WalMart is Pure Evil

Walmart Passes Nearly $1 Million Per Store Operating Cost to the US Taxpayer

2013-06-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I don't shop at Walmart, won't shop at Walmart and advise others to spend their money elsewhere as well.

So why in the hell should my tax dollars be going to support Walmart employees who aren't paid enough by the wealthiest corporation on the planet? Seriously. Think about that. Walmart is the richest company on earth and they REFUSE to pay their employees wages and benefits that they can live on.

Low Wages at a Single Wal-Mart Store Cost Taxpayers about $1 Million Every Year

The report finds that a single 300-employee Wal-Mart Supercenter in Wisconsin may cost taxpayers anywhere from $904,542 to nearly $1.75 million per year, or about $5,815 per employee. Wisconsin has 100 Wal-Mart stores, 75 that are Wal-Mart Supercenters.

“Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, yet they pay such low wages that many of its workers are unable to provide their families with the necessities of life. The labor policies of Wal-Mart, and those of companies that emulate its low-road approach, end up leaving taxpayers holding the bag,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), senior Democrat on the committee.

This isn't an accident, this is a codified and shareholder approved business practice to wring every last penny out of profit out of the stores and to hell with the employees and customers because to hell with them anyway.

Make no mistake, Walmart absolutely could pay better than they do. They do not because they are greedy assholes bent on extracting as much from America as they possibly can.

Shopping at Walmart is unAmerican and anti-America.

Why I Hate Walmart In a Single Quote

2013-06-06T14:51:00.001-07:00

If the graphic doesn't load for some reason, the quote reads "I work full-time for one of the richest companies in the world, and my kids get state health insurance and are on food stamps." - Sara Gilbert, striking Wal-Mart manager.

Not just the bottom grunts, Walmart doesn't even pay their managers enough to live on.

Shop at Walmart and you're helping perpetuate the cycle of exploitation.

Shop elsewhere if you can.

Walmart is Worse Than You Think, Much Worse

2013-06-04T18:19:00.002-07:00

I read Think Walmart is an Evil Empire? ended up learning several new things about the world's largest (and dirtiest and greediest and most exploitive) corporation. Here's an excerpt:

When you first get hired you’re given an orientation, like at most jobs. In this orientation you’re shown several videos, one of which is called “The Benefits of Working for Walmart.” But it’s really a 30 minute video bashing unions. No, I’m not kidding. It’s literally a video about 30 minutes long of people telling you how terrible unions are to work for.

After that, depending on your job, the training is fairly typical. But the true nature of the greed of this company is found in how they run their business.

See, everything is controlled in Arkansas. From the air conditioning and heat, inventory to the scheduling system. Everything is controlled at their home office in Arkansas.

There is more, plenty more to chew on and think about and be pissed off about. I mean, really, how many dollars is enough? At what point will the Walton family realize that they can't do anything with the gigantic piles of money they have? At some point doesn't there have to be a wake up call, a coming to consciousness moment where the blinders are removed and the reality of the situation can be seen?

That Walmart absolutely cares more about their bottom line than, literally, anything else. Not people, not towns, not laws, not governments, nothing is more important to Walmart than profit and maximizing that profit no matter what.

Walmart is what happens when unfettered greed isn't checked. Spend your money at a store where they treat their employees like human beings, where they pay their own costs for healthcare and don't rig hours to make sure that nobody outside of management gets health coverage.

You do NOT have to shop at Walmart. You are not saving any more money there then at other stores that don't exploit so heavily and harshly. Stores that pay living wages like CostCo and don't force stores to cut employee hours while maintaining sales quotes and other BS.

I'd never ever shop at a Walmart, I can't even imagine what kind of a hell it would be to call that hell hole your place of employment.

The World is a Vulgar Place, Deal. With. It.

2013-05-20T11:35:00.003-07:00

Here's the thing. I swear. Deal with it.

If you don't like it then don't read my blog. Period.

Don't email me and tell me (TELL ME?) to remove certain words that offend your Victorian sensibilities. Seriously. Just don't.

