Negotiating at Wal-Mart

As I said at the end of my most recent post about "Is Wal-Mart driving planned obsolescence?" I received a gift card from Wal-Mart so I could only use it there despite the fact that I don't like them and have been boycotting them so I decided to attempt to negotiate a good deal based partly on the fact that they had previously sold me seriously defective merchandise, including a pretty pathetic pair of sneakers and the cheesiest couple of pairs of jeans that I have ever seen in my life; it turns out that I may have bought them shortly before they started restocking other brands like Levis, Wranglers and Lees. At the time the closest thing they had was something that they call "Faded Glory" which was supposedly made out of "durable materials," or so it said on the stamp that was on the inside of the jeans. I didn't realize it at the time but this was the brand that they were manufacturing in Bangladesh that eventually led to the sweatshop fire last fall. There would have been no way for me to know about that particular fire but there have been many other incidents where the employees were subject to abuses that also would have had an impact on the quality of their merchandise.

It wasn't until later that I checked to see how many complaints they have on-line about this and found that there are an enormous amount of complaints about the quality deteriorating. There are also an enormous amount of reviews talking about how great they are for one reason or another and many of these seem to go into a lot of detail, perhaps to make them seem sincere. After seeing the stories about the manufacturing practices and the quality of their merchandise it seem hard for me to believe that any sincere customer would leave reviews like this. As I indicated in "Wal-Marts unethical marketing to children" and the previous blog about Wal-Mart and planned obsolescence I suspect that they are almost certainly posting positive reviews for their products to offset the enormous amount of complaints that they receive. After reading some of these reviews I don't see how there could be any other explanation for the positive ones, since their products are absolutely nothing like the reviews, and even if they were that great I can't imagine people going to so much trouble to write these reviews. It is much easier to imagine why plenty of people would write reviews if they were outraged by the rapidly deteriorating quality of their products.

This means that one of the things that they are almost certainly doing to respond to their complaints is spend more money on creating false impressions which could have gone to restoring the quality of their products instead. They just might be doing additional activities that have little or nothing to do with providing decent products for their customers as efficiently as possible.

Before I finished talking to the Wal-Mart workers a couple of them openly admitted that they were receiving an enormous amount of complaints about their products.

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"You sell an enormous amount of incredibly pathetic disposable garbage, so that people have to replace things over and over again."

"That's exactly what we do so don't shop here."

That would make an excellent commercial that would go viral if it was caught on tape; of course as soon as the card I got is done that is exactly what I and many other people will wind up doing, or according to recent news reports already are doing.

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Another employee said simply, "we get a lot of that;" I don't know if they still have their jobs. I certainly wasn't expecting them to respond like that before I was done. I thought about not mentioning this but if Wal-Mart is going to retaliate against them they would have almost certainly done so anyway; and the reverse is also a potential problem for Wal-Mart. With so many people angry about Wal-Mart for one reason or another and their long history of retaliation it is almost certainly already beginning to backfire on them along with other scandals they've been involved in. Besides if they keep firing their sincere and qualified workers then they'll only have the bad workers left and that has almost certainly already led to major problems for them.

I didn't begin saving my receipts for the sake of future complaints until after that and the fact that it was clear that they have been cutting so many corner that it was virtually guaranteed that their products wouldn't hold up nearly as well as their customers might expect. This is also justified in my opinion since instead of using the money they obtain from customers to do a good job providing good merchandise they donate it to campaigns and lobby for voter suppression against the best interests of the customers that indirectly provide the funds for these donations. They also use a portion of the money they collect from consumers to pay for their deceptive ads. Wal-Mart manages to obtain overwhelming protection for their rights to free speech which they finance with money they collect, often by corrupt or misleading methods, from their customers; while the consumers receive much less opportunity to use their free speech.

There are an enormous amount of stories about how Wal-Mart negotiates all over the world to get lower prices and that they use their marketing power to drive a good bargain so that they can give their customers good deals, which sounds good; however they don't give their customers good deals at all. Their products are so shoddy that they fall apart much faster than any reasonable customer would expect and as Indicated in my previous post about this they have been driving the process to a new extreme while some of their competitors may have at least been starting to reverse the process after an enormous amount of pressure from customers, although this could be temporary unless major reforms are put in place before the resume the same process more subtly.

Also I have seen enough information from a variety of sources to indicate that their mark ups are much higher than they would lead people to believe on many items and even if they weren't that high they include expenses that aren't nearly as efficient as they lead people to believe. Shipping low quality products that start falling apart almost immediately half way around the world isn't nearly as efficient as shipping high quality products that last a long time a short distance. It never has been and never will be; when Wal-Mart and other oligarchies did away with the advantage of factory direct they were abandoning an enormous amount of efficiency so that they could maintain authoritarian control over the economic system.

Not that I need an excuse after all turn about is fair play.

However Wal-Mart apparently disagrees and they don't feel obligated to acknowledge the fact that they've been ripping off customers for years even when they are confronted with an overwhelming amount of researched evidence of the fact.

In fact when this happens it appears as if they might have a contingency plan to keep people distracted and prevent customers from expressing their sincere complaints in front of other customers that might also have plenty of their own complaints that they might want to bring. Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote about corporate plans for how to respond when activists strike in one of her books; however even though she mentioned they had these plans she didn't go into details about what they might be. An article from a protest that took place over a year ago in San Diego, Wal-Mart invaded by Occupy protesters on Black Friday (Video), might indicate what one of these plans might be while it is in action; but this might be mild by comparison to the way they typically might happen.

Some of the ways they respond to complaints may be down right stupid; and they could backfire if they're used on a regular basis since they might be easy to recognize and they could easily be exposed and they may also rely on the cooperation of employees who have their own grievances against Wal-Mart.

I didn't think about this until after I saw how they responded to my request for a discount based on the fact that they had sold me disposable merchandise in the past when I was expecting real merchandise; however their behavior was clearly organized to distract people and end any opportunity that I might have to explain anything without actually acknowledging the problem with their products however some of the comments by their own employees almost certainly weren't what the Wal-Mart management had in mind while the comments from someone that was supposedly "not a Wal-Mart employee" just might have been what the management had in mind.

Ironically few people if any may have paid any attention to what I had to say until this person began her distracting tactics so if it was intended for that purpose it may have done the opposite.

I began by getting together a few of the things that I had bought at Wal-Mart including the jeans that had fallen apart at a record breaking speed because they were so cheap and a pair of the disposable sneakers that have been piling up at a record pace since they have been getting worse every few years until many people began giving some of these corporations an enormous amount of backlash including me as I described in the author tag “A small success against planned obsolescence.”  That didn't take place at Wal-Mart but the fact that at least a couple of their competitors is finally responding to complaints is almost certainly also a reason for Wal-Marts recent loss in sales. The sneakers I got as free replacements is finally a better quality than anything I have seen in over ten years after steady deterioration of products across the board. This wasn't because they gave me a pair that was a higher price; they replaced an enormous amount of sneakers with ones that seem to be better quality so this must have been a result of a larger backlash from many people.

I don't know if Wal-Mart has restored any of their quality but they certainly haven't done as good a job and people must know it. I also brought with me a folder full of information I had about Wal-Mart scandals including ones that involved their corrupt practices and evidence of much higher mark ups than they imply as well as articles about how it is “not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments;” and others that clearly indicated that many other things that have nothing to do with making jeans are "financially feasible" including the enormous amount of money they spend on lobbying and promoting privatization of schools and suppression of voter rights so that they can get away with all this. I didn't get the opportunity to discuss this much; which I didn't really expect but thought they might have to respond to it one way or another and that since I had bought their products previously and they really did have an enormous amount of quality control problems they would at least offer a token discount; or not, as it turns out.

I did my shopping as usual then brought it to the customer service center and pulled out the jeans and explained to them that "These jeans aren't old;" which they weren't. They were pathetic and I also informed the person that they have an enormous amount of other problems with their products. I had sneakers that fell apart in only a fraction of the time it used to last and I had a couple shirts that were well over fifteen years old that were in better shape than typical shirts that were only a few years old.

He called it in and almost immediately a woman appeared who started acting in an antagonizing and authoritarian manner and telling me that I should put away my stuff and leave. This woman ridiculed me when I commented about how manufacturing expenses were “not financially feasible," which wasn't the exact context that the NYT put it but she also raised her voice in a clear manner that was designed to prevent any further discussion.

I don't remember the exact order but approximately at this time when it seemed as if I was assuming she was the management she said "I'm not a Wal-Mart employee." This struck me as quite odd because she clearly wouldn't have any reason to behave in such a manner that I could think of unless she was a Wal-Mart employee. She didn't appear to be in line for any reason or have any business that she was conducting. Once I realized that I simply stated something like, "excuse me I thought you were; if you're not I can't imagine why you would care." This woman was acting like a teenager with an inferiority complex trying to antagonize me; although I didn't realize it at the time that might have been exactly what she had in mind. If I had acted otherwise they might have been able to attempt to charge me with something although it would have been foolish; and if they were concerned about their reputation at all they never would have responded in this manner.

