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Love and Wal-Mart

By TChris, Section Off Topic
Posted on Sat Jul 23, 2005 at 01:28:41 PM EST
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by TChris

The Roanoke Wal-Mart tried to turn its store into the retail version of a singles bar, designating "flirt points" and providing shopping cart bows to identify shoppers on the prowl for love, but enough customers complained to spoil the fun for everyone else. The Bentonville HQ ordered the Roanoke store to shut down its cruising night.

"I'm disappointed," said Firebaugh, 63. "Where can someone over 40 who doesn't smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?"

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    Love and Wal-Mart | 31 comments (31 topical)
    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#1)
    by The Heretik on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    Do they then lock these people in the store over night like they do their employees? Oy.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#2)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    What a shame, I'd sure love to run into your typical wal-mart shopper (Mulleted, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and riding a motorized cart despite no visible handicaps except for their 400 pounds of excess weight. Goes for both male and female shoppers.) at a "flirt point".

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#3)
    by ras on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    Wal-Mart is the epitome of deep pockets. I can't blame them a bit for this decision, cuz we all know damn well they'd eventually be sued over someone's bad date, for one reason or another. SSS, Meowr! Sharpening our claws today, are we, princess?

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    You can probably pick up a cheap date at Walmart.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    What is with people. Can;t they just leave others alone already? Why do we all have to follow the "moral views" of a select minority. Geeze. Don;t like it? Don't goto WalMart that night. What is this country coming too??

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    Personally, I'd like to see a night where the sweatshop laborers who make Wal-Mart mechandise get to go into the store with baseball bats and do anything they like to the people and products inside, now that's what I'd call entertainment!

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    With some of the people in Walmart, maybe its a good thing they don't find a mate.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    Walmart daters come only in the six and twelve pack. They are very popular in Utah. All virgins, so what's the problem with Virginia? Too bad Virginia doesn't have any museums, parks, churches, libraries, restaurants, or supermarkets left. But they have Walmart.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    damn missed it

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#10)
    by DonS on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:34 PM EST
    Hey Lurk, I've lived in 'Noke and environs for 30 years. I can pretty much assure you that you didn't miss much.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    Free market economies a century ago meant child labor. Free market has no value compass except profit. Slavery is a free market value. You want to shop at Walmart? Go ahead. Play dumb when reasonable wage manufacturing jobs in municipalities with reasonable environmental laws keep morphing into maquiladora jobs in unrestricted and heavily polluted communities. There is nothing particularly saintly about free market values. There is some value to the competition and incentive, but it has to be seriously limited by humanitarian concerns (read public policy)or you get Walmart World. I don't step foot in the place and still dating my best friend and partner of about 30 years.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    You know a good freemarket trick would be to force folks who are receiving Social Security benefits or other government retirement benefits to work three or four hours a day at Walmart. The healthy folks like Jim who draw their govt bucks each month without contributing any labor to the free market are acting out their animosity to the free market. They are drains on public productivity. Put them back to work. No free lunch.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#14)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    If a shopper happens to make nice with an employee, I hope they don't mind eating out on food stamps.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#15)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    The free market would only be genuinely free if wealth weren't a prerequisite to having any leverage. The free market is actually a game that requires admission. It requires billions to actually set the rules in your favor, as most of corporate America has. The argument over wages boggles the mind. Goes back to the auto company exec who decades ago show the auto-worker's union chief the new robots that would be making cars in the near future, and displacing those pesky and fairly paid union assembly line workers. But the union rep just chuckled: "See if you can get that robot to buy one of the cars it's making, then come talk to me." Wealth and power are still as dumb and short-sighted and selfish as ever. Big wallets and tiny little dicks still run things. And they ain't hookin' up in the school supply aisle.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    ppj wrote:
    Hmmmm, didn't know that Wal-Mart carried Nike.
    Oh well of course, that's the only product ever made in a sweatshop, right? Everything else Wal-Mart sells is made by people who enjoy a wonderfully high standard of living and have opportunities galore, not to mention the best working conditions and high quality production materials, right? Man, I really wish I lived in your bubble, must be nice dude.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#17)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    “Free market economies a century ago meant child labor.” And it does today. The world can be ugly, some folks are poor, and all your opining and good intentions wont change a damn thing. Parents don’t want their kids to work, they need them to. Hands up; anyone’s grandparents spend time as ‘child labor’ on family farms? “I'd like to see a night where the sweatshop laborers who make Wal-Mart mechandise get to go into the store with baseball bats” The thought of poor folks destroying their only means of income appeals how? WM doesn’t buy goods from forced labor. The alternative for these folks is no job or a lower paying job. Wait, I forgot; living wage. Government mandates affluence and prints the money to back it. We all win. “The free market would only be genuinely free if wealth weren't a prerequisite to having any leverage.” Without consumers there is no wealth. Show me the rich man that gets richer selling a product the ‘unwashed’ masses doesn’t want. Ridiculous. Good intentions and charity is a drop in the ocean. Competition and greed has done infinitely more for the poor worldwide; no exceptions. Our unprecedented standard of living is owed to things; things greedy folks made to trade for things to make their life better. There are a very few countries that haven’t enjoyed the benefits of the market. Without exception these are places where basic rights, including property rights, are not respected The kind of talk I read here makes me angry. I believe one of the intrinsic freedoms we all have is the guarantee of private property and the ability to trade it for another’s without government intrusion. Riotous Luddites.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#18)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    Fernia - Yes, it is very nice here at the palatial retirement compound, catfish pond and BBQ stand (fresh vegetables on Wednesday.) And I worked very hard for a very long time to make it that way. Fernia, having grown up in the rural south and watching the local merchants, so beloved of the elitists of the Left, I can tell you that one of the differences between the company store and Wal-Mart is that Wal-Mart has a much better selection. But neither tolerated competition very well. CA - Just a quick FYI. SS is a mandatory individual paid for retirement program, as is Medicare. I paid into both. So I am receiving no "government" dollars of any kind. And yes, many retirees work at Wal-Mart. They need the money since SS has provided them with such a totally miserable return on investment that our "officials" should be in jail with Bernie.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    Jim, you continue to be delusional. Any actuary can tell you that there is little or no connection between the amount of money that you have paid in to SS and your benefit. If you are healthy, not widowed or orphaned, you are drawing your benefits - govt dollars - out of a govt safety net. You can kid yourself all you want that you earned your govt dollars, but the truth is that all of your tax dollars went to military adventures like Vietnam, Nicarauga, Panama and maybe Korea. Ideas and conflicts which you probably supported and your govt dollars are now paid out of the debt being racked up to Chinese investors who will hold the note for your grandchildren and mine. You want to walk the walk, stop taking your SS dollars.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#20)
    by roger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    CA, The fact that the gov't (both parties) stole SS to pay for BS is not the retiree's fault. Jim, You actually collect much more than you put in. Also, SS is not a "retirement" plan, it is insurance. It is the only policy I know of that pays everybody. That is not what they had in mind when created, most people were supposed to die before collecting it. It is not "your money".

