Here, back by popular demand (at least the popular demand of Kossacks who write comments on my diary posts) is more of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's stand-up routine from yesterday's press junket. The same caveats apply as was the case with
my first diary this morning.
This must have come from his intro:
"I have to do this for our associates," Scott told reporters Tuesday as the company kicked off its first-ever media conference in Rogers, Ark.
"Our associates were frustrated that I haven't been responding to all the criticism directed against Wal-Mart, even when a lot of it is unfair and inaccurate," Scott said. "I think we did a disservice to our associates and to our shareholders by not answering our critics."
Let me pair that with a line from this morning's
USA Today expose on how the heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune are spending millions of dollars to elect Republicans in order to permanently repeal the estate tax:
Aubrey Rothrock III, a Washington lobbyist hired by the family, says the Waltons are mostly interested in bills to increase charitable giving through their family foundation. "The estate tax repeal initiative has never been the focus of our advocacy efforts," he says.
Do you people realize how disingenuous this sounds? Seriously, can't you admit to doing anything for yourself? For heaven's sake, you're capitalists! Is there a nobel prize in capitalism that I've never heard of? If you weren't doing something for the money you have no business doing business with anyone. And you wonder why some people don't trust you.
"Last year, in Glendale, Ariz., 8,000 people lined up for about 525 jobs at a new Supercenter we were opening,"
Scott said. "It doesn't make sense that people would line up for jobs that are worse than they could get elsewhere."
Lee, this argument only works if your potential employees know the wages and conditions of employment they'll have at Wal-Mart before they're hired. Barbara Ehrenreich didn't:
[The Wal-Mart manager] calls to tell me, in fulsome tones, that my "drug screen is fine" and that I'm due in tomorrow at three for orientation...I ask her what the pay is-
it should be noted that she does not offer this information herself-and...she says $7 an hour...
[Nickeled and Dimed, pp. 142-43; emphasis added]
The free market can only work if everyone has perfect information (and usually not even then). Are you prepared to post wage rates to all job applicants when they apply? I figure no. You just want to keep running ads about how people who work for you just love it there. Who cares if it's actually true or not?
"The truth is a lot of the criticism we get is not right, it's self-serving," [Scott]
told reporters at a media conference.
"I would ask them why they want to deny consumers the benefits of competition."
[emphasis added]
After I read that quote, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't even know where to start with this one, so I'll let USA Today again (an older article this time) make the obvious response:
In 1997-2002, Wal-Mart blanketed Oklahoma City with seven supercenters and seven of its "neighborhood markets" that mimic stand-alone supermarkets. It added a Sam's Club warehouse store to three already in the metro area. Result: 30 competing supermarkets closed, according to Retail Forward. In Dallas over the same period, Wal-Mart added 34 stores. Winn-Dixie abandoned all of its 15 stores.
If memory serves me well, Winn Dixie filed for bankruptcy in the last few weeks. Unless the truth about Wal-Mart gets spread far and wide, there will be a lot more casualties in the future.
JR