Down with Wal-mart!

You can watch the whole film: Right Here!Check out these sites:WakeUpWalMart.com WalMartwatch.com WalMartBlows!Want a more direct approach when venting your frustration toward Wal-Mart? Call them!!!Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 1-800-WAL-MART Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611 Employee Complaint line: 1-800-WMETHICThis page's purpose is obvious: we want people to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. They have low prices, but that comes with a price. Here's a long illustration of that price:When I set off to compile a list of reasons I thought Wal-Mart was such a great threat to the American consumer, I felt my store-bought, cable news-influenced list would suffice. I thought, being a politically motivated and empathetic American, that I knew why Wal-Mart's colonization of this country had to be stopped. The more I researched, the more I found how very wrong I was.It's common knowledge that Wal-Mart moving into an area puts smaller shops out of business, but it can be argued that such a large company creates more jobs. This would be a good thing in a time when we, as a country, are losing jobs by the day to out-sourcing. And what about the Everyday Low Prices? How can getting a gallon of whole pickles for less than $3.00 be a bad thing? If the consumer spends less on necessities, then there is more money that can be used for enjoyable things. So maybe the good aspects of Wal-Mart outweigh the bad. Maybe Wal-Mart founder, the late Sam Walton, has just personified the American Dream, and his critics are incorrect and overly judgmental. These are the arguments that surround water coolers and fill car-pools all across America and this is as far as they go. If taken further, if actual research is done, then it becomes more than apparent that we are bargain-shopping ourselves to the unemployment line.Whenever a new Wal-Mart opens, about 350 new jobs are created. This amount of jobs would be welcome in any community in American right now. But what about the small businesses that close because they can't compete with Wal-Marts Everyday Low Prices? Even if 25 small stores close in the surrounding area, the community has still gained jobs, unless these hypothetical shops employed more than ten people, which is doubtful. So at first glance it seems that Wal-Mart really doesn't hurt the communities into which they move. Here is where both critics of Wal-Mart and their supporters stop investigating. Taken a step further, the facts are as astounding as they are frightening.Last year Wal-Mart was directly responsible for 770,000 jobs being outsourced to the nation of China. Now for some math: this means if Wal-Mart creates 350 with each new super-center, they would have to build 22,000 new super-centers in that year to counteract the damage they caused. One might ask: How does Wal-Mart cause jobs to be outsourced? The answer is in their slogan: Everyday Low Prices.Wal-Mart's goal is to lower the price of every item they sell on at least a yearly basis. This is another aspect of the Walton family's operation that may seem well intended, until the after-shock effects are brought into focus.A few years ago, the Vlasic Company introduced a gallon-sized jar of pickles. When Wal-Mart heard about this, they decided to sell the jar for $2.97. Thats right around the price of a regular-sized jar of pickles in a regular super market. In that year, Vlasic sold more units than ever before, but still considered filing for bankruptcy. Wal-Mart was selling the pickles for a 3-cent profit; all while taking business away from regular super markets by making their pickles from Vlasic seem about five times as expensive. (In reality, a regular-sized jar of pickles is five times less economical than the gallon jar, but I'd like to see the family that can eat a gallon of pickles before they go bad.)For years, Vlasic worked hard to build their great reputation and to get people to buy their products for a higher price than the generics brands. Wal-Mart erased all that in one year.Wal-Mart can sell an item for a miniscule 3-cent profit because they know they're going to sell millions of units. Vlasic, and other suppliers of Wal-Mart, however, cannot. The only recourse companies like Vlasic have is to move most of their low-level manufacturing jobs overseas to countries with more lax labor laws, countries such as China.As previously stated, Wal-Mart's price-controlling tactics are the principle reason American companies send jobs to places like China. To put this in perspective; Wal-Mart bought $12 billion worth of goods made in China in 2002, thats 12% of all Chinese exports. America is the largest industrialized nation on Earth and we have a trade deficit with what is essentially a third world country. I'd laugh, but I'm too embarrassed.If that wasn't bad enough, China is a country wherein some of the fair labor practices that Americans take for granted are but dreams to the common worker. Although it seems that China is making progress, it is still a government with policies that go against many of the ideals on which our country was founded, like fair labor. We finance this unfair labor by shopping at Wal-Mart. Think about that on your way to church this Sunday.China has a different definition of minimum wage, and in the past the UN has been forced to take disciplinary measures against them in response to human rights violations (see this site ). If the actions being carried out by the Chinese government were so awful, then why would any American company send their jobs there? The answer is simple: they must in order to stay alive.Vlasic told Wal-Mart that they had to raise the price of the pickles to a reasonable price because, even with Chinese manufacturing, they were going broke. Wal-Mart, calling Vlasics bluff said in reply, "If you do that, all the other products if yours we buy, we'll stop buying". So even large and reputable companies such as Vlasic are left with no options. And keep in mind, Vlasic is a single example I chose, every company that does business with Wal-Mart is subjected to the same shameful, un-American tactics.Now as some light has been shed on this dire situation, we can take the effects of Wal-Mart's business tactics a step further. Its very simple cause and effect: when we buy from Wal-Mart, we increase their ability to force super low prices on their suppliers, which forces their suppliers to send jobs to China and other cheap labor nations, which cuts down drastically on the number of manufacturing jobs available to Americans. We are, as stated before, bargain-shopping ourselves to the unemployment line. As I've mentioned, Wal-Mart plans to lower the price of every item they sell on at least a yearly basis; on their current track, they will force about 3.5 million American jobs just to China by the year 2010. At present, the U.N. is nearly powerless against China's treatment of its citizens as a result of Western political and financial reliance on Chinese low-cost manufacturing. Just imagine what they could get away with when Wal-Mart indirectly employs half a billion people there.Wal-Mart's Darwinian approach to the American Dream forces small companies, larger supplier companies, and us as consumers, to mortgage both our financial futures and our collective morals in a vain attempt at Everyday Low Prices. I doubt a pickle will taste as good now with the knowledge that we sacrifice our morals, our jobs, and our future for that price.One requirement of the American Dream is that it be all-American. Wal-Mart's version is the American Dream via Bangladesh, China, and Thailand etc.One requirement of being an American is that you do your part. The people who read this, stop shopping at Wal-Mart, and pass the message on to their friends, are doing their part to show gratitude for how easy life is for most in the United States.This doesn't mean putting a flag outside your house, it means being thankful for having a really easy life. It means telling corporations like Wal-Mart that we are not as stupid and powerless as they think. It means that it's time to stop acting like the opiate-drowned mass we've become. So wake up.