Regardless of why she was behaving this way I then turned away from her and she said that I should leave before security got here or something like that and I still couldn't imagine what she wanted or why. I wasn't being belligerent; especially compared to the way she was behaving. I was simply expressing an obvious and major problem with the quality of their merchandise. Which is why I didn't worry about it when she threatened to call the cops, and ignored her.

I then proceeded to talk to what appeared to be a real Wal-Mart employee and also turned around and noticed that there were now at least half a dozen Wal-Mart employees standing right behind me. I wondered if this could be what the woman meant by "security" and immediately concluded that these employees weren't here for that reason. They appeared to be ordinary employees and at least one of them seemed to be nervous although I didn't say anything to antagonize this person. At one point I said to at least one of the employees that this wasn't anything against him but against the  management decisions in the corporate office; I think that was probably before most of these other employees arrived. We discussed their problems for about a minute or so but clearly they were trying to end this conversation and deny any problem with their merchandise and avoid discussing any of the enormous amount of bad press which was widely reported and I had an enormous amount of it in writing that they almost certainly didn't anticipate. This was about the time when one of the employees agreed that they "sell an enormous amount of incredibly pathetic disposable garbage, so that people have to replace things over and over again." They wound up saying that they would take no responsibility for past grievances or officially acknowledge any problem but that I wasn't getting any discounts for products that were incredibly crappy; nor was I getting free replacements for the products that I bought in the past that fell apart almost immediately.

They said that I either had to go through the register and pay full price; without any compensation for their fraud or shop elsewhere.

The moment I said that I wouldn't buy their products then it became clear that they were told to act in a manner that was planned. Everyone immediately grabbed one or two items from the cart and quickly disappeared. And they started nudging me toward the door in a manner that clearly couldn't have happened if they weren't prepared with a predetermined response.

The stupidity of this boggles the mind; and I'm sure that many people would conclude that I was the one that was being stupid but some of these employees clearly acknowledged that I was right about the big problems with their merchandise. Furthermore anyone else that I talk to about this acknowledges that the quality of products are clearly deterioration; it is beyond dispute; even the cop that showed up as a result of the complaint called in by the person who "was not a Wal-Mart employee" agreed.

At this point I left the store without further incident just as the cops arrived. They be began to ask what this was all about and I explained it to them the same way I tried to explain it to the employees only they were actually more willing to listen despite the fact that when I went to show them the merchandise that they had they said that I didn't need to do that. I also showed them the papers that I had and began to explain it to them; but then of course they asked for ID which was standard operating procedure when investigating anything. What they thought they might be investigating I don't know and they never charged me with anything related to this incident; however after I spent a minute explaining my complaint to them they received information from when called in my identity in and said they had a warrant for my arrest which totally surprised me but it gave them an opportunity to arrest me without figuring out what was going on and I suspect that Wal-Mart had no desire to charge me with anything since I didn't actually do anything that should be considered illegal and that would have resulted in an investigation and it might include checking the tapes from their cameras.

The warrant turned out to be something from ten years ago, although I didn't know it at the time; nor did the police. I asked what the warrant was about and they inquired if I knew which of course I didn't. One of the cops then responded that it might have been issued as a result of court expenses that were unpaid or something like that which is exactly what it turned out to be; these court expenses were added on years after the fact and they never should have been. Apparently this is becoming much more common with a major fiscal crisis and extreme reluctance to make any attempt to collect money from wealthy people with political connections. They obviously didn't try to issue this warrant very hard since it was two years old and they had plenty of time to try to find me if they thought it was important; I was in the same town it was issued and they knew it.

When we got to the station the older cop who did all the talking addressed the incident at Wal-Mart and he seemed to agree with most of what I my grievances although he also made it clear that he would do his job as he was ordered to, which seemed kind of ironic. The first thing he seemed to be concerned about was whether or not these workers were able to handle the complaints I had. I responded by saying that is why I told them I had nothing against them it and that I understood it was the executives that were making these decisions and they weren't the problem. As I said one of the workers that was standing by to take products away as fast as possible so they could make this situation disappear ASAP had a concerned look on his face but that wouldn't have been because of the way I was responding to him since I didn't even talk to him. The ones I did talk to didn't seem concerned at all; they found it amusing but they had to do their job as they were told.

I don't remember exactly how the conversation went but he made numerous statements about how he seemed to agree with me. When he started reading all the papers I had about Wal-Mart he stated that it looked like I had done my homework; this included a lot of the information that I posted under the author tag “A small success against planned obsolescence.” and the author tag “Wal-Mart Watch.” Anyone that looked up enough information about Wal-Mart would have a hard time doubting there is something seriously wrong with their business practices and that it might be appropriate to agree it was corrupt to the core. At one point he seemed to mumble something about how perhaps I should join the people at some other activity in another town. His voice trailed off but it seemed like he seemed to be referring to one of the many protests that have been going on one place or another. I know there were protests planned for that week in several locations in tow different directions from where I was which he could have been talking about as well as another one in Washington DC.

This was not what I expected and if he was asked about it he would almost certainly deny it. He made as many of these comments as I did and if he hadn't I probably wouldn't have even tried to discuss these things with him. He said something about this all being because they had all the lobbyists in Washington and he agreed that it was much more efficient to make high quality merchandise closer and ship it a short distance often with the option of factory direct than to move all the factories half way around the world rely on sweat shop labor then use an enormous amount of subcontractors in between.

Not the type of conversation I expected to have with a cop; however perhaps this should not be too surprising; over the years I have known at least three or four cops off duty and they haven't been unreasonable at all. Some rural or urban police departments are almost certainly much more authoritarian but there are almost certainly many police that are also concerned citizens and they may not like the epidemic of corporate corruption that has been going on any more than anyone else; although it isn't their jurisdiction to hold corporations accountable they may not like suppressing legitimate complaints either and they may have mixed feelings about doing so.

But then he said that what I did in there was "disorderly conduct" and that he would arrest me if I did it "in my town." He seemed to be implying at one point or another that he wouldn't mind if I did it in another town. He said that I was "interrupting business as usual."

I said something like, "Business as usual is crooked as hell."

"Business as usual is crooked as hell."

He agreed! But then he back tracked one way or another and said if I had objections I should "go to corporate."

He didn't suggest I should write my congressmen or go to a government run consumer protection agency to ask them to look into it, not that it would have done anymore good since politicians will just ask for more campaign contributions and eliminate more funds for any consumer protection. This seems to imply that the authority that I should go to was the corporation itself not the government which would be a reasonable assessment under the circumstances but of course they wouldn't have done anything unless they had no choice. Which essentially implies that the corporations are the ones in control of the economy which is true.

The basic impression he gave was that he didn't like Wal-Mart anymore than I did and that he sympathized with the employees who had their legitimate complaints but that he was going to do his job as he was supposed to according to orders from higher up although he might have been one of the top cops in this town. I don't know how common this attitude is among cops; I suspect in some towns it might be more common than others and if the protest movements continue as they have been the politicians may eventually have to allow at least some reforms especially if there's a chance that some of the people enforcing the laws might not defend a system that is increasingly corrupt.

I didn't try to debate whether or not the woman who "was not a Wal-Mart employee" might have been the one that was guilty of "disorderly conduct" or not. I know this would never get to a jury where the truth managed to be told but if it did and that jury was reasonable I have no doubt that they would have considered her behavior more disorderly than mine.

Her behavior didn't make any sense unless she had some kind of motive to behave that way. It is hard to imagine that Wal-Mart would have someone on hand to behave like that in the event that they felt they had a need to do so; and if their intention was to make their complaints go away it was guaranteed to fail because it was so incompetent. But it appears as if that might have been just what they have done although I can't be certain. According to a recent Bloomberg article, Wal-Mart Struggles to Restock Store Shelves as U.S. Sales Slump, "Once a paragon of logistics, the world’s largest retailer has been trying to improve its restocking efforts since at least 2011, hiring consultants to walk the aisles and track whether hundreds of items are available." This was first reported in 2011 on October 7, Wal-Mart Brings in Consultants to Help Keep Its Shelves Stocked. If you accept this at face value then they're having a serious problem with their efficiency which I don't doubt especially since they're cutting so many corners; but I can't imagine why they would hire outside consultants to check for how well stocked their shelves were while simultaneously cutting funds for employees that actually stock the shelves or check to see what is running short.

Hiring consultants for this purpose makes no sense. Wal-Mart employees that do this could communicate directly with those that stock the shelves and solve the problem much more efficiently; I'm quite certain this is the simple way it has always been done.

What does make sense is hiring consultants for things that they want to keep confidential and apparently Wal-Mart may have a history of doing just that for a variety of reasons. According to one article, Wal-Mart consultant posed as reporter at opposition's L.A. events, there might be at least one example where a consultant was caught doing undisclosed infiltration attempts to investigate opposition to opening a new Wal-Mart; and another article involves Walmart Consultant Caught On Camera Bad-Mouthing Town Council. They have also used consultants to handle their bribes in the scandals in Mexico that may have also included additional bribery scandals in India as well which haven't been reported as widely.

