Forbes: Wal-Mart shoots self in foot, decides health care is good

[self biased]

HC has reading comprehension issues. The "it's killing jobs" talking point is so drilled into his head, he can't see past it.

to be fair to HC, most of apolyton has reading comprehension problems.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I suspect the poor sales trends attribution to poor service for Walmart is overstated. The article is rife with anecdote but little supporting data. More likely is the fact that real wages continue to decline. While Walmart was considered the low end price store and initially was fairly recession proof as upper and middle class started shoppping there, as the real wages continued their decline, shoppers have moved onto even crappier stores like ALDI, Dollar General, Big Lots, thrift stores etc. to meet their needs given their constrained budgets.

[Sava]

and all because rich people don't want to pay taxes

[The Mad Monk]

I...wouldn't include ALDI in that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I suspect the poor sales trends attribution to poor service for Walmart is overstated. The article is rife with anecdote but little supporting data. More likely is the fact that real wages continue to decline. While Walmart was considered the low end price store and initially was fairly recession proof as upper and middle class started shoppping there, as the real wages continued their decline, shoppers have moved onto even crappier stores like ALDI, Dollar General, Big Lots, thrift stores etc. to meet their needs given their constrained budgets.

We do have the comparison with Home Depot in the article.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Which is what made me question the premise in the first place. Nardelli put a virtual freeze on store expansions while his competitors did not. It allowed Lowes et.al. prime real estate for store frachises that canabalized Home Depot sales. I'm not saying poor service doesn't translate to lower sales but the conclusions this article makes are not fact based.

[Sava]

I'm not sure what percentage labor costs a lot of these stores had. Years ago when I managed a pizza hut, 20% was our target. Assuming a $2k per employee cost (the penalty for companies that don't offer insurance)... even if employees are making $20k, that's only a 10% increase. Overall, that means labor goes from 20% to 22%... assuming they pay the penalty for every single employee.

I'm sorry, but if the profit margins are that slim, those businesses were in trouble anyways. A 2% cost increase isn't the end of the world. I'm sure the fluctuation in oil prices (affecting fuel costs) is more a disruption than Obamacare would be.

And that's worst case scenario.

Sorry, but the "killing jobs" talking point just doesn't add up.

[giblets]

Meanwhile, 99.99% of everything sold at WalMart is made by someone who's healthcare consists solely of netting to keep them from going splat on sidewalks ...

Riiight, if your life is not as bad as someone living in some third world ****hole you clearly have no right to complain...

[Sava]

Riiight, if your life is not as bad as someone living in some third world ****hole you clearly have no right to complain...

So nobody is allowed to complain about anything unless they live in a third world ****hole?

[MRT144]

Which is what made me question the premise in the first place. Nardelli put a virtual freeze on store expansions while his competitors did not. It allowed Lowes et.al. prime real estate for store frachises that canabalized Home Depot sales. I'm not saying poor service doesn't translate to lower sales but the conclusions this article makes are not fact based.

Home Depot also has a ****ty store layout across all stores compared to lowes

[MRT144]

So nobody is allowed to complain about anything unless they live in a third world ****hole?

No, only conservative pencil dicks who think rocking the boat is the worst thing ever and everyone should just shut up and keep their head down. those *******s should move to third world countries.

[pchang]

The better comparison to Walmart would be Costco.

[Colon™]

I'm not sure what percentage labor costs a lot of these stores had. Years ago when I managed a pizza hut, 20% was our target. Assuming a $2k per employee cost (the penalty for companies that don't offer insurance)... even if employees are making $20k, that's only a 10% increase. Overall, that means labor goes from 20% to 22%... assuming they pay the penalty for every single employee.

I'm sorry, but if the profit margins are that slim, those businesses were in trouble anyways. A 2% cost increase isn't the end of the world. I'm sure the fluctuation in oil prices (affecting fuel costs) is more a disruption than Obamacare would be.

And that's worst case scenario.

Sorry, but the "killing jobs" talking point just doesn't add up.

Retail and distribution typically operate on very thin margins. A 2% increase in costs actually sounds like a big deal to me.

[Sava]

No, only conservative pencil dicks who think rocking the boat is the worst thing ever and everyone should just shut up and keep their head down. those *******s should move to third world countries.

Agree.

[Sava]

Retail and distribution typically operate on very thin margins. A 2% increase in costs actually sounds like a big deal to me.

From what I've read, Wal-Mart's profit margin is about 4%. I couldn't find figures on their labor costs. But regardless... for the sake of argument, let's say Obamacare would cost them the maximum in that worst case scenario. To offset that, they could raise prices 2% across the board.

That package of toilet paper that costs $9.99... well, now it's 20 cents more! And everyone gets health care!

OH THE HUMANITY

20 CENTS

HOW WILL THEY EVRE SURVIVE?!?!?!