A dialogue about Walmart:
To me "social justice" means more than working in the nonprofit sector, and/or working for a public or private sector firm offering services like those philanthropically funded charities are usually associated with. I agree with David Gil's assertion that most people scurry when they are pressed to define the term because a true belief in social justice requires a devoted dedication to social transformations guided by Friere's sense of "critical consciousness."
The following is the beginning of a discussion designed to achieve this very thing -- the nascent search of two well-meaning persons with different backgrounds for a manner in which to increase the purchasing power of those with limited income while championing positive human rights (e.g. living wages, complete health care coverage, toxics-free environments) workers here and in the nations manufacture the goods we consume deserve:
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
I'm not sure if you saw "Outfoxed" but the same people just made a new movie about Walmart (walmartmovie.com)
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
walmart - #4 of most admired companies according to fortune. behind dell computers, GE and starbucks.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
according to fortune
not known for their concern for anything moral
all those other companies are evil too
...
especially dell who produces a shitty product and then donates $ to
republican candidates
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
how can starbucks' liquid chocolate be evil?
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
starbucks is evil for what they did to coffee houses in Mexico
and it's too bad people in queens (ny) can't have walmart
...
it is hard to look at a depressed area where there is nothing and say
"walmart is bad so we won't support it ever, not even here in the
hood" The bottom line is that walmart is a business and businesses do
pay taxes and hire workers. But what is the difference between one
walmart and a dozen liquor stores? From a tax and # of hires point of
view there is no difference whatsoever. This begs the question: How
do we develop the inner city knowing that the businesses we will be
able to attract are ones with problematic baggage (from a
socioeconomic justice standpoint)? Clinton pushed for empowerment
zones as part of his answer to the question. But these failed in
places like the Mississippi Delta because the local infrastructure
components were nonexistent or thoroughly flawed.
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
the wal-mart discussion continues..
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/Betterbanking/P109171.asp?GT1=6235
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
I sent you an artcile about Wal mart opening a bank weeks ago
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
when?! i never got that article... at least i don't think i did.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
yes, don't you remember me referencing it multiple times?
that whole statistic about the number of walmart shoppers who have no
savings accounts
the bottom line however is that walmart won't open a full savings and loan
...
the regulations for banks are -- as you know -- much more murky and
difficult to navigate than the world of bargain basement commercial
retail, in other words, walmart would be leaving its "core
competencies" far behind if it went into banking
walmart's leaders are evil but they are also smart enough to know that
sears ran the wolrd until it got cocky and started getting into
insurance and a lot of other strange ass things that had zip to do
with sewing machines and cheap mens suits
I'll see if I can find the original article but I have like 1,000
messages I still need to answer
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
wow...i guess i should just be appreciative that i made the cut and got not one response but two.
yes, of course i remember those accounts. the article was interesting to me not so much as an announcement of their desire to get into banking, but the author's points about the good things that wal-mart can bring to an industry. just another perspective to consider.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
basically it all boils down to this
walmart's profit margins are big because taxpayers subsidize the company
...
if you subtract out emergency room care, housing assistance, nonprofit
financial assiatnce, etc. then walmart is not the superstar you think
it is -- this is like the undocumented worker debate, people want to
attack immigrants for their use of hospitals and schools, but they
don't want to admit that these are populations that use fewer
government services and nonprofit services than any other population
living in poverty -- put it this way, undocumented workers can get
hired to work in the most dangerous and difficult and tedious work by
walmart, they can then get denied health care, denied a living wage,
denied their overtime pay, sometimes even denied the full amount of
their regular time walmart salary pay and then these poor injured ill
immigrants are hunted down by the Arizona minute men milia and shot or
deported while Walmart can post record profits
Google the Arizona minute men militia
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
wow. that sounds really scary, very how the West was won
so where do we go from there? if not wal-mart, then who? what company with enough leverage would satisfy the socioeconomic justice question? for all the reasons we've discussed the downside of wal-mart, it still provides consumer staples at a price that the average population can afford. shouldn't those urban areas have access to those things? but how do you give access without the ill effects of a behemoth like that?
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
no to in bed with current govt. of china
yes to healthcare coverage
find me that company
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
whatever...
china must be dealt with. i'd start learning mandarin if i were you.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
you deal with totalitarian china your way
I'll deal with them mine
when the euros sell china weapons that they turn around and sell to iran …
let's just say I warned you ahead of time that conflict with china could
have been avoided by wrecking their economy before it finished
creating a new generation of nondemocratic wealth
conflict should be avoided because countless people suffer or die because of it
what more reason do you need to see totalitarian china as an evil state?
forced imporisonment; no democracy; human rights nightmare; tibet; taiwan...
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
sometimes conflict or even war can't be avoided in some situations
although of course its effects are horrible.
and you're right, nondemocratic china is an evil state.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
better to have an economic war
than a real one ...
walmart could use the rest of the developing world to produce cheap goods for itself and microsoft and others could begin to take high tech industries out of asia and reposition them in a more geopolitically friendly place like the caribbean or latin america, finally we could raise the environmental standards required for chinese controlled transporters to enter north america and europe
the chinese government would not be able to survive the lack of revenue and would destabilize – but this won’t happen because walmart leads the way in only caring about how cheap the goods can be produced damn everyonr who makes them, stocks them, sells them, hell even the one who use them are not really walmart’s concern
if we can prevent the chinese from dumping weapons in middle eastern or hostle former soviet hands we might witness a peaceful revolution similar to the one that occured after the berlin wall fell -- if Bush really cared about freedom on the march in nondemocracies he would have started with china, but Bush cares more for walmart’s political campaign contributions than about the freedom of the chinese people that make walmart goods
maybe this is one of those things that we should set up a phone date to talk about?