By the way, how did you get my email address anyway? I have gone well out of my way to remove contact information from this blog because I do not want to be contacted on it.

I will continue to write as I choose here and you can choose to read it or fucking well not.

I. Simply. Do. Not. FUCKING. Care.

Fighting Back with Technology

2013-05-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Scan and know where the money goes.

Got signed up and rolling with Buycott tonight.

Mind. Blown.

First some good news. Godiva Chocolates are clear of conflicts with regards to the Koch Brothers and GMO Labeling. Eat Godiva Chocolates happily and with a clean conscience (though perhaps they conflict on other campaigns, I don't know).

Bad news that I kinda, sorta already knew: Coca-Cola is on the No side. $1.75 million to fight GMO labeling? Tsk, mother fucking, tsk.

I hate spending my money where it is going to be used to fight against things I believe in. Now I don't have to.

Now, I will grant that the contact information on the site is, ummm, mysterious, there are no named personages on the site. The WhoIs info is informative,http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=buycott.com. Based in LA, protected name on the registration. They clearly do not want to be known who they are and that isn't confidence inspiring. And there aren't sources for the data which isn't especially comforting either, okay, alot of cool and a few question marks. Kind of big question marks.

Some, but not all, of which were resolved by reading this Forbes article about Darcy Burner her idea that she demonstrated and other developers have since run with.

But, in the end, the concept is sound and the resulting information /appears/ reliable but maybe should be verified randomly a few times just to make sure, ya know? The app is going to be put to use in my house for sure and I expect my cash will start going more towards places I can be happier supporting.

I'm going to send some feedback to the contact email on the site, feedback@buycott.com and ask for some transparency in the operation. Data sources at the very least. Not that I don't trust them but I don't trust them. Nothing personal. I just like sources I can look over myself or have verified by other third parties without potentially vested and nefarious interests.

Thanks to +Ole Olson for bringing the app to my attention in the first place. Much appreciated as this is one of those things that will change my day to day in a better way and that, my friends, is okay.

Further product updates:
Hansen's is clean for my campaigns. Krusteaz is clean, Jif is evil, Planters is clean. Doritos are the very epitome of evil but you already knew that regardless of any campaigns. And, most shockingly, Santa Cruz Natural Santa Cruz Organic Lemonade is on the no fly list because they contributed some $485,000 to fight GMO labeling. Seriously? By the way, Santa Cruz, Natural Santa Cruz Organic Lemonade is made in Chico, not Santa Cruz. So, yeah. They'll not be getting my money anymore.

Life Is NOT a Videogame and You Are NOT a Hero

2013-03-01T10:16:00.001-08:00

Orange City Walmart customer shoots at suspected shoplifter and hits his car along with two other cars and, thankfully, no children.

Okay, so here's the thing, shoplifting ISN'T a shootable offense. And this dude with the gun wasn't a cop, wasn't in danger and had truly no business drawing and firing his weapon. Which is why he's been arrested and charged with a bunch of crimes when he thought he was going to get a medal and the key to the city and hot chicks.

Um no.

A couple of things, one, Jose Martinez is not going to get away with this. Joe Martinez might. Joe Martin would be alot more likely to get away with this but Jose Martinez? Yeah, fuck no. Sorry but this is the current state of affairs in the US. A shitbag like George Zimmerman hunts down and murders a 17 year old black kid and gets bail, a black mother shot into the air to defend her home from armed intruders injuring no one and faces up to 20 years behind bars? Why? Because George Zimmerman has a judge father and is half white. The mother? Sorry, she's black and poor and how dare she try to protect herself and her children from armed intruders and not even hurting anyone in the process.

And the shoplifter happened to be a black man. The crux of the issue is that Jose is asserting that the shoplifter was driving his car towards him in an attempt to harm him. The reality, from eyewitnesses (and Walmart shoppers, dumbasses) is that Jose chased after the shoplifter's car shooting his gun wildly and even tried to open the passenger side door while the car was moving. Jose Martinez did everything possible to put his own dumb self in danger. Why? Because he had a gun and was just stiff with anticipation to use it to fight crime or some bullshit machismo fucktard mentality.