The timing of the first reports of these consultants being used might also be a factor; they were first reported on October 7 2011 in the Bloomberg News, which was about three weeks after the Occupy Wall Street protests began. If Wal-Mart thought they might have been a target for the Occupy Wall Street movement they would have actually had more time to think about it than that since they first announced their plans in July which is still available on their Archives. Even though they might not have been the first target of the Occupy movement it wouldn't be hard for them to figure out that they would be later if it turned out to be successful which it did although it isn't over yet. Wal-Mart is also famous for its union busting tactics as many articles including Security cameras and HQ squads: Wal-Mart's union-busting tactics indicate. If they did have consultants sympathetic to Wal-Mart in the stores during the Occupy Wall Street protest in San Diego that I mentioned previously that might mean that the individual that was shouting at the protesters could conceivably been one of them; although I have no way of knowing for sure.

What might make more sense is the possibility that they might be using these consultants primarily to watch for union activity and potentially to help respond if another unexpected protest comes up or a customer that has a legitimate complaint that they don't want to respond to. They might have plans on how to act if they are confronted with certain problems but when they face new ones they might have to improvise and it may not be as likely to work out as planned. This would be extremely foolish if you ask me and it is hard to believe that they would even consider such a thing. However they have a long history of doing extremely foolish things and they often come up with lame denials after the fact and attempt to blame the lowest level person they can when they get caught. That seems to be what they did with Stephanie Harnett when she was caught posing as a reporter in the article previously cited and several of the examples that Adam Hartung cited in the Forbes article, WalMart's Mexican Bribery Scandal Will Sink It Like an Iceberg Sank the Titanic. They have a long history of using authoritarian tactics to intimidate people and they may be spending more money trying to dominate people than they are trying to produce the products that they provide for their customers.

Whether I encountered one of these tactics or not they clearly are using them much too often and it is a matter of time before a much larger portion of the public learns about how often they occur and the fact that the commercial media doesn't report on them properly; if they report them at all they report them as isolated incidents not as a major pattern of behavior. Furthermore if, as I indicated previously at least one of their competitors responds by replacing their merchandise when they get complaints and partially restoring the quality of their sneakers at least then it is a matter of time before their customers figure it out and abandon them in droves, which may already be happening.

If on the other hand this is the way they respond to well informed customer complaints or protests then it would be incredibly easy to catch them in the act by simply replicating the situation with caution not to do anything that could be considered illegal before a jury. They could find some excuse to arrest people like trespassing, disorderly conduct or, as Clarence Clarence Darrow indicated Conspiracy; but if there are witnesses it won't stick and they might wind up with another public relations disaster and it could be used to draw more attention to all the scandals that Wal-Mart is involved in that are only given a token amount of coverage by the commercial media.

If Wal-Mart has their way then when they take money from their customers and use it to donate to campaigns or pay for deceptive ads that would be protected free speech but if their critics, employees or customers have legitimate complaints they have much more limited rights to speech and if they try to use it too much their speech can be regulated even though the money they use for their speech is from the work of their employees and the money from their customers.

By spending so much money on union busting tactics, consultants that carry out all kinds of odd activities to gain control, lobbying, campaign contributions and shipping incredibly low quality products half way around the world while cutting costs on their activities that actually benefit the customer they're guaranteeing that their customer complaints will get even worse and they will wind up angering many more people than they already have.

By spending so much money on activities that don't benefit the customer while cutting costs on their activities that actually benefit the customer they're guaranteeing that their customer complaints will get even worse and they will wind up angering many more people than they already have. These non-productive expenses can include union busting tactics, consultants that carry out all kinds of odd activities to gain control, lobbying, campaign contributions and shipping incredibly low quality products half way around the world; they may save some money by taking advantage of low cost labor but the added additional expenses prevents them fr4om passing on that savings to the customer while the quality is much worse.

They're not getting business because they compete for it by providing a good product for a reasonable price; they get their business because of their political connections and the use of marketing propaganda and trade secrecy laws to keep the public in the dark about the real economic policies that are available.

They are almost certainly going to lose a much larger share of the market in the future especially with news outlets like Bloomberg News and Forbes Magazine, which are usually friendly to business, exposing some of their tactics; however the worst news that will do the most damage is the news that is reported on the alternative media and when more people recognize that is where they have to look for information the commercial media will be less relevant.

Just in case your wondering I still had the gift card after this which means that Wal-Mart wasn't finished getting customer feedback from me.

Additional feedback wound up going to the Wal-Mart at a different location and the funny thing is that some of the same items were cheaper. That story won't be as dramatic but if more people use these gift cards like I do they will almost certainly have to stop offering them.

Wal-Mart is almost certainly in more trouble than most people realize. There involved in more scandals than anyone can possibly keep track of and in addition to all the scandals they're involved in there is also a surprisingly big movement to Boycott Wal-Mart which isn't under centralized control; these boycott movements are coming from an enormous number of small groups and individuals. There are even an enormous amount of books written to expose Wal-Mart including "In Sam We Trust," "Big-Box Swindle" and many others which of course also include some puff pieces that are almost certainly written by authors with a financial incentive to prop up Wal-Marts reputation. In addition to spending a lot of money to create studies to portray them as beneficial for communities they also seem to have a few books mixed in with all these critical books but many of them are incredibly easy to recognize.

With all this information available while the commercial media and the political establishment continue to ignore all these enormous problems it is no wonder that one of their greatest fears is if people use their first amendment rights at the grass roots level to expose their scams to those that are still complacent.

Photo source

In addition to running an enormous amount of scams they're also threatening the democratic process with their efforts to suppress voter rights and corrupt the political system; and when people shop at Wal-Mart they're financing the destruction of our society and in return they get products that are incredibly flimsy and start falling apart almost immediately.

You don't save money and live better if their products start falling apart so fast and you only have to keep replacing them over and over again ande they destroy the economy while keeping all the money for themselves or spending it on bureaucratic efforts to control the public.

For additional articles on Wal-Mart including some that have been cited in this blog see the following.

Walmart Presses Felony Charge In Oreo Theft

Customers Flee Wal-Mart Empty Shelves for Target, Costco

Wal-Mart Brings in Consultants to Help Keep Its Shelves Stocked

Unexpected Ally Helps Wal-Mart Cut Waste
But some environmental and shop-local groups contend that the company's business model remains inherently anti-environment.
''Wal-Mart's price pressure on manufacturers is undermining the durability and quality of products, which has contributed to a sharp increase in how much Americans buy and how much we discard,'' said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. ''The majority of what the company does is designed to accelerate consumption.''

Voter Suppression 101: How Conservatives Are Conspiring to Disenfranchise Millions of Americans

"Up Against Wal-Mart" at Mother Jones

Walmart PR Consultant Stephanie Harnett Caught Revealing True Identity After Posing As Fake Reporter

"What Else You Should Know About Walmart" at Chicago Reader

"Wal-Mart's Top US Exec: 'I Funded Union-Busting'" at Truth Out

Is Wal-Mart driving planned obsolescence?

Although I didn't realize it at the time I was looking at evidence of planned obsolescence escalating and hearing rumors about it before I ever even heard of Wal-Mart and, apparently, Wal-Mart wasn't even the leading retailer in the country. In the eighties K-Mart was still bigger than Wal-Mart. However apparently, for one reason or another, Wal-Mart grew dramatically at a surprising rate since then and they now have a much bigger share of the market than any other company and there appears to be plenty of evidence to indicate that they have been using their market power to influence many industries and this includes driving down the quality of merchandise in their stores as well as in other oligarchies.Instead of competing to provide the best quality at the most reasonable price it appears as if the market has been divided up amongst a relatively small number of oligarchies with the same profit motive and they have been driving out any small business that tries to do a better job with creativity, variety or quality.

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It costs much more to ship a large volume of low quality merchandise, some of which turns out to be broken, half way around the world than it does to ship a much lower volume of quality merchandise a short distance.

All Wal-Marts propaganda will never change this fact which indicates major problems with their claims to be so "efficient."

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After looking into it a little more, due to the fact that it has escalated so much that it is virtually impossible to notice, though I suspect the evidence will clearly indicate that Wal-Mart has done more than any other company to increase the use of planned obsolescence to a level that any rational businessman might not think they can get away with.

Any rational businessman that came to that conclusion would be right, as recent activities may have already indicated although most people don't seem to have noticed.

In a series of posts that started a couple years ago under the author tag “A small success against planned obsolescence” I described how there may have been a partial reversal of this after an enormous amount of backlash from many customers that were outraged by the quality of their products; my comments were about my experiences but there must have been many more, some of which I have heard of; or they wouldn't have responded by partially addressing the problem.

If I am correct this could create major problems for Wal-Mart much sooner than many people might have suspected. However even if Wal-Mart loses its market dominance or even goes out of business there have still been no changes in the economic ideology of the oligarchies, commercial media or political system; so additional reforms will be needed and it has to be exposed. One of the reforms that needs to be made is trade secrecy laws have to be reformed because as I explained previously Proprietary Information is, by definition, a conspiracy.

I am not the only one to notice, nor am I the first to report on it. I first heard of this, as far as I an remember, when they came up with "pre-washed jeans" about three decades ago. The purpose of this was to enable consumers to avoid the breaking in period that we used to have to go through when we bought jeans and they used to shrink a little when they were washed so people had to prepare by buying them a little bigger. I don't remember anyone complaining about going through the breaking in period, although I'm sure some did, but the manufacturers came to the conclusion that it was a problem and they were going to solve it for all of us even if we were satisfied with the way they were previously.

