CEO says Wal-Mart needs low-cost imports

[OhioChick]

Source: Zee News/India

Arkansas, Oct 12: Chief Executive Lee Scott defended Wal-Mart's reliance on low-cost imports Thursday against what he called emerging economic nationalism. Scott told a retailing conference he would like to stock more American-made goods but that Wal-Mart's business model is based on offering the lowest price for consumers who cannot afford to spend more.

Scott was answering a question from an audience member who wanted to know if Wal-Mart would buy more U.S.-made products to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of global transport and to bring manufacturing jobs back from places like China.

"Right now, the way it works, our model is `We sell for less.' If we put products out there and we have to sell them for more because our competitors are sourcing more efficiently and more effectively for the same quality of product, our model doesn't work. We cannot be at a price disadvantage," Scott said.

"Lest anybody forget, 20 percent of Wal-Mart's customers don't have a checking account and they do not have the economic luxury of making a broader social statement," he told a conference of the Center for Retailing Excellence, part of the University of Arkansas' Sam M. Walton Business College.



Read more: http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=400599&ssid=51&ssname=World&sid=BUS&sname=LATEST-BUSINESS-NEWS

[LiberalFighter]

1. How can their competitors source more efficiently and more effectively?

They are the biggest and they have more buying power to buy for less.

[Igel]

22. Context.

"... an audience member ... wanted to know if Wal-Mart would buy more U.S.-made products to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of global transport and to bring manufacturing jobs back from places like China."

Response: If we do that and our competitors don't, it means that they'd be sourcing things more efficiently and economically.

[w4rma]

2. And China-Mart is doing their best to keep those Americans dirt poor. (nt)

[Triana]

3. MAL-WART needs to be SHUT DOWN! (n/t)

[rpannier]

4. And if they'd use more American-made goods, More Americans could get good paying jobs and be able to

buy the slightly more expensive American-made products...

[silverojo]

26. But until someone helps those who CAN'T work

Those people won't be able to afford better, American-made goods. That's why I'm for John Edwards--the economy isn't just about working people. It's about retired folks living on pensions, and disabled people living on SSI or SSDI, too. They deserve benefits that will enable them to do better than live in a slum and eat dog food. :(

[Toots]

5. Well because of their politics the US dollar has diminished and that means

Everyone has to pay more. When the dollar has less purchasing power because of devaluation foreign goods will have to rise in price. Especially those petroleum based products. Also virtually everything sold in America was trucked to it's source and the cost of that freight bill is rising rapidly. Republicans and their complete arrogance has made anything American less desirable throughout the world. Wal-Mart is a contributor to Republican foreign policy.

[SHRED]

6. I replied to that article

Here is what I said:

Curiously missing from this article is the cause:
The tearing down of trade tariffs by the Corporatists, mainly the Republican Party, that has led to this imbalance.

We have "open borders" for cheap imported goods with no protections via tariffs.
They call it "protectionism" as if it is a dirty word.
The Globalists are getting their way and our country (USA) is being sucked dry of good unionized, middle class jobs.


---

[Javaman]

7. Translation:

"fuck you, we need to make more money so we can control your miserable little lives, so shut the fuck up and buy our cheap ass lead containing shit, next fucking question!"

[winston61]

33. Amen, my brother!

[blackspade]

8. nice statement...

"Lest anybody forget, 20 percent of Wal-Mart's customers don't have a checking account and they do not have the economic luxury of making a broader social statement," he told a conference of the Center for Retailing Excellence, part of the University of Arkansas' Sam M. Walton Business College.

Well, if our corporate leaders hadn't decided to export all our good paying manufacturing jobs to China and other places then maybe 20% of Wal-Mart shoppers might not have to buy substandard crap for the 'lowest price'. His comments are nothing more than corporate hyperbole.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

9. Reminds me of the old lawyer's gag...

about the kid who kills both his parents, then pleads to the judge for leniency on the account of his being an orphan.

[PATRICK]

21. How about rage and fear?

It negates economic need. Why buy foreign poisoned food and killer toys anyway? You can may a suitable rope out of things around the house and hang yourself as well as buy a dangerous, un-guaranteed, cheap product.

