An Open Discourse

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marty`s Mom on December 3, 2008 at 8:55pm

HOW BIG IS WAL-MART?

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. And most can't speak English

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

Permalink Reply by Anti M on December 2, 2008 at 10:31am

I'm not advocating the purchase of anything, but there's a documentary on Wal-Mart called The High Cost of Low Prices. I watched it on my local cable network, it is around. Very informative.

http://www.walmartmovie.com/about.php

We were visiting family in WV and on Black Friday, the guys went shooting and I got dragged to Wal-Mart. Long after the lines, thankfully, but still, TWO trips to Wal-Mart in four days ... made me sick that shopping replaced family interaction. My in-laws are very deluded about the place, and one of them has worked there for over ten years. She's still just an assistant manager in her section. Wal-Mart is vile; I go once a year in the winter because that's the only place in town that sells white gas (Coleman Fuel) all year, and I need it for the fire dancers. Other than that, I'd go without if Wal-Mart were the only game in town.

There is not one thing for sale at any store that could entice me to stand in line all night. No amount of material goods is worth it. Some of our local stores know how many of the door-buster items they have in stock; they go out and hand a ticket for such items to the people in line. When they're out of tickets, that info is posted for that item. No need for people to run in!

Door buster ... such a shame there's a horrifying new meaning to that term.

Permalink Reply by Ginger on November 30, 2008 at 2:38pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/opinion/28fri2.html?th=&emc=t...

A Clean Air Rule to Keep

Among the many environmental indictments of the Bush administration is that it has failed in two terms to achieve any significant reduction in smog, acid rain, mercury and greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Its one serious effort to reduce some of these emissions was shot down by the federal courts. And conditions could easily get worse — weaker laws, more pollution — if President Bush proceeds with a last-minute rule change aimed at stripping the Clean Air Act of one of its most important provisions.

The provision, known as new source review, requires utilities to install up-to-date pollution controls whenever they significantly upgrade an older plant to produce more power. Written in 1977, it offers regulators one of the few ways to get a handle on pollution from hundreds of aging coal-fired power plants.

Under present law, modern pollution controls are required whenever an upgrade would result in increases in annual emissions. The new rule would measure emissions on an hourly basis. That may sound like an innocent word change. It is not. An upgraded plant could be driven harder and made to work more hours, resulting in greater annual emissions.

There is a large constituency for keeping the present rule — the medical community, which worries about asthma and other respiratory diseases, environmentalists who worry about forests dying from acid rain, and officials in Eastern and Northeastern states whose air is polluted by emissions that float downwind from Midwestern power plants. Just last week, New England’s governors sent a letter to Stephen Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, pleading to leave new source review as is.

The constituency for changing the rule is, by contrast, very small. It may not even include Mr. Johnson, who is tired of fighting the clean air wars. But it does include some of the country’s biggest utilities, which do not want to spend the money to install pollution controls, and Vice President Dick Cheney, who opposes the rule because the utilities do.

If Mr. Cheney prevails, President-elect Barack Obama should try to reinstate the old rule as soon as he takes office. If not, the cost to public health and the planet could be enormous

Permalink Reply by Inga on November 30, 2008 at 10:15pm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2...

Labor Dept. Accused of Straying From Enforcement

"With the new administration, I think you are going to a shift from compliance assistance to pure enforcement," said Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.( Hallelujah!)

Labor activists say that focusing so closely on the concerns of employers shortchanges workers, and activists think that a shift in emphasis is long overdue. Under President Bush, they say, the pendulum has swung far away from enforcement, leaving workers vulnerable to dangerous workplaces and with little protection from exploitive employers.

After 8 years of the Labor Dept. being in the employers pockets , I hope that it is true that we will see a shift back to when the labor dept would enforce labor laws that are already on the books. It was so evident that the Bush administration has not been a kind one to the American worker.This man, Bush , once said to roomfull of fat cat CEOs, "you are my constituents", no kidding.

Permalink Reply by Ginny Mattson on December 1, 2008 at 6:28pm

Where do you think most of BO's money came from? Well here's a list for you to start.

University of California $909,283
Goldman Sachs $874,207
Harvard University $717,230
Microsoft Corp $714,108
Google Inc $701,099
JPMorgan Chase & Co $581,460
Citigroup Inc $581,216
National Amusements Inc $543,859
Time Warner $508,148
Sidley Austin LLP $492,445
Stanford University $481,199
Skadden, Arps et al $473,424
Wilmerhale Llp $466,679
UBS AG $454,795
Latham & Watkins $426,924
Columbia University $426,516
Morgan Stanley $425,102
IBM Corp $415,196
University of Chicago $414,555
US Government $400,819

He was also in the senate for just a few short years and he was the second in line behind Dodd in recieveing money from Fannie May and Fredie Mac

All Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

Name Office State Party Grand Total

Dodd, Christopher J S CT D $165,400

Obama, Barack S IL D $126,349

Kerry, John S MA D $111,000

Bennett, Robert F S UT R $107,999

Bachus, Spencer H AL R $103,300

Blunt, Roy H MO R $96,950

If you think anything's going to change you really are naive. Obama is beholden to all of them.

Ginny

Permalink Reply by Anti M on December 1, 2008 at 6:31pm

It would be interesting to compare the McCain contributors with Obama's, side by side.

Permalink Reply by Kwebb on December 1, 2008 at 6:37pm

good idea...

I get a little confused, during the campaign we just kept hearing from the other side that Obama's donations were all coming from international, very suspicious sources and could not be tracked. I always understood that the bulk of his donations (total?? millions and millions...) were small ones like the ones I made all the time...so now we see universities, US senators, even the US government on this list and now THIS is a problem, I'm a little confused. Just where were the donations supposed to come from?

Permalink Reply by Kwebb on December 1, 2008 at 6:31pm

Source for this information? just a link to it will be fine,, thanks! we don't need a long cut and paste, we're all good with going to the link and reading,
thanks again,
Karen

Permalink Reply by McNavy Mom on December 1, 2008 at 6:39pm

HI Ginny, you can add me to this list. I contributed everytime John McCain and Sarah Palin said something stupid....which was often - McNavy.

Permalink Reply by Rose R on December 2, 2008 at 10:55am

some of John Mc Cains donors
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fec/specials/mccain/by-amount/ra...

Permalink Reply by McNavy Mom on December 1, 2008 at 6:36pm

I thought Sarah Palin said she was returning the campaign clothes? Ha! Typical Republican.

Permalink Reply by Rose R on December 2, 2008 at 10:52am

today's article about the Walmart death on Long Island. Lawyer stating reasons Walmart should be held accountable as well as the perps
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081201/ap_on_re_us/wal_mart_death;_ylt...

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• ...
• 42
• 43
• 44