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#21)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    Roger- “You actually collect much more than you put in.” You really have no idea how much Jim will get. Assuming he is in the bottom 2/5 of wage earners he may get back all or more than his contribution (in inflation adjusted dollars). If he is in the top 3/5 of this wealth transfer pyramid he will receive less in benefits than he contributed. All this assumes average retirement and that he is a boomer cohort. “Also, SS is not a "retirement" plan, it is insurance. It is the only policy I know of that pays everybody.” Then it isn’t really insurance, is it? SS is the unholy matrimony of survivors/disability insurance and a wealth transfer retirement plan. The retirement benefit portion cannot be described as insurance; I frequently get a statement of my benefit, and this reflects benefits to be drawn at retirement irrespective of a catastrophic event. Progressives resurrecting the insurance label is pure spin. “It is not "your money".” My god, if my head could explode this would do it. That’s the problem; the feds take, under the threat of force, our hard earned dollars. The beauty of personal accounts is actual ownership of this money. A wise man once opined; “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#22)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:35 PM EST
    Piggle, You misunderstood my comment about the free market being genuinely free if wealth weren't a prerequisite. It had nothing to do with a guy getting rich selling anything, not my point. It had to do with your idea that it is really a free market. When we know it isn't. It's a market. There is nothing free about it. There are a myriad of laws and regulations that control the game. And who controls the rules of the game? Those who have the most money. Which is why a company like Enron, with insider help from the White House, can de-facto craft the nation's energy policy and then go out and exploit that tainted "law" to thieve from millions of innocent people, and in the process send who knows how many small business into the abyss of debt or closure. It's hard enough to run your own biz, or be self-employed, or actually attempt to play the game fairly, when the powers that be don't believe in fairness, they believe in lining the pockets of their big-biz buddies. Come on, it's great anyone can open a liquor store, a knick-knack store, a muffler shop, whatever, that's fantastic -- but people do that all over the world. We're supposed to be different, more fair, more equitable, this is America after all. But, in my mind, we fall far short of that. And I have one last question for you: explain to me what gives money its value? This question is at the root, to me, of the real kind of economic and social boom we are all hoping for. What gives that worthless piece of paper or that token of pot-metal any value? And how can we manipulate that object to better serve all citizens? I'm genuinely asking.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#23)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Jim, Social Security is social insurance, it was not an investment plan. It was not meant to have the type of risk attached that the stock market does. And if you think all that money in the hands of big business would've been better, I guess we disagree again. In our current game, everyone can't get rich. Which is why, had that money been sent into the winds of the "free market", a large portion of it would've been lost or pocketed by others. Corporate America cares less about its employees than the government does. A company will fire you, toss you out like the garbage without a thought or care to how you will survive or remain a stable member of society, the government can't do that. If you think I have some blind trust in social security or the government, think again, I just have much less faith in the current "free market" than you do to solve our problems. The game is rigged and in serious need of serious changes, but only after a thorough discussion of money itself takes place. The problem might be that the dollar itself has no competition at home. The currency of wealth (the dollar) probably needs a currency of stability (competing domestic currency) to balance out it's tendency to be abused. The intersting thing is, bud, the only thing that gives money its value is our BELIEF that its worth anything. That is it. What do they say when the dollar is weak? That there's no "confidence" in it. It's quite profound if you ponder it. What ultimately gives money its value is nothing more than human thought. And as such, it's value to the individual and to society can only really be improved by increasing the public's confidence in it. And confidence itself is nothing more than a state of mind. And if your job doesn't pay you enough to do much more than scrape by, which is a huge segment of the population, then that confidence is pretty weak, and the value of the dollars you get paid are even weaker. It is much better to have an overpaid workforce than an underpaid one. Unless increasing social instability is what we want. And I don't think anyone does. But what do we do: we look to the sky and talk about money like it's the swallows of Capistrano, a living thing that we can't control and can only hope come around this year.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#24)
    by roger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    PW, I'll give you that SS is a cross between Insurance and tax, it really is unique. After that, the poor get more than the rich? The rich (disclosure, I am in the following group) stop paying after about $80k in income. Besides, what's wrong with a little income redistribution? I don't take every exemption that I arguably could, and I would gladly pay more if it was spent better. Before you go off, I really do resent the $800 toilet seats. I really dont mind highways.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#25)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    "explain to me what gives money its value?" Belief. At its root, that's what gives anything value. "Come on, it's great anyone can open a liquor store, a knick-knack store, a muffler shop, whatever, that's fantastic -- but people do that all over the world. We're supposed to be different, more fair, more equitable, this is America after all. But, in my mind, we fall far short of that." Of course, in the US, anyone can also build a multi-million (or billion) dollar business as well. Or, rather, anyone who wants to badly enough can. I'm not sure I get your point. Oh yeah, the cost of getting licensed to start a business in the US is dramatically lower than that in most other countries. The licenses are also available, freely, to all who apply. It's not "just anyone" who can do it in most other countries. I'm not sure I get your point.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#26)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    I see you already knew what gives currency value. "And if your job doesn't pay you enough to do much more than scrape by, which is a huge segment of the population, then that confidence is pretty weak, and the value of the dollars you get paid are even weaker." Except that, on the whole, the US pop has the well-founded confidence that things will get better and we don't dispair. It's all comes back to belief, doesn't it.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#27)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Licenses are one thing, discriminatory lending practices are another. How many TV shows have to send a black couple and white couple out to rent the same apartments -- only to find that no one wants to rent to the black couple; or send the same to a bank for a loan -- before we accept it is not an even playing field. If anyone can become a billionaire then you have a very narrow view of everyone. It's the same old line "anyone is American can grow up to be president" dressed up in a new way. And just as meaningless. If you want to get filthy rich you have to be willing to screw a lot of people over, that's the way our game is designed. You nickel and dime your employees, you sue your rivals, etc. And if anyone can grow up to be president here, how come there was a female president in PAKISTAN, or INDIA, before there was one here? And don't even try to rationalize that irony away. And make the Hillary was really president anyway joke, it's a good one. And hey, we agree on the "Belief" answer to my question. But think about WHAT THAT MEANS!! Human feeling is all that gives money value. A righty and lefty agree. When was the last time you heard anything like that in an economic discussion? The talk is all numbers and profit, when we've just come to an agreement (more easily than we've agreed on anything) that the real issue and, hence, the real solution rests in the realm of the purely psychological -- belief. If we really want a stable, properous society -- that really IS an example to the world -- then we really DO need to win HEARTS AND MINDS, since that is the origin of the real "value" of the American Free Market we seek to spread and share and, hopefully, evolve.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#28)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Sarc, We're on the same page, bro, just not seeing the same words exactly. Belief is everything. But I disagree that the belief things will get better exists to day. All I recall reading are studies that show fewer and fewer people believing their children will have better lives than they do. Wages have been stagnant against inflation for HOW long? A population can only buy the company line for so long without seeing real results.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#29)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    I made no claims about level playing fields, they don't exist (for anyone) and I don't expect them to exist. I said anyone can become a billionaire if they want to badly enough. If you don't believe that, well, that answers a lot of questions. If you don't understand the difference between "can" and "will," well, that also answers a lot of questions. Is it possible that Indira Ghandi and Benazir Bhutto wanted to be PM more than any US woman has wanted to be President? Or is every "failing" (if you want to call it that, and I don't) a result of the state or society and not the individual? Yes we are in agreement. Belief is what supports the "company line." Without belief, or rather, with dispair, the company line fails. You are free to choose between belief or dispair. Why choose dispair when you can only succeed with belief?

