Save or Spend?
I love hearing the arguments of people about the chain store Wal-Mart. Especially the ones who despise it, hate it, refuse to shop there, but oops... didn’t I see you buying items in there the other night?
The ones who bitch and complain about the low wages of the workers there, the “associates” as they are called, the ones who quit medical school to work in the pet food section. If everyone made 6 figures a year, that 79-cent loaf of bread would cost you 4 bucks. Face it, the reality of the world is that not everyone can be millionaires, or even make enough money to be comfortable. For the most part, there isn’t anyone you can blame but yourself. No one made you go to work there, no one made you not go to college. Of course there are exceptions, but as far as education, if you can’t get a scholarship - get a grant, no grant - get a loan. Hell, even go to a trade school, because if you do you won’t have to work there.
If you do go to work there, it is one of the biggest companies in the world that promote from within. Matter of fact, that’s the only way they promote. Work hard, get promoted. Simple stuff. The average salary of Wal-Mart management, at the store level, is 50 grand. You could go to work there at 18, and by the time you are 30, you could be making 50 grand a year, and that’s without the bonuses. I know a lot of college grads that will never make that amount of money; it’s all in how much you put into your job.
Then there are the opponents of Wal-Mart, always complaining that Wal-Mart has killed their small town, everybody from Main Street to the local butcher shop. Wal-Mart will come in with prices that are 20 percent lower than the local guy, but whose fault is that? They are a business, looking to make profits, and fighting to meet the stockholders expectations. Wal-Mart runs on a very low mark up rate, along the lines of 5 percent. For them, if you buy a 5-dollar item, they may make 25 cents. That’s without paying for anything; not the lights, not the employees, NOTHING. That’s the main reason they have to sell in bulk, which in turn gives them the power to set their own prices with the other merchants, such as Dial or Tide.
They set the standards in the retail industry, and the companies that have followed have prospered. Target has followed the book of Wal-Mart to the letter, only adding fruitful colors, and a selection that makes you think that they are different from Wal-Mart, but take a closer look and all you have is Wal-Mart Junior with happier employees.
It happens about once every 6 months, the unions jump in, crying foul that Wal-Mart is hurting the American worker, but the bottom line is that with over one million workers, the union dues that would pad their wallets would choke a horse. The union looks out for one thing only; THE UNION.
Take a look at what you have to pay for a car today, you can blame the UNION for that. With the addition of under priced steel, computer chips that cost 90 percent less than what they used to, and most building materials that are the cheapest they have ever been; it should be the other way around. But as soon as the UAW or the Teamsters smell the last tenth of a penny they can gouge from the Big 3, they go in for the kill. The only problem is the cost comes out of OUR pockets; the Big 3 has to pass the buck to stay in business.
The bottom line is, the only way that big business will ever listen to the town they demolish, or the customers that are always bitching, is by the POCKETBOOKS. All you have to do is go to another store, pay 20 percent more, and eventually they will listen to you. The only bad thing about that is that Wal-Mart has so much power, that if everyone did go somewhere else, all they would do is lower their prices even more.
To fully understand the Wal-Mart concept, pick up a cheap copy of Sam Walton’s book at a used bookstore. After reading it, my impression is that the guy almost stumbled upon this. Hell, the guy outlines in the book how he did it, not a single detail left out. He started small; buying basically anything he could get his hands on cheap, then sold them at a low markup.
You can also say that without women’s underwear and stockings, there would never have been a Wal-Mart. It was one of the first items that he could get for pennies on the dollar, and would then sell 5 for a dollar - which gave him the capital to buy other bulk items, like soap or socks, and do it again. It may sound corny, but it worked.
I think that Sam Walton is, and will always be, a pioneer for the American dream. Even once he became a billionaire, he still got into his old beat up truck and drove around the country to his stores. It took him 10 years after he passed the hundred million mark to actually have a jet plane. And the employees that started with him, the ones that made minimum wage, have since long retired, with millions in their profit sharing plans. The ones that start today can make a fortune more than Social Security will ever give them, the stock is still gold, and Wal-Mart has given more to the employee than a 401K plan will ever give.
Spreading truth,
Manimal Lector
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