Article

2020-05-14 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Walmart to Give a Second Cash Bonus to Its U.S. Hourly Employees

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Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-14 00:22|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 Chinese box stores labeled... "essential" CV-19 bonus paying heroes. Mom and pop small businesses must close or face jail time and bankruptcy.

Is it just me, or does anyone else detect a pattern ?

Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-14 00:31|| 2020-05-14 00:31|| Front Page Top

#2 Oligarchs 'R' Us... soon everyone in retail will work for either the Waltons or ~~Geoffrey~~ Jeff the Mini-Giraffe

Posted by Lex 2020-05-14 07:42|| 2020-05-14 07:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Another way to smother small businesses is to enact laws/impose regulations so strict that they don't have the legal or financial muscle to fight. Free market my zhopa.

Posted by Clem 2020-05-14 07:46|| 2020-05-14 07:46|| Front Page Top

#4 You WILL shop at the Government ~~PX/BX~~ Reservation store.

You WILL send your children to the Government run school.

You WILL lease your residence (via property taxes) from the Government run housing system.

You WILL hire employees IAW (in accordance with) Government Equal Opportunity guidelines.

Do I need to continue ?

Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-14 07:55|| 2020-05-14 07:55|| Front Page Top

#5 But, but, Besoeker: suppose the government is really competent & trustworthy?😁

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-05-14 08:07|| 2020-05-14 08:07|| Front Page Top

#6 ..so, turn it over to the Swiss? Not a really good idea given how they handled bank accounts of people of certain religious persuasion in the post war era.

Maybe Denmark. There's the plan.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-05-14 08:33|| 2020-05-14 08:33|| Front Page Top

#7 The Swiss aren't doing such a great job handling bank accounts now, either.

Posted by Clem 2020-05-14 08:36|| 2020-05-14 08:36|| Front Page Top

#8 Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot sell lots of stuff not made in China. The boilerplate that those stores are wholly owned subsidiaries of China is stupid. They sell what their customers want. If you don't want China stuff, don't buy it, but don't come down on the heads of Americans who work there or make non China products sold there or American stock holders who depend on their investment to create the returns that the stock market is all about. MmmmK?

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-05-14 09:42|| 2020-05-14 09:42|| Front Page Top

#9 Bought pills made in India last week at Sam's Club. India is a counterweight to China. But I'm a comsymp for going there to get a product I: 1) need and 2) there is no second source for. I'm a commie stooge, me...

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-05-14 09:46|| 2020-05-14 09:46|| Front Page Top

#10 I never buy Tyson products because they are in the Clintons' pocket. I feel that is important.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-05-14 10:26|| 2020-05-14 10:26|| Front Page Top

#11 Walked to a neighborhood Dollar store (exercise and fresh air, yes?) and noticed the following regularly stocked items:
Pasta from Turkey, Canned Tuna from Thailand, Corned Beef Hash from Brazil, and Canned Luncheon Meat (AKA SPAM) from Denmark.
...So it is more pervasive than you would think.

Posted by magpie 2020-05-14 12:30|| 2020-05-14 12:30|| Front Page Top

#12 Austrian Banks are kind of the trend, now.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2020-05-14 13:30|| 2020-05-14 13:30|| Front Page Top

#13 M.Murcek is right on this one. One of the reasons WalMart can offer such low prices is not the cheap stuff they source in China, but the good American stuff they get more cheaply because of how they manage their supply chain. As far as I am aware, it started back in the 1980s with Procter&Gamble (Tide, Crest, Pampers, etc) electronically connecting directly into WalMart’s sales, so that as customer purchases were rung up, replacement products were automatically re-ordered from P&G, cutting out the entire process of purchasing staff placing orders with sales people who then submitted them to the home office, and minimizing warehouse storage. This also allowed P&G to smooth out their production rate, leading to cost savings they willingly share with WalMart — last I heard the relationship was worth $10 billion/year.

Posted by trailing wife 2020-05-14 14:21|| 2020-05-14 14:21|| Front Page Top

#14 WalMart is deemed essential because they sell groceries. Same with Costco. It just so happens they sell all kinds of other stuff. They are a mega store chain because they run an extremely efficient business. I recently bought a Samsung TV there that was made in Vietnam. It is true they sell a lot of stuff from China but they also sell a lot of stuff that is not from China. Same with HomeDepot. And besides all that, the mom and pop stores sell stuff from China too.

Pay attention to the labels on the products and not the name of the store where the products are sold.