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#30)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Roger- “Besides, what's wrong with a little income redistribution? I don't take every exemption that I arguably could, and I would gladly pay more if it was spent better.” When you do it voluntarily it isn’t income redistribution, it’s charity. What’s wrong with income redistribution? It is antithetical to property rights, a right I believe is fundamental and wholly inseparable from self-determination. I understand I’m alone here. The typical progressive (most here are) will talk of the social contract and the good of the whole. It is nonsense; rights flow from the individual to the state, not the other way round. The state does not own the sweat of my labor but rather takes it through force. “After that, the poor get more than the rich?” I’m not sure what you’re asking. If you’re asking about returns on contributions, maybe; depends on what you call rich and poor. The middle fifth of earners are scheduled to receive less then their lifetime contributions to SS in inflation adjusted benefits; I wouldn’t call the median income rich. The poorest 1/5 will receive around twice their contribution while the top fifth receives half.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#31)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Sarc, There is only belief or despair? There are only two choices, huh? That is certainly an extremist statement and belief (if you actually believe it). There is nothing in between, there is no place for savvy thinking and hard-earned consensus. Truly depressing. Belief is not a position necessarily, it is a verb also, Sarc, which I assumed you'd understand. The verb is what I was talking about. Not the noun, which tends to imply acceptance and acquiesence. Anybody can become a billionaire if they really want to. Explain what you mean, and I'm serious. And do you think the deepest principle a nation should rely on is the, arguable, belief that we can all get filthy rich? Okay. We disagree strongly. So be it. But I wish you had thought a little more about what I was talking about. That money's value is only held up by human thought. Which means we can radically change its value with human thought. But if you don't believe we can ever get close to equality, why on earth are you an American? Why on earth should you bother to try to make this place better? Why waste your time if you think everything is so predetermined? And if a level playing field really isn't possible, then how can you possibly claim ANYONE can do ANYTHING? You're repeating cliches without thinking about what they actually mean. Catch-phrases do not a coherent argument make.