This is the natural result of insane gun laws like Stand Your Ground. This is the same law used as a (weak ass bullshit) defense of some asshole fat white dude not putting up with some kids playing their music too loud in their car at a stoplight so he just opens fire on them and kills one. Seriously? A kid's life is worth that little to you that you can't put up with some bad music for a minute or two?

And yes, I do believe I will be cross-posting this to my What Not To Do blog as well.

The Price is Just Too Damned High

2013-02-08T19:37:00.002-08:00

I should note, this isn't mine. I came across it on G+ and strongly agree with the tone and sentiment. The use of fuck you is intentional though, it is a punctuation to the complaints and attempts to show the impact of handing money over to Walmart.

I find what monster corporations like Walmart are doing is far, far worse than delicate sensibilities about the use of a word that probably gets said several billion times a day. Seriously, I probably said fuck twenty times before leaving the house this morning.

The only thing I'd change on this is the use of your when it should be you're in the second line. And maybe a period or exclamation point at the end.

And I may start referring to Walmart as China Direct from now on.

Shoplifting is NOT a Capital Crime Walmart LP Goons!

2012-11-26T09:53:00.000-08:00

Man dies after being placed in choke hold by Walmart security

Yes, theft is wrong and illegal. What the man was doing was illegal and he should have been arrested and charged with that crime. Instead, the Walmart security guard and two workers held him down in a choke hold until he was dead.

They killed him for stealing two DVD players. His life was worth less than two shitty DVD players (because we know the higher end models are kept locked up).

The two employees are on paid leave (which blows my mind that Walmart actually HAS paid leave) and the security guard was let go.

I'm not saying these three people set up to kill the alleged shoplifter. I am saying that there's a reason the cops are the ones who do the arresting, they have been trained and are supposed to know when and when NOT to use lethal force.

These three people killed someone for trying to steal two DVD players. Yes, he was stealing shit he didn't really need because, let's face it, DVD players aren't food and he wasn't stealing to feed his family, he was stealing because he couldn't afford gifts which is its own whole other issue that Walmart also has quite a bit of culpability in as well.

In the end, this man died for stealing two DVD players and that is a damned shame. No word on the family he left behind who will be even worse off without him. It is a terrible sign of the decline of our nation when DVD players are held more valuable than man's life.

Black Friday Strike is a Go!

2012-11-21T08:55:00.002-08:00

Walmart Black Friday Strike Being Organized Online For Stores Across U.S.

Want to support your fellow Americans in their struggle against the largest company on earth that makes mad profit by forcing as many employees under the poverty line so they can receive public assistance. Think about that for a moment, our taxes are going to help pay Walmart's employees because they are UNWILLING to do so themselves.

They are more concerned with pocketing a few extra dollars than actually creating a sustainable system where their employees earn enough money to survive and possibly even thrive on.

I've been boycotting Walmart for as long as I can remember but please consider shopping elsewhere (if you MUST shop) on Black Friday. Stand with your fellow Americans against the corporations (who aren't people no matter what Mitt Romney tries to assert).

Friday is also known as Buy Nothing Day. I strongly encourage you to consider joining that movement. You will be less frazzled from fighting crowds of bargain hunting crazies.

Walmart Crosses The Line

2012-11-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

Walmart moves 'Black Friday' to 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night

Walmart is trying to force their merchant holiday over Thanksgiving. Walmart is trying to jump the gun that much more and giving up on so-called "Black Friday" altogether and going with "Greedface Thursday" instead.

Just say no.

Say no to Black Friday but absolutely say no to Walmart stealing time from your family celebration and Thanksgiving dinner.

There's a line between okay and not okay and Walmart has crossed that line.

This is NOT OKAY.

Leave Thanksgiving alone, let people spend the entire day and night with their families before you get your greedy mitts on their wallets again.

