A month without Walmart: T-1 day (part two)

I've thought about giving up shopping at Walmart in the past but didn't think it was a viable option living in Mountain Home, where the store is the largest store in town, but I decided to give it a serious attempt after the events of the past week.

Earlier this week I was in the courtroom and later updated my Facebook status to the following:

The judge just ordered a girl to write a letter of apology to Walmart for shoplifting from them. I don't even feel bad when someone steals from Walmart given the amount of money they make each year and how little they pay their employees. They should be required to write the public a letter of apology for the amount of public assistance their employees use each year unnecessarily to help grow their bottom line.

(I'm not saying stealing from Walmart is the right thing to do, I'm just saying I don't feel bad for the corporation when it happens. You should definitely not steal from Walmart, or any store for that matter.)

One of my former classmates wrote some stuff, as did another classmate and some other people and the conversation went to here:

Neither. That's a false choice. Everyone (whines) and moans about Walmart's wages for their lowest skilled positions, but very few of those same people think through the consequences of their proposals. Did you ever stop to think that not every position can provide a living wage? Checker was never meant to be a career. So, Hadley, are you for inflation? Or just for scapegoating a private business for extremely complex problems with deep roots in government inefficiency and inadequacy? Or maybe you're just a fan of socialism? I'm curious.

I responded with (edited to make this post shorter):

I'm confused while a corporation that is co-owned by six people who have more money than the bottom 40 percent of the country can't pay its workers a livable wedge without it contributing to inflation?

Also, why do you get to say what is a career and what isn't? Not everyone goes to college and gets jobs, but those people should still be able to provide for themselves and their families working 40 hours a week. I know minimal wage is a hot issue, but Walmart makes a compelling case without having to go down that road. You have one of the richest corporations in the world intentionally forcing its employees to live off public assistance as if public assistance is their actual benefit plan. I think that makes it an easy case to say, hey, ya'll should treat your employees better. Not to mention the drain it has on public assistance in addition to all the tax breaks and subsidiaries corporations receive as a result of their extensive lobbying efforts.

His response (also edited to make the post shorter, not to take his words out of context):

Bobby, I'm glad you're in so tight with the Walton's to know why they do or don't do certain things. Because that's the only way a charge of corporate greed holds any relevance to this or any other discussion.

Now that we have that out of the way we can talk about the real issue. I have yet to hear a single argument why Walmart, a privately owned business, should be forced to run that business any way other than how it wants. Regardless of the "impact on public assistance," Walmart is not currently doing anything illegal (that we know of), so who are any of you to tell them how to run their business? If you don't like it, don't shop or work there. Now, if you think the law should require Walmart to run its business differently, we can discuss that, too, because it's an entirely different topic that has much broader consequences that none of you seem to want to consider (e.g. inflation as a result of raising minimum wage). But all too often, people of your political persuasion want to skip that consideration and use the big evil corporations as scapegoats for policy problems in other areas. It's a cop out and it's logically bankrupt.

I didn't respond to his post because I have things to actually do other than engage in a debate with someone on Facebook whose primary reason for speaking is to hear the sound of his own voice, but I did spend some time thinking about his words and the suggestion not to shop there if I don't like how they do business.

As a consumer, if I am against a company's business model, my only recourse is to withhold my business from that business. For example, I had a bad experience with Century Link setting me up with two land line phone lines earlier this month. Once my lines were finally installed the first call I made on their line was to a competitor to secure better service at a better price. Likewise, I recently purchased a table from a well-known furniture store in Mountain Home last month and despite only sitting at it three times, it's scratched and nicked in multiple places. I will not be purchasing anymore furniture from that store in the next 40 years.

But giving up Walmart didn't seem like a viable option given how many things you can buy there and the perceived lack of limited alternative options in Mountain Home. But other residents have assured me it's possible and so I'm going to give it a try.

I want to make it clear that I dot oppose Walmart's business practices because of my "political persuasion," but for moral reasons. I absolutely do not believe in any way that the government should step in and tell Walmart how to run its business outside of enforcing any existing laws. Government regulation should not force a company that makes enough money to pay its employees enough money to live comfortably without changing its pricing structure to do exactly that if it chooses not to.

So as a citizen, I do not support government interference with the way Walmart is ran, but as a consumer, I have chosen to take my business elsewhere.

A large part of the final decision came from the way the company handled Black Friday this year.

I've already made my thoughts clear here about opening on Thanksgiving, but that alone wasn't enough to convince me it'd be best to not shop at Walmart any longer.

Walmart, and other retail stores, make a killing (pun intended!) every year advertising products that have been deeply discounted to people who they know can't afford the items at the regular price, then orders an extremely limited number of those products and doesn't do enough to ensure the safety of its employees and customers in the stampede that is sure to occur.

In 2008, a Walmart employee died in such a stampede. The store hasn't bothered to pay the $7,000 fine that followed that employee's death.

You might think that a store who had an employee die from a Black Friday stampede would take measures to ensure the safety of its employees, but you'd be wrong.

An employee in Arkansas was injured and had to be taken to the hospital this year. At least five other people were injured at Walmart stores across the country . The internet is full of videos of the madness that occurred at Walmarts' on Black Friday everywhere . It's inexcusable. Walmart cares more about making money than it's the safety of its customers and employees, even after the death of one of its employees.

And I just can't continue to overlook that fact.