The Islamic bodega

LeeHo, since you're not trying to make a claim that withholding pork and beer from consumers constitutes some terrible crime, I have no beef with you over your anti-Walmart stance. I'm certainly well aware of the criticisms leveled at that company and if you or anyone wants to boycott it then that's their right; still, I don't think the government should pass discriminatory legislation that's targeted against any one company. WMT should receive equal treatment under the law, and none of the criticisms you raised is illegal. If you want to lobby for a general change in the law that would apply to all companies, then that's obviously legit too. But why should the city favor Target and others over Walmart unless Walmart refuses to comply with city law?

Just to quibble over a couple of points for the sake of discussion, why aren't Walmart's corporate employees also considered "employees"? Don't they receive salaries? Not to diminish the plight of the lower level workers, but surely if you include the marketing and advertising reps, the operations managers, the network engineers and other technology staff, and of course the senior executives, then the average employee numbers would be far different. Stats like yours are skewed b/c they basically say, "Excluding all the highly paid employees, WMT's employees are low paid." Well duh. Walmart pays many of its employees fantastically well--but strangely it gets criticized for that too. Curious that we rail against underpayment but also complain about overpayment. I guess we are hoping for an ideal in which virtually all employees get paid a middle class wage, but unfortunately that doesn't work as a business model.

As for Walmart's anti-union stance and its outsourcing of manufacturing, I have absolutely no problem with either one. Fine, we can debate until the cows come home about unions (let's not), but on the outsourcing issue it's black and white. There is absolutely nothing wrong with outsourcing whatsoever. The empirical evidence shows overwhelmingly that outsourcing leads to a net increase in both the number of jobs and the amount of wealth domestically, so that's a no-brainer. And it also provides enormous benefits to developing nations, whose truly poor workers would suffer greatly from ill-advised legislation to protect less efficient American workers here.

escap, do you disagree with anti-monopoly laws? Serious, non-baiting question.

Anti-monopoly laws are complex and the issue is difficult; frankly I'm not sure I've given it enough thought to really comment. I'd be happy to hear where you're going with this though.

Escap, just to play devil's advocate here:

Wal-Mart Breaking the Law:


* Wal-Mart’s 2006 Annual Report reported that the company faced 57 wage and hour lawsuits. Major lawsuits have either been won or are working their way through the legal process in states such as California, Indiana, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington. [Wal-Mart Annual Report 2006]
* In December 2005, a California court ordered Wal-Mart to pay $172 million in damages for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required under state law. Wal-Mart appealed the case. [The New York Times, December 23, 2005]
* A Pennsylvania court, also in December 2005, approved a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. by employees in Pennsylvania who say the company pressured them to work off the clock. The class could grow to include nearly 150,000 current or former employees. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 12, 2006 ]
* In Pennsylvania, the lead plaintiff alleges she worked through breaks and after quitting time — eight to 12 unpaid hours a month, on average — to meet Wal-Mart’s work demands. “One of Wal-Mart’s undisclosed secrets for its profitability is its creation and implementation of a system that encourages off-the-clock work for its hourly employees,” Dolores Hummel, who worked at a Sam’s Club in Reading from 1992-2002, charged in her suit. [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 12, 2006 ]

Wal-Mart executives did not act on warnings they were violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

* Wal-Mart has known for years of a massive companywide problem of fair labor standards violations but did not take sufficient steps to address the problem. An internal Wal-Mart audit of one week of time records in 2000 from 25,000 employees had alerted Wal-Mart officials to potential violations. The audit found 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times. It also alerted Wal-Mart executives to 1,371 instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too many hours in a day. [Steven Greenhouse, “Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock,” New York Times, A1, 6/25/02]
* Despite this knowledge, Wal-Mart had to settle in January 2005 for violations that took place from 1998 to 2002, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $135,540 to settle U.S. Dept. of Labor charges that the company had violated provisions against minors operating hazardous machinery. [Ann Zimmerman, “Wal-Mart's Labor Agreement Is Criticized by Former Official,” Wall Street Journal, 2/15/05]
* In March 2005, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million to settle allegations that it had failed to pay overtime to janitors, many of whom worked seven nights a week. [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 11/7/05, Forbes, 10/10/05]
* The State of Connecticut, investigating Wal-Mart’s child labor practices after the federal investigation ended, found 11 more violations. In June 2005, Connecticut fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc. $3,300 over child labor violations after a state investigation found that some minors lacked proper paperwork and were operating hazardous equipment at the stores. [“Wal-Mart Is Fined for Child Labor Violations,” Bloomberg News, June 22, 2005]


Wal Mart and Foreign Workers:

Wal-Mart's Chinese factory workers are treated poorly

* Workers making clothing for Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, China filed a class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart in September 2005 claiming that they were not paid the legal minimum wage, not permitted to take holidays off and were forced to work overtime. They said their employer had withheld the first three months of all workers' pay, almost making them indentured servants because the company refused to pay the money if they quit. [New York Times, September 14, 2005]
* Workers making toys for Wal-Mart in China’s Guangdong Province reported that they would have to meet a quota of painting 8,900 toy pieces in an eight hour shift in order to earn the stated wage of $3.45 a day. If they failed to meet that quota, the factory would only pay them $1.23 for a day’s work. [China Labor Watch, December 21, 2005]

Elsewhere workers producing goods for Wal-Mart also face appalling conditions, despite Wal-Mart’s factory inspection program

* Workers from Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Swaziland brought a class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart in September 2005 asserting that the company’s codes of conduct were violated in dozens of ways. They said they were often paid less than the legal minimum wage and did not receive mandated time-and-a-half for overtime, and some said they were beaten by managers and were locked in their factories. [New York Times, September 14, 2005]
* A female apparel worker in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said she was locked into the factory and did not have a day off in her first six months. She said she was told if she refused to work the required overtime, she would be fired. Another worker said her supervisor attacked her “by slapping her face so hard that her nose began bleeding simply because she was unable to meet” her “high quota.” [New York Times, September 14, 2005]
* In 2004, only 8 percent of Wal-Mart inspectors’ visits to factories were unannounced, giving supervisors the chance to coach workers what to say and hide violations. Wal-Mart claimed it planned to double unannounced visits by its inspectors but that would still leave 80 percent of inspections announced. [CFO Magazine, August 2005]
* A former Wal-Mart executive James Lynn has sued the company claiming he was fired because he warned the company that an inspection manager was intimidating underlings into passing Central American suppliers. Lynn documented forced pregnancy tests, 24-hour work shifts, extreme heat, pat-down searches, locked exits, and other violations of the labor laws of these Central American countries. [New York Times, July 1, 2005 and James Lynn to Odair Violim, April 28, 2002, www.nclnet.org]

Not so squeaky clean of a company, huh? They have done tons of illegal things.

That company is a reckless and dangerous one. I didn't even get into the taxpayer element by the workers they pay so inadequately and screw over on hours for adequate health insurance that is too expensive for the "average" Wal-Mart "associate" to earn anyway.

It's a good thing the lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution, otherwise it would never get changed no matter how many lefties were at it until the wee hours.

Leeho, I am aware of all those allegations. If New York City wants to pass a sweeping law that it will forbid entrance into the market of any company that stands accused of minimum wage violations in China, or that in the past settled a lawsuit over improper use of machinery, then I guess that would be one thing. Otherwise, I still don't know that the punishment is fitting the crime here. But whatever, I by no means am saying that company is saintly.

As far as monopolies, Raulism, there is a fundamental flaw in your point. The classic Marxist adage is that as companies become increasingly successful they will slowly eclipse all their competitors until they completely dominate the market, and like you said, destroy the market itself. Unfortunately, a couple of hundred years of history present overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact it's quite the opposite--sustaining a competitive advantage for more than a few years is next to impossible.

What the evidence shows us is that companies rise to success via a new product or innovation, show rapid growth for a few years as they reap the benefits of their competitive advantage, but that growth tapers off quickly as a company reaches maturity. Finally, if it fails to reinvent itself, it will inevitably decline. This happens again and again, it is why venture capital yields huge returns but has huge risks, and why large-cap stocks tend to exhibit low growth and high stability. Why? Because almost any advantage can be copied. Contrary to the notion that a Walmart, or a Google, will destroy all in its path, in fact its business model will be replicated and improved upon mercilessly, as we are already seeing happen. (there was a famous study done demonstrating that over time successful companies fail and vice versa, resulting in a convergence of profits to the cost of capital, but you're just gonna have to take my word for it for now)

In fact, even companies whose products are so revolutionary, and who are successful at exploiting barriers to entry or creating networks that exclude all others, eventually find themselves challenged and replaced as well. We have seen this in telecom, where firmly entrenched telephone monopolies are now scattered to the wind by challenges from cell phones, cable companies, Skype, and many more. Ditto for monopolistic cable companies, who are facing growing competition from phone companies, satellite providers, etc. TW customers surely think the pace is glacial, but rest assured the trend is moving towards increased competition for cable, not decreased. Even Microsoft, one of the great monopolies of the past couple decades, saw its stock price collapse in 2000. Why? Because investors see that it, too, can be copied and replaced. It will be Google, who is already rushing out web-based document and spreadsheet software, it will be the increasing move to integrate online capabilities into television, it will be an Indian firm that does all that msft does but at 1/10th the cost, and it will be many others we haven't yet imagined. And what I've outlined here are industries with huge tendencies towards market domination--if even they eventually succumb to competition, monopoly is completely impossible for your average widget maker or service provider. Walmart's model has already been copied and we are already witnessing the beginning of its decline. As long as people are free to innovate and take risks, we will have a competitive market.

