Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
The picture above really says it all. Walmart, our country’s largest retail operation is run by people who are so clueless that they’ve created a culture that doesn’t even understand the massive irony in running a Thanksgiving Food Pantry for its own employees. The photo comes from a Walmart in Canton, Ohio. The concept of food collections for the poor at retail establishments is widespread in America, even as many Americans deny that anyone in this country goes hungry. The irony of this food drive though is that it is asking Walmart employees, who are already low paid, to donate food to fellow employees who are even worse off than they are. It is also ironic that the food drive is for Thanksgiving Dinner, since almost all Walmart Stores have been open all day for Thanksgiving for many years, so one wonders what type of Thanksgiving Dinner Walmart associates will have at all? What is new this year is that “Black Friday” for Walmart customers will begin at 6:00pm on Thanksgiving Day and run through the night.
The average Walmart Associate makes $8.81 per hour which translates into a yearly income of $15,576 if the Associate works a full time schedule. Most Associates don’t work full time because working full time would entitle them to benefits that Walmart doesn’t want to pay. Interestingly, the current U.S. poverty level for a three person family in our country is $19,530. So we see that the rare Walmart full time employee, with two dependents, earns about $4,000 per year below the nation’s poverty level. Indeed, Walmart has made it a practice to inform its employees about benefits like Snap and Public Assistance. At the risk of being portrayed as a “bleeding heart” by some of our readers, let me state that I think this company is disgusting in its personnel policies and is an example of what is worst about our country. Let me explain further.Here is an insider’s view on the specific Walmart situation in Ohio, from an Ohio State Representative:
“A recent study concluded of all the companies in Ohio, Wal-Mart has the highest number of employees on public assistance. Of the 50,000 Wal-Mart employees and dependents, almost 13,000 are on food stamps, and 15,000 on Medicaid. What part of the American dream can the employees of this giant “welfare queen” expect? The Waltons, America’s wealthiest family, knows they are exploiting their workers, and all at the cost of American taxpayers. Wal-Mart wants its employees to take care of one another while everyone else foots the bill for health care, food and housing assistance.
Last year during the Thanksgiving season, Wal-Mart associates bravely spoke out and rallied on Black Friday to protest the company’s low wages and poor labor practices. And on cue, the retail giant’s management illegally harassed and even fired employees who participated in the protests. Thankfully, the National Labor Relations Boards found that Wal-Mart’s actions broke the law, but it is yet another example of the company’s ill treatment of their workers.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-hagan/walmart-ohio-food-drive_b_4321122.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business
From the Huffington Post article that supplied the picture and gave background to it.
“When their paychecks don’t cut it, many associates turn to public assistance to make up the difference. Walmart’s low wages and insufficient scheduling are behind the enormous costs to the taxpayer incurred by each store. One Walmart Supercenter costs taxpayers $900,000 in Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, and other forms of public assistance.” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/18/1256468/-If-You-Aren-t-Sure-Walmart-Needs-to-Pay-Higher-Wages-This-Photo-Will-Erase-All-Doubt?detail=email
This is in essence the dirty little secret of Walmart. This company, whose ownership has been among the largest funders of those who would gut all federal regulation, makes a good deal of money from government “entitlements.” One could almost say that they are the real “welfare cheats”. This doesn’t account for all of the local governments who give tax breaks to Walmart for the honor of having a store located in the community, or that fact that in many of these small communities Walmart “buys off” local officials. Stories detailing this have become so common that there is a website devoted to watching the government subsidies being given to Walmart:
“A secret behind Wal-Mart’s rapid expansion in the United States has been its extensive use of public money. This includes more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. In addition, taxpayers indirectly subsidize the company by paying the healthcare costs of Wal-Mart employees who don’t receive coverage on the job and instead turn to public programs such as Medicaid. This website brings together available information on both kinds of subsidies involved in Wal-Mart’s “double-dipping.” In the future we will add data on other ways Wal-Mart relies on taxpayers to finance its growth.” http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/
This website is very helpful because it allows you to search its archives by putting in a location of your choice and supplying the information. At random I typed in Florida as the State and when given a menu of locales to choose from I chose Crescent City, a place I know nothing about. Here’s what I found:
“This distribution center project, announced in 2005, was approved by Putnam County over the objections of neighboring Volusia County, where there was concern over the traffic impact. In 2006 Wal-Mart warned a group of residents that their land would be seized through eminent domain if they did not sell to the company, which apologized after the story came out in the media. The state, through Enterprise Florida, has agreed to pay for infrastructure improvements in the area, including $2 million for upgrading roads and $675,000 for water and sewer plant upgrades. The project is also expected to be eligible for benefits under the enterprise zone and Qualified Target Industry programs, which could be worth thousands of dollars in tax credits for each worker hired.”