Or so we were told.

What I do remember was that there were plenty of people at that time talking about how this would mean that they wouldn't last as long. It is now clear that they were right at the time but when they first came up with "pre-washed jeans" they didn't reduce the quality so much that it was noticeable for years and most people probably forgot the claims that this was part of an effort to reduce the quality of products so that they could force consumers to buy more.

Ironically if they hadn't taken things to a bizarre extreme I would still be one of those people that no longer think about it and I never would have reviewed some of the events over the past several decades to remember things that would help assess how much things fall apart faster than they used to; nor would I have looked up information which is only available on alternative media outlets that back this up.

The traditional media would have us believe that all those outlets that have popped up on the internet over the past decade or so have little or no credibility. They often provide coverage of many of the most fanatical ones so that they can create stereotypes about alternative media outlets. However anyone that has sorted through some of the more credible sources on the internet probably knows this is false. To add to this the commercial media has increasingly become more like the fringe alternative media outlets that they attempt to discredit with their behavior, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

One of the more reliable source that have addressed this situation is Stacy Mitchell author of "Big-Box Swindle" and the following article.

"Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart" By Stacy Mitchell

My friend Tony’s closet is as good a place as any to begin an investigation of Walmart’s environmental impact. Tony has a pair of Levi’s that date back to high school more than 20 years ago. They still fit him and they’re still in rotation. The fabric has a smooth patina that hints at its age, but, compared to another pair of Levi’s he bought only a couple of years ago, this pair actually looks far less worn. The denim is sturdier, the seams more substantial, the rivets bigger.

Tony’s old pair of Levi’s may well have been made in the U.S, and they likely cost more than his new pair. The new ones were manufactured abroad — Levi’s closed its last U.S. factory in 2003 — and, though Tony didn’t buy them at Walmart, their shoddy construction can be blamed at least in part on the giant retailer and the way it’s reshaping manufacturing around the world. Since 1994, the consumer price of apparel, in real terms, has fallen by 39 percent. “It is now possible to buy clothing, long a high-priced and valuable commodity, by the pound, for prices comparable to cheap agricultural products,” notes Juliet Schor. Cheapness — and the decline in durability that has accompanied it – has triggered an astonishing increase in the amount of clothing we buy. In the mid-1990s, the average American bought 28 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy 59 items. We also throw away an average of 83 pounds of textiles per person, mostly discarded apparel, each year. That’s four times as much as we did in 1980, according to an EPA analysis of municipal waste streams [PDF].

Most consumer products have followed a similar trajectory over the last two decades. Walmart has done more than any other company to drive these changes, though other retailers have since followed its model. Where once we measured value when we shopped, Walmart trained us to see only price. Its hard bargaining pushed manufacturers offshore and drove them, year after year, to cut more corners and make shoddier products. As union-wage production jobs and family-owned businesses fell by the wayside, many Americans could no longer afford anything but Walmart’s cheap offerings. .....

Even when a manufacturer responds to Walmart’s cost-cutting pressure by producing a separate, cheaper line to sell only in big-box stores — as many name-brand companies now do — the brand’s reputation for quality can suffer, making it hard for specialty retailers to persuade customers that the higher-quality, longer-lasting versions they offer are worth more.

As local stores and other competing retailers are weakened, manufacturers become more dependent on Walmart. Many major consumer products companies now rely on Walmart for one-quarter or more of their business. According to the study, this gives the chain greater bargaining power over its suppliers, who have fewer options for bringing their wares to market and thus little leverage to resist the retailer’s demands. Complete article

More of Stacy Mitchell's articles

I'm inclined to believe that if anything it might be even worse than what Stacy Mitchell describes based on my own experiences and some examples of how long many things used to last twenty or thirty years ago compared to how long they last now. I have thought of the following examples to show what may have changed and how I can remember them; some of them specifically involve Wal-Mart products. I have also found what might be considered some recent evidence to indicate that they can still manufacture quality merchandise and that at least one retailer is responding to backlash from customers and restoring the quality of their merchandise at least temporarily. Wal-Mart has also restored some of the brands that they once pulled from their shelves as well but I don't get the impression that they're the same quality they used to be or that Wal-Mart can be trusted to do more than they feel they absolutely have to if they do anything at all.

Jeans: As I indicated before they came up with "pre-washed jeans" about thirty or so years ago and they have been gradually getting cheaper since then. On or about the time they first came out there was a marketing attempt targeted towards children to make it appear as if it was cool to wear jeans that appeared worn out. At the time it was a complete failure; the kids I remember that discussed it said that only the wannabes fell for that, as in the kids that wanted to be cool. However it wasn't the cool kids that were saying this it was the wannabes, as if there were kids less cool than they are. I don't remember any kids in my area that actually fell for that obvious marketing scams but there may have been some in other areas and the marketing people didn't give up easy and eventually it seemed to work at least for some kids.

When I was a kid if the cool kids wore worn looking jeans it was because they were hand me downs and they weren't inclined to talk about it. You couldn't get them that way otherwise at the time unless you stopped growing and then it took at least six to eight years I'm guessing. I don't remember the exact time they lasted but it was definitely much longer than they last today. A few years ago I bought what was probably the first couple of pair of jeans even at a Wal-Mart and they turned out to be the most pathetic jeans I had ever seen in my life. They wound up completely falling apart in a bout two and a half years. If I had worn them every day they almost certainly would have fallen apart in six to eight months at the most each.

I didn't know it at the time but it appears as if Wal-Mart may have already been in the process of receiving backlash. According to an article, Wal-Mart Reintroduces Brands After Customer Complaints, they were in the process of restocking some of the items that they removed from the shelves previously. I doubt that this article presents the situation accurately and completely. At the time I looked for some of the basic simple brands that I had been buying for decades like Lees, Levi's or Wranglers; none of them were there; so I settled for what they had, which was their "Faded Glory" brand at a price that seemed cheap at the time based on the assumption that they were reasonably sturdy; that price has since gone down, presumably because of the backlash I mentioned that they've been receiving. But they weren't and when considering the fact that they turned out to be disposable garbage the price was obviously outrageous; even the lower price they now charge is outrageous. Furthermore I doubt if a company as big as Wal-Mart would respond to customer complaints unless they were going through the roof. The article attempts to make it seem as if Wal-Mart was quick to respond; since they still hadn't restocked the brands I was looking for it is clear that they hadn’t even fully restocked many brands for customers.

Sneakers: As I indicated previously I made a department store replace a pair of sneakers because the quality of them was so pathetic. This was described in a series of posts under the author tag “A small success against planned obsolescence.” Without getting into as much details as I did in that post I remember that approximately thirty years ago when a pair of sneakers was approximately one year old I remember the shoe lace would typically break and I would replace it and wear it for a second year, or close to it. One of the reasons that I was able to remember the timing is that I was buying my sneakers the same time of year for several years; this changed when I started working in a field that required boots. Fifteen years ago after one year the entire sneaker would be falling apart. Five years ago a typical pair of sneakers would fall apart after about six months even though I didn’t put nearly as much wear and tear on them as when I was younger and wore them all day every day and was more active. If I put the same amount of wear and tear on them now as I did then, the pairs of sneakers that used to last close to two years would almost certainly fall apart in only four months. I had enough after buying the sneakers at Wal-Mart and saved receipts the next time at a different department store that turned out to be just as low quality even though there price was higher. as described in the series of posts cited they replaced them when I made it clear that I wasn't going to take it any more and it was about the same time that the Occupy Wall Street movement broke out so presumably there was much more backlash. Now that store is starting to supply all their customers with better sneakers; however as far as I can tell even though Wal-Mart must be facing a similar backlash if not worse they don't seem to be responding as well, which I'll get back to in a follow up post soon.

Shirts: I have at least three shirts that are close to if not more than fifteen years old. One of these is extremely worn out but it is only because it was perhaps my favorite shirt for a long time and it was the one that I was most likely to wear over and over again; another that got much less wear and tear is in much better shape than several other shirts that I bought much more recently including one that is no more than five years old and is pretty much shot to hell. This one isn't worn in most places but there is a large tear in it on the elbow and this isn't because it got caught in a snag or was well worn; the material was simply never any damn good.

Recently I noticed a wrangler shirt at Wal-Mart that wasn't much if any cheaper than a similar shirt at another store; it had a one year warranty. This struck me as odd, to put it mildly. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention but I have never heard of putting warranties on basic clothing items. This was something that I would typically expect to find on an appliance or something like that. If people saw something like that thirty years ago I suspect they might have assumed that it was a piece of crap and that this was just never done with clothing but at that time people didn't think twice about it and these items routinely lasted at least two or three times as long. I suspect that this might be the way they decided to respond to an epidemic of consumer complaints about the deterioration of their merchandise. Clearly if they keep cutting corners in manufacturing the quality is going to suffer and some customers are going to notice something is going on.

