Showing posts with label wal-mart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wal-mart. Show all posts
Sunday, June 03, 2007
This week, I asked my mother in law to pick up some bay leaves for me at the store. I am making a roast today, and I had run out. Unfortunately, she went to Wal-Mart and picked me up their store brand. She is one of the people who still enjoys shopping there.
As I opened the cap, I noticed both the foil seal protector, and the plastic shaker cap. For anybody who cooks, a shaker lid on a bay leaf jar is a silly redundancy. People can choke on bay leafs so you put them in whole, and take them out when you are done cooking.
But, Wal-Mart in it's infinite wisdom put these caps where they weren't needed. Trying to pry the thing off with my fingers for two minutes ended up being a futile effort. It took a sharp knife cutting the cap in the top, twisting around to finally release this extra packaging.
All this did was piss me off, and waste Wal-Mart plastic. Sure the tiny piece costs fractions of a penny on the dollar, but in volume it adds up. I keep being told that Wal-Mart is the champion of reducing unneeded costs from the bottom line, but they must have been asleep at the switch this day. When you think of ten million of these caps stacked into a big pile, it can be easy to see how we fill up landfills with plastics that is incompatable with biodegradability.
That is just one measly tiny 2" round plastic cap. Multipy this waste amongst all our unnecessarily packaged products and our problem becomes quite distressing.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Well, quite frankly the mother-in-law wanted to go shopping and out to eat. Dutiful son in law that I am, there was compliance. The start of the hearing that I did see, Goodling sounded like an 8 year old who was very hyper. The little girl voice is off putting, especially when you consider this woman's credentials were bible school and Regent University, and was at the age of 31 placed in one of the top positions of the justice department.
I know her voice isn't her fault, but it does reinforce the concept of young Sampson and Goodling, political hacks, being given positions beyond their age and experience due to their ideology as opposed to their competence. She did basically admit illegally hiring due to political litmus tests, but otherwise seemed to cover for Karl Rove and Harriet Meiers.
We went to the dreaded Wal-Mart today. Ugh. Their prices on some items have risen 28% this year. When I go, which is very rarely, usually in tow like today, I pick up generic soda. It has gone up from 50 to 64 cents. Their numbers aren't doing too great either. I think same store sales figures were down 4.5%. I am too lazy to look up those numbers. It's not looking too great now. They have peaked me thinks.
Alot of prices are increasing these days. Gasoline is the big culprit. Small businesses are getting hit especially hard. Farmers who drive 50-100 miles to the farmer's market are talking about raising prices because of the extra fuel costs that is making the trip much less profitable.
Rambling post, but I am tired, cranky, and always get this way after going to wally world. Will have more substantive things to say later.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted its worst monthly same-store sales results in at least 28 years, tallying a 3.5% decline in April due to this year's early Easter as well as generally challenging economic conditions for consumers.
Wal-Mart's 3.5% drop in the four-week period ending May 4 at U.S. stores fell below its earlier forecast of "flat" sales to a 2% decline. In a recorded phone message Thursday, Wal-Mart blamed bad weather last month in most U.S. regions and the early Easter on April 8, which pushed many Easter sales into March.
I know the situation is much more complicated, but the stratification of the society is starting to take root. People who have no option about shopping at Wal-Mart, especially if it killed off the competition in their towns are still shopping there. But the economy is not that great for those on the bottom rungs of the ladder. Wal-Mart's quality is getting worse. Their meats, vegetables (at least in the stores I have been into) are atrocious. The casual Wal-Mart shopper who would go there for a bargain doesn't find unattractive meat and produce that tempting.
Wal-Mart has been innovative in squeezing every last dollar out of suppliers, manufacturers until they can bleed no more. I think we might be getting to a point that there is no plasma left in the turnip. Wal-Mart runs the risk of being K-Mart unless they hold onto the middle class shoppers. Cheap Chinese manufactured junk isn't going to cut it much longer.
People do get confused about economics, but a toaster that costs $10 and lasts 2 years isn't "cheaper" than one that costs $50 and lasts you a lifetime. The desperation Wal-Mart shoppers are not going to keep the company growing. Have you seen their paychecks lately?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
While America obsessed about Brittany's shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid.
An interesting way of looking at it. Alot of Bush's wealthy donors/friends are getting tax cuts that themselves are much greater than budget slashing that the decider proposes. So, should Medicaid be cut in order to give a tax break to the Walton family? Framed this way, the American people might respond differently when asked by pollsters.
Subscribe to:
Comment Feed (RSS)