At the close of this guest blog I will supply links to much of the information I am synthesizing to write this piece. Everything that I am writing is backed up by copious evidence. I think that my contempt for this company is well-founded and well-grounded in facts. The case against Walmart is proven, but the problem of the Walmart syndrome is one that continues to plague this country. The object of any corporation should first be to make money. I believe that is a valid observation. Since I also believe that a mixed Capitalistic system can assure the most benefit, for the most people, I don’t object to people making money. However, where I draw the line is the difference between making money and using a corporation’s resource to exploit its own workers, as it continues to exploit the rest of us. This is the Walmart business model. From a management perspective I believe it is a horrible one, which may make money, but eventually damages not only the corporation itself, but the entire society in which it operates.
When Henry Ford began his company he purposely paid higher than the prevailing wage at the time. Ford explained that it was just good business since if his employees got higher pay they could afford to buy his cars, which they then did. We know that when working class and middle class people earn more, they spend more. Giving workers a good wage isn’t bad business, it is good business. Better paid workers are better workers and better workers make the company even higher profits. This isn’t rocket science after all. Even business-centric commentators believe this as was stated in this article from Fortune Magazine, which uses the ideas of conservative economists to make the case that Walmart can and should pay its workers more, without sacrificing either the bottom line or their stock prices.
There are a number of ways to answer the question of what Walmart should pay its employees. One possibility is this: The lowest wage that Walmart can get away with paying. That is probably the way many employers do it, but it’s far from the best economic answer. Better-paid employees are likely to work harder and stick around longer. If employees made more, they would have more to spend at Wal-Mart. http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/wal-mart-pay-raise/
I’m sure most readers will remember the former electronics giant Circuit City, which is now defunct. In 2007 this company made a fatal decision that hastened its downfall. The decision was premised on the same lines as those who use the Walmart theory of employment, which is that employees are merely easily disposable cogs in the corporate wheel and should be treated as such:
In 2007, the starting wage [at Circuit City] for new employees was dropped from $8.75 an hour down to $7.40 an hour ($6.55 being the federal minimum wage at the time). In a press release on March 28, 2007, Circuit City announced that in a “wage management” decision in order to cut costs, it had laid off approximately 3,400 better-paid associates and would re-staff the positions at the lower market-based salaries. Laid-off associates were provided severance and offered a chance to be re-hired after ten weeks at prevailing wages. The Washington Post reported interviews with management concerning the firings.[24]The Post later reported in May 2007 that the layoffs, and consequent loss of experienced sales staff, appeared to be “backfiring” and resulting in slower sales” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City
Far too many insufferable young adults at the nation’s MBA factories have come away with degrees and with a feeling of superiority and contempt for the average worker. They see workers and treat workers as somehow a sub-human species to be used, abused and thrown out to the streets when they are no longer useful to the company. When I was a business major in Marketing and Management many years ago this was known as “Theory X”. Back in those early days of the 60’s “Theory X” was viewed as counterproductive and outdated. Somehow “Theory X” has reemerged to become the norm for worker treatment in America and perhaps our decline as an industrial nation has been spurred by it. I think when Ronald Reagan signaled corporations that it was okay for them to reopen their battle with Labor Unions via firing the striking air traffic controllers, “Theory X was resurrected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATCO_strike
Right now Walmart is suffering labor problems of its own as a Union is trying to organize its workers. The company has resisted any possibility of its workers organizing into a Union and has fought it in the courts and by firing and/or harassing those workers who are trying to organize.
“The wheels of the National Labor Relations Board grind slow and not especially fine, but they have ground to the point of authorizing complaints against Walmart for several alleged violations of workers’ rights, including threatening retaliation against workers for striking and actually carrying out such retaliation. According to the complaints, which will be brought before an administrative law judge if Walmart and the workers don’t reach a settlement:
- During two national television news broadcasts and in statements to employees at Walmart stores in California and Texas, Walmart unlawfully threatened employees with reprisal if they engaged in strikes and protests on November 22, 2012.