Socks: I have never been in the habit of spending much time shopping and when it comes to socks and underwear on the rare occasions where I do buy them I buy extra and put the extra away unopened until I need them. I don't know how long this is typically took, probably three or four years typically; but on one occasion I found an unopened package of socks that was probably at least six to eight years old maybe a little more. this meant that on this occasion I wound up with two new packages of socks that coincidentally turned out to be the same brand and style although a quick look at them clearly indicated that they weren't the same at all. They still had the price tags on both; the ones that were newer were at least fifty percent more than the ones six to ten years older and the quality was obviously much worse. They weren't as thick or as comfortable and I decided to rotate them and wear them out at the same time. Not surprisingly the older more comfortable and cheaper ones lasted much longer. My intention at this time wasn't a thorough review; it just worked out that way so I can't give you exact times.

Toasters and coffee makers: At one point in the nineties I needed a new coffee maker; I wasn't sure how old the one I had bought last time was when it broke but didn't think it was long and came up with what I thought was a simple solution. I looked up restaurant suppliers in the yellow pages and decided to buy one of the ones made for restaurants. There was a supplier that was willing to deal with the public so I went to pick one up. When I got there and asked him where his coffee makers were he pointed to a regular coffee maker that was identical to the ones that the departments stores. When pressed he said that was all he had.

Apparently I wasn't the only one that came up with that simple idea and they simply don't seem to make those coffee machines available to the public.

At one time much more recently I had another one, as well as a toaster, break down and decided that I would take it down to the basement and save it for later after I bought a new one. There were already plenty broken toasters and coffee pots each piling up. Apparently we haven’t been throwing them away as we went but this meant that I was able to calculate approximately how long they lasted since we wouldn't have brought broken toasters and coffee pots with us when we rebuilt this particular house. They presumably last about two years each before breaking down although this probably fluctuates.

I never kept track of it but I'm quite certain that they used to last much longer almost certainly over ten years each. Stacy Mitchell mentioned one that she saw advertised for 6.24. I have serious doubts about how and why they would price it so low but it almost certainly won't last long at all. My best guess is that they cut so many corners in the factory that they were having big problems with the ones and discounted it so far they could get rid of them fast. If you check the link she provides it goes to one that sells for 15.40 as of this writing; however they almost certainly didn't post the low price that Stacy saw nationally to make it seem like the locals might be getting a deal and to prevent people from expecting it all the time. They have some very good reviews along with some very bad reviews. It wouldn't be hard at all for Wal-Mart to respond to a large number of bad reviews with few if any good reviews by simply providing the good reviews. This seems to be very petty but as I explained in Wal-Marts unethical marketing to children they have a long history of false advertising and even one which I have no doubt is a phony grass roots review. Furthermore I can't imagine why anyone would write a review for Wal-Mart at all unless they were angry; or at least I wouldn't. They have also been deceptive about many of the scandals they have been caught red handed at including the sweat shop fire and the bribery scandals. I have no doubt that with their long track record of distorting the truth or outright lying they just might create their own reviews to make it seem as if most are happy although they almost certainly wouldn't delete reviews since they could be spotted by the angry customers that write them some of whom might check back.

Cameras: In the nineties for a while i had to take pictures of things on a regular basis for work and went through a surprising number of cameras. they were stored on a shelf where there was little or no potential for being dropped or damaged otherwise. I didn't travel with them either yet they routinely broke after no more than two or three rolls for film each although this would take months and i was so busy at the time that I didn't worry to much about the cameras. If I had used them for personal use it probably would have been primarily for vacations and I could have easily forgotten how old they might have been since I might not use them most of the year so I might not have realized how often they need to be replaced. I have no doubt that they could be made to last much longer.

Toilet seat cover: This example may seem kind of odd but it serves to make a larger point. About eight years ago a family member bought a replacement toilet seat cover for one that was broken. The broken one couldn't have been more than ten years old since the bathroom in question wasn't that old furthermore it wasn't the main bathroom so it got very little use. She bought one at Wal-Mart which was broken right out of the package. She had to make an extra trip without compensation to return it for a credit and bought one at Home Depot.

The one from the Home Depot broke again recently after only eight years. Since this toilet gets so little use we've made do. I'm quite sure that they can make these that last decades if not a century and that they used to.

A town building now under construction nearby that I recently noticed may not seem like it would relate to this subject but it might. It is being built out of masonry which is common for this type of building. What isn't common is that when they got to the top of a large opening they used a wooden lintel over it. Presumably it is just the roof that is going on top of it so it might last for a reasonable length of time; but that isn't the point. I have never seen or heard of using this construction method for this type of situation. It has always been either an I beam or some other form of steel, concrete or strong bond beam course full of concrete. In most cases if there was bearing they would have used both steel and on top of that the proper way of putting the first course of block on it would involve bond beam as well.

This contractor is cutting corners that I have never seen before. The roof is apparently made of wood but this isn’t normally the type of roof that would be put on this type of building. The masonry is made to last much longer than the roof assuming it is done properly.

In Stacy Mitchell's book "Big-Box Swindle" she writes about how their big box's are only built to last for up to about thirty years and often shut down little after they're more than ten years old. They’re cutting as many corners in the construction of their buildings as well; planned obsolescence is becoming increasingly popular when it comes to buildings as well. This should be worth considering the next time you hear about a roof that falls in at a shopping mall. This has happened on several occasions including one in North Carolina and another in Toronto. Stacy Mitchell also wrote about how Wal-Mart has been demanding that their suppliers cut so many corners that they wound up being sued when a bicycle caused accidents and harmed children. Apparently Wal-mart won this suit according to May-Carmen v. Wal-Mart bicycle trial. this article clearly implies that right or wrong Wal-mart had a major advantage due to the fact that they simply had a high priced law firm and the use of expert witnesses and technology all financed by Wal-Mart. When consumer buy things at Wal-Mart they unwittingly contribute to Wal-Mart's legal resources which can be used against them if there is a problem. The article doesn't even mention the fact that Wal-Mart is famous for pressuring their suppliers to cut costs as much as possible and that it routinely leads to lower quality merchandise.

We’ve been told the free enterprise system is supposed to prevent this type of thing from happening yet clearly that isn’t the way things have been working out. The way it is supposed to work is of course that different businesses are supposed to compete to get the customers by providing the best product for the lowest price; at least that is what the propaganda tells us. This is based on the assumption that the consumer is supposed to have the information they need available to them to make decisions. This assumption is false; in fact they passed numerous laws that are designed to prevent consumers from obtaining the information they need to make many decisions. These laws are trade secrecy or proprietary information laws. They’re supposed to encourage innovation that provides an advantage to the customer. This sounds good but what they’re being used for is to prevent the customer to realize that they’re gradually reducing the quality of their products or that they’re constantly studying consumer spending habits so that they can find out how to manipulate them more effectively.

These laws are also designed to enable them to avoid letting the public know about how much of an advantage the big businesses obtain by using their market power and even by obtaining subsidies from the government and that they often get these with the help of politicians that collect an enormous amount of money from the corporations that benefit from these subsidies.

The result is that instead of a free market system where businesses compete fairly we now have an oligarchy market where big corporations use their political and market power to suppress the rights of their workers, customers and just about anyone else involved including those that are concerned about protecting the environment or stopping corporations from marketing tactics that may interfere with the proper education of children. The methods that corporations have been using these tactics have been exposed before; in fact over a hundred years ago Clarence Darrow gave a speech about "Industrial Conspiracies" (Some of you may have noticed that I have cited this previously; I hope you agree that it is worthwhile.) that exposed many of these tactics. Following that speech thanks to a large grass roots effort there were significant improvements in the anti-trust laws to prevent the most extreme of these abuses. These improvements were never what I would consider complete but they were major steps in the right direction; but unfortunately over the past thirty or so years they have rolled back almost all of these improvements and as a result we now have an oligarchy system that is involved in mind boggling epidemic levels of consumer fraud and they're also suppressing worker rights all over the world and destroying the environment and even threatening the democratic process. Stacy Mitchell's book "Big-Box Swindle" provides plenty of information about how they have done this and there are several other books available to expose this but unfortunately there are still an enormous amount of people who either rely on the commercial media for their information or they have learned not to trust the MSM but haven’t found better sources through the alternative media yet.

The example that I cited about the broken toilet seat that came right out of the package is a clear indicator of how much problems the current system when you consider that it isn’t an isolated incident. There is an enormous amount of low quality of defective products being shipped half way around the world before they get to the customer. In many cases they almost certainly pull many of these broken products before they make it on to the store shelves but there are many others where they don’t.

Have you ever seen a broken product on the store shelves and declined to buy it?

Surely just about everyone has; who do you think pays for all these broken items? If you spot it before you buy anything you don’t pay for it, or so it seems. These are business expenses; one way or another they have to pass these expenses on to the consumer if they’re going to make a profit. This means they have to add on the expense of their waste to the price they charge consumers. In a competitive market presumably businesses that keep their waste down can make more profit because they have to pass less on to the consumer. But in an oligarchy market they don’t have to worry so much about passing this waste on to the consumer because they can use their market power to ensure that consumers don’t have other options.

