Not that we need signs of our economic crisis, but Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke made a chilling observation this week at an event talking about the company’s operations. Duke said his customers are simply “running out of money.”
The most chilling aspect of this statement is that Wal-Mart is not just the largest retailer but the store with a demographic that is most representative of the country’s economic profile. Wal-Mart averages 140 million shoppers weekly to its stores in just the United States alone.
Duke observed that the store is facing serious pressures because his “core consumers [are] under a lot of pressure.”
Source: CNN
Thank you again AN…..
What a surprise:
Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart
After Top-Level Struggle
“Confronted with evidence of widespread corruption in Mexico, top Wal-Mart executives focused more on damage control than on rooting out wrongdoing, an examination by The New York Times found.”
ttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/business/at-wal-mart-in-mexico-a-bribe-inquiry-silenced.html?hp
My wife’s family is from small town Iowa. Her Grandfather explained to me why he hated Wal-Mart 30 years ago.
Wally built a store near a medium sized city & devastated its business district along with putting the final nail into a few small “satellite” towns. Then they built another Wal-Mart in a nearby town. People wondered how they could do that as there was not enough business to support both. Then they found out how Wal-Mart could do that. As soon as the second city was trashed they closed one of the Wal-Marts. Of course the start up costs would prevent local competition so they were free to pull this stunt. Wal-Mart has done this repeatedly across rural America.
Like everything else those bastards do its about sucking the last dime, the last ounce of blood, the last tiny bit of life out of the communities it assaults. Smart parasites never take so much that they kill their host but the folks at Wally-World are not as bright as a leech or wood tick; they are killing the host they feed on.
Bud,
Agreed. Yes, yes and yes…
Anon nurse,
I see no difference between Wal Mart, and GM, or any bank or brokerage house.
They control the White House, Congress, and Senate.
These corporations will get what they want and when they want it.
Bud,
Good morning. I think you hit the nail on the head… Well said.
Aren’t they too big of a failure to FAIL?
Marnie,
I had almost the exact same conversation about Wal-Mart with my dad on Friday.
WalMart also owes more than it owns. Like a great many franchise and chain businesses it gets the loans to expand its business more on cash flow than on equity, so businesses like WalMart can and must continue to expand their empire and increase their volume of sales it order to continue to bear the burden of their debts.
We have seen several chain businesses, even chain banks, fail or implode under Bushie economics, if WalMart is not picking up enough new customers from the ranks of the newly poor to fill the places of those who were poor but are now destitute, that should be sending a very loud alarm.
Much as I despise WalMart, I have been watching for it first signs of implosion. Its failure would be a very real and very symbolic benchmark of America’s fall from first to third world economic status in a single step.
Mr. Dulea, I agree that speculation is the root cause, now that oil is traded as just another commodity the fluctuations and rise in costs (in both food and energy) is artificially manipulated, severed from supply and demand.
What broke the majorally artificial inflation in gasoline in 2008 was a strong position by the Democrats in Congress to gut the tax breaks and subsidies to the oil industry and pour the money into alternative fuels. [link below]
This is what the oil industry does repeatedly, prices rise until there is significant push-back and the threat of reform looms then the price deflates, no reform is forthcoming and the price again inflates. That it is a strategy that plays out over years allows people to lose interest in the meanwhile. SSDD.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/washington/18oil.html