Happy 50th Birthday, Wal-Mart: A Former Employee Hates You

2012-09-17T11:54:00.001-07:00

Happy 50th Walmart, a Former Employee Hates You which I'd say could actually read Most Former Employees Hate You. Nobody likes working at Walmart. It is trading tiny bits of your soul for tiny bits of money, day in, day out and living in the full knowledge that one even slight screw up will very likely cost you your job. But here, here's the newly "released" employee's words:

Well, I'm finally done... I am so glad I will never have to work that god forsaken third shift nightmare of a job at Wal Mart again. I just couldn't take it anymore...I just couldn't waste one more second of my life in that soulless corporate hellhole. There's only one way to go from now on and that's up. I've already been at the bottom of the shit pile...horrible hours, pathetic wages, idiotic ignorant knuckle dragging customers, and asshole incompetent managers. Gonna miss that 10 percent discount though haha

And every time I remember some new injustice perpetrated by this greedy unholy corporate behemoth Im gonna post it on Facebook until I purge its poison out of my soul..one year, eight months, two days and thirty two seconds of my life I can't get back working as a corporate whore for the devil LOL Who in God's name expects people to work EVERY weekend and EVERY holiday because the managers are too damn lazy and uncaring to rotate the schedule..."Well we'll just make everybody on third shift work every weekend to eliminate the hassle of changing the schedule every week" Sad but true...stupid assholes

And you MUST work 12 hours on Black Friday..Which in the greedy corporate soulless world of Wal Mart starts THURSDAY Thanksgiving DAY at 7 p.m. Screw your families and holiday dinner, people..there's MONEY to make. Oh but Wal mart employees have off Christmas Day"...oh excuse me I didn't know Christmas Day ended at 10 p.m.

How do they plan where they put there stores? It probably goes something like this: Let's take a crew of desperate people looking for work in a shitty economy in a depressed area, build a big boxy ugly store and sell cheap merchandise manufactured in China and from other poor nations with a child labor force and sell the crap for cheaper than other stores because we dont' pay our employees a livable wage or adequate benefits and they're pretty much disposable if they complain.

And we don't have time to train them properly and we don't have enough people to stock the crap we sell... so simple things like ROTATING STOCK and disposing of damaged or tainted merchandise so people don't get sick goes by the wayside. If our customers get expired produce and meat and dairy products or broken merchandise and stuff that has had chemicals leaked on them...well BUYER BEWARE!!

And if any of our employees gets injured we bully them into not filing a claim and if they do we fire them.

And if they reports unsafe work practices to OSHA we lie our asses off when the investigators show up and pretend that we're "painting the bulletin boards" so we don't have to post the OSHA report for all employees to see as we are required to do so.

What our customers don't know would curdle their blood...pesticides stored on top of pet food, expired baby formula..mice feces in the bakery along with chewed bags of bread...mice with a carnivorous fondness for beef jerky, leaving their poop behind in the display box after chewing through the bags, and meanwhile customers are buying beef jerky from the SAME BOX!!

And by the way if you are buying HOLIDAY candy hate to tell you that's been sitting in our dirty warehouse/backroom since summer for MANY months! ENJOY!!! The mice sure did... Just dust off the feces, get rid of the chewed bags and sell them suckers!!!

If you're ever in our store when the late night bi-weekly cleaning of the meat department cases takes place you'll learn first hand what a rotting corpse probably smells like..it should be done more often but no one wants to do it and the managers don't really give a shit to enforce it...this filthy cesspole catch basin of liquid blood scum is lurking about six inches below that package of hamburger meat you're about to buy, Mr and Mrs. Customer. Bon Appetit!!

Incompetence and indifference trickles down from the top management and infects the average worker..for example the person who orders paper towels was on vacation one week so no one thought to order paper towels for the bathrooms...you know, the same bathrooms the employees, the people who handle the FOOD, use too. So employees wash their hands and have to dry them on their dirty work clothes!!!!!! This went on at our store for a week until some upper management asshole FINALLY gave permission for some lower manger to pull paper towels off the shelves and stock the bathrooms. The issue at stake: Wal Mart would be LOSING money by doing that so they balked at it until workers complained.

Wal Mart is all about the almighty dollar, screw the customers and double screw the employees.

I like for example how employees are instructed FIRST to punch in a code if they are being are robbed which sends a call to the police. In fact, uou have to do it in order for the cash drawer to open...gee THAT won't make the guy with a gun in my face at all suspicious or jumpy when he seems me punching a bunch of buttons.