- Walmart stores in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington unlawfully threatened, disciplined, and/or terminated employees for having engaged in legally protected strikes and protests.
- Walmart stores in California, Florida, Missouri and Texas unlawfully threatened, surveilled, disciplined, and/or terminated employees in anticipation of or in response to employees’ other protected concerted activities.”
The truth about Walmart is that they actually have a negative effect on our nation’s economy and the economy of other nations that they insinuate themselves into:
- Walmart store openings destroy almost three local jobs for every two they create by reducing retail employment by an average of 2.7 percent in every county they enter.
- Walmart cost America an estimated 196,000 jobs – mainly manufacturing jobs – between 2001 and 2006 as a result of the company’s imports from China.
http://walmart1percent.org/issues/top-reasons-the-walton-family-and-walmart-are-not-job-creators/
As shown above Walmart jobs are jobs that ensure, rather than rescue workers from poverty and also:
- “Walmart pays less than other retail firms. A 2005 study found that Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 14.5% less than workers in large retail in general. A 2007 study which compared Walmart to other general merchandising employers found a wage gap of 17.4%.
- Last year, Walmart slashed already meager health benefits again, dropping health insurance for new hires working less than 30 hours a week and leaving more workers uninsured.”
As mentioned above Walmart puts a tremendous burden on the taxpayers in this country and in doing so harms the tax base in the localities where they set up shop.
- “Taxpayers subsidize Walmart’s low wages and poor benefits. Just one Walmart store costs taxpayers an estimated $1 million in public assistance usage by employees, according to a new report from the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
- In many of the states across the country that release such information, Walmart is the employer with the largest number of employees and dependents using taxpayer-funded health insurance programs. A few examples:
- In Arizona, according to data released by the state in 2005, the company had more 2,700 employees on the state-funded plan.
- The company also topped the list in their home state of Arkansas, with nearly 4,000 employees forced onto the state’s plan according to data released by the state in 2005.
- In Massachusetts, in 2009, taxpayers paid $8.8 million for Walmart associates to use publicly subsidized healthcare services.
- Despite all the damage they have done to US workers and communities, a 2007 study found that, as of that date, Walmart had received more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. This number has surely increased as Walmart continues to receive additional subsidies.
- Meanwhile, the Waltons use special tax loopholes to avoid paying billions in taxes. According to a recent Bloomberg story, the Waltons are America’s biggest users of a particular type of charitable trust that actually allows the donor to pass money on to heirs after an extended period of time, without having to pay much-debated estate and inheritance taxes. According to Treasury Department estimates reported in Bloomberg, closing the two types of loopholes the Waltons appear to use would raise more than $20 billion over the next decade.” http://walmart1percent.org/issues/top-reasons-the-walton-family-and-walmart-are-not-job-creators/
This Thanksgiving Season Walmart has been running a syrupy TV commercial that shows veterans returning home from our wars overseas. It guarantees that it will hire any veteran with an honorable discharge. To me this is yet another bitter irony that this company seems oblivious to. Walmart is “showing its support for our troops” how? By offering them some of the lowest paying jobs in America. This honors our troops in what to me is a rather backhanded way. Our veterans deserve to be well-treated after their service in these awful wars. Far too many of them can’t find work when they leave the service, but is working at Walmart honoring them, or is it offering them another low paying career, albeit without the danger?
When all of the truth began to come out about Walmart’s treatment of its workers I stopped shopping there. The truth is I can afford not to shop at Walmart, even though I’m on a fixed income that leaves me hanging onto the middle-class. There were times, when my family was young, that our income kept our heads barely above water. Therefore I can understand what it is like to clip coupons and go to multiple stores looking for sales. So I won’t say that anyone who shops at Walmart is bad because I’m not in a position to judge an individual family’s financial needs. I would ask people though, to raise their voices about the way that Walmart treats people. My request is that we find ways to oppose the “Walmartization” of our country, because if we don’t we will soon become one of those “third world” nation’s that we used to talk about disparagingly. My view in this is neither a liberal, nor conservative view. It is a question of fairness and it is an ethical question of how a capitalist enterprise should treat its workers. One can be a conservative, in the true meaning of the word and still decry such backward employment policies. From the perspective of those who don the mantle of fiscal conservatives alone, a fair analysis is that this company is costing us all billion$.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
http://www.ilsr.org/new-study-finds-walmarts-miserly-wages-cost-taxpayers/
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/01/03/wal-mart-declares-war-on-us-history/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/walmart-black-friday-death_n_4312210.html
You folks must think these employees were chained and led to the employment office at walmart. Nobody starts at the top of the food chain. you have to work your way up if you don’t like the process go get an education, change jobs, look for a better opportunity and improve yourself.