    Re: Love and Wal-Mart (none / 0) (#32)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:36 PM EST
    Dadler, Boy, your throw so much at the wall I don't know where to start. "Belief" and "dispair" are the words you and I were using - the vocabulary of our discussion. It seemed appropriate to continue using them. No? "Anybody can become a billionaire if they really want to. Explain what you mean, and I'm serious." Well, actually my actual intitial quote was that anybody could build a billion dollar business if they really want to, but I'm ok with that statement morphing into one of anyone can become a billionaire if they really want to. How do you do it? Well, in general, first you define your goal, then you identify those things you must have access to in order to achieve your goal, and then you make a time-table and a plan of how to get access and achieve your goal. And then spend the most or all of your waking hours working toward that goal for decades. There are many self-made billionaires in this country. It seems that finance, entertainment, technology, oil and real estate are the industries which are most accessable to those who wish to become super-wealthy. "And do you think the deepest principle a nation should rely on is the, arguable, belief that we can all get filthy rich?" Of course not, dadler, but for God's sake it was your point: "Come on, it's great anyone can open a liquor store, a knick-knack store, a muffler shop, whatever, that's fantastic -- but people do that all over the world. We're supposed to be different, more fair, more equitable, this is America after all." implying that beyond trifling little mom-and-pop business, the average Joe has no hope of succeeding in businesses because of the evil big corporations. Dadler, equality? Level playing field? Come on. You are from a show biz family and now make your living in the biz. I am also in the biz, but arrived in LA 15 years ago with no money and no contacts and no entre into the biz at all. How level do you think the playing field was for me compared to you? How equal do you think my odds were of getting work when I was up against generations of showbiz family members like yourself? But you know what I did? I accepted that reality, and now, after 15 years of damn hard work, I have carved out my own little niche in the biz. Because, you see, despite the inequality and unlevel playing field, you can succeed if you want to badly enough. That's America. "Truly depressing." This is the second time in two discussions you've expressed your depression. I've heard others say that the biggest difference between libs and cons is that libs dispair that the system is rigged against them and cons believe anything is possible if you work hard enough. This discussion leads me to believe there is some truth in that observation.

    Love and Wal-Mart | 31 comments (31 topical)