I don't know what your local store is like but where I worked, it was a mix of middle aged people (quite a few women) who have lost their jobs in the recession and took the job when this place opened because there are no real good jobs to be found in [my area], where the poverty rate is high; there were also young people many of them in college or right out of college who couldn't find work elsewhere.

Yeah we had our share of a "lowlife flunkies" but most of them are the customers who make our lives even more hellish. The people I worked with were mostly poor to middle class people who work hard for very little pay and a lot of abuse.

When a coworker left Wal Mart, it felt to me like it must feel when you're prison, when a longtime fellow inmate is released. You feel happy for them but you wish it was you.

Working at Walmart is a serious grind. You can't make enough to get away, you can't move up the ladder since that requires the wholesale loss of your morals, you can't work anywhere else because Walmart has already stomped out any semblance of local competition. Basically, once Walmart comes to your town, you and your town are about to get molested and abused by the retail giant. This isn't conjecture, it is fact.

WalMart Can Choose Good Over Evil

2012-05-31T08:40:00.001-07:00

To demonstrate that though this blog is called WalMart is Pure Evil, not everything that WalMart does is totally evil, here's a story about WalMart severing ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

And I learned that WalMart protects a square foot of land for every square foot of their stores (seems like a slightly crappy trade off but hey, it's a step in the right direction).

Wal-Mart’s decision to drop ALEC makes sense in the context of their successful “Acres for America” program. Since 2005, Wal-Mart has partnered with the National Fish and Wildlife Federation in an effort to conserve an acre of land for every one occupied by a Wal-Mart facility. As of January 2012, the project has protected 687,000 acres.

I must say that I am heartened by the speed with which these fake agencies are abandoned by large corporations once their misdeeds and twisted agendas become public. Yes, ALEC was funded for a long time and helped push many bits of legislation that are festering boils on the American landscape (Stand Your Ground laws being just one of their "successes") notwithstanding their attempts to force the instruction of climate change denial in our school systems.

The cynic in me thinks this was as much of band wagon jumping on by WalMart as it is any sign of a moral backbone in the retail behemoth. But hey, good news is good news either way. And the further emasculation and destruction of ALEC is a cause for celebration.

Walmart Loses in Court, Again

2012-05-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Walmart to pay $4.8 million

The Labor Department on Tuesday ordered Wal-Mart to pay $4.8 million in back wages and damages to thousands of employees who were denied overtime charges, the latest in a string of embarrassments for the company over its business practices.

The department said its decision affects roughly 4,500 vision-center managers and asset-protection coordinators who worked at Wal-Mart between 2004 and 2007. Wal-Mart had considered those employees exempt from federal regulations requiring overtime pay but reclassified them in 2007. The government and the retailer have been negotiating the amount owed since then.

The US Department of Labor press release brings the smackdown.

Walmart will continue to exploit their workers until these cases are the norm and not the exception. Walmart is about profit, pure and simple, and if they have to trample some employee rights or break a few laws then they are going to do it and then pay the fine if they happen to get caught.

Walmart Plays Shell Game with Iconic San Diego Building

2012-04-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Neighbors Shocked By Walmart’s Partial Demolition of Iconic Building

“I feel betrayed,” said Remy Bermudez, a neighborhood activist. “I feel betrayed by City Hall. I feel betrayed by Walmart.” She said that at recent community meetings, Walmart officials had mentioned only plans to renovate the building and to tear down interior walls and the roof, but not the structure.

Walmart is a very good wolf in sheep's clothing, they pretend to listen to community concerns, they pretend to take those concerns to heart and then they go right ahead and do whatever it was they wanted to do in the first place. And, when called on it, they throw up their hands and say "Who, me?" Allowing a Walmart to move into your town is like inviting a violent felon to set up shop. You will, eventually, get smacked in the face and, most likely, stabbed in the back.

10 Ways Walmart Fails at Sustainability

2012-04-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

10 Ways Walmart Fails at Sustainability

Here's the quick list, hit the link for details on all of these items.

