Friday, December 12, 2008

The Wal-Mart Bailout

This has been floating around the interwebs of late, but in case you haven't seen it, it may make you stop and think.

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Supercenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.
11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart
13. Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or hire the Walmart execs to run the auto companies.

Anonymous said...

Geez, why don't they give their employees decent wages or health insurance??!

I'm guilty, though; I shop at Mall-Wart. As I told my husband, when I have more money, I can have a philosophical policy toward Mall-Wart.

I hope that someday I don't have to shop there because it's all that I can afford. (They're cat food is at least half of what Safeway charges).

Jules

Anonymous said...

sparkly_jules:

Wal-mart pays decent wages. The average fulltime hourly rate at Wal-Mart is $11.75/hour. The "decent wage" claims come from pro-union individuals and lobbyists. Wal-mart employees make around $1,000 per year less before taxes than equivalent unionized workers at other stores. That's about equal to union dues so, in the end, the employee still gets the shaft even if the "evil evil Wal-Mart" allowed unions to take over their work force.