gone up so much that few families can live without both parents working.
Well, cut the numbers in half if you have a roommate for the other room and most those places are affordable, no?
Well, cut the numbers in half if you have a roommate for the other room and most those places are affordable, no?
Even if you do cut it in half, a lot of these plays still require more than a full-time job hours. Any how many jobs will they allow an employee to work overtime? I remembered when I was working my high school/college years, OT was frowned upon.
Do you shop at Walmart often? Maybe it's your area, but around here, Walmart is the cheapest on nearly every item, usually by at least 10%. And if they aren't, they have a no questions asked, no ad needed price match guarantee...
in canada the prices seem higher then most. superstore is far cheaper
Even if you do cut it in half, a lot of these plays still require more than a full-time job hours. Any how many jobs will they allow an employee to work overtime? I remembered when I was working my high school/college years, OT was frowned upon.
Psst: They don't pay more than minimum wage at broke, overpriced mom-and-pop stores either. You want to fix this, raise minimum wage.Of course, Walmart also significantly decreases living expenses for lower income families by being so much cheaper, so there's that too.
It's because Walmart is anti-competitive and forces the lowest common denominator on their customers. Look at the quality of the produce versus the junk food ratios at Walmart. Compare that to a store like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. While WF and TJs are still nation-wide chains, at least they provide outlets for local farmers and regional (eg. Food Should Taste Good, Cabot Dairy) non-huge corporations to provide less processed, less pesticide ridden, and less hormones than the big corporations who couldn't care less about that kind of thing (eg. Nabisco, Kraft).
Walmart produce sections also pale in comparison to the produce sections at Whole Foods in the quantity and quality, as well. Whole Foods attempts to push a lot of the more nutritious foods that Walmart has no interest in selling. And I think everyone would agree, we could strive to eat more fruits and vegetables that Walmart doesn't seem interested in selling to us.
In that case, buy your food at those other places. You said that Walmart "forces the lowest common denominator on their customers," but then went on to point out that no one's forced to buy any of it, since Whole Foods and Trader Joe's exist to give people the choice to buy healthier and local-grown food if they choose to. If one store doesn't satisfy the needs of everyone, then another will spring up to cater to them. I'm not sure what's so objectionable about that. Why would you care that Walmart sells cheaper-quality items? No offense, but it sounds a little elitist to criticize Walmart because they don't sell the high-quality items that you prefer. If you prefer those, buy them from the places that offer them and allow people who don't care for the same things that you do to buy them at Walmart.
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Originally Posted by Monkeyhouse
When I look at entire towns with boarded up downtowns because Walmart came to town and drove nearly everyone else out of business it is rather depressing.
I'm sure that there's way more to it than just "Walmart drove all of these businesses out of business." A lot of it was likely due to internet sales. Some of it was also likely simple mismanagement, since anyone can start a business with enough money, but not everyone has what it takes to run it properly. Some of it was likely due to cities and shopping centers charging too much for property taxes and leases (because of their mismanagement or economic downturn). Blaming everything on Walmart doesn't make sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monkeyhouse
As well they are able to offer those super low prices because there is no thought as to where the products came from. Slave/child labor? fine by Mr.Walton as long as it is cheaper. There is nothing ethical in what Walmart does, it is all about making as many profits as possible.
Before you criticize Walmart because people are making minimum wage producing the products that they sell, consider where your smartphone, tablet, TV and other electronics likely come from. It's well-documented, for example, that Apple's products, such as the iPhone and iPad, are manufactured by people over in China making way less than our minimum wage. The same is true for most electronics. If you really feel that Walmart buying products produced by such labor is unethical, then you must agree that what you're doing by buying such electronics for your own use is unethical. Are your own ethics really so above reproach that you can criticize Walmart?
hey look, it's the anti-walmart "local, organic ingredients" argument.
if people didn't go to walmart, they wouldn't be in business. instead, some people would rather spend less money on less quality produce or food because it's what they can afford. ffs, i can afford to shop at nicer stores and still end up doing a bulk of my shopping at walmart neighborhood market. it's cheap. and i'd rather feed the family for less money than make a political statement.
all companies are evil. even apple, the hipster's shangri la. if a company didn't look out for itself and its interests it would cease to exist. if you don't like something: don't buy it.