Wal Mart and others are becoming extremely vulnerable to a backlash they think the MSM will constantly forestall. But word of mouth will hit them so hard the news power will be irrelevant. Cheap food has less nutrition, more additives, more foreign question marks, more irrational destruction of our own economy. The trigger point is seeing the China label and remembering Fluffy's death agonies and Junior chewing on his Play school set. Then the irrational urge of seeing the product form with a cheap price passes to extreme outrage. Cover up and mystery do nothing to mitigate the prejudice but encourage it to spread like wildfire. Letting the story percolate from simple word of mouth and doing nothing but making it worse will have growing consequences beyond the short terms businesses think in. WalMart has already alienated(now dissing) one thoughtful class. It publicly ignores and disses the victimized, held in ignorance class. Keep it up and the chain collapses in a sudden flash of public reaction.

[progressivebydesign]

10. No. The biz model is to convince people that they have to buy tons of crap.

If you really look at most of the shit sold in America on a daily basis, it is NOT essential stuff. No one needs 10 pairs of shoes, or 20, or 100. No one needs most of the crap that gets sold in stores like that. His customers that he thinks NEEDS those things are usually folks left behind in this economy that believe shopping and having things makes them wealthy. Shopping is a #1 hobby now, especially among people who do not really have the money to do so. Yes, they can buy a pair of 10 dollar shoes, but Americans will buy 15 pairs of them. America is broken. People believe that buying things will make them happy. If we had to pay a normal price for a pair of shoes, we would not see decorating shoes where women need a separate closet just for their shoes.

Oh.. it's a long and complicated subject, but it's not about providing cheap things to customers. It's about how consumerism and the ad industry and corporations like Walmart (and yes, even Trader Joes who imports food from China to sell cheaply), are destroying America.

[progressivebydesign]

11. Oddly enough, that was EXACTLY the reply I got from Trader Joes corporate...

I wrote to them asking why I keep finding canned vegetables from CHINA on their shelves, products that are readily available from American farmers. I asked why so many of their frozen veggies and entrees are also imported from CHINA and other places. Their response was EXACTLY the same. They pride themselves on offering LOW COST products to their customers and importing them is the way to do it. As much as I hate Walmart, look around... read some labels, it's not just them.

[robinlynne]

13. I too am saddened to see trader Joe's doing this. I do believe that trader joes

would react to consumer pressure though. WE don't go there just for the price. there is a trust issue, where you believe you are getting healthy products.

[robinlynne]

12. I love the concept that there is emerging economic nationalism. wakeup america!

[AzDar]

14. Wasn't Sam Walton himself very much an 'economic nationalist' with

his 'Made In The USA' campaign?
The very formula which brought Wal Mart such success.....
:puke:

[brentspeak]

17. Sam's greedy billionaire brood decided to go against the old man's philosophy

[AllyCat]

15. Well, of course, they do. How else would he make billions each year

while his workers get a sub-living wage with no benefits? I mean, he'd go BROKE if he had to use American labor and actually compensate his workers.

[brentspeak]

16. Mall-Wart: For all your cheap and hazardous made-in-China junk.

[hatrack]

18. Mao-Mart - Always Low Wages!

Always!

[BrklynLib at work]

19. What a crock..Allt hey are interested in is greater profit..not providing any sort of "service" to

the public.
They could have been selling low-cost AMERICAN goods all this time..but they wanted a bigger percentage of profit, and the only way to do that was to go to China..cheap labor, cheap goods..more profit.
Just look at the way they have treated their own employees. I have heard that most of them cannot even afford to shop at the store in which they work.
Not to mention several really great American manufacturers they have put out of business.

[Bluestar]

20. Lee Scott attended the same college as I did

And, of course, he is hailed as the "second coming" by the small state school that we attended. However, this statement and other actions he has taken tell me he is a mental midget. He doesn't seem to have a clear vision of the future and he doesn't realize that the tide has turned. This is bad news for the CEO of such a large corporation. I predict that this attitude will be the end of his reign as CEO.

[MisterP]

23. no, not economic nationalism! it's what the people of the world want (but not the corpos)...

[Neshanic]

24. "and our goal is to have 90% of the population with no checking account!"

