Walmart Closing All Stores in Portland

Wouldn't be surprised to see all brick and mortars go the way of the dinosaurs - but I guess the Democrats will be happy.

Walmart to close remaining Portland stores as city faces shoplifting crisis

 

Why would "the Democrats" be happy about WalMart closing its stores in Portland?

 

Same reason they want everything to fail. They're delusional.

 

I try to stay out of politics but I have a question. I have only been here since yesterday and I have already noticed a trend with your posts. So my question is, why are you so inflammatory? It seems like most of the things you say are designed to try and rile people up.

 

Nothing and I mean nothing has contributed more to the demise of downtown stores in small towns and cities across America than Walmart. I lived in the Ozarks in the early 70s just as Walmart came galloping out of Arkansas. They were very clear about their target.

Monopolies suck and today Kroger is doing the same. Kroger ate Safeway, Albertsons and Hagen in a brief period of time in our fairly large city.

 

Speaking of delusional, you're living in an alternate universe if you think Democrats want everything to fail. I (a Democrat) want WalMart to succeed, cuz I shop there every day and think it's a well-run company. In fact, I credit the success of my marriage to WalMart (and MacDonalds). I should do commercials for them. We had four kids in four years. When they were younger, it became impossible for my wife and I to carry on conversations about personal matters, cuz they were always around demanding our attention. So I instituted the WalMart/MacDonald's date. At the time, WalMart had a MacDonalds in it and we'd go there, shop, get a coke and talk. Cheap date, and heavenly times with my wife that I still cherish, although the kids have grown and MacDonalds moved out. BTW, I also like Amazon and use it a lot too.
But they are hard on local businesses. Lowe's had a big impact on them, as well. The old downtown area is now mostly boutiques, with one of the local hardware stores now specializing in linens and china. Adapt or die!

 

Walmart employees get food stamps (so Wal-Mart is partly subsidized by the government; add Medicaid), and then those people spend their food stamps at ........... Wal-Mart!
Amazon also helped destroy small businesses. The ones who gave credit to struggling people during hard times. Try getting credit at Wal-Mart!

Amazon could burn The Amazon but still convince some they are so benevolent with a 2-second cheap hash-tag.

 

An interesting analogy, but maybe a bit hyperbolic. Neocolonialism involves the exercise of control by one country or its nationals of another without actually occupying that country-- by extending loans, services, infrastructure, etc., that the country cannot pay back. Wal-Mart has certainly been expansionist, with 10,700 stores in 27 countries on four continents.. Classical colonialism involved military occupation, or at least the backing of a military power, as in the case of "neo-colonialism". Walmart hasn't gone that far yet.

My small city has two WalMarts. Why? My guess is to preempt Target, which I'd like to be able to shop at. Target had plans to locate here, but WalMart's move to open a second store may have caused them to back off. Yes, WalMart's entrance made it hard for the little guys to compete, and many went out of business. I remember them well--many of them Mom & Pop operations. You could develop a personal relationship with the owners and employees. I don't know that they paid their workers more, if they had many or any. And often they didn't stock what I wanted, but could order it if I wanted to wait two or three weeks to get it in. I also spent more time going from one to another. I find WalMart more impersonal, but more convenient. Also, the prices fit the budgets of working folks, including WalMart personnel.

Many people resent WalMart for its effects on small business, but chambers of commerce in small communities like mine are always happy to bring in new employers. If WalMart were to pull out here, those workers on food stamps would be unemployed. As unskilled workers, where else would they work? Probably, fast foods, if lucky. But maybe Target would move in!

The US GAO tells us that's true. “Millions of Full-time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs,” Nov 18, 2020. Some of those government aid programs are intended to supplement wage income. Sen. Bernie Sanders thinks this is "morally obscene". Some of the workers seem to be past retirement age, and may be supplementing other sources of income. Some are students and young folks new to the work force. In capitalist economies wages tend to be determined by market forces of supply and demand, and the so-called iron law of wages dictates that real wages tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. To counteract that, we have minimum wage. currently set by the feds at $7.25 an hour. The CBO tells us that raising it to $15 an hour by 2025 would benefit 17 million workers. Whether or not that would cause WalMart to close more stores remains to be seen.

The OP article attributes the closures in Portland to increase shoplifting. Could that be related to a belief that it's okay to steal from WalMart, cuz they can afford it and anyway they're evil?
com/r/changemyview/comments/2l5jeq/cmv_stealing_from_a_department_store_like_walmart/
Is shoplifting from Walmart justifiable? - The Gateway
The law doesn't see it that way, and if shoplifting does lead to store closures, the local employees and consumers may be the losers.

 

""THEY want everything to fail. " Always THEY and always ridiculous . C'mom man--you know better than that.

 

I read it was because of the amount of theft in Walmarts in Portland.