Obviously, some are missing the point that the system that enables Walmart’s success, is a scheme that was established through corruption and relentless undermining of workers rights. Walmart could never have been so big, so successful and so powerful had it just relied on low prices . Part of its scheme is to elbow out smaller competitors, the mom and pop stores that have always been the backbone of local economies. In order to do that, it relies on cornering the market on goods, cornering the market on production, on legislation and employment standards (lack of). This in turns makes it to our local communities what JP Morgan is to the national economy, a too big to fail entity that manipulates the system to increase its success yet never really pays a price for it. Now local government are bound to Walmart’s whims, never really able to free themselves from its fiefdom now that the hardware store has closed, the shoe repair shop is shuttered, the bakery is no more, the general store is gone.
The Walmart model is the model that is killing this country. For example, 4 companies produce 84% of our meat; which enables them to determine its price, its quality (lack of), and through the subsidies the government (you and me) gives them, to make us pay twice for a product we have no control over. But worse, they force the farmers who produce the meat, to at best work for free, caught up as they are in that antiquated feudal relationship that pays them little for their product, forcing them to cut corners and produce meat mistreated and stacked on top of each other, stressed to the marrow, which we eat and are diseased, then head off to that other industry, the pharmaceutical one, that is also too big to fail, and get these drugs that make sure we don’t die of the disease, but surely of the side effects of the treatment.
When I lived in Northampton, MA, a Walmart was proposed in town. The whole community rose up against the idea, making sure that it would not happen. At that time, I was not particularly engaged in that battle, not feeling to have a dog in it, as I knew I wasn’t there to stay. One day, as I was taking a stroll through the downtown, eating ice cream with the kids, and saying hello to a couple of people I knew sitting at the cafe on main street, inspired, I took a 360 degree view of my surroundings, looking at all the 100’s of little stores that lined the street, some manned by young people, others by older gents who have been around for decades, each offering a specific service, a specialty, a unique knowledge and experience. Around me were many other people, of all ages and backgrounds, some local and some tourists, going in and out of the shops, the cafes, the restaurants, a beehive of interaction and vibrancy. Had the Walmart been built locally, all of that would gone the way of countless other Main streets nationwide, resulting in phantom towns where the single local economy is through walmart, which then gets to dictate what the local government would let it get away with, and what the local people would get paid to stock its shelves.
Additionally, bringing any entity other than Walmart in this discussion is like bringing in Al Sharpton when discussing Zimmerman, you are really not making a point, you are simply trying to score points.
Po wrote: “Walmart could never have been so big, so successful and so powerful had it just relied on low prices . Part of its scheme is to elbow out smaller competitors, the mom and pop stores that have always been the backbone of local economies.”
You seem to be forgetting that Walmart began as a single mom and pop store in Arkansas in 1962. The business model was: “The Lowest Prices Anytime, Anywhere.” In 5 years, there were 24 stores. In 1970, he made the public offering to investors and brought his business model national. If you were smart, you would have bought stock in Walmart and be wealthy today.
Yes, Walmart does elbow out the smaller competitors, because people choose to buy there over buying at the competitors, and because people choose to work there over choosing to work at the competitors place of business. Walmart is more efficient at retail. That’s why it is successful and why it elbows out its competitors.
The same kind of success follows retailers like Target and Home Depot. Most people like big stores with a wide selection of good merchandise at good prices.
mahtso,
Don’t forget I know all those judges, some of whom are no longer on the Court. For example, I knew Jim Smith back when he was still a brand new lawyer. He makes Alito and Roberts look like flaming liberals. This is Mississippi after all, and big business friendly ultra conservatives get elected to the bench.
In fact, whenever a more moderate judge wins a seat on the bench, big business front groups go after them. They did it to Chuck McRae, and tried to do it to Ruben Anderson. In Anderson’s case, TV ads showed his photo and his opponent side by side with the caption that he is “not like us.” Ruben happens to be of African-American descent.
