AspenValley wrote:
neptunechimney wrote: Walmart is not a monopoly. Government is a monopoly.
What do you call it when Walmart owns a controlling share of that "monopoly" you call the Government?
Have you people studied any economics or history? Could you explain to me, for instance, why the Anti-Trust Act was instituted? Or the effect of railroad monopolies on farmers all over the west and south? Action wasn't taken to protect "buggy-whip" makers, it was taken to restore the free markets and INCREASE competition. Monopolies and near-monoploies are not a healthy development. I am really at a loss as to why some of you are defending a trend that is very detrimental to a free market system.
Here we have yet another confused liberal - can't tell the difference between a monopoly and a business who built themselves up by offering the products we wanted- and at the prices that made consumers WANT to shop at their stores.
And I totally agree- Walmart is no monopoly- Government is the monopoly! You can choose to shop at Walmart- or not. You can not choose to not pay your taxes!
Consumers made Walmart what it is today. Consumers could destroy Walmart in a few short months- if the company quit serving their needs.
So I guess it's time to whip out the FACTS- since there's still so much confusion out there. Not that I think it'll stop that dizzy feeling or slow down the spinning that goes on in a liberals head- but here goes anyway!
Walmart at a glance.....
Walmart Employs 1% Of America. Walmart is the single largest provider of jobs and the largest employer in the USA.
8 percent: The amount of total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, accounted for by Wal-Mart.
OK- lets stop here for a sec. Walmart is 8% of total US sales- hardly a monopoly! 92% of retail sales are from other companies like sears, target, cosco .... you get the picture. Somehow these other stores have managed to stay in business even with competition from Walmart. Still- 8% is a massive chunk of market share- but for Walmart to hold onto that share- it must keep on it's toes and deviver what we consumers want! Drop the ball- even for a few months- and sombody else will step into Walmarts shoes, the same way that Walmart stomped on Sears- who once had a market share like that os Walmart.
100 million: The number of people who shop at Wal-Mart's 3400 American stores every week.
50 million: The amount of square footage Wal-Mart plans to add this year, including 50-55 new Wal-Mart stores, 220-230 new Supercenters, 35-40 new Sam's Club and 130-140 new international stores.
$256 billion : Wal-Mart's sales in 2003. In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."
WAGES....
$9.98: The average full-time hourly wage for a Wal-Mart employee. The average full-time hourly wage in metro areas (defined as areas with a population of 50,000 or more) is $10.38. In some urban areas it is higher: $11.03 in Chicago, $11.08 in San Francisco, and $11.20 in Austin.
Again- hardly minimum wage. Dozens of other corporations pay much less- yet they do not get pounded on by the political left like Walmart!
Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States after the Federal government with over 925,000 employees. Each year, the company hires 550,000 more employees - three times the number of people the U.S. military recruits every year.
Wal-Mart is the leading employer of people of color in the United States. More than 125,000 African Americans and more than 74,000 Latinos work at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club store's nationwide. Two Latinos sit on the board of directors along with two women out of 15 board members.
Full-time employees are eligible to buy company stock at a discount. Wal-Mart matches 15 percent of the first $1800 in stocks purchased.
Wal-Mart Stores paid $7.1 billion (at a rate of 32.4%) in income taxes last year- it was the fourth largest payer of taxes to the US government- the three companies that paid more taxes are all oil companies!
Walmart is a net producer of wealth and one of the most productive corporate tax payee's in the USA- unlike the US government who creates no wealth and is a net tax consumer.
There's some facts on Walmart folks- and it's the truth!