1. Selling shoddy products
2. Reducing waste according to who?
3. Lagging on renewable energy
4. Increasing greenhouse gases
5. Voraciously consuming land
6. Financing anti-environment candidates
7. Consolidating and industrializing food production
8. Redefining local
9. Degrading organic
10. Spreading poverty

I don't shop at Walmart and am lucky enough to live in an area where Walmart hasn't been able to drive out of business all the local stores. This is how Walmart exists and grows and profits, they are like a retail virus that kills off the competition and becomes a blood sucking parasitic leech of schlock.

Always Low Wages, Always

2012-02-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Not your average Walmart employee

DEAR WALMART, MCDONALD'S AND STARBUCKS: How Do You Feel About Paying Your Employees So Little That Most Of Them Are Poor?

What do you call a trio of companies that made $35 billion in profits last year and yet the majority of their employees make $12 an hour or less? Shrewd? Cheap? Exploitative? Despicable?

The reality is that Walmart, McDonald's and Starbucks can pay more and it would actually probably cost them less to do so. Better paid employees stay longer, work harder and spend more of their money at their place of work.

But why do they pay such crappy wages to begin with?

The consensus about these low-wage service jobs is that they're low-wage because they're low-skilled.

But that's not actually true. They're low-wage because companies choose to make them low-wage.

No, you say. Low-wage service jobs are low-wage because they're low-skilled. It's a free market. Companies should pay their employees whatever the market will bear. If those low-skilled, low-wage workers had any gumption, they'd go get themselves skilled and then then they'd be able to get high-paying, high-skill jobs. Employers shouldn't have to pay employees one cent more than the market will bear. This argument overlooks three things:

First, all those good-paying manufacturing jobs that the U.S. has lost weren't always good-paying. In fact, before unions, minimum-wage laws, and some enlightened thinking from business owners (see below), they often paid terribly.

Second, the manufacturing jobs also weren't high- or even medium-skilled. In fact, most of these manufacturing jobs required no more inherent skill than the skills required to be a cashier at Walmart, a fry cook at McDonald's, or a barista at Starbucks. (Yes, people who work on assembly lines building complex products need training. But cashiers, fry cooks, and baristas need training, too. Don't believe this? Go volunteer to be a Walmart cashier or a Starbucks barista for a day. )

Third, it is often in companies' interest—as well as the economy's interest—to pay employees more than the market will bear. For one thing, you tend to get better employees. For two, they tend to be more loyal and dedicated. For three, they have more money to spend, some of which might be spent on your products.

I don't expect monstrous corporations to do right by the people working for them unless they are forced to do so. And it's time to force these massive corporations to pay their employees livable wages, it isn't like they can't afford to and those massive profits (at least in Walmart's case) aren't doing anyone any good sitting in the Walton family reserves (the Walton's have donated a pathetically paltry 2% of their income to charity compare that to Bill Gates at 48% and Warren Buffett's 78%).

Buy Your GE/GMO Corn at Walmart and Die

2012-02-09T14:17:00.001-08:00

Click the pic to go sign a petition.

Walmart Being Pressured to Say No to Monsanto's GE Corn

Monsanto, that bastion of genetically modified food products that once resembled actual vegetables, is going to be selling it's newest creation, a genetically-modified (GM) sweet corn containing Bt toxin, designed to protect the plant by rupturing the stomach of any insect that feeds on it. Monsanto claims the toxin will break down before the corn makes it to your dinner table, but rats fed with the GM corn showed organ failure, and the toxin has been detected in the bodies of pregnant women.

Unmarked, unlabeled, and untested on humans — with toxins built right into the plant’s DNA. Which is to say, they are probably getting a great deal on this poison food and passing along the death to their consumers, without even a warning label.

Yeah.

Why do I not shop at Walmart? Because they put profits over people, every single time. If Walmart is doing something that appears to be for the public good then there's an ulterior motive there that we're not seeing.

Shop at Walmart and bring home some ruptured organ death tonight!

