BS: Has Walmart been defeated?

Subject: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:40 AM

The Democrats latest strategy for getting elected:

A Coordinated Democratic Assault on Wal-Mart
Clay Waters 8/17/2006 1:29:42 PM

A Coordinated Democratic Assault on Wal-Mart
Posted by: Clay Waters
8/17/2006 1:29:42 PM

Political reporter Adam Nagourney and anti-Wal-Mart specialist Michael Barbaro team up to cover the Democrat's latest campaign tactic -- a coordinated attack on Wal-Mart. After teeing off with Sen. Joe Biden laying into the company at a speech in Des Moines, they continue:

"Among Democrats, Biden is not alone. Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits."

The Times insists on casting the anti-Wal-Mart crusade as a "populist," not a liberal, campaign, even though the Democrats are pushing typical big-government ideas like hiking the minimum wage as part of their solution.

"The focus on Wal-Mart is part of a broader strategy of addressing what Democrats say is general economic anxiety and a growing sense that economic gains of recent years have not benefited the middle class or the working poor.

"Their alliance with the anti-Wal-Mart campaign dovetails with their emphasis in Washington on raising the minimum wage and doing more to make health insurance affordable. It also suggests they will go into the midterm Congressional elections this fall and the 2008 presidential race striking a populist tone.

"Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations that might be inclined to make contributions.

"Still, what is striking about this campaign is the ideological breadth of the Democrats who have joined in, including some who in the past have warned the party against appearing hostile to business interests."

The text box also claims that there is "An offensive from across the ideological spectrum."

That spectrum apparently spans from unlabeled liberals like Ned Lamont and Sen. Hillary Clinton all the way to...Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, whose lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 21 out of 100 isn't all that centrist (by comparison, Sen. Clinton's rating is 9).

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was a member of Wal-Mart's board when she lived in Arkansas, the corporation's home state, returned a $5,000 campaign contribution from the company last year. Mrs. Clinton said she did so to protest Wal-Mart's health care benefits, and she has continued to distance herself from the policies of a company she was close to when she was the first lady of Arkansas....'It's not anti-business,' said Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a former head of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, appearing at an anti-Wal-Mart rally on Tuesday. 'Wal-Mart has become emblematic of the anxiety around the country, and the middle-class squeeze.'"

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2006/20060817132454.aspx

Woooooo Hooooooo Way to go! Keep up the good work. Get'er Done Boys.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:45 AM

"...denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits." Do you dispute it?


typical big-government ideas like hiking the minimum wage as part of their solution. Oh. A minimum wage that has not been changed in nine years- even to keep up with inflation - is a good thing. I see.


"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was a member of Wal-Mart's board when she lived in Arkansas, the corporation's home state, returned a $5,000 campaign contribution from the company last year. Mrs. Clinton said she did so to protest Wal-Mart's health care benefits, and she has continued to distance herself from the policies of a company she was close to when she was the first lady of Arkansas...."

Wal-Mart is a different critter today from what it was when it began, boyo. Somebody ought to do their research.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 04:50 AM

This song can also be sung to the tune "Will the circle be unbroken".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:30 AM

Old Guy, tell me ONE thing that the Republicans (Conservatives) have ever done for the benefit of the working man/woman. ONE thing.

Why didn't the vote on minimum wage pass? Because the republicans attached a parasite to it that called for removing the estate tax.
Minimum wage would cost millions, and removal of the estate tax would benefit 1% of the population and cost BILLIONS.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:08 AM

Can someone tell me why responding to Fat Old Woody's inane & mindless cut-qnd-paste crap is a productive thing to do?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:50 AM

Captain, there is no hope for those that will not be swayed. I believe one needs only to look at some key stat's and the obvious conclusion will be reached. Take a look at the amount the average CEO makes per dollar made by his employee. Contrast todays figures against 20 years ago. Then ask yourself this. Anyone you know got those kind of increases? Take a look at the polarization of the money. The gap between richest and poorest is at an alarming rate. More and more money is centralizing in fewer and fewer hands. Examine how the tax breaks are all falling to the people who least need them.

The American Dream hasn't died, but it is on life support. It used to be said that anyone who was willing to work hard could make it. Tell that to all the folks working two and three jobs just to make ends meet.

I crack up at the "old guys" that are living on pensions, that they got because of unions, chastising all these lazy folks that are working two jobs, and none of them have a decent defined benefit pension plan. Health insurance is being provided to many of these "old guys" by the work of the collective bargaining units, but they will tell you that unions aren't needed anymore.

Walmart isn't defeated, not even close. And they are just the tip of the iceberg. Biggest player, and biggest target, in a war to save the American working class. They are playing a very sophisticated game of "make it look like one thing, when really it's another". The stakes for working families are huge.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:10 AM

"ONE thing":

Bush Limits Eminent-Domain Seizures

Associated Press
Saturday, June 24, 2006; Page A05

President Bush ordered yesterday that federal agencies cannot seize private property except for public projects such as hospitals or roads. The move occurred on the one-year anniversary of a controversial Supreme Court decision that gave local governments broad power to bulldoze people's homes for commercial development.

The majority opinion in the Supreme Court case involving New London, Conn., homeowners limited the homeowners' rights by saying local governments could take private property for economic-development-related projects because the motive was to bring more jobs and tax revenue to a city.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062301722.html

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:18 AM

"I crack up at the "old guys" that are living on pensions, that they got because of unions"

I hate unions and I do not get a pension. Unions are what run US businesses offshore. Of course businesses are evil when they operate in the US and when they move out of the country, they are still evil.

And Libs hate Republicans because they are not chumsey wumsey with Unions. Dems try to suck up to them for votes.

And Walmart is not unionized and a natural target for the Dems.

It's lots easier for the Democrats to target Wallmart than terrorisim.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:38 AM

Old Guy, you betray your own arguments. What runs businesses offshore is their desire to take advantage of workers. They don't want to pay a living wage with simple health insurance benefits and some kind of retirement option. In other words, they don't want to take part in the American Dream. They prefer the old days of company stores, blackballs, and the ability to use people as a commodity to be used up and cast off. If we pass simple laws here that provide for this as well as protecting our environment and education system, they just move offshore. In other words, capital over people.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:51 AM

Do you support slavery, old Guy?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:13 AM

Washington Times: Inside the Beltway:

    In passing the 2005 Transportation, Treasury and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, Congress this week handed itself a pay raise - jacking up its annual salary nearly $4,000 above a current income of $158,000.

    It marks the sixth straight year that Congress has accepted an automatic pay raise. Hats off to two-term Rep. Jim Matheson, Utah Democrat, who last week made a procedural attempt to prevent the annual pay increase, but his measure was voted down 235 to 170.

    All site contents copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc.

Matheson donates his pay raise to local charities every time his attempt to vote against this shit fails. More here:

    The congressman's remarks did little to prevent what has become almost automatic since 1989 when lawmakers opted to take politics out of pay raises. House members voted 235 to 170 Tuesday on a procedural measure that essentially endorses the pay raise and allows the annual cost-of-living allowance to take effect.

    Not since 1998 has Congress turned down the raise, and it has only done so five times in the past 14 years. The base salary for members of Congress -- those in leadership positions earn more -- this year is $158,100.

    Copyright ©2004 The Spectrum. All rights reserved.

    Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Speaker, these are difficult times for our Nation. We are fighting terrorism on numerous fronts. We have commitments to keep our troops overseas, and we struggle to meet our needs here at home. Our economy needs a boost, unemployment is high, and our future budget deficits are predicted to be the highest in the history of this great Nation.

    Now is not the time for Members of Congress to be voting themselves a pay raise. We need to show the American people that we are willing to make sacrifices. We need to budget, live within our means, and make careful spending decisions based on our most pressing priorities.

    Mr. Speaker, let us send a signal to the American people that we recognize their struggle in today's economy. Vote "no'' on the previous question so we can have an opportunity to block the automatic cost-of-living adjustment to Members of Congress. This vote ought to be cast in the light of day and on the record. A "no'' vote on the previous question will allow Members to vote up or down on the cost-of-living adjustment.

    If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule. My amendment will block the fiscal year 2005 automatic cost-of-living pay raise for Members of Congress. Because this amendment requires a waiver, the only way to get to this issue is to defeat the previous question. Therefore, I urge Members to vote "no'' on the previous question.

Here are the House Reps who voted for Matheson's measure to be defeated. Keep this list in mind the next time you hear a Rep bitch about the budget deficit, a lack of funds for programs, or loudly voicing concern for the poor. Texans are ALL CAPS; Austin reps are bolded:

    Abercrombie Akin Andrews Baca Bachus BARTON (TX) Bass Berman Biggert Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Boehner BONILLA Bono Brady (PA) Brown (SC) Brown, Corrine Brown-Waite, Ginny Butterfield Buyer Calvert Camp Cantor Capuano Cardin --CARTER-- Clay Clyburn Cole Collins Cooper Cox Cramer Crane Crenshaw Cubin CULBERSON Cummings Cunningham Davis (AL) Davis (FL) Davis (IL) Davis, Tom Deal (GA) DeGette Delahunt DeLauro DELAY Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Dicks Dingell Dooley (CA) Doolittle Doyle Dreier Dunn Ehlers Emanuel Eshoo Everett Farr Fattah Feeney Ferguson Foley Frank (MA) Frelinghuysen FROST Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gilchrest Gillmor GONZALEZ Goodlatte Goss GRANGER GREEN (TX) Grijalva Gutierrez Gutknecht Harman Hastings (WA) Hefley Herger Hinchey HINOJOSA Hobson Hoeffel Hoekstra Honda Houghton Hoyer Hunter Hyde Israel Issa Istook Jackson (IL) JACKSON-LEE (TX) Jefferson JOHNSON, SAM Jones (OH) Kanjorski Kennedy (RI) Kilpatrick King (IA) King (NY) Kingston Kirk Kline Knollenberg Kolbe Lantos Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) LaTourette Leach Lee Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (GA) Linder Lipinski Lowey Lucas (OK) Maloney Manzullo Markey Matsui McCarthy (MO) McCarthy (NY) McCotter McCrery McDermott McHugh McKeon McNulty Meehan Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Menendez Millender- McDonald Miller (MI) Miller, Gary Miller, George Mollohan Moran (VA) Murtha Myrick Nadler Neal (MA) Ney Nunes Oberstar Olver ORTIZ Osborne Otter Oxley Pallone Pascrell Pastor Payne Pelosi Pence Pickering Pombo Portman Pryce (OH) Putnam Quinn Radanovich Rangel Regula Rehberg REYES Reynolds RODRIGUEZ Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Rothman Roybal-Allard Ruppersberger Rush Sabo Saxton Schakowsky Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Sessions Shadegg Shaw Sherman Simpson Skelton Smith (MI) Smith (NJ) --SMITH (TX)-- Solis Souder Spratt Stark Sweeney Tauscher Thomas Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) THORNBERRY Tiberi Turner (OH) Van Hollen Velazquez Visclosky Walsh Waters Watson Watt Waxman Weiner Weldon (FL) Weldon (PA) Weller Wexler Wicker Wilson (NM) Wilson (SC) Wolf Woolsey Wynn Young (AK) Young (FL)

    These people didn't cast a vote:

    Ackerman
    Baker
    Ballenger
    Blackburn
    Boehlert
    Bonner
    Burton (IN)
    Cannon
    Conyers
    Crowley
    Engel
    Gephardt
    Greenwood
    Hastings (FL)
    JOHNSON, EDDIE B.
    Kleczka
    Langevin
    McInnis
    Miller (FL)
    Nethercutt
    Owens
    Schrock
    Serrano
    Sherwood
    Slaughter
    Tauzin
    Towns
    Whitfield

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:19 PM

Buth of your insinuations that I am getting a pension and I am union are false. How des that belie anybody but you?

For the record, are you pro union and therefore pro old guys living on union pensions and amusing you? Or are you anti union and therefore against old guys living on union pensions and expressing their opinions?

Anybody that objects to being taken advantage of by an evil corporation can start his own business. Legal emigrants can't wait to get to the USA, land of opportunity, and start a business while the natives sit on their asses and piss and moan about how bad things are in the US.

I am against slavery which is caused by Democrats as well as Republicans by promoting Illegal immigration. The Dems do it because they want the votes. The Republicans do it because they want the cheap labor.


So anyway, are the Democrats going to ride this anti-Walmart strategy to victory by appealing to all the pissers and moaners?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:27 PM

Old Guy--

If you were truly against slavery---which I interpret in this case as exploitation of of illegal immigrants, you'd be in favor of a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants. If they remain illegal immigrants, they are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. They are not about to leave, since they do have jobs and often families in the US.

Since you are not in favor of such a path to citizenship, I'm unwillingly forced to the conclusion that you are, not to put too fine a point on it---a hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:35 PM

"...denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits." Do you say it is true?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:38 PM

Congress OKs raise despite Matheson

Cannon, Bishop join in effort to avert hike — and fail a fifth time
By Jerry Spangler
Deseret Morning News
      WASHINGTON — In a way, Congress again voted itself a pay raise Tuesday, this time to the tune of 1.9 percent, or $3,100. But members can all go home and tell voters they didn't really vote to boost their pay.
      It just sort of happened automatically.
      Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, tried again — and failed again — to persuade his colleagues to reject the automatic congressional pay raise that is wrapped inside an appropriations bill.
      "We are at war, and that requires shared sacrifices," Matheson said. "Let us send a signal to the American people that Congress gets it. A little belt-tightening wouldn't hurt anyone around here."
      Matheson said the $8 trillion federal debt has put every man, woman and child "on the hook" for $26,000 in government debt. And he finds it ill-timed that lawmakers would be giving themselves pay raises.
      Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop, both Utah Republicans, joined Matheson in supporting the procedural move. But in the end, 263 representatives voted to end debate while 152 voted with Matheson.
      This is the fifth time in five years Matheson has attempted the procedural move on the House floor and the fifth time he has failed. This time around, he got 18 fewer votes than the 170 he got in a similar vote taken last September. If that motion were defeated, then Matheson could offer an amendment blocking the automatic pay increases.
      Matheson's procedural approach is the only means whereby members of the House actually vote on their pay, which will stand at $165,200 in the 2006 fiscal year.
      Matheson said he will again donate his pay raise to local Utah charities.
      Without Matheson's annual efforts, congressional pay raises would quietly slip thorough the legislative process.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:39 PM

Mr. Guy--

What about "slavery" and exploitation of illegal immigrants? Are you in favor of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants or not?

Just a yes or no will suffice.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:49 PM

I am for legal immigration and against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal emmigrants.

Immigration is what made this country great.

What is your position and will the Democrats win with this anti Walmart platform?

By the way, Walmart is a benefactor to immigrants. At Walmart you can send money back home to Mexico for less than is costs to send money to some place in America.

So if you are pro illegal immigration and anti-Walmart, you hypocritical.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:06 PM

Mr. Guy--

You're dodging the question, in classic Bushite fashion. I'm talking about the illegal immigrants already here (estimated 12 million). Path to citizenship for them or not?

Yes or no?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:09 PM

And without being forced to leave the US first. If that is a condition, they'll never come out of the shadows. (In their place, I wouldn't either).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:28 PM

Wal-Mart Looking to Buy, Sell, or Steal an Ethical Image

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:30 PM

Can you grasp this statement?:"against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal emmigrants". Does "Path to citizenship"=Amnesty?

If the current administration, GWB, would enforce the law that says you cannot employ illegal immigrants. They would have to come out of the shadows, leave and enter legally.

I don't expect people that are doing something illegal to suddenly stop doing it.

We went through this amnesty shit before and one part of the deal was enforcement of the laws. They were not enforced and here we are again, in an even worse situation.

Do I still represent a "Bushite" to you? If so you are having difficulty proccessing information.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 01:58 PM

Mr. Guy--


How do you propose to toss out 12 million out? I thought you were a "conservative"--against big government?    So it seems you're a hypocrite on this too. Fascinating.

To get all the 12 million out, you'd need to expand the Customs Service dramatically---and possibly have informants--a la Gestapo.

Sounds like your philosophy, all right.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:14 PM

Old Guy's display of irrational hatred (not just disagreement with, but full-blown hatred) of anything to the left of Benito Mussolini is an example of what someone on another thread so aptly described as "profound ignorance combined with absolute certainy."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:32 PM

Adhering to the law = irrational hatred?

Adhering to the law = Profound ignorance?

Sounds like somebody going off on tangents to avoid facing facts.

The illegals came here to find work.

What do they do if there is no work ?

Did the previous Amnesty program succeed or did it fail?

It has no relation to Mussolini or the Gestappo except on your shakey defence of Amnesty.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:36 PM

Facts? You? Talking about facts?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:42 PM

Evidently you don't have any. Just tripe about how enforcing the law is Gestappo tactics or Mussolini tactics.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:53 PM

And don't forget, If you are pro-Amnesty you are pro-Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 02:59 PM

Old Guy...look at the good side. Don Firth changed his act enough to equate you with Mussolini. Usually he just calls anyone is not in perfect agreement with him a Nazi.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:02 PM

Facts a-plenty. But rather than wasting my time arguing with someone who wouldn't know a fact if it bit him in the butt, I'll let someone else handle it. Lots of folks here seem to be willing, so I'll leave it to them. I'm not going to blow a perfectly good Sunday trying to educate someone who thinks he knows it all already.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:33 PM

Let's watch the name calling folks, that gets us nowhere.

Old Guy, I said FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WORKING MAN. Is that the best you can do? Did you know that Supreme Court Justice David Souter's own house was in the cross hairs of that land grab? Do you call him a working man?
I'm talking about things such as, Minimum wage, Social security, the 40 hour week, child labor laws and the vote for women. What have the republicans ever done to equal those?

The gap between rich and poor is growing, and anyone who knows anything about French history knows what happened when the starving peasants got enough.
In 1900, there was no middle class here. There was rich and poor. Labor unions created the middle class. "Labor unions, the folks who gave you the weekends, and vacations".
What a paradise this country could be if we stayed home and minded our own damn business and stopped making enemies! A billion dollars a week. How many hospitals and schools would that buy?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:35 PM

You lie, pdq. I have never called anybody a Nazi.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:44 PM

Old Guy--

I repeat---are you for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants--without their leaving the US--or not?

Just cut the bobbing and weaving--and answer the question.

Thank you so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:53 PM

Firth...equating someone who disagrees with you to Hitler is the same thing as calling them a Nazi. Equating someone who disagrees with you to Mussolini is the same as calling them a Fascist. You do both on a regular basis. Have a nice day.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 04:01 PM

And, yes, I'm aware Bush is in favor of path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Like a broken clock, he's right once in a while.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 04:05 PM

Name one country or person in this world who does not enslave others.

"Name me someone who's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him." B Dylan

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:00 PM

But that doesn't mean we should be in favor of making it easy to exploit people--say, illegal immigrants---and it is easy to exploit them now. The way to change that is to put them all on a path to citizenship--and to support a rise in the minimum wage.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:01 PM

Still lying, pdq. And your apparent inability to grasp the distinctions between a Nazi and a fascist reveal your tenuous grasp of political science. A Nazi is a fascist. But a fascist is not necessarily a Nazi. Mussolini was not a Nazi.

I have never called anyone here a Nazi or a fascist or a Hitler or a Mussolini. I will, however, point out if someone is espousing ideas that are in line with the philosophy of fascism. This doesn't necessarily make them a fascist, but they should be aware of the nature of what it is they are advocating.

You might try educating yourself on the subject instead of going off half-cocked and accusing people of things you don't understand.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:08 PM

Old Guy, I'm curious- earlier you were on about Walmart. No longer interested in their employee pay and health benefits? Not interested in the fact that many Walmart employees sign up for food stamps and other governmental aid and - sadly - qualify for them?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:16 PM

Any Wal-mart stock holders here?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:17 PM

Blather on, Firth. You are mis-quoting as usual. Is the only way you can 'win' by personal attacks or mis-quoting people?

As soon as someone dares to disagree with you, out come "Hitler", "moron", "Mussolini", "Nazi", "idiot", or you say that someone is not capable of understaning your self-imagined superiority.

Blather on. If you argue using facts you might lose. If you can't muster any facts to support you contentions, you have already lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 06:23 PM

Yep, there I was, just walking down through my favorite strip mall and Big-Box block, minding my own business, thinking of where to spend my public assistance money when suddenly two big burly Wal-Mart recruiters jumped out from behind the trash bins and Shanghaied me. They MADE me go to work for them! What was I to do??? OH what was I to do???? They had no UNION to turn to! True, they started me out at higher than minimum wage but this was going to ruin my welfare life style. God, I might even have to start paying taxes like all the rich people. Then I'd have even less money. My friends would leave me. Oh what EVIL this store is. If only I could figure out some way to not have to work for this unscrupulous outfit! But how? If only the free market concepts were at play then I could choose to go elsewhere but until that happens I am a virtual slave for WAL-MART.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 06:26 PM

Sowell defends Wal-Mart, ignores workers' dependence on Medicaid, food stamps
In his May 12 syndicated column, Thomas Sowell criticized those urging higher wages for employees of the discount retailer Wal-Mart. Sowell referenced a May 4 New York Times article that contained a quote from a Wal-Mart employee who said he was not earning a living wage. Sowell asked: "How is he living, if he is not making a living wage?" Several studies show that he might in fact be getting help through government assistance programs.

Sowell argued that Wal-Mart stockholders should not have to subsidize higher wages for Wal-Mart workers "through lower earnings," but he apparently failed to recognize that taxpayers are subsidizing Wal-Mart stockholders and executives through the high levels of public assistance that are used by its employees compared with other retail workers. A number of studies and analyses have shown that taxpayer-funded government programs are picking up the tab resulting from Wal-Mart's low wages and insufficient health insurance coverage.


from

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505120009

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 06:46 PM

Slag--


Well, if Walmart hadn't driven the other stores in your area out of business, you'd have other options. (Sounds like your fantasy is wide open--if other ideas are not welcome, you'd best say why.)

And if everybody is so happy to work at Walmart, why all the lawsuits--including some which Walmart has already paid--and a huge one, by women, for underpayment?

And sorry, it's not just those evil union organizers that you seem to fear--Walmart employees themselves are not all happy little bunnies.

Even other big-box stores treat their employees better than Walmart--Costco for instance--do I have to post the comparisons again?   Why do you suppose Walmart fought the recently passed Maryland bill mandating that it pay 8% of its income to a fund for medical care in Maryland. (And so far, Walmart is winning). If they provided decent health care for their employees, the bill would not ever have come up. Interesting that you think Maryland taxpayers should pay for the medical care
for Walmart employees that Walmart is unwilling to pay itself.

Good thing you're not a Maryland voter.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 08:39 PM

I'm still waiting, old Guy.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 08:49 PM

You compound your felony, pdg. Cite instances or shut the hell up.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:00 PM

Global search of Mudcat turns up nothing, so if anyone knows of any instances where I called someone here a Nazi or a fascist, will you please point it out to me? I mean the specific posts in which I did this.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:05 PM

Yo Firth...

This thread itself is a perfect example. You have supplied 0% fact and 100% personal attack. If you think people who disagree with you will leave because you are rude, think again. Actually, just think. Believe me, if you insist on 'rude' you may start getting some of it back.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:06 PM

You called Hitler a Nazi, Don. I remember that.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:16 PM

"FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WORKING MAN"

Are you implying people that own property do not work?

Or are you implying working men do not own property?

"I'm talking about things such as, Minimum wage, Social security, the 40 hour week, child labor laws and the vote for women. What have the republicans ever done to equal those?"

There was a small item known as the Emancipation Proclamation.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:37 PM

Exactly so, Peace.

What I said was:

"Old Guy's display of irrational hatred (not just disagreement with, but full-blown hatred) of anything to the left of Benito Mussolini is an example of what someone on another thread so aptly described as "profound ignorance combined with absolute certainty."

Let me parse it for you, pdq. I accuse Old Guy of irrational hatred for liberals, I strongly imply that he is "profoundly ignorant" and "absolutely certain" in his ignorance. I also accuse him of hating anything or anybody that is extreme Right Wing. That is what Benito Mussolini represents in what I wrote.

Nowhere did I call Old Guy and Nazi or a fascist. And nowhere have I called anybody on this forum a Nazi or a fascist.

If you want rude, pdq, look to yourself. Deliberately trying to misrepresent what someone else said is pretty rude. And a few other things.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:43 PM

"Why do you suppose Walmart fought the recently passed Maryland bill mandating that it pay 8% of its income to a fund for medical care in Maryland."

Because other businesses are not required to do the same thing.

I can't see the legality in legislation aimed at one company.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:51 PM

Old Guy--they were the only firm with 10,000 employees in Maryland which was not providing its employees decent medical care. You have yet to make a good argument that Maryland taxpayers should subsidize the biggest retail firm in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 10:56 PM

Don,

OK, I'll go for a cease-fire at this point but remember: Old Guy did nothing wrong. He started a very interesting thread. You waited until the 23rd post and attacked him with insults. You deserve to take some grief now and then.

This is a very important subject as it appears that the Democrats will be running this fall's elections on the 'Hate Wal-Mart' platform just as they ran the 2004 campaign on the 'Hate Bush' platform. They lost. I cringe to think I spent 32 years as a Democrat. They have been promising the public an official policy statement for about a year and a half, to be clear and unequivocal as was Newt's 'Contract with America'. Seems they will still be promising the same thing in 2008.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:03 PM

"8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours recreation"

Never catch on!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:14 PM

Fair enough, pdq. I should have stayed off this thread in the first place. When I saw who started it, I knew right off the direction it was going to take, and since I've argued this argument many times before, I really didn't have anything new to add. I was indeed twitting Old Guy, and considering that he was already doing a fine job of what I was trying to point out he was doing, it was essentially pointless for me to bother.

But I definitely do not like it when someone claims that I said something that I didn't say at all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:18 PM

wHT WAS THE THRESH HOLD SET AT 10,000 wHY NOT 9,000

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:23 PM

eeny meey miny mo...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:25 PM

Dang it.

Why was the thresh hold set at 10,000? Why not 9,000 or 8,000?

Seems to me it was set at 10,000 to single out Walmart.

Who here shops at Walmart? I make a bee line for it whenever I need something. If they don't have it, then I go elsewhere.

Ragging on Walmart is not going to sit well with voters who shop there.

The employees are nice. I don't know why they don't quit if walmart is so unfair.

And if people don't like Walmart's methods of doing business, boycott them. It will make them change their policies in a heartbeat.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:29 PM

Mr. Davies and all and sundry, be my guest! Of course it's wide open. I've been reading your fanastsies, welcome to mine. No one forced people to go shop at Wal-Mart. They could have supported Mom and Pop. You don't have to eat at Mc Donald's. Free market will fill in the gaps nicely. No one HAS to perform excellently in high school and no one HAS to go to college. You pays your money and you makes your choices. Generally people get what they deserve.

You mention Maryland. Maryland and Delaware have very interesting provisions for BIG business of all sorts. They have a very friendly tax structure which accomodates BIG business and that's why a lot of business locate their corporate headquarters there. I'd suspect a Republican Plot but GEE, these two seem to be RED states. Yeah, maybe I'll side with you guys and help drag down a legally publicly owned business that meets the needs of a vast number of customers and entry level employees who don't see Wal-Mart as the beginning and end of their work world experience but as a place to get their feet wet or to fill a gap while searching for improvement. Yeah, DOWN with Wal-Mart!

And Wal-Mart settlements? I'm sure some may have merit. ANY large corporation goes through similar things all the time but largely its a nusiance factor: Which is cheaper in the long run? To settle or fight? It's all economics driven without regard to the moral line taken by the plaintive.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 12:24 AM

Why don't the Dems campaign on a hate drug companies platform? They make more than Wallyworld, $10.3 billion, Phizer $12.28 billion

But wait, banks make even more profit, Citigroup 24.6 billion. But wait, oil companies make even more, Exxon $36.13 billion.

What a dilemma.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 12:29 AM

It's that EVILE capital behind it all! Workers of the World, Untie!

Oh, and did I mention that I'm a union man myself? Certified!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 12:31 AM

Yeah. Me too. But what do you mean by that? Are you a union member because you have to be or because you believe in workers' unions? Other than pay dues, do you work on the union's behalf? Just wondering, no offense.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 01:11 AM

I have. I'm retired but still a union member. It's a pretty do nothing union. I and fellow member have worked to change it but not much has been accomplished at the local level. The national level seems to be in pretty good shape though. Labor is part of the free enterprize system too. Just because it's a Rube Goldberg set-up doesn't mean it doesn't work. Whatever works, works!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:43 AM

"Maryland and Delaware have very interesting provisions for BIG business of all sorts."

States compete with each other to get big business into that state. They want to have the jobs coming to their state. They usually do it with tax breaks.

Should they not do this?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 08:05 AM

From the thread list:

BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
BS: Do Americans think it's worth it ?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 06:37 PM

All the Conlsobs have the same fixation!, liberals and what liberals do.

But I can't find anything, I mean nothing, that Conslobs themselves want or do that isn't negative.

Let's face it folks, the Conslob is a coward, draft dodger, a flag waver - on the docks as the Marines depart -, a wanker at home while Joe Average does the fighting and dying.

They have to hang on to a past, any past - see A Hitler for more data - in order to plan ahead. Yup, if it ain't in some old dusty history book, it has to be liberal or perverted or wrong.

So, Old Guy while forgivable for being 'old' and having burn his candle decades ago, nobody can be that stupid to not SEE the news commming out of Iraa, Afgahanistan and Israel.

Our weapons/capability are now well known to the enemy, next the people of Iraq are NOT all supporting Democracy there - no wonder when at home as many as 70 million taxpaying Americans CONTINUE to be denied the opportunity to vote ( US version of Soviet 'red tape'), and next the Mullahs are whinging about Islam being defeated!


Duh!

Oh and I predict Republicans are cleared out of office in next US election.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:05 PM

You sound pretty negative to me. Are you a Conslob?

What do Liberals do? Do they do anything positive? Do they have any positive attitudes?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:16 PM

A lot more positive that the neo-cons.

Old Guy, if you ever paid any attention to what liberals are for, I don't think you'd like that either.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:28 PM

The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the slaves that were under the control of the Confederacy. It did not free all of the slaves. Lincoln did that hoping to cause the slaves in the south to rise up and create another front for the rebels to deal with. It failed, miserably. The 13th amendment freed the slaves after Lincoln was dead.

And, I'm still waiting...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:37 PM

I gave you what you asked for but you keep disqualifying the answers.

Another whiny Liberal that is never satisfied.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 07:49 PM

"Whiny liberal."

I think we have what is called a "mind-set" here, as in "set in concrete."

I've never really met a "whiny" liberal. I've met a lot of liberals who are mightly pissed-off, and for good reason. but never one who's "whiny."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 08:16 PM

"Another whiny Liberal"

"another no good NeoCon"


"and the animals looked from the men to the pigs and back again, and could no longer tell the difference"

paraphrase of Animal Farm

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 09:08 PM

You gave me bogus squat.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 09:11 PM

I'd like to have a dollar for every conservative I have shot down with that challenge.
The fact of the matter is, the republicans have never done a goddamn thing for anyone but themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 09:15 PM

"What about the roads?"

"And the baths.."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 10:49 PM

Old Guy--


And I'm also waiting--for you to come up with that good argument I'm sure you have --as to why Maryland taxpayers should subsidize the largest retail firm in the world---which they do when they pay for medical care for Walmart employees--which Walmart should be doing itself--but then it might hurt their profits.

And you and Slag--since you're both retired, I believe, should have the time to do just a tiny bit of research before favoring us with your wonderful postings.

Maryland and Delaware both "red states"?--dream on. Wrong on both counts. Kerry took both in 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:20 AM

I said because it targets one company.

I asked why the number of employees was set to 10,000. You did not answer.

And then you whine about me not answering questions.

When you grow up you will learn how to grab life by the horns and make the best out of it instead of whining about it all the time.

I am glad you think neocons are good.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:58 AM

Wal-Mart has not been defeated. They just lie low until the time is ripe and re-apply.

Vancouver said no to their development permit. They went back to the drawing board and came up with a 'Green Walmart' complete with windmills. solar panels and trees. Vancouver still said no.

Then there was an election. Walmart has made another application. This time they will probably be approved.

I think the Democrats may need a cause with a little more substance.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 01:24 AM

Dianavan:

What would Canada do if the Nazi party of Greenland dug a tunnel under the Baffin Sea, kidnapped Dudley Dooright and Sargent Preston and started firing those big cannonball looking bombs with the fuse sticking out of the top, packed with goobers and frozen whale blubber at civilian targets in Canada?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 08:09 AM

Well, seemingly the truth is HERE ....*G*

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 08:23 AM

"started firing those big cannonball looking bombs with the fuse sticking out of the top, packed with goobers and frozen whale blubber "

Improve their diet.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:03 AM

Fat Old Woody is sounding more & more like Douggie-Boy every day - he considers himself a wit & thinks his puerile drivel is amusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:15 AM

He's half right...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:47 AM

Still waiting...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:11 PM

Keep at it and you will show everybody what an arrogant asshole you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:19 PM

dianavan sez:

"I think the Democrats may need a cause with a little more substance."

Well stated, even if I agree with her only about once a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:19 PM

Democrats Introduce Bill Targeting Wal-Mart
By Susan Jones - CNS News
June 23, 2005
Liberal Democrats are taking aim at "large, profitable companies" accused of shifting their health care costs onto taxpayers. Their bill is part of a union-inspired anti-Wal-Mart campaign.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) plan to introduce their Health Care Accountability Act, which will address a "growing and costly national problem" involving companies such as Wal-Mart.

Mentioning the retail giant by name in a press release, the lawmakers said "Wal-Mart's relentless pursuit of corporate greed has come at a high price for their workers' health care."

According to Kennedy, Corzine and Weiner, around 600,000 Wal-Mart workers are not covered by the company's health care plan.

"Poverty-level wages combined with high deductibles, costly premiums and strict eligibility requirements force tens of thousands of Wal-Mart's workers, spouses and dependents onto public health care programs designed for needy families and children," the Democrats said.

Kennedy, Corzine and Weiner said their Health Care Accountability Act will require states to disclose which employers have a high number of employees on public health care assistance, such as Medicaid. The bill also will show how much taxpayer money is "subsidizing the health care costs of large, profitable corporations, like Wal-Mart."

Those attending the Wednesday afternoon press conference include Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The UFCW has launched a "Make Wal-Mart Care About Health Care" campaign as part of a larger anti-Wal-Mart initiative called "Wake-Up Wal-Mart."

The union is trying to muster grassroots support for legislation that would require companies like Wal-Mart to pay "at least a minimum amount of their workers' health care."

Labor unions are longtime foes of Wal-Mart, a company that advertises low prices -- and insists there is no need for Wal-Mart employees to unionize, since the "line of communication" between workers and managers are open "at all times."

The UFCW says Wal-Mart "fails to provide health care" for more than 52 percent of its 1.3 million workers.

But Wal-Mart says many of the workers who choose not to enroll in company-offered health plans are either teenagers covered by their families' policies or older people covered by Medicare or retiree plans, the Baltimore Sun recently quoted one Wal-Mart official as saying.

Wal-Mart's website specifically states that "Wal-Mart does not encourage our associates to apply for public assistance.

"We will be the first to acknowledge that health care is a tough issue -- for us and for the country. We work hard to keep our associate premiums affordable and think we are doing a pretty good job."

Wal-Mart notes that health care premiums start at less than $40 a month for an individual and less than $155 per month for a family, no matter how many members, the website says.

Wal-Mart also says that unlike many health care plans, "after the first year, the Wal-Mart medical plan has no lifetime maximum for most expenses, protecting our associates against catastrophic loss and financial ruin."

Wal-Mart's critics admit that their newest campaign against the retailer is "part of a nationwide effort to change Wal-Mart."

The goal, they say, is to "build public and political pressure against Wal-Mart to take responsibility for its part in America's health care crisis" and to pass laws requiring Wal-Mart to pay "its fair share for health care in each and every state.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 02:24 PM

I'd like to have a dollar for every loser who can't hold his own in a difference of opinion resorts to foul language and personal attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 02:35 PM

or who doesn't HAVE and/or can't form his own opinion and therefore resorts to endless cut-and-pastes....

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 02:38 PM

Well you would be poor as well as waiting for multiple answers to the same questions while refusing to answer questions.

You are one of those people like O'Reily that only want a certain answer. So you just keep asking it over and over.

I think your remark that the Emancipation Proclamation is bogus squat is racially insensitive.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 03:39 PM

'I think your remark that the Emancipation Proclamation is bogus squat is racially insensitive'

Kendall didn't say that the Emancipation Proclamation was bogus squat - he said that your use of it as an example was bogus squat.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 04:14 PM

I asked you to name one thing the republicans ever did for the working man and you gave that answer, "The Emancipation Proclamation"
and I informed you that that had nothing to do with working people, that it didn't even apply to the slaves in the border states. Your lack of knowledge of history is not my fault.I proved you wrong and you implied that I'm an arrogant asshole. You are over your head, Mate.

Fine, I won't ask that question again because you are obviously not able to answer it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 04:21 PM

"Dougie" is a gentleman.

By the way Old Guy, I aske for the truth, not just any old answer that didn't even come close.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 04:44 PM

The validity of the legislation that insists that large companies pay their fair share rests squarely in the capitalist system and not allowing its abuse. Ignorant folks act like Walmart is this bastion of the American Way. Nothing could be further from the truth. In other days they would be accused of profiteering. The right wingers don't seem to mind that Walmart always seeks tax abatements on their properties, in essence demanding that the public finance their business. The right wingers, lost in simplistic logic, fail to understand the significance of Walmart encouraging their employees to use public assistance, even offering assistance in filing for it, as well as piggybacking on spouses plans. They have made other companies fairness, and the publicly funded programs a part of their profit margin. The right wingers all loved the brand called "Faded Glory" which showed an American flag, but was produced in countries where prison labor, and political prisoners could be used in its manufacture. When that started drawing fire, they moved to countries where children could be employed, using the classic "company store" tactics, to produce their product.

So, Old Guy, shop where you want. But spare me this crap about this company. Their profit margin is padded by tax breaks and piggybacking on others profits. Their abuses are so easy to enumerate, that they have spawned what you see. You can expect to see more of the same. Your encouragement of them shows you for what you are. Why don't you just admit it? It is not alright for your children and grandchildren to work in sweatshops when they should be in school, but it is OK if its someone elses. You don't want American workers to compete against forced labor, but its OK as long as its not here.   And you could care less if the Health Care policies of the largest private employer in the US is driving American jobs offshore, so long as you can save a penny on a can of soup. And you really don't care about your tax dollars, because you defend a company that profiteers at the expense of the taxpayer.

As to your intellect, what a joke. You are a smug and tired old man who will not face the facts, though they are there for you to see. Go grab a chair, sit and moan about the good old days, and leave those of us trying to help our country fulfill its promise to our work.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 05:11 PM

Up there a ways, I was accused of calling Old Guy a Nazi, which I did not. I didn't even call him a fascist.

But I will say this about him and those who think like he does:   these folks want a return to the feudal system.

Lords, vassals, and serfs. For Lord, read company owner or CEO. For vassals, management. For serf, read the poor working stiff who supports the entire system on his or her back, without whom the system would be impossible, and who benefits the least from it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 07:07 PM

When vast numbers of peasants died of the Black Plague, that was the end of the Feudal system - those remaining workers said "He will pay me more than you, so you don't get your crops in mate!"

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 07:45 PM

The last four posts are some of the most worthless, confused and hateful crap in the history of Mudcat.

Big Dick: You are a 'moderator' here which explains the level of nastiness. If you go insane every time you here an opinion that you don't like ban postor. Ban me. Ban Doug R. Ban Old guy. Then you can stew in your own rancid juices in peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 07:53 PM

I think you need a cup of tea, a Bex, and a good lie down...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 07:58 PM

"Walmart, United, will never be defeated"...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 08:07 PM

OK, pdq, take your meds and drink some water. What has my moderator status got to do with having an opinion? And could you show me where I have banned any poster? I will give you evidence to the contrary. There is one poster here that I wish would leave and have said so. As a result, I leave all decisions on his posts to others. That is only fair.

Now, as to you. You show yourself to be an intellectual lightweight with your namecalling. I have not even suggested any kind of a ban. Neither did I go insane. If I were prone to that I would tell you what I really think of you.

How about you stick to something new and exciting, like the facts??? Or would that require you exercising some brainpower, instead of just ranting and running off at the fingers?????

One more thing, there is nothing hatefilled about my post. It does, however contain some substantive (look it up) points, none of which you addressed.

For what it's worth, I happen to like DougR. I just disagree with him mightily on most things. And to the best of my knowledge, he has never referred to me as anything but Big Mick.

As to you referring to me as Big Dick, I had no idea you had noticed my genitalia, but thanks for pointing it out.

Oh yeah, ...... one more thing ...... f**k off.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,True_Liberal
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:04 PM

Ever notice how many "liberals" have not the slightest clue what the word means?

(Nor, for that matter, do many conservatives...)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:14 PM

That should have read "BIG DICKHEAD".

Also, If you don't know by now, a person's true character comes out when he/she/it is in a position of power. Your abuse of power is the worst in the history of Mudcat and shows you to be the paranoid fool and vengeful asshole you really are.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:24 PM

Now who did I call an asshole?

And what did El Supremo call Bogus Squat?

And again why was the threshold in Maryland set at 10,000 employees?

And again does the working man own property or not? Local governments were taking peoples property under imminent doamin to build on commercially. The Constitution says it can be taken for public use such as parks, roads etc. Not high rise apartments and shopping malls. The Supreme court did not uphold the constitution in this respect and GWB signed an executive order that upheld the constitution.

I am not the one moaning about the good old days and I still work and earn an income.

Does anybody here work for Walmart? What are the benefits and how do they compare with say Mikey Dees?

Lets discuss some facts instead of vile rhetoric.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:27 PM

Thank you, pdq, for making the point about yourself better than I ever could.

I don't abuse my power, which by the way, is much less than you might think. One of the things that I can do, is to delete personal attacks. In your case, it is better to leave them out there so folks can see the depth of your intellect. And remember one thing, moderators here are still allowed to have opinions. You are the one that brought the moderator bit up, not me. I am not sure what it has to do with this discussion, but in that tiny little world of yours I am sure you justify it somehow.

By the way, I notice that you still haven't dealt with any of the facts that I posted. I realize it is hard, but give it a try, won't you?

And please, keep up the namecalling. It makes me look very good.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:36 PM

Re read your post to me Old Guy it's all there.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:55 PM

pdq and Old Guy can sink into name calling and that's ok?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:05 PM

First you say: "tell me ONE thing that the Republicans (Conservatives) have ever done for the benefit of the working man/woman."

