<p>oh brother…there goes the civility</p>
<p>I know many many poor families who get by without Walmart. Fwiw, shopping at places like farmers markets is much cheaper for poor families around here. My low-income hometown fought for YEARS against a Walmart. It finally came in but every time I go past, it’s almost always empty.</p>
<p>I find that just wrong, sew. That’s an incredibly large assumption and a great leap for many reasons. Many poor families do buy local because they’re supporting their friends and neighbors. And Eastern Market in Detroit is thriving while most people who frequent there are low income locals.</p>
<p>Right. The poor shop local for all their arugula and heirloom tomatoes.</p>
<p>Sorry, just don’t agree at all with you. The poor in my family and among my friends have loved having a Walmart where they could go and buy their kid a new pair of jeans for 8 bucks instead of going to Goodwill or the mall where they would pay a good deal more.</p>
<p>Actual poor people, in general, like Walmart. Elites do not.</p>
<p>I consider Walmart to be a tremendously positive force in American culture, actually.</p>
<p>I don’t know what kind of second hand stores you’re shopping at, but $8 can definitely buy jeans at Goodwill or Salvation Army. Better quality than at Walmart, too. </p>
<p>Your leap is this assumption that the poor must rely on Walmart. That’s simply not true. I have been around poor people my entire life and we survived just fine before Walmart and I know many people still don’t shop there. </p>
<p>I know plenty of “elites” (whatever that means) that shop at Walmart. Even middle class and upper class people love to save a buck :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I do not consider Walmart to be a positive force.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I don’t care whether or not one shops at Walmart. That’s their decision. I just hate this idea that the poor are dependent upon Walmart like they have no other options. It’s simply not true. We do have choices. Really.</p>
<p>I shop at Walmart occasionally… However lately they have not been staffing the local one appropriately so I’m not buying anything there until they get themselves straightened out. </p>
<p>I know several people who work at Walmart and love it. One quit to go elsewhere for more money and actually went back because she missed the people and the work environment. </p>
<p>If people don’t like there jobs then they should look elsewhere. If they aren’t at least looking then they shouldn’t be complaining.</p>
<p>As for them not offering health benefits for people who work less then ,24 hours a week, who does??? They duo offer them for more then that while part time, which is rare… Though the coverage options aren’t that great. Still better then the zero coverage you get at other part time jobs.</p>
<p>I refuse to shop at any Sears. I don’t think I’ll ever lift that ban. I won’t buy anything large from best buys website but will buy little things. There are a few other stores that are on the brink of losing me as a customer but aren’t there yet. There’s one specific kohls that I won’t shop at. </p>
<p>I do like target and wegmans though my local target has a pizza hut in it full of rude employees. Won’t eat there.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>
<p>I am glad that we live in a country where we are free to have discussions like this and still like each other, even after having disagreements.</p>
<p>My H and I are what many would call working poor. We both work. We both are college educated. The kids have gotten free lunches at school for several years. They are on the free state health insurance. We get heating assistance every year and earned income credit on our tax return. We occasionally qualify for food stamps, sometimes we don’t, it depends on how our yearly raises go up in relation to the income guidelines for food stamps. (yes, we are underemployed, this recession is partly to blame for that, as well as having made career choices in our 20’s that put us on lower paying career paths).</p>
<p>All of that to say that I don’t like the way walmart and other similiar type stores treat their employees and I try to avoid going there. The new clothes at other stores may cost a little more per item but they are often better quality and last longer. In the long run, depedning on the quality, it may be cheaper to buy one of something that costs more than 2 or 4 of something that is individually less expensive.</p>
<p>I am all for freedom of choice and I will support anyone’s right to choose to shop at walmart if they want to. It just isn’t for me and my values.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of the Home Depot near me. Outrageously rude staff there. Reminds me of the Soup Nazi, find myself going back just to see if the abuse continues.</p>