In addition to this I know of at least one case where a pair of Nike sandals were donated to the poor and one person wore them for a day before throwing them away because they were so uncomfortable and they even drew blood. These were apparently made out of plastic and after taking a look at them I found it hard to believe that anyone would buy them if they saw them in the store. Social workers that deal with the poor more might know of many more examples of this especially if there are a lot of examples of corporations donating defective products for tax write offs. Personally I would never buy anything that had such a huge logo on it under any circumstances but in this case it was apparent that they would never be very comfortably at all. These things aren't manufactured individually and the problem was the design so this clearly means that they must have mass manufactured a lot of them and shipped them half way around the world before finding out they were useless.

This means that statistically speaking they must be shipping an enormous amount of merchandise half way around the world that is either a very low quality or broken before it gets to the consumer the consumer wears it out much faster than they would have if they were buying something that was made with good quality a short distance away.

We used to hear about how Soviet Russia used to make a large volume of useless products including sunglasses that no one could see through; Sixty Minutes just did another story about how China is doing the same thing with buildings now. We've been told this is the problem with centralized government control where the decisions are made by bureaucrats that are no where near the manufacturing plants or the stores listening to the customers.

These sandals weren't nearly as bad as the following ones as reported in Bree Wee's Blog



I can't confirm that this is accurately reported and if this was a major problem there would almost certainly be much more people reporting on it but there are still an enormous amount of problems with many products and many of the other ones can be confirmed through sources that are more widely known although I have no reason to doubt this report.

They don't report about the fact that this is increasingly happening here under centralized corporate control where the decisions are made by bureaucrats that are no where near the manufacturing plants or the stores listening to the customers now.

If this simple fact was given much if any consideration then it would be hard to maintain any faith in the claim that these large corporations are doing things in an extremely efficient manner which they routinely claim. They may be able to do some things efficiently but if the things they’re doing efficiently aren’t helping to advance the ultimate goal than it isn’t as efficient as we choose to believe.

There used to be an enormous amount of efficiency when we were able to buy at some of the factory direct store that were often near the plants. These probably weren't too much cheaper than what the stores sold them for but only a handful of people lived close enough to the plant to take advantage of it unless they timed their shopping for vacations; which few people did. One of the few exceptions that I know of is in Maine where they used to have a lot of factories that were close to vacation spots but even those only attracted a few people. In these cases even when they did sell through stores they saved a lot of money because it is much more efficient to ship items a few hundred miles than it is to ship them half way around the world.

There is a surprisingly simple way the propagandist avoid addressing this simple fact. They don’t mention it at all or allow anyone that might mention it to have any air time.

Another major thing they avoid doing is simply avoid asking what the goal it is that they’re trying to accomplish in many cases. Are they trying to maximize profits? Improve the quality of life for the majority? Is there a contradiction between these two objectives? There is but they don’t give the public this impression with their propaganda.

The best interests of the richest businessman are not in the best interest of the workers or the consumers but they create an enormous amount of propaganda to give people the impression that they are. The impression is that they make money by making life better for everyone but this is simply not true. The more they cut corners and cut wages without cutting much if anything off the prices the more they can keep for themselves increasing their profits through the roof; which is exactly what has been happening judging by the various "vulture charts" about wage inequality. In most cases these "vulture charts" don't even mention the fact that the quality has deteriorated so badly that most of us have to replace things over and over again.

To make matters worse apparently the reason why we wound up with this oligarchy system that has replaced the some-what free enterprise system that we had about thirty years ago is largely because of government policy that is designed to help the oligarchies gain an advantage over small businesses that used to provide them competition whether it was manufacturers or retailers, as described in "Big-Box Swindle."

There are even more tactics that they use to suppress competition that can be found elsewhere or more elaboration on some of the tactics that Stacy Mitchell describes. One of them is slotting fees which Stacy mentions although she doesn't use that term. This is when they charge suppliers for shelf space and the suppliers have to increase their prices to cover this expense. It is rarely discussed at all so it is hard to know when this is done but it is almost certainly much more common than most of us are led to believe. It has been widely reported among grocery stores and tobacco companies have been famous for using these to get prominent placing of their products. They have been exposed for intentionally using slotting fees to put their products in locations at small stores where they could easily be shop lifted by children as part of their efforts to get them addicted. They studied this and found that teens grew out of the shop lifting and remained addicted so they compensated the store owners with slotting fees to cover their losses. I found a lessor known example when discussing what someone did for a living and she told me that she worked for a wholesaler and set up their displays in department stores. This is very inefficient since the person doing the stocking has to travel and the wholesaler has to pay adults more since they can't hire teens. Of course if you think they should pay enough to earn a living to adults anyway it is still inefficient.

Stacy mentions it when it comes to prominent placing of books in book store which is especially outrageous when you consider this impacts the information that many people receive and what is promoted to people. The commercial media has an enormous amount of influence on what many people read unless they go to the trouble to find their own sources most people are often inclined to pick from the things the commercial media or the books stores or Wal-Mart puts in front of them and this is often based on propaganda and the ideology of those that run the corporations. Wal-Mart is famous for withholding books or albums they don't like and in some cases pressuring the artists to make different versions for their store. this should be considered an anti-trust violation by any reasonable standards. What many of us used to be taught was that businesses made their buying choices based on the quality of the product and what would make the consumer happy. Slotting fees are blatantly contradictory to that assumption.

Without the subsidies from the government and massive marketing power they never would have been able to drive out all the small businesses that used to exist; before that happened they never could have pressured their suppliers to constantly cut costs so much that it gradually reduced the quality of their merchandise or they would have lost all their customers. Regardless of how they obtained a more dominant share of the retail industry than any company has ever had before it should be considered a major anti-trust violation; and it should have been stopped before it got this far.

This is similar to what they did in the nineteenth century when they imported low paid labor like the Chinese. Back then it cost more to import and house the Chinese so that they could pay them less than it would have to negotiate a reasonable compromise with the workers that demanded fair wages. It wasn't just about saving costs but about wage suppression and control of the economic system. Over the past several decades it cost a lot of money to shut down all the local factories and move them over seas then when they get caught with their human rights abuses it costs more money to shut them down again and move them while hiring public relations firms to convince the public they're fixing the problem without actually doing so. It also costs more money to maintain much more retail space than they did decades ago. Mitchell's book writes about how in addition to having much more retail space per capita than we ever had before we also have many more abandoned buildings that have been a burden to local communities. In many cases the local governments have paid to buy them and either renovate them at a loss for another corporation or tear them down to reduce the amount of blight.

I could go on much more and probably will in follow up posts but fortunately there might be some good news when it comes to Wal-Mart and it even includes a partial restoration of the production of quality merchandise. However it doesn't include major political and economic reforms that are needed to ensure that these changes are completed or that they aren't reversed again. This possibility is based on experiences that I have had in a couple of different store and the fact that I have reason to believe that the department stores have been suffering from much more customer backlash than they have been letting on over the past couple of years. I haven't seen any reports in the news about this but have had first hand experience and if it is correct then it could be confirmed by other peoples observations as well. I described this previously under the author tag “A small success against planned obsolescence.” 

Some recent experience with Wal-Mart has indicated that they might not be so inclined to restore the quality of their merchandise and might be digging in their heals with their old practices and there might be a few articles about Wal-Mart that might hint at bigger problems that have already begun.

If other suppliers start restoring their quality and Wal-Mart doesn't then it is a matter of time before the consumers figure it out and abandon Wal-Mart.

Adam Hartung, a contributor for Forbes magazine recently wrote, WalMart's Mexican Bribery Scandal Will Sink It Like an Iceberg Sank the Titanic. The assumption that one single scandal would cause Wal-Mart to sink like the Titanic is of course highly unlikely, if not completely out of the question but this is just one of many scandals and the fact that they haven't been willing to change their business plans. Hartung cites several others that he based his conclusions on and there are many more that he didn't mention. This is Forbes magazine not a wishful critic; generally they rarely ever make such extreme claims in the business sections as far as I can tell even when there are real problems. In the case of Bear Sterns many of the annalists in were recommending it until it became obvious that they were in so much trouble that they couldn't avoid covering the collapse.

A recent story about a leaked E-mail, Wal-Mart Executives Sweat Slow February Start in E-Mails, indicates that they have been losing much more sales than previously indicated so this may already be happening. Furthermore another story, Wal-Mart Struggles to Restock Store Shelves as U.S. Sales Slump, indicates that even while they're losing sales they're having a hard time keeping up. this should raise serious doubts about their alleged efficiency. They still seem to have increased their profits but that seems to be primarily based on a lower tax rate according to the AP, Wal-Mart sees profit rise but tempers outlook.

I mentioned that I had recent occasions to visit Wal-Mart which would hardly be likely since I clearly don't seem to be to thrilled with Wal-Mart. I have actually been one of the last people in this country to ever actually see a Wal-Mart due to the fact that I live in New England and it is one of the last areas that they have saturated. I first heard of them in the nineties when they were the subject of a news story about how they were putting so many other businesses out of business and how they were ruining so many communities. This was shortly before the consolidation of the commercial media escalated and this type of story became much less common. So after hearing about this when they finally did come to New England I didn't shop there. This changed on two separate occasions when for one reason or another someone decided to buy Wal-Mart gift cards for Christmas. The first was several years ago when I indicated that I bought their sneakers and a couple of pairs of jeans as well as a few other items and found out just how crappy they are. This actually escalated my frustration that led me to start saving receipts and I wound up holding different stores accountable for their products including the sneakers that I mentioned earlier.