Then I reply with GWB executive order about eminent domain. Then you change the question to: "I'm talking about things such as, Minimum wage, Social security, the 40 hour week, child labor laws and the vote for women. What have the republicans ever done to equal those?"

Then I answer the changed question with: "Emancipation Proclamation"
Then you claim slaves were not working men/women. You clearly keep changing your question to disqualify the answer.

I can handle any sort of name calling because I am not a whiny crybaby so keep at it, show your stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:23 PM

Kendall:

Endless name-calling on Mudcat has been going on for five years. The policy statement SAYS it is not allowed but 'there it is' all day, every day. You support Greg F. who is the most pathetic excuse for a Mudcat contributor as this place will ever see. It is also pathetic that you, a man of over 70 years, still cannot act like a grownup and listen to the opinions of others. If you have any ability for leadership, you never show it. (PS: I used to have you LP "Lights Along the Shore" but about 2 years ago I melted it over the stove. Pity.)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:37 PM

Ok let me see. Facts by Big Mick?

I see mostly accusations not backed up by any evidence. It looks like your opinins to me which you are welcome to. Am I required to do something about your opinions?

"And you could care less if the Health Care policies of the largest private employer in the US is driving American jobs offshore, so long as you can save a penny on a can of soup."

Care to explain how that drives Jobs off shore? It is excess costs that drive jobs offshore.

I save more than a penny on the soup. I notice Wallyworld has been creeping their prices up but it could be due to increased energy costs.

Now how about the runners up on the biggest employer in the US? Who is #2 and how does their health care benefits coampare.

That reminds me of something I heard a while back. Walmart was going to have clinics in the stores. That would give immediate health care to the employees and the general public. Is that just a rotten scheme to run jobs offshore or an attempt to lower health care costs.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:56 PM

Republicans have killed their Conservative just like Maggie did her's in the UK, and with the same tools.

While waging various futile wars as a smoke screen -, rob the poor and give the -proceeds to the already rich.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:03 PM

What we need is the return of Sir Robin of Loxley to defeat the evil Sheriff of Nottingham once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:18 PM

pdq, I am done with you. Next time I am in your area, please be sure and say hello. You may begin by calling me the same names you have used here. Face to face. We will take it from there.

Old Guy, the way their healthcare policies drive jobs offshore is because by piggybacking on other companies plans, they drive up the costs and cause them to go places where they don't have to provide. Another offshoot is that they drive businesses, who provide decent healthcare and retirements, to cut benefits to compete, or close.

The healthcare clinics in the stores, like their attempts to start their own bank, is just an attempt to completely control the source of all things. Ever heard of the old "company store"? It is an attempt to so dominate their employees lives that they can't live with the wages, but can't live without them.

The rest of what I said is not my opinion, it is all out there and verified. And btw, how many class action suits for discrimination, use of illegal immigrants, kickbacks, does it take for you to quit defending these lawbreakers?

pdq, be sure and say hello. I look forward to meeting you.

I am out of this one.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:36 PM

...Greg F. who is the most pathetic excuse for a Mudcat contributor as this place will ever see.

Why thank you, PeeDee! Coming from a colossal intellect such as yourself I consider that high praise indeed.

Now, about that business with the stove..... when is it you'll graduate from middle school? I'd like to send you a card of congratulations.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:55 PM

pdq-

That's the lowest you've ever sunk. Lights Along the Shore is a great album--has a particularly great version of Lorena, as I recall--that's where I first heard all the verses.. It should be possible to have even a heated political discussion without degenerating into junior high stupid vulgar name-calling, and casting aspersions on somebody's music. As I recall, Lights Along the Shore did not have a song called "I Hate Walmart"--in fact I didn't hear any protest songs against the 20th century at all.

If your rage on a political issue blinds you to good, non-controversial music, you're a sorry case.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 12:25 AM

http://www.slate.com/id/2089532/

There's no question that workers without skills find it difficult to get paid as well as they once did, that employers are more reluctant to supply comprehensive health benefits, and that Chinese imports are pummeling American manufacturers. Wal-Mart thrives in part by contributing to or piggybacking on each of these trends, but they were all well underway before Wal-Mart took the United States by storm. Who should we blame for the other 90 percent of Chinese imports?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 12:56 AM

Well now, Old Guy, this is a perfect example of your blindered thinking, and your inability to examine data fairly. Does it not occur to you that one company, out of the thousands and thousands of companies, is responsible for 10% of the imports?

With regard to your comment "There's no question that workers without skills find it difficult to get paid as well as they once did, that employers are more reluctant to supply comprehensive health benefits, and that Chinese imports are pummeling American manufacturers." Whose economy are we trying to build? Why should we subsidize the Chinese who take unfair advantage by using prison labor? Our trade laws actually contribute to the increasing polarization between and ever smaller circle of people controlling the money. Why shouldn't American workers be able to count on the standards that have been set? Who says that retail workers don't deserve the benefits they have always had? Are we in a race to the bottom? What has the fact that low wage, workers in China (socialized medicine) got to do with whether Walmart should do with regards to the standard of living of its workers?

Your attitude is pathetic and Anti American IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:13 AM

Is unionizing Walmart going to stop the flow of Chinese imports? No. It is just being used as a tool to get into Walmart's drawers.

Are the Democrats going to "Do Something" about the great satan Walmart? No. It is just being used as a tool to get elected.

Dio you shop at Walmart? To stop that ofshore flow and imports all you have to do is boycott Walmart and the other thousands of companies that import stuff.?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:28 AM

First off, I don't shop at Wal-Mart. They are the Anti-Christ in my opinion.
Second, Old Guy get a clue! I assume you have eyes, ok, look up the Emancipation Proclamation for yourself and you will see just how silly your comparison is.

pdq, I couldn't care less what you think of me. All of my friends grew up years ago.

The first one to resort to juvenile name calling has already lost the argument, and you two are classic losers.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 10:30 AM

A very well known retailer, L.L.Bean of Freeport Maine used to have all their goods made in the USA. Now, their clothing for instance, is made in Bangladesh,India and other foreign countries. Do they drop the price to reflect their cheap labor charges? Dream on...everything is still priced way the hell up there. Who benefits? L.L. Bean.
Some of their clothing is made in Canada and I don't mind that because Canadians have a higher wage scale than India.

Bottom line CORPORATE GREED.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 02:04 PM

So someone points out the social and ethical implications of someone else's political viewpoint and that's "name calling?"

So rather than discuss it, you go on the attack. Get a grip, pdq.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 03:24 PM

For the record, I have absolutely no animosity for Ron Davies, Don Firth or Kendall Morse. I like all of them and respect their contributions to folk music. My point was to get their attention, you know the old story about the donkey and the brick...

This forum is not a place where that normal people feel comfortable anymore. No leadership from people who SHOULD be leaders and endless personal attacks against anyone more conservative than Norm Chomsky. Lighten-up. You guys don't look good by driving every normal American middle class poster off the forum. You just harden our resolve.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:09 PM

Normal middle class? Isn't that the group that the labor unions created?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:22 PM

Kendall ... yeah we do have higher wages than India but we still find it cheaper to go down to Freeport and by some offshore clothes at LL Bean cheaper than we can up here in Canada ... Hell, the Canadian made boots at LL Bean are even cheaper than here.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:38 PM

Pdq, Old Guy has started a couple of threads that were NOT political that were fun and interesting, for example the "Name The Movie" thread. Another was "Voluntary Simplicity." The rest have been nothing but political shit-stirring, drawing the very kind of responses he's been getting.   Many of his posts, and particularly with most of the threads he starts, he has displayed (as I said above and to which you took exception) a hatred of all things liberal bordering on the irrational, based on what looks very like profound ignorance (or simply ignoring facts that everyone else seems to be able to perceive) and an absolute certainty to the point of arrogance. He doesn't seem to be interesting in discussion, he just makes pronouncements.

Now here's a point to ponder. I have not found once single instance where Old Guy has posted to a music thread. This is primarily a music forum. Why, then, is he here, other than to engage in the kind of arguments he's getting?

As far as "This forum is not a place where that normal people feel comfortable anymore" is concerned, first, there is the question of what you regard as "normal people." Neo-conservatives? And then, there is the old adage about "If you can't stand the heat, then don't sit on the barbeque." Especially when Old Guy was the one who lit the barbeque in the first place.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:40 PM

You seem to equate vehement disagreement with attack. I will always debate vigorously any viewpoint I disagree with. Old Guy, IMO, mouths cliche'ed information. You are worse.

Where did you get the idea that I am now, or ever have been a leader here? I am not.   I am a leader in a great many things, but here I am simply a poster, and I agreed to moderators duties. My moderator duties do not involve censorship of views. I am allowed to censor personal attacks, but I didn't censor yours. I was contacted by other mod's, and my response was that they should apply the rules as they see fit. Because of your animus, I would not. Take a minute and look up the difference between leader and moderator. I don't really care if you like my views, and I will be damned if I will allow some childish prat to throw a tantrum because I express them.

You have shown yourself to be vile and childlike. You have done it much better than I ever could. Congratulations. And your attempt to suck back up to the others cracks me up. Wasn't there a despicable post about melting Kendall's recording????? Get your stories straight.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 04:55 PM

It is the duty of a moderator to chide people for abusive posting, not engage in it. That is all I have say on that subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 05:04 PM

It strikes me that misrepresenting what someone has written and then attacking him on that basis could be regarded as a form of abuse. It's certainly a way to avoid having to discuss the real issue.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 05:11 PM

The origonal post was about...

                     The Democrats latest strategy for getting elected: BASH WAL-MART

Comments on that subject, anybody?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Wesley S
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 05:32 PM

The Democrats don't need to bash Walmart to get elected this year. The Republicans multitude of failures in both forign and domestic arenas have put them at a disadvantage. Even conservitive papers like The Kiplinger Letter is running headines that say "Anti-Incumbent mood hurts the GOP"

The question is not IF the Republicans will lose - it's wheather they will lose the majority in the House of Representives. The Senate will be tougher.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 05:39 PM

Clay Waters, author of the article Old Guy posted, is a dedicated Democrat basher and an apologist for the Bush administration. Most of his writings do little more that take to task anyone who is critical of anything Bush does, or who criticizes the practices of companies like Wal-Mart, whose employment practices are well known, and who intimidate their suppliers into selling to them for ridiculously low prices, resulting in either producing shoddy products or outsourcing, or both. Waters also has a thing about the Clintons. And the Dixie Chicks. I'm not surprised that Old Guy used him as a source for yet another cut-and-paste.

Many examples of Clay Waters' vitriolic attacks on Democrats, liberals, and progressives—or anyone critical of Bush—on this web site HERE.

There have already been many discussions of Wal-Mart and its business practices on this forum. I, personally, do not have the inclination—or the stamina—to rewrite what I've already said on the subject. Much has been written on the subject by many people here. Do a search.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 06:14 PM

note: "Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Published on Thursday, August 17, 2006 by the New York Times

Eye on Election, Democrats Run as Wal-Mart Foe

by Adam Nagourney and Michael Barbaro

 
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday. But Mr. Biden's main target was not Republicans in Washington, or even his prospective presidential rivals.

It was Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer.

Among Democrats, Mr. Biden is not alone. Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits.

Six Democratic presidential contenders have appeared at rallies like the one Mr. Biden headlined, along with some Democratic candidates for Congress in some of the toughest-fought races in the country.

"My problem with Wal-Mart is that I don't see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people," Mr. Biden said, standing on the sweltering rooftop of the State Historical Society building here. "They talk about paying them $10 an hour. That's true. How can you live a middle-class life on that?"

The focus on Wal-Mart is part of a broader strategy of addressing what Democrats say is general economic anxiety and a growing sense that economic gains of recent years have not benefited the middle class or the working poor.

Their alliance with the anti-Wal-Mart campaign dovetails with their emphasis in Washington on raising the minimum wage and doing more to make health insurance affordable. It also suggests they will go into the midterm Congressional elections this fall and the 2008 presidential race striking a populist tone.

Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations that might be inclined to make contributions.

Still, what is striking about this campaign is the ideological breadth of the Democrats who have joined in, including some who in the past have warned the party against appearing hostile to business interests.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was a member of Wal-Mart's board when she lived in Arkansas, the corporation's home state, returned a $5,000 campaign contribution from the company last year. Mrs. Clinton said she did so to protest Wal-Mart's health care benefits, and she has continued to distance herself from the policies of a company she was close to when she was the first lady of Arkansas.

Scheduling conflicts prevented Mrs. Clinton from attending any of the rallies being organized, her aides said. But she supported many of the campaign's goals, they added.

"It's not anti-business," said Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a former head of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, appearing at an anti-Wal-Mart rally on Tuesday. "Wal-Mart has become emblematic of the anxiety around the country, and the middle-class squeeze."

"All you need to know is Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont have appeared at these events," Mr. Bayh said, speaking of the Connecticut senator and the man who defeated him in the Democratic primary on Aug. 8. "That's pretty good evidence that Democrats across the country are rallying around this issue."

Yet there are clear risks for Democrats, not least in alienating Wal-Mart employees and customers.

Wal-Mart has begun a counterattack. In interviews on Wednesday, company executives warned that they would alert their 1.3 million American employees to the anti-Wal-Mart campaign. They also pointed to a poll the company financed that reported that Americans were generally supportive of the company.

"There is far more evidence to show that this short-sighted political strategy will backfire than that it will actually work," said Mona Williams, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores. "We believe our associates vote, and it is our responsibility to let them know when a politician speaks out for or against our company."

In a letter to its workers in Iowa, Wal-Mart warned of the political events, including appearances by Mr. Bayh, Mr. Biden and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

Wal-Mart "would never suggest to you how to vote," the letter said, "but we have an obligation to tell you when politicians are saying something about your company that isn't true. After all, you are Wal-Mart."

Some Republicans said Democrats were trying to appease liberal bloggers, union leaders and an Democratic left wing invigorated by Mr. Lieberman's defeat in the primary.

But Democrats say they are sure they have a message that will resonate. John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2004, appeared at an anti-Wal-Mart rally in Pittsburgh two weeks ago. Mr. Edwards said in an interview that his party was not vulnerable to a backlash for this criticism so long as Democrats made clear that their main goal was improving policies for the poor and the middle class.

"Wal-Mart as an example of the problems that exist in America today is a powerful political issue," he said in an interview on Wednesday. "I think our party pretty much across the board agrees that people who work hard should be able to support their families. When a company like Wal-Mart fails to meet its corporate responsibility, it make it impossible for that to occur."

Democrats say Wal-Mart is a potent symbol of corporate excess. The company earned $11 billion in profit last year, but fewer than half of its employees in the United States are covered by its health care plan, and the average worker earns less than $20,000 a year.

Wal-Mart counters that its average wage is more than $10 an hour, and that more than 150,000 Americans who had no health insurance now have it through the company. It also says it has saved consumers billions of dollars by squeezing costs.

The challenges to Wal-Mart are hardly new: it has been the target of political attacks as far back as when Patrick J. Buchanan ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, and said Wal-Mart was guilty of "gigantism" for crushing smaller businesses.

The criticism has become more intense as Wal-Mart has grown into an increasingly major influence on the American economy and culture. For example, there is an ongoing cross-country bus tour, now in Iowa, organized by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-financed group highly critical of the retailer. The campaign includes news conferences with elected leaders in 19 states, may be the most ambitious tactic to date.

Wake Up Wal-Mart's communications director, Chris Kofinis, said a large cast of Democratic candidates was joining the rallies. They include candidates in Senate races in Ohio and Maryland, and the governor's race in Maryland, where Wal-Mart's practices have been the subject of a legislative battle. "Who can disagree with the proposition that corporations should provide affordable health care, pay decent wages, protect American jobs and help provide a safe and just workplace?" Mr. Kofinis said.

Ms. Williams, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the rallies would not resonate with voters. Democrats, she said, were "attending a union-sponsored protest with small crowds of faithful union activists, and there is not a swing vote in sight.''

"They are preaching to the choir," Ms. Williams said.

For years, labor activists have characterized Wal-Mart as beholden to Republicans. In the last election cycle, they note, the company gave 80 percent of its contributions to Republicans. Many of its stores are in Republican-dominated territory in the rural South.

But as Wal-Mart has grown in size and power, it has tried to establish ties to the Democratic party. Its chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., has grown close to Mr. Clinton, who personally thanked him for Wal-Mart's relief work after Hurricane Katrina and played host to Mr. Scott at his home in New York last month. In addition, Mr. Scott recently played host to the former Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, to talk about the environment, and he appeared on the New York radio show of the Democratic activist Al Sharpton.

Even the Democrats who have been at the forefront of the recent attacks have not always had difficult relations with the corporation. Mr. Bayh, for example, took a total of $10,000 in contributions from Wal-Mart in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns.

"It's clear that the contributions did not have any influence on how he has approached this issue," said Dan Pfieffer, a spokesman for Mr. Bayh.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 06:58 PM

Hey, PeeDee, poor baby! - I'm "making you uncomfortable" and "driving you off"???

Well just don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

[ PS to Mick- I think you meant childISH, no? There's little about this fool that's childlike. ]

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:09 PM

Nobody can wallow is his own urine like Greg F. Take a bath, loser.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:22 PM

Joe Offer:

Controlling personal attacks and abusive posting is ultimately your responsibility. Hate breeds hate.

If you don't do more, we must all assume that you consider the tone at Mudact right to reflect just what you want.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:23 PM

Very telling argument, pdq.

Here's part of something I posted on a previous thread on the subject of Wal-Mart. It contains a couple of links that are worth reading.

The scoop on Wal-Mart.

Anyone who doesn't like what's on this website will undoubtedly claim that these people are just a bunch of New-Age twig-eaters, so their opinion accounts for nothing, but HERE is what many people who value their health say about the relationship between Wal-Mart and the California grocery strike.

A few years back, my wife, Barbara, and I were in Fairbury, Nebraska where Barbara was born. The only store in the area where you could buy a whole variety of things was Wal-Mart, just east of town. Most of the other stores had folded up because they couldn't compete with Wal-Mart's prices. But once the competition had been driven out of business, Wal-Mart's prices started creeping back up. That, folks, is the way it works. It's called "monopoly."

The links above take you to articles that were written in 2003, but the information in them is still relevant today. If anything, Wal-Mart is even more aggressive now than it was then. It's time somebody took a stand, and if it happens to be the Democrats, then more power to 'em, say I. This is exactly the sort of thing they should be doing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:24 PM

Joe Offer:

Controlling personal attacks and abusive posting is ultimately your responsibility. Hate breeds hate.

If you don't do more, we must all assume that you consider the tone at Mudact right now to reflect just what you want.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:41 PM

Thanks, Don...

I did supply an article from a source that you could approve. It does make it clear that the Democrats are conducting an anti-Wal-Mart campaign as part of the 2006 election strategy. There are postors here who said that was not true. It is.

Questions like "will it work" or "is that what a political party is spposed to do in a free society" can be addressed only after people agree that this campaign is happening.

Odd idea: If Wal-Mart is really forcing its paid employee into government medical programs, why don't our socialized medicine supporters
cheer that as a victory. (note: not really serious about that, just asking)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:47 PM

Over time I've noticed that if folks stick to the issues and ignore personal attacks that the attacks will go away. Something to consider. A friend of mine has been known to say the following about rude drivers : "Let them get away with it". It's not easy but it shows maturity.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:52 PM

OK ..... let's get this right. pdq is whining about controlling about personal attacks. Here are two quotes from this same person directed at me in the last 24 hours. These were deleted by other mod's:

Yo, BIG FAT DICKHEAD: (referring to me)

(again directed at me)That said, please shove a broom handle up your ass and jump off the roof.

He then went on a bit later and added these:Yo, Big Fat Stupid Dickhead ....... shows you to be the paranoid fool and vengeful asshole you really are" and meant it.


Your credibility is shot here, mister. Best you just crawl back and let it go.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 07:58 PM

Wesley S...

Quite correct in theory. Most personal attacks are ignored by most people, but when "the attacks will go away" does not happen, what is left? Lowering yourself to their level is bad for the forum. That is why most such places have moderators.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:01 PM

pdq,

And how do you explain your behaviour in the last 24 hours? You referred to me as a Big Fat Dickhead, invited me shove things up my ass ...... all this because I have an opinion on the intellectual arguments and facts presented by a poster.

Your feeble attempts to now "lift yourself above the fray" after you have already spawned the mess, reminds me of a little kid who starts a fight, and when the authorities arrive tries to look like they are trying to stop it.

Want it to end? Then apologize and let's get on with the debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:10 PM

"Quite correct in theory."

Actually it works. Try it and you'll see.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:11 PM

I saw the rather profane attack last night, and I'm not sure who partially deleted the evidence, but it might be better if they hadn't, just so people can see what sort of a person pdq is. I got an eyeful of what looked like road rage, and noticed that up to then, he'd only commented on other posters and had said nothing about the subject. Last night, it looked to me, pdq, like you completely lost it. We all have weak moments, but most of us don't manage to embarrass ourselves quite so thoroughly. You might want to just walk away, because you're certainly not going to look any smarter or less nasty. Just an opinion from the peanut gallery.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:16 PM

Big Guy,

I pulled your chain because I intended to. You are, in my opinion, an abusive postor. I have better things to do with my time than search for your war with somebody named Janet Ryan and some of your other attacks. You try very hard to make people feel bad. Go for the juglar. That does not work on me.

I do hope the rest of your day is most pleasant. Really, I do.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:26 PM

Thank you, pdq. You have demonstrated two things.

First, that you support someone who was really abusive and nasty, and hid behind multiple personalities, and would manipulate to a degree of cruelty.

Second, you had a chance to come off as a decent guy by simply apologizing for the crude language. Had you done so, we could have put it behind us. I will do that now, put it behind us, because you have made my point.

Finally, to the subject at hand. I have major issues with Walmart's competitive practices. I have seen them cost good working people their jobs and their futures, not because they weren't profitable, but because they wanted more and couldn't care less about the havoc they wreaked. Like Kendall, I see them as the tip of the spear which will lead us to another time in history when working folks are fodder for a few families, to be used up and spit out.

Having said that, I do not like the amount of emphasis being put on them in the fall campaign. I believe that it is fraught with peril for the Dem's. It is right to target abuses of the system. It is name the abusers. But they aren't the target in the fall. The targets are the politicians who take their money and refuse to fix the system. Walmart is simply a symbol of what is wrong. Trade practices, resolving the health care crisis, getting out of Iraq in a sane fashion, that is what the emphasis should be on.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:33 PM

Off topic slightly here ... but what is with 'Americans' when they are arguing about 'American' issues to accuse the other side of being 'un-American' or 'anti-American'. I have never heard that used with Canadians ... you are being 'un-Canadian' ... you don't hear Germans accusing one another as you are 'un-German'.

To me this reflects of how polarized the U.S. society has become ... or is rhetoric such as this a result of how a society has polarized itself.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:42 PM

Art Thieme printed a great statement on his banjo:

            "This machine Kills Time"

I do believe that should be Mudcat's official slogan.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:52 PM

In some ways Old Guys link regarding 'blame your self for Walmart' is somewhat true ... or more like a Catch 22 situation ... the Walmart customer is the one who is more vulnerable to losing their job, not having decent health benefits ... me, I'm fortunate that I can shop elsewhere and boycott (which I do, and also preach) such 'box stores', but, I am accused as being too snobbish.

Regardless, many people are in a bind where they can't afford to shop anywhere else and Walmart is to blame for creating the situation. Politically it's not going to be remedied. So, the only thing I can say is eventually Walmart will eventually grow so big that it will eventually eat itself to oblivion ... after that, who knows.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 08:54 PM

"This machine Kills Time"

that is very much true pdq. It should be the Mudcat slogan. :)

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 09:03 PM

number 6,

Your point about Wal-Mart getting so big the collapses of its own weight (kind of like a dinosaur) is a real posibility. However, that would still benefit every community which has a store since each building will be sold (at a serious discount), mostly to local investors, and new unrelated sales and manufacturing centers will be housed in said buildings.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 09:45 PM

All of this sounds too damned familiar. pdq, are you bucking for the office once held by Guitar Guitar?

Or could you be him in another incarnations?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 09:47 PM

Where is Doug? I'm surprised he is not in on this. Then again, he is a gentleman, maybe that's why.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 10:57 PM

...to accuse the other side of being 'un-American' or 'anti-American'

Interesting this should come up in a discussion of sleazy labor practices. The "un-American" bit goes back at least to the U.S. Eight-Hour Movement circa 1860-1890. A good proportion of the workers in the movement were immigrants, and one of the tactics used by business interests was to blame the campaign for the 8-hour work day on evil "foreign" and "un-American" influences like Robert Owen.

Too many folks forget that workers were shot dead on the streets of American Cities before the 8-hour day and the right of unions to organize became law. Labor history is not taught in U.S. schools, and most people are unaware that the 8-hour day didn't become law in the U.S. until 1938.

The un-American bit was reprised during the "Red Scare" ca 1917 and had its fullest flowering under the Dies Committee and good old Senator Joe McCarthy in the late 1940-1950's.

Its always been an essentially meaningless red herring used by the U.S. right wing to attack any and all opposition without having to deal with issues and facts in any meaningful manner.

See James Green's Death In The Haymarket NY 2006; Richard Hofstadter & Michael Wallace American Violence: A Documentary History NY 1970;lots more.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 11:09 PM

I need to go to Walmart to have some tires mounted on my wife's car. Also I need to take some paint back that I don't really need.

Is it Ok if go?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: DougR
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 11:58 PM

I'm here, Kendall. My only comment has to do with your post about the Estate Tax repeal (or maybe it was Big Mick's). The only problem is folks like you and Big Mick think the "rich" folks should be double taxed! Now that's not fair, and I think both you and Mick should recognize that. The folks that would benefit from repeal of the tax, or those that left money to them, have ALREADY paid income tax on that money.

It is not the government's inherent right to double tax anybody.

As tried and true Liberals, I sould think you would know that.

Would I benefit if the tax were repealed? Nope.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 02:36 PM

No, you wouldn't benefit, but you would help make up for the shortfall in revenue.
What pisses me off is the way the reublicans killed the minimum wage increase, that is, by attaching that "reward the rich" amendment.
Tell you what, you leave me 100 million dollars and I'll be glad to pay ALL taxes on it. After all, someone has to pay for all those million dollar missiles.

It seems to me that the trouble with so many conservatives is the fact that you want to live in this great country with all the benefits, but you don't want to help pay for the cost of living here.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 03:31 PM

I am for raising the minimum wage to at least $10 per hour.
If so the illegal immigrants could leave the US, re enter legally and make that wage.

As it is now thier low wages are a hidden tax on all of us. The only ones that benefit are the employers of the illegals.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 06:17 PM

On that, I definitely agree with Old Guy. The minimum wage should be at least $10.00 per hour.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 07:22 PM

He finally said something I agree with.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: DougR
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 07:36 PM

The government takes too much of the worker's earnings as it is Kendall. Those who would be affected by the repeal of the "Death Tax" are not dodging paying taxes, they are required to be double taxed. That, my friend, is not fair.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 07:59 PM

In that case, DougR, that's an easy one: Tax the mega-rich at a much higher rate. If you remember, that is how it used to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 09:40 PM

Well ya see I am only half stupid. Or is it half smart?"

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 10:55 PM

How about 'half-assed'? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 11:10 PM

Maybe so.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 11:33 PM

C'mon Bobert, cough up the rest of them numbers. I know you are just cherry picking the data.

For a through analysis, you need to start back before there were unions and see how the states fared before and after unions and right to work laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 01:50 AM

That was uncalled for, Old Guy. I apologize.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:01 AM

walmart policy is still at strengh
Cubierte

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:02 AM

walmart policy is still st strength and rolling.
cubierte

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,jp
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:07 AM

I just love stuff about Wally. Gets the fur flyin' every time.
I can understand why folks get so worked up.
There are enough good reasons.
But what I wonder is - in all of this furious debate - do people forget sometimes that Wally is just a retailer?
Back in the days of Sears Roebuck, or S.S. Kresge, or Woolworths, or Gimbels and Maceys - back there in the Miracle on 34th St. days...
did anyone ever ask any of those retail giants to shoulder the burden of an American workforce?
Who worked in these places back then? How many of them were providing a living wage for an entire family?
If these were the "McJobs" of that era, I don't think they were actually holding up an American middle class.
Industry did that, did it not?

The point is - whatever Wally's profit margin actually is, and however many laws it happens to break, however many union attempts it busts, and no matter what track record it has sucking up subsidies galore from the public sector...if Wally did a complete about-face and pulled an Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning after being haunted by the ghosts of Rooseveldt, Joe Hill, Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman (now there's a thought!) and donated 90% of its profit margin to the welfare of American workers - this would still be the tiniest drop in the bucket of what ails our economy.

Wally's just the scapegoated sexy poster child for a lot of well-meaning but misplayed darts, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 07:21 AM

It's too bad that the history of labor is not taught in schools. Only those who go on to college get a complete education.

The Republican party was formed to free the working man from the tyranny of the greedy land owners. Lincold would not shop at Wal-Mart!

There is a famous quote, Lincoln was asked which is more important, labor or capital. His answer, "Capital is the result of and could not exist without labor. Therefore, labor is more important."

I wonder if he knows what the Neo-Cons are doing to this country?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 08:16 AM

Ebbie:

No apologies necessary. I know I am not perfect. Never was, never will be and nobody else is perfect either.

"Capital is the result of and could not exist without labor. Therefore, labor is more important."

That is like the chicken and the egg question. Business feeds labor and labor feeds business.

However we are faced with globalization.

As when manufacturing started in the Northeast and moved gradually south where labor was cheaper, manufacturing is moving to mexico and offshore. It cannot be stopped by idealists' wishful thinking.

Unions might have served a vital role at the beginning but now they have accomplished their task and they are accelerating the process of driving manufacturing out of the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:21 AM

Coporate greed is what is driving business out of the country. If we do away with unions, will Briggs& Stratton, or Caterpillar come back to the USA? Dream on.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:21 AM

Unions might have served a vital role at the beginning but now they have accomplished their task and they are accelerating the process of driving manufacturing out of the US.

Right you are - its the poor Union slobs making 15 bucks an hour doing all the damage- not the corporate execs taking home $300 million per annum, or the stockholders demanding obscene returns.

Who was it was talking about profound ignorance coupled with absolute certainty a while back?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:52 AM

"poster child"-- yeah right----any excuse will do. Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. It seems reasonable it could take some responsibility for the health care of its employees--beyond the absolute bare mimimum.


Old Guy--

As usual, your pronouncements are absolutely brilliant--or maybe not.

Illegal immigrants' low wages are "a hidden tax on the rest of us"?   Uh, not exactly. How about the exact opposite? Use your head--their inability to fight exploitation and ask for higher wages is in fact a big factor in holding down the cost of living--precisely the reverse of what you say.

As I have said, I am both for raising the minimum wage and for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants--but for reasons of social equity and in the interest of social peace. I am aware it will cause a rise in inflation--even if you are evidently blissfully unaware of this.

Also, you're still saying illegal immigrants should leave the US and come back legally. Sorry--the absurd instability and unpredictability of giant intellects like your good self would make me, as an illegal immigrant, resolve never to come out of the shadows--I'd benefit from a $10 minimum wage anyway.

But, simply put--I wouldn't trust you to let me back in.



And--back to Walmart--10,000 is a good round number. 9,000 would also probably have caught just Walmart.   Point is--Walmart is the only wretched corporate citizen cheap and chinzy enough to not provide reasonable health care for its own employees--I can tell you Costco does. Do I need to post the comparisons yet again?

Now I've answered your question. How about answering mine?--which was in fact asked before yours:

Yet again:

Why should Maryland taxpayers subsidize the largest retailer in the world?--which they do by paying for medical care for Walmart employees which Walmart refuses to do itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:58 PM

Kendall sez, "Capital is the result of and could not exist without labor. Therefore, labor is more important."

To which Old Guy responds, "That is like the chicken and the egg question. Business feeds labor and labor feeds business."

Old Guy, here's a basic lesson in how it all works:   You own a manufacturing firm called "Old Guy's Fine Widgets." You're up in your office checking where you are in the Wall Street listings. I'm down in the shop, making widgets."

Without me, you don't have any widgets. Nothing to sell to an unsuspecting public. In short, you don't have a company.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: pattyClink
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 03:35 PM

ip, Wal-mart can seem like a harmless modern version of those oldtimey stores. Which were, of course, not making any of their employees rich.

However, the profits raised mostly stayed in the community; whether to build mom&pop a big ranch house, go in the bank to be loaned out on mortgages or small businesses, invested in Junior's new gas station or record shop, or whatever. Now, every penny you spend in a WMT goes instantly to Walmart headquarters, to be used to build new stores in some new town that doesn't want one, or to go home in an overstuffed CEO paypacket. It doesn't even spend a night in the local bank. The large shareholders of this outfit are so stinking rich they wouldn't need another dollar for a thousand years, but they are not content, they are driven to concentrate much of the wealth of the countryside in their own hands.   WMT, and a lot of other chains, is gutting our country, pruning off entrepreneurs by the thousands and replacing them with 'assistant managers' of a 'local' store which will close its doors the instant there is a better spot to open a store.

I didn't have a problem with Walmart 25 years ago either, it was a well-run business replacing some old bankrupt Grants and Woolworths. It wasn't yet trying to put the local grocer, gas station, optometrist, autoshop, stereo store, fabric store, and jeweler out of business. Now it is a too-large juggernaut bent on senseless world domination of commerce, and it has left a lot of empty stores and wrecked downtowns in its wake. And for what? For the benefit of the people at the top, who don't need another red cent.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 03:55 PM

Well said, pattyClink. And those old bankrupt stores, at least provided their employees with benefits and a livable wage. Not these folks. Communities need jobs with fair wages, benefits and pension, but these are the first to go in the Walmart era. They are replaced with jobs that leave a great many employees qualified for, and receiving, public assistance.

What price, I ask you? How much is saving a cent here or there worth? And one of the greatest myths is the Walmart pricing. Usually they have ridiculously priced loss leaders but the pricing on most things is not cheap.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Sep 06 - 01:34 PM

RD first of all you directed that question to Slag I think.

If the question was why did Walmart fought it, the answer is because it targets Walmart.

It has done the same small store displacing as any large chain. Best buy, Kmart, Home Depot etc.

I hate the way you can't go to a hardware store and buy hard to get stuff anymore. You have your pick between what Lowes or HD decide to carry and that's it, unless you want to order over the net.

But, C'est la vie

"I'm down in the shop, making widgets." Who's shop and who's widgets?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 02 Sep 06 - 01:53 PM

Yours, thanks to the people who are making them.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Sep 06 - 03:25 PM

Old Guy, I'm sort of amazed that you had to ask the question (thanks, kendall, for answering it). The fact that you did have to ask seems to indicated that you have a rather severe disconnnect between your political position and what goes on in the real world.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 10:49 PM

No, Old Guy, for the nth time, the question was why should Maryland taxpayers have to subsidize the biggest retail firm in the world?--which they do by providing health care Walmart is too cheap to provide its employees.

But nice dodging of the question--again. There's a future for you in politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 11:15 PM

RD You have a penchant for changing the question in order to disqualify the answer.

The question was "Why do you suppose Walmart fought the recently passed Maryland bill mandating that it pay 8% of its income to a fund for medical care in Maryland."

The answer is because it targets Walmart.

Now if the new question is "why should Maryland taxpayers have to subsidize the biggest retail firm in the world?" The answer is they are not.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

I recently went to Walmart and had some tires mounted. I asked the girl that took the order if she had any complaints about Walmart. She said like what? I said people are complaning about Walmart being unfair but I don't see why people would work for an unfair company. She shrugged her shoulders and said exadctly, with a quizzical look on her face.

Have any of the Walmart experts here ever asked any Walmart employees for their opinion?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 10:02 AM

"Targets WalMart"? well, yeah- I should hope so. Kinda like laws against theft target thieves.

I don't expect the thieves are happy about it either.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 10:18 AM

Old Guy continues to use low rent, no thought, cliche'd responses. There is a ton of data from all over the country that shows that Walmart does indeed use taxpayer funded programs to keep its health care costs down, hence using taxes paid by you and I to subsidize its profit margin. Even their own internal documents support this. Old Guy's response to this is the intellectual equivalent of "Oh yeah......?" He says:Now if the new question is "why should Maryland taxpayers have to subsidize the biggest retail firm in the world?" The answer is they are not. Have you stopped beating your wife?

As to your question with regard to the Walmart Employees, there are any number of websites being run by Walmart employees. I personally have had organizing programs going in stores in which a great number of employees want to organize, but the company continues to use tactics that are, at least, unethical, and many times they are illegal. There have been, and are, many violations of the National Labor Relations Act. But Walmart, reinforced by Bush1 and Bush2 appointees to the NLRB, has managed to skirt the law which has been weakened by right wing Republican legislators to the point of being useless. I can assure you from personal experience that Walmart employees would love to organize if they could do so without being afraid of economic retaliation by the company. This is supposed to be against the law, but Old Guy's heroes just don't enforce the law, and have weakened it to the point that working stiffs feel like no one will stand up for them. But we will.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 11:55 AM

Old Guy answered my tough question by calling me arrogant.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:08 PM

"I personally have had organizing programs going in stores"

So you are a union organizer spreading anti Walmart propaganda. I understand your one sidedness now.

Do you have a real job?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:13 PM

Once again, a dodge. When one cannot answer with substance, attack with insults, obfuscation, and premise shifting.

We aren't talking about my job, although you must be the only 'catter around who didn't know that. It demonstrates that you have no interest here in doing anything but spreading pro Walmart, right wing propaganda. Thanks, once again, for making my points better than I can.

BTW, got anymore comments about other countries being less "real" than the USA? You sure made friends and influenced people with that one.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:27 PM

You said something about being an electrician.

I have nothing to gain by discussing Walmart except showing how the pathetic Democratic party has to try to win by tearing something down. By trying to demonize somebody or something and appeal to the masses by making them believe that they will deliver them from the evil thing or person they demonized.

Nothing constructive or progressive, just destructive and regressive.

Have you compared the labor and wage situation in the US to other countries around the world?

And give me an example of a corporation that does not try to maximize profits and minimize expenditures. Walmart is an exception because they do not stick all of those savings in their pocket. They lower prices. How evil.

People that don't like their job should look for a better one. If they can't find a better one thay should retrain for a better job.

If you an electrician, start your own business and quit whining. Then you can see what it is like to own a company with whining employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:34 PM

Ah, but you DO have something to gain..KNOWLEDGE!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:50 PM

"By trying to demonize somebody or something and appeal to the masses by making them believe that they will deliver them from the evil thing or person they demonized."

Like those who disagree with this administration's actions and policies? Immigrants? France? Democrats? Liberals?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 01:28 PM

Well, I would expect this kind of thing from Right-Wing apologists when the Democratic Party stands up and takes a strong, valid, progressive position on an issue (and Wal-Mart's wholesale rippng-off of the public, their own employees—and the taxpayers—is an issue that needs to be addressed) rather than just rolling over and playing "imitation Republican." Old Guy calls the Democrats "pathetic" for taking a stand on Wal-Mart's abuses. He would like people to think of the Democratic Party as "pathetic" and worse.

However—it looks to me that this is an instance of the Democratic Party not being pathetic (for a most refreshing change!). Go Dems!! Let's have more of this sort of thing. More backbone!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 01:32 PM

How has the administration demonized Immigrants, France, Democrats or Liberals?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 02:27 PM

Why don't the Mighty Democrats take a stand on Home Depot, Loew's, Target, Best Buys, McDonalds, etc?

What "progressive position"? All I hear are complaints.

"We are going to stand up to the oil companies" They are not going to do diddly shit like they did when they were in power. Gas prices started to rise during the last year of the Clinton administration and they promised a big investigation on why people were being ripped off. What was the results of that investigation?

Also if you look, that vaunted budget surplus started to shrink in that same year when the economic bubble brought on by the Dems, burst.

While Clinton announced a federal surplus, the nation was still in debt nearly $6 trillion.

C'mon Democrats, you have to show us something better than. "He's an idiot and I am smart".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 02:28 PM

Thay are, Old Guy, and I think that's what you're moaning about.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 02:42 PM

First, it seems to be a hallmark of folks like you to suggest that legitimately calling focus to problems, or in this case, to a company that is abusing the system, that is demonization. In your entire post, you (once again) didn't address anything, rather you just threw out more gratuitous assertions. According to normal rules of debate, I could just as gratuitously deny them, but let's try and see if I can address them.

Have you compared the labor and wage situation in the US to other countries around the world?

Sure. I am a patriotic, red blooded American, who has served his country in war and peace. It is my love for our way of life, my desire to promote the interest of the working classes, my desire to see workers and their families share in the wealth they create, my desire to increase the livelihood of workers around the world so that the world economy works for more than just the privileged few .... need I go on. What this means, in relation to your implication, is that I don't think the answer to globalization is to tear down the American middle class (which has funded these other economies to the point of them replacing the Americans as the consumer), lower our trade barriers when the other countries don't lower their's, allow countries that have no environmental standards to ship their product here making it impossible to compete for our country (the Republican answer to that is to put lower our standards and hasten the doom of our enviroment), .... shall I go on? We should do all we can to increase trade and reduce trade barriers ....... as long as we do it in a fair way. Hell, we could use access to our market to be contingent on improving the labor and enviromental laws of the countries that want to do business with us.

And give me an example of a corporation that does not try to maximize profits and minimize expenditures. Walmart is an exception because they do not stick all of those savings in their pocket. They lower prices. How evil.

Have you been reading my posts? Of course that is the job of corporations. The historic problem that needed addressing was what happens when capital is unchecked in its natural desire to produce more wealth. The labor laws rose out of the abuse of human beings by the monied class. Families were enslaved, abused, and spit out. The problem was historic, and repeated every few generations. When wealth centralizes in fewer and fewer hands, people suffer. This is why labor law came about. Corporations must, by their nature, focus on maximizing profits. It is their place in the food chain. But their must be limits, as history has shown us. Walmart is one of the worst abusers of this in history. They justify the destruction of good paying jobs with benefits, and replacement of these with low paying jobs with no benefits as their God given right, and duty. In other times, this right resulted in the destruction of whole tribes, clans, and families. The same is happening now. Mark my words. If this continue unchecked, the end result is frightening and predictable.

People that don't like their job should look for a better one. If they can't find a better one thay should retrain for a better job.