Before you criticize Walmart because people are making minimum wage producing the products that they sell, consider where your smartphone, tablet, TV and other electronics likely come from. It's well-documented, for example, that Apple's products, such as the iPhone and iPad, are manufactured by people over in China making way less than our minimum wage. The same is true for most electronics. If you really feel that Walmart buying products produced by such labor is unethical, then you must agree that what you're doing by buying such electronics for your own use is unethical. Are your own ethics really so above reproach that you can criticize Walmart?
Foxconn pays 4x the wage of anything else available in Shenzhen. How terrible.
Foxconn pays 4x the wage of anything else available in Shenzhen. How terrible.
Quote:
It is a response to one of the largest investigations ever conducted of a U.S. company’s operations outside America. Apple had agreed to the probe by the independent Fair Labour Association (FLA) to stem a crescendo of criticism that its products were built on the backs of mistreated Chinese workers.
The association, in disclosing its findings from a survey of three Foxconn plants and more than 35,000 workers, said it had unearthed multiple violations of labour law, including extreme hours and unpaid overtime.
Welcome to the globalized world fellas. The arrival of Wal-Mart hardly destroyed the economy and made unemployment rate go up. For how long has Wal-Marts been around? Oh right, since the 80's. Since 1980's, the GDP per capita went up and unemployment levels followed the same patterns as it had been before.
The only difference that the globalized world did to North American economies is that there was a relocation of jobs from one sector to another. For example, the unionized steel workers went in the US fell from 1 million to 572,000 between 1975 and 1985 but the unemployment didn't go up and those workers found another job, that ended up paying approximately the same if you look at the statistics. The employment turnover ratio is higher than what people realize. Sure, since 2008, the job market became really difficult but you really can't attribute any of this to the multinational superstores/restaurants. In fact, imagine that all we consumed in North America was made by North American workers. Well, we'd pay about twice the price for everything and people would be poorer as a whole even as they wouldn't be able to afford the same amount of goods even if they are better paid.
It is conceivable that the low-wage workers in developed economies such as the US suffer from the transfer of manufacturing jobs to developing countries. But most studies have attributed that higher wage inequality to the rise of technology. What this new technology also brought to us is that the countries with the most advanced technology with skilled workforce will get the higher paying jobs. This alone can explain why there is greater inequality between the very rich and the very poor. Blaming Wal-Mart for that would be completely senseless and uninformed.
Sure, when you go to ''small town America'' you may see all those closed shops but ask yourself: did those Mom & Pop's stores pay their employees better? In most case, the answer is no. They paid their employees minimum wage and that's how it worked, nobody complained about that. The only people that are hurt by the arrival of a Wal-Mart would be the owners of those shop, so a handful of people really. Even then, if they offered better service and improved their efficiency, they could probably have stayed in business like all the other shops that survived the arrival of that EVIL GIANT that is Wal-Mart. So basically, Wal-Mart made the price points drop for all the customers and, in exchange, some of the traditional stores with an outdated model had to close. Not such a bad tradeoff.
The real problem in the US is the education. So many people didn't receive proper education that it created an entire segment of the US' population not able to do the tasks that requires specialization. This makes it very difficult for those people to get out of the ''very low-wage'' class. I'm not saying everybody has to go through University but, nowadays, you need some specific skills (may it be technical or intellectual) to succeed in the Western world. The problem is that the price of this education is too high for many people to even consider taking (even if, on long-term, it's going to be a very profitable investment)... This is less of a problem in European countries and Canada, where you see that the productivity of the workforce is higher than the US. The United States has been constructed on the principle that hard work will bring you high reward. This is not entirely true nowadays. The best example of that is France. Even if they work only 35 hours a week with 2 months of vacation a year, french workers are about as productive as an American worker that works 40hrs/week with 2 week of paid vacation. This comes from the fact that French workers are (on average) more specialized and that the companies see continuous education of their workforce as a profitable investment rather tahn an expense.
So TL;DR: Wal-Mart and globalization has very little to do with the economy going down and the inequalities of wages going up. Education and specialization are the real problems.
