The WalMart bashers have absolutely no understanding of economics and business. They moan and whine about the poor exploited workers in China. Well I have news for them. These poor exploited workers and their families are much better off today then before they were manufacturing products for export.
That's 100% true.
It is China that has to protect their workers, not American companies. Prior to the American and other foreign businesses in China, these people didn't have jobs or if they did it was under much worse conditions than today. The economy and the standard of living in China has improved drastically from where it was. This is a result of China embracing Capitalism.
It's also a result of the Chinese manipulating their currency exchange rate to keep the yuan artificially low against the US dollar. More money that gets spent on Chinese made goods therefore goes into China and stays there as a result than comes back out again.
In a truly fair system, money would cycle virtually equally. This happens do to the fact that as money pours into a country, that country's currency becomes worth more, allowing for more trade and trade imbalances to equalize as the poorer country's purchasing power grows and it takes in more exports.
China is not embracing capitalism it is exploiting this weakness and Walmart exec's are aiding that exploitation in exchange for taking a small percentage cut.
WalMart sells a lot more products than junk from China.
That's also true. Walmart exploits Canada and Mexico as well and really any country which has a weaker currency than the dollar.
They offer many brand name products of all types at low prices.
This is also true. How they do this is go to suppliers and tell them the number of items they want to purchase and the price they are willing to pay. Since Walmart deals in such large volume the figures for the entire transaction can be very large, but on a per item basis, often times causes the product maker to have difficulties. They are such a big player though they can bully others relatively easily into meeting their terms.
Google "Frontline: is Wal-Mart good for America?" to see what I mean.
There us nothing wrong with that as it benefits the consumer.
It takes the US dollar and sends it into the Chinese money pit. This does enable some Chinese to get richer but since China has three times the population as the US, those that do get richer as a percentage of the Chinese population are far fewer than those that get poorer in the US do to the exportation of manufacturing that goes along with the exportation of wealth.
It might not affect you now, but unless and until the job you do can be done overseas, you really have no clue as to what is actually going on. With China and India combined, there are six times the number of people competing for every exportable job in the US and all of them have a lower standard of living due to them having a less valuable currency.
If you think what's going on can continue you are sadly mistaken. Many in the US have already been forced into using the credit cards for life support as a result of the wealth that's been exported and not returning. And this is only going to continue for the foreseeable future until the cost of exporting reaches parity with that of maintain jobs/production here.
As far as WalMart employees go, any issues they may have is between them and WalMart. Nobody forces anybody to work there.
That's absolutely true.
In reality the majority of WalMart employees are happy with their jobs.
That's because Walmart, to its credit, employs many who could not or would not be able to get work elsewhere. They are happy to have any job.
It is true that many small businesses can't compete with them. But that is simply evolution and not a bad thing.
Yes it is. In the past it was called becoming a monopoly and very rightly looked down upon. One large organization stifles innovation by keeping competitors from the taking the field and innovations they may have brought with them or created to compete with Walmart.
It would be like banning all home cookbooks and recipes and replacing them with just those from say Bettie Crocker because Bettie Crocker recipes are simplest and cheapest to utilize and thus more efficient.
That's not better in my opinion, just more efficient.
One can say the same thing about the supermarket chains etc.
You can, but the two although in some cases utilize the same tactics, Walmart operates in an entirely different league than most of those chains.
In many cases WalMart has benefited many small cities and rural areas by providing higher paying jobs than were previously available and providing lower prices for the locals.
Yes they do. They are robbing from Peter to pay Paul, but if you are Paul what Walmart does is very appealing.
So let the WalMart bashers wail away but in the meantime enjoy shopping wherever you want.
It has to be said Walmart isn't the only company that does this. There was an expose about a company in the UK using child labor in India to make shirts for the UK market, and to Walmart's credit it doesn't go to that length to make a profit (and I've heard Walmart actually helps some places build things like schools and fitness facilities for employees) but that doesn't mean Walmart should be beyond being criticized.
By the way, I have absolutly no connection with WalMart or any retailer.
Nor do I.