So your answer to the problem of Walmart destroying healthcare, using the taxpayer to subsidize their profits, unfairly piggybacking on the backs of the employers paying a fair wage and benefit, and abusing workers (as evidenced by the multiple class action lawsuits pending and awarded) is to tell them to leave? Your answer to the people whose hard work makes the profit possible (even though it is pushed down their throats) is to just leave? You know, most of the Walmart workers I speak with don't dislike the company. Most of them remember "Mr. Sam" fondly. But they have seen this monstrous change, and they have seen all respect for the workers and concern for their families, disappear. Now they see their company, built on a patriotic image, destroying the American dream.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

Feed a cold, starve a fever, and argue with no true believer.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 05:20 PM

A few facts comparing Wal-Mart and Costco, gleaned from an article in The Seattle Times, published in July of 2004:

Costco offers comprehensive health insurance to most of its 78,000 U.S. employees. Wal-Mart does not offer its employees health insurance, but encourages them to sign up for state Medicaid, reserved for recipients of public assistance, thereby shifting the burden to the taxpayers.

Costco's lowest wage is $10.00 per hour, with $16.00 the average. That's higher than the $9.96 average wage paid at discount stores bearing the Wal-Mart name. Sam's Club spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart declined to provide wage information for the warehouse unit.

Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco, makes no apologies for Costco's policies, saying higher wages reduce employee turnover, which lowers training costs. "I'm not a social engineer," he said in an interview. "Paying good wages is simply good business."

Wal-Mart, a heavy contributor to the Republican Party, supports the Bush administration's expansion of free-trade agreements and its bid to curtail the number of workers eligible for overtime pay, according to its lobby disclosure reports. Wal-Mart has benefited from the president's opposition to raising the minimum wage, since some employees make less than $7 an hour [in the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry proposed raising the minimum wage to $7.00 per hour], and from the Republican-controlled Congress' reluctance to make it easier for workers to unionize. Wal-Mart has no unions, whereas about one-sixth of Costco's workers are represented by labor groups and the company remains neutral whenever the workers express a desire to unionize.

Vice President Dick Cheney underlined Wal-Mart's ties to the White House on May 3 [2004] when he visited the retailer's headquarters -- his first talk with a company work force in the 40 months since he took office, according to the White House Web site. "This is one of our nation's great companies," Cheney said.

More information on how Costco operates in comparison to Wal-Mart HERE.

FYI

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 07:18 PM

What drives Wal-Mart? Corporate greed gone wild.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 08:30 PM

... Wal-Mart, which had $10.3-billion in earnings last year, said 86 percent of its 1.2-million employees nationwide have health insurance - 56 percent through the company's health care plan, the rest through another source such as another employer, a family member, the military or Medicare.

It said 5 percent nationwide get coverage through Medicaid - a number that drops to 3 percent after employees are on the job for two years.

"As the nation's largest employer, we will by default be the largest on many types of lists," said spokesman Dan Fogleman, adding that the retailer doesn't design its health plans to be supplemented by Medicaid.

Four other large companies getting state incentives appear on the top of lists of employers with the most workers eligible for state-financed health care. They are Publix Super Markets, Winn-Dixie Stores, Burger King Corp. and Walgreen Co.

In addition, 3,342 children whose parents or guardians work for those five companies qualify for Florida Healthy Kids and KidCare. Those state-financed programs help 245,000 children whose parents or guardians earn too much for Medicaid but can't afford or don't have access to other insurance. (About 10,000 parents earn too much to qualify for Healthy Kids and KidCare, but they are able to buy that insurance at $98 per child per month - the amount it costs the program.)

Combined, these five firms have been approved by the state for up to $10.8-million in tax credits and tax refunds for at least 3,805 jobs, according to an analysis by the St. Petersburg Times....

...The Tallahassee Democrat reported in December that the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, U.S. Air Force, Florida National Guard, Walt Disney World, BellSouth, Blue Cross, Bank of America and Dillard's also had Medicaid-eligible employees.

The St. Petersburg Times and its publisher, Times Publishing Co., have about 150 Medicaid-eligible employees and Medicaid-eligible dependents in Florida, the state said Thursday.

[Florida's minimum wage is $6.40 per hour effective January 1, 2006]

Wal-Mart said it pays its store workers an average of $9.36 an hour in Florida, adding that it offers competitively priced health care to full-time workers after six months and to part-time workers after two years....

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/State/Lured_employers_now_t.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 08:44 PM

Wal-Mart's profit margins are smaller than IKEA's - 3% or so. IKEA makes 6% in profit. Fortune magazine reports that IKEA salespeople earn $18,300 a year. IKEA's workers are non-union. IKEA's stores are larger than Wal-Marts, and thus have a bigger environmental footprint on a per store basis. IKEA also sources a ton of their stuff from China.

http://chatterbox.typepad.com/portlandarchitecture/2006/08/another_walmart.html

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 09:58 PM

Old Guy--

Is it Senator Old Guy or Congressman Old Guy?

As I said, your skills in dodging questions are perfect for politics. And I suppose that as a politician, you don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. Look at our illustrious Chicken Hawk in Chief.

But I'll have to say you bid fair to set a new standard for dullness of knives. Or is it by chance "There's none so blind as he who will not see"? As pdq noted in another context, denial is not a river in Egypt.

The "new question"?--it's just the question I've already asked on 28 Aug 10:49PM, 1 Sept 10:52 AM and now again. I believe I asked it earlier also.

Once more with feeling -- (naively assuming, against all evidence, that you are actually interested in facts, not just running off at the mouth):


The Maryland law requires any corporation that employs 10,000 or more in Maryland to either spend at least 8% of its payroll on health care benefiits for its employees--or put the difference into the state Medicaid fund.

Do you even know what Medicaid is? I'll clue you--it's the medical program for the poor.

I've noted with interest that in your own recent posting, Walmart admits some of its employees are on Medicaid. They "don't encourage it". How charming. That makes it all better.

It's a choice-- Walmart could take care of its own "associates" (Walmart's stupidly highflown term for its employees--I'm sure it's so comforting for the low-paid workers to have that title.)

Or they could pay Maryland to take care of the health needs of their poorly-paid and badly looked-after workers.

If Walmart does neither, that means Maryland taxpayers would have to. That includes me--and I'm none too happy about it.

But perhaps you don't think Walmart workers deserve decent health care. That would be interesting to know.

Why is Walmart the only firm affected? It's the only large employer in Maryland cheap enough and determined enough to make a profit by skimping on the health care of its own employees. NO OTHER LARGE EMPLOYER REFUSES TO TAKE CARE OF ITS OWN.

Is..that... simple..enough..for.. you... to..understand?

Now how about a direct answer?--for once in your Mudcat existence.

And I warn you--I will push you until you do give a direct answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 10:08 PM

IKEA.   More here:   IKEA 2.   

By all means, read the article that Old Guy linked to and you'll get a pretty good idea of just how selective he is when he quotes from articles he cites. Here, let me HELP.

Here are a couple of items in the article that he DIDN'T see fit to quote. . . .

According to figures released Thursday by Florida's Department of Children and Families, Wal-Mart and four other large companies that receive state incentives have an estimated 29,900 employees or their family members enrolled in Medicaid.

The figures suggest taxpayers may be double-subsidizing low-wage employment by paying companies to create jobs and by paying for the health care of some of those companies' employees.

"This is another indication of how companies talk out of one side of their mouth about the free enterprise system and private initiative, but whenever they get the opportunity to exploit public resources, they'll do that," said Philip Mattera, research director for Good Jobs First, a nonprofit Washington group that studies corporate incentives.

"If you're going to give subsidies, they should be used to create the best possible jobs, not substandard or mediocre jobs," Mattera said.

Bush [Jeb, that is] has complained that Medicaid is devouring the state budget. The program has more than doubled in the past six years to about one-fourth of the state's $57.3-billion budget.

Now, why do suppose that is?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 10:10 PM

The question, yet again, is: Why should Maryland taxpayers have to subsidize the largest retail firm in the world?--which they do by paying for medical care for Walmart employees--which Walmart itself refuses to do.

Only the poorly-paid are affected here--we're talking about the working poor--of Walmart--who would be eligible for Medicaid--if Walmart continues to refuse to provide a bare mimimum of coverage for its own employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:28 AM

Why is Walmart the only firm affected? Because as you said before the limit was set at 10,000 employees and Walmart was the only firm with 10,000 employees in Maryland.

And you are hung up on a sentence again. Md taxpayers are not subsidizing the largest retail firm in the world.

Md. 'Fair Share' law loses in court

ANNAPOLIS, Md., July 19 (UPI) -- A Maryland law requiring big firms to provide healthcare to workers or pay a penalty was overturned in federal court Wednesday.

The "Fair Share" law required employers with more than 10,000 employees to spend the equivalent of 8 percent of payroll on employee healthcare. Wal-Mart is the only retailer in the state large enough to be affected.

U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz said the law would hurt Wal-Mart by imposing the administrative burden of tracking benefits in Maryland differently than in other states.

Attorneys for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which filed the lawsuit on Wal-Mart's behalf, argued that the law unfairly applied to only one company and violated federal ERISA laws, which limit state jurisdiction over the benefits companies provide their employees.

The attorneys representing the state of Maryland said the law does not mandate benefits because the company is free to fulfill its obligation in numerous ways such as employee health clinics -- or simply paying the penalty.

The verdict marks another setback for the national Fair Share campaign, spearheaded by unions, which has managed to get similar legislation introduced in other states, but not passed.

Proponents of the bills say they are a way to prevent companies from taking advantage of state Medicaid programs, which insure many employees of Wal-Mart and other large companies.

Opponents argue the bills are bad for businesses that provide as much coverage as they can afford.

When the law was passed, Wal-Mart said most of its employees either took advantage of company health plans or were already covered by other means.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 09:40 AM

If Fat Old Woody- either out of sheer stupidity or sheer cupidity, can ask:

How has the [Bush] administration demonized Immigrants, France, Democrats or Liberals [or Muslims, perhaps?]

Can someone please explain to me the point of trying to engage him in rational discourse?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 09:48 AM

I gave up trying to do that. It was like trying to pull a bobcat off a wool blanket.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:48 PM

How has the administration demonized Immigrants, France, Democrats or Liberals?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:51 PM

For one thing, Bush keeps harping on our disapproval of the war as aiding the enemy. Aiding the enemy is treason.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 01:16 PM

He's right and Libs are the ones harping.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 01:46 PM

(Reaching for the handle)

FLUSH!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 04:26 PM

You can not charge anyone with treason just because you don't like what they say. If you drop the "t", thats where we stand.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 04:54 PM

Who said you can charge anyone with treason just because you don't like what they say?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 06:19 PM

You hear it all the time from various spokespersons for the Bush administration and miscellaneous others of the Right-Wing persuasion, and practically every hour on the hour on Fox News Service. It is "treason," or at the very least, "unpatriotic" and "un-American" to criticize Bush, the Bush administration, the way the Bush League is handling the Iraq war, the Iraq war itself, the policy toward "enemy combatants," out-sourcing torture, unlawfully invading the privacy of American citizens, or damned near anything else that Bush and Company want to do. You really should crawl out of your cave, look around, and see what's going on in the real world.

(Why do I waste my time?)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 07:23 PM

Fact. IF Bush was right on this war, we would ALL be behind him.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 07:26 PM

About two weeks ago, a reporter asked him "What did Iraq have to do with 9/11"? Bush answered, "NOTHING."
Now he's back pushing his illegal, unnecessary war. What does that tell you, Old Guy?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 09:16 PM

Who said you can charge anyone with treason just because you don't like what they say?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:10 PM

Can you phrase your question in a way that makes sense?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:15 PM

It tells me Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

I have answered this question before and I guess I will have to answer it again and again.

Just because you think GWB said Iraq had a part in 9/11 and a majority of other people thought the same thing does not mean he said it.

I didn't hear him say it or anything that even implied it.

However Saddam did support terrorisim and had connections to Al Qaeda.

In the words of the favorite el pinko rag of the Bush haters club:

But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation.

I think you believe Bush implied that they colaberated on 9/11.

You were probably influenced and mislead by statements like this from the arrogant asshole John F Kerry:

"The administration misled America, and the administration reached too far," Kerry told Michigan Public Radio. "I believe that the 9/11 report, the early evidence, is that they're going to indicate that we didn't have the kind of terrorists links that this administration was asserting. I think that's a very, very serious finding." Even though he said Hussein "supported and harbored terrorist groups."earlier

The point the WAPO was trying to make is there was no COLABORATIVE connection meaning Saddam and Al Qaeda did not plan any attacks on the US together, but they were connected and friendly.

You completely ignore the fact that Bush repeatedly denied there was a Saddam connection in statements such as this:
Speaking about Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney connected Iraq to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by saying that newly found Iraqi intelligence files in Baghdad showed that a participant in the bombing returned to Iraq and "probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven." He added: "The Iraqi government or the Iraqi intelligence service had a relationship with al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s.

Shortly after Cheney asserted these links, Bush contradicted him [contradicted? another arrogant assertion by the lefty WAPO], saying: "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th." But Bush added: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties."

You can read the entire article here arrogantly titled "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed" even though the contents of the article admit there was a connection.

Star finds bin Laden-Iraq links
Three pages of documents point to the arrival of a messenger
Apr. 28, 2003.MITCH POTTER TORONTO STAR

Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein's regime shared direct contact as early as 1998, according to top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by the Star.

The documents, discovered yesterday in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's most feared intelligence service, amount to the first hard evidence of a link long suspected by the United States but dismissed as fiction by many Western leaders.

The handwritten file, three pages in all, relates to the arrival of a secret envoy sent by bin Laden to Iraq in March, 1998, apparently to establish a clandestine relationship with the Iraqi regime.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1051125568646&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

...Recall that Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the al-Qaeda bombers who hit the World Trade Center in 1993, fled to Iraq after that attack and lived there freely, reportedly with a government salary. That's one clear link to al-Qaeda....

http://husseinandterror.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:17 PM

Believe it or not, I have a handful of republican friends, and some of them insist that being against the war is treason. Being against the war is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.They also insist that abortion is murder and that same sex unions are an abomination.
It doesn't do any good to tell them to look up the definitions of treason and murder because what they want is what's right.

I hope Bush keeps Rumsfeld on the job, then they can all go down together.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:55 PM

Old Guy--


I also can't stop myself from wasting time--so I will also try to reason with you--hoping that it will not prove to be talking to the wall, as it appears to be.

I'm fully aware that the law the Maryland legislature passed has been struck down ( at least temporarily) in court.. (Decision has been appealed). Reason is not however that it was aimed at one firm--but rather a jurisdictional squabble between the state and the federal government. I have no hope that you'll understand any more details so I'll leave it at that.

At any rate, I already brought up the fact that Walmart was winning this fight so far--don't you ever read anything anybody else posts? Try my posting of 27 Aug 6:46 PM.

I don't care how many firms are affected by the Maryland law. If Costco had treated its employees the way Malwart treats its workers, I'd want Costco's hide too.

BUT THEY DON'T.

And you STILL have not addressed the fact that Maryland taxpayers DO subsidize Walmart through paying Medicaid for Walmart workers.

I'm so sorry to have to tell you that a blatant statement "Maryland taxpayers are not subsidizing the biggest retail firm in the world"--with no evidence to back up your statement--is what is known in literate circles--(perhaps that doesn't include you)-- as "denial"--which again is not a river in Egypt.

Your article provided no evidence to back up your statement.

It did however, support MY argument.

From the article "Opponents (of the Maryland and like bills) argue the bills are bad for businesses that provide as much coverage as they can afford".

Fascinating.

"as much coverage as they can afford". So Walmart is crying poor? That's a novel idea.

And what did you say their profit was last year?

You are hoist by your own petard--look it up--I don't have time to educate you.

Maybe now you'll start to actually read what you post--instead of tossing it heedlessly at us, while having no clue of what it says.

That would be a refreshing change.

And try thinking--instead of cut and paste. You might be surprised at the improvement.


Yet again:

Why should Maryland taxpayers subsidize the largest retail firm in the world?--which they do by paying medical costs for Walmart's poor workers which Walmart itself refuses to pay.

Don't bother dodging--I have more patience than you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 09:51 AM

I have more patience than you.

Or you're a masochist. ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 02:39 PM

"Can you phrase your question in a way that makes sense?"

Can you answer the question in a way that makes sense?

Now who is forcing anybody to work for Walmart and who is forcing the willing employees to apply for Medicaid?

And who decides what a company "should" pay? a Union? Or the governmnet?

And can the government apply one set of rules to one company and not another simply because that company is bigger?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 04:26 PM

Now who is forcing anybody to work for Walmart and who is forcing the willing employees to apply for Medicaid?

When Wal-mart forces other employers in an area out of business by their pricing policies (undercut prices, then when other businesses fold because they can't meet the price competition, Wal-Mart raises prices again—old tactic of theirs), then about the only choice people have is to go to work for Wal-Mart. That's how it worked in the small town I spoke of in a post above—where my wife and I had no choice but to shop there because that's all there was. My wife grew up in that town, so she knew how it used to be, before Wal-Mart showed up.

And if Wal-Mart won't give it's employees health coverage and they don't pay enough so their employees can buy health insurance, then what choice do their employees have it they get sick or have an accident?

And who decides what a company "should" pay? a Union? Or the governmnet?

A combination of good business sense (see remark of Costco CEO in a link posted above) and common decency. If the employer won't pay its employees a decent wage (especially if it is the only employer, as Wal-Mart often is in many small, rural communities--for reasons cited above), then other agencies such as a union or the government should to step in—with minimum wage rates set high enough so that a full time employee can earn a living wage. Anythng short of that is feudalism or worse.

And can the government apply one set of rules to one company and not another simply because that company is bigger?

No, unless that company constitutes a monopoly, which Wal-Mart does in a number of communities.

Don Firth

P. S.   Sorry, Old Guy. I shouldn't confuse you with facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 06:01 PM

What's the point? I'm outta here.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 06:42 PM

Right behind you, kendall. I've got better things to do than try to enlighten someone who's mind is already made up about something, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 10:36 PM

"Who is forcing the willing employees to apply for Medicaid?"

Another classic question from an intellectual giant.

Do you ever use your head?

Gee, "Old Guy", as an "old guy" I would have thought you would have had some dealing with medical bills. Usually, I believe, medical providers want to be paid for their services--and you might possibly need some money to do this--more than the chickenfeed Walmart pays its low-level workers--and those are the ones in question here.

On one low-level Walmart income, especially given the wretched medical coverage Walmart gives, you would not be able to afford to take care of your health needs. So somebody would have to step in to help. Guess who?--the state.

Which in turn means that the state--read "the taxpayers"-- are paying for your care--instead of Walmart--who should be paying for it.

So--as I have said before--and you have provided no evidence to contradict---the Maryland taxpayers are paying what Walmart should pay towards the health care of low-level Walmart employees.

This means--all together now-- that Maryland taxpayers are subsidizing the largest retailer in the world.





I'm actually rather disappointed in you-- I was looking forward to a creative idea from you on exactly how the biggest retailer in the world can't afford to give decent health care to its own employees. After all, according to the article you cited-- (but obviously didn't bother to read yourself)--, bills like the Maryland bill are "bad for businesses that provide as much coverage as they can afford."

And I was looking forward to your explaining how a company that made $11 billion in profit last year can't afford to give more health coverage to its low-level workers--such that those workers have to turn to a government program for the poor to get the coverage they need.

Obviously $11 billion is not enough.

And I'm sure you have a good reason why.

Now let's be imaginative--since unfortunately,, your grasp of reality is tenuous--- (look it up)--we'll at least send you to a dictionary --you do know what that is, don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 10:44 PM

Mr. Guy--


To simplify this, so that your huge brain might have a chance of understanding it.

"Who is forcing the willing workers to apply for Medicaid?"

How about--their own health?--which they can't take care of on pathetic low-level Walmart salaries--nor does Walmart provide the health care they would need to avoid applying to Medicaid.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 11:19 PM

Boy, you are just oozing with smarts. Why do you need to ask questions?

I never knew that your own health can be a who.

And why don't these Walmart employees quit and go to work for Costco?

Four other large companies getting state incentives appear on the top of lists of employers with the most workers eligible for state-financed health care. They are Publix Super Markets, Winn-Dixie Stores, Burger King Corp. and Walgreen Co...

.....The Tallahassee Democrat reported in December that the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, U.S. Air Force, Florida National Guard, Walt Disney World, BellSouth, Blue Cross, Bank of America and Dillard's also had Medicaid-eligible employees.

The St. Petersburg Times and its publisher, Times Publishing Co., have about 150 Medicaid-eligible employees and Medicaid-eligible dependents in Florida, the state said Thursday.

[Florida's minimum wage is $6.40 per hour effective January 1, 2006]

Wal-Mart said it pays its store workers an average of $9.36 an hour in Florida, adding that it offers competitively priced health care to full-time workers after six months and to part-time workers after two years....

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/State/Lured_employers_now_t.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:19 AM

Because (and I'm suppressing a real urge to blast here!) there probably isn't a Costo in the area, otherwise, Wal-Mart would have a real problem getting people to work for them. I don't think Wal-Mart would want to locate somewhere where there is already a Costco. They couldn't compete, so they aren't going to stick their necks out.

Don firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:32 AM

Well go ahead and blast.

Just because Walmart finds a location and builds a store ther doen ot constitute a monopoly or forcing anybody to work there.

How about McDonalds taking customers away from a local eatery? How about Home Depot taking business away from an 84 Lumber who took it from a local hardware store? How about a Best Buy that forces several local stores to close?

You are unwittingly aiding and abetting a union who can't get into Walmart's drawers so they try to demonize Walmart.

Then the Democrats take up the cause and try to use it to get elected.

Boo fucking hoo. Maybe we do need to give citizenship to those illegal aliens.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 12:27 PM

Old Guy, you can't possibly be that thick. Own stock in Wal-Mart, eh?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 02:53 PM

Not to my knowledge. It may be part of one of my mutual fund shares.
Who pays the health insurance for people that are not working?

In Florida the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Guard, Walt Disney World, BellSouth, Blue Cross, Bank of America, Dillard's and St. Petersburg Times and its publisher, Times Publishing Co. have medicaid employees too.

Do you think they might all ad up to Walmarts number of medicaid employees? So why single out Walmart just because it is the biggest?

Reason: Not logic, not economics, not for the public good but for Political reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:55 PM

Old Guy, you can't possibly be that thick.

Ya want to put twenty bucks on that, Don? Or fifty?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 09:25 PM

No takers here, Greg.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 11:15 PM

Well, well, just as I suspected--more information on the 10,000 that Old Guy was so hot and bothered about.

Congratulations, Old Guy, I believe you're batting 1,000--dead wrong on every assertion you've made on this thread.

In Maryland, Walmart, contrary to your usual conspiracy theory, is not the only firm to have over 10,000 employees, and thus be affected by the "8% solution".

Johns Hopkins University, Giant Food, and Northrop Grumman-- (every heard of Northrop?--they're primarily a defense contractor, as I understand)-- have over 10,000 employees also.

However, somehow, these 3 have all met the 8% threshhold for for-profit firms--6% for non-profits.

Gee, I wonder how they could do it and Walmart couldn't. I wonder if it's because Walmart doesn't even make the attempt to treat its own employees decently. Nah, that can't be it--must be something else.

I wonder if it's just that they see an opportunity to have Maryland taxpayers subsidize them--which the taxpayers do by paying for Medicaid to cover the minimal health care costs Walmart refuses to pay. Nah, that can't be it either--since you said the taxpayers aren't doing that.

Walmart told the Maryland General Assembly in 2004 that it spent about 5% of its payroll in Maryland on health benefits.

Old Guy, for somebody who complains about it, you're a past master at whining--whining and conspiracy theories. Perhaps it's because neither require any thinking--so they're right up your alley.

Sorry, politics is not always the hidden agenda--even though I know this will not be welcome news to such an aficionado-- (look it up)-- of whining and conspiracy theories as yourself.

All Walmart had to do was do the decent thing by its own employees and the bill would never have come up in the General Assembly.

And I suspect the Florida situation is similar.

But instead you (and it) whine about being "targeted".

After all, it only made $11 billion last year in profit--you can't expect that would be enough to provide a decent standard of health care for its employees. It's just unreasonable.





In the words of one of our favorite Mudcatters:   stop whining.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 02:43 PM

I have mentioned the Vancouver battle before but it won't hurt to remind you that our struggle to keep WalMart out has been slightly different - possibly because we are an urban area.

They came back with a new 'green' design which they thought would change our minds, it didn't.

It seems our strongest argument at this point is the increase in traffic WalMart will generate. Since Vancouver has a transportation plan that encourages walking, riding bikes and public transportation, the logic of building a store which will increase automobile congestion does not fit the vision. This of course, does not discourage them from building in the suburbs. As far as I know, the hiring of illegal immigrants and/or medical coverage is not even an issue.

No matter how we block them, they just keep revising and re-submitting their application. They are very persistent and seem to have enough money to continue the battle indefinitely. They are too big to fight them at a civic level but we are giving our best.

Perhaps it will take a bigger government and a court case to stop them. If its a court case that effects other 'big box' stores, thats O.K. too. Anything we can do to encourage the small entrepeneur in our communities is O.K. with me. It is the small businesses that contribute to our thriving community and we want to keep it that way.

If you really want to fight WalMart, get out of your cars and walk to shop. Take a deep breath and start enterracting with you environment. WalMart is just another example of the 'dumbing down' of America and the consumer mentality that generates greed.

"What did you do this week-end, Johnny?"

"I went shopping with Mummy at Walmart." Oh boy, thats what I call a stimulating, educational experience!

"What did you do when you got home?"

"I ate pizza and played video games."

This has got to change, folks! Fast food, automobiles, t.v. and video games. America has finally produced the perfect little 'worker bees'. Don't question anything, just sit back, consume and grow fat. No wonder depression is at epidemic proportions.

Perhaps fighting them at the National and/or State level is the only way to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 03:50 PM

Finally. When I heard of the book Kingdom Coming : The Rise of Christian Nationalism, by Michelle Goldberg (Charlie Noble's niece, by the way), I immediately checked the Seattle Public Library and found that there were already something like 160 holds on the book. Well, finally my turn came up and my wife (who works at the library) picked the book up and brought it home yesterday. The possibility of an "American Taliban" is something I'm a bit concerned about and think that others should be concerned as well, and I am gratified that so many people want to read the book.

But that's not the subject of this thread.   What is relevant to this thread is a comment Ms. Goldberg makes in the very first paragraph of the "Acknowledgements" at the beginning (yes, I read books quite thoroughly, including prefaces and acknowledgements).

Anyway, to quote Ms. Goldberg:

"Again and again while reporting for Salon, I'd had the sense that liberals and conservatives no longer merely have divergent values—they occupied different realities, with contradictory facts, histories, and epistemologies."

And there we have it. There are objective facts out there, but there are folks whose mind-set will not allow them even to perceive them, let alone, consider them. That's why discussions such as this thread represents are generally a total waste of time. True Believers cannot see because they will not see.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 06:10 PM

Altough we in Juneau, Alaska, already have a Costco, we're told that Walmart is coming to town. They have bought the old KMart property, good location and access, the ultimate in parking.

What do you want to be bet that they'll try to undercut Costco? I just hope that Juneau doesn't bite.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 06:28 PM

Wow! That ought to make for an interesting battle!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 09:13 PM

Especially interesting, Don, since Juneau has only 31,000 in population and no outlying cities. Makes one wonder.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:23 PM

Did Costco under cut anybody in Juneau?

And answerlady Dianavan: Did you ever decide how to address the Palestinian's requirement to Jew blood to drink? Think up an imaginary dialog about that.

Hey RD:

You asked and I answered. You call that whining? You are the one that brought it up. You posted the 10,000 number and when did I get hot and bothered about. You falsely accused me of not answering so I had to answer several times. Are you whining about that?

Why don't you take some time off from your false acusations to answer the question about all the employers in Florida that use Medicaid?

Since you brought up Giant:

...Giant has used the Montgomery County Council to make it harder for competitors to do business in Montgomery County, just outside of Washington, DC. I guess that isn't enough. Now Giant and its friends have decided to legally handicap Wal-Mart throught the state of Maryland...
...Which raises the question: how does Wal-Mart manage to attact any employees? There are thousands and thousands of jobs in Maryland outside of Wal-Mart. Given how poorly Wal-Mart allegedly treats its workers, how does the company ever manage to attact employees and keep them?...
...Montgomery County yesterday joined a growing list of jurisdictions around the country that have imposed tougher zoning restrictions on big-box retailers, marking a victory for unions and Giant Food LLC, which joined forces to lobby for the restrictions...
...The council voted, 7 to 0, to adopt zoning rules that allow retailers to open so-called "combination retail stores" -- discount stores of at least 120,000 square feet with a full-service grocery and pharmacy -- only in specific commercial zones and then, only with a special permit...
...The zoning rules essentially subject some big-box stores to an additional layer of review by county officials and provide another opportunity for public input.
While the amendment passed yesterday does not name specific retailers, in practice, it would affect only Wal-Mart Supercenters, SuperTargets, and the supermarket chain Wegmans...
...Duncan lobbied members to vote for his proposal, his spokesman, David Weaver, said. He had help from Giant Food, which sent letters to the council supporting the proposed restrictions...
...Costco Wholesale Corp. hired prominent local land-use attorneys who successfully argued that it should be exempted from the restrictions. Home Depot Inc. organized a last-minute e-mail campaign by its store managers urging council members to exempt home-improvement stores. They are exempt because they don't have grocery stores...
...Which raises the question: how does Wal-Mart manage to attact any employees? There are thousands and thousands of jobs in Maryland outside of Wal-Mart. Given how poorly Wal-Mart allegedly treats its workers, how does the company ever manage to attact employees and keep them?...
...So basically, this regulation protects Giant Food, a mediocre chain that fears the encroachment of the extraordinary Wegman's, from serious competition. That means higher prices and less selection for shoppers...
...the Council didn't ban big-box groceries outright. That leaves open the door for special begging, pleading and lobbying. It really highlights what smart growth is about—legislator as gate-keeper. If you'd like in, love me enough or pay me enough and I'll consider it. Maybe. It's an outrageous way to run a jurisdiction in a democracy. It makes property use and property rights subject to the whim of legislators. What a sad day for the rule of law...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:47 PM

Giant Food, which is fighting off heavy competition in the Washington area, will close seven locations and open five newly designed stores by year's end. The company also plans to renovate several more as part of a multi-year effort to reposition the company.
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/08/21/daily9.html

---

Wal-Mart bill would hurt low-skill, entry level workers

Published In: Cumberland Times-News [a union town until manufacturing was run away by Unions]
By: Craig Garthwaite 4/6/05

Frustrated by their inability to win key organizing battles, labor unions have turned their attention from the workplace to statehouses across the country. Their most recent target is the state of Maryland, where organized labor is pushing legislation mandating employer-paid health benefits they have been unable win at the negotiating table.

The recently debated Maryland Fair Share Act (SB 790/HB 1284) would require employers with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on healthcare. Only two companies in the state have more than 10,000 employees—Giant Foods and Wal-Mart—and only Wal-Mart spends less than 8 percent of their payroll on health coverage. Unsurprisingly, Giant Foods—whose high-cost, unionized workforce is making it difficult to compete with Wal-Mart in the state—is a primary supporter of the legislation.

If enacted, however, all evidence points to the "10,000 employee" limit being swiftly lowered to cover smaller businesses. Delegates are already discussing introducing a 4.5 percent healthcare tax on employers with fewer than 10,000 employees. Clearly, Fair Share is simply the opening salvo of a large battle to mandate employer-paid health coverage—and all economic evidence points toward low-skill jobs being the largest casualty.

The problem of the uninsured and rising healthcare costs requires action. It is essential, however, that lawmakers resist the temptation of simplistic "solutions" with unintended consequences that will make life harder for the low-skill employees they are attempting to help. Even worse are solutions such as Fair Share, which create significant harm without meaningfully addressing the underlying problem...

...Focusing on the number of employees, rather than the underlying economics of affected businesses, is bad policy for reasons beyond inefficiency. Exempt from this legislation are employers with high profit margins and small labor forces—such as law firms and accounting offices—who would have the greatest ability to adjust to the increased per-employee costs. Employers in labor-intensive industries with low profit margins, however, bear the brunt of this legislation despite having the least ability to adjust to dramatic increases in labor costs. This can only lead to significant unintended consequences. Imagine the cost of growing from 199 to 200 employees if that were the threshold for coverage!...

...For an example of how low-skill retail positions can and will leave Maryland, one need look no further than McDonald's recent efforts to staff their drive thrus in high labor cost states with employees in low labor cost states via phone. As Senator George McGovern stated, "when these [entry-level] jobs disappear, where will young people and those with minimal skills get a start in learning the 'invisible curriculum' we all learn on the job?"...

...What lawmakers should be doing is truly attempting to attack the underlying problem crippling voluntary employer-provided healthcare—the excessive rising costs of health coverage—instead of simply carrying organized labor's water on this issue...

---

So mr DF:"Only two companies in the state have more than 10,000 employees—Giant Foods and Wal-Mart"

Giant food has to pay 20%. No wonder they are teetering from the competition which include Super Walmarts, Super Targets and Wegmans.

Now let me check out your claim on Johns Hopkins and Northrop Grumman. You still could be right.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:56 PM

DF? I think you mean RD, don't you, Old Guy.

If nothing else, at least try to keep who you're arguing with straight, okay?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:10 PM

Ah. Here we go Douggie:

Only four companies in the state met the first threshold of having more than 10,000 employees. Giant Food Inc., already paid more than 8 percent to employees, Johns Hopkins University only had to meet a 6 percent threshold as a nonprofit, and Northrop Grumman Corp., lobbied for and won exclusion for companies with employees earning more than the Maryland median household income.

Johns Hopkins is non profit and only has to meet 6%

Northrup *lobbied* to be excluded. If they meet the 8% minimum, why would they need to be excluded??

So that leaves Giant Food which is burdened by paying 20% and is using the union and local legislation to stiffle the competition.

And "Judge Motz said many times in his opinion that Wal-Mart was obviously targeted in the law" just like I said. You need to call up that Judge Motz and tell him he can't possibly be that thick.

If you whiny baby libs really want so much government control, go to Cuba and tell me what is on the store shelves there.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:19 PM

That's Donnie, Not Douggie.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:30 PM

Like I just said above. Try to stay alert.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 12:39 AM

Ok you got me. I am humbled. Now point out the inaccuracies in the facts I have posted.

No whining allowed.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 02:32 AM

That guy has the attention span of a gnat.

He can't dispute what I have posted so he tries to slander me by referring to an entirely different topic.

I'm not sure why he called me the 'answer lady' but I guess that means he considers me some kind of threat.

I'm hip to his 'silencing' methods. He thinks he's intimidating but he's just a silly, old fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 11:08 AM

Sorry, Old Guy--you're the one whining about how Walmart was "targeted". I have pointed out that in Maryland there were 4 employers affected by the 10,000 threshhold. Of those only Walmart, with $11 billion in profit last year, has been unable (read unwilling) to make the 8% requirement.

As for your cut and paste--as Shania Twain says, that don't impress me much. I'm sure your sources are totally objective. Anything you say.

And you still have not given a reason why Maryland taxpayers should subsidize the largest retailer in the world.

So stop whining about the terrible unfairness about that retailer being "targeted".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 11:11 AM

Mr. Guy--

And believe it or not, I have better things to do than to waste my time finding out about Florida, which I suspect strongly is similar to Maryland.

You're retired--I suspect you have the time to waste--so help yourself--if your giant brain can deal with words of over one syllable.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 08:19 AM

"I'm not sure why he called me the 'answer lady' but I guess that means he considers me some kind of threat."

I don't call you names. I simply point out that you are prone to ingnore questions when the answer proves you are wrong. So is answer lady a bad name? Maybe no answer lady would fit better. You are also prone to invent imaginary statements to try to prove a point. Try using facts instead.

RD takes time to waste on putting people down and falsely accusing them of whining but no time to waste on find facts to support his position.

I never said anything about terrible unfairness. I answered your question twice that it targeted Walmart but you keep whining about the answer.

I still work and make an income but not at an hourly job.

Now point out the inaccuracies in the facts I have posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 09:34 PM

"And answerlady Dianavan: Did you ever decide how to address the Palestinian's requirement to Jew blood to drink? Think up an imaginary dialog about that." - Old Guy

Maybe if I could understand that sentence, I might be able to answer it. Maybe if it weren't so far off topic, I would give it a try. Perhaps if it weren't just one great big red herring, I would attempt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: DougR
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 10:11 PM

Uh, I don't think so. You might want to ask Mayor Dailey of Chicago what he thinks about this subject though.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 10:18 PM

Old Guy--

Much as it pains me to say it--and you can be sure it does--you really are a bit thick.

YOU are the one who keeps whining about poor Walmart being targeted. I think we should have a moment of silence about the horror of this terrible injustice..

I have explained-more than once--that Walmart was 1 of 4 firms affected in Maryland. Were all 4 "targeted"? You're wrong again--congratulations--you're keeping your unbroken string going.

And, as a Maryland taxpayer, I can only hope that you will also soon have the opportunity to subsidize a corporate behemoth--(uh oh--back to the dictionary for you).

Gee, and I thought the Bush regime was supposedly very concerned about doing well by taxpayers. They certainly brag about the "tax cuts" enough.

Guess I was wrong. The Bush regime is no friend of taxpayers.

I'm still waiting--with the patience of Job--(maybe you want to check your Bible for that one)-- for your wonderfully creative explanation of why $11 billion in profit (in 2005) is not enough to be able to give decent health care to its own employees. It's amazing--but somehow firms which make much less have no problem. Just can't explain it. But I'm sure you can.

But somehow I keep missing your explanation of why $11 billion is not enough.

Anyway,, exactly why do you keep whining--with no evidence-- about Walmart being "targeted"? They seem to be surviving.

Maybe they don't need you to whine on their behalf.




And I'm really sorry about implying that retired people have scads of time to waste on this topic.


Obviously, only Mr. Guy (can I just call you Old?) is the only one who has the time to waste.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:08 PM

RD: show mw anywhere I have complained about Dems targeting Walmart or even anywhere I said it was unfair. I think it is a good thing because it shows how pathetic the Dems are. I don't consider that whining, I consider it an assertion.

Then you jump in with your whining about how Walmart is screwing everybody, demanding for me to defend Walmart and bitching about my answers.

I am not complaining about your bitching. You are welcome to do so. Carry on with your attacks, insults, false accusations and whining. I like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:22 PM

"And answerlady Dianavan: Did you ever decide how to address the Palestinian's requirement of Jew blood to drink? Think up an imaginary dialog about that." - Old Guy

"Maybe if I could understand that sentence, I might be able to answer it. Maybe if it weren't so far off topic, I would give it a try. Perhaps if it weren't just one great big red herring, I would attempt it."

Long ago and far away you posted that we must address the needs of the Palestinians.

I said please address this need of the Palestinians:
"We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews."

You did not respond. I posted the same thing in another thread abvout Hezbollah. Still no answer. Can you answer it or would you rather call me names and make up imaginary dialogs with no factual content like this:

"What did you do this week-end, Johnny?"
"I went shopping with Mummy at Walmart." Oh boy, thats what I call a stimulating, educational experience!
"What did you do when you got home?"
"I ate pizza and played video games."

If you don't understand any part of this, don't be afraid to ask.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:34 PM

Here it is Dianavan Did you ever answer it?:

Subject: RE: BS: An optimistic voice for peace in Israel
From: Old Guy - PM
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:12 PM

"U.S./Britain/Israel resume diplomatic relations and begin to address their concerns."


Now address these concerns Dianavan:

"We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews."

"We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood."

"We will destroy you, blow you up, take revenge against you, purify the land of you, pigs that have defiled our country This operation is revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."
"Jihad is the only way to liberate Palestine -- all of Palestine -- from the impurity of the Jews."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:50 PM

This is for the badgering and claiming my answers are wrong:

Question:
"tell me ONE thing that the Republicans (Conservatives) have ever done for the benefit of the working man/woman."

Answer:
President Bush ordered that federal agencies cannot seize private property except for public projects such as hospitals or roads. The move occurred on the one-year anniversary of a controversial Supreme Court decision that gave local governments broad power to bulldoze people's homes for commercial development.

Denial:
"I'm talking about things such as, Minimum wage, Social security, the 40 hour week, child labor laws and the vote for women. What have the republicans ever done to equal those?"
That was not part of your question.

Then the question was chanded to"
"I asked you to name one thing the republicans ever did for the working man and you gave that answer, "The Emancipation Proclamation"
and I informed you that that had nothing to do with working people,"

The Emancipation proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Are persons held as slaves not working people? That is a racial insult.

I think you have difficulty communicating and lack people skills.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:03 AM

This was posted as an assretion:

"Of those only Walmart, with $11 billion in profit last year, has been unable (read unwilling) to make the 8% requirement."

Then you claim it was something I didn't answer:
"But somehow I keep missing your explanation of why $11 billion is not enough."

Isn't it the person who makes an assertion the one that has to explain it and defend it?

For illustration purposes suppose I made the assertion that RD is a offensive person and then demand that he explain why he is an offensive person?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:47 AM

"I have explained-more than once--that Walmart was 1 of 4 firms affected in Maryland. Were all 4 "targeted"? You're wrong again--congratulations--you're keeping your unbroken string going."

#1 Walmart

#2 Giant pays 20% and is being squeezed by the union. Giant and the union are the ones behind this legislation

#3 Northrup Grumman fought to keep itself excluded from the legislation and won. Does not apply.

#4 Johns Hopkins is non profit and does not apply.

Many of the workers set to lose their jobs at Giant are paid more than $20 an hour before overtime; with overtime, some make more than $80,000 a year, workers said. Comparable jobs at non-union retailers pay about $15 an hour, according to the local unions.

That's more than my wife makes and she is a PHD. Why go to college? Just stick with the union and you can make more.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 08:15 AM

Old Guy, anyone with more than a teaspoon full of brains can see that you have no answer to my questions. You deflect them by dragging in a pile of extraneous horse shit.
For instance, I stated the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves. It was the 13th amendment...AFTER Lincoln was dead. Now, prove me wrong. And, it would not benefit you to call me racist. What I just said has NOTHING to do with MY politics.I am NOT racist, just a lover of the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Big Mick
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 08:20 AM

Just thought I would check back. Seems Old Guy is following the standard Republican tactic of saying half truths and/or lies long enough to make them truth.

No point arguing. This man isn't about discussion. He is a propagandist, and my guess is he is a pro and in the employ of someone.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:26 AM

Dear mr Kendall:

#1 Were the slaves set free after the Emancipation Proclamation?

#2 Were the slaves working men and women?

Even if you disqualify this answer as not immediately freeing the slaves, it was still a thing done for the slaves and constitutes one thing that the Republicans have done.

as the Union armies advanced, hundreds or thousands of slaves were liberated each day — until nearly all 4 million were free by summer 1865. (The border states freed their own slaves, except Kentucky, where some slavery existed until December 1865.) The emancipation was permanently effected by the Thirteenth Amendment ratified in December 1865.