In Rankin County, where Jim Smith had been a lawyer and local judge, local law enforcement tried to arrest Justice McRae several times. The usual charge was “suspicion of DUI.” Chuck McRae has a slight speech impediment (dysarthria), and that was “evidence” of drinking.
The jury made the right decision, and despite millions of dollars in lawyers fees by GM, they lost every round before a conservative Mississippi court after 18 years of stalling.
mahtso:
So what do you think happened?
I normally don’t like to comment on “off-topic” comments, but the information about the GMC verdict will be an exception. The link provided goes to a long opinion. The key point to me is that reasonable minds can differ: Three Justices found that there was plenty of evidence supporting GMC’s version of events and recommended a new trial. I suspect those three do not agree that the facts show that this was about saving $12.
Mike,
Great post! I’m glad you wrote about this story.
James Knauer
1, November 23, 2013 at 11:18 am
Wall mart is no “success story.” It’s a business that does not care about its workers.
*****
They don’t give a damn about American manufacturers, other American companies, and what’s good for this country either. All they care about is making more and more money.
*****
NOT MADE IN AMERICA: TOP 10 WAYS WALMART DESTROYS US MANUFACTURING JOBS
July 2, 2012
Amy Traub
http://www.demos.org/publication/not-made-america-top-10-ways-walmart-destroys-us-manufacturing-jobs
Excerpt:
Why is it that America no longer makes things the way we used to? Between 1980 and 2011, the United States lost 7 million manufacturing jobs,[i] many of them middle-class positions that enabled workers to support their families with dignity. Today, the nation’s largest employer is not a manufacturer, but mega-retailer Walmart – which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week. Walmart pays its associates just $8.81 an hour on average.[ii] In this economy, a quarter of full-time working-age American adults are not earning enough money to meet their families’ economic needs.[iii] While the decline of American industry was caused by a variety of complex factors, the actions of the nation’s biggest corporation and largest retailer play an under-estimated role.
As America’s biggest company, Walmart wields tremendous market power. Walmart could use this might to help build up the American economy, offering good jobs to its own employees, encouraging contractors to do the same, and helping to strengthen U.S. manufacturing through its relationships with its suppliers. Instead, Walmart has wielded its market power to eliminate good-paying manufacturing jobs and lower labor standards in the retail sector and throughout its entire supply chain. On this Fourth of July, here are 10 ways Walmart has facilitated America’s industrial decline:
1. Buying billions of goods that weren’t made in America.
The vast majority of merchandise Walmart sells in the U.S. is manufactured abroad. The company searches the world for the cheapest goods possible, and this usually means buying from low-wage factories overseas. Walmart boasts of direct relationships with nearly 20,000 Chinese suppliers,[iv] and purchased $27 billion worth of Chinese-made goods in 2006.[v] According to the Economic Policy Institute, Walmart’s trade with China alone eliminated 133,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2006 and accounted for 11.2 percent of the nation’s total job loss due to trade.[vi] But China is hardly the only source of Walmart goods: the company also imports from Bangladesh, Honduras, Cambodia, and a host of other countries.
2. Pushing U.S. companies to move their factories overseas.
With $419 billion in annual net sales, Walmart’s market power is so immense that the even the largest suppliers must comply with its demands for lower and lower prices because they cannot afford to have their goods taken off its shelves. Companies that used to manufacture products in the United States, from Levi’s jeans to lock maker Master Lock, were pressured to shut their U.S. factories and moved manufacturing abroad to meet Walmart’s demand for low prices.[vii]
3. Making it easier for other U.S. retailers to buy from foreign factories.
Walmart was a leader in sourcing goods overseas, establishing a centralized purchasing system, technological infrastructure, and linkages to foreign factories that other companies imitated and built on. While researchers find that Walmart still imports disproportionately more goods than other apparel retailers,[viii] its innovations accelerated the use of offshore suppliers by its competitors, speeding the loss of American manufacturing jobs.