For some reason I didn't think to let the individual know what I thought about Wal-Mart since it isn't someone I talk to often and I received another one this year.

While reading about Wal-Mart I noticed that they always talk about how they negotiate very good deals so they can offer low prices.

As I indicated they clearly don't pass on the benefits of these negotiations since they seem to involve cutting so many corners that tehir products are worth much less.

When I received the second card it occurred to me that if they negotiate for my benefit and don't pass on the savings since their products are crappy then the solution should be simple

All I have to do is negotiate a good deal since I now know that they're open to negotiations.

I'll let you know how that turned out soon enough.

For other Wal-Mart blogs see author tag "Wal-Mart Watch" assuming you're not already on that page.

"Big-Box Swindle" by Stacy Mitchell

For some related articles see the following sites.

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/03/12/Wal-Mart-Reintroduces-Brands-After-Customer-Complaints.aspx

http://jlwatsonconsulting.typepad.com/my-blog/2011/03/does-walmart-respond-to-customer-complaints.html

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/governments-promote-planned-obsolescence/

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart_threatens_suppliers_for_marketing_dollars/

http://www.oilempire.us/wal-mart.html

http://www.savings.com/blog/post/Planned-Obsolescence-the-Myth-of-Walmart-Sustainability-and-How-Durability-Saves-Money.html

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/25/planned-obsolescence-a-lament-for-quality-amid-a-world-of-junk/

http://www.cookcountynews-herald.com/news/2012-10-27/Columns/Fishing_pole_planned_obsolescence.html

http://greentiger.info/greentigernewsletter/where-did-planned-obsolenscence-come-from/

http://consumerist.com/tag/planned-obsolescence/

http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/walmarts-green-room-blog-launches/

http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthread.php?tid=24850

http://c4ss.org/content/12561 Center for a Stateless Society

"They're arresting me for daring to tell the truth in a courtroom!!!"

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On the morning after the state of the union when Barack Obama announced that the "state of the union is strong" I had a court date for some trivial fee from an incident ten years old. The fee was added years after the fact for reasons that I still haven’t figured out.

This was also the morning after Christopher Dornan was cornered and apparently died and about the same time that the Carnival Cruise disaster was beginning to unfold, not that this should have anything to do with this story.

Whether it was relevant or not I wondered if they would be increasing security as a result of the Dornan incident; but clearly it was overblown around the country by the media like everything else and when I got to court I found out something else that I hadn’t realized was quite so bad.

The place was swamped; it’s been years if not decades since I spent much if any time in traffic court which is what this turned out to be and I had seen busy court rooms before but nothing like this and I made the mistake of showing up early.

The security was relatively mild; in fact with all the people they apparently had on a regular basis it would almost certainly have bogged things down even more than they already were bogged down if it was any tougher which might be why they didn’t have tougher security; either that or they were just trying to save money.

I decided to use the rest room first, which turned out to be just as well. There was only one bathroom for both sexes; fortunately there was only one person in it and I didn’t have to wait that long. I thought about this a little more later when I saw how many more people would show up, but that is beside the point.

I managed to get what might have been one of the few remaining seats in the back of the court room which was fairly large even though there were already a fair amount of people standing; and I started reading my book while I waited, or at least I tried and actually managed to get a couple paragraphs.

“The people running the oligarchies don’t have to deal with crowds like this; nor do they have to even worry about going to court for trivial things like this or even major things.”

Looking around I couldn’t figure out who said that but I did notice others were looking around or away and some of them seemed to be suppressing slight grins.

I didn’t think about whether or not this might not be normal and went back to my book.

“They commit real crimes that actually do deserve real investigation but they don’t seem to have to worry about that.”

On the occasions when I used to wind up in traffic court I don’t remember people talking quite so loud if at all. They used to be careful to whisper if they ever even talked to anyone but this court room was packed and the clerk was at the front and probably far enough away so she couldn’t hear this …. For now.

But still I just try to go back to my book.

“That’s why so many of us are here you know.”

Well since I’m not going to be able to read my book I may as well listen to what this guy has to say; it might pass the time a little quicker; it turns out he’s right in front of me practically just a couple seats to the right.

“Every four years they break the record when it comes to campaign contributions and last year both presidential candidates spent over one billion dollars each and that doesn’t even count the amount of money that was spent on congress and governors offices or even all the money that was pent by undisclosed organizations that no longer have to tell us who they are or how much they spend.”

“And you know what that means Don’t you?”

Everyone looks around and avoids answering many of them with slight grins; he’s still talking load enough for all of us to hear but presumably not load enough for the clerk to hear and the few people that actually work hear all seem to be busy talking to someone because there are so few people to address their problems or I suspect they aren’t even in the room.

"That means they need to get a return on their money that is much bigger than what they invested. Otherwise there is no way they would be donating all that money."

“And if they’re going to get their return on that money the government is going to have to get the money they need for what ever it is that they do including provide corporate welfare for the campaign contributions from some place else.”

“You know where that comes from? It comes from us; not because of whatever petty reason most of us are hear for but because they have to stick someone without political power that doesn’t donate to campaigns with the bill even if those people don’t have any money to pay for it.”

At this point the lady next to him asks quietly what he is here for.

"I'm just here for a broken tail light which I didn't even know I had until the cop pulled me over. If they weren't trying to milk people for everything they could get they would have just let me off with a warning. The cop didn't have to make a big deal out of it and I told him I would have it fixed the next day. twenty years ago that would have been an acceptable answer for something so petty. It's not like I gave him a hard time or anything. And now I had to take the day off from work to deal with this petty thing."

"It's not like I have connections like those that donate to campaigns."

“You don’t think people with money have to pay their bills in this country any more do you? Well I suppose they pay some of their bills but not to the government; instead they just pay the lobbyists who get them out of their fair share of taxes and get them an enormous amount of subsidies to boot.”

“I’m not making this up there are literally hundreds of books in the library on the subject and even more information on the alternative news outlets that you can find on the internet or from other sources. Some of it is so blatant that even the commercial media reports about it; but most of the information on this is routinely ignored by the commercial media.”

“You know why that is; don’t you?”

I can guess but by now I know it doesn’t matter whether I answer you or not; you’re going to tell us any way unless the court room starts moving faster which I doubt.

“It’s because the commercial media is getting as much if not more of these subsidies as any of the other campaign contributors; they contribute as much as any of the other corporations that are robbing this country blind. And they get plenty in return for it; they get virtual monopoly or oligarchy rights over the air waves that reaches the majority of the public while the rest of us don’t have any access to the air waves. If we want to get our views across we can only tell handful of people at a time.”

“You know what they pay for exclusive access to the public air waves? Nothing. That’s right they don’t pay for it at all it is all corporate welfare. It didn’t used to be that way; or at least it didn’t quite used to be that way. They never actually had to pay for their exclusive rights but they used to allow a much more diverse point of view to be presented to the public and they were required to provide some kind of public service in return for their free access.”

“But they’ve been donating to campaigns for a long time so when most of us weren’t paying attention they gradually and quietly eliminated any public service requirements so now they just get it for free and those six conglomerates get control of the vast majority of the media without any accountability at all.”

“Well almost no accountability at all. I suppose they do have to fill some obligations if you want to call it that. They’re obligated to provide coverage to the candidates that support their oligarchy control while suppressing or ridiculing any candidates that manage to get support from the grass roots despite the fact that they can’t get any coverage from the oligarchies that took over the press.”

"So since they can't charge the people that are robbing this country blind to pay for the bills they rack up they have to figure out a way to charge someone else and they stick it to everyone else including those without any money at all."

"Do you know how much money it costs to try to collect money from people without any money?"

"Neither do I; but it must be a fortune when you consider they're trying to do this all over the country. They must be spending billions of dollars around the country trying to collect from these people and they rarely ever collect anything so it is a total waste. Even if they do collect a little bit of money it means they're taking the last dollar some people have and what do you think is going to happen then?"

"Do you think some of them will wind up committing crimes? Or do you think some of them will wind up on welfare? They may not want to work anymore but who can blame them anymore? That may seem absurd to many people and it would be if they actually had a chance to get decent wages with reasonable treatment anymore but that isn't the case. If they won't allow abuse on the job and it is possible to ship the jobs over seas that is exactly what the oligarchies do so they can drive wages down so the vast majority of people can't get a job so they have to settle for anything that is available which is either welfare or miserable low paying jobs that still don't give people enough money to get by."

"But that isn't the biggest problem with welfare of course. The real problem with welfare isn't the welfare that poor people get; it's the welfare that rich people get."

"They get much more welfare!"

At this point the girl sitting next to me asked if I knew where the bath room was. She was looking at him kind of funny before this. After I told her she got up and looked around; the court room was much more crowded by now and more people were still coming in. I stood up to see how crowded it was an noticed that it would be extremely difficult to get through now without asking people to let me or her by. She seemed to come to the same conclusion and sat back down before she lost her seat.

I guess she didn't have to go that bad.