As a matter of Fact, the Republican party was founded to prevent the spread of slavery to new states as they joined the union. So the whole Republican party was something done for working men and women. No doubt you will find some tedious way to disprove that statement of fact.

Big Mick: You have accused me of being a retired union guy which I am not and moaning about the good old days when I am pleased with the present, now out of desperation you accuse me of being a paid Propagandist.

I am none of those things. The only interest I have in Walmart is when I shop there and the fact that the Democrats are trying to demonize Walmart and use it as a tool to get elected. Somehow it turned into a battle about unions.

The more I look for those vile, hated, cut and pastes to counter the assertion that others make here, the more I learn. I found how Democrats suck up to the unions to get votes and the unions suck up to the democrats to get more money. All the while, jobs are moving offshore to where there are no unions.

What great intellect is required to figure this out? People claim that are never what they appear to be on the surface. There are things being covered up and the real state of affairs is different from what you see because of some evil thing that is trying to control you.

I know I am free to do whatever I please and I enjoy it. I can shop at Walmart or Nordstrom's or Dollar general. By a Chevy (which I did) or a Toyota.

I enjoyed the bit about "two big burly Wal-Mart recruiters jumped out from behind the trash bins and Shanghaied me." it perfectly illustrates the fallacy of the anti-Walmart rhetoric.

In other places people assert that Walmart runs other small stores out of business and the people have no choice but to work for Walmart. Other times they sate when Walmart opens where there are no jobs and people go to work for Walmart, it is still a bad thing because of health care.

So fire away at me and Walmart, it's your right to do so. Maybe I am a mile wide and a half inch deep. That way you can see that I am not covering anything up.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:01 AM

The republican party was created to free the working man from the abuse of the greedy land owners.

I say again. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION FREED ONLY THE SLAVES THAT WERE UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE CONFEDERACY. It was a ploy by Lincoln to try to get the slaves in the south to rise up and create another front to threaten the rebels. He had absolutly NO control or authority over the slaves he "freed". It was a complete failure. If you know as much as you seem to think you do, you will note that the proclamation did NOT apply to the slaves in the border states at all.

I'm sure you can read, but your argument indicates that you have never read the proclamation. I suggest you do.

And again I say, the republican party has never done one da,mn thing for the benefit of the working man. Their idea of helping the working man is their silly "trickle down" theory. That means, if you wish to feed the birds, you need only feed the horses.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:25 AM

If you claim the proclamation that caused the immediate freeing of slaves in the border states and freeing of 4 million slaves the by summer before the 13th amendment passed is not doing something for working men and women, you must be racially biased.

The Republican Party Founded July 6th, 1854

The party was born of hostility to slavery. Back in 1820, the US Congress had agreed the Missouri Compromise, under which Missouri entered the Union as a slave state, but slavery was forbidden anywhere else in the Louisiana Purchase north of 36º 30'. However, in 1854 the principle was threatened by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, under which the white inhabitants of the two territories were to decide by referendum whether slavery would be allowed there or not. There were numerous Americans in the northern states who disapproved of slavery, including many northern Whigs and Democrats as well as the Free Soilers, who had sprung from concern over the possible introduction of slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the 1840s. With the slogan 'Free soil, free speech, free labor and free men', the Free Soil Party had run Martin Van Buren unsuccessfully for president in 1848.

Free Soilers now joined Whigs and northern Democrats to form a new, completely northern political party. The original impetus came from impromptu 'anti-Nebraska' meetings in the north-western states of Wisconsin and Michigan to discuss what to do if the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed. The meetings were not only opposed to slavery, but demanded the opening up ...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:33 AM

The rise and fall of Jim Crow
        
Founding the Party in 1854, Republican leaders generally placed national interest above states' rights and were united in their opposition to slavery.

The Republican Party was officially formed in July 1854 in Jackson, Michigan when a group of men who belonged to various splinter parties met and adopted the name Republican. The name appealed to those who recalled Jeffersonian "republicanism" and generally placed the national interest above sectional interest and above states' rights. The party's founders totally opposed slavery. The platform adopted at the party's first national convention in 1856 rejected the Southern position that Congress had the right to recognize slavery in a territory. The Party maintained that Congress could abolish slavery in the territories and ought to do so.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency as a Republican candidate. The prolonged agony of the Civil War, however, weakened Lincoln's prospects for re-election in 1864. To broaden his appeal he took pro-war Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson as his vice presidential candidate and went on to victory. After Lincoln's assassination, Johnson and the Republican Congress were at loggerheads over who would control Reconstruction. Johnson wanted to re-admit the Southern states back into the Union and allow them to define the status of blacks. Congress wanted the federal government to insure black rights. The Republicans won the battle for control of Reconstruction and passed the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, seeking to guarantee blacks the right to due process of law and the vote.

Then and Now: Between 1870 and 1935, all blacks elected to Congress were Republicans. As of October 2002, only one of the 37 African-American members of Congress is a Republican. The Republicans established military rule over the South until they met the terms and conditions that Congress set down for their re-admittance. Republican domination of the South seemed assured as nearly all blacks voted for the party. These votes were combined with those of some Southerners (called "scalawags" by white Democrats, a term that implied traitorous behavior) and transplanted Northerners (called "carpetbaggers" because of the kind of traveling bag they carried). The Republicans established a bi-racial coalition, with whites dominating. Blacks won hundreds of elected positions and were appointed to many administrative positions.

But white Southerners began to rally under the banner of white supremacy. They won some states peacefully by a large majority of votes, but in Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina Democrats used violence, fraud, intimidation and murder to win. Meanwhile, Northern Republicans were rapidly losing interest in the South; they had become the party of business interests. In the Compromise of 1877, Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes formally ended Reconstruction and left the race issue in the hands of the Southern Democrats. The reign of the Republican Party in the South, while alive in a few areas, was basically finished.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:40 AM

Third Party System: Birth, 1854-1860

The new party was created in 1854 as an act of defiance against what activists denounced as the Slave Power — the powerful class of slaveholders who were conspiring to control the federal government and to spread slavery nationwide. The party founders adopted the name "Republican," echoing 1776, to indicate it was the carrier of "republican" values regarding civic virtue, and opposition to aristocracy and corruption.

Besides opposition to slavery, the new party put forward a vision of modernization — emphasizing higher education, banking, railroads, industry and cities, while promising free homesteads to farmers.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:47 AM

Another thing Republicans did for working men and women that the Democrats vetoed:

The Free Homestead Act was first passed in by Congress in 1860; however, the bill was vetoed by President Buchanan. [Democrat]

It was not until May 20, 1862, that the free Homestead Act was finally passed and signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The law took effect on January 1, 1863.

Under this law any man or woman twenty-one years old or the head of a family could have 160 acres of undeveloped land by living on it five years and paying eighteen dollars in fees. They were also required to live on the land, build a home, make improvements and farm the land before they could own it outright. Alternatively, the homesteader could purchase the land for $1.25 per acre after having lived on the land for six months...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:53 AM

From 1854, when the Republican Party was founded, Democrats labeled it adherents "black" Republicans to identify them as proponents of black equality. During the 1860 elections Southern Democrats used the term derisively to press their belief that Abraham Lincoln's victory would incite slave rebellions in the South and lead to widespread miscegenation. The image the term conveyed became more hated in the South during Reconstruction as Radical Republicans forced legislation repugnant to Southerners and installed Northern Republicans or Unionists in the governments of the former Confederate states.
Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War"

Kendall, you have made my day.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:46 PM

Well, you really have to hand it to Old Guy. If I ever need a bulldozer, I'll hire him, strap a scraper to his forehead, and turn him loose. He's bloody relentless!

He's also a real master at cut-and-paste.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:04 PM

Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Wesley S
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:12 PM

Say Old Guy - have any of the things you've mentioned happened in your lifetime? What has the Republician Party done for us lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:28 PM

Need I explain the meaning of "working men"? Get off the slavery kick! You know damn well what I'm talking about.
The southern plantation owners had an unfair advantage with their free labor, and that's what the northern businessmen were upset about.
So, let me be crystal clear here, what has the republican party ever done for the benefit of the working man? I don't mean second hand benefits, I mean strictly for the benefit of the working man. The republican party is about as altruistic as a hungry alligator.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:50 PM

So now you select your own definitions?

Working men are men who work.

What has the Republician Party done for us in my lifetime. Hummm.

Although most school districts at least attempted to integrate following the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, some school districts, particularly those in the Deep South, actively avoided desegregation. One of the most famous cases involved Little Rock's Central High School, where Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus [Democrat] joined local whites in resisting integration by dispatching the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine black students from entering the school. President Dwight Eisenhower [Republican] responded by sending federal troops to protect the students. The crisis in Little Rock showed America that the president could and would enforce court orders with federal troops. When eight of the nine black students successfully completed the school year, they showed America that black students could and would endure the intense hatred that racist white students could dump on them. It was a big step towards integration and an important one, even though it caused nine brave teenagers unspeakable pain.

http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/lilrock/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 07:24 PM

You are hopeless. I'm done with this futile dance.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 07:34 PM

Well, actually, this is kinda fascinating in it's own bizarre way. When it comes to fancy dancing, Old Guy is so quick on his feet, ducking and dodging, that he makes Fred Astaire look like a stumble-bum.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:30 PM

Why don't you just state the answer you are demanding in the beginning and save a lot of time?

All I can tell from your objections is "Working Men" are not black, not slaves, not the subject of segregation, not farmers in need of land and do not own property that is subject to seizure by imminent domain.

I think you are being rather abusive to anybody that does not agree with you. I think that is called arrogance.

The Arrogance Feature

BY PHILLIP WITTMEYER

People with this Feature, from the time they are young, are likely to believe they are destined for greatness. They feel they are not just another ordinary person: they think they are extraordinary. They tend to think they are a superior breed of human, not subject to the same imperfections as other "common" people. They may believe they are blessed with good luck. They have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, perceiving themselves as noble and grand, and feeling they are beyond and above the normal and average. They fancy that they will make a significant contribution to the world, and they have an unrealistic evaluation of their abilities, talents, intelligence, and other gifts they see themselves as better than they really are. They have a desire to excel at whatever they do. They can be pretentious, haughty, snobbish, pompous, lofty, and conceited. This shows even in the way they carry themselves with an upright posture, and in the way they walk with a swagger.

The fear that drives Arrogance is the fear of vulnerability. Arrogant people do not want to admit to themselves that they are imperfect, nor do they want others to discover it. Rarely do they apologize for their mistakes. They have a need to avoid embarrassment and humiliation, because these things obviously show their faults. This is the reason the Arrogant are shy. Arrogant people avoid situations where they know they cannot excel. They are reluctant to try things that they know they will not do well. They perfect their stuff in private before they do it in public. They stick to the things they do well, and continue to perfect them.

In the Positive Pole of +Pride, there is pride in themselves, in what they do, and in what they think. They dress and groom well. They do good work. They have a high opinion of themselves. In this there is no comparison with others, just a feeling that they are good people, and they want others to praise them as being good people. They see themselves as virtuous, but others see them as self-righteous. They expect a lot of themselves, and try to live up to their self-image of greatness, perfection, and righteousness. If it should be pointed out that there is some imperfection in them, they will find a justification or excuse for it.

In the Negative Pole of -Vanity, there is a feeling of superiority over others. They automatically assume that others are lesser beings than themselves. Everything they do is to prove their superiority. They brag on themselves, and they belittle others and treat them as inferiors. Others around the vain person need not expect any compliments or praise. To do so would acknowledge them as equals or superiors. Because they expect so much of themselves, they expect so much of others also, to be worthy of praise. They have a highhanded way they treat other people that says "I'm better than you". Their actions say, "I know what is for your own good more than you do". This is presumptuousness. They automatically think their opinions are better than others, that they are smarter, stronger, more accurate, more knowledgeable than others, and so on better in every way. The way to overcome -Vanity is to contemplate and apply the Positive Pole of the Complementary Feature, +Humility. Realize that we are all just struggling human beings, and none of us deserves to feel superior. Vain people try to "outshine" others. If someone tells a joke, they want to tell a better joke. If someone has a fast car, they want a faster car.

Arrogance is the counterpart of the Priest Role, so Arrogant people see themselves as Priests: interpreters and conveyors of divinity. They feel that they are in an exalted state of consciousness. They feel it is their mission to extend forgiveness to the wretched sinners all around them. They feel they are enlightened and inspired to preach on righteousness. They view themselves as godlike. Arrogant people always want to be admired. In the most extreme form, the Arrogant one wants to be worshipped.

Arrogant people are not interested in ordinary things. They prefer great and grand issues things of cosmic significance. Petty and common things are beneath their dignity, too insignificant for them to be concerned with. They resent it when the little problems of daily life take away their attention from their grandiose projects. They feel they are above the problems that beset others. They feel bad things cannot happen to them. Sometimes they feel that they are not subject even to the laws of nature. They feel that the needs which drive ordinary people have no pull on them.

Arrogance is the Complementary opposite of the Lowliness Feature. Arrogant people lack +Humility and -Abasement. Rarely do they feel sorry for themselves. They are not apologetic about anything. In fact, they may be pitiless toward the suffering of others, because they are not attuned to their own suffering like Lowly people. Where Lowly people express their mediocrity and disgrace, Arrogant people brag on their great accomplishments.

Both Self-Deprecation and Arrogance make a person very status-conscious. Both types of people are concerned with where they rank compared to others. "What is my elevation am I high or low? What is my scale am I big or small. What is my value am I quality or not? What is my grade am I fine or coarse?" The lesson to be learned from this is that we are neither better nor worse than others, neither higher nor lower, neither richer nor poorer, neither more righteous nor more wicked. We are all equal.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:45 PM

Mr. Guy (Old)--

"Johns Hopkins does not apply". As usual, wrong. The Maryland law in question would apply--but Johns Hopkins, as a non-profit, need only make the 6% threshold, not 8%. As I stated earlier.

"Northrop Grumman lobbied for an exclusion for employees making more than the Maryland median income."

1) Source, please.

2) Also, does that not indicate a way Walmart itself could lobby for an exclusion? All they'd have to do is pay more than the Maryland median income.

Now, I wonder why they don't do that--unless they're skinflint, determined to increase their profits on the backs of their own employees, and the worst excuse for a corporate citizen ever to grace our fair state.   But of course that can't be--since you say it's not so.

And I'm still waiting for your oh-so-creative explanation of exactly why $11 billion is too little to provide decent healthcare --or pay their employees decently--in this case more than the Maryland median income.

So stop whining about Walmart being "targeted".

It's getting just slightly tiresome.

Though I must admit you have a fine whine. Maybe it's because of your vintage--but I tend to believe it's because you can't envision anything but your own wants.

I can't decide if the proper word would be provincial or just yahoo--so you can look both of them up.

Have fun. At least you're finally being educated. Should have been done a long time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 11:51 PM

Mr. Guy--


Too bad you can't seem to express anything without the help of quasi-meaningless cut- and-pastes.

If you could, you might even be worth debating.

But I think the guess that the Bush regime (or Walmart) is paying you is off the mark--surely they can do better.


And don't forget to tell us why $11 billion profit is too little for Walmart to treat its own employees decently.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 12:07 AM

You tell us why tell us why.

It's your assertion. You support it.

Judge Motz said many times in his opinion that Wal-Mart was obviously targeted in the law. Was he whining? Nope, you are whining because Walmart won and the union lost.

What does it say up there? "They tend to think they are a superior breed of human, not subject to the same imperfections as other "common" people." IS that you? I think I am among the common people.

Here is another cut and paste with facts for you to whine about:

Only four companies in the state met the first threshold of having more than 10,000 employees. Giant Food Inc., already paid more than 8 percent to employees, Johns Hopkins University only had to meet a 6 percent threshold as a nonprofit, and Northrop Grumman Corp., lobbied for and won exclusion for companies with employees earning more than the Maryland median household income.

So that means only Walmart was affected by the legislation.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 01:19 AM

Wal-Mart employs 11450 people in West Virginia.
The next boggest employer, Asplundh has about 1100 workers in the state.

AFL CIO:
Wal-Mart tops the list in West Virginia for the largest number of workers with children receiving state-funded health benefits. According to data released in December 2004 by the West Virginia Bureau for Children and Families, 452 [3.9%] Wal-Mart employees get health coverage for their children through the State's Children Health Insurance Pro-gram

Asplundh, which had 146 [13.2%] employees with children participating in the plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 10:53 PM

Old Guy--

You sure have whining down to a fine art.   Still think it's unfair that Walmart is "targeted". Poor Walmart. My heart bleeds for them-- and for you.

And you still don't even read your own postings. Otherwise you'd realize, as I said--since I read your postings--even if you don't--that all Walmart is not "targeted" in the least. All they have to do is pay their employees more than the median Maryland wage and they'd have no problem with the state. You'd think they could figure that out. But perhaps they have leaders of the attitude--and mental capacity--of your good self. That would explain it.

And it's interesting you still, after all this time, have no reason why Maryland taxpayers should subsidize the biggest retailer in the world.

Well, let's try this one--maybe it's more down to your intellectual level--and another one you've heard before.


Just why is $11 billion profit (in 2005) not enough to provide decent healthcare----or a decent wage to be able to purchase minimal health-care-----to their own employees?

Just a simple question--which somehow you keep forgetting to answer. Must be you're too busy with cut-and-paste.   Thinking about the problem would actually be more useful--if you can manage it.

You need not honor us with another cut-and-paste about the difference between for-profit and profit companies regarding the Maryland bill--or any other cut-and-paste, for that matter.

Perhaps you could even express a coherent thought on your own-- that would be truly a revolutionary development.


But regardless, at least you're learning some new words--hope you can figure out how to use them.




Looking forward to another serving of your fine whine.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:20 PM

The intent of this thread is to point out the fact that the Democratic party is trying to demonize Walmart in order to get votes.

It's pretty simple and straight forward.

Then I get asked a bunch of questions several times and I am met with whining about the answers. The question keeps getting changed and re-asked.

Each time I have answered. Now you accuse me of whining. What are you whining about now?

Do you see that in West Virginia 3.9 percent of Walmart workers use state supported medical insurance and the second largest employer has 13.2% of their workers on state supported medical insurance? That speaks rather well for Walmart.

Wipe your tears away and read real close.

So far you have lost every argument but keep it up, I like it.

Bow you claim 11 billion is not enough, Why is it not enough? Why can't you answer that question without whining?

And that superior attitude of yours, it suits you well.

Now Walmart is inclined to reduce its workforce to meet the new lower employee requirements. Has anyone thought about what will happen to Maryland's unemployment costs when they layoff 7,000 workers?

Posted by: Ayn Thrope | Jan 19, 2006 11:09:55 AM

Hmmm... how many people does McDonald's employ? Oh wait, they're technically employeed by franchisees, so they're exempt. Now if Wal-Mart decided to divvy up its stores to, say, Wal-Mart Maryland East Inc. and Wal-Mart Maryland West Inc., there goes the 10,000-employee test.

Of course, if Maryland really wants to be fair (instead of kowtowing to the unions), they'd lower the threshhold -- which would make the law apply to a lot more companies. And perhaps inject a degree of fairness (an abiding American principle).

But fairness isn't the objective; taking action against one single company (Wal-Mart) is.

I'm not an economist -- I only play one on TV -- but my guess is that the long-term effect of this foolishness will be more harm than good. And it won't make much of a difference for either Wal-Mart or its employees.

This entire fiasco underscores the real issue (which the self-serving unions can't be bothered to address): we need some form of national healthcare system that provides real coverage for ALL Americans. But we have no hope of achieving that until we get an administration that is genuinely concerned about doing the right thing (which would truly reflect a Christian approach).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:25 PM

So Old Guy--still whining, still addicted to cut-and-paste --and still clueless?

What was your answer as to why Walmart can't afford to give decent health care on $11 billion profit?

I'm still patiently waiting.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:28 PM

But- sweet dreams--enjoy your soliloquy- (another one for you to look up).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:33 PM

You are claiming 11 billion is not enough, not me. You are going to have to dry your eyes and answer that one yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:39 AM

District Court Opines That ERISA Preempts Maryland Fair Share Health Care Fund Act: Notable Quotes from the opinion written by Federal District Judge J. Frederick Motz:

1. "The fact that two local jurisdictions, New York City and Suffolk County, have enacted "fair share" legislation of their own highlights the uniformity problem. Unless such legislation is deemed to be preempted, nationwide employers potentially will face not only fifty different requirements imposed by the States, but also a virtually limitless number of requirements that local subdivisions in each State may enact." (From footnote 13).

2. "My finding that the Act is preempted is in accordance with long established Supreme Court law that state laws which impose employee health or welfare mandates on employers are invalid under ERISA. See, e.g., Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U.S. 125; Shaw, 463 U.S. 85. The Secretary contends, however, that these authorities are not controlling because a trilogy of cases, Travelers, 514 U.S. 645, Dillingham, 519 U.S. 316, and DeBuono v. NYSA-ILA Medical and Clinical Services Fund, 520 U.S. 806 (1997), have "changed the landscape of ERISA preemption analysis." The short answer to this contention, of course, is that this court has no authority to disregard Supreme Court precedent on the basis of the prediction that the Court would overrule its decisions. . . Moreover, the Secretary over-reads the cases upon which he relies."

3. "Although, as the Fourth Circuit noted in Coyne & Delany Co. v. Selman, 98 F.3d 1457, 1466-67, 1468 (4th Cir. 1996), the Supreme Court in Travelers "narrow[ed]" its "interpretation of the scope of ERISA preemption" and "adopted a pragmatic approach" to determining whether a state law "relate[s] to" an employee benefit plan, nothing in Travelers or its progeny suggests that the Court would now uphold a state statute or local ordinance mandating that an employer provide a certain type or monetary level of welfare benefits in an ERISA plan."

4. "Of course, I am expressing no opinion on whether legislative approaches taken by other States to the problems of health care delivery and its attendant costs would be preempted by ERISA. For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has recently enacted legislation that addresses health care issues comprehensively and in a manner that arguably has only incidental effects upon ERISA plans. In light of what is generally perceived as a national health care crisis, it would seem that to the extent ERISA allows, it is strongly in the public interest to permit states to perform their traditional role of serving as laboratories for experiment in controlling the costs and increasing the quality of health care for all citizens." (From footnote 15)

4. "The Secretary's third argument is that the Act by its terms does not require an employer to spend a certain amount on health care costs but rather simply provides that if the employer does not do so, it shall pay to the Secretary an amount equal to the difference between its actual health care expenditures and the required amount. Again, while this is theoretically true, it does not even approximate reality. If employers are faced with the choice of paying a sum of money to the State or offering an equal sum of money to their employees in the form of health care, no rational employer would choose to pay the State. While repeatedly emphasizing that employers have a "choice," the Secretary does not offer a single reason why an employer would pay the State rather than generate good will with its work force by increasing its employees' benefits. The "choice" here is a Hobson's choice. See Travelers, 514 U.S. at 664 (noting that a Hobson's choice "would be treated as imposing a substantive mandate")."

5. "Second, the Secretary contends that an employee could comply with the Act by spending an amount equal to the requisite percentage of its payroll on first aid facilities. This contention is based upon 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-1(c)(2), which excepts from the definition of ERISA plans "[t]he maintenance on the premises of an employer of facilities for the treatment of minor injuries or illness or rendering first aid in case of accidents occurring during working hours." While the Secretary's argument may evidence the active imagination of his lawyers, it is utterly out of line with reality."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 09:13 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091301573.html



I like his last paragraph:

"When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?"

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 02:04 PM

So this bill does not target Walmart? Then why do they call it the Walmart bill?

Md. Legislature Overrides Veto on Wal-Mart Bill
By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 13, 2006; Page A01
Maryland lawmakers bucked the will of the state's Republican governor and the nation's largest retailer yesterday, voting to become the first state to effectively require that Wal-Mart spend more on employee health care.

---

USATODAY.com - Maryland first to OK 'Wal-Mart bill'
The Maryland General Assembly became the first state legislature in the nation Thursday to approve legislation forcing Wal-Mart to pay more for its employee ...

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Would Maryland's Wal-Mart Bill Work?
Would Maryland's Wal-Mart Bill Work? Posted by Peter Lattman. The Wall Street Journal's Kris Hudson just filed this story on the news that Maryland's senate ...

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Wal-Mart bill': politicians hope to override veto
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed a bill designed to force Wal-Mart and other large ... Dubbed the "Wal-Mart bill," because at present only the giant retailer ...

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"Wal-Mart Bill is No ...
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a bill that would make Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart alone, spend 8 percent of payroll on health care--roughly double today's ...

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AcademyHealth Stateside - 07/26/2006
At issue in the Maryland case was whether Maryland's Fair Share in Health Care Act, also known as the "Wal-Mart Bill" (SB 790/ HB 1284), was a regulatory ...

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WashPost: Unions Hope Wal-Mart Bill Has Momentum
Wal-Mart hired a team of lobbyists to work the bill in recent weeks. The company said it is "looking at a variety of options" now that the bill passed. ...

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WashPost: Maryland Senate Overrides Veto on Wal-Mart Bill
    Democratic lawmakers countered that the bill was intended to make large employers pay their "fair share" of health costs. Wal-Mart says that more than ...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 10:40 PM

Old--

Still whining about about how Walmart was "targeted"? You yourself have pointed out how Walmart was not targeted--they had other options--which they chose not to take. I'm sure they appreciate your pity--but they may not need all the whining and moaning you're doing on their behalf.

As a registered Republican (are you?), I'd like to point out the fact that some self-styled "conservatives" seem incapable of doing any thinking for themselves--or even of writing a coherent argument. They rely exclusively on cut-paste or "blue clickies" (to use the technical term). Though it's also an open question as to what claim they have to the term "conservative"--since they advocate that people now doing jobs perfectly well in the US be removed from those jobs.)

And of course these so-called conservatives don't even read earlier postings--while aiming at a caricature of "liberals" which doesn't exist except in their fevered brains.

George Will, as a columnist, can't be expected to give a nuanced picture of an issue. But any thinking individual--too bad if the so-called "conservatives" can't be included in this category--should be able to recognize a false dichotomy (another word for your dictionary visit, Old).

The choice is not, as Will so glibly pictures it, between Walmart and wasting money. As has been spelled out earlier in the thread by me and others, there are other options--not just a unionized Giant.

Costco is a big box store that treats its employees well-- and at the same time saves big bucks for customers. It can be done.


And it's becoming painfully obvious, Old, that you have NO answer as to why $11 billion profit (in one year) is not enough for Walmart to provide decent health care for its employees.

But you invite me to answer. Fine.

As I said earlier, it's because Walmart is determined to increase its profits on the backs of its own employees.

That is a powerful argument FOR a union.

So sorry if you don't like unions.

Now let's have yet another whine, moan and "ain't it awful" from you about the "evils" a union would do to a poor colossus (that's your second word for the day)--hope your dictionary is handy--like Walmart.

What fine whine do you have for us today?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 12:33 AM

Don't cry too much but I am registered as an independant.

You claim Walmart is not targeted and whine because I point out that it is called the Walmart bill.

And still you cry and expect me to support your claim that 11 billion is not enough. You made the claim, you support it and quit begging me to do your work.

How about that Asplundh company in WV? Whine about them for a while. They are piggybacking their healthcare costs on Walmart. Where's the Asplundh Bill?

But I am here if you need a shoulder to cry on.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 12:59 AM

What Does the War on Wal-Mart Mean?
Steven Malanga

When Hartford, Connecticut, tore down a blighted housing project, city officials hatched an innovative plan to redevelop the land: lure Wal-Mart there, entice other retailers with the promise of being near the discount giant, and then use the development’s revenues to build new housing. Wal-Mart, after some convincing, agreed, and city officials and neighborhood residents celebrated a big winâ€"better shopping, more jobs, and new housing in one of America’s poorest cities.

But then, out of nowhere, outsiders claiming to represent the local community began protesting. Astonished city leaders and local residents quickly discovered the forces fueling the campaign: a Connecticut chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union; and ACORN, the radical community group. Outraged residents fought back, denouncing outside interference, but opponents persisted, filing three separate lawsuits that have delayed construction, including a ludicrous suit claiming that the development would destroy unique vegetation that has sprouted since the housing project came down. “These people looked for every possible reason to stop a project that the community wants,â€쳌 says Jackie Fongemie, a frustrated community activist who has fought for the store. “Where were the environmentalists when rats were running wild around this place?â€쳌

Though Wal-Mart has encountered opposition for years from anti-sprawl activists or small-town merchants worried about the competition, the Hartford drama exemplifies a brand-new kind of opposition, a coordinated effort of the Left, in which unions, activist groups like ACORN and the National Organization for Women, environmentalist groups, even plaintiffs’ attorneys work together in effective alliances. They are fighting the giant retailer not only store by store, but in statehouses, city halls, and courts. They have already managed to make Wal-Mart an issue in the presidential campaign: several Democratic hopefuls indicted the American shopper’s favorite store as unfriendly to working people.

This new war on Wal-Mart is more than just a skirmish over store sites or union-organizing efforts. It is an attack on a company that embodies the dynamic, productivity-driven, customer-oriented U.S. economy that emerged in the 1990s by opponents who advocate a different economics. Arguing that there is a hidden cost to business’s increasing emphasis on low prices and high employee output, these opponents seek government edicts to force Wal-Mart and discounters like it to raise wages and offer workers more benefits. Wal-Mart’s opponents are rushing into battle just as the company and some of its imitators are expanding their brand of retailing to many underserved urban communities starved for the low prices, broad selection, and friendly service these stores offer, making the conflict a vital issue not just in Wal-Mart’s traditional rural and suburban markets but, increasingly, in American cities.

When Sam Walton started out as a retail entrepreneur nearly 60 years ago, few could have dreamed that he would hatch anything that would become so successfulâ€"or controversial. A World War II vet who had worked as a clerk in J. C. Penney stores, Walton started modestly by buying an old Ben Franklin 5 & 10 in the tiny town of Newton, Arkansas, population 7,000. When his landlord wouldn’t renew his lease, he headed to even smaller Bentonville, Arkansasâ€"population 5,000â€"where he opened another variety store and then started building ever larger ones in nearby towns. A conservative on family, religious, and civic issues, Walton was a radical in business, discontent with old-fashioned country retailing. After studying such discount pioneers as the E. J. Korvette chain in New York and New Jersey, Walton opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City on July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas.

Though his first Wal-Marts were chaotic, with goods piled high on tables, the stores charged unprecedentedly low prices, and crowds flocked to them, some traveling hundreds of miles to shop. One time, the local fire department had to be called to a store opening to control the mob. Recognizing that he had something unique to offer, Walton expanded his idea, so that by 1970, when he offered Wal-Mart stock on Wall Street, the company already boasted 32 stores and $31 million in annual revenues. Then Wal-Mart grew even more rapidly, to 78 stores and $168 million in revenues in 1974 and to more than $1 billion in sales by 1980. Neither Arab oil embargoes, interest-rate spikes, nor recessions could stop the company’s growth, and its stock soared, growing and splitting four times during its first ten years, so that by 1980 an investment of $1,650 in 100 shares at the initial public offering had already grown to $80,000â€"all during a period when the Dow Jones average barely budged.

Despite its acclaim from rural shoppers and a small circle of investors, Wal-Mart largely flew below the radar screen during its earliest years. The few small-town merchants and their political allies who protested that the stores were destroying town shopping districts sensed, though they didn’t completely understand it at the time, that Wal-Mart was at the forefront of a revolution that would transform the American landscape, as consumers abandoned small, inefficient Main Street stores to shop in expansive shopping centers offering everything at one stop and at low prices. Before Wal-Mart, general-merchandise stores typically operated on profit margins as high as 45 percent of sales, but Wal-Mart managed on an operating profit of just 22 percent and passed the difference on to customers, who flocked in when they saw how much they could save. Merchants predicted that Wal-Mart would hike its prices as soon as the competition disappeared, but years later Wal-Mart is still considered among the sharpest-priced, best-value retailers in the worldâ€"even in its original small-town markets.

Walton figured out that one key to success was to develop a corporate culture in which management and employees worked together with the sole aim of serving the customer, a revolutionary idea at the time, though now a standard management technique. In his biography, Walton wrote that he feared a unionized Wal-Mart would never develop such a culture, because unions depended on driving a wedge between management and employees, “and divisiveness, by breaking down direct communication, makes it harder to take care of customers, to be competitive, and to gain market share.â€쳌 Early in its history, Wal-Mart fought a few tough battles to stay nonunion; once, when the Teamsters tried to organize a distribution center, employees showed up for work to find a 90-foot-long wall tacked with newspaper stories about Teamsters violence and corruptionâ€"and the mysterious, mob-related disappearance of union boss Jimmy Hoffa.

But Wal-Mart also staved off unions with another then-revolutionary and now-standard management technique: giving employees a stake in the company’s success, offering them one of the earliest profit-sharing programs, which, as an incentive to work hard, doled out shares in one of the best-performing stocks of the last 50 years. In his biography, Walton tells of hourly employees who prospered, like truck driver Bob Clark, who accumulated more than $700,000 in his profit-sharing account over 20 years; and Jean Kelley, a shipping supervisor who in ten years at Wal-Mart accrued nearly $230,000 in Wal-Mart shares.

Though it’s been more than a decade since Walton died, the company’s success still rests on “Mr. Sam’sâ€쳌 formula. From its earliest days, while Wal-Mart scoured the marketplace for the best prices on everything from Crest toothpaste to power drills to girls’ dresses, it also kept a relentlessly tight rein on expenses, as executives bunked together on buying trips and passed up gifts like Super Bowl tickets or lavish dinners from suppliers, because those perks ultimately drove up the price of goods. Walton shunned fancy headquarters and kept his front office lean and mean, so that the company never spent more than 2 percent of sales on administrative costs, less than half the industry average. “Every time Wal-Mart spends one dollar foolishly, it comes right out of our customers’ pockets,â€쳌 Walton once said, and the company still lives by that adage.

The folksy country retailer also quickly recognized the value of efficient inventory and delivery systems, ultimately leading a technology revolution that spread throughout the retailing industry and its chain of suppliers. With its first units in isolated rural markets, Wal-Mart’s front office had unusual problems communicating with its stores and getting merchandise to them, so the company experimented early on with new technologies. It was among the first to put computersâ€"and later, scannersâ€"in stores to track inventory, starting back in the 1970s. With information from those computers telling headquarters what consumers were buying and what items needed to be reordered, Wal-Mart managers realized they could revolutionize the way merchandise moved to stores. Instead of building warehouses that stored vast stocks of items, they constructed a network of computerized distribution centers, which on one side received needed goods from suppliers and almost immediately sent them out the other side to individual stores just before the stores ran out of them. The company even added a satellite system that could track its delivery trucks through global positioning technology and tell store managers exactly when shipments would arrive. So efficient did the whole system become that Wal-Mart was soon selling goods in its stores even before it had to pay its suppliers for them, vastly cutting its inventory costs.

Nor did Wal-Mart stop these innovations at its own doorstep. It compelled suppliers to squeeze out their own waste and to connect to its computerized inventory system, so that a factory could know when it was time to stamp out 20,000 more ten-inch frying pans or 15,000 more 12-inch ones. The ordering, manufacturing, and delivery of products became one seamless process, continually responding to consumer demands, with a minimum of waste. It also spurred a vast boom in technology investments by U.S. retailers, helping to produce tens of thousands of high-tech jobs. “I’ve become a better company dealing with Wal-Mart,â€쳌 says Charlie Woo, chief executive of Megatoys Inc., a Los Angeles manufacturer. “To meet their requests, I constantly have to upgrade my systems and improve my business practices.â€쳌

Pursuing this formula brilliantly, Wal-Mart has led a productivity revolution in retailing, which has supercharged the American economy, making a vast cornucopia of merchandise affordable to ordinary consumers, thanks to Wal-Mart’s much lower prices than in the days when small-town merchants took their 45 percent profit margins. The McKinsey consulting firm best summed up the cumulative impact of the company’s influence in a report entitled “The Wal-Mart Effect,â€쳌 which estimates that the retailer’s focus on low prices and its constant stream of money-saving innovations accounted for up to one-quarter of the entire U.S. economy’s prodigious productivity gains in the 1990s boomâ€"when inflation held steady despite a soaring economy. Savvy investor Warren Buffett even declared that Wal-Martâ€"not Microsoft or some other technology companyâ€"has contributed more than any other business to the health of the U.S. economy.

Because Wal-Mart represents the leading edge of this American business revolution, the Left’s crusade against it is more than just a battle against a single company. It is instead a clash of worldviews, as unions and their allies, representing a narrow band of special interests masquerading as a populist movement, try to convince the public that super-efficient discounters like Wal-Mart lower workers’ standard of living even as they actually raise living standards by offering goods to so many at such low prices.

What moved the battle into high gear was Wal-Mart’s mid-1990s push into major cities and suburban areas beyond the culturally more friendly Deep South and Southwest. The company opened stores in politically liberal cities like Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and even debuted a new “urban prototypeâ€쳌 store that presages future openings in the very heart of big cities. At the same time, the company perfected its super centers, which, at about 200,000 square feet, are the size of four football fields and contain as broad an assortment of merchandise and services as one can find under one retail roof. Shoppers line up at a store’s digital photo kiosks to order pictures, test out fishing supplies, fill prescriptions in the pharmacy, check out 50-inch projection TVs, shop for steaks or milk in the store’s grocery section, and queue up in one of 30 or more checkout lanes.

It is these grocery departments that are at the heart of the battle. They represent a grave new threat to unionized food stores. Though unions have been unable to organize the discount industryâ€"Wal-Mart competitors like Target and Kohl’s are also nonunionâ€"they have been much more successful in supermarket chains, so when Wal-Mart began pulverizing the grocery competition with its low prices and vast selection, it threatened union gains. In just ten years Wal-Mart expanded from 34 of these hybrid stores to nearly 1,300. In an age when supermarkets already operate on single-digit profit margins, these stores charge a few cents less on staples like toothpaste, soap, and razor blades, but can be as much as one-third cheaper on higher-margin items like premium meat and vegetables. As a result, Wal-Mart’s entry into a market can still drive down grocery prices 15 percent, and as a result the $250 billion company has already become the country’s largest grocer, with a fifth of the market. Some analysts predict that it could eventually capture 35 percent of grocery sales in the U.S.â€"a staggering achievement in a business where local tastes and suppliers still matter so much and regional, rather than national, chains predominate.

In response to this success, a coalition of more than 30 unions and left-wing activist groups organized a national day of protest in October 2002, urging shoppers to boycott the company as a “Merchant of Shame.â€쳌 The boycott campaign got no results, but the coalition’s legislative battles are another story. California, where Wal-Mart has only one super center but wants to open 40 or so, is currently the main front in the war. The company is aiming for a 20 percent market share in a state whose supermarket industry is one of the nation’s most heavily unionized, with about 250,000 workers under contract. But the anti-Wal-Mart coalition has successfully lobbied more than a dozen cities and towns to pass various kinds of ordinances to keep Wal-Mart out, while dozens of other such bills are in the legislative hopper. One in Los Angeles, for instance, would force real-estate developers to conduct time-consuming studies to measure the potential job losses that might result from a new Wal-Mart store.

But the real issue isn’t job losses; it is union wages. Unions argue that supermarkets in California typically pay store workers from $18 to $25 an hour (though Wal-Mart says those wages represent the high end of the union scale), while Wal-Mart pays its California store associates about $10 an hour on average. The effect of Wal-Mart entering the market, union advocates say, would be a vast reduction in the wage pool. One study estimates that if Wal-Mart super centers enter the San Diego area, the competition could drive down grocery wages between $100 million and $200 million annually. “While charging low prices obviously has some consumer benefits . . . these benefits come at a steep price for American workers,â€쳌 charges a recent anti-Wal-Mart diatribe by California Democratic congressman George Miller. Efforts by Wal-Mart and others to control costs are “short-sighted strategiesâ€쳌 that “ultimately undermine our economyâ€쳌 by lowering living standards, Miller’s report claims.

Union-supported policy groups, like the San Diegoâ€"based Center on Policy Initiatives, argue that Wal-Mart should be made to pay “sustainableâ€쳌 or “self-sufficiencyâ€쳌 wagesâ€"wages that they deem adequate to meet basic needsâ€"in order to gain permission to expand in California. The “sustainableâ€쳌 wage has become a popular idea with the Left, which argues that minimum wages should be much higher than the federal $5.15 per hour and should be based on an area’s cost of living. In many parts of California, liberal economists estimate, that means up to $38,000 a year for an adult worker supporting a spouse.

But the Left’s case ignores the greater benefit that an efficient operator like Wal-Mart brings to shoppers and an entire economy by driving down prices and forcing other stores to perform better. A Wal-Mart-sponsored study, undertaken by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, estimates that Wal-Mart’s entry into the local market would save county shoppers about $1.78 billion annually and southern California shoppers $3.76 billion annually, or nearly $600 per household. Shoppers would redirect those savings, the LAEDC says, into other uses that could create up to 36,000 new jobs, more than offsetting the estimated loss of 3,000 to 5,000 jobs resulting from a drop in the grocery-industry wage pool.

Despite the Left’s charges that Wal-Mart doesn’t pay sustainable wages, the company has little trouble recruiting, in part because the gap between its pay and union wages isn’t as large as opponents claim. The LAEDC study calculates that the true difference is less than $3 an hour, which can be offset by the other benefits that a growing company like Wal-Mart offers workers, especially in the form of advancement and stock benefits. While employment at unionized food stores tends to be static, with union members never moving up from their original jobs and relying on wage increases built into contracts to advance their salaries, Wal-Mart promotes heavily from within. More than two-thirds of its management started out working in its stores.

It was just such opportunity for advancement that motivated Sharie Beck, who took a cashier’s job at a new Wal-Mart in a mall in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, last year for a lower salary than she’d been earning elsewhere. “I plan to advance in the company,â€쳌 she told the press about her decision to join Wal-Mart. Other applicants obviously concur, because when it opened one of its first Los Angelesâ€"area stores in the Panorama City mall, Wal-Mart had 7,000 job applicants during its first week. “The thing about Wal-Mart,â€쳌 says Aaron Rios, a former shelf stocker who is now a district manager, “is that there is a place here for part-time workers who just need to earn some extra money, and also for anyone looking for a career. The company is so big and growing so quickly that you could even change careers and still stay with Wal-Mart.â€쳌

Regardless of the campaign against it, Wal-Mart is generating enormous support in many of its newest markets, especially in lower-income urban areas where shoppers often have few choices among stores, and where prices are typically highâ€"especially for groceries, which account for so big a percentage of low-income budgets. Minority communities traditionally friendly to the Left’s agenda have shocked opponents by welcoming Wal-Mart and working closely with it. Unions tried to stop the opening of the company’s Baldwin Hills store, even urging the Los Angeles Urban League not to work with Wal-Mart on a job-training program, but the head of the League turned down the unions, and more than 10,000 people applied to work in Baldwin Hills. Shoppers were just as enthusiastic about the three-level store there, a prototype for Wal-Mart in cities. In the first week the store was open, more than 330,000 customers visited the once-dying mall. “It’s those who don’t live in this community who did the most objecting to this store,â€쳌 says former Los Angeles police commissioner and now councilman Bernard Parks. “The community has clearly spoken, and it supports this store.â€쳌

To be continued

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 01:06 AM

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_what_does_the_war.html

The experience in Baldwin Hills also refutes those who say that Wal-Mart stores drive small retailers out of business. On the contrary: barely four months after Wal-Mart opened in a once struggling shopping center, a major real-estate outfit snapped up the center, saying that the addition of Wal-Mart gave it tremendous new potential, because other stores now wanted to move inâ€"bringing new jobs to a depressed neighborhood. “The easiest way to fill a shopping center is to tell stores that a Wal-Mart is coming there,â€쳌 says Harry Freeman, executive director of the Hartford, Connecticut, Economic Development Council.