4. Forcing layoffs among its U.S. suppliers.
Even when Walmart products are made in the United States, manufacturing jobs still get eliminated as suppliers cut costs to meet Walmart’s demands for low prices. A spokesman for the National Knitwear and Sportswear Association noted that producing goods for Walmart “forces domestic manufacturers to compete, often unrealistically, with foreign suppliers who pay their help pennies on the hour.”[ix] A Walmart spokesperson admitted that this was the point of the company’s efforts to buy domestic goods: “one of our big objectives was to put the heat on American manufacturers to lower prices.”[x] Even as manufacturing costs increase, Walmart demands that suppliers’ prices go even lower, a dynamic that helped push Kraft Foods to plan the closure of 39 factories and lay off 13,500 workers. [xi]
5. Promoting domestic sweatshops.
Layoffs aren’t the only way manufacturers contrive to meet the low prices Walmart demands. Walmart’s domestic suppliers lower wages, cut benefits, aggressively fight employee efforts to unionize and bargain collectively, and skimp on worker comfort and safety. For example, Louisiana seafood processor C.J.’s Seafood, which sells an estimated 85 percent of its processed crawfish to Walmart, has recently come under scrutiny for allegedly abusing employees working in the U.S. on temporary immigrant visas (known as guestworker visas).[xii] A complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor claims that the Walmart supplier “engaged in extremely coercive employment related actions, including forcing guestworkers to work up to 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay, locking guestworkers in the plant to force them to continue to work, threatening the guestworkers with beatings to make them work faster, and threatening violence against the guestworkers’ families in Mexico after workers contacted law enforcement for assistance.”[xiii]
Mr. Scribe
Thanks for the link, but there is no date at that site. And if you follow its link, you will see a piece from 2011(the year of the data was not clear to me) showing that WalMart pays sales associates $8.8, which is more than Target or Kmart do. I don’t know whether “sales associates” are the same as “associates,” which is what Mr. Spindell wrote, but I suspect not. I do know that $8.81 is more than a national grocery chain in my area pays its cashiers.
Mr. Spindell,
Please provide a cite to the wage data.
Mike S,
Excellent! You’re right of over the target, one of America’s homegrown corporations that went terrible bad after the proprietor passed & the lawyers & the bean counters took over. “They Hate America’s Guts!”
Funny, I see no more of those Sam Walton/W’mart commercials of Sam introducing us to Joe/Suzie 6 pack that they were making WalMart’s Made in America products, where’d they go?
Need proof, look at the trade agreements, Nafta, Gata, & now TTP, & the roaring in our ears of loss of national sovereignty, that Ross Perot, Giant Sucking Sound, Clinton, GW, Obama sucking New World Order ….
Pity, you & I just don’t grab now what we know soon will be. WE can have citizens work with not a dime out of their paychecks just as everyday when we pull into a gas station, fill up, pay the bill & go marry on our way.
“Where are “Your” Royalty Payments” from Your/My USA’s Assets???
Gulf of Mexico Oil, only that Red Coat B*tch Queen gets a cut, not us? Nothing for our poor/elderly, SSI, Medicare/M’caid?
WalMart may have started out great under Sam W, but when I heard he passed on the radio I told my wife, watch, within a decade the bean counters/lawyers will Ph that corp up & they did.
I few years back I remember seeing it cost something like $1.5-$2 bucks for every dollar spent in WalMart.
Yes, I proud to have been boycotting WMT for years now. Every dollar I spend elsewhere helps a worker not associated with those Wally World/American hatin terrorist.
( Even people on food stamps/SNAP should be looking for a local butcher for their meats. )
As we’ve all been warned we should protect yourselves from the abuse of Gov’t power just as much as we should protect yourselves from corporation’s abuse of power.
I’ve got this I feel is a very key piece here though, we can have a small bit of socialism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, we just can’t allow ourselves to become buried under a dump truck load of too much of any one of the them.
pdm,
Are the rear brake lines made the same as the front? I’m not sure & I don’t know every model.
One of the ones I do know the rear axle is larger then the front. A few drivers may notice a problem long before it becomes a larger problem, but many wouldn’t.
IE: My wife says something maybe wrong/any wife, hubby says, ya, ya I’ll check it later….
Any rate the issue I’m talking about shows up in the service/parts records. Maybe it’s made it to the internet by now?
pdm,
You can have the failure anywhere you wish, I’m talking about the front end.
OS,
A massive difference between someone having a few drinks & not expecting trouble & Bean counters & Lawyers overruling the engineers specs!!!
But society, sold out lazy DA’s, well that’s just the Idiocracy we live in.
The death/injury count, Bean Counters/Lawyers in Jail vs DUI/DWI in jail? Ya, I hardly need to view the real stats as those are irrelevant to the muffets.
IE: Jap/GE Fukushima Nuke. The world didn’t need that Jap Island anyway, did we? (wink)
Oky.