One caveat: mergers can create temporary threats to market competition, and while I think the FTC should tread lightly, it shouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. A Google/Microsoft/Yahoo merger seems like a bad idea.

But with the exception of electric utilities, the only real monopolies out there are not created by excess capitalist dominance, but rather by the government. The post office, public schools, state owned oil companies and banks, national health care, and so on. These are the real monopolies, and they are all created by the government itself, not by the market.

I guess it's about as offensive as a vegetarian restaurant not selling meat. Annoying, perhaps, but none of my business.

MichaelKeys wrote: [quote=Sushipants]I guess it's about as offensive as a vegetarian restaurant not selling meat. Annoying, perhaps, but none of my business.

That's a little different. Let me use your own example: a vegetarian might not care what the butcher shop sells, but would want to know why their favorite food shop stopped selling fruit, for instance.

well, maybe they'd want to know, but would they still buy oatmeal at that food shop?

devincf wrote: Kosher delis are advertised as such. But even still, I bet you a kosher deli will sell you a pastrami sandwich and a thing of milk at the same time.

devin cf, i challenge you to find me a KOSHER deli, (and that means one that isn't just kosher "style" but certified by a particular rabbi to be KOSHER) that will sell me meat and milk. KOSHER delis/restaurants are either dairy restaurants, or meat restaurants that, even with coffee, serve non dairy creamer.

you may not believe in religion for yourself--i don't for myself either--but it might be time for you to brush up on your knowledge of religious beliefs before making broad statements.

don't like it? don't go.

Raulism, you'll find no disagreement from me that markets should be regulated, and you're certainly right that virtually everybody agrees on that point (obviously the degree of regulation is contested, but not the existence of it). The idea that Congress should smooth out the business cycle has long been abandoned, as the Fed can act far more quickly and efficiently to mitigate its effects; but Congress plays an important role in many other forms of regulation (carbon emission, investor protections, etc.). Now, did this relate to the Walmart or monopoly issue, or is this just an esoteric argument now?

As an interesting aside, Greenspan actually expressed support in his private writings for allowing those wild swings you mentioned, and said his ideal economy looked like that of 19th century America and had no Federal Reserve whatsoever. He said ideally rates would rise and fall according to the market, not a central bank, and that the economy would experience dynamic, violent swings that would periodically shake things up. In practice, obviously, this was not the course he followed, since in fact he was credited with maintaining 16 years of stability. But you'll recall that, as a member of Ayn Rand's cabal in the 70's, Greenspan was one of those wild-eyed libertarians himself, at least until it came time to put his money where his mouth was.

And I should have known that there would be a PC reaction to this. Again, if this was an evangelical Christian establishment, and their product selection was based on their beliefs, I think people would be more receptive to questions.

Nope. I am far from PC, but merely pointing out how ridiculously difficult it would be to manage in day to day life by an extension of the original logic.

Fear Change.

Fear Others.

withachaser wrote: i deleted my post because, after reading the direction of the thread, decided commenting on the state of lesbian porn was salaciously and selfishly off-topic. long-live freedom of entrepeneurs to sell whatever they choose and consumers to purchase likewise!!!

maybe we need a new thread. Ha. :-'

I'm upset that my bodega is forcing their beliefs on me by not selling foie gras. A man shouldn't have to walk more than a block for foie gras.

ANSWER THE QUESTION, CREEP.

I'm glad they don't sell beer there anymore. I remember what it was like around here when every bodega sold weed and 40's. If they start selling Pete's Wicked Ale, then they're gonna have to sell Old English and St. Ides, too! Good riddance to Malt Liquors, wine coolers, and other hood poisons flooded our bodegas in the late 80's and early 90's. Now if we could just get rid of the ugly yellow awnings.

There is no motherfuckin' ham in the motherfuckin' cooler. Also, looks like the bacon selection is beef and turkey bacon.

I get egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches there and didn't even know.

Plus, all of the staff there is really nice.

Who cares if no beer? This neighborhood is like beer here, beer there, beer everywhere, anyway.

Looks like devincf is too lazy to walk up the block or diagonally walk across the street.

RBG wrote: Notice the "No Dogs Please" sign. For what its worth, Pet Dogs (as opposed to guard dogs) are forbidden in Islam too...Does anyone care?

I think they're forbidden on Roosevelt Island as well. Maybe someone cares about that?

Not sure about the ham....