Wal-Mart Fires Employee Suffering Mini-Strokes, Has to Pay Unemployment

2011-12-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

Court: Wal-Mart worker fired after mini-strokes can collect benefits

So let's get this straight, James Cunningham worked at a Wal-Mart, had a papertrail medical diagnosis, brought it to his supervisor and was told it was too much paperwork to fill out so his performance reviews suffered and he was eventually fired.

Seems to me like his supervisor is the one who dropped the ball and should be shoved down the totem pole a few notches to remind him of how unimportant he really is.

It's a small thing, one man receiving unemployment benefits in the wake of an unfair firing. But I bet it's a lot more than a little thing to James Cunningham and his family.

Walmart's 5 Grim Black Friday Incidents

2011-11-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

Walmart's violent Black Friday: 5 'grim' incidents - The Week

1. Waffle maker riot - people seriously start fighting over some really shitty waffle makers.
2. Pepper spray and XBoxes - crazy chick uses pepper spray on fellow shoppers to secure a discounted XBox. Police unsure whether she'll get charged (and if she isn't then expect the number of pepper spray "incidents" to rise dramatically next year).
3. Video games and police brutality - if the crowds aren't enough to keep you home on Black Friday then perhaps the threat of an unwarranted assault by a cop leaving you unconscious on the ground unattended for 10 minutes is enough?
4. Parking lot shootings - why deal with the hassle of the shopping crowd when you can just prowl the parking lot and mug people on their way out? Of course, it should be noted that these people were shot between 1 and 2 in the morning while out shopping (let that sink in for a moment).
5. Smartphone smack down - want a deal on a smartphone? You might be able to get one for $35 but you might also get shoved to the ground and kicked in the face. For a phone.

There's no surprise that I'm not much of a fan of Black Friday and even less of a fan of Walmart. Combine the two and you have one of the lower planes of hell for me.

By the way, do you know what the Chinese call Walmart shoppers? Suckers. But they call all Americans suckers so it's really not that big a deal or even funny.

Wal-Mart's Layaway Plan Sucks

2011-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart’s Layaway Plan - NYTimes.com

Wal-Mart’s press releases suggest that the restoration of the layaway program, which was discontinued in 2006, is meant to help its customers “budget” so that Christmas can be “worry-free.” The company is partly playing on the economic insecurity of its customers, and partly on the national nostalgia for the days before credit-card debt. But the truth is, the program is a bad deal for everyone — except Wal-Mart.

Why? Because the charges stack strongly in Wal-Mart's favor and you'd be better off putting a $100 purchase on a credit card and paying it off that way, at half the interest rate Wal-Mart is effectively charging.

Come on now, did you really think Wal-Mart was going to put anything in place to actually HELP it's customers? Hell no, they will do anything to help you spend more money in their stores but beyond that they really do not care in the least.

Imagine a mother going to Wal-Mart on Oct. 17 and buying $100 worth of Christmas toys. She makes a down payment of $10 and pays a $5 service fee. Over the next two months she pays off the rest. In effect, she is paying $5 in interest for a $90 loan for two months: the equivalent of a credit card with a 44 percent annual percentage rate, a level most of us would consider predatory.
In comparison, even a card with an 18 percent A.P.R. would charge only half as much interest — and she could take those presents home the same day.
Then consider what would happen if she couldn’t finish all the payments. Wal-Mart would give her the money back, less $10. If she borrowed that $90 and paid $15 in interest for two months, she would have the equivalent of a jaw-dropping interest rate of 131 percent.

Shop at Wal-Mart and find yourself spending more than you think for less than you think and the lion's share of those dollars are headed straight into China where they will be used to continue to exploit an entire nation of people. Wow! Awesomeness!

Petition: Tell Walmart, Target, Macy's and Hanes to Stop Rape and Torture of Young Women in its Factories

2011-08-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Petition: Tell Walmart to Stop Rape and Torture of Young Women in its Factories | Change.org: "Please tell Wal-Mart, Hanes, Target, Macy’s, Lands’ End, Kohl’s and Jones Group to immediately end the sexual abuse, rape, torture, and beatings of young women guest workers at the Classic factory in Jordan.