Please read the court record. The left rear axle failed.
OS, Mar…… inability to testify had nothing to do with scientific fact (or lack of). Apparently, it is the law (just in Mississippi?) that an expert hired by one party cannot then testify for the other party. Those are the grounds on which he was barred. It also had nothing to do with rules of evidence.
Linda said the axle broke (she felt a bump) as she was traveling on the highway then lost control and flipped three times.
If an axle breaks while you are traveling 55 mph (Linda feels the bump), won’t there be some scars on the highway on which you were traveling where the undercarriage will hit and mar the highway? There were none. “Yaw” marks were found in the other lanes, not the lane on which Mrs. Jackson was traveling. And there was a lot of discussion of how the left wheel folded and traveled in very unexpected directions if the accident happened as Mrs. Jackson described.
I don’t think metallurgy is in question on these particular points. Take another look at your link if you are curious. It’s the damn missing scars on the highway when Mrs. Jackson describes the axle breaking.
OS, I’m sure my heart would break over that little child, too. But I don’t think this case is the one to prove that GM is the bad guy. And it embarrasses me to say it, but Mrs. Jackson is not a disinterested party here. Still, I’m glad they prevailed but I’m not convinced it was a correct verdict.
My fingers are turning into stone as I type this, but I wonder why Nick doesn’t offer his opinion. This is right up his alley. But Nick, no fair offering some similar case you have run into. Promise you will read the court record link if you decide to comment on my observations.
** However, when an expert is disallowed from testifying, it is usually because the testimony is not backed up by science. There is a little matter called “rules of evidence,” and scientific testimony has to be backed up with something other than ipse dixit, which is Latin for “it’s so because i said its so.”
Linda had a concussion and her memory is a bit foggy, but she is certain she did not run off the road and break an axle. She described to me losing control, and her description was more consistent with a wheel departing the vehicle than an impact and then losing control.
I have an opinion on that myself. An SUV should, and is, well built enough to drop a wheel off a shoulder or hit a pothole without breaking an axle. It can break if it is weakened from flawed metal, but under ordinary circumstances would not break. I have an engineering metallurgy handbook that gives all the stress fracture tolerances of various kinds of steel, but it is in storage at the moment and I am not about go looking for it now. Suffice it to say that an axle on a brand new SUV should have not broken under ordinary driving conditions. I looked at that fractured axle, and the cross section at the point of break did not look right. **
OS,
Sorry my heads a mess the last few days, but I’ve I lot I wish to see done, but some sucess.
I know some of the engineering on GM vehicles. No not ipse dixit.
GM has a history of known front axle failure. One cause of this is a check value type system on brake lines. Moisture is suspected of getting in the system cause a failure of the check value to release properly. That causes the brakes to keep rubbing on that hub/axle. Axle over heats, vehicles hits a point off stress, axle fails.
(IE: Heat or cold & a small Axle)
( OS: I have an engineering metallurgy handbook that gives all the stress fracture tolerances )
OT:
Letter: ‘Affordable Boat Act’
November 21, 2013
Letter from: Glenn Jacobs, Eagar, Arizona
[I didn’t write this gem of satire. Maybe one Dallas Horton, Philosopher, did.]
The U.S. government has just passed a new law called: “The Affordable Boat Act,” declaring that every citizen must purchase a new boat by April 2014. These “affordable” boats will cost an average of $54,000-$155,000 each. This does not include taxes, trailers, towing fees, licensing and registration fees, fuel, docking and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs.
This law has been passed, because until now, typically only wealthy people have been able to buy boats. Now every American will have an affordable boat, because everyone is “entitled” to one.
In order to make sure everyone purchases an affordable boat, the costs of owning a boat will increase on average of 250-400 percent per year. This way, wealthy people will pay more for something that other people don’t want or can’t afford to maintain. But to be fair, people who can’t afford to maintain their boat will be fined again and again. Children under the age of 26 may use their parents’ boats until they turn 27 – then they must purchase their own boats.
If you already have a boat, you can keep yours (Just kidding. No, you can’t). If you don’t want or don’t need a boat, you are required to buy one anyhow. If you refuse to buy one or can’t afford one, you will be fined again and again until you purchase one or face imprisonment.
Failure to use the boat will also result in fines. People living in the desert; ghettos; inner cities or areas with no access to lakes are not exempt. Neither age, motion sickness, inexperience, lack of knowledge nor lack of desire are acceptable excuses for not using your boat.