"The oil companies get all kinds of welfare and Wal-Mart is a big welfare recipient; they even have a Wal-Mart subsidy watch page that tells people all about all the tax payer incentives that Wal-Mart extracts from communities. And there are many more subsidies for many other companies with political connections including the sports industry. Do you know who is paying for all these stadiums that are being built around the country? In many cases it is the government not the private sector."

"I'm not making this up; David Kay Johnson, one of the few reliable sources that the mainstream media actually gives any air time has reported on this in several of his books and has even mentioned some of them briefly on TV. Of course you won't find the best material on TV. The commercial media is too busy stealing from us to report on these things until they get so bad that even they can't ignore it which is why they have begun to report on some of it. You know they waited until it was too late to report on Enron before they finally did so; well that is now standard operating procedure."

"That's why they have to collect much more money from every man woman and child in this country; whether it is the money the oil companies, Wal-Mart or the well connected owners of sports teams they have to help them get their returns on their campaign contributions and that means they have to stick it to every one of us even more. And that doesn't even count the health care industry or all the money we have to spend paying for one war after another based on lies that the politically connected come up with."

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"Do you have any idea how much money we could save if we stopped fighting all these wars based on lies; or how much cheaper it would be if we could eliminate the enormous amount of money spent on ads for the health care industry or other bureaucratic expenses that are necessary in a private insurance system but could be eliminated by a Single Payer system?"

"There should be no doubt that there are attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on some very thin grounds and taking them to court; but that doesn't mean that we can wait for the appointed politicians that pretend to stand up for us and simultaneously break all the records when it comes to collecting campaign funds even if they do come up with some rhetoric that sounds good. Now that it has reached an absurd extreme they will clearly have to address some of it but you can expect them to fight tooth and nail to make sure they don't have to stick it to the most well collected people so there rest of us will continue getting the shaft even while there are demagogues in the senate pretending to stick up for us."

He was starting to get a little louder now and I was wondering how long it would be before someone that worked for the court would notice.

I didn't have to wonder much longer.

"Damn there starting to pack us in here like sardines here. If they're going to rob us blind can't they at least give us enough room to breathe while they rob us? Or can they at least find a quicker way to rob us without making us stand here all day?"

That was loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Or so I thought; I stood up enough to get a look at the room and noticed that just about everyone was looking this way .... except the court clerk who was talking to someone that was asking her a question or something and another person that seemed to work here that was dealing with someone else.

"This isn't going to work anyway because we don't have enough money to compensate for all the money that all those campaign contributors are robbing from us."

"Why don't you start charging some of those people that actually have money for a change instead of doing more to help them steal from the rest of us and sticking us with even more bills that we can't afford to pay?"

This was really loud but I can't see what is happening up front and I'm not drawing too much attention to myself.

"They could pay off all their debts if they just started charging those that have been robbing us!"

Then I heard a voice from the front, "Settle Down there! We'll get to you as soon as we can!"

"You know who we owe this big deficit to anyway; some of it might be to the Japanese and the Chinese like they keep telling us in those propaganda ads but that is only a small percentage. Much more is to the same Wall Street financial institution that have been robbing us blind. If they held them accountable they could simply give them the bill for all the money they stole from us and then apply it to the debt which would cancel out a lot of our debt immediately and you wouldn't have to keep us in her like sardines while you try to rob us to compensate for the money that you let them steal!"

"I said settle down or I'll have you charged with disorderly conduct!"

"Is that what you call it when people start telling the truth in a court of law about the real reasons they're issuing all these petty fines to thousands if not millions of people across the country, 'disorderly conduct?'"

At this point I stand up to see what is happening up front.

"Be Quiet you're disrupting a court of law! Come up here and we'll settle this."

"How am I going to do that when I'm packed in here like Sardines?"

Now the court officer calls into his radio and starts ushering people out the door.

"This is highway robbery!"

"You're only charging us these petty fines so that you can avoid holding people accountable that have been robbing this country of billions of dollars if not trillions of dollars."

The people that started for the door are heading back in for some reason.

"We're not being charged with petty crimes we're being extorted; that is what the government has turned into they extort money from those that don't donate to campaigns so that they can give it to those that do!"

There are still more people coming in for more violations that's why the people have turned around and started coming right back in again instead of making room so they could arrest this guy.

"This is a Soviet style purge you're attempting!"

"Only instead of purging people because they challenge a centralized authoritarian government control of the economy and the enforcement institutions, we're purging people that challenge centralized authoritarian corporate control of the economy and the enforcement institutions."

The cops are finally getting the crowd heading in the other direction; they still only have a couple court officers in the room but that might be because they can't get in against the flow of the crowd yet.

"How many years do you give out to people who dare to tell the truth in a court of law now a days?"

"You can't tell the truth in a court of law any more than they will allow many of the most important facts to be mentioned on the mainstream media!"

"They give corporations overwhelming amounts of protected speech and they allow them to have complete control of the media; but do you know where they get all the money they spend on their speech? they get it from consumers! that's right they pass on the cost of their speech to the consumers as a business expense but they don't pass on any influence along with it."

"They can do this because they have complete control of the economic system through their oligarchies. If anyone wants to buy basic necessities they have to buy it from these oligarchies and they include the cost of their speech whether it is their deceptive advertising or their lobbying and campaign contributions with the purchase."

"So ultimately the consumer has to pay for the speech for the corporations; then when they try to use their own rights to free speech you know what the courts say?"

"They say you can't speak unless you're in a free speech zone where no one can hear you!"

The court room is finally clearing now and there are cops running in in riot gear towards this guy.

"After we pay for the speech for the corporations that have been robbing us blind they say shut up or we'll charge you with disorderly conduct or trespassing or something. Free speech isn't for every one only those with connections!"

They approach him and surround him right in front of me and wrestle him to the ground.

"This is a Soviet style purge!"

They pull his hands behind his back and start to handcuff him.

"They're arresting me for daring to tell the truth in a courtroom! Any one who tells the truth in court will be thrown in jail!!"

"This is a corporate police state where the government helps those that run corporations rob the rest of us blind!"

They pick him up and start dragging or half carrying him to the door.

"Tell people what you see here today! This is a Soviet style purge!"

"I regret that I have but one life to give to expose this scam!"

They finally carry him out the door.

Things calm down soon after that and they don't fill in the court room with a ll the other people again; instead they have more cops standing by and ask those of us who are left who we are and they have more people to handle our citations quicker. They just told me that it will be handled at another time and that I would receive a notice in the mail.

On my way out I noticed that the other people were outside waiting to have their cases handles and they were calling them in in smaller groups. They also had more cops standing around than they did previously. I walked past some of the people waiting that were a little farther away from most of the cops and started to ask if they saw what happened after they carried that guy out of the court room. Before I could get an answer one of the cops came over and asked me if I had settled my case yet; when I told them I had and that I was waiting for a notice in the mail he told me to move on because I was loitering.

So I did; I never did hear what happened later.

Huh, what was that?

Clint how have you been? I haven't seen you in a while and I didn’t even see you sitting there.

You've been reading my blog for a while now? I'm glad to hear that I've always wondered who if anyone reads what I've been writing.

Huh, er, ah wait a minute how did you come to that conclusion that doesn't sound like the kind of rhetoric I would come up with on my own at all it all came from that guy that I heard in the court room.

Ahem um don't be silly I didn't come up with it myself; if I was the one that went on that rant do you think I would be out of jail so that I could post this on the internet?

Er um you think I made it all up? I can't believe you would come to that conclusion.

Well it's good to here you think there I one line in there that doesn't sound like something that I would come up with; the obvious explanation is that it wasn't me that came up with that rant.

What? you think I plagiarized that line from someone? Who do you think I am Mike Barnicle? Um I don't know who this guy is that you think I plagiarized it from is but I can't believe you came to that conclusion.

Fine her; when was this statement supposedly made? The day after? Um Well then the explanation should be simple shouldn't it. She must have heard about that rant and plagiarized the guy I was telling you about the next day! Doesn't that seem like a much more reasonable conclusion than the one you seem to have come up with?

I don't know what the date this blog was posted has to do with it the important thing is when he went on that rant besides; if she really was the great defender of the people she would have done much more to discuss many other issues that target the working people like the use of sweat shop labor and deceptive advertising by corporations and the practice of planned obsolescence when manufacturers cut so many corners that all their products fall apart; instead she came up with that silly "over-consumption myth" that she claims that we should ignore.

Just because she comes in to take credit for fixing something that has become so extreme that even the senate believes that they have to fix it doesn't mean we can trust her.

Good, I'm glad to here you don't like her either.

What do you mean the rest of it bunk?

Have you ever seen how packed traffic court is?

Do you have any idea how much more money they're trying to squeeze out of people this way than they used to?

Look who's stuttering now.

You're not going to try to claim that the commercial media or the courts or the politicians aren't doing what they can to let off the richest people in this country while they rob us blind?

You can't deny that while they let the corporate criminals that donate to campaigns off the hook for stealing hundreds if not trillions of dollars they're sticking the rest of us with a much bigger tab?

You can't deny that the corporations have almost complete control of the media and they don't let many of the most important views get presented at all?

Hah, you can't refute that can you?

What is that the best thing you can come up with?

I am not a schizophrenic who talks to imaginary people in chairs!

I got news for you Clint it wasn't me that spoke at the RNC last summer.