<p>It warms my heart to go to a Walmart and see lower income people able to shop for new stuff and feel that exhilaration along with their kids. I see so many immigrant families there and their joy is really very palpable.</p>
<p>No, I don’t think they need those who know what’s best for them to take away their Walmart and tell them they are so much better off shopping at the Goodwill. It’s a good feeling when you’ve been really, really poor to be able to buy something brand new with your money.</p>
<p>Another thing I like about Walmart is the elderly that shop there and work there. I like the mix of races and ages. To me, Walmart is really a good manifestation of the whole diversity goal. </p>
<p>I have friends and relatives who rail at Walmart, go on and on about what a force for evil it is. I just don’t buy it.</p>
<p>I have comparison price shopped our Target, Walmart (which is new here…well we had one 15min away, the new one is right here), and Wegmans. Wegmans consistently is equal to or better in price on their store brands and almost always on national brands. Their selection is greater for groceries (for the stores in our area) with produce and meat being much higher quality. Wegmans gets expensive when you eat at their food bars, buy prepared foods, etc. If you are buying staples, especially their store brand items, their prices can’t be beat (at least in our area).</p>
<p>For t’shirts, socks, etc. I’m a fan of Target out of habit, perhaps because they’ve been here longer. The Walmart in the next town over was a disaster, filthy, unorganized, and you could never find anything. Absolutely not worth walking into. The new one here may ‘cater to the zipcode’ as many stores do (i.e. attempt to keep it in some semblance of order), but I’m happy with Target so I have no burning desire to make a change.</p>
<p>FWIW, I do understand the concept of people living in a town where a Walmart or Target is ‘the’ place to shop. I live in a suburban metro area where you can get to just about anything in 45min (Sax, Neiman’s, Nordstroms…note, I might look in Nordies on sale days, the other two, I can’t afford the socks, lol). A gf moved several years ago due to a job transfer with her DH to a quaint little town in a rural area where Walmart was ‘it’. People shopped there for everything. We stayed in touch and I remember her saying how nice it was to be out of the rat-race where your kids weren’t so concerned with school clothes because everyone was going to be wearing something from Walmart, maybe a few things ordered from JCP, but that was about it. What a difference, and a welcomed one. :)</p>
<p>I think it’s like any chain. A store is only as good as the people who work there.</p>
<p>My small home town got a Walmart after people fought for years to keep it away. It’s full of great employees who are super nice and it’s always very clean. I’d shop there any day of the week for anything.</p>
<p>There are two near me. One is full of rude staff and rude customers and I won’t go there at all. You always hear people screaming at their kids and people make messes and they do nothing about it. The other is fine but horribly under staffed as I mentioned above. You can expect to wait in line at least fifteen minutes. I stop in and check out the register situation. If it’s staffed, I’ll stay. If not, I leave. More often then not, I leave. I treat every company this way and I’d expect our customers to treat us the same. I still go to the one back home when I’m in the area.</p>
<p>Home depot is the same way. We have two. The one by my house is great. The other one not so much. Come to think of it, it’s on the same road as the rude Walmart. Maybe it’s just that area of town.</p>
<p>Wegmans has some great prices. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID BIONIC using CC</p>
<p>FYI Sew…class prejudice swings two ways.</p>
<p>All right, people, I’m coming with the hose. To your corners.</p>
<p>Big box stores dont all treat their employees the same.
My daughter worked two retail jobs after high school to save money for a gap year.
She worked in the Impulse boutique @ Macys & @ the garden shop @ Fred Meyer.
The Fred Meyer job paid a lot more than the dept store, so she quit Macys & increased her hrs at Fred Meyer. ( she also could walk to it)</p>
<p>As far as getting arugula, it is very easy to grow & while the city currently frowns on families growing vegetables in public housing (?), there are P-patches & neighbors that encourage planting on planting strips as well as the Food Forest on Beacon hill in Seattle.
[Nation’s</a> largest public Food Forest takes root on Beacon Hill | Crosscut.com](<a href=“http://crosscut.com/2012/02/16/agriculture/21892/Nations-largest-public-Food-Forest-takes-root-]Nation’s”>http://crosscut.com/2012/02/16/agriculture/21892/Nations-largest-public-Food-Forest-takes-root-)</p>
<p>When people depend on one another & work together, we really can solve any problem.