Then we have the companies they work for give them pay cards, that they can use at our stores, to which we will add a usage fee.

I like his "model". Some would say his model is selling out America no matter what, to the point of having the Chinese welcoming party when they take over everything.

[Bread and Circus]

25. It's not us fucking over America... it's our business model....

I hate the way corporate fucktards hide behind corporate speak.

True Orwellian bullshit.

[tinrobot]

27. The consumers who cannot afford to spend more...

...are the same customers who lost their jobs to Chinese factory workers.

Funny how that works.

[harpboy_ak]

28. Our new MalWart can't find enough employees

I guess Juneau, Alaska must be the last town of 30,000 in the US to get a MalWart, and they haven't been able to find enough people who will work at their slave wages to fully staff the store. I haven't been in the store (and will never ever go in) but folks who have tell me that the shelves are never fully stocked. I understand that they haven't been able to fill more than 2/3 of the positions authorized by MalWart HQ.

Why? Because the cost of living here is 25% above Seattle. The store is located across the road from Juneau's largest mobile home park (they bought the former KMart store, vacated after KMart closed all its Alaskan stores). A 2 BR single wide mobile home there rents for around $1200/mo, and tenants pay all utilities. Last winter fuel oil was $3.15/gallon, regular gas $3.39/gal. A basic ranch style home here costs at least $250K. Stores here have to pay at least $14/hr to get someone who is barely functionally literate.

Plus this is a strong union town, the state capital, where the major employer is the state government, and even the locally owned grocery stores offer health insurance. Our educational level is way above the national average, more similar to a large university town (back in the 80s, it was right behind Cambridge, MA & Palo Alto).

I estimate that at least 35% of Juneau residents decided before the store opened that they would never go in it, though they were quick to patronize Costco when it opened, and the new Home Depot did a land office business this summer, in part because those big box retailers are known for fairly compensating their employees.

I'm predicting they won't last 2 years before they just fold their tent and leave. With these demographics, this store just won't make their required numbers.

[ima_sinnic]

29. awww, isn't that sweet? he really REALLY cares about the poor

... that's why he really REALLY wants more of them! because without them, who would patronize their cheezy stores? and he loves the ultra-poor, starving, abused child laborers in China who work 14-hr days 24/7 for pennies a day to make all the crap they sell.

I remember when Sears Roebuck was the biggest kid on the block--and they were the biggest in mail order for about 60 years--the annual Xmas Wish Book was the stuff of dreams, and a lot of our school clothes were picked out of the fall catalog--it was really fun when the boxes from Sears would come--but eventually they were knocked down to some mediocre level, because demographics change, people change, times change--and so will this gluttonous monster be displaced by the next biggest one, or maybe by lots and lots of small local ones. Even though I'm "getting old," I expect to live long enough to see that happen, and I can't wait. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

[Orsino]

30. ...in order to keep sending billions back to Bentonville.

That's their "need."

[mitchum]

31. If it walks like Scrooge McDuck and talks like Scrooge McDuck...

[winston61]

32. What competitors?

He forgot to mention that Wally World has forced consumer choice out of the marketplace. It's either buy our low priced, low quality chinese made shit or do without. That sounds a lot like 'fuck you' to me. How many of that 20% are low paid Walmart employees? Fuck the corporate state.

[sendero]

34. The way this whole "free trade"...

....deal was supposed to work, as Bill Clinton said back in the early 90s, was that we buy stuff from China and they buy stuff from us.

I knew they weren't going to buy stuff from us, they are not as stupid as us. They are going to learn to make it themselves and eventually we will be selling NOTHING manufactured here anywhere in the world.

Everybody can't be a lawyer or doctor or banker or insurance man. America's economic dominance is well on its way to ending permanently, and we PISSSED IT AWAY for some think-tank bullshit and corporatist greed.

[theHandpuppet]

35. They could start with their own employees

"Lest anybody forget, 20 percent of Wal-Mart's customers don't have a checking account and they do not have the economic luxury of making a broader social statement"

How much you wanna bet a lot of their own underpaid employees make up that 20% ?

[Vidar]

36. WalMart needs a large combination of firebombs & bulldozers.