We demand that the companies:

1) Immediately remove all serial rapists, especially Anil Santha and Priyantha, from the Classic factory;

2) Pay significant compensation to the rape victims for the damages done them;

3) Ensure that independent and highly respected non-governmental women’s rights organizations from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have complete access to monitor factory conditions;

4) Guarantee that there will be no retaliation against any worker for speaking the truth about factory conditions;

5) Ensure that the false charges against the internationally respected human rights advocate, Mr. Rafiq Alam, must be immediately dropped;

6) If Classic refuses to strictly enforce the worker’s rights laws in the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, their sweatshop garments should be prohibited from entering the U.S."

Click the link to go and sign the petition. It makes me sad to know that only 16,000 people have signed it so far. Where is the outrage over this?

Court Upholds $188 Million Verdict Against Walmart and Sam's Club

2011-06-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Court upholds costly verdict against Walmart, Sam's Club (short blurb is last on the page but included in its entirety below).

A $188 million class-action verdict against Walmart Stores Inc. and Sam's Club over payment to employees for rest breaks and off-the-clock work was upheld Friday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

A three-judge Superior Court panel said there was sufficient evidence at trial to conclude there had been a breach of contract, unjust enrichment and violations of labor laws.

The judges also ruled in a 211-page opinion that the presiding Philadelphia judge erred in determining some of the plaintiffs' legal fees, and sent that part of the case back for recalculation.

The 2006 trial, which lasted 32 days, resulted in an award of $46 million in attorneys' fees."

Walmart Cheats on Gift Receipts

2011-05-20T11:52:00.003-07:00

Walmart shorting people on gift receipts' value? - The Early Show

Gift reciepts are nice things, you can give someone a gift that they can return if they don't like it or already have it. Only there's no value on the gift receipt and Walmart is being investigated for not returning the full purchase price of the returns.

That is, they are shaving money off returns because the returner doesn't know how much the original item cost. Which is, of course, illegal and unethical.

And I expect Walmart will, eventually, be found guilty and forced to pay a fine that won't amount to a horked loogy compared to how much money they make which means Walmart comes out ahead on stealing money from customers.

And people wonder why you'd have to pay me to walk into one of their nightmare stores?

Walmart To Pay Workers $440k

2011-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Walmart workers get $440k
It appears that nine workers of Mexican descent, one married to a Mexican, were harassed by a co-worker, also a Mexican, with ethnic slurs all the time.

I'm not sure I understand this. There was one asshole Mexican worker being a total asshole to his/her co-workers and calling them racially charged things and, instead of firing them, the managers let it go until the abused workers filed a lawsuit?

Oh wait, they did fire the jerk after about 8 solid months of being a jerk. And the quoted suit says they acted swiftly as soon as they became aware of how utterly egregious the jerk was being.

But it'll still cost Walmart $440,000 in a settlement which they will appeal and make stretch out another four or five years and the only ones making any money are the lawyers.

Target Beats Walmart in the Price Wars

2011-03-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

Target Beats Wal-Mart for Prices

Craig Johnson, president of retail consulting firm Customer Growth Partners, compared 35 brand-name items sold at Wal-Mart and Target stores in New York, Indiana and North Carolina. They consisted of 22 common grocery goods such as milk, cereal and rice; 10 general merchandise products such as clothing and home furnishings; and three health and beauty items.

Target's shopping cart rang in at $269.13 (pre-tax), a hair lower than the $271.07 charged at Wal-Mart.

You're right, that's not a huge difference but there is a huge difference in the shopping experience between the two stores. Target stores are clean, well-lit and well-staffed whereas most every Wal-Mart I've been in is disheveled, dingy, dark in places and its nearly impossible to find someone to help you.

There's actually a psychological reason for this, people shopping in a store that looks like crap are tricked into thinking they are getting a better deal because the store is shabby.

Me? I prefer to shop at Target (though admittedly less so since the CEO of Target is a homophobic asshat) because the company does not have a track record of exploitation at every turn, Target does not gouge employees and force them to work off the clock, Target does not lie, cheat and steal at every turn. Wal-Mart has and Wal-Mart does.