Subject:
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Credibility Gap: Wal-Mart's Corporate Welfare
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 26 Sep 2003 22:52:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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354 times
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Will break to Wal-Mart really pay?
http://www.denverpost.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,36%257E155%257E1656610,00.html
Let me make sure I understand this correctly: Here in Colorado, a state that
largely deplores welfare, affordable housing assistance and other entitlement
programs, the city of Denver wants to give $10 million in welfare benefits to
Wal- Mart?
Edit: snip!
But I shouldn’t be too judgmental, because if anyone deserves welfare, it’s
Wal-Mart. Let’s face it: Alice, Helen, Jim and John Walton, the family members
who own 38 percent of the company’s stock, aren’t doing so great.
Their combined net worth of $66 billion places them in spots No. 7 through No.
10 on Forbes list of the world’s richest people. With just a little help from
cities like Denver, the family might be able to climb up into the middle class
(places No. 4 through No. 6).
Edit: snip!
Here’s the deal: Khanh Vu, the owner of the Alameda Square shopping center, has
agreed to sell the property to Wal-Mart for about $12.5 million. That sounds
perfectly fine. Good for him. Good for Wal-Mart. However, the supermarket giant
said it won’t buy the property unless the city offers $10 million in tax breaks.
Imagine if you were selling your house and your best offer was $500,000. But the
buyer said he wouldn’t come through on the deal unless the city threw in 10
years of tax abatement. Would you call the mayor and ask for help? Do you think
you’d get it?
Lawmaker, Women’s Groups Hit Wal-Mart
Edit: Originally printed in the Sacramento Bee -- which is where I read it
about a month ago. The SacBee search gave me no joy however...
http://www.walmartversuswomen.org/news.html
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. came under fire Wednesday from a California politician who
alleged the company does not offer affordable health insurance and instead
encourages employees to sign up for welfare, food stamps and other government
subsidies.
Edit: snip!
“We’re in the middle of painful cuts at the Legislature to programs for people
who need it the most because of this state budget crisis,” said Lieber, “while
Wal-Mart, one of the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world,
facilitates through its low wages ways for employees to access public assistance
programs, to get on welfare. That’s pretty much a smoking gun.”
WAL-MART MYTHS AND REALITY
http://www.flagstaffactivist.org/campaigns/walmyths.html
Edit: You can google lots of stuff like this, maybe even something from a more
reputable and less pointedly Anti-Walmart source. I don’t doubt the essential
assertions though...
Myth: Wal-Mart “Buys American” and Wal-Mart “Brings it Home to the USA.”
Fact: Two 1998 studies that surveyed clothing on Wal-Mart store racks and
shelves found 80% and sometimes more thatn 9o% of the apparel items were
produced overseas, many in countries where sweatshops and child labor are
prevelant.
“The truth is,” says the National Labor Committee, “Wal-Mart has moved far more
production offshore than the industry average.” There’s more: Commenting on
Wal-Mart’s “Buy Mexican” program, an expert on economic nationalism said
Wal-Mart is “. . .shamelessly manipulating nationalist sentiments in both
countries. . . . For all its public nationalism, Wal-mart is reinvesting its
all-American dollars overseas.”
So now I’m going to give you the bottom line -- and let’s face it, that’s what
we all want to know whether we are politically left, middle, or right. What does
it all mean?
It means that Wal-Mart has the global ability to loot resources wherever they go
with their multinational, “box” style, branded, warehouse stores. It means they
have more buying power than some nations. And it means that they offer *some*
discounts at the expense of increasingly devalued man/woman labor hours all
across the globe.
Why do I call it looting? Because if Wal-Mart closes up shop in Mexico because
labor is cheaper still in Asia then they are just burning down one labor force
after another, keeping them just above the starvation line even while they are
actually providing employment. It also means that some politicos probably gave
Wal-Mart incentive to be somewhere but that ultimately Wal-Mart can claim
whatever excuse and just bail. It’s a sweet deal because short-term it looks
like a labor creator, but long-term it’s just looting from both sides. A kick
back from local govt. going in, a take-back via subnormal pay while Wal-Mart is
open for business, then Wal-Mart just closes up shop so that it can count its
strong dollars in profit before the deal starts going sour for the numero uno
looter.
Wal-Mart is just the example du jour. There are many examples of businesses
doing this all over the U.S. and internationally. I just don’t understand why
the local politicians cave in to these obvious tactics -- well, actually I think
I understand it, I just can’t prove anything so why bother explaining it to you?
1. Get subsidized.
2. Squeeze labor.
3. Force labor to get govt. handouts too.
4. Labor gets uppity, close down the plant (esp. true for manufacturing).
5. Profit!
Seriously, do I have this all wrong? Educate me, please.
This is why I think globilization sucks. This is why I think that corporations
are not your friends. Sure, mom and pop corporations can be great -- I support
THOSE kinds of corporations! But for every decent and well-intended law
written, you will likely find a super-rich group that can manipulate the good
purposes of the law to their own looting ends. Lest any of you Ayn Rand type
fanatics blow a fuse, let me assert that I’m pretty sure Ayn Rand respected
labor at all levels. To respect labor at all levels is to respect the producers
and creators of the world at all levels! Nobody should need or want a handout
-- everyone wants to produce. Such desire for work at fair compensation is
highly ethical and beyond reproach, or so I think. A corporation, whose primary
scheme is to loot wherever it goes, produces nothing -- it just takes! And
takes. And takes. And takes.
Just trying to wisen up the marks.
-- Hop-Frog
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