Wal-Mart’s pay scales aren’t the only thing that unions and their allies fear, however. A restless innovator constantly forcing other corporations to follow it, Wal-Mart is now pushing to limit soaring health-care costs, by embracing a fundamental redefinition of health insurance as protection from catastrophic illnesses that can financially ruin employees, rather than a benefit meant to pay for every health-care bill. In this, Wal-Mart endorses the many health-policy reformers who say that current corporate and government health plans, offering lavish coverage with little contribution from workers, have encouraged over-use of the system and helped spark runaway medical inflation. To discourage that, Wal-Mart’s health plans have high deductibles and don’t pay for extras like eye exams, chiropractic visits, or contraceptives. But the company will pay 100 percent of an individual’s health-care costs beyond $1,750 and has no lifetime caps on coverageâ€"unlike more than half of other companies. As a result of its policies, Wal-Mart spends about 37 percent less per covered employee on health insurance than do similar companies.

Unions oppose Wal-Mart’s approach by claiming that taxpayers foot the bill for all this, because the retailer’s workers are so low paid that some opt out of Wal-Mart’s health plan, despite its low cost, and use Medicaid instead. Representative Miller’s congressional report on Wal-Mart estimates that each super center that opens in California would cost taxpayers $100,000 a year in federally subsidized health care, based on estimates of workers who don’t sign up for Wal-Mart plansâ€"implying, falsely, that Wal-Mart’s low prices depend upon an indirect government subsidy. But at all companies, not just Wal-Mart, some young workers always decline to join the health plan, believing that they are too healthy to need it. Moreover, there is little evidence that vast numbers of Wal-Mart workers are actually not covered: as is typical of businesses with many entry-level and part-time workers, up to 40 percent of Wal-Mart’s employees have health coverage under spouses’ or parents’ policies. Similarly, many of the retirees Wal-Mart employs as greeters have health benefits through their retirement programs.

Nonetheless, California grocery unions waged a bitter four-and-a-half-month strike over grocers’ demands that employees pay a bigger share of their health-insurance premiums because of competition from Wal-Mart. Though Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry walked the picket line, the union eventually agreed to increase worker contributions to health premiums. But in this battle, you can clearly see the terms of the Left’s coming campaign against U.S. employers’ efforts to contain health-care costs.

Though union-sponsored campaigns have meant little to consumers, the constant attacks are starting to hit home with the elite media, whose members rarely go to Wal-Mart and can’t understand the importance of the company’s stores to middle-American shoppers. Once celebrated in the press for Sam Walton’s folksy wisdom and straight-shootin’ talk, Wal-Mart is just as likely to be portrayed today as an unfeeling corporate giant trying to force low prices and demanding notions of efficiency on suppliers, and imposing redneck cultural values on an unsuspecting nation.

That’s evident in recent stories with headlines like IS WAL-MART TOO POWERFUL? or THE WAL-MART YOU DON’T KNOW, or GOD AND SATAN IN BENTONVILLE, which advance the Left’s party line that Wal-Mart’s business model is undermining the buying power of the American worker and therefore has, in BusinessWeek’s words, “perverse consequencesâ€쳌 for the American economyâ€"an unexpected judgment for a journal claiming economic literacy. In its rush to pile on Wal-Mart, the press seems increasingly willing to advance any disreputable idea, including the demonstrably false argument that Wal-Mart on balance costs Americans jobs by buying goods from overseas.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 01:07 AM

BusinessWeek, for instance, which describes the retailer as “a cult masquerading as a company,â€쳌 quotes critics who excoriate Wal-Mart for lobbying to thwart tariffs on foreign goods, when few legitimate economists even on the Left believe that high tariffs would be good for the American consumer or the U.S. economy.

Some of the critical drumbeat doubtless reflects the fact that Wal-Mart and its founding family still promote causes and values that the mainstream media oppose. Sam Walton supported conservative and free-market groups. His family has continued his tradition, supporting groups like the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that frequently represents small business against government regulation; and the National Right to Work Legal Defense & Education Foundation, which fights compulsory unionism. Walton’s son John is a key supporter of charter schools and school vouchers, donating $50 million for scholarships to send low-income students to private schools. Last year, the family foundation supported 57 charter schools around the country and contributed to pro-voucher organizations like the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation and the Florida Education Reform Initiative of the Manhattan Institute, City Journal’s publisher.

The stores themselves still reflect Sam Walton’s values, and draw fire for it. In light of its vast market power, Wal-Mart has infuriated the media with its long-standing refusal to stock obscene CDs and racy magazines. BusinessWeek branded the company a cultural gatekeeper that has “served to narrow the mainstream for entertainment offerings while imparting to it a rightward tilt.â€쳌 Playboy magazine, which Wal-Mart has refused to sell, was more blunt in its recent, lengthy anti-Wal-Mart diatribe, which called Bentonville “the epicenter of retailing’s Evil Empire.â€쳌 So striking have the attacks been that a Kansas City business columnist recently suggested that the national press is “angry that average Americans don’t share their perceptions of Wal-Mart as the bad guysâ€쳌 and that Wal-Mart “has come to represent the defining cultural divide between the elites and the common folk.â€쳌 In other words, the press doesn’t like the fact that most Americans share the company’s values.

Not surprisingly, the press attacks downplay Wal-Mart’s many virtues: that it has never been accused of funny accounting; that it doesn’t load its executives with exorbitant salaries or perks; and that despite its market power, it doesn’t charge vendors “slottingâ€쳌 feesâ€"which are little more than bribes to stock their goods. By contrast with journalists, U.S. executives voted Wal-Mart America’s most admired company in Fortune magazine’s annual survey last year. Manufacturers, meanwhile, ranked Wal-Mart the best retailer to do business with, according to an annual survey by Cannondale Associates, while nearly three in ten shoppers surveyed by the WSL Strategic Retail consulting firm voted Wal-Mart their favorite store, a higher percentage of praise than any other retailer won.

But acclaim from the marketplace or from common folk may not protect a company when elite opinion turns against it, influencing legislators, regulators, and the courts. Wal-Mart has now become a tempting target. “We’ve seen many of our opponents come after us governmentally and in the media, where they see us as most vulnerable,â€쳌 said Jay Allen, the company’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, recently. This fall, for instance, Wal-Mart made national headlines when federal agents raided independent contractors using illegal aliens to clean the company’s stores. Government sources claim Wal-Mart knew of the illegals, but the retailer says it was cooperating in a three-year government investigation and was shocked when agents ignored the deal and swooped into its stores, creating a “media frenzy,â€쳌 in the words of Wal-Mart’s spokesperson. Moreover, Wal-Mart points out that, like other companies, it has been caught in the middle of conflicting government policies. Several years ago, the INS fined the company for violating the privacy of some workers when it tried to find out if they were illegal aliens.

Encouraged by the press criticism, entrepreneurial trial lawyers, eyeing Wal-Mart’s deep pockets with glee, have made it perhaps the biggest private-sector target of the nation’s plaintiffs’ bar. In just ten years, the number of pending lawsuits against Wal-Mart has increased fourfold, to 8,000, and the company has tripled the size of its litigation department. A Tennessee trial lawyer has even created a service called the Wal-Mart Litigation Project, which, for a fee, provides information to attorneys who want to sue Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart faces a growing number of potentially costly class action lawsuits, exemplified by a sex-discrimination suit brought by the Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll firm, notorious for getting Texaco to pay $176 million to black employees in a discrimination suit. That suit hinged on secretly recorded meetings in which managers reportedly made racial slursâ€"though subsequent audio enhancement of the tapes showed that the managers had uttered no such slurs and that the transcripts furnished by Cohen, Milstein to the New York Times had inaccurately represented the conversations.

So far, Cohen, Milstein has made no such “explosiveâ€쳌 revelations in the Wal-Mart case, but to read over the lawsuit is to gain a depressing lesson in the state of employment class action lawsuits. The suit is a collection of anecdotes of individual female employeesâ€"many of whom received poor evaluations and were turned down for promotionâ€"who now claim that Wal-Mart managers have frustrated their career ambitions. Of the first two plaintiffs who claim that Wal-Mart passed them over for promotions because they were female, one was disciplined for admittedly returning late from lunch breaks, and the other was suspended for improper handling of a customer refund. A few other cases involve accusations of supervisors making discriminatory remarks toward female employeesâ€"entirely possible in a company with more than 1 million employees, but hardly amounting to a company-wide pattern of discrimination. Still, the lawyers claim a plaintiff’s class of 700,000 current and former Wal-Mart female employees, and they argue that Wal-Mart has a long history of hostility toward women in management, starting when Sam Walton would take his executives quail hunting, which the suit avers “made women feel uncomfortable.â€쳌

To rein in Wal-Mart, the Left will have to keep up its assault in the courts, the statehouses, and the media, because it can’t win the battle for the hearts and minds of consumers. In a recent report on shopping patterns, WSL Strategic Retail said that Wal-Mart has succeeded like no other company in understanding what consumers want and giving it to them. Despite Wal-Mart’s years of success, the report predicted, the future looks even more favorable for the company and others that operate with its low-price, big-store philosophy.

To succeed against Wal-Mart, then, the Left will have to fight to deny the vast majority of Americans what they want. Every battle it wins in that war will cost the American consumer plenty.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_what_does_the_war.html

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 09:04 AM

***CLONES PLEASE TAKE NOTE***

Four consecutive posts to avoid the one-screen cut and paste rule?
Yet again? Or should I say still?

***CLONES PLEASE TAKE NOTE***

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 12:26 PM

Don't read what it says there. It my change your mind and obvoiusly you don't want that to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 12:55 AM

By KYLE A. TOROK - The Evening Tribune (NY)
May 3, 2005
HORNELL - A Wal-Mart move outside the city could be disastrous, according to Mayor Shawn Hogan.

Mayor Shawn Hogan will reach out to the company to nail down rumors of Wal-Mart vacating its Hornell Plaza store by 2008 for a new super center.

"That is the rumor, and I think that emanates from - their business focus is establishing super centers wherever they can," Hogan said. "I have never had any conversations with Wal-Mart administration. It behooves us as a community to reach out to Wal-Mart management based on the rumors and try and pin them down."

Hogan said the Hornell Plaza store is very profitable, and beneficial to the city. Its sales tax helps offset county taxes.

"If it moves outside the city, it would be disastrous," he said. "It's obviously imperative - it would be paramount to keep them here. They're such a generator of sales tax that keeps taxes down."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 08:27 AM

And still, after all that, which as usual shows no sign of intelligent life on the part of "Old", there is no evidence as to why $11 billion in one year is not enough to provide decent healthcare to Walmart's employees.

Which part do you not believe?

You yourself have pointed out that the profit was about $11 billion.

And the pay is not above Maryland's median income--which is how the defense firm got its exemption. Johns Hopkins made the 6% standard--which is the requirement for non-profits.

The bankruptcy of your position is painfully obvious.




Still, an excellent whine.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 02:11 PM

Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
The campaign against the company is about union politics.

Saturday, December 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

It is a testament to the public-relations success of the anti-Wal-Mart campaign that the question above is even being asked.

By any normal measure, Wal-Mart's business ought to be noncontroversial. It sells at low cost, albeit in mind-boggling quantities, the quotidian products that huge numbers of Americans evidently want to buy--from household goods to clothes to food.

Wal-Mart employs about 1.3 million people, about 1% of the American work force. Its sales, at around $300 billion a year, are equal to 2.5% of U.S. gross domestic product. It is not, however, an especially profitable company. Its net profit margins, at about 3.5% of revenue, are broadly in line with the rest of the retail industry. In fiscal 2004, Microsoft made more money than Wal-Mart on just one-eighth of the sales.

The company's success and size, then, do not rest on monopoly profits or price-gouging behavior. It simply sells things people will buy at small markups and, as in the old saw, makes it up on volume. We draw your attention to that total revenue number because, in a sense, it tells you most of what you need to know about Wal-Mart. You may believe, as do service-worker unions and a clutch of coastal elites--many of whom, we'd wager, have never set foot in a Wal-Mart--that Wal-Mart "exploits" workers who can't say no to low wages and poor benefits. You might also accept the canard that Wal-Mart drives good local businesses into the ground, although both of these allegations are more myth than reality.

But even if you buy into the myths, there's no getting around the fact that somewhere out there, millions of people are spending billions of dollars on what Wal-Mart puts on its shelves. No one is making them do it. To the extent that mom-and-pop stores are threatened by Wal-Mart, it's because the same people who supposedly so value their Main Street hardware store find that Wal-Mart's selection, or prices, or parking lot--something about it--is preferable. Wal-Mart can't make mom and pop shut down the shop any more than it can make customers walk through the doors or pull out their wallets. You don't sell $300 billion a year worth of anything without doing something right.

What about the workers? In response to long-running criticisms about its pay and benefits, Wal-Mart's CEO, Lee Scott, recently called on the government to raise the minimum wage. But as this page noted at the time, Wal-Mart's average starting wage is already nearly double the national minimum of $5.15 an hour.

So raising it would have little effect on Wal-Mart, but calling for it to be raised anyway must have struck someone in the company as a good way to appease its political critics. (Bad call: Senator Ted Kennedy quickly pocketed the concession and kept denouncing the company.) The fact is that the company's starting hourly wages not only aren't as bad as portrayed, but for many workers those wages are only a start. Some 70% of Wal-Mart's executives have worked their way up from the company's front lines.

The company has also recently increased its health-care options for employees on the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. Starting in January, one of those options will be a high-deductible health savings account, which is a great way to insure yourself if you're relatively young, relatively healthy and yet want to protect against the onset of some catastrophic illness. Mr. Kennedy, who recently called Wal-Mart one of the most "antiworker" companies around, has been a chief opponent of these pro-worker, pro-market health insurance vehicles.

But suppose Wal-Mart did look more like the company its detractors would like it to be, with overpaid workers, union work rules, and correspondingly higher prices on goods. It would not only be a less attractive place to shop, and hence a considerably smaller company. It would drive up the cost of living for the millions who shop there, thus hurting those in the bottom half of the income-distribution tables that Wal-Mart's critics claim to be speaking for. One might expect this fact to trouble the anti-Wal-Mart forces, except that their agenda is very different from what they profess it to be.

As our Holman W. Jenkins Jr. pointed out in a recent column, the vanguard of the Wal-Mart haters is composed of unions that have for decades kept retail wages and prices artificially high, especially in the supermarket business. Those unions have had next to no success organizing Wal-Mart employees and see Wal-Mart's push into groceries as a direct threat to their market position. And on that one score, they may be right.

But seen in that light, it becomes clear that much of the criticism is simply a form of special-interest lobbying in socially conscious drag. And why an outside observer should favor the interests of unionized supermarket employees over those of Wal-Mart shoppers and employees is far from clear (unless you're a politician who gets union contributions).

Any company as successful as Wal-Mart will invariably run afoul of such vested interests. It is in the nature of the rise of a new giant on the scene that it disrupts established ways of doing things and in the process upsets established players. So it was with Standard Oil at the beginning of the 20th century, IBM in the middle and Microsoft at the end of the century. Wal-Mart, perhaps because it restricted itself to towns of less than 15,000 people as a matter of policy into the 1990s, at first avoided and later seemed blindsided by the attacks that have come its way.

The company has never been shy about defending its interests. But some of its recent ripostes--such as Mr. Scott's call for hiking the minimum wage or its gestures toward fighting global warming--seem to be addressed to the wrong audience.

Its customers don't need to be told what they like about Wal-Mart. But the company's management would do well to bear in mind that it is those millions of shoppers, and not the elites with which the company has sometimes of late been seen to be currying favor, that have made the company what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 02:28 PM

State your position and provide a link.

If I want to read from your sources, I will.

I never read a long cut and paste.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 02:39 PM

Don't hold your breath, Dianavan, expecting this giant intellect to actually be able to state a coherent argument.

Especially on the topic of why $11 billion profit in one year is not enough to provide a decent standard of healthcare for its own employees--or decent pay so the employees can help themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 02:58 PM

I won't burden Mudcat with an absurd number of excessively long cut-and-pastes. I think I can put what I want to call your attention to much more efficiently and not waste bandwidth by simply linking to a couple of articles about Wal-Mart that put it right where it is.

Old Guy and other Wal-Mart apologists ain't gonna like this.

The first is a general article about how Wal-Mart operates and tends to explain why their prices are so low and what effect that has on their suppliers. CLICKY #1.

The second gets down to specifics and provides a lot of detailed information about Wal-Mart and the way it operates. CLICKY #2.

If you're really interested in the ins and outs of this subject and want to be well-informed about it, these articles are full of facts, very revealing, and well worth reading. If not, okay.

That about wraps it up.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 03:08 PM

The link is there. You don't have to read anything you don't want to.

RD makes an assertion and sniffles because some one else won't do his work and support it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 03:17 PM

Au contraire, Old--YOU are the one who whines incessantly about how Walmart was "targeted". And pillages the Net for material to waste Mudcat's bandwidth.

And I note with interest that you have provided no evidence to refute my argument--that Walmart could, easily, provide for its own employees--and chooses not to.

Hope you can take some time out of your busy schedule of character assassination (Wolfgang) and crying (over Walmart!) to provide some evidence--though I won't hold my breath.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 01:24 AM

You are an expert character assasinator. I told Wolfgang that I did not hold him responsible for what his ancestors did but you ignore that because you need else something to whine about and try to assassinate my character with.

What is your response to the fact that Asplundh has 13.2% of their employees using the WV State's Children Health Insurance Program vs 3.9% for Walmart?

If a bill is supposed to keep companies from shifting their Health insurance burden on the state, why doesn't it cover all companies? Why would it stop at 10,000? How many companies would be affected if over 1000 employees was the limit?

You say in Maryland, 4 companies have more than 10,000 employees. None of those 4 companies were affected by the bill except Walmart. Thus the bill was targeted at Walmart, hence the name "The Walmart Bill"
Are you saying the bill does not target Walmart?

You can call me all the names you want. I welcome it but evidently your ego is becoming bruised and battered to the point that you are becoming belligerent that name calling is your only strategy.

The only rule here about cut and paste is they they cannot be bigger than one screen. You don't like it when I put some facts here in front of your face that you have to refute or refuse to refute so you start a whining campaign about cut and paste.

You can cut an paste anything you like. Or would you like to have a rule here that applies only to the people that disagree with you?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 02:20 AM

You are free to cut and paste one page, its just that nobody reads more than that. Its a nice way of saying that you are boring alot of people.

If someone suggests I read a book, I might.

If someone shouts at me and demands that I read the book, I can't hear them at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 10:29 AM

Old Guy--

Yet again--will you ever learn to read what other people post, rather than attempting to bury us under absurd cut-and-pastes---which I guarantee we will not read?

The rest of us are capable of making our own arguments--but you have a severe problem doing that.

One more time, with feeling---as you yourself have pointed out--no "character assassination" here, in contrast to yours with Wolfgang--Walmart had other options to do something about the problem. Specifically it could have done what the defense firm did--and actually pay its people above the Maryland median income. Then there would have been no need for any action of this kind by the Maryland legislature.

However, sometimes you need to be hit by a 2 x 4 to get your attention. Walmart obviously needed it. And still they stubbornly refuse to do the decent thing--by their own employees.

And still you whine about the unfairness of "targeting" Walmart. Walmart could have easily avoided the problem. Now tell us why they did not do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:32 PM

Dear mr RD. So far you have been proven wrong on everythin you challenged me on. Now you cheif whine seems to be my answer to this question I think:

"Why do you suppose Walmart fought the recently passed Maryland bill mandating that it pay 8% of its income to a fund for medical care in Maryland."

My answer was:

Because other businesses are not required to do the same thing.

I can't see the legality in legislation aimed at one company.

Now point out the whine.

Also you will see that the retail

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 12:11 AM

No, Old, as usual you've missed the point--keeping your perfect record.

My question is: why did Walmart not take advantage of the easy way out of the problem--the way you yourself pointed out--by simply paying its employees more than the Maryland median income?

THAT and only that is the question to be answered.

Whining about how Walmart was "targeted" or "the only one" etc. does NOT answer the question.

See if you can get it right this time.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 12:31 AM

Please go back and find your original question and ask it again. Maybe I can answer it right this time.

You keep playing a game with questions and answers. Every time I answer, you change the question to disqualify the answer.

You constantly accuse me of not answering your questions while advoiding answering mine. You have lost every challenge so you revert to playing games.

Are my questions to embarassing for you to answer?

Maybe this amuses you. It makes me chuckle too. Keep it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 12:42 AM

Why did Walmart not pay its employees more than the Maryland median income--thus avoiding any problem with the legislature?

You never did answer my other questions-- e.g. as to why Maryland taxpayers should subsidize the biggest retailer in the world. So I've given up on those.

Just answer the first question in this posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:01 PM

What is the Maryland median income Mr answer man?

As for your question about why MD taxpayers should subsidize etc.

Every state has incentives, paid for by it's tax payers to bring in businesses and get more jobs into the state to get more taxes from those jobs. It is a competition amongst states. I suggest you take that up with your government.

It you are talking about State health insurance, why do you talk about size rather than percentages?

You follow a typical crybaby pattern of avoiding questions while demanding answers to questions that you think prove your point.

You have my sympathies.

Furthermore your question contains an assertion of yours that may or may not be true which makes it an intellectually corrupt, loaded question:

Loaded Question Alias:

    * Complex Question
    * Many Questions
    * Plurium Interrogationum
      Translation: "many questions", Latin

Form:

A question with a false, disputed, or question-begging presupposition.
Example:

    Why should merely cracking down on terrorism help to stop it, when that method hasn't worked in any other country? Why are we so hated in the Muslim world? What did our government do there to bring this horror home to all those innocent Americans? And why don't we learn anything, from our free press, about the gross ineptitude of our state agencies? about what's really happening in Afghanistan? about the pertinence of Central Asia's huge reserves of oil and natural gas? about the links between the Bush and the bin Laden families?

Source: Mark Crispin Miller, "Brain Drain", Context, No. 9

Analysis
Exposition:

A "loaded question", like a loaded gun, is a dangerous thing. A loaded question is a question with a false or questionable presupposition, and it is "loaded" with that presumption. The question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" presupposes that you have beaten your wife prior to its asking, as well as that you have a wife. If you are unmarried, or have never beaten your wife, then the question is loaded.

Since this example is a yes/no question, there are only the following two direct answers:

   1. "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife", which entails "I was beating my wife."
   2. "No, I haven't stopped beating my wife", which entails "I am still beating my wife."

Thus, either direct answer entails that you have beaten your wife, which is, therefore, a presupposition of the question. So, a loaded question is one which you cannot answer directly without implying a falsehood or a statement that you deny. For this reason, the proper response to such a question is not to answer it directly, but to either refuse to answer or to reject the question.

Some systems of parliamentary debate provide for "dividing the question", that is, splitting a complex question up into two or more simple questions. Such a move can be used to split the example as follows:

   1. "Have you ever beaten your wife?"
   2. "If so, are you still doing so?"

In this way, 1 can be answered directly by "no", and then the conditional question 2 does not arise.
Exposure:

Since a question is not an argument, simply asking a loaded question is not a fallacious argument. Rather, loaded questions are typically used to trick someone into implying something they did not intend. For instance, salespeople learn to ask such loaded questions as: "Will that be cash or charge?" This question gives only two alternatives, thus presuming that the potential buyer has already decided to make a purchase, which is similar to the Black-or-White Fallacy. If the potential buyer answers the question directly, he may suddenly find himself an actual buyer.
Resources:

    * Julian Baggini, "The Fallacy of the Complex Question", Bad Moves
    * David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 8-9.
    * Douglas Walton, "The Fallacy of Many Questions: On the Notions of Complexity, Loadedness and Unfair Entrapment in Interrogative Theory" This paper in PDF format is not as weighty as its title, and it contains some nice examples and interesting history of the fallacy.

Analysis of the Example:

This is a series of loaded questions and it illustrates one of the common uses of the loaded question as a rhetorical device, namely, innuendo. The questions come at the end of the article, and presuppose the following controversial claims:

    * The American government did something to bring about the terrorist attacks.
    * The public doesn't learn anything from the press about that government's mistakes.
    * The public is not learning about what's happening in Afghanistan.
    * Central Asia's oil reserves are somehow pertinent.
    * There are some unspecified links between the Bush and bin Laden families.

No evidence is given in the article for any of these claims. Loaded questions are used in this way to slip claims into rhetoric without the burden of proving them, or the necessity of taking responsibility for unproven assertions.
Q&A:

Reader Steven Flintham asks the following unloaded question:

Q: "I've just been browsing your site and the page on loaded questions reminded me of something I came across ages ago without ever getting quite clear in my mind. Although it looks misleading, if I don't have a wife or have never beaten my wife, isn't it strictly accurate to answer 'No' to the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife?'? I haven't stopped, after all—I never even started."

A: The answer to your question turns upon an important subtlety about presupposition. Putting aside the unpleasant example of wife-beating, let's use as an example the type of question: "Have you stopped Xing?"—it doesn't matter what X is. This question is equivalent to saying: "You have stopped Xing: yes or no?"

Consider the contained proposition: "You have stopped Xing". Clearly, this means: "You have Xed and you are not now Xing." However, these two conjuncts are not equal: the first conjunct is a presupposition of the question. A presupposition to a question is a proposition which is normally known to be true before the question is asked.

Given that our example question is a yes-no question, there are two direct answers that we can give it:

   1. "Yes": "I have stopped Xing" or, equivalently, "I have Xed and I am not now Xing." Obviously, this implies "I have Xed."
   2. "No": "It is not the case that I have stopped Xing" or, equivalently, "It is not the case that both I have Xed and I am not now Xing." This implies: "Either I have not Xed or I am now Xing." In other words, there are two bases for answering "no" to the question:
          * You have never Xed.
          * You are now Xing.

So, you are right, Steven, that you could answer the loaded question "Have you stopped Xing?" with "No", because you have never Xed. However, this answer has a kind of ambiguity, since it leaves it open as to whether you are saying that you have never Xed or that you are still doing so. This is why it is misleading to simply answer "no" and leave it at that; one should at least say, instead: "No, I've never Xed so I can't very well stop."

However, since the proposition that you have Xed is a presupposition of the question, we normally presume that it is true or the question would not arise. This leaves as the only possible reason for denying the question that you are still Xing. This is why the second direct answer also commits you to Xing, though it does not logically imply it by itself. Rather, it implies it when taken together with the presupposition.

This is why loaded questions as a fallacy are sometimes classified as a type of question-begging. By loading some controversial or even false presupposition into the question, the unscrupulous questioner tries to sneak it in unchallenged.

Thanks for a difficult question, Steven!
Reader Response

Reader Doug Merritt raises the following objection:

    You overlooked something important when you said, "Since a question is not an argument, simply asking a loaded question is not a fallacious argument." Loaded questions are, as you said, rhetorical devices, but in particular they are "rhetorical questions", and a rhetorical question is a form of statement that is merely phrased superficially as a question; it is not a true question. So I strongly disagree that a loaded question is not an argument. It is just as much of a (fallacious) argument as all the other categories in your taxonomy. This isn't merely splitting hairs; a debate can be won (in the view of the audience) by someone who does nothing at all but pose loaded questions; each serves to presume things for which no logical argument is offered, and it is very effective in practice.

Even if you're right, Doug, that a loaded question is not really a question, but is a statement, then it's still not an argument by itself. A loaded question is often a way of rhetorically making a statement, but it is grammatically a question. You will notice that as a logical fallacy it is in a category by itself, as can be seen in the Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies. This is because Loaded Question is a fallacy of questioning, as opposed to arguing. So, I don't disagree with you that asking loaded questions can be a powerful and fallacious rhetorical trick. Rather, I simply think that fallacies involving questions should be classified as a different type of fallacy than those involving arguments. I hope eventually to add further fallacies of questioning, so that Loaded Question will no longer be in a class by itself. In the meantime, the first chapter of Fischer's book, listed in the Resources above, concerns eleven "Fallacies of Question-Framing".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:05 PM

Marvelous tap-dancing, that! Amazing. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:25 PM

Does DF have any answers to my questions or are his abilities limited to   smug, evasive, tapdancing type comments that he thinks prove his point?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 06:21 PM

Your questions have been answered many times over, Old, it's just that you don't like the answers. Now you might try answering a few yourself. Ron has posed a couple that you are evading, trying to dazzle everyone with massive cut-and-pastes and that marvelous tap-dancing of yours that I admire so much.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 08:36 PM

Old--

"   smug, evasive, tapdancing style comments..."---Temper, temper, little man.

And my question is "intellectually corrupt"? My, my. Such language. I wonder if you could have come up with such a delightful phrase without the help of your trusty cut-and-paste--which continues to allow you to avoid thinking. And that's a fascinating dodge to avoid answering a direct question. I just don't know how I can stand that terrible charge.

But somehow I'll survive.

For somebody constantly whining and moaning about being insulted, you are holding your own in that department.

The difference is: I don't complain about it.

You are, as Don points out, a marvelous tapdancer. As I noted earlier, there's a future for you in politics.

And you even know how to use the word "smug". Congratulations. You must have taken my advice and opened a dictionary.



At any rate, the Maryland median income figure itself is totally immaterial. (But nice attempt at a smokescreen).

Point is that, whatever the figure is, Northrop Grumman has made it--according to your own information, Northrop has lobbied to be excluded from the 8% requirement on the basis of being a firm "with employees earning more than the Maryland median household income." A perfectly reasonable solution to the problem.

So this is obviously a way to circumvent the 8% requirement.

Yet again--since you seem to be a little slow today--again:

Why did Walmart also not take this way out--which would have avoided any friction with the Maryland legislature?

How about a direct answer--for once? I know you can do it--you actually gave a direct answer (to another question) on another thread--for which I thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 10:32 PM

Old--


Oh, and by the way, don't forget to call me smug too--I AM SPARTACUS!!! (also)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:30 PM

A direct answer to what?

"Your questions have been answered many times over,"

Which ones?

The only question I have not answered are ones that are "Plurium Interrogationum" as explained above, not a question but a statement and you keep crying about it. If those questions were not actually a statement they would be answerable.

I see a lot of rampant egotisim here but no ability to provide answers.
Name calling, talking down to denial of facts. Inability to provide facts. No respect is given but it is expected. The squirming is amusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 12:15 AM

Here is an example of how DF plays games with questions and answers:

Mr. Guy--

What about "slavery" and exploitation of illegal immigrants? Are you in favor of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants or not?

Just a yes or no will suffice.

The first question assumes that illegal immigrants are being exploited and enslaved. Then I am told to give a yes or no answer to a "what about" question. That is illogical.

The second question pretty simple but it calls amnesty "a path to citizen ship". To forgive someone for doing something illegal is amnesty

amnesty: in law, exemption from prosecution for criminal action. It signifies forgiveness and the forgetting of past actions.

So I answer:

I am for legal immigration and against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal emigrants.

The Mr DF responds:
Mr. Guy--

You're dodging the question, in classic Bushite fashion. I'm talking about the illegal immigrants already here (estimated 12 million). Path to citizenship for them or not?

Yes or no?

He has made snide accusations, changed the question and accused me of not answering it.

Then he has to add to it again:

And without being forced to leave the US first. If that is a condition, they'll never come out of the shadows. (In their place, I wouldn't either).

So I answer:

Can you grasp this statement?:"against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal emigrants". Does "Path to citizenship"=Amnesty?

If the current administration, GWB, would enforce the law that says you cannot employ illegal immigrants. They would have to come out of the shadows, leave and enter legally.

I don't expect people that are doing something illegal to suddenly stop doing it.

Then because he does not like my straightforward answers he has to add more snide accusations, demands more answers and brings the Gestapo into it:

How do you propose to toss out 12 million out? I thought you were a "conservative"--against big government? So it seems you're a hypocrite on this too. Fascinating.

To get all the 12 million out, you'd need to expand the Customs Service dramatically---and possibly have informants--a la Gestapo.

Sounds like your philosophy, all right.

I had already said that if the illegals cannot find work they will have to leave and re enter legally.

I have answered the question but it is obvious that RD keeps making snide accusation, whining, changing, adding to and demanding different answers so he can claim the question was not answered.

Meanwhile he completely avoids answering the Asplundh question and the question of why the treshold for the Walmart bill was set at 10,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 12:55 AM

Old Guy, if by "DF" you are referring to me, I'd say you are really bewildered. I didn't write any of the quotes you are attributing to me.

Have another brewsky. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 01:11 AM

Yes I am bewildered, It was RD that played the games on that question.

Now Mr DF:

You say "Your questions have been answered many times over, Old, it's just that you don't like the answers."

What was the answer to the Asplundh question?

What was the answer to the question about why the thresh hold was set at 10,000 employes in the Walmart bill?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 01:14 AM

"why did Walmart not take advantage of the easy way out of the problem--the way you yourself pointed out--by simply paying its employees more than the Maryland median income?"

If some one can tell me what the Maryland median income is, I will answer that question.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 03:40 PM

Happy to oblige.

Clicky

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 06:39 PM

Old--

So, it appears: (thanks to Don for those figures)

1) Giant has no problem making the 8% threshold.
2) Johns Hopkins, as a non-profit, only had to make 6% -which it did.
3) Northrop has certainly earned its exemption--by paying more than the median household income in Maryland.


What's wrong with Walmart?--with $11 billion profit in one year, it seems reasonable that it too could afford to make the 8% threshold--unless it wants to pay above the Maryland median income--which would also be just fine.


It's a perfectly reasonable question---and deserves a straight answer from you--for once.

With no whining about how Walmart was "targeted"

Thank you so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 09:25 PM

I assume that the question you are asking now is "What is wrong with Walmart"

My answer is nothing is wrong with Walmart in my opinion.

Now you can commence your whining about my answer.

---

Another question that I have been commanded to answer I assume is

"why did Walmart not take advantage of the easy way out of the problem--the way you yourself pointed out--by simply paying its employees more than the Maryland median income?"

This question has three parts. It is a Plurium Interrogationum. a logical fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved

Part #1 is an assertion that Walmart could have taken an easy way out which may be false or it may be true. I have not made that assertion so I have no obligation state anything about it.

#2 is a false assertion that I pointed out something when in fact I quoted from other sources "Northrop Grumman Corp., lobbied for and won exclusion for companies with employees earning more than the Maryland median household income." as proof that they were not subject to the legislation. So my answer to that part of the question is I did not point out anything I merely offered it as a evidence.

#3 is a suggestion that Walmart should have or could have, I am not certain which, paid the median income to avoid something. The something I assume is the Walmart bill that is targeted at Walmart.

So there is no one answer to this compound question.

No doubt it brings a smug sense of satisfaction and a badly needed ego boost to the person that constructed this question because they believe that I cannot answer it and they have "Got" me.

Now we need to state the median income in Maryland. According to the information supplied, it is $64,300.

Assuming Walmart must be run by intelligent business people, it would be economically inviable to pay the employees $64,300.

So that is your answer that you can start crying about.

Now where are the answers to the simple, one part questions that I have asked?

I haven't gotten them because they are being dodged while I am accused of dodging questions. Hypocracy in other words.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 11:45 PM

Old--

No, you're not accused of hypocracy--just hypocrisy. Hope that makes you feel better.

I have no time to waste on you tonight. See you tomorrow.

Sweet dreams.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 01:11 AM

Old Guy assumes alot.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 08:47 PM

Old--

Gee, I'm so impressed with you--throwing around them words-- (Latin, even)- like you done seen 'em afore. But you might want to copy the English words from the dictionary a little more carefully--if they have over one syllable.

I completely agree with you that paying $64,500 per year to cashiers, shelf-stockers etc. would not seem a reasonable solution to the problem.

But for some reason--I'm so surprised-- you STILL have not answered the question about why Walmart, with $11 billion profit in one year, cannot afford to either make the 8% threshold or pay their " associates" (that's so cute it's charming) not $64,500 but enough so they would not have to apply for Medicaid.

The other 3 firms with large presence in Maryland have come to terms with the "Walmart bill". It breaks my heart--you know it does--to have to tell you that "There is nothing wrong with Walmart" does not answer the question.

I'm so sorry for having phrased the question "What is wrong with Walmart?". I had thought that the following phrase explained that I wanted to know why Walmart could not make the 8% threshold. But it seems I overestimated your mental capability. Please accept my apology. From now on, I will try to make the question simple enough for even you to understand. I hope you take this in the spirit in which it was intended.

The "Walmart bill that is targeted at Walmart"--gee, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were continuing to whine, moan and cry bitter tears over a corporate behemoth-- (did you find out what that means?)--which doesn't take care of its own employees--and doesn't intend to.

So--since Walmart-- understandably-- will not take Northrop's way out, why is $11 billion per year not enough to make the 8% requirement? Again, a reasonable question--and one you may have heard before.

And exactly why is the selfishness of the largest retailer in the world more important than the benefit to Maryland taxpayers if said retailer would carry its own weight--for once?

So sorry if you don't like the nature of this question. Perhaps you're not a taxpayer. That would explain it. Or perhaps you can (again) find some absurdly convoluted-- (back to the dictionary for you)-- reason from the Net to explain why you refuse to answer the question.

Looking forward to your next fishing expedition--catching a lot of red herring, aren't you-- (Asplundh?)--and yet another wonderful goblet of your finest whine.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 08:50 PM

So sorry--$64,300.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 09:57 PM

Sow where is the answer to my questions?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: DougR
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 12:39 AM

Old Guy: Has it occured to you that many of these folks who are so opposed to Wal-Mart may be pissed off because they applied for jobs at Wal-Mart and weren't hired? Possibility!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 08:44 AM

Douggie!- has it occurred to you that you may be a fatuous ass? Possibility!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:48 AM

STILL have not answered the question about why Walmart, with $11 billion profit in one year, cannot afford to either make the 8% threshold or pay their " associates" (that's so cute it's charming) not $64,500 but enough so they would not have to apply for Medicaid.

Your question contains a assertion and is therefore a statement, not a question.

If the question was "why don't they pay their employees enough so they would not have to apply for Medicaid." without the ego boosting sarcasm, the answer would be:

It is not required of other companies do the same.

If the legislation were for all companies in all states and not just Walmart, [the Walmart bill} They would have to comply.

Similar legislation is in process in over 30 states but the employee minimum is different in different states. As low as 1000 or 99.

I consider a 100 employee minimum to be fair.

Any more questions?

I haven't gotten any answers to mine yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 02:14 PM

Doug, for an occasionally fairly sharp guy, you sure have some strange lapses at times.

1. I am highly critical of Wal-Mart for several reasons, which include the effect they have on other businesses in the areas they invade, essentially creating a monopoly, the poor quality of the products they sell (I have been, fortunately only temporarily, in areas where this was the case), and the shabby way they treat their employees.

2. I can make a damned good living (and have done) teaching guitar; or I can go back to work at Boeing as a computer-savvy production illustrator; or I could make a substantial living as a technical writer; or I could go to work for at least a couple radio stations in my area, either as an announcer (specializing in classical music) or a newscaster. All of these are pretty good paying jobs, and with the exception of setting up my own business as a music teacher, they all come with benefits, including health insurance, and in some cases, a retirement plan.

Considering the little they pay and the fact that they offer no benefits, why would I want to work for Wal-Mart?

And I'd be willing to bet that others here on the 'Cat are as well-qualified for one or more occupations as I am.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 08:46 PM

There seems to be a lot of sobbing and sniffling about a question that I was falsely accused of not answering: "What is wrong with Walmart?"

My answer was "nothing is wrong with Walmart in my opinion."

Now becaue the answer was not the answer required by the person that asked it, I am being berated and told that If I had any sense I would have known that the actual question was:"why Walmart could not make the 8% threshold"

Again I must note that there is an assertion in this question that makes it not realy a question but a Plurium Interrogationum, a question with a false, disputed, or question-begging presupposition. Here is another explanation of the logial fallacy of the question.

What the question is stating is that "Walmart could not make the 8% threshold". That is an assertion of the person that asked the question which may or may not be true. I am not obligated to respond to an assertion made by others.

If the question was changed to a logically sound question like "Could Walmart afford to pay the 8% threshold" My answer would be" They could pay the 8% threshold"

If the question was "Why didn't Walmart pay the 8% threshold" my amswer would be: They did not pay it because it is not required of other companies"

So there is my answer for you to cry about some more.

Now where are the answers to my question that you are evading?

You really should read a book about the logical fallacy of ad hominem arguments and a book on etiquette.

In case you are not inclined, here is a brief description for your information:

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally "argument against the person") involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself. It is a logical fallacy.

A (fallacious) ad hominem argument has the basic form:
   1. A makes claim X.
   2. There is something objectionable about A.
   3. Therefore claim X is false.

A classic example derives from the Deutsche Physik movement, which argued as follows:
   1. Einstein claims relativity is correct.
   2. Einstein is Jewish.
   3. Hence relativity is false.

The first statement is called a 'factual claim' and is the pivot point of much debate. The last statement is referred to as an 'inferential claim' and represents the reasoning process. There are two types of inferential claim, explicit and implicit.

Ad hominem is one of the best-known of the logical fallacies usually enumerated in introductory logic and critical thinking textbooks. Both the fallacy itself, and accusations of having committed it, are often brandished in actual discourse (see also Argument from fallacy). As a technique of rhetoric, it is powerful and used often, despite its inherent incorrectness.

In contrast, an argument that instead relies (fallaciously) on the positive aspects of the person arguing the case is known as appeal to authority.

In Logic

An ad hominem fallacy consists of asserting that someone's argument is wrong and/or he is wrong to argue at all purely because of something discreditable/not-authoritative about the person or those persons cited by him rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself. The implication is that the person's argument and/or ability to argue correctly lacks authority. Merely insulting another person in the middle of otherwise rational discourse does not necessarily constitute an ad hominem fallacy. It must be clear that the purpose of the characterization is to discredit the person offering the argument, and, specifically, to invite others to discount his arguments. In the past, the term ad hominem was sometimes used more literally, to describe an argument that was based on an individual, or to describe any personal attack. However, this is not how the meaning of the term is typically introduced in modern logic and rhetoric textbooks, and logicians and rhetoricians are in agreement that this use is incorrect.