Blame the manufacturers who sold out to China. The company I most despise is Hewlett-Packard. They outsourced all of their manufacturing to China. The excuse was that profit margins were razor thin so they had to reduce labor costs. Maybe. But if there was a decent computer on offer today that was Made in USA I'd buy it right now even if it cost a few hundred dollars more. I'm doing the same with chain saws and weed whackers. No more Black and Decker for me. I want Stihl.

But while you're assigning blame, point a finger at labor unions who will go on strike for more money even if it bankrupts their employers. They are their own worst enemies.

Then you might look at minimum wage laws that make it illegal for American workers to compete with their counterparts in other countries.

Last but not least, blame the American elites who think it's OK to do business with a hostile and aggressive dictatorship like China when we should be treating them just the same as we did the USSR.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2020-05-14 14:59|| 2020-05-14 14:59|| Front Page Top

#15 BTW, if you wanna order stuff online, check WalMart before you order from Amazon. As far as I know the Walmart owners, unlike Jeff Bezos, have no stake in fake news outlets like the Washington Post.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2020-05-14 15:08|| 2020-05-14 15:08|| Front Page Top

#16 BTW, I try to avoid ordering stuff online because you cannot see the labels, you can't tell where it was made and they will not tell you. You don't know until it arrives at your home. Then, if you want to send it back, it's always a big hassle.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2020-05-14 15:14|| 2020-05-14 15:14|| Front Page Top

#17 Years ago,I worked at Home Cheapo. It was an ongoing joke with our over night stocking crew, how much of the shit there,was made in China. If I was too estimate 90% China,9% other countries,1% US. You're right,don't piss on the workers, but all that company is trying to do is,undercut competition and put them out of business.

Posted by bbrewer126 2020-05-14 16:33|| 2020-05-14 16:33|| Front Page Top

#18 Third option. DYI (do it/make it yourself). My grandfather made leather and clothe shoes for the whole family. The volunteer firemen in my small town would have a couple barbecues, take the proceeds and buy a new Ford 2.5 ton chassy, a PTO, a pto driven water pump, 1/4" steel plate sheets, red paint etc and build a heck of a good fire truck. Farmers let you grow your own crops on their farm if you shared a small percentage of the harvest with them. The women held harvest canning parties. They also had sewing parties where clothes were made from paper patterns. Some guys would get together and build a "Hoopie", a home built car buïlt from scratch.

This was from before Walmart, Chinese imports, massive government regulations. Thïs was small town life 50 years ago when I was a kid.

Posted by Varmint Splat1454 2020-05-14 17:52|| 2020-05-14 17:52|| Front Page Top

#19 Sharecropping? No thanks. My ancestors escaped that tin roof shack (carpet on the roof to reduce the noise) barely a generation ago. And the caol miners in the other part of my family tree know that Tennessee Ernie Ford was singing the gospel truth about owing your soul to the company store.

Posted by Marilyn Tojo7566 2020-05-14 18:41|| 2020-05-14 18:41|| Front Page Top

#20 The late Sam Walton took great pride in American made products in his stores. As is so often the case, follow-on generations lost the Made in America bubble.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-05-14 18:45|| 2020-05-14 18:45|| Front Page Top

#21 Less stuff
Better stuff
Locally-produced stuff

= Higher prices but also higher wages
... and better quality of life

Posted by Lex 2020-05-14 19:11|| 2020-05-14 19:11|| Front Page Top

#22 Sam's daughter Alice donated a lot of money to Pierre Delecto's prexidential champagne.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-05-14 19:56|| 2020-05-14 19:56|| Front Page Top

#23 ...that's part of the problem. To many American outfits trade off Q&A for quick profits. Just look at American car manufacturing. Last year I wanted a new washer and drying. Went to the consumer sites. Not one decently American made product. I would have paid more but the quality issue was a killer.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-05-14 20:01|| 2020-05-14 20:01|| Front Page Top

#24 ..washer and dryer...

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-05-14 20:01|| 2020-05-14 20:01|| Front Page Top

#25 When the SHTF will you refuse to fight if all that's at hand is an AK?

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-05-14 21:12|| 2020-05-14 21:12|| Front Page Top

23:26 Bobby
23:21 Phusotle Dingle5823
22:48 Lex
22:42 Grunter
22:03 Rob Crawford
21:50 Lex
21:48 Lex
21:47 Lex
21:44 Lex
21:42 Lex
21:38 Lex
21:32 Mullah Richard
21:27 Mullah Richard
21:12 M. Murcek
21:12 trailing wife
20:33 Anomalous Sources
20:30 Anomalous Sources
20:11 Frank G
20:08 Frank G
20:04 Frank G
20:01 Procopius2k
20:01 Procopius2k
19:59 Phusotle Dingle5823
19:56 M. Murcek