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
anytime. i'd love to share and hear more thoughts about all of it.
===============================================================
The following is the beginning of a discussion designed to achieve this very thing -- the nascent search of two well-meaning persons with different backgrounds for a manner in which to increase the purchasing power of those with limited income while championing positive human rights (e.g. living wages, complete health care coverage, toxics-free environments) workers here and in the nations manufacture the goods we consume deserve:
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
I'm not sure if you saw "Outfoxed" but the same people just made a new movie about Walmart (walmartmovie.com)
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
walmart - #4 of most admired companies according to fortune. behind dell computers, GE and starbucks.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
according to fortune
not known for their concern for anything moral
all those other companies are evil too
...
especially dell who produces a shitty product and then donates $ to
republican candidates
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
how can starbucks' liquid chocolate be evil?
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
starbucks is evil for what they did to coffee houses in Mexico
and it's too bad people in queens (ny) can't have walmart
...
it is hard to look at a depressed area where there is nothing and say
"walmart is bad so we won't support it ever, not even here in the
hood" The bottom line is that walmart is a business and businesses do
pay taxes and hire workers. But what is the difference between one
walmart and a dozen liquor stores? From a tax and # of hires point of
view there is no difference whatsoever. This begs the question: How
do we develop the inner city knowing that the businesses we will be
able to attract are ones with problematic baggage (from a
socioeconomic justice standpoint)? Clinton pushed for empowerment
zones as part of his answer to the question. But these failed in
places like the Mississippi Delta because the local infrastructure
components were nonexistent or thoroughly flawed.
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
the wal-mart discussion continues..
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/Betterbanking/P109171.asp?GT1=6235
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
I sent you an artcile about Wal mart opening a bank weeks ago
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
when?! i never got that article... at least i don't think i did.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
yes, don't you remember me referencing it multiple times?
that whole statistic about the number of walmart shoppers who have no
savings accounts
the bottom line however is that walmart won't open a full savings and loan
...
the regulations for banks are -- as you know -- much more murky and
difficult to navigate than the world of bargain basement commercial
retail, in other words, walmart would be leaving its "core
competencies" far behind if it went into banking
walmart's leaders are evil but they are also smart enough to know that
sears ran the wolrd until it got cocky and started getting into
insurance and a lot of other strange ass things that had zip to do
with sewing machines and cheap mens suits
I'll see if I can find the original article but I have like 1,000
messages I still need to answer
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
wow...i guess i should just be appreciative that i made the cut and got not one response but two.
yes, of course i remember those accounts. the article was interesting to me not so much as an announcement of their desire to get into banking, but the author's points about the good things that wal-mart can bring to an industry. just another perspective to consider.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
basically it all boils down to this
walmart's profit margins are big because taxpayers subsidize the company
...
if you subtract out emergency room care, housing assistance, nonprofit
financial assiatnce, etc. then walmart is not the superstar you think
it is -- this is like the undocumented worker debate, people want to
attack immigrants for their use of hospitals and schools, but they
don't want to admit that these are populations that use fewer
government services and nonprofit services than any other population
living in poverty -- put it this way, undocumented workers can get
hired to work in the most dangerous and difficult and tedious work by
walmart, they can then get denied health care, denied a living wage,
denied their overtime pay, sometimes even denied the full amount of
their regular time walmart salary pay and then these poor injured ill
immigrants are hunted down by the Arizona minute men milia and shot or
deported while Walmart can post record profits
Google the Arizona minute men militia
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
wow. that sounds really scary, very how the West was won
so where do we go from there? if not wal-mart, then who? what company with enough leverage would satisfy the socioeconomic justice question? for all the reasons we've discussed the downside of wal-mart, it still provides consumer staples at a price that the average population can afford. shouldn't those urban areas have access to those things? but how do you give access without the ill effects of a behemoth like that?
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
no to in bed with current govt. of china
yes to healthcare coverage
find me that company
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
whatever...
china must be dealt with. i'd start learning mandarin if i were you.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
you deal with totalitarian china your way
I'll deal with them mine
when the euros sell china weapons that they turn around and sell to iran …
let's just say I warned you ahead of time that conflict with china could
have been avoided by wrecking their economy before it finished
creating a new generation of nondemocratic wealth
conflict should be avoided because countless people suffer or die because of it
what more reason do you need to see totalitarian china as an evil state?
forced imporisonment; no democracy; human rights nightmare; tibet; taiwan...
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
sometimes conflict or even war can't be avoided in some situations
although of course its effects are horrible.
and you're right, nondemocratic china is an evil state.
===============================================================
Friend in Southern California:
better to have an economic war
than a real one ...
walmart could use the rest of the developing world to produce cheap goods for itself and microsoft and others could begin to take high tech industries out of asia and reposition them in a more geopolitically friendly place like the caribbean or latin america, finally we could raise the environmental standards required for chinese controlled transporters to enter north america and europe
the chinese government would not be able to survive the lack of revenue and would destabilize – but this won’t happen because walmart leads the way in only caring about how cheap the goods can be produced damn everyonr who makes them, stocks them, sells them, hell even the one who use them are not really walmart’s concern
if we can prevent the chinese from dumping weapons in middle eastern or hostle former soviet hands we might witness a peaceful revolution similar to the one that occured after the berlin wall fell -- if Bush really cared about freedom on the march in nondemocracies he would have started with china, but Bush cares more for walmart’s political campaign contributions than about the freedom of the chinese people that make walmart goods
maybe this is one of those things that we should set up a phone date to talk about?
===============================================================
MBA student at Tuck (Dartmouth):
anytime. i'd love to share and hear more thoughts about all of it.
===============================================================
posted by Unai Montes-Irueste at
12:41 AM
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