One day you will be able to purchase a CPAP at WALMART

According to economists Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox, Wal-mart hatred is unfounded. In their book "The Wal-Mart Revolution" they analyzed all available evidence regarding Wal Mart's effect on the economy and concluded that Wal-Mart's basic business strategies have had a profoundly positive impact on America's productivity, wages, consumer prices, and other key economic variables.

Other key findings include:

--Wal-Mart workers are paid fairly--given their level of skills and experience, and compared to other retail firms, Wal-Mart employees do well
--Wal-Mart's fringe benefits--health-care coverage, retirement benefits, and more--are similar to those of other retail firms, and very few Wal-Mart workers go without health insurance
--Big boxes mean big business: communities with new Wal-Mart stores typically enjoy increased employment and incomes after the store opens
--Wal-Mart benefits the poor, in particular, in the form of lower prices and new job opportunities
Attempts to keep Wal-Mart out of communities through zoning restrictions, mandatory health insurance, or special high minimum wages hurt citizens, especially those with lower incomes.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

According to economists Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox, Wal-mart hatred is unfounded. In their book "The Wal-Mart Revolution" they analyzed all available evidence regarding Wal Mart's effect on the economy and concluded that Wal-Mart's basic business strategies have had a profoundly positive impact on America's productivity, wages, consumer prices, and other key economic variables.

Other key findings include:

--Wal-Mart workers are paid fairly--given their level of skills and experience, and compared to other retail firms, Wal-Mart employees do well
--Wal-Mart's fringe benefits--health-care coverage, retirement benefits, and more--are similar to those of other retail firms, and very few Wal-Mart workers go without health insurance
--Big boxes mean big business: communities with new Wal-Mart stores typically enjoy increased employment and incomes after the store opens
--Wal-Mart benefits the poor, in particular, in the form of lower prices and new job opportunities
Attempts to keep Wal-Mart out of communities through zoning restrictions, mandatory health insurance, or special high minimum wages hurt citizens, especially those with lower incomes.

Walmart: Underpaying the Most People

Walmart employs about 2.1 million workers, two-thirds of them in the U.S. Its 2012 revenue is three times that of Apple, and about fifteen times that of McDonald's. The company claims that its average full-time wage is $12.78 per hour. That's just under $26,000 per year. (IBISWorld says Walmart pays associates $8.81 per hour).

Based solely on its U.S. business, Walmart makes over $13,000 in pre-tax profits per employee (after paying them), which comes to more than 50 percent of the earnings of a 40-hour-per-week wage earner.

A little-known fact about Walmart that impacts most of us: A study in Wisconsin by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce determined that a typical Walmart store costs taxpayers over $1.7 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee.

Not mad enough yet? Four members of the Walmart family made a combined $20 billion from their investments last year. Less than half of that would have given every U.S. Walmart worker a $3 raise, enough to end the public subsidy.

Shoppers filed into the Halifax store early Friday morning, loading their carts with an unlikely mix of everything from radishes, onions and carrots to television sets and back-to-school supplies.

Shelley Broader, Walmart Canada president and CEO, said it’s all part of the retail giant’s mission to allow consumers to buy all of their supplies in one location.

“Our goal is one-stop shopping,” she said as people milled around her, filling their baskets with packages of two chickens for $10 and bags of carrots for $1.

“With the addition of fresh food into our supercentre format, we truly are one-stop shopping — you can get all of your needs met here and it’s very core to our strategy.”

The massive, 13,500-square-metre store is one of nine supercentres planned for the region and one of 37 projects that will involve expansion, remodelling or relocating existing stores across the country at a cost of $450 million. Walmart will spend about $90 million on the Atlantic expansion in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, adding 300 positions.

The Halifax project, which the company said created 30 new jobs, means Walmart now has 217 so-called supercentres in Canada and 380 stores in total.

The supercentre adds fresh food to the department store’s offerings and puts greater competitive pressure on established grocery retailers, like Sobeys and Loblaws, which has been making inroads in the region with its Atlantic Superstore chain.

Walmart began rolling out the supercentre large-scale stores in Ontario several years ago and continues to add locations as the large U.S. discount retailer Target enters the Canadian marketplace.

John Winter, a retail analyst in Toronto, says Walmart’s ongoing expansion and heftier presence on the Atlantic coast will force competitors to lower prices to hold onto their customers.

“They will have to sharpen their pencils,” he said. “The market is going to get even more intense. … It takes a little while for consumers to change their shopping patterns, but certainly with a new entrant in the market there will be change.”

Winter says the supercentre model has been “phenomenally successful” in Ontario as consumers come in for clothing and end up walking out with groceries, housewares and other items he calls “collateral purchases.”

He says the threat to Walmart from Target might not be great initially as the retailer moves into former Zeller stores that are smaller.

“Walmart with food has an absolutely dominant market share in Ontario, so the addition of food was a key item in establishing dominance in the department store sector,” he said.

Despite that, Loblaw Companies Ltd. said Wednesday it anticipates strong growth for the rest of the year even as it braces for increased competition from Walmart and Target.

Target plans to launch approximately 70 new stores in the country before the end of the year, in addition to Walmart’s 37 new supercentres.

Both of the chains sell food products, eating into the market share of grocers like Loblaw (TSX:L), Metro Inc. (TSX:MRU) and Empire Company’s (TSX:EMP) Sobeys stores.

Loblaw recently acquired Shoppers Drug Mart (TSX:SC) for approximately $12.4 billion, giving it a foothold in urban centres, where many small-format Shoppers stores are located.

Broader said Walmart’s expansion plans aren’t driven by competitive pressures, but on the needs of customers and where they see an opening.

“Our ability to grow fast is really about the demand that is driven by our customer base,” she said. “We aren’t competition-focused, we are really customer-focused.”

http://www.trurodaily.com/Business/2013 ... c-Canada/1

ChicagoGranny wrote:


Walmart is coming to get you. You can't fight it.



You can argue with me in the forum, but you can't stop Walmart from invading Canada. Canadians flock to Walmart everywhere they open. Canadians also are eager to fill the jobs at Walmart.

You can't fire anyone in Canada for being "too pretty".

NateS wrote:I hesitate to digress from the fascinating debate about Walmart, but hope you will indulge me:

You can't fire anyone in Canada for being "too pretty".

I've often wondered how this happens: Was the employee "too pretty" when hired? If so, then it is not a changed condition, and can hardly be blamed on the employee.

On the other hand, was the employee not "too pretty" when hired and only became "too pretty" while working at the job? If so, then her condition is a product of the work environment provided for her by the employer, is it not?

It's a puzzlement!

Okay, now back to the great debate. I can't wait to find out whether ChiGranny and her spouse, corporate entrepreneurs and employers of 500+ (correction: 499) persons, do all their shopping at their beloved local Walmart, while fighting off all those nasty government regulators at work! The suspense is getting intense!

Regards, Nate

NateS wrote: do all their shopping at their beloved local Walmart
Regards, Nate

NateS wrote:






Regards, Nate