Recovery? Maybe not so much.

Wal Mart CEO: "Shoppers Are Running Out Of Money"; There Is "No Sign Of A Recovery"

USA falling into "1984" trap?

Outsourcing jobs

I've mentioned before that I never shop at Wal*Mart...

The Commercializing of America

I haven't bought anything in a Wal*Mart in about 10 years. I have browsed through a couple of times, but I purposely don't buy anything. I don't like the way they treat their employees, I don't like their presence sounding the death-knell for hundreds of small businesses in our communities. I don't like their over-dependence on selling cheap shit from China.

Then I saw this post over at Carolina Naturally and I followed the link to read the article.

Wal-Mart delivers at least 30% and sometimes more than 50% of the entire U.S. consumption of products. Why the monopolization of our economy should scare you.

You can find the who;e article over at AlterNet.
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I NEVER shop at Wal*Mart

They mistreat EVERYBODY - employees and customers. It's all about the Benjamins with them.

WIESBADEN, Germany — Overseas military customers ordering gifts online from certain retailers might get an unpleasant surprise when shipping and handling fees are tacked on at the end of the purchase.

Those same customers might be most surprised to find that retail giant Walmart had the biggest markup.

On a $120 purchase, Walmart.com charged $10.35 to ship to an APO address, compared with $2.10 to a stateside address. For most items, Amazon.com charged the same to ship to an APO address as a stateside address. And Target offered shipping on a $120 purchase to an APO address for less than to a stateside address.

Source
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Wal*Mart's Human Values

I quit shopping at Wal*Mart many years ago, after I became aware of how badly they treated many of their employees. I haven't bought anything at Wally World for probably 10 years now. What follows is a story posted over at Boing Boing - and by clicking on the link you can get the source and some follow up.

Around the time that the young Sam Walton opened his first stores, John Kennedy redeemed a presidential campaign promise by persuading Congress to extend the minimum wage to retail workers, who had until then not been covered by the law. Congress granted an exclusion, however, to small businesses with annual sales beneath $1 million -- a figure that in 1965 it lowered to $250,000.

Walton was furious. The mechanization of agriculture had finally reached the backwaters of the Ozark Plateau, where he was opening one store after another. The men and women who had formerly worked on small farms suddenly found themselves redundant, and he could scoop them up for a song, as little as 50 cents an hour. Now the goddamn federal government was telling him he had to pay his workers the $1.15 hourly minimum. Walton's response was to divide up his stores into individual companies whose revenues did not exceed the $250,000 threshold. Eventually, though, a federal court ruled that this was simply a scheme to avoid paying the minimum wage, and he was ordered to pay his workers the accumulated sums he owed them, plus a double-time penalty thrown in for good measure.

Wal-Mart cut the checks, but Walton also summoned the employees at a major cluster of his stores to a meeting. "I'll fire anyone who cashes the check," he told them.

Walmart Bingo Revisited

A new card for your Walmart bingo game...

From Chuck's Fun Page 2

A Retiring President

President Bush is about to retire - it makes sense that he would take a job where he would be among his own people. Someone has found the perfect job for the big guy to keep him out of trouble in his leisure.

John McCain's Health Care Plan

Warning - Adult Language

Republican Store

Cartoon Time