Examples:

    "You claim that this man is innocent, but you cannot be trusted since you are a criminal as well."

    "You feel that abortion should be illegal, but I disagree, because you are uneducated and poor."

Not all ad hominem fallacies are insulting:

Example:

    "Paula says the umpire made the correct call, but this is false, because Paula is too important to pay attention to the game."

This is an ad hominem fallacy, even though it is saying something positive about the person, because it is addressing the person and not the topic in dispute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Etiquette:

Etiquette, also known as decorum, is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. It is an unwritten code, but it may evolve from or into a written code. The Greek equivalent of etiquette was protokollon, protocol, the written formula for ceremonial. It usually reflects a theory of conduct that society or tradition has invested heavily in. Like "culture", it is a word that has gradually grown plural, especially in a multi-ethnic society with many clashing expectations. Thus, it is now possible to refer to "an etiquette" or "a culture", realizing that these may not be universal.

Etiquette fundamentally prescribes and restricts the ways in which people interact with each other, and show their respect for other people by conforming to the norms of society. Modern Western etiquette instructs us to: greet friends and acquaintances with warmth and respect, refrain from insults and prying curiosity, offer hospitality equally and generously to our guests, wear clothing suited to the occasion, contribute to conversations without dominating them, offer a chair or a helping arm to those who need assistance, eat neatly and quietly, avoid disturbing others with loud music or unnecessary noise, follow the established rules of a club or legislature upon becoming a member, arrive promptly when expected, comfort the bereaved, and respond to invitations promptly.

Roman etiquette varied by class. In the upper strata of Roman society, etiquette would have instructed a man to: greet friends and acquaintances with decorum, according to their rank, refrain from showing emotions in public, keep his womenfolk secluded from his clients, support his family's position with public munificence, and so on.

Violations of etiquette, if severe, can cause public disgrace, and in private hurt individual feelings, create misunderstandings or real grief and pain, and can even escalate into murderous rage. Many family feuds have their beginnings in trivial etiquette violations that were blown out of proportion. One can reasonably view etiquette as the minimal politics required to avoid major conflict in polite society, and as such, an important aspect of applied ethics. An etiquette is sometimes considered to reflect the underlying ethical code itself.

In the West, the notion of etiquette, being of French origin and arising from practices at the court of Louis XIV, is occasionally disparaged as old-fashioned or elite, a code concerned only with "which fork to use". Some people consider etiquette to be an unnecessary restriction of freedom of personal expression. Others consider such people to be unmannerly and rude. For instance, wearing pajamas to a wedding in a cathedral may be an expression of the guest's freedom, but may also cause the bride and groom to suspect that the guest in pajamas is expressing amusement or disparagement towards them and their wedding. Etiquette may be enforced in pragmatic ways: "No shoes, no shirt, no service" is a notice commonly displayed outside stores and cafés in the warmer parts of North America. Others feel that a single, basic code shared by all makes life simpler and more pleasant by removing many chances for misunderstandings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette


Now where are the answers to my questions? Are you evading them?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:59 PM

Gee, Old, you're learning about logic. Ain't that cute.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:17 PM

Logic is one of my stronger areas, Old Guy. Congratulations for discovering it. But it isn't worth much if you don't use it on your own arguments as well as a means to try to intimidate those who don't agree with you or who are requiring you to defend your own assertions. Razzle-dazzle (especially if it's in Latin) sort of falls apart when you encounter someone who knows the drill. And I didn't learn it out of Wikipedia, I got in in Philosophy 115 and subsequent courses. Still have my textbooks and class notes.

Would you like me to present you with a detailed logical analysis of what you have asserted so far? And if so, would you prefer it in English or Latin?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:48 PM

Old--

Indeed, once you finish with Rhetoric for Dummies (self-taught), Cliff's Notes Logic I or whatever you want to call it, maybe you'd like to actually be able to give a straight answer to a question. Not that it's likely. But hope springs eternal.

Though I know it can't possibly compete with the attraction for you of yet another specious (look it up) argument about Walmart's being "singled out"--and another big serving of your favorite whine.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:56 PM

Ah Doug--

Still your lovable self. I wouldn't go so far as to completely agree with Greg on his characterization of you--but I'll have to admit you do tend to provide a fair amount of evidence to support his thesis.

It might be advisable if you would actually read a bit of the thread before sounding off in your inimitable fashion. We have been talking for at least a week now about the Maryland bill--which deals exclusively with lower-paid Walmart "associates"--some of whom now have to apply to Medicaid for their medical coverage.

If you would like one of the jobs in question, I'm afraid you are alone in that. But don't worry, I'm sure you have all the skills they're looking for--would you like to be a shelf-stocker or a cashier? If you're lucky, maybe they have an opening in your area. Let us know how it goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 10:59 PM

"...maybe you'd actually be able to..."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 11:07 PM

Straight answers require straight questions.

Yours are concocted in a guileful manner in an effort to discredit me and thereby discredit the answer with the logical fallacy of an ad hominem argument.

When I pose your questions in a simplified format and answer them you whine about the answers because they are not the ones you want.

I am deeply sorry about that.

So far you have lost every argument and you scarred ego is causing you to become more and more supercilious.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 11:32 PM

Old--


Congratulations, I think you spelled every word right! A new record! Now the question is whether you also understood what you said--also a first, if true.

I was particularly proud of your "supercilious".

But we'll have to wait til tomorrow to see if you're finally able to give a straight answer to a question.

Sorry to disappoint.

Enjoy your whine.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 12:28 AM

I bet your are more proud of yourself.

What is the question? I can't wait.

Are you going to answer mine or just keep that superior attitude that you can ignore them?

I am sorry if I caused you any mental anguish from losing every argument you started.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 12:33 AM

Anyone want to buy some $4 drugs?

Thought ya might!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 06:28 AM

1) $4 drugs--gee I wonder why Walmart has made this move. Now it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they are taking a beating in bad publicity from just such things as the Medicaid fiasco. Of course not.


Old---


OK, now a series of questions you may possibly be able to answer--and who knows, we may get a straight answer from you on the main question.

1) Are you a taxpayer? Yes or no.

2) Were there 4 firms potentially affected by the Maryland bill? Yes or no? Don't give me your classic but now a bit threadbare (I didn't say pathetic) argument that the bill should have been written differently.

3) Do you believe there are some Walmart employees on Medicaid in Maryland? Yes or no? I'm sure you don't know--this is just a question as to your belief.

4) Did Walmart make close to $11 billion profit in 2005?   Yes or no?

5) Do you believe Walmart could have afforded to spend 8% of its payroll in Maryland towards health care for its own employees or put the difference into the Maryland state Medicaid fund?   Yes or no? This is just a question as to Walmart's financial resources.


Let's start with these.

No whining allowed--to quote a well-known Mudcat sage (look it up).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 06:56 PM

1. Yes

2. No, none of the other companies were required to do anything under the Walmart Bill. that's why they called it the Walmart bill.

3. Yes

4. Yes

5. Yes, other companies with less than 10,000 employees and Walmart could have afforded to spend 8% of its payroll in Maryland towards health care for its own employees or put the difference into the Maryland state Medicaid fund but for whatever reasons, they did not do so.

In West Virginia Asplundh, which is the next biggest employer under Walmart, has 13.2% of its employees with children participating in the plan, 146.

McDonalds, which is the next biggest employer under Asplundh, has about 8.5%, 100.

Respite Care, which is the next biggest employer under McDonalds, has only a few less employees with children participating in the plan than than McDonalds, 97 vs 100 for McDonalds.

The USPS, which is the next biggest employer under Respite Care, has only a few less employees with children participating in the plan than Respite Care. 94 vs 97 for Respite Care.

Walmart has 3.9% of it's employees with children participating in the plan, 452 vs 437

Why is Walmart targeted and not the others?

Why is the employee threshold set at 100 in other states?

And I will allow whining now because you are so good at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 11:41 PM

Shoplifting as Governance
Maryland Lawmakers' Unethical Grab at Wal-Mart's Revenue

By George F. Will Thursday, January 19, 2006

In 1786 the Annapolis Convention, requested by Virginia and attended by only four other states, called for a second gathering to revise the Articles of Confederation in order to strengthen the federal government. Some revision: The second meeting became the Constitutional Convention. It scrapped the Articles, partly because the Founders were alarmed by states legislating relief of debtors at the expense of creditors, often in ways not easily distinguished from theft.

Something not easily distinguished from theft recently occurred in Annapolis. In legislation ostensibly concerned with any company that has 10,000 employees but pertaining only to one, Maryland has said Wal-Mart must spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care or must give the difference to the state.

The Constitution's foremost framer, James Madison, understood the perils of democracy at the state rather than the national level of an "extensive republic": State legislatures have fewer factions competing for favors than compete for Congress's favors. States, being smaller than the nation, have legislatures more easily captured by overbearing majorities. Madison would have understood what Maryland has done.

Organized labor, having mightily tried and miserably failed to unionize even one of Wal-Mart's 3,250 American stores, has turned to organizing state legislators. Maryland was a natural place to begin because it has lopsided Democratic majorities in both houses of its legislature.

Labor's allies include the "progressives" who have made Wal-Mart the left's devil du jour. Wal-Mart's supposed sin is this: One way it holds down prices (when it enters a market, retail prices decline 5 to 8 percent; nationally, it saves consumers $16 billion a year) is by not being a welfare state. That is, by not offering higher wages and benefits than the labor market requires. Labor's other allies are Wal-Mart's unionized competitors, such as, in Maryland, Giant Food, a grocery chain. These allies are engaging in what economists call rent-seeking -- using government to impose disadvantages on competitors with whom they are competing and losing...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 12:02 AM

If Walmart unfairly drives small businesses out of business, Why would a state group of small companies oppose the Walmart bill?

States and Employers Duel Over Health Care
May 6, 2005 - The New York Times


...Ellen Valentino, Maryland director for the National Federation of Independent Business, whose state group of small companies opposed the legislation.

But backers of the Maryland bill, which seemed to take special aim at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, say the support for it there indicates a growing recognition of the growing financial burden of caring for the uninsured. They say taxpayers are unfairly supporting too many companies' uninsured workers, who turn to government programs like Medicaid or simply show up in the emergency rooms of hospitals subsidized by the state to provide care to people unable to pay.

Jonathan Parker, campaign director of Americans for Health Care, a union-led group in Washington that helped push for the Maryland bill,...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 12:31 AM

State, retail workers high on list of needing health-care subsidy
By Norma Love - Associated Press
May 15, 2005
CONCORD, N.H. - The state shares a dubious distinction with retailers _ being high on a list of employers whose lowest-paid workers are on Medicaid.

Perhaps just as surprising are the number of health care workers also on Medicaid, the state-federal subsidized health insurance program for the poor.

And many other higher-paid state, retail and health care workers in New Hampshire are receiving taxpayer-subsidized insurance for their children through a companion program to Medicaid called Healthy Kids Silver.

Wal-Mart is the employer with the most workers receiving subsidized coverage in both categories _ 487 out of about 8,500 workers, as of Jan. 31. But also high on the lists are the state, Dunkin Donuts, Shaws, Concord Hospital, nursing home provider Genesis and the U.S. Postal Service.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 10:50 AM

Wrong State there, Fat Old Woody, but please re-read for content & retention:

Wal-Mart is the employer with the most workers receiving subsidized coverage in both categories

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:55 AM

Old--

So sorry you have nothing better to do--on a Saturday night!--than whine about mistreatment of Walmart.

Sure hope your life improves soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 12:14 PM

I Never said it was. I don't have any information on other employers in Maryland. Do you?

Why do you refuse to look at percentages? All of the employees are paying taxes to the state to help pay for the state health insurance.

Take West Va for example,. Walmart employs 11450 people, 10998 of which are not using state health care. Asplundh employs 1100 people 954 of which are not using state healthcare. Therefore Walmart is subsiding the healthcare expenses of Asplundh and lesser companies that have a higher percentage of employees using sate health care. In this example Walmart is beneficial to the state in helping pay for healthcare expenses of the employees of other companies. If Walmart was suddenly not "there" the costs to the state would increase because of less taxes coming from the Walmart employees.

If only evil organizations have people on state healthcare, why is the state and the USPS high on the lists? In WV at least part of the USPS is unionized.

To save health care expenses for any state. it is only logical that the state should go after the organizations with the highest percentages of employees using state health insurance.

Still I haven't seen any answers to my questions, just heckling and false acusations.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 05:11 PM

Old--

So we've established that, amazingly enough, Walmart does have the financial resources to comply with the terms of the bill.   Thanks so much for that concession.

"For whatever reasons, they did not choose to do so". And as a result, Maryland taxpayers are now paying for Medicaid for Walmart employees".

Exactly why should that be fine with Maryland taxpayers?

Remember, no whining about "singling out Walmart" is allowed.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 05:47 PM

Old--


Also, you seem to think that more businesses should be included in the purview of the bill.

Interestingly, that is precisely the fear that Walmart tried to play on to defeat the bill.


A small-business organization in Maryland raised exactly that point.

"If it becomes law, they argued, the legislature almost certainly will expand the number of businesses to which it applies and increase the required spending on health care." (Post 10 Jan 2006.)

So for that reason, your suggestion would be a disaster, insuring defeat of the bill. But of course that may be exactly what you want.

Sometimes I'm tempted to think that you don't really care about either taxpayers or low-level Walmart employees. But I'm sure that's rank slander.

Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 10:47 PM

Why are your crying about the facts I present Mr noanswer?

"Exactly why should that be fine with Maryland taxpayers?"

That is another question that contains a assertion that may or may not be correct.

You will have to explain if Maryland taxpayers are fine with it or not.

Also you need to define what "that" is.

Also You imply that somebody said that Walmart does have the financial resources to comply with the terms of the bill. Where did you see that?

Your whining is very amusing. I cold listen for hours.

I could ask you why the USPS has more of a percentage of their workers on state health care but you would not answer. Are you too good to answer?


Arrogant people feel they are not just another ordinary person: they think they are extraordinary. They tend to think they are a superior breed of human, not subject to the same imperfections as other "common" people. They may believe they are blessed with good luck. They have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, perceiving themselves as noble and grand, and feeling they are beyond and above the normal and average. They fancy that they will make a significant contribution to the world, and they have an unrealistic evaluation of their abilities, talents, intelligence, and other gifts they see themselves as better than they really are. They have a desire to excel at whatever they do. They can be pretentious, haughty, snobbish, pompous, lofty, and conceited.
The fear that drives Arrogance is the fear of vulnerability. Arrogant people do not want to admit to themselves that they are imperfect, nor do they want others to discover it. Rarely do they apologize for their mistakes. They have a need to avoid embarrassment and humiliation, because these things obviously show their faults.
They have a high opinion of themselves. In this there is no comparison with others, just a feeling that they are good people, and they want others to praise them as being good people. They see themselves as virtuous, but others see them as self-righteous. They expect a lot of themselves, and try to live up to their self-image of greatness, perfection, and righteousness. If it should be pointed out that there is some imperfection in them, they will find a justification or excuse for it.
There is a feeling of superiority over others. They automatically assume that others are lesser beings than themselves. Everything they do is to prove their superiority. They brag on themselves, and they belittle others and treat them as inferiors. They have a highhanded way they treat other people that says "I'm better than you". Their actions say, "I know what is for your own good more than you do". This is presumptuousness. They automatically think their opinions are better than others, that they are smarter, stronger, more accurate, more knowledgeable than others, and so on better in every way.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 09:50 PM

Old--


By special request:


Thanks for pointing out that we have unfinished business here.

I was so impressed with your red type--it just beggars description. And a lot more fun than a dictionary for you, I'm sure.

(By the way, I did not "run away" to another thread--some of us have other things to do than to educate you--desperate as your need might be.) In fact some of us have a life outside Mudcat--pity you don't seem to.


Added to which, if your attention span were more than 5 minutes--or you were capable of reading a thread before running off at the mouth (yet again), you would see that I made several postings before now-- on the so felicitously-named "amnestygate" thread.

At any rate, to return to the topic of this thread. I've managed to get you to admit several points:

1)   Walmart does have the financial resources to pay its people well enough so they could pay for their own medical care without going on Medicaid.

2) Therefore if Walmart did not want to do so, it could afford to make up the 8% required by the Maryland legislature.

3) There are in fact some Walmart employees on Medicaid in Maryland.



There are still questions you have not gotten around to answering. Simple questions:

1) Do you care about taxpayers? Please provide evidence.

2) Do you care about low-level Walmart employees? Again, please provide evidence.

That would be a good start.

And remember the ground rules-- especially the prohibition on no whining about "Walmart being singled out".

Thanks so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:01 AM

I phrased that wrong--it should be "probibition on whining".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:41 AM

Dear whiny RD:

Again, you have not answered my questions while I have answered yours.

Maybe the reason is I have prohibited whining and you can't answer without whining.

Here is a very simple question for you:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:45 AM

Attention RD:

Ad hominem as logical fallacy

A (fallacious) ad hominem argument has the basic form:

   1. A makes claim X.
   2. There is something objectionable about A.
   3. Therefore claim X is false.

The first statement is called a 'factual claim' and is the pivot point of much debate. The last statement is referred to as an 'inferential claim' and represents the reasoning process. There are two types of inferential claim, explicit and implicit.

Ad hominem is one of the best-known of the logical fallacies usually enumerated in introductory logic and critical thinking textbooks. Both the fallacy itself, and accusations of having committed it, are often brandished in actual discourse (see also Argument from fallacy). As a technique of rhetoric, it is powerful and used often, despite its inherent incorrectness.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:48 AM

I would like to ad that Ad Hominem arguments and rhetoric are used when someone has no factual evidence to present.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:06 PM

You talking about logic, Old Guy, is like the Pope trying to give detailed advice on marital sex.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:37 PM

Attention DF:

Ad hominem as logical fallacy

A (fallacious) ad hominem argument has the basic form:

   1. A makes claim X.
   2. There is something objectionable about A.
   3. Therefore claim X is false.

The first statement is called a 'factual claim' and is the pivot point of much debate. The last statement is referred to as an 'inferential claim' and represents the reasoning process. There are two types of inferential claim, explicit and implicit.

Ad hominem is one of the best-known of the logical fallacies usually enumerated in introductory logic and critical thinking textbooks. Both the fallacy itself, and accusations of having committed it, are often brandished in actual discourse (see also Argument from fallacy). As a technique of rhetoric, it is powerful and used often, despite its inherent incorrectness.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 02:40 PM

Congratulations, Old Guy! You've learned to cut-and-paste stuff that you've cut-and-paste before.

I had several Logic courses in college, Old Guy, and that and the study of Ethics have always been interests of mine. There's not a helluva lot you can tell me about Logic that I don't already know, including what's a fallacy and what isn't. I haven't done an actual count, but you probably use more ad hominem attacks than anyone here.

What you need to do is stop your incessant cutting-and-pasting. That's a tacit "Argument from Authority" fallacy. And second, you should try to actually formulate an argument of your own, just to see if you can. So far, others have done that, but you have not.

Your favorite fallacy seems to be to respond to questions by demanding that others answer a question of yours first. That's a variation on the "Red Herring" fallacy, which involves introducing another topic in order to divert attention form the original argument.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:00 PM

...you should try to actually formulate an argument of your own, just to see if you can...

I would think the answer to this has been clearly, conclusively and definitively proven by past practice alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:11 PM

Yup. Like the elusive Yeti. I've heard of it, but I don't know anybody who's ever seen one.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 08:34 AM

guess what everyone...I'm a 16 year old kid, and even I think it is beyond immature to resort to personal attacks and foul language. This whole country was based on the fact that everyone should the chance to hold his or her own opinion. So why then would we attack and get all upset over someone else's opinion? Maybe I'm missing something, but when I don't agree with someone I tell them why and then i let it drop, so back off and try the radical concept of respecting everyone's personal opinion. you don't have to agree, but don't freak out just cuz it doesn't match yours,but hey, maybe i'm the one who is wrong and uneducated. if so, i can accept it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 10:23 AM

To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

Everyone's entitled to their own opionion- just not their own facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:35 AM

All we need is straight answers to straight questions--but it ain't easy to get'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:39 AM

Old--


One more time:

Do you care about taxpayers? Please provide evidence.

Do you care about low-level Walmart employees. Again, please provide evidence.


Thanks so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:44 AM

That's "Do you care about low-level Walmart employees?" (with question mark). We want to make the question very clear, so that you can definitely understand it. Perhaps then you'll answer it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:03 PM

"Argument from Authority"   

1. A makes claim B;
2. there is something positive about A,
3. therefore claim B is true.

An exmple.

"I had several Logic courses in college, Old Guy, and that and the study of Ethics have always been interests of mine. There's not a helluva lot you can tell me about Logic that I don't already know, including what's a fallacy and what isn't. I haven't done an actual count, but you probably use more ad hominem attacks than anyone here."

1. "A" makes a claim B: Old Guy uses more AD Hominem attacks than anyone mere.

2. "A" states that he knows all about logic and is ethical because he studied it in college so there is something positive about him.

3. Therefore, claim B is true.


Please answer the question:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:12 PM

RD:

It is your turn to answer questions:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?

Where is your response to the fact that Asplundh has 13.2% of their employees using the WV State's Children Health Insurance Program vs 3.9% for Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:38 PM

Old Guy, your attempt to use syllogisms is both flawed and ridiculous. I call upon the one irrefutable argument (which you will probably try to claim is an "argument from authority") --evidence that anyone who has the patience (and the stomach) to read this thread can plainly see.

Goodbye. I have better things to do than waste my time pointing out your errors. You wouldn't understand anyway.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 05:05 PM

Syllogisms

Syllogisms are arguments that take several parts, typically with two statements which are assumed to be true (or premises) that lead to a conclusion. This takes the general form:

Major premise: A general statement.
Minor premise: A specific statement.
Conclusion: based on the two premises.

There are three major types of syllogism:

* Conditional syllogism: If A is true then B is true (If A then B).
* Categorical syllogism: If A is in C then B is in C.
* Disjunctive syllogism: If A is true, then B is false (A or B).

Also of note for syllogisms is:

* Categorical propositions: Statements about categories.
* Enthymeme: a syllogism with an incomplete argument.
* Modus Ponens: If X is true then Y is true. X is true. Therefore Y is true.
* Modus Tollens: If X is true then Y is true. Y is false. Therefore X is false.
* Set Theory: The basics of overlapping groups.

Syllogisms are particularly interesting in persuasion as they include assumptions that many people accept which allow false statements or (often unspoken) conclusions to appear to be true. There is a difference between truth and validity in syllogisms. A syllogism can be true, but not valid (i.e. make logical sense). It can also be valid but not true.

"I call upon the one irrefutable argument (which you will probably try to claim is an "argument from authority") --evidence that anyone who has the patience (and the stomach) to read this thread can plainly see.
"

Any one who reads this thread can plainly see that DF:

#1 Demands answers to his questions.

#2 When he gets a answer he attempts to disqualify the answer by changing the question.

#3 After not getting the answer he wants, he claims that the question was not answered.

#4 Refuses to answer questions.

#5 Declares victory and retreats when he looses the argument.


However Don Firth and I do agree that the minimum wage should be raised to at least $10.00 per hour. The reason is the low end workers will have more to spend and put the money into the chain, a sort of trickle up economics.

The illegal aliens are in a sort of a state of slavery making barely enough to stay alive and lacking any rights to do anything about it. This keeps wages for legal low end workers down and hurts the ones who followed the law. Illegal aliens should be denied employment by strict enforcement of the laws on employers and holding them responsible for forged papers, etc. The illegals will have no choice but to follow the law. The $10.00 per hour will encourage them to do so.

What ever extra INS personnel and resources necessary should be acquired to process the illegals. Could it cost as much as a fence? Quotas should be raised as necessary.

Republicans are wrong on amnesty. They don't want to get on the bad side of the Latino population so they are for rewarding the lawbreakers.

However, Democrats don't want to get on the wrong side of the Hispanic population either and they would rather ignore the lawlessness of the Illegals and demonize Walmart as being something that they will put a stop to when they are elected.

As a side bar: Once I was in several border cities in Texas. I noticed many people in cars with Mexican plates at Walmart buying disposable diapers of all things, by the cart. Also I saw several ancient, battered pickup trucks with Mexican tags pile up 12 feet high with flattened cardboard and heading back to Mexico. Paper must be expensive in Mexico.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 05:30 PM

Chicago Mayor Likely to Veto 'Living Wage' Law
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
August 08, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - During his 17 years in office, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has yet to veto a bill passed by the city council, but that is likely to change over the next month because of an ordinance that would force the city's largest retailers -- including Wal-Mart -- to pay employees a "living wage" by 2010.

The measure requires retailers earning over $1 billion in annual sales and stores with at least 90,000 square feet of space to pay workers at least $10 an hour in wages plus $3 in benefits by mid-2010. It was passed by the council last month despite aggressive opposition from many companies and even Daley himself.

On the Monday before the council vote, Daley charged at a press conference that the proposal would drive jobs and desperately needed development from some of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods and cause most retail giants to abandon the city.

"This is going to hurt the minority community," Daley said while flanked by black ministers. "For us to say, 'No, we don't want these stores,' ... that says, 'We don't want development.'"

Also, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., threatened to cancel plans to build as many as 20 new stores in the city over the next five years, while Target Corp. put plans to build three outlets "on hold" and said it might close its existing Chicago stores...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 07:22 PM

You're taking my name in vain again, Old Guy.

Old Guy keeps accusing me of asking him questions and/or refusing to answer questions he's asked me. He can't seem to get straight the fact that it's Ron Davies, not me, who has been trying to pin Old Guy down, and Ron finds that trying to get Old Guy to answer a straight question, or even stick to the subject, is sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. (Perhaps he's afraid of Ron and figures that I'm an easier target.)

In the meantime, Old Guy is trying to establish some sort of identification for himself as a guru of logic when he hasn't the foggiest concept of what logic is all about or how it works. What he has managed to do is establish his inability to actually use logic himself. And he has definitely managed to establish himself as the Absolute Master of the Fine Art of Cut-and-Paste.

He's apparently incapable of formulating a logical argument himself, and the only original thoughts he has exhibited so far are other people's. Hence, his heavy reliance on cut-and-paste.

In the meantime, all this erudition about logic that he's trying to identify himself with is--surprise surprise!--cut-and-paste.

HERE is where he's getting it.

He's not interested in getting at the truth. He just wants to win the argument by whatever means he thinks he can get away with.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 09:05 PM

Let me clear up what might appear to be a fuzzy area in Old Guy's rather cavalier attempt to sound like he's the reincarnation of Aristotle as far as the use of logic is concerned.

He seems to be very fond of accusing people right, left, and center of using ad hominem attacks. He apparently doesn't truly understand what the argumentum ad hominem is and how it works. Or, at least, he doesn't want you to understand it, because he seems to regard it as an all-purpose shield and a license to attack those who disagree with him.

Let us assume that he puts forth an assertion or presents an argument. Let's even go so far as to say that he presents an argument as a syllogism—a formulaic presentation of Major Premise, Minor Premise, and Conclusion (although I can't find any examples of his actually having done this). Okay, so I examine his argument, and successfully prove his Major Premise or his Minor Premise to be false, or demonstrate that his Conclusion does not follow from his premises, or by a couple of other means of formal logic as precise as mathematical formulae, establish that his syllogism is invalid. I have, thus, successfully refuted his argument.

Now, if, during the same post, I happen to say that I think he's an idiot:

1. The statement that I think he's and idiot is an assertion, not an argument.
2. It may be an insult, but it is not an example of the fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem.
3. And my assertion that I think he is an idiot is a separate issue, apart from my analysis of his syllogism, and in no way invalidates the fact that I have refuted his argument.

What Old Guy is doing with this ploy is the fallacy of the "red herring," which is an attempt to "lay a false trail" or divert attention from his failure to prove his point and put the person who refuted his argument on the defensive.

Since Old Guy has tried to muddy the waters (sorry, Muddy Waters) about this by claiming that whenever someone disagrees with him, it's an ad hominem attack, I just want to be sure everyone is clear about that and are not taken in by fancy tap-dancing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 10:22 PM

Old-

You certainly are, as Don points out, the master of misdirection--there seem to be absolutely nothing but red herring in that lake where you keep fishing.

And, as he also notes, trying to get a straight answer out of you bears a strong resemblance to nailing jello to the wall.

Nonetheless, I do intend to get answers to the questions. So here they are--once more with feeling:

1) Do you care about taxpayers? Please provide evidence.

2) Do you care about low-level Walmart employees? Again, please provide evidence.


And I thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:20 PM

RD: It is your turn to answer questions instead of falsely accusing me not answering questions:

Why was the threshold in the Walmart bill set at 10,000 employees?

Where is your response to the fact that Asplundh has 13.2% of their employees using the WV State's Children Health Insurance Program vs 3.9% for Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:42 PM

Old--

Uh, we've been through why the threshold is 10,000--you should ask the Maryland legislature.

And it's a good thing it wasn't any lower--perhaps you don't recall that I pointed out that small business was afraid of that very idea. So if you wanted to kill the bill, that would be a good way to go. Gee, now I wonder if you possibly had that (killing the bill) in mind. Nah, not a chance. You only want what's best for all parties. How could I doubt that?

Asplundh--red herring--look it up.

Now, how about those answers?







Don--


I'm sure Old is just as afraid of you as of me--after all, you actually know about the concepts he has just discovered --though I've yet to see any indication that he has an inkling of the meaning of the fancy words he's dropping.

To make this a music thread--it reminds me strongly of a song: remember this one?

Young man home from college makes a great display
With a fancy adjective that he can hardly say
It can't be found in Webster's and won't be for a while
But we know he's only putting on the style.

We'd have to substitute "old" for "young"--and the words are actually in dictionaries--but the general point holds.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:03 AM

Old--


What I mean, of course, in case there's the slightest confusion, is that I am still--with patience that surprises even me--waiting for your answers to my questions.

If you'd be so kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 12:13 AM

DF:

Yes, You are right it is RD that keeps asking questions and refusing to answer questions. I apologize for that

You however have posted nothing but Ad Hominem attacks.

Except for a few things that are non-factual:

"other businesses in the areas they invade"
Sometimes there are no other reatilers in the areas they open in and act as a magnet for small businesses.

Examples:

When Hartford, Connecticut, tore down a blighted housing project, city officials hatched an innovative plan to redevelop the land: lure Wal-Mart there, entice other retailers with the promise of being near the discount giant, and then use the development's revenues to build new housing. Wal-Mart, after some convincing, agreed, and city officials and neighborhood residents celebrated a big win "better shopping, more jobs, and new housing in one of Americas poorest cities.

Wal-Mart to build in blighted areas


API Apr. 5, 2006

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., often accused by critics of harming local businesses, announced Tuesday that it plans to build more than 50 stores in struggling neighborhoods over the next two years to create jobs and help small establishments.

Chief Executive Lee Scott said the new stores would generate 15,000 to 25,000 jobs and be located in neighborhoods with high crime or unemployment rates, on sites that are environmentally contaminated, or in vacant buildings or malls in need of revitalization.

Ten of those stores will anchor "Wal-Mart Jobs and Opportunity Zones" that will help local businesses, especially minority and women-run enterprises, with free advertising, grants to local chambers of commerce and seminars and advice on doing business near Wal-Mart and with Wal-Mart. The move is part of what Wal-Mart calls an effort to be a better community partner.

Scott said Wal-Mart already has a record of saving consumers money and supporting local charities but now wants to foster local small businesses.

"We see that we can be better for communities than we have been in the past," Scott told reporters on a conference call after visiting a new Chicago store that will anchor the first such zone. The other nine sites will be announced later this year.

Scott said the new stores will all go into big metro areas, where Wal-Mart is starting to expand after building its base in mainly rural areas.

Wal-Mart already has plans to open 335 to 370 U.S. stores this year after 341 last year and has said it sees room for more than 1,500 additional stores in the United States in the coming years, on top of nearly 3,200 it already operates.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 01:16 AM

"You however have posted nothing but Ad Hominem attacks."

There he goes again. Johnny One-Note. He obviously didn't read what I posted at 01 Oct 06 - 09:05 PM. If he acknowledged that (in addition to the web sites he cuts and pastes from, he could find it in any college logic textbook), he would lose his favorite dodge.

Is what I just said an ad hominem attack? No. It's a comment on what's obvious. But he'll undoubtedly insist that it is and ad hominem attack.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:26 AM

Don Firth:
What you are doing is laying a false trail, a Red Herring.

Rather that come up with some concrete facts about Walmart or more pertinately about how the Democratic party is demonizing Walmart for political purposes, you constantly belittle my presentation of facts.

The reason you object to my cut and pastes is because you do not like to face the facts.

I sir, am not dodging. When are you going to present some facts of your own or respond to the facts I present, instead of presenting pompous blustering?


The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 01:46 PM

But YOU are not presenting any "facts," Old Guy; all you're doing is cutting and pasting.

And you have to present a cohesive argument before anyone can try to attack it with the ad hominem fallacy, and you haven't done that.

You're use of these new Latin expressions you've picked up is just plain erroneous. And that's not an ad hominem attack, it's a fact.

Refute (logically!) that!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 04:10 PM

So your post contains facts?

Nope, you just avoid any contributions and try to belittle me and that is a fact.

Here is another fact that you can avoid responding to by using your personal attacks:

Asplundh has 13.2% of their employees using the WV State's Children Health Insurance Program vs 3.9% for Walmart.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:25 PM

Don & Ron:

I seem to remember a quaint saying my old uncle had about someone who wouldn't stop playing with a turd but kept complaining about the smell.

Give us a break, eh?   ;>)

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 08:48 PM

Old--

In order to get any resolution of any issue, it's necessary to keep the focus narrow. We've been talking about the Maryland bill for quite a while--it seems we should be at the point of reaching conclusions about it--if we don't get distracted by extraneous topics---not that I would ever accuse you of such a thing--Heaven forbid.

But Asplundh has nothing to do with the Maryland bill.

And your mantra of "why ( no lower than) 10,000?" has to be officially retired--if anything the limit should be higher than 10,000--either way Walmart would have been included. As I've pointed out, the lower the limit, the more opposition to the bill.   So, for anybody who actually wanted the bill passed, the limit had to be high.

Even with 10,000, four employers stood to be affected--of these only Walmart refused to comply.

And both lower-paid Walmart employees and taxpayers stood to benefit--and may yet benefit--from the bill.

So, one more time:

Do you care about low-paid Walmart employees? Please give evidence.
Do you care about taxpayers?   Again, please give evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 12:15 AM

Only one of the four employers were affected by the bill. The other 3 were already in compliance.

If the 10,000 employee number had been set lower, like it was in other states, it would be more effective in achieving it's purpose of relieving the health care cost burden on the taxpayers. If the purpose of the bill was to relieve the health care cost burden on the taxpayers, it should have number should have been set lower. It was not set lower because they wanted to target Walmart and therefore nicknamed the bill "The Walmart Bill"

However you will note that he Walmart Bill was opposed by an association of retailers and it was "spearheaded by labor unions and Giant Food. Giant food is in trouble because the Union has them paying truck drivers $80,000 per year. They cannot compete with Walmart on food prices so they don't want any competition from Walmart.

If Walmart is so shitty because they pay just under 8% of payroll into health benefits and Giant is so great because they pay 20% of their payroll in health benefits, why don't the Walmart workers beat feet to Giant?

The retailers fighting the bill include competitors of Walmart who realize that competition is a good thing, not a bad thing.

To answer your absurd questions which contain assertions which may or may not be true and therefore complex, even though you avoid the Asplundh question like the plague by using the excuse that it in in a different state. This thread is about how the Democratic party demonizes Walmart for political purposes and is not limited to Maryland. Discussing West Virginia is no more of a distraction than discussing Maryland.

Yes I care about low end Walmart workers. I shop there and support them whenever I can. I have even asked them if they have complaints about Walmart and they have never told me of any.

Yes I care about taxpayers. I am a Maryland taxpayer myself. When I buy something at Walmart I recoup some if not all the extra taxes I pay for their health care costs.

A real estate agent told me something interesting today. In Maryland, the cheapest gas prices are at a Sheetz station and a Wawa station in sight of each other. In a neighboring county, an oil company that supplies gas to a lot of stations and owns a lot of stations had enough political influence to get a bill passed in the county known as the Sheetz Bill. It prevents gas stations from being so close to each other so as to cause too much competition on the price of gas.

This is another case of a company causing legislation that benefits the company, not the consumer.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:06 PM

Old--All I'm trying to do is get a definite resolution on one topic. As I said, we've been discussing the Maryland situation for a while--it should be possible to get a conclusion--and an absurd waste of time if we don't. So sorry you don't like being made to actually concentrate on one issue at a time.

But, as I said earlier, you have wonderful political skills--not only can you ignore the question, but you can also attempt to deflect interest elsewhere, in hopes of never having to answer it.

Let's see--we've had the Emancipation Proclamation, the illegal immigrant situation, and what else?

Let's just deal with the Maryland situation now, OK?

Also fascinating to hear that you do care about taxpayers--you claim even to be a Maryland taxpayer. If that is so, I would think you would realize that you--and the other Maryland taxpayers--are subsidizing Walmart. With $11 billion in profit in 2005, there is a bit of a chance Walmart may not need your help.

Or mine. The difference appears to be that you don't mind throwing your money away. Sorry, I do.

Now the other issue--lo these many moons later, you still have provided absolutely no argument as to why Walmart should not provide its own employees a bare minimum of health coverage--which is what the bill requires.

It devastates me to have to tell you that, since you oppose this, your supposed concern for low-level Walmart employees, rings, shall we say, a bit hollow.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:22 PM

Old--

Oh yes, we've also had Logic 101 and West Virginia, and of course your classic cut and paste tirades--my favorite was your fulminating against unions. You've established beyond any doubt that unions are the root of all evil. And here I thought it was the love of money. Gee, I must have read that wrong.

But for now let's stick to Maryland. There already are Mudcatters who are convinced this whole discussion is a waste of time.

But I have faith in you--that we actually can get a resolution of the Maryland bill issue---if we stick to discussing only it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:00 AM

"no argument as to why Walmart should not provide its own employees a bare minimum of health coverage--which is what the bill requires."

#1. Why do I have to argue Walmart's point? From an outside observation, I guess they felt that because other businesses with an even higher percentage of employees on state health care paying 8%, why should they have to. This is something you keep avoiding by pointing to the 10,000 number in the Walmart bill.

#2. It is your assertion that they do not pay a bare minimum? How about the companies with less than 10,000 employees with a higher percentage of employees on state health care? What is your assertion about them? You keep avoiding that by claiming that this is only about Maryland

#3. By your statement, the bill is targeted at Walmart.

Yes I am a Maryland taxpayer. You are trying to put my honesty in question. An Ad Hominem attack.

I supported the employees at Walmart today. I had the oil changed in my wife's car today at Walmart for around $18. They used Quaker State oil and a Fram oil filter. I dealt with the same "associate" for the third time in two weeks. I returned some things and bought some things such as a Bissell carpet steamer for $68. I ate some lunch at the in store MacDonald's. I didn't see any long faces or traces of animosity among the employees. They all seemed happy to me.

And why do you keep whining about the $11 billion profit as if that means Walmart should have to do something different from a company that makes less profit but has a higher percentage of employees on state health care?

And you are not going to keep me from discussing and asking questions about other states or other companies.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 02:23 AM

The argumentum ad hominem is a fallacious attempt to refute a logically framed argument, and whenever it manifests itself, it's always within a specific context. If someone feels that he has been insulted, that is not, per se, an "ad hominem attack."

And, Old Guy, to point out that you are using the term erroneously is a statement of fact, verifiable by checking any good logic textbook, not an "ad hominem attack."

Give up the Latin. It's getting silly. (And no, that's not an "ad hominem attack" either.).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:14 AM

"Oh yes, we've also had Logic 101 and West Virginia"

This is demeaning. It does nothing to refute the argument.

Where are your facts on the subject? You only advance your opinions on my credibility.

"Let me clear up what might appear to be a fuzzy area in Old Guy's rather cavalier attempt to sound like he's the reincarnation of Aristotle as far as the use of logic is concerned."

Is this a red herring or a personal attack?

"Old Guy's display of irrational hatred (not just disagreement with, but full-blown hatred) of anything to the left of Benito Mussolini is an example of what someone on another thread so aptly described as "profound ignorance combined with absolute certainy."

This is a total misrepresentation designed to discredit me insted of the facts that I present. The reason is because you have no facts to present, just accusations made by Democrats and Unions that Walmart is evil for political purposes.

I have presented facts that illustrate that there are other smaller companies that do the same as Walmart. Any legislation to force companies to do a certain thing should apply to all companies. Does that make me a follower of Mussolini or possesing irrational hatred?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:01 PM

Look here!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:25 PM

Has Walmart been defeated .... nope, not as yet, since I actually went into our local Walmart and purchased a Leatherman tool ... yup, I broke down, only because it's the only place in town where I can procure one of these unique tools.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:34 PM

Why is Old Guy posting so often on this thread? Hmmm. Let me guess.

My guess is that he is defending that noble institution, WalMart, from scurrilous and completely unjustified attacks by liberals!

What do I win if I'm right?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:38 PM

A $25 Walmart gift coupon !!!!

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:42 PM

LOL! You are a sick man, Number 6.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:43 PM

400! Ka-ching!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 09:44 PM

What are the limits on how often one can post on a thread he started?

Here is an Amos thread where 193 out of 244 posts were by Amos. Almost all of them are cut and paste.

Note, way up top in the beginning, this thread is anti Democrat, not pro Walmart. However questions from the peanut gallery have been answered but the answers have not been well received.

Could there possibly be a double standard at play here?

One set of rules for conservatives to follow and another set, or a lack of rules for Chavistas?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:53 PM

I'll clue you, Old--it is possible to both criticize Walmart and criticize Chavez---but thanks for the wonderful demonstration of Bushite smear tactics--Cheney would have been proud of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 10:53 AM

My wife shops at Wal-Mart because it's cheaper than any place else and has a wider variety. We know a number of people who work for Wal-Mart. Many were previously retired but went to work there for the health insurance they could not otherwise afford. Try buying health coverage when you are over 60.

Wal-Mart hires crippled people and dwarves. They employ people who cannot get a job elsewhere.

The "Get Wal-Mart" campaign is being pushed by labor unions that would like to unionize the company. They are thinking of all the union dues they could spend on lobbying congress, paying off corrupt officials and mobsters with whom they are mixed up with.

Wal-Mart's prices help the working poor. Destroying Wal-Mart affects them, and does not help anyone but those bent on unionizing the company.