A government review board (that doesn’t know the difference between the port, starboard or stern of a boat) will decide everything, including; when, where, how often and for what purposes you can use your boat along with how many people can ride your boat and determine if one is too old or unhealthy to be allowed to use a boat. They will also decide when you have to buy a newer model, and when you must purchase specific accessories (like a $500 compass).
Those who can afford yachts will have to buy them. It is only fair. The government will also decide the name for each boat. Failure to comply with these rules will result in fines and/or imprisonment.
Government officials are exempt from this new law. If they want a boat, they and their families can obtain boats free, at the expense of tax payers. Unions, bankers and mega companies with large political affiliations ($$$) are also exempt.
[Dallas Horton: If the government can force you to buy health insurance, they can force you to buy a boat – or anything else. Yeah. It’s that stupid.]
http://tulsabeacon.com/affordable-boat-act/
pdm,
I did not stay for the whole trial because I had to be back at work. I would have liked to stay and hear the arguments. However, when an expert is disallowed from testifying, it is usually because the testimony is not backed up by science. There is a little matter called “rules of evidence,” and scientific testimony has to be backed up with something other than ipse dixit, which is Latin for “it’s so because i said its so.”
Linda had a concussion and her memory is a bit foggy, but she is certain she did not run off the road and break an axle. She described to me losing control, and her description was more consistent with a wheel departing the vehicle than an impact and then losing control.
I have an opinion on that myself. An SUV should, and is, well built enough to drop a wheel off a shoulder or hit a pothole without breaking an axle. It can break if it is weakened from flawed metal, but under ordinary circumstances would not break. I have an engineering metallurgy handbook that gives all the stress fracture tolerances of various kinds of steel, but it is in storage at the moment and I am not about go looking for it now. Suffice it to say that an axle on a brand new SUV should have not broken under ordinary driving conditions. I looked at that fractured axle, and the cross section at the point of break did not look right.
There was one other detail that I don’t think was ever emphasized. Amanda was in an approved rear facing infant car seat. In those days, it was OK to strap the seat into the front seat. Thirty years later, we know you should put the car seat in the rear seat. At any rate, the inertia reel of the seat belt did not hold on impact. When they found Amanda, she was still buckled into the car seat, but the seat belt had extended full length. Amanda was under the dashboard, on the floorboard. I read some time after that, there was a recall on that model seatbelt because the inertia reels were not holding.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_702
Otteray:
Very sad story; I feel terrible for the family. No amount of damages can make up for the losses they suffer. I’m glad they had your testimony. And, yes, all so a wealthy corporation could save 12 bucks. According to Popular Mechanics, the Pinto would have needed an 11 dollar part to rectify the problem. Reminds me of the engineer who was consulting with NASA and on multiple occasions warned NASA that the infamous O-rings might fail if lift-off occurred when the weather was too cold (if memory serves me correctly); NASA didn’t listen, and the rest is history. It is no wonder that yet another corporation, Wal-Mart, is a bad actor.
OS, something else I wondered about which you are uniquely qualified to discuss. When reading your comment and the description of their injuries, I thought the award was too small to provide lifetime care. I would think that $5 million is long gone by now. Is it just impossible to get juries to understand the effect of inflation in these kinds of lifetime disabilities?
OS, my heart is with the Jacksons. And nobody argued the terrible damages to the family. But damn, as I understand it, the mechanical explanation is not clear cut. There were no marks on the highway where the axle was supposed to have failed and the left wheel reacted in ways that seem to break the laws of physics (as stated by a dissenting judge.) I also wondered what caused their first expert witness Mar—- (I forget his name) to decide that the accident was not GM’s fault. I do understand why he was not allowed to testify. Did you hear any of mechanical testimony and, if so, why did disagree with the GM defense?
Had I been on the jury, I probably would have found for the Jacksons, but I’m not sure that that was a just verdict. Your link had someone saying the jury was prejudiced toward the Jacksons. You could have put me in that category.
**pdm 1, November 24, 2013 at 12:18 am
This is a terrific blog post from a woman who describes herself as poor and talks about why she. and others who are in the same boat, makes certain decisions. **
With some people & their unborn babies maybe the govt giving them Rat Poison, Sodium Fluoride in their water & mercury & other crap, etc., actually helps them.
So go ahead friends shoot up!
(Sarc off)