[A</a> Place at the Table](<a href=“http://www.takepart.com/place-at-the-table]A”>http://www.takepart.com/place-at-the-table)</p>
<p>It is really interesting how store chains vary so much in terms of courtesy, cleanliness, efficiency. I think it just comes down to store management – the fish rots from the head down, as my old grandma used to tell us.</p>
<p>I like Wegmans very much. I like their generic brand for a lot of stuff. Their produce is good and they have great selection. Sometimes not so keen on their meat and fish, but that might vary, too, from store to store.</p>
<p>I like their Empire kosher turkeys and chickens. You can buy them fresh, never frozen and they are fabulous.</p>
<p>I do all my grocery shopping at my local Long Island based King Kullen, small local supermarket and at Trader Joe’s. We do keep a running list for Costco but only buy in bulk things like paper goods, cases of seltzer. Most of their grocery items are for processed food or are too salty for me , although we’ve recently discovered their mango salsa that is quite good. There is a Walmart that is a 15 minute drive in same shopping center as Target but as in earlier post I cannot think of any reason that I would go there. I sometimes go to Target but cannot remember when the last time I went there was. I did go to Target in downtown Minneapolis when I was on a business trip in October of 2011.</p>
<p>I was at a business conference with DH in Hawaii and one of the speakers had written a book about Walmart and their business practices. After reading that book, I would never buy fish from them if I shopped there or at Costco either. Actually was lucky to buy lovely fish last night at Fairway because I was not too far from one of their stores. I wish they would open closer to me and if Wegman’s came to LI, I would drive out of my way to go there. How much shopping can you do if it’s only two of you in the house anyway?</p>
<p>What I found most disturbing in the book was that the pressure Walmart puts on their vendors to constantly produce cheaper quality products and the contracts that vendors sign with Walmart, forcing many vendors to produce products in Asia where both quality, safety and working conditions for workers are deplorable-witness the recent fire in Bangladesh for a Walmart contract. Several venerable US manufacturers have either been put out of business or in bankruptcy because of their dealings wih Walmart and I think that is just plain wrong.</p>
<p>As a vendor who has tried to deal with Walmart ^
THAT is my main reason for despising them. But boy, try to say that on CC and you will be accused of despising the poor. Trust me, I’m still bloody from that last battle. Don’t go there.</p>
<p>Emerald–as someone who grows their own arugala and heirloom tomatoes, i wonder. What social class does that pigeon hole me in? This class prejudice trope really rubs me the wrong way. I get this in spades everytime we visit H’s family in the Ozarks. Things they HATE about me:
my education, my diet, my choice of stores, my clothes, my politics, my books.To them “different” is bad …and really I could care less about where they shop or eat. My opinions make me the evil rich and their opinions just make them the salt of the earth.</p>
<p>Do some people really feel better and more socially responsible buying clothes made in sewing factories in Bangladesh, China, or Vietnam–where workers might make as little as $37/month sewing them in a fire trap factory–at Macys, Nordstroms, Target, or Costco rather than buying them at Walmart?</p>
<p>The answer is NO. My direct experience as a vendor and shopper has been with Walmart. It is perfectly OK for me to hate them. As it is perfectly OK for you to love them. We each have our own experiences.</p>
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<p>I come from a long line of white trash (immigrant variety) and I don’t know anyone who loves shopping at Walmart or Kmart or any of those stores. The only reason to go is because the stuff is cheap. What “good” does Walmart do other than provide cheap stuff?</p>
<p>Only good (and this isn’t the company it’s one of the heirs to the fortune who set it up-- [Crystal</a> Bridges Museum](<a href=“http://crystalbridges.org%5DCrystal”>http://crystalbridges.org).) I’m actually going to visit in April. Planning a road trip with a couple of girlfriends.</p>
<p>Well, yeah, I guess this is breaking news – Walmart sells some stuff really cheap and that lower income people can buy. And that is kind of good, in the view of some of us. </p>
<p>Now “vendors” who don’t like Walmart because they push then to sell their goods at a competitive price are not liking Walmart because it forces them to compete more. And actually isn’t so bad either, in my view.</p>
<p>Sure Walmart sells tons of stuff made in Asia. Just like Nordstrom, Saks and the mom and pop convenience store.</p>
<p>Is Walmart saintly? Heck no. But it is really important in the lives of many and I get tired of these big conspiracy theorists trying to tell us it is the Evil Empire.</p>
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<p>Actually, our excellent local school system offers full benefits to any employee who works 16 hours per week or more. The county pays something like 85-90% of the cost of their health care and dental premiums. Can’t beat that!</p>
<p>blueiguana –</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree with you 100%. Wegmans is one of the top 5 companies to work for according to Forbes. Someone mentioned buying Cabot cheddar cheese for $2.38 at Walmart. Guess what? It’s only 12 cents more at our beautiful Wegmans where they know how to treat their employees right.</p>