Nobody forces anyone to work for Wal-Mart. If those working there don't like the pay, they are free to get a job somewhere else.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 12:23 PM

"thanks for the wonderful demonstration of Bushite smear tactics--Cheney would have been proud of you."

More personal attacks, no facts.

As for the Walmart Monopoly conspiracy theory:

Why does a group of retailers, RILA come to the defense of defend Walmart?

If Walmart unfairly forces manufacturers to lower their prices, why does a group of manufacturers defend Walmart?

Please respond with facts instead of smear type, personal attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 10:49 AM

The "Get Wal-Mart" campaign is being pushed by labor unions...

Aww, shite, here it comes again.......

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:20 PM

LABOUR UNIONS!!!!!!!!!!!   Those filthy commies! We oughta send out the good squads and the Army and just SHOOT 'em all! Like back in the good old days. Remember? ;-) Whatever gave workers the idea that they have any RIGHTS?

Old Guy, I am also anti-Democrat (as well as anti-Republican). Whaddya think of that? I think they're both a whole lot worse than the labour unions AND WalMart put together. I think they're as bad as the Mafia. I live for the day when they are both nothing but a nasty memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 04:43 PM

If Sam Walton was still around would you vote for him?

If Jimmy Hoffa was still around would you vote for him?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 05:01 PM

I would not vote for either one of them. ;-)

The main trouble with big labour unions is the same as the main trouble with corporations and governments. They often start out with high ideals and good intentions, but they very soon get taken over by a powerful elite who care for little or nothing but to increase their own power and pad their own nests.

And that's all done by controlling the cash flow.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 01:41 AM

If J F Kennedy was still around, would you vote for him?

If Ronnie Reagan was still around, would you vote for him?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 11:01 AM

If Albert Parsons was still around, would you vote for him?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 05:28 PM

No because I don't know who he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 05:30 PM

Thanks for making my point for me yet once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 05:45 PM

If Adolf Hitler was still around, would you vote for him?

And how about John Diefenbaker? Whaddya think?

Really, these questions are pointless. It's the ruling $ySStem behind candidates that is the real problem, not the "face" they stick in front of you as a supposed new choice every four years or so.

I don't like Bush, but he's not the real problem. He's just a sypmtom of the problem. Same goes for Bill Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,fumblefingers
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 12:31 AM

"Aww, shite, here it comes again......."

Is that response based on supportable facts or personal opinion?

Unions that represent grocery companies want the dues of those 1.39 million U.S. employees. Grocery companies with unionized employees that compete with Wal-Mart want a unionized Wal-Mart to even the playing field.

Wal-Mart provides employment and benefits for those with minimal educational qualifications and poor people. These are facts that I have personally observed involving people I know.

Of course none of this information is available on Daily Kos or other left-wing blogs. There are; however, reputable sources of information including newspapers that lay out the facts in a format understandable by the literate and those who take the time to actually read.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 08:08 AM

Yes, whatever your point is, it is made.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 08:26 AM

No, I would not vote for Adolf or John Diefenbaker.


I would prefer Sam Walton over Jimmy Hoffa if I was forced to make a decision.

I might vote for Kennedy or Reagan but as for which one, it would be a tough decision.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 09:07 AM

Wal-Mart provides employment and benefits for those with minimal educational qualifications and poor people.

Almost right, just needs a few minor revisions, thus:

MalWart keeps people poor by providing sub-standard wages, a less than 40 hour work week and meagre-to nonexistant benefits and then gets a second financial return because their employees are too poor to shop anywhere else.

There. That's better.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 10:32 AM

Walmart and several other smaller companies including the State itself and the USPS, some of which have an even larger ratio of employees on state suported health care, pay above minimum wages to some people who are not employable elsewhere and who shop at Walmart because of the savings.

That's even better.

I shop at Walmart, not because I am too poor to shop elsewhere, but because of the savings.

Sometimes I find things for less than Walmart sells them for so I buy elsewhere.

No evil black hole sucks me in and holds me captive.

I think that is what is called freedom.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 10:58 AM

Or possibly selfishness--not caring either about the effect of Walmart's policies in driving US jobs overseas--or even about their effect of their stinginess on their own employees.

Gee, I wonder which one it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 09:39 PM

What are "Wal-Mart's policies in driving US jobs overseas?" And what, precisely, is "their effect of their stinginess on their own employees?" [sic]

The largest expense of a business is its people costs. Wal-Mart is being bashed here because it pays its people too little and doesn't want unions. It sounds like a well managed corporation.

There are 430 employees working in the Super Wal-Mart in the town near here. That's a lot of jobs for a single store. Those people are mostly happy to be employed. http://www.forwalmart.com/stories/?index=30

One who shops at Wal-Mart isn't necessarily stingy--thrifty or frugal perhaps.

What is the goal here? What will be the result of Wal-Mart being "defeated?" Is the goal to put them out of business? Make them raise their prices? Demand they pay their employees more money and give them lots of benefits? Let in the unions? What's the object of this campaign?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 11:44 AM

RD:

"Gee, I wonder which one it is."

Don't you know? Are you uncertain? Do you shop where you pay the higest prices or the lowest prices?

Tell me again how Walmart drives US jobs overseas?

How much of what they sell is made offshore? Is the percentage more or less than any other retailer?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 12:37 PM

Where I shop depends on many different factors, Old Guy. Price is one of them. Another is quality. Another is how comfortable I feel in the place and how much I like being there. Another is location.

I have bought the odd thing at Walmart on very rare occasions, but I mostly don't shop there, because I don't like the general atmosphere in the place and I don't like the "vibe" (of the place or its customers). It gives me the creeps, to put it plainly. It feels a bit like a casino...a lot of people pouring in with but one thing on their minds...like a mob of hogs jostling at the trough.

Whether the prices are really better there I'm not sure. I can't be bothered to go there often enough to find out, and I don't care all that much. I'd rather go where I feel good and spend an extra dollar, if it comes to that.

When I die at the end of this life there will probably be a pile of money and possessions left behind. Do I really give a damn whether that pile will be 5% larger at that moment or not?

No. It doesn't do any good anyway.

I shop where I enjoy shopping.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 04:13 PM

I really don't see any difference between the atmosphere at Walmart and any other retailer. The employees are nice, sometimes nicer than at other retailers.

I have two Walmarts close by but none that have a supermarket. I shop for food at the Super Walmart in WV when I am there. The employees are even nicer there. One time I needed to buy a folding card table that was buried under other stuff and the Manager came out and got it out and insisted in putting it in my car.

I do not go out of my way to buy at Walmart but whenever it is convenient, I do.

I see no reason to pay more than necessary to buy things. If you have money to pay more, you can buy higher quality at a the same or lower price than other retailers. Value is not always the lowest price, it is the most for the money. The most bang for the buck.

When I die, all of my pile of stuff will be inherited by my family. I don't see why I should piss my money away because I will die someday.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 11:46 PM

Old--

You say you live in Maryland. I happen to know that in Maryland there are other alternatives to Walmart--or wasting money.

You posit a false choice--and I think you know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:19 PM

What are you taking about?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:37 AM

Old--

I'm saying that in Maryland there are ways to save money other than shopping at Walmart. Other places in the US your story that you have to shop at Walmart in order to bequeath anything to your survivors might be credible.   In Maryland it's not.

I recently went to a Giant.   Not only did I not find what I was looking for, but the prices are horrendous. I totally agree with you there.

Giant is unionized. Many others are not. In Maryland there's plenty of choice.

If Walmart treated its workers decently, there would be no need for a union. But they don't. So Walmart is exactly where a union is needed.

But you are completely correct that you have freedom--freedom, if you wish, to shop at a store which not only is responsible for driving many US jobs overseas, but also doesn't even treat its own employees right.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 11:24 AM

I understand that WalMart's atmosphere doesn't bother you, Old Guy. That's fine. It does bother me for some reason. There are some stores I just like better than others, who knows why, so naturally I tend to shop at the ones I like better. Price is always a consideration, and one looks for good deals...but one may find them at a variety of places, not just at WalMart.

It doesn't bother me that you like WalMart, so why should it bother you that I don't like them? ;-)

Does it really matter?

How do you feel about casinos? Do they give you the creeps or do you feel just fine inside a casino? I can't stand them. Something about the vibe. I guess they weren't designed with me in mind. ;-)

Now take Zellers (similar to K-Mart and a number of other department store chains). I find the atmosphere in Zellers somewhat more agreeable than in Walmart, although it's really quite similar. The prices are quite low. So I prefer to go to Zellers.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 11:29 AM

I did not say "have to shop at Walmart in order to bequeath anything"

I am saying that I see no need to piss money away because I am going to die some day. For one thing I can buy a better quality with my savings.

I can't believe you agree with me about Giant. I go to Giant sometimes to buy what they have on sale. They had bottled water there recently for less than I have ever seen it anywhere. I went there and stocked up. I am not addicted to Walmart. If I was such a total cheapscate, I would not buy bottled water at all.

My wife clips coupons and adds up the savings. She saves between $2000 and $3000 yearly by clipping coupons for stuff we normally buy.

I still don't agree that Walmart drives jobs over seas any more than any other retailer. They sell the same foreign made stuff that the other retailers sell. By the same token, they sell more US made stuff than the other reatilers.

Anything Walmart is guilty of, sears, Best Buy, Target, all of the retailers are guilty of. Singling out Walmart is not logical unless you are a politician looking for an issue to use to get elected or a greedy union.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 11:55 PM

Old--


You were in fact whining about how you had to save money in order to be able to pass it on--therefore you had to shop at Walmart.

Pretty feeble excuse-- I pointed out there are many other options in Maryland to save money rather than Walmart.

I note you didn't contradict that--you can't, since you know it's true.

I'm not going to waste my time in collecting statistics on how many towns have had much of their retail establishment destroyed by Walmart--yes, primarily Walmart--as the 5000 lb gorilla--I know nothing will tempt you out of your river of denial.

If you don't think that Walmart has had a huge impact in destroying US jobs, by requiring suppliers to supply so cheaply that they have to have it done overseas- and more so than other retailers--then,-- unsurprisingly-- you need to do more reading.

And your absurd statement about all the US goods Walmart has sold is, sorry to say, totally meaningless. If Walmart did not exist, other US stores would sell the merchandise.

And the other stores treat their employees better than Walmart--which is not hard to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 01:28 AM

"whining about how you had to save money in order to be able to pass it on"

A gross mischaractarization.

What I said was "When I die, all of my pile of stuff will be inherited by my family. I don't see why I should piss my money away because I will die someday."

No whining except for yours. No statement there that I had to do anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 10:53 AM

How jobs are driven offshore:

Regulatory Assault

Last September, Briggs & Stratton Company did something unusual: It tried to beat back a regulatory assault that would have cost tens of thousands of Americans their jobs. The Wisconsin-based company manufactures small engines, such as those found in lawn mowers and generators.

The California state government proposed a new pollution standard requiring small-engine manufacturers to put catalytic converters on their motors beginning in 2008. "We could not do that economically here," protested Briggs & Stratton senior vice president Thomas Savage, warning that retooling to meet the standard would probably result in outsourcing the work overseas.

That warning caught the ear of Senator Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin, Briggs & Stratton's home state. Although Kohl is a liberal Democrat, he also relies heavily on the support of blue-collar, industrial voters in a state where the manufacturing base has radically eroded over the past decade. Accordingly, Kohl suddenly displayed an atypical skepticism regarding the value of environmental regulation. "In this economy in which 2.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, including 75,000 in Wisconsin, regulations that will force more jobs overseas need additional scrutiny," Kohl declared.

The impact of the envisioned outsourcing by Briggs & Stratton would have been felt in nearly half the states of our union. According to a study released by the company, 22,000 jobs in 24 states would be lost if California imposes the new standard. And the relocation would have an impact far beyond the company's payroll. "California is attempting to impose unreasonable standards that force us to consider moving operations overseas, and this would have a tremendous impact not only on our workers but on our suppliers and customers," company vice president Thomas Savage explained.

Savage further noted that Briggs & Stratton is "one of the last remaining U.S. manufacturers of small engines and [we're] doing everything we can to keep good high-tech manufacturing jobs from moving overseas." This included making a counter-proposal to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) "that would reach a level of emissions reductions comparable to CARB's own proposal, but without the high costs and potential job losses."

Unfortunately, Briggs & Stratton's attempt at conciliation also included supporting a congressional measure promoting "a uniform national emissions standard set by EPA. A patchwork of state laws would make large scale engine manufacturing nearly impossible." Rather than solving the company's problem in California, this measure would simply spread the misery nationwide and set the stage for future regulatory impositions that would drive even more companies to "outsource" the work abroad.

Briggs & Stratton succeeded in getting a U.S. Senate committee to block implementation of the California air quality rule. This prompted the Clear Air Trust a prominent member of the huge, foundation-funded Establishment environmentalist lobby to demand that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigate the company for supposedly misrepresenting its financial status in an official report.

In a filing with the SEC, Briggs & Stratton said that it did not believe the proposed California air quality rule "will have a material effect on its financial condition or results of operations...." Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a proponent of the proposed rule, denounced the company for its "unsavory" tactics: "They are either not telling the truth [in their SEC filing] or they are not telling the truth to the American people, or specifically the Senate."

The Prime Directive

In fact, Feinstein and her eco-radical allies, in their eagerness to punish Briggs & Stratton for impeding the regulatory juggernaut, were engaged in deliberate misrepresentation: The company didn't stand to lose money if it relocated the jobs offshore. At issue was the financial health of the company's American workers, not the company itself.

"Can Briggs & Stratton live with California's proposed regulation? Yes," observed Ernie Blazar, a spokesman for Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo.). "But that would require moving almost 2,000 good-paying jobs from Missouri to other countries...." "We never said that we would lose money, and we never said that in our filing with the SEC," explained Briggs & Stratton vice president Savage. "What we said is this California action would have terrible effects on the employees."

This episode offers a revealing glimpse of the process that has led many American companies to "outsource" their production abroad. Too often, news coverage of such corporate decisions is designed to portray corporate leaders as greedy, unpatriotic opportunists clinically indifferent regarding the welfare of their employees. More often than not, however, those decisions are driven by government policies draconian environmental regulations, invasive affirmative action and equal employment standards, irrational standards of workplace safety, tax codes, licensing regulations, etc. that make it economically impossible for companies to remain in the U.S.

Briggs & Stratton's refusal to play by the accepted script provoked a notable reaction. For fighting on behalf of its employees, the company was threatened with a bogus SEC investigation a potential corporate death sentence in the post-Enron era. But this is actually fairly typical of the behavior of the federal regulatory leviathan, which often operates as if it has been assigned the task of job extermination as its prime directive.

PS:

B&S did not stand to loose profits if their manufacturing were moved overseas, they probably would have made more money.

I bought a lawnmower at Walmart. It was made in the USA and it has a B&S engine,

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 11:44 AM

Why not attack Microsoft for corporate greed and moving jobs offshore in order to get elected?

Micro$oft

A. Since 1985, Microsoft has accumulated $73.3 billion in profits, according to Microsoft's yearly income statements.

B. The company, which had 63,500 employees as of 2005, earned $12.25 billion in profits last year alone. That is equal to a profit of just under $200,000 per employee.

C. Bill Gates is the world's richest man, with an estimated wealth of about $50 billion.

D. Following ExxonMobil , General Electric , Citigroup , and Gazprom , Microsoft is the world's fifth-most valued company (as of mid-2006)

Low Labor Costs, More Venture Capital

In 2003 Microsoft, opened a major call center in Bangalore, [birthplace of the infamous torpedo] transferring many functions and jobs from Dallas, where 1,400 are employed.

Workers group says Microsoft may cut 800 jobs in Irving

Microsoft Corp. could cut at least 800 jobs at its Irving facility as it shifts jobs overseas to save costs, according to a Seattle-based technology workers group.

The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, said Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is in the process of a massive relocation of customer call center jobs to India and Canada, and could cut about 800 jobs in the next fiscal year at its facility in Las Colinas. The facility employs more than 1,300 people.

A Microsoft spokeswoman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the software company plans to hire 150 people for a center that opened in April in Bangalore, India, and could add more employees there if the center proves successful. It was not clear how many U.S. jobs could be moved abroad.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 07:27 PM

I can't find it at the moment but I read in the news today that Walmart has been slapped with a hefty fine in relation to the lawsuit that employees have brought against the company, alleging they had been forced to work "off the clock" and been denied rest breaks.

Did anyone else see that?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 01:12 AM

I read that. But since I haven't the case, I don't know if it's true or if the alleged action of one store is the uniform policy of the entire company throughout all its many stores. I also read that Wal-Mart intends to appeal. It's fairly safe to assume that a major corporation does not have a universal policy that runs contrary to the law.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 04:19 AM

Ron Davies, re August 29 entry, my last: I, of course meant Blue, not RED. My mistake. I still have a hard time of thinking of the Dems as anything but RED or at least bright PINK. Nonetheless, the point was that there is a general hypocracy in the Dems' anti-Captialist rhetoric, when some of the biggest capitalists in the US are Democrats. I read through some of this rope ( no longer a thread) and for the most part it has degenerated into personal attack from both direction. Not very nice. Not rational debate. Get some perspective. Wal-Mart in NOT the focal point of all that is evil. Workers can organize if they really want to. You can shop anywhere you please. Gee, if enough people agree with you that the Mighty Wal-Mart IS the embodiment you can stop them cold in their tracks. I see a nation wide boycott and chapter 11 for, wait!! NO--- why they're still in business!!! Looks like you are going to have to try harder to get the word out on them and expose them for what they really are. I'm sure that once everyone has heard, they will join you. When that eventuation takes place and I read about it in the headlines I'll peek back into this thread and acknowledge how very right you were!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 09:44 AM

It's fairly safe to assume that a major corporation does not have a universal policy that runs contrary to the law.

Its not "fairly safe" at all- on the basis of the history of U.S corporations for the last hundred and twenty years or so, its positively idiotic to make that assumption.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 12:36 PM

To all pro-Walmart people drowning in the river of denial:


From that well-known rabidly anti-Walmart organ of the Left: that is, the Wall St Journal: today 14 Oct 2006:

"A Pennsylvania jury has awarded $78.4 million to thousands of Wal-Mart employees who claimed they were forced to work during rest breaks and off the clock."

"The class-action case had covered labor practices at Wal-Mart and Sams' Club stores from March 1998 through May 2006."

Couldn't possibly be a policy, then, right? All smoke and no fire?

This is just one suit, in one state, on one issue.

We're not even talking about the ongoing suit by women for underpayment--any award there would be likely even bigger.

And there are others in the pipeline.

And in fact Walmart has actually paid fines in other cases--sometimes multi-million dollar fines. It's just chickenfeed to them---and they obviously never intend to change any of the policies which cause the fines--much cheaper to just pay and move on.

In this case, they will appeal--some they don't.

Added to which, Walmart is changing policies to make it easier to get rid of unhealthy and full-time employees--thus cutting their health costs. Far from actually stepping up and paying their fair share--they intend to do what they now do in Maryland--force taxpayers to pay what Walmart should--or force Walmart employees to piggyback on others' health plans.

One of the new changes is that employees "needing more than three consecutive sick days are encouraged to apply for an unpaid leave of absence or off under the Family Medical Leave Act. Previously, store managers had more discretion regarding discipline regarding unexcused absences"

There's an 800 number to call if sick. If you don't and are absent 3 times in a 6-month period, you can be fired. And it's unclear, if you call the number, what kind of grilling they will give you as to your absence. For instance, suppose a mother has a sick child--but is herself not sick?

"I guess they're just trying to see how many people they can get rid of" said Ramiro Gonzalez, a 49-year old full-time worker in the produce section of a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas. "They're trying to make ways that you can mess it up so they can let you go, especially if you're a full-timer"---direct quote from the WSJ.

Last year an internal memo by a top Walmart official was leaked. "The memo offered numerous suggestions" for cutting benefits costs.

You pro-Walmart people--wake up!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 12:57 PM

Who are these pro Walmart people?

"And it's unclear, if you call the number, what kind of grilling they will give you as to your absence. For instance, suppose a mother has a sick child--but is herself not sick?"

Now you have to dream up suppositions as a debating point? Try using facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 01:06 PM

One more thing:   thanks to Ebbie for that heads-up.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 03:33 AM

I shopped at Walmart today. All the stuff was made in the US except for a tee shirt.

I have read that shopping cart handles are amongst the most germ laden things in the world that we normally touch.

Walmart had placed a stand next to the shopping carts with a dispenser for germacidal wipes and with a sign saying to sanitize the handle of your cart with them.

I have never seen this before.

When I checked out I asked the cashier if she liked working at Walmart. She said "Well, yeah."

I guess I will have to keep searching for one of those downtrodden slave employee of Walmart.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:44 AM

All the stuff was made in the US except for a tee shirt.

Moronic assertion. Must have been a long shopping session to check "all the stuff".

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:33 AM

Old--

Pray tell, why is it not extremely plausible that a woman might not be sick but her child is?--and her husband, of course, has to go to work. She is supposed to go to work--but with a sick child at home? I happen to know that in such a case a woman might well claim herself to be sick--in fact this has happened--and I'm sure more than once. So unless Walmart, in its infinite mercy, has made allowances for this, the woman will be forced to lie--or leave a sick child at home. Bets on whether Walmart has made this situation an exception to the new unexcused absence policy?


Walmart has a LOT of women employees. Previously, the supervisor had quite a bit of discretion to make the decision on whether to charge the employee with an unexcused absence in this case--probably would have done it to a large extent on the basis of whether the woman was a good employee or not. But this change takes away that discretion.

As the article points out, it's one more step towards Walmart treating its own employees as --dispensible--commodities.

Truly a wonderful corporate citizen--or maybe not.

The ironic thing is that Sam Walton was paternalistic--in the good sense--had real concern for his employees--and he might well not have approved of the impersonal changes his successors have brought to the company. It's not likely he would have approved changes which would discriminate against the unhealthy--and seek to cut down the number of full-time employees. He looked at Walmart as a--profit-making--community. Now they still have the trappings--even a musical centering around Walmart--I've read about this in the WSJ---but it's an empty shell.

Profit is now all they care about.

They have made Walmart a travesty of what he stood for.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:38 AM

Old--

All the items were made in the US---you mean to say you bought one item. As Greg says, somehow your assertion is, shall we say, unlikely.

We'll have to have a Mudcatter accompany you next time---and teach you how to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 11:43 AM

Another personal attack based on nothing. Would the term everything be more suitable?

Perhaps you should post some rules and regulations governing how people have to sate things so you won't accuse them of being a moron.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 01:07 PM

Okay, Old Guy, so you make some kind of assertion—or more likely, cut-and-paste something you found on a Right-wing blog (without crediting the source, of course)—then someone refutes your assertion, or points out the factual boo-boos of your cut-and-paste, then amends the refutation with the observation that you apparently don't read things very carefully. Then you try to maintain that the refutation is invalid because their post contains what you deem a personal attack—or an "ad hominem attack" (Gee! Latin! How intellectual!), which it is not.

Clumsy, Odd Guy, very clumsy.

(Now watch him call this and "ad hominem attack.")

["Your argument is wrong because you are an idiot!" is the fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem.   "Your argument is wrong for the following reason or reasons (followed by details). And, incidentally, you are a idiot!" is not the fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem. The personal remark is not part of the refutation, therefore does not invalidate it.]

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 01:18 PM

I bought 8 items and all of them were made in the US except the T shirt.

"And it's unclear, if you call the number, what kind of grilling they will give you as to your absence."

It is unclear what will happen when you call any number so that is a safe assertion but the next part implys that you will get a grilling. The only question is what kind of grilling.

Do we have to go back to the latin stuff again?

It is quite possible that a grilling might not ensue but you falsely claim a grilling will ensue.

Them you "create" a purely hypothetical scenario that this falsly implied grilling will be about.

Try some facts instead of false accusations and imagined situations.

Subject: RE: BS: Maul Wart re-labels imports with US MADE?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 01:22 PM

Depends on how stupid you are.

But mostly I look in the other stores FIRST where the Made In China labels are left on things BEFORE going into Maul-Wart to see how MUCH MORE they charge for the same thing but relabeled as US Made.

But then I am biased towards the jobs my un-employed friends could have had.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 01:43 PM

Can you give us an example?

Does Walmart have a metal stamping machine that stamps Made in the USA in to chrome plated metal in the same font and the rest of the stamped in text on the Arrow T50 stapler I bought? Does it rechrome the metal?

If they do, how do they get rid of the made in ??? that is stamped into the metal and plated over?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 02:59 PM

Old Guy, I'm quite sure that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country. But their number is few compared to the products that are "outsourced." You are a great one for picking out one single example to point at in an attempt to prove your point while there are hundreds of examples to contradict your position.

Case in point from another thread. One heavy snowstorm in Buffalo does not mean that global warming isn't an established scientific fact.

You're going to have to do a bit better than this.

"Can you give us an example?" you ask. Yes, indeed I can!

Clicky.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 03:49 PM

I never claimed that an 86 year record breaking weather event [22.3" vs 6"] meant that global warming is not happening any more than a year of excessively strong and numerous hurricanes means that global warming IS happening. I just stated facts. Why are you so sensitive about facts? You should try using facts sometime.

The **single** example you give has nothing to do with relabling.

It claims Walmart unfairly forces manufacturers to cut their prices. If so why does this group groupof Manufacturers defend Walmart?

One out of 8 items I bought was not made in AMerica. Are you claiming i lied? are you claiming I bought mostly American made stuff so I could post bad info on Mudcat? I bought what I needed.

What do you buy and how much of it is made in America?

Have you ever gone to Walmart and looked? What facts do you have to support your assertion? Do you have any data that shows Walmart sells a higher percentage of foreign made goods than other retailers?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 04:00 PM

Facts? You want facts? Bush has shifty eyes and he can't pronounce "nuclear" properly.

2 indisputable facts. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 04:02 PM

"Can you give us an example?" OG

Yeah. I would like it. How about telling us what the items were that you bought?   You cite the number of 8. Take away the Tshirt and that leaves 7. I'll be satisfied with fewer than that. How about giving us 5?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 05:59 PM

For the record, I did NOT say that Fat Old Woody was a moron. I said his assertion was moronic- which it undoubtedly was.

However, if he wishes to assume the mantle of moronhood (if that is indeed a word) I certainly will not contradict him.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 08:19 PM

Old Guy, you are a fatuous boob. And, yes, that is an "ad hominem attack," but it has nothing to do with what I say being fallacious.

On another thread, you ask "Where is the global warming?" and give the Buffalo blizzard as an example of why global warming (an established scientific fact) doesn't exist. And then you try to claim that that is not what you meant, it was just an off-hand passing comment about the weather.

Yes, I shopped at Wal-Mart once, in a small town in southwestern Nebraska because that was the only store in town—the rest had all been run out of business by Wal-Mart under-pricing them. And the item I bought was made in China, because I didn't have any choice. And as I've said on another post, it fell apart two or three days later. Cheesy!

There is a Wal-Mart in a satellite municipality of Seattle, but it's miles away, there is no point in my going that far to shop, and I can get pretty much anything I want within walking distance of where I live, perhaps slightly more expensively than I could at Wal-Mart (but not if I count travel expenses), but economically enough, and at the same time, support my local merchants, many of which happen to be friends and neighbors.

Do I always "buy American?" No. I buy the best quality products I can afford. For example, our Toyota Corolla. Which, despite it's being a Japanese company, is made by American workers in Torrence, California. I have one guitar made in Spain, another made in Japan, and a third made in San Diego by an American luthier. No company in the United States hand-makes guitars as good as the ones I have from Spain and Japan. And no other luthier makes the kind of guitar with the same excellent workmanship that the San Diego luthier does. If you want my business, don't tell me where you hail from, make a good product.

Other than that, sometimes I don't have a choice All the available products I need are made somewhere other than the United States.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 08:24 PM

Old--

If a woman's child is sick, but she is not, what do you think she should do now--at Walmart? 3 unexcused absences in 6 months and she'll be fired--no more discretion by a supervisor who is likely to know the whole story--and if she's a good worker.

If you think this is a just a hypothetical question, you're even more naive than I thought--and that would be a real accomplishment.

This sort of thing happens-- a lot.

It's just like the man said--the one I quoted from the WSJ article. It's obvious that Walmart is seeking to get rid of any employee who might have health problems---as well as cut down on the number of full-time employees---i.e. the ones who might have claim to any fringe benefits.

They are more and more treating their own employees as a disposable commodity.

And you have no evidence to the contrary.


Some places in the US there may be little choice other than Walmart. But you in Maryland have a lot of choice.

If you want to support a store which has this attitude towards its own employees, that's obviously your choice.


And it clearly shows your priorities.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:14 PM

When did I say global warming does not exist? I merely gave some facts about snow in Buffalo.

You just have e trigger finger waiting to shoot down anybody who doesn't march to your orders.

If Ron Davies is unaware of the difference between shit and applebutter, don't take his word for anything. That is not hypothetical, just logical.

As I said before I have spoken to the employees. How many employees have the experts here spoken to?

Have any of these experts have looked around in a Walmart to see how much of the merchadise is foreign made?

I don't see any hands.

You say Walmart is trying to get rid of employees but they unfairly force them to work for Walmart. Which is it?

I ask "What do you buy and how much of it is made in America?" And instead of an answer, I get a demand to say what I bought. I am still waiting for an answer.

What brand of cars do you "buy American" Walmart bashers drive?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:20 PM

You didn't read what I posted, did you? I've answered some of the questions that you asked, but you're saying I didn't. Old Guy, you're a real piece of work!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:29 PM

A question: is it acceptable by the American political left to shop in a Target store?

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 09:51 PM

I have serious doubts about Target. Although they appear to be more "up-scale" than Wal-Mart, it's my understanding that their employment practices are not that much different from Wal-Mart's.

I do shop at Costco now and then (when I want something in quantity, like a 55 gallon drum of salsa, for example, or a similar supply of marinated artichoke hearts), but they're not trying to run other stores in the area out of business and establish a local monopoly. Also, you have to buy an annual membership to Costco, and they pay their employees well and they have excellent health-care benefits.

As with our "local" Wal-Mart, to shop at Target would involve burning some gasoline, and that would eat up whatever I might save in purchase prices, so I usually buy close by where I live.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:07 PM

OK Mr Don Firth, I will give you the personal attention you crave.

You have been in one Walmart and bought one thing one time and it broke in three days. Yes, you are now an expert Walmart basher because you know all there is to know about Walmart.

When I buy something at Walmart and I am dissatisfied, I take it back. Sometimes I decide I just didn't want it or I found it for less somewhere else and I just take it back. I have never had a problem returning things at Walmart.

I went there yesterday and I bought an Arrow T50 stapler. There was a chinese made one for less but I got the Arrow. I always buy the best quality I can afford and Walmart makes it even more affordable to buy the better grade and buy American.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:10 PM

"a 55 gallon drum of salsa"? You must own a taco chain.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:17 PM

Actually I think the Hotchkiss 120 stapler beats the Arrow T50 by miles ... for good quality staplers I go to Business Depot/Staples ... good price, good customer service .... I'm rather disappointed with thier selection of Cross pens though ... prefer Cross over those French Watermans.

Thanks Don ... thanks for your info on Target. We don't have those up here in Canada as of yet.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:23 PM

This has become too silly for me. Think I'll go to Super Wal-Mart and look for a Chinese Porterhouse steak and a Romanian pumpkin.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 10:43 PM

They were out of the Hotchkisses so I was "Forced" to buy an Arrow.

Hey Fumblefingers, stock up on the Al Harackabah Kosher pork chops while you are there.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:08 AM

It appears that Walmart is blazing the trail when it comes to trashing their own employees. It's unclear to what extent Target is following--but I'm certainly watching for information on that topic. As Don says, Costco proves it is possible to both treat your employees right and to make a profit. I posted comparisons of Costco and Walmart--gleaned from the WSJ--in 2004. If anything the contrast is even more striking now--against Walmart.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:13 AM

I drive a Japanese car, and I love it. No apologies. If I drive another car presently, I expect it will be a Japanese car too.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:04 AM

If the question as to what we buy and how much of it is made in America and what kind of car we drive is directed at me I can answer that.

* I shop at Fred Meyer, a small chain that got its start in Tigard, Oregon, about 10 miles south of Portland; you can find the stores in Oregon, Washington and Alaska only. Since Meyer died, they are now owned by the Kroger chain, and there is now a selection of Asian-made items in addition to what they always proffered. I am no longer as happy with them as I was, but Juneau tends to make one store serve many functions. Fred Meyer has groceries, clothing, household goods, an electronic department and hardwares. There is no other store here that carries all those things.

* All of us also use mail order for a lot of things.

* I also shop at Costco. (I like your 55-gallon drum of salsa, Don!)

* I don't have a car. When I came to Juneau 18 years ago I decided that if I'm going to live in a city I will rely on buses, taxis and friends and that is what I have done. In the past, I have owned a Nash Rambler (when the pistons went bad, I got an easy 35 miles an hour out of it. Going downhill.) and a 64 1/2 Mustang and a Plymouth Champ which began its life in a Mitsubishi plant. The best little car I've ever had. Sold it when I got up here.

So, OG. What, other than an American stapler did you buy?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 11:39 AM

I drive a Japanese car that is manufactured in the U.S. (assembled by American workers)... in fact a lot of Japanese cars in the U.S. and Canada are made in the U.S. .... my neighbour drives a German car manufactured in Mexico (assembled by Mexican workers).

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:29 PM

Starring Don "Quixote" Firth
             Ron "Panza" Davies
             OG the Ogre
             and of course, the ever cranking Wal-Mart as "The Windmill"
   
I love you guys! Very entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:32 PM

Old Guy, you sarcastically accuse me of being "an expert Walmart basher" after having shopped at a Wal-Mart only once, in southeast Nebraska. And, by the way, when the item fell apart three days later, I was in north central Kansas, about eighty miles away, so it wouldn't have been economically feasible for me to go back to the store and ask for a replacement or refund on an $9.00 item.

Okay, here's what the item was. When my wife and I went on the trip (her high school reunion), I forgot my reading glasses. I can get by nicely with a pair of 1.25 diopter drugstore glasses, so when I got to our destination, I asked where the nearest drugstore was where I could by a pair. I was informed that the only place where I could get something like that was at the local Wal-Mart (which was just outside the town limits so, although they had to pay state taxes, they didn't have to pay local taxes—neat, eh!??). All the glasses they had on the rack were cheap and flimsy, so I bought what appeared to be the sturdiest pair they had. Three days later, the right lens fell out. I managed to put the lens back in and hold it in place with a piece of adhesive tape. Very chic.

I keep a couple of pairs of these drugstore reading glasses handy, and I got them at a nearby drugstore here in Seattle. They usually run somewhere between $12 and $18, and unless you sit on them, they're pretty durable. The frames on the Wal-Mart glasses appeared to be made of something only slightly more durable than tinfoil. By the way, that particular pair of glasses was the best they had. Crap!

My knowledge of Wal-Mart comes partly from reading a great deal about Wal-Mart, and partly from listening to what friends in other parts of the country have to say when a Wal-Mart moves into their area—and what people said about Wal-Mart in that small town in Nebraska, where my shopping choices were limited to one store in the area—Wal-Mart.

Isn't the very essence of Capitalism the idea that the consumer should have a choice? And that the success or failure of a business should depend on the choices of those consumers? And that monopolies are an anathema to the whole Capitalist economic system because monopolies limit those choices?

Look, Old Guy:   I don't have to eat a regular diet of rotten eggs to know when an egg is rotten.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 11:44 PM

Slag--


You'll have to add to the cast of characters all stock investors--who have voted with their feet (and wallets)--running away from Walmart. Walmart has not seen a new high since 2001--and is still significantly below that high now.

And of course German consumers, who have rejected Walmart--Walmart has withdrawn from Germany--taking a sizable loss. Similarly in South Korea. UK consumers also are not standing by Walmart (its subsidiary Asda, as I understand, is being clobbered by Tesco).

The windmill is surprisingly rickety. And we are not the only ones attacking it. Who knows, the story may turn out differently this time.

Actually, the better analogy is the Berlin Wall. Recall how that story ended?

It's also interesting that neither you nor any other Walmart defender has answered the charge that Walmart is treating its own employees as a disposable commodity--contrary to "Mr. Sam's"-- (know who he was?)-- attitude.

I find your literary reference entertaining--but you must be fishing in Old's Lake---where the only fish is red herring.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 11:48 PM

Ebbie:

I had a 64 1/2 Mustang too. I traded it for a Mercedes with about 400,000 miles on it. I drove Seeds for a while and eventually got back to American cars. I think I have owned at least 40 different cars and trucks from Studebakers to Mitsus. I have no problems with American cars.

At the super Walmart I bought two packages of luncheon meat (which were not so cheap), a roll of no trespassing signs, a staple gun, smoked almonds, Jack's links, a T shirt and a 12 pack of diet Pepsi.

Price Club is a wholesale club, not a ordinary retailer. They charge a membership fee. I don't like the clubs because they usually have things in larger quantities than I like to buy.

DF:

I wear those drugstore glasses too. I find the ones at Walmart flimsy. The best I have ever had were from Giant Food but they cost around $22. Now I order them on the net for about $7.

You can return stuff at any Walmart, not just the one you bought the item from. Same way with those other horrible big box stores, Target, Home Depot etc. You don't even need a receipt. They just give you a store card instead of cash or refunding your card. It doesn't have to be in the original package or anything.

If you bought those specs at a Mom n Pop and they broke 3 days later, where would you return them?

You sound like a person with a sour attitude to me. A glass half empty type.

There may be some places where Walmart is the only store around but that is not generally the case. Walmarts can revitalize an area and provide jobs where there are no jobs. Walmarts can draw in other business and create even more jobs. Then the disgruntled, so called screwed over employees can go elsewhere and get a "real" job.

The Wal-Mart Factor
The Oswego County Case

Much has been written about Wal-Mart, its power to kill small businesses, the low salaries it pays its employees and some cases of race discrimination it's facing. But in Oswego County, the two stores, one in Oswego and the other in Central Square, have literally changed the business landscape of the area­for the better. Route 104 in Oswego, where Wal-Mart opened its first store in 1992, has experienced a "Route 31-type" of growth with businesses flourishing steadily. The area now has names like Staples, Aldis, the Dollar Tree and more recently a Bath Bed and Beyond and a new Ruby Tuesday franchise, among others that chose the east side of Oswego after Wal-Mart came on board. Route 49 in Central Square has seen the same development. The Route 49 strip is bustling with activity from new businesses, including two auto parts stores, two gas stations, a Dunkin Donuts, a liquor store and a Dollar Tree on the Wal-Mart side of Interstate 81 alone.

Most recently, a sign went up in front of a new building directly across from the supercenter, announcing the most recent location of a Pathfinder Bank branch office, which opens this spring. "We want to be where people are and where they are going to run their errands," says Greg Mills, Pathfinder's VP for marketing.

"How could I say this isn't positive?" says Peg Battles, chair of the Central Square Village Planning Board as she recalls all the controversy and the heated debates before the store opened. "Look at all of the tax dollars coming in as a result of one change. I think it was a good trade," she says.

Economic officials agree that in Oswego County's case, Wal-Mart has had a positive impact. "There are new businesses and expansions along Route 11 in Central Square that can't be directly attributed to Wal-Mart but having more traffic through the area helps those businesses, too," L. Michael Treadwell of Operation Oswego County says. "Wal-Mart may have triggered the boom in development."

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 12:56 AM

"You sound like a person with a sour attitude to me."

Really? You know me that well, do you?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 01:07 AM

I said you sound like one to me.

On the other hand you constantly state that I am a slow learner etc. anything to make your case.

Are you a Walmart basher? Is that necessarily a bad thing? You seem to think it is smart to bash Walmart but if someone says you are a Walmart Basher, you are offended.

So is Walmart bashing good or bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 12:44 PM

I'm not "bashing" Wal-Mart, Old Guy. I'm just telling my experience there and expressing an opinion based on reading about the company and what a lot of people who have had extensive experience with Wal-Mart (not having a choice because it was the only game in town) have told me.

Let me restate a couple of things I said above, just to make sure you get it

Isn't the very essence of Capitalism the idea that the consumer should have a choice? And that the success or failure of a business should depend on the choices of those consumers? And that monopolies are an anathema to the whole Capitalist economic system because monopolies limit those choices?

Look, Old Guy:   I don't have to eat a regular diet of rotten eggs to know when an egg is rotten.

If you want to interpret someone's distaste for a particular business because that business sells sleazy products and treats their employees like serfs as "bashing" that business, then go ahead. Have fun. It says more about you than it does about me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 12:11 AM

DF:

If you open a carton of eggs and pick one out to eat but it is rotten, is it logical to say all eggs are rotten?

I have been to Walmart a lot and I have yet to have a bad experience. I have yet to find an employee that was unsatisfied with their employment.

I have had several bad experiences at Home Depot and Lowe's but there is no other choice, they run the local hardware stores and lumber yards out of business. The local contractors end up doing business with them too. They get very few wholesale discounts.

Will whining, crying and sucking snot change things? Will it bring door to door milk deliveries or rear wheel drive? Nope. I adjust to the constantly changing world and get what I can where I can.

Let us live in the present, Grasshoppa, and let the past go.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 12:45 AM

I'm going on my own limited experience, true. But I'm also going on the judgment of people I know and trust, who say that they have had to buy all their eggs there because they didn't have the choice of another store, and a large percentage of those eggs were rotten. Forewarned is forearmed, and since I do have a choice, it will be a cold day in hell before I shop at a Wal-Mart.

I'm not yearning for "the good old days," Old Guy, because I've been there, and having been there, I know when things have improved and when they've retrogressed. Wal-Mart is not an improvement, it is a step backward into a feudal era. I buy my milk at the local supermarket or co-op, and my automobile is a Toyota Corolla, front-wheel drive and very economical on gasoline. I like it very much. Inherently more stable than rear-wheel drive.

"Sucking snot," Old Guy? Really! You seem to be losing your temper a bit. But then, encountering solid facts will do that to some folks.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 01:07 AM

Don't trust me and take my word for anything whatever you do. I am just a fool that buys all rotten eggs at Walmart. It's a wonder I am still alive.

Also even though I have had a bad experience with front wheel drive causing the car I was driving to lurch from one lane to another while driving in slush, I obviously know nothing. I am an idiot because I did not let that one bad experience control my automoblie buying for the rest of my life.

An even though I go out and question Walmart employes to see if what I read and hear is propaganda, I screwed up let the real time info I gather outweigh the second hand info.

You have good reason to be so upset with me because you can't put me down with your superior intelligence.

How can an idiot like me sucessfully foil every attempt of yours to prove your point? Maybe it is just dumb luck.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:02 PM

You're not foiling me in any way, Old Guy. The more you write, the more you reveal the weaknesses of your arguments.