As for the topic at hand, EA is really annoying with their B.S. DLC, their online pass, Origin and their ****ing tendancy of making everything in a game unlockable if you pay a cost (i don't care about that in Single Player games, but it makes me sick when I play 40hrs of NHL Be a Pro/HUT and still have worse stats than that guy who played 5hrs but spent $80 on Booster Packs/Card Packs)...
However, the fact is that I like their games better than any other publisher, so I keep on buying them and, indirectly, promote their ''lets make them pay for everything'' agenda.
I can't even blame them, they take those decisions based on the fact that they will make more money and that people will still buy their games. The day that people don't buy as much games from them and make their revenue column go down is the day they'll stop doing that ****.
Four times twenty cents is still only eighty cents, dude.
The moral failings of China are not the sole doing of Apple or any number of international corporations. Recent efforts by Apple and WalMart to be sustainable and responsible go well beyond public relations or CSR. You also can't suddenly give every Chinese worker the equivalent of minimum wage in the United States just to feel better about yourself. That's not how economies work and certainly not how a country with the population of China or India functions. Are you ready and willing to pay 5-10x more for products for the sake of feeling good? The average wage, however, continues to rise as China modernizes and continues to produce more and more of the worlds goods. And it's not just the cheap toys and clothes anymore.
Welcome to globalization. You better strap in. It doesn't get easier.
Four times twenty cents is still only eighty cents, dude.
They still have 4 times more money that the other Chinese workers get. And those Chinese workers with 4 times less money are still able to survive because the price of living is way lower than in developed countries.
You can't suddenly give all the Chinese workers the same amount that minimum wage workers get in the US.
Sure, they can't live in the same luxury as we do, but it's still 4 times better than they used to get. Anyways, if you increased all the salaries to American standards, the only thing it would create is more unemployment and exponential inflation rates.
However, Apple (and all other electronics companies) has to be blamed for the unpaid overtime (if overtime laws exists in those countries) and some questionable HR decisions such as forced complete silence during work hours and very few breaks.
However, Apple (and all other electronics companies) has to be blamed for the unpaid overtime (if overtime laws exists in those countries) and some questionable HR decisions such as forced complete silence during work hours and very few breaks.
Apple doesn't run the factory itself though. It's all contract manufacturing. And they don't go to China just for the cheap labor. It's more for the innovation, the sheer ability and the economies of scale. Suppliers are largely allowed to run as they see fit and within societal norms. People were shocked when Nike got caught using child labor, despite having the M audit. You can't get around the constraint of needing X amount of productivity at Y cost that causes all of these violations very easily. Going beyond that, you can't influence competitors who might simply be enjoying the lower cost with all sorts of violations. It's a very tricky situation.
How did EA ruin Bioware? They just distribute the games Bioware makes.
Nope. They fill their subsidiaries with stupid hires that come from EA that ensure their policies are followed. Everything the studio does has to be approved by EA. Casey Hudson has to listen to his handlers when designing the game. Timetable too aggressive? What a shame, now find another job if you don't like it. Plenty of people have abandoned ship.
Nope. They fill their subsidiaries with stupid hires that come from EA that ensure their policies are followed. Everything the studio does has to be approved by EA. Casey Hudson has to listen to his handlers when designing the game. Timetable too aggressive? What a shame, now find another job if you don't like it. Plenty of people have abandoned ship.
This is just heresy, there is no proof of this. In fact in talking with DrFeelgood some EA studios are actually very independent from EA.
I know you hate Bioware, but honestly if you have nothing to back up your claims you shouldn't be arguing this. If you do have something to back up your argument (that Bioware hires EA people to ensure their policies are followed, and that EA forced Bioware to change things in development) then my bad. But I've seen no proof of this.
The only thing I feel is something EA definitely wanted in was the co-op. But everything else leads me to believe Bioware just had no clue where they wanted to go with their game.
Anyways this bracket is stupid, Paypal lost to Walmart, and even worse Comcast lost to EA. At least EA has done SOME good things. Their sports titles are good, Dead Space is good and Mass Effect for all but a few minutes through 3 games is good. Comcast has literally done nothing good ever.
