While lauding the success of Walmart (at keeping prices low and raking in profits year after year), no one really looks at how those low prices are achieved and the price paid for those low prices by the citizens of the country.
Sure, management professionals and laymen (well perhaps not all laymen) alike wax eloquent about the super-efficient supply chain Walmart has set up and, I must admit, it is no mean feat, at that. But does an efficient supply chain alone explain the lower cost of goods and the success of the company, or is there something deeper at work? Are we to believe that no one else can create as efficient or better a supply chain?
There are many in this country who make a career out of vilifying those on government welfare (fondly called low-lives who won't or refuse to work and live off the hardworking tax-paying public) on public media; and there are many citizens who unquestioningly lap up and wholeheartedly believe this rhetoric, and a whole political party dedicated to a similar effort!
At one end (the supply end) of the supply chain are strong armed bullies who use all kinds of tactics (intimidation, bullying, guile, stick and carrot, etc.) to force suppliers (who are looking for a break with the world's largest retailers) to cough up goods at low prices. At the other end there are the low-paid and often temporary workers that man the stores and warehouses, working without benefits or any kind of job security.
While most people who shop at Walmart think they are getting a good deal, they rarely see the drain on the nation's coffers in the form of corporate welfare (tax breaks given to corporations under various guises as well as the cost of social welfare that has to be extended these low-paid workers, which is indirectly corporate welfare because the government now steps in to fix what the likes of Walmart broke in the first place).
In this vein, this study released by the Democratic Committee on Education and the Workforce is quite poignant.
http://tinyurl.com/kpu5gam
Sure, management professionals and laymen (well perhaps not all laymen) alike wax eloquent about the super-efficient supply chain Walmart has set up and, I must admit, it is no mean feat, at that. But does an efficient supply chain alone explain the lower cost of goods and the success of the company, or is there something deeper at work? Are we to believe that no one else can create as efficient or better a supply chain?
There are many in this country who make a career out of vilifying those on government welfare (fondly called low-lives who won't or refuse to work and live off the hardworking tax-paying public) on public media; and there are many citizens who unquestioningly lap up and wholeheartedly believe this rhetoric, and a whole political party dedicated to a similar effort!
At one end (the supply end) of the supply chain are strong armed bullies who use all kinds of tactics (intimidation, bullying, guile, stick and carrot, etc.) to force suppliers (who are looking for a break with the world's largest retailers) to cough up goods at low prices. At the other end there are the low-paid and often temporary workers that man the stores and warehouses, working without benefits or any kind of job security.
While most people who shop at Walmart think they are getting a good deal, they rarely see the drain on the nation's coffers in the form of corporate welfare (tax breaks given to corporations under various guises as well as the cost of social welfare that has to be extended these low-paid workers, which is indirectly corporate welfare because the government now steps in to fix what the likes of Walmart broke in the first place).
In this vein, this study released by the Democratic Committee on Education and the Workforce is quite poignant.
http://tinyurl.com/kpu5gam