And you seem to be getting a bit touchy.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 02:53 PM

Weakness? All I see are weak-kneed crybaby libs whining about how bad thngs are.

Al you can give is one personal example of why you don't like Walmart. Then you bash Walmart and whine about being called a Walmart basher.

Is Walmart bashing good or bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 03:22 PM

" Look, Old Guy:   I don't have to eat a regular diet of rotten eggs to know when an egg is rotten."

If youv'e eaten one egg in your entire life and it was rotten, is it logical to assume all eggs are rotten?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 04:13 PM

But more importantly: Have WalFeet been demarted?

(dismarted...?)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 06:42 PM

Old Guy, I'm also capable of learning from the experiences of others. When my one experience with Wal-Mart precipitated stories from several people who'd had similar experiences, and I read that this sort of experience is wide-spread, wouldn't it have been pretty dumb of me to go blundering back to Wal-Mart to repeat the experience?

This is why people read such magazines as Consumer Reports--to learn what other people's experience has been with various products and services. If I read that a large number of car-buying consumers have had trouble with their BelchFire V-6 and Consumer Reports rates the BelchFire way down the list, wouldn't it be pretty stupid for someone to dash out and buy one?

Case closed!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:03 PM

Old--

"I'm just a fool that buys all rotten eggs at Walmart".

Whatever you say. I'm sure you have good evidence to back up that statement.

Are you really still alive? If not, Halloween is coming up soon. With your qualifications, I'm sure you can find a good job.



Also, it might be an idea for you to actually start reading your own postings. "Mr Treadway says 'WalMart may have triggered the boom in development' " "May have". Somehow I suspect there's more to the story. Not that we'll hear it from you.



Well, well. I clicked on your link.

"Within months of Wal-Mart's opening, two local businesses, North Country Department Store and the IGA Plus grocery store went under".

Gee, I wonder why you didn't mention that.

Even for a crude polemicist --(look it up)--(Don and I will educate you yet)-- you're amazingly clumsy.

I wonder what happened to the employees at those 2 stores that closed. Do you think any wound up working at Walmart--for less than they made before? Nah, not a chance.


Please start using your head, if it's not too much trouble.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:25 PM

"capable of learning from the experiences of others" Capable but he does not use this capability. "several people" How many people?

RD:"Please start using your head, if it's not too much trouble."

Please suspend your superciliousness if it is not too much trouble.

Such ad hominem attacks betray your lack of facts to support your position and provide endless amusement.

Please explain why I have never had a bad experience at Walmart yet Don Firth has shopped there once and got something he did not like and did not return it so he continues to sniffle about it for the rest of his life.

If that is not too much trouble. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 10:38 PM

I'm so sorry it bothers you that I point out your duplicity--(and at the same time, incredible clumsiness in not even reading the articles you yourself post.) If you did, you'd realize that your own articles destroy your argument.

You really do want to start reading a bit more carefully.

But you are certainly amusing-- flailing around with expressions you half understand and falling into your own traps.

It's just too much fun to watch you.

And eventually, I believe, we'll get a straight answer out of you-- once you've fished all the red herring out of your lake.

Sweet dreams.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 11:15 PM

"Don Firth has shopped there once and got something he did not like and did not return it so he continues to sniffle about it for the rest of his life."

You're determined to be a total ass, aren't you, Old Guy?

No, I didn't return it because it would have entailed an eighty mile trip, so I just wrote it off. And no, I'm not sniffling about it—any more than the people who report their experiences to Consumer Reports Magazine. They aren't "sniffling" about it either, they're just supplying information as either a recommendation or a warning to other consumers. To me, it's no big deal. You're the one who's making a big deal out of it, as if it's somehow my fault if Wal-Mart sold me a piece of crap. But you brought up what an angelic outfit Wal-Mart is, and I and a number of others have given examples of how we've found that Wal-Mart is nowhere near as angelic as you would have people believe.

You must own stock in the company.

But DO try not to be such a total twit!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 11:16 PM

I guess it is too much trouble for you to stop being supercillious.

You have posted are ad hominem attacks and complex questions which I have answered but in a way you did not like so you just claim I did not answer them.

Here is a perfect example of youy logical falacies:

"Old Guy, I'm quite sure that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country. But their number is few compared to the products that are "outsourced."" This is not true. One visit to a Walmart will tell you this is not true. Do you have anything that compares Walmarts percentage of outsourced goods to any other retailer? Check out harbor freight.

"All the items were made in the US---you mean to say you bought one item. As Greg says, somehow your assertion is, shall we say, unlikely.

I did not mean I bought one item when I said I bought I bought 8 items.

We'll have to have a Mudcatter accompany you next time---and teach you how to read." Can you read 8 items or is this just your clumsiness showing?

"And it's unclear, if you call the number, what kind of grilling they will give you as to your absence." You are saying if someone calls this number they will get a grilling. the only question is what kind of grilling but the word grilling indicates something unpleasant will happen.

If it is not too much trouble, can you stick to facts instead of misrepresentations and inuendos? Thank you.

No doubt you will take the easy route and respond with more personal attack rather than facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 11:25 PM

You're a fine one to complain about personal attacks, Old Guy. You seem pretty addicted to using them yourself.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 11:30 PM

So just false claims of personal attacks and no facts?

Are facts too much trouble to deal with?

What percentage of Harbor freight and Dollar General's goods are outsourced compared to Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,defeated consumer
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:47 AM

Last week I walked into WalMart with a list and a broken toe.

After exhausting myself hunting for an item, I asked a clerk where they kept the Carnation Instant Breakfast. She showed me the way and I limped after her. After travelling half way across the store, she proudly pointed to the Carnation evaporated milk!

I returned to the car with only half of the items on the list because they weren't in stock. Apparently, the idea is to get you into the store with the idea its 'one stop'. What crap! They lure you into the place and then seduce you to buy what you never wanted in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:16 PM

If you ever give me a fact, I'll deal with it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:37 PM

GUEST,defeated consumer, one of the things I've turned up on my readings about Wal-Mart is that many of their very low-priced products, especially the advertised ones, are loss-leaders. The idea is to draw you into the store, then the job of the clerks is to steer you past the inexpensive item (usually sold at a loss) and talk you into buying something more pricy. The idea is that once you've been lured into the store, not to let you get away without selling you something, even if—sometimes especially if—it isn't what you came in looking for. It's also called "bait-and-switch," and in some communities, it's illegal. This may be one of the reasons that many Wal-Mart stores are right at the edge of town, just outside the town's limits—and jurisdiction (also a way of avoiding having to pay local taxes).

From what I have read, this is standard operating procedure in all Wal-Mart stores.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:29 AM

Don Firth:

What percentage of Harbor freight and Dollar General's goods are outsourced compared to Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:30 AM

PS:

It it's not too much trouble, please, thanks etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 01:54 PM

I have no idea, Old Guy. I'm not familiar with either Harbor Freight or Dollar General. I have not encountered either of those bunesses (not in my area nor anywhere I have traveled), and have never heard of them before. You tell me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:37 PM

I thought you were going to educate me.

Harbor Freight Tools is a retail tool and hardware company that started in 1968, primarily selling through its mail order catalog, which still exists today. The Camarillo, California-based company offers more than 7,000 varieties of tools on its web site, mail order catalog, and retail stores. Harbor Freight Tools has over 230 retail store locations nationwide.

Harbor Freight Tools sells power tools under its house brand names Chicago Tool, Drill Master, Central Machinery, Central Pneumatic, and U.S. General. They also sell hand tools under the Pittsburgh Tools name. Despite the American-sounding names, the products are virtually all imported from China or, in some cases, Taiwan. They are typically significantly less expensive, and of somewhat less consistent (although not necessarily worse) quality and/or fit and finish, than comparable American-made tools.

Many of the Asian imports, such as machine tools, available from Harbor Freight are also imported and sold under different brand names by other United States tool distributors, usually at somewhat higher prices (sometimes justified as buying better quality control). Several of these products, such as the perennially available 7"x10" metal-cutting mini-lathe and the 4"x6" horizontal/vertical metal-cutting bandsaw, have achieved near-legendary status among metalworking hobbyists.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:47 PM

A dollar store is a store that sells inexpensive items for one dollar or less each. A popular concept throughout the world, the stores usually sell everything from cleaning supplies to children's toys to food. In the United States, most, if not all, of these stores contain almost exclusively merchandise that is imported from overseas. There are many dollar stores that sell nothing but goods made in China.

The most notable examples are the large retail chains Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Family Dollar.

The Commission's complaint alleges that Dollar General's misconduct included: (1) intentionally underreporting at least $10 million in import freight expenses for the Company's fiscal year 1999; (2) engaging in an $11 million sham sale of outdated, essentially worthless, Omron cash registers in the Company's fiscal year 2000 fourth quarter; (3) overstating cash accounts; (4) manipulating the Company's reported earnings through the use of a general reserve or "rainy day" account; (5) failing to maintain accurate books and records and filing inaccurate financial reports with the Commission; and (6) failing to maintain adequate internal accounting controls.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:43 PM

An example of the company's efforts to broaden its U.S. customer base include a focus on gay and lesbian customers including a December 2005 internal seminar and the August 2006 joining of the corporate advisory council of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in what is described as a "pragmatic" effort "to broaden its appeal as it tries to expand into new territories, particularly in the more liberal and union-friendly urban and coastal regions". It's noted that Wal-Mart rejected the American Family Association's recommendations by carrying the movie "Brokeback Mountain," a love story about two cowboys in Wyoming

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 02:46 PM

Democrats' Shameful Wal-Mart Demonization
Presidential hopefuls only hurt themselves when pandering to unions by bashing the country's largest employer.
August 23, 2006 LA Times

WITH ONE EYE ON 2008 and one on their labor union base, Democratic luminaries are canvassing Iowa and other states this summer to campaign against the nation's incumbent … retailer. They obviously see Wal-Mart as this season's Enron, the one corporation that represents all that is wrong with America.

Too bad the party can't simply draft Costco or Target to run for president. Instead, Democratic presidential aspirants — including Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico — feel compelled to bash one company, the largest employer in the U.S., to score points with labor organizers. The candidates are so intent on gaining tactical advantage in the primary season that they risk alienating possible supporters in the general election.

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Most Americans do not want their politicians ganging up on one company. Wal-Mart may be a behemoth that employs 1.3 million people in this country and earned $11 billion in profit last year, but it still looks like bullying when politicians single out one business to scapegoat for larger societal ills. And when they start passing laws aimed at their scapegoat — as the Maryland Legislature did when it passed legislation forcing Wal-Mart to spend a certain amount on employee healthcare — the judiciary rightly balks. A federal judge struck down the regulation, holding that it violates laws requiring equal treatment of employers.

But there is no stopping the campaign rhetoric. At an anti-Wal-Mart rally last week in Iowa, Biden noted that the retailer pays people $10 an hour, and then asked: "How can you live a middle-class life on that?" It's clearly the company's fault, at least from a skewed senatorial perspective, that all Americans cannot live a comfortable middle-class life. How dare it pay prevailing retail wages? Bayh, who appeared at another rally, was quoted as saying that Wal-Mart is "emblematic of the anxiety around the country." That may be true. But if it's the emblem he's worried about, he should stay in Washington and work to make healthcare more affordable for working families.

The gusto with which even moderate Democrats are bashing Wal-Mart is bound to backfire. Not only does it take the party back to the pre-Clinton era, when Democrats were perceived as reflexively anti-business, it manages to make Democrats seem like out-of-touch elitists to the millions of Americans who work and shop at Wal-Mart.

One reason the Democrats may have a tin ear on this subject is demographic. Certainly most of the party's urban liberal activists are far removed from the Wal-Mart phenomenon. The retailer has thrived mainly in small towns and exurbs, which is one reason a Zogby poll found that three-quarters of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush in 2004, and why 8 out of 10 people who have never shopped at Wal-Mart voted for John Kerry. Denouncing the retailer may make sense if the goal is to woo primary activists, but it's a disastrous way to reach out to the general electorate. Or to govern, for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 02:57 PM

'Taint news, or facts: its an editorial. And an old one at that.

Now, who is it owns the L.A. Times, I wonder.......

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 12:22 AM

Fact: a Zogby poll found that three-quarters of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush in 2004

Fact:8 out of 10 people who have never shopped at Wal-Mart voted for John Kerry

Fact: Biden noted that the retailer pays people $10 an hour, and then asked: "How can you live a middle-class life on that?"

Fact: A federal judge struck down the regulation, holding that it violates laws requiring equal treatment of employers.

The article is less than 2 months old.

What does the Snarky Greg Jong-il provde but quips. putdowns and snide comments?


Snarky
Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse. Origin: Snark="snide remark" Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 02:43 AM

Maul Wart is still evil! no matter how you try to pretty up the stink.

Slave labor in China and elsewhere making substandard rubbish the Maul Wart labels as made in USA and the rest of it.

The Democrats are being too lenient and the Republicans don't care. Besides most politicians are too busy with the PaigeGate and re-election to care one way or the other.

BTW Todays public say that Paedophile Republicans are far more dangerous than Presidents who like BJs. Because an adult female makes adult decisions that a little boy cannot.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 11:06 AM

I have searched and I cannot find any examles of Walmart relabling anything.

In Washington DC, the age of consent is 16.

You have missed the point of this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Maul Wart is Shit?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 03:06 PM

The thread is slick advertising for Maul Wart which pays you to keep it going.

Maul Wart is shit, thats the truth.

Go chew on it for a while till you get the taste of evil!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 04:18 PM

I decided to check-out the 24 hr. WalMart near my mother's house.

I went there at 2:00 A.M. to see who was shopping at that time of night.

I was surprised to see so many children shopping with their mothers at that hour. Many of these kids were toddlers and school-age.

Isn't this a form of neglect or abuse? Isn't WalMart contributing to the deprivation of these children?

I am convinced that WalMart caters to those with the lowest I.Q.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 04:32 PM

All I can tell you is that I shop frequently at Walmart and I don't have any problems with Walmart. Sometimes I even eat lunch at the in store McDonald's.

I shopped there yesterday and bought a number of items while my oil was being changed in the express lube department.

Out of 17 items, the only thing that was foreign made was a three way tap to plug into an outlet, imported by Excalibur Trading Company in Minneapolis MN and UL listed.

They used a Fram oil filter and Pennzoil.

I was asked "how are you today" by an employee stocking the shelves. I said OK and asked them how they were. She said pretty good but I am busy today. No secret note saying "I am being held captive" or any thing like that, just a cheerful and friendly exchange.

As for being paid by Walmart, I am not, I do not own any stock in them but I don't expect you believe me or anybody that disagrees with your preconceived notions.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 05:01 PM

Old Guy - Do you understand the concept of social responsibility or are you still trying to be a strong individual in a dog eat dog world?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 05:40 PM

In the category of poetic justice...
The town I work in used to have a K-Mart. Wal-mart opened a store a couple of miles away, and K-Mart subsequently closed it's doors. Wal-mart's prices at the time were very cheap. Competition gone, Walmart's prices slowly rose to the point where Filene's sale stuff was cheaper. Today, I went shopping at a Target that had recently opened, and their prices were comparable, if not better than that Walmart's current prices. The new Target store is across the street from Walmart.

I'm not sure about their business practices, but they aren't Wal-mart.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 06:32 PM

I am convinced that WalMart caters to those with the lowest I.Q.

And (HERE'S) your proof.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:04 PM

(snicker, snicker, snicker. . . .)

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:54 PM

Old--

It would be very interesting to know how much of the wonderful goods allegedly made in the US which you have purchased at Walmart were made in the Marianas--under the US flag--and therefore officially US-made.

There are sweatshops and child labor in the Marianas--and Abramoff has been linked to this.

"Made in USA" is no longer, if it ever was, your ticket to guaranteed respectability in terms of labor practices.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 10:27 PM

Amen to that Ron!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 11:41 PM

And who did Kmart repalce?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 11:45 PM

Does Dianavan understand the concept of the need of the Palestians for Jewish Blood? She needs to address that concern.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 12:20 AM

RD "how much of the wonderful goods allegedly made in the US"

Your use of wonderful is something you have added. I do not consider them wonderful. I consider them the same goods as one would buy at any reatiler. Because they were bought at Walmart does not change make them better or worse. Maybe a bit lower in price but otherwise the same. Allegedly made in the is an assertion that they were not.

What does Walmart sell that is made in the Marianas? I will check it against what I bought.

And As I have asked you before, what percentage of Walmart's goods are imported compared to other retailers?

I'm quite sure that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country. But their number is few compared to the products that are "outsourced."

Please give us the data that makes you quite sure. If that is within your capabilities and it is not too much trouble.

And you have never explained why you claim one would surely get a grilling if they call the 800 number to call if sick.

Are you avoiding these answers because you really don't know?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 11:32 PM

Old--

Will you ever start using your head?

Re: absenteeism: When somebody calls in to work to say they will not be in, do they not hae to give a reason?

Point is: the 800 number approach will take away the discretion a supervisor used to have--somebody who actually knows the worker.

I quoted, from the WSJ, a man who works at Walmart full-time.   I already listed the changes Walmart is instituting , and I will not again--- if you're too lazy to check my earlier post, that tells me what I need to know.

The Walmart worker stated his belief that it was a campaign to discourage people with health problems from applying for jobs at Walmart--and that Walmart intended to cut down on the number of full-time workers.

You have provided not one shred of evidence to counter this assertion.




Re: "made in USA".

Glad to see you finally admit that the number of products Walmart sells that they even claim are "made in USA" is small.

Re: Marianas: I suspect it's next to impossible to determine what products come from the Marianas under sweat-shop conditions.

Point is: smug assertions that the "made in USA" label means good labor conditions are not justified.

The cheaper they are, the more likely somebody was underpaid to make them--and probably not in the mainland US.   That that doesn't bother you--nor does the systematic mistreatment by Walmart of its own workers--says worlds about you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 11:55 PM

Gee Ron you are real whiz at answers.

But I still don't understand why you assert that you would get a grilling when you call the 800 number. It seems like an assertion unsupported by facts. Where are the facts?

I still don't know what Walmart sells that was made in the Marianas. Can you name just one item? It can't be too difficult. Do other retailers sell that same Marianas made items? Is that too hard?

And you falsely claim that I "admit that the number of products Walmart sells that they even claim are "made in USA" is small" That was your claim and you can't provide any facts to support it so you try to say I made the claim. Major brainpower at work there.

And I am not required to counter a third party's assertions. You seem to be relying on ipse dixit.

Very amusing.

Care to have anther go at why there is no Asplunduh bill even though that company has a higher percentage of employees on state welfare than Walmart does?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 12:06 AM

I have a terrible confession to make. I just found out that another of the items I bought at Walmart recently was imported. The GE brand compact florescent light bulb was made in China.

I rushed around and inspected the compact flourescents I have been buying at Home Depot and THEY ARE MADE IN CHINA TOO!

Apparently they are all made in China. How am I going the reverse Global Warming and buy American too??

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: DougR
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 01:16 AM

Wal-Mart stock was way up today! For shareholders that's great news!

Ron Davies: Folks who are hard pressed for maoney to buy goods that they need, don't really give a rat's you-know-what where the merchandise was made. If the labor unions in America were a bit more realistic in what manufacturers can pay and still earn shareholders a reasonable profit, jobs wouldn't be outsoruced to other counties.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 01:56 AM

...and if more people belonged to labour unions, we wouldn't be seeing so many Mexicans standing around on street corners waiting to be picked up for casual, day labour.

If more people belonged to unions, more people would have medical coverage and pensions for their old age.

If more people belonged to unions, more people would be able to support their families and hope their children could attend college.

If more people belonged to unions, more people would be protected from unfair and unsafe labour practices.

Why pick on WalMart? Why not. You have to start somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 08:27 AM

A "reasonable profit", Douggie-boy? Just one example that you haven't been paying attention!Or chose to wilfully disregard the facts.

U.S. businesses are experiencing record, OBSCENE levels of profit & executive compensation.

Atta boy, Douggie- Bash a Union for Jesus.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 09:59 AM

I actually saw a Walmart executive call the AFL CIO rep a jihadist on the news yesterday.

Walmart still has some unexplored tricks up their sleezy sleeve.



I see a merger ahead. Walmart - Salvation Army.
They won't even have to pay minimum wage.
US Welfare and food stamps will pay Salvation Army to feed and house the workers while faith based initiatives will add some bonus cash.
Wlmart doctors can prescribe addicting generic drugs to their workes who will then work overtime for free to earn enough bonus points for their next $4 prescription.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 02:00 AM

I suppose if it was Chavezmart, all would be fine for the Liberal Crybabies.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 08:19 AM

Old-----

"their number is few compared with the products that are outsourced".--direct quote from you.   Either you can't write a clear sentence--no surprise there, I suppose--or you are indeed saying that Walmart sells few products made in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 08:23 AM

Old--

I have quoted you from your posting of 23 Oct 2006 12:20 AM--in case you can't find your own posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 08:40 AM

Doug--

Interesting that you for some reason neglect to state WHY Walmart stock is up---though not even close to what it reached back around 2000--it's been in the doldrums ever since.


According to the Wall St Journal--which might possibly know about such things--the stock is up since it appears Walmart is starting to be more realistic about its classically stupid overexpansion lately--and cutting back on said expansion. With so many reverses recently, from being forced to withdraw from Germany and South Korea, to being stymied so far after years of trying to set up a bank--opposed by, among others, Alan Greenspan-- to declines in sales of womens' clothes due to an ill-considered attempt to go "high fashion" --to being clobbered in same-store sales by Target--in the same sales area----Walmart has been forced to pull in its horns.

Yes, I know you will claim you are "pulling my chain".   Uh, I don't think so--I'm just correcting the record--Lord knows we can't depend on you for anything objective.

Sure would be nice if you'd do just a bit of research before honoring us with your pithy remarks.

But you're a Bushite---I suppose I have to be realistic in accepting that proud ignorance is the Bushite's raison d'etre.

Not that I would want to pull your chain, you understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 10:03 AM

Here is the original quote from DF that I have erroniously attributed to RD:

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth - PM
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 02:59 PM

Old Guy, I'm quite sure that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country. But their number is few compared to the products that are "outsourced." You are a great one for picking out one single example to point at in an attempt to prove your point while there are hundreds of examples to contradict your position.

I do not agree with his statement.

Are you running out of material?

Are you ready to answer the Asplunduh question yet or do you need more time? That is if it does not cause you any undue stress.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 10:00 PM

Sorry "Old"--

We'll have to finish with the Maryland situation before we start on any other state regarding the health coverage issue. As you may recall, we did begin dealing with it. I actually thought we'd finish--that I'd get some straight answers out of you--but the thread was led down other paths.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the Maryland question--which is, after all, the clearest example of Walmart's malfeasance (look it up).

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 10:04 PM

Old--


It's also interesting that all of a sudden you're not denying that you admitted Walmart sells few items made in the US.

Amazing what quoting your own words back to you can do.


And all you'd have to do to avoid absurd embarrassments like that would be to actually read what you write--before--or even after--you write it.

So sorry if checking what you write is against the Bushite creed--but then, so is thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 12:23 AM

RD:

I think it is time for you to really get serious and come up with something more that nit pickery and false accusations.

Please answer the Asplunduh question? If it is not too difficult for you to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 09:09 AM

Old--

We will finish with the Maryland question. We both live in Maryland.   We have spent a lot of time on it--and were approaching a resolution, I believe. There's a lot of information on the question.

If you can't stand the heat...

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 12:26 AM

I am freezing my ass off while waiting for some facts or answers from you.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 07:12 PM

Old--

So sorry to hear you can't afford to heat your house.

Re: "False accusations":

23 Oct 2006 12:20 AM:

"I'm quite aware that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country . But their number is few compared to the products that are outsourced."

Did you write this--yes or no?

If you don't, at a minimum, start reading what you write--before--or even after--you write it, I will be forced unwillingly to the conclusion that you are the feeblest excuse for a debate partner ever to grace Mudcat.

The least you can do is take responsibility for what you write.

Otherwise you may just qualify as an idiot--and a dishonest one at that.

And, I'm sorry to say, not worth debating.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 09:43 AM

"Did you write this--yes or no?"

No, I did not write that. It was written by:

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth - PM
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 02:59 PM

Old Guy, I'm quite sure that Wal-Mart does indeed sell a few products made in this country. But their number is few compared to the products that are "outsourced." You are a great one for picking out one single example to point at in an attempt to prove your point while there are hundreds of examples to contradict your position.

The fact that you keep trying to attribute it to me to points out your feebleness.

Have you got any facts yet or just innacurate assertions that I cannot afford to heat my house?

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Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 06:36 PM

Joe or somebody blow this spam off of here please.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 12:51 AM

Thank you Ron. That's all I WAS trying to do. Be entertaining. I thought the Don Quixote thing just kinda fit. And personally, I don't have a dog in this fight. If I have any slant at all it's against corporate giants in general. I like the uniqueness and community that small, personally owned businesses give to there neighborhoods. I seldom enter the Walmart that's in the next city west of here (Ukiah). I won't eat at Mickey D's or Burger King for the same reason (as well as the fact that I can't stand their "food"). Giantism has it's place in the evolutionary model and in bio-systems of the past it held sway for very long stretches of time. It is an interesting situation to observe. On the human front I don't like to see anybody get hurt. Big things like governments and large corporations should have the best interest of ALL people, customer and employee alike, citizen and public servant alike at heart. When I can, I pay the higher price and try to support the local merchants as much as possible but that's increasingly difficult to do on a fixed pension and limited income. I consider it a form of voting, where I shop and what I buy or refuse to buy.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 01:32 AM

Slag:

I suppose you drive a flinstonesmobile whipped up by your friendly local neighborhood auto factory.

And fuel it up at your friendly local neighborhood microrefinery.

And you use candles from your friendly local neighborhood candlemaker to read by at night instead of that infernal megacorp electricity.

Bananas in the middle of winter? That's for monkeys.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 02:32 AM

Hi OG! No, I finally got rid of the Flintstonemobile but I kinda wish I could have it back ('70 Chevy 1/2 ton) only fixed up. I fill up with an eyedropper at Lakeport Express (Sri Chandreskar on the register). I do have a coal oil lamp I like to use (green ornate glass base) but when I read late at night I use a 25 w bulb as I do tend to drift off. I'd rather pay SMUD than PG&E but I have no choice. Love them bananas too, all year long. If you read my previous posts you'd see I'm more on your side than the other, you pugnacious old rasccal! As I said, that's just my personal preferences. Wal-Mart has every right to do what they do and more power to them. If you want to shop there, go right ahead. If you want to work there, be my guest! If you don't like the pay or the way they treat you go somewhere else. It's still a free country. I'm all for the entrepreneur, the risk takers, movers and shakers. They create the jobs and make America go. There are things I don't like about either side of the arguement in the affairs of labor and management but you know, Life is a struggle and without the struggle, we don't grow. It's just another pendulum swing. In with the good air, out with the bad, up down, up down, Life's rhythms. In all Wal-Mart performs a good service, not the best but good. It took aim at the center of the bell-shaped curve and nailed it! The commies and pinkos and far-left leaning types hate to see someone get rich off a good idea or their hard work and sacrifice. In their twisted way of thinking, they think the successful owe them something, kinda like the other barnyard animals in the story about the Little Red Hen. It's not enough that they provide jobs, commodities and services. They think that the wealth should be taken from they successful and given to the ne'er do wells. I know that's an over simplification but I'm not going to recap the History of the World here. I'll just refer you back to my observations on give and take and the rhythms of Life. My personal prefences are based more on nostalga than anything but my bias runs to the right. Just remember that without the left bias there would be no fabric!

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:06 AM

"The commies and the pinkos"--ah yes, a typical objective statement.

Then there are those of us,, believe it or not, who would like Walmart to carry its own weight--as, in Maryland for instance, either paying their own workers well enough so they do not have to go on Medicaid--or if not, contributing enough to the state Medicaid fund to make up the difference, as specified in the bill recently passed by the Maryland legislature--the bill which is now tied up in the courts--for aspects unrelated to the issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 01:55 PM

Well, life is what you make of it.

In case anybody still thinks I love Walmart, I had a miserable experience there yesterday.

A super center opened recently in Frederick MD. My wife and I went there for the first time and it was not good. My wife asked at the dell counter for sliced ham and they were out and tried to give her something else. She got some packaged ham. I couldn't find everything I wanted and had to settle for something else. I didn't see any bargains anywhere.

To top it off the checkout person was nearly blind. She had to use a magnifying glass hung around her neck on a chain to focus in on numbers. We had some bread from the bakery. The bar code label was wrinkled and it would not scan. Th numbers did not work when punched in. The price was evident but she couldn't sell it to us with out the department numbers. We told her to skip it and got bread elsewhere.

Now that Sam is gone they are losing the culture that he created in the company. They are trying to go upscale and they are screwing up.

Another company will overtake them eventually.

All that being said, It is a mistake to zero in on the largest retailer for any legislation. If they sell 10% of stuff imported from China, Who sells the other 90%? Why let them off of the hook?

There are other companies with a higher percentage of employees or children on state health plans. Why let them pass?

And I think it is a lame political party that tries to use the demonization of a company as a political platform. Do they realize how many lower income voters depend on Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 02:38 PM

Do they realize how many lower income voters depend on Walmart?

...and why feed the dependency?

Why not solve the problem by creating viable alternatives?

You seem to think that WalMart and other big box retailers are there to help the poor. They are not. They target the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 03:03 PM

Please explain your master plan to save the poor from the Walmart Menace.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 03:21 PM

Govt. incentives to small businesses.

Grants for the re-vitalization of small towns.

Universal health care.

Less money for war, more money for education.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Slag
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 09:27 PM

Sounds like you have a plan there dianavan. I'm all for you and when you decide to go public I'll invest in your enterprize.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: number 6
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 09:50 PM

Remember K-Mart?

Whatever happened to them ... were they defeated?

biLL

I don't know what is happening to me ... but I shopped at Walmart again ... 2nd time in 2 months ... bought a Canon digital for $149 at the Walmart in Rockland Maine ... jeeezuz, why not, the same damn camera goes for $249 at the SuperStore electronics section back home in New Brunswick (Canada) ... Hell, I saved at least $88.00 with the currency conversion ... I mean wouldn't you throw away all ethics and morality to save $88.00?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 05:44 AM

Bill/ Number 6: I have been to that Walmart and people were streaming across the border to buy things.

I have also been to a Walmart on the border in Texas where peole were streaming across the border to buy things, mostly disposable diapers.

So are they dumb or smart or just selfish for not want to spend more money than they need to?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 05:07 PM

Hell, I'm no crybaby liberal! Human decency be damned, I saved a whole 78¢!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 05:16 PM

Old--


Some people need to pinch every penny. Somehow I don't think you're one. And as I've already pointed out, in Maryland there are a lot of other options than Walmart to save money.
Do I need to spell them out again?

That you continue to shop at Walmart despite their wretched record, particularly in taking care of their own people, says worlds about you.

If that's fine with you, then you need not be so defensive--by trying to defend Walmart. That you continue to do so shows that you do in fact feel guilty about it.

And I wonder why that would be.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 08:23 PM

Yeah, I just remembered a Mom N Pop store we visited in Presidio Texas right on the border. This place was so dinky there was nothing but Mom & Pops there and Mexicans were walking over to buy stuff.

Well sir we went into this charming local hardware store where they were still selling wash tubs, washboards and cast iron irons like you put on the stove to heat up.

They were selling 14" black and white TV's to the Mexicans for $299. Three times the going rate. How warm and friendly and charming these little locally owned shops are.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 11:33 PM

Are you going to continue to defend those rip off local merchants that screw people every chance they get?

Some people need something to cry and moan about or they are not happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 08:52 AM

Ron's obviously engaged in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 08:48 PM

Shop owner arrested in debit card scam

By BRAD WONG
P-I REPORTER

Redmond police have arrested the owner of a local smoke shop after dozens of customers who used their debit cards at his store discovered that their bank accounts had been siphoned.

One customer, a businessman, took a client to lunch, and the restaurant declined his debit card. Some victims suffered $900 in losses. Others took hits as high as $3,000, police said...
...Police believe the owner of Smoker's Choice, in the Overlake area, stole financial information from skimming customers' cards, but also somehow captured their PINs.

With that information, withdrawals were made from casinos in Las Vegas and California, said Officer Stacey Holland, a Redmond police spokeswoman. Police estimate monetary losses in excess of $100,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 09:20 PM

And how does this relate, Old Guy? Are you saying that only Wal-Mart can be trusted--and nobody else?

What a nervous life you lead.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 09:31 PM

This is one of those friendly local merchants that Walmart is supposedly driving out of business unfairly.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 10:16 PM

And you believe they're all like that?

For every crooked one, there are tens of thousands of honest, conscientious merchants. But if you're that paranoid, maybe you'd better just stick with what makes you feel safe and secure. With all those crybaby liberals out there, you have enough to be apprehensive about.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 09:12 PM

All you can do is make false personal accusations because you cannot produce facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 10:23 PM

None you would believe. But that's no surprise. When the facts run contrary to your prejudices, you just ignore them anyway.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 10:31 PM

Again just personal attacks and no facts.

You know, I would be in favor of that Maryland law if it covered all retailers equally.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 10:48 PM

You never learn--do you, Old?

I've told you more than once that if there was a move to cover all retailers in Maryland (not just the $10,000 threshold)--that would kill the bill faster than anything. Fear of that is precisely why the main small business organization in Maryland opposed the bill.

Why do I get the distinct impression that the death of the bill--from any cause--would not bother you in the slightest?

Can you spell H Y P O C R I T E?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 07:19 PM

Ah, thats 10,000 employees not "(not just the $10,000 threshold)"

You just spelled it yourself.


And that is what I call someone who want one rule for one company but not another company just because they don't like that company.

Do you believe in justice for all or selective justice?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 11:40 AM

OK Old Guy--10,000 employees, not $10,000. You are correct.

But the point remains--anybody who advocates that all firms in Maryland, not just those with 10,000 employees, would be subject to the bill's provisions, is in fact advocating the death of the bill--since small business would then oppose it even more strongly than they did.

Small business' fear of being included in the bill's purview is the main reason for the opposition to the bill.

Given that, do you want any business with less than 10,000 employees in Maryland to be covered?

If so, your true agenda becomes clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 11:01 PM

Yeah, my true agenda. Laws that do not single out one company. Laws that apply equally to all.

Your agenda is to attack one company that does 10%+- of the business and leave the rest that do 90%+- alone.


Looting Wal-Mart
by David Freddoso | Jan 22, 2006

...A better example of the perverse incentives and absurd results of government micro-management came to light last week in Maryland, where a few well-placed geniuses decided they were going to endanger thousands of jobs in their state in order to make a point. Democrats, who completely dominate the state House and Senate in Annapolis, overrode Gov. Bob Ehrlich's (R) veto of a bill requiring any business with more than 10,000 employees in the state to spend on health care an amount equal to 8% of its payroll.

Wal-Mart has 16,988 employees in Maryland, and it is the only private corporation that meets the 10,000 threshold. For that reason, the bill is widely known as "the Wal-Mart bill."

Regardless of how you feel about Wal-Mart, this bill is just plain stupid, and in too many ways even to explain in a 1,000 word column. But here are just a few of the absurdities that could result:

    * If Wal-Mart fires or relocates 6,989 Maryland employees, it will immediately be in compliance with this law. Maryland is a small state with lots of border, and a few stores just across the Delaware line could continue to serve many Maryland customers, without the burden of Maryland's sales tax.

    * Likewise, if Wal-Mart dismisses 6,989 employees and hires them back as independent contractors, it could skirt the new law and, in fact, avoid paying those workers any health benefits whatsoever or even payroll taxes.

    * Wal-Mart could also comply with this law by reducing its employees' salaries, but spending the same amount it does now on health care, as long as the latter number comes out to 8% of the former.

The stated reason for this bill is that Wal-Mart pays its workers so little that they cannot afford the company health plan, which is inexpensive if minimal. This ends up costing the state when Wal-Mart workers sign up for Medicaid.

Entirely aside from the fact that this is a problem of Maryland's welfare generosity more than Wal-Mart's stinginess, Maryland is getting the better end of this deal. According to its web site, Wal-Mart paid $112.2 million in Maryland sales taxes and $13.2 million in other state and local taxes in 2004. It also employs thousands of Marylanders directly and tens of thousands of others indirectly through its dealings with in-state vendors -- and they all pay state taxes too.

Wal-Mart's full-time associates in Maryland make an average of $9.97 per hour, plus a four percent contribution to their 401k. It's not a great package -- it comes out to about $21,000, plus an occasional bonus -- but there's more to the story than that number alone.

The lower-paying Wal-Mart jobs attract those who would have trouble getting a job that pays more -- young people getting a first job, poor and unskilled workers, and recent immigrants (including illegal ones, as the government discovered last spring). Moreover, Wal-Mart says that 220,000 of its 1.3 million workers in the U.S. are older than 55, suggesting that many employees are looking to supplement their retirement. The workforce is also disproportionately female (775,000 women work for Wal-Mart), suggesting that a Wal-Mart income may be a second income for many families.

If Wal-Mart scales back its presence in Maryland because of the state legislature's hostility toward businesses, it is the workers and the unemployed who will suffer. Until this bill passed, Wal-Mart had been planning to build a distribution center in economically depressed Somerset County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The facility would have brought 800 jobs to the area. The company may now decide to relocate a few miles in either direction, either to Delaware or to peninsular Virginia, both of which are nearby.

It's All About the Unions

So you might say that this law hurts those it is intended to help. But you would be wrong. The Wal-Mart bill was never intended to help the workers at Wal-Mart. It is intended to help Democrats and labor unions.

This bill is part of a nationwide campaign by labor unions to recover their rapidly declining share of the U.S. labor market. In 1945, unions represented 35% of the labor force. Today they have fallen to 12.5%. In the private sector, unions represent a mere 7.8%, and they have become desperate for more members. In recent years, they have tried, in vain, to find fresh blood by opening into new sectors of the economy.

Wal-Mart is big enough to qualify as its own sector of the economy, meaning that if the unions can get a toe-hold in its stores, they will have an excellent crack at the company's million-plus employees, plus a good shot at creating closed shops in some states.

Most Democratic politicians would lose their jobs if unions stopped contributing millions of dollars for political campaigns and thousands of bodies on Election Day. The decline of unionism has been disastrous for the Democrats, and its resurrection would be a political boon. For that and no other reason did the Maryland legislature pass this bill, and for the same reason they will try it in other states as well. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has been unsuccessful in unionizing any Wal-Mart workers to date, will continue to harass Wal-Mart until it capitulates.

There are plenty of legitimate objections to Wal-Mart -- the China issue, the poor quality of their merchandise, the gaudiness of their stores -- and the unionization campaign has adopted many of them in its rhetoric. But you can bet your last dime that the minute the union campaigners descend upon the Wal-Mart host organism, you will never again hear their heart-rending paeans to the disappearing Mom-and-Pop stores of old.

In the meantime, union-friendly state legislatures can take a cheap shot at helping their political allies by preventing their citizens from taking jobs. Perhaps those 800 unemployed Marylanders in Somerset County will find some other way to survive, such as going on welfare or laundering money for my Nigerian business partner.

David Freddoso, a native of Indiana, is a political reporter for Evans and Novak Inside Report.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:02 AM

Ah, yes, the America's Future Foundation- more conservatieve blogshite spew.

Must be fair & balanced & true, even.

Puh-leeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:25 PM

Old--

No, "Old"--for the n th time-----(you're even slower than usual):

I have pointed out that if you require firms with less than 10,000 employees to be subject to the bill, you doom the bill--and no firm is covered.

It's now obvious that's what you want.

So please spare us your hypocrisy about "all firms should be covered".

Thank you so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:34 PM

"firms with less than 10,000 employees"

Why not 99 like other states? It is clear that you do not like equal justice. And you accuse me of being a hypocrite.

You can call me slow or use any demeaning descriptions you want but it does not conceal your unfair attitude. In fact it demonstrates your unfair, disrespectful attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:46 PM

Old-

-We are talking about the proposed Maryland bill. It pains me to have to point out to you that the bill only affects Maryland.   Duh, I wonder why.

And you have given absolutely no good reason why firms with less than 10,000 employees should be affected by that bill.

While I have given a fairly decent reason for not including them--i.e. that it would doom the bill.

If you ever do want to consider a political career--with your mastery of the great political skill of dodging the question--you might want to keep in mind that you actually like to have your bills passed, not defeated.

Hope you can grasp that. It's rather important.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 01:55 PM

Where does Maryland appear in the title or the opening of this thread? You brought Maryland into it and now you are attempting to control what is presented

You have been reduced to clutching at straws and ad hominem attacks.

Are you saying 10,000 is fair? If so are states that have it set at less than 10,000 being unfair?

And last of all, do you consider it fair to target one company with a law?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 11:45 PM

No, Old, as usual, you've missed the point--maintaining your perfect record.

Congratulations.

There's a difference between grasping at straws and trying to nail jello to the wall---that is, trying to get a straight answer out of you. We both live in Maryland. There are facts about the Maryland law which can be ascertained with no chance for weasel room. I have provided said facts.

And if you disagree, you are welcome to say why.

It's easier to come to conclusions on a specific piece of legislation than to muck around in the swamp of generalizations--without support--which seems to be your habitat.

The Maryland situation is quite clear---and I did warn you earlier that I would not let you wander down your dead-end trails without eventually bringing you back to the path.

Gee, I wonder why you're unwilling to tell us why you advocate killing the bill.



To repeat--yet again:

1) Any attempt to cover firms with less than 10,000 employees would doom the bill.

2) All Walmart would have to do to obviate-- (look it up)-- the need for the bill, at all--would be to pay their employees sufficiently so they would not need Maryland taxpayers to pay for poor Walmart workers' Medicaid.

3) It obviously doesn't bother you to patronize a store which treats its own workers so poorly. Therefore you need not feel compelled to defend Walmart at all--since what they do is fine with you. The fact that you do so indicates that you do in fact feel guilty about it
And I wonder why that would be.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: GUEST,a WalMart worker
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:00 PM

I work a very easy job and make 10.50 an hour and I could get decent benefits for low cost.I live in Indiana where cost of living is low but, all in all- they pay decent and give benefits to part timers.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:08 PM

"Has Walmart been defeated?"

Someone declare war on Walmart?

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:36 PM

They are saying that Walmart had a decidely better relief effort in New Orleans than FEMA.

It is partly true.
The administration weakens the federal agencies as he strengthens privatization of all things.

Subject: RE: BS: Has Walmart been defeated?
From: Peace
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:43 PM

"They are saying that Walmart had a decidely better relief effort in New Orleans than FEMA."

There were 50 SAR folks from Vancouver, Canada, who were in New Orleans to help before the then-director of FEMA knew there was a problem.