Wednesday, April 7, 2010

This Should Scare The Socks Right Off Your Feet!

This is the typical exterior of a Wal-Mart

HOW BIG IS WAL-MART? Wal-Mart is one of my favourite institutions to hate. They make an obscene amount of money on the backs of their under-paid, over-worked employees. They have descrecated an ancient Indian burial mound for part of their developments, been found guilty of misleading labelling, and many of their products are sourced from places that use child labour and inhumane working conditions. Read on...and weep!

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day or $864,000 a 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. Remember the sourcing of products from countries that allow child labour and inhumane working conditions.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, keeping 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 Super Centers; 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. The value of product for Wal-Mart passing through the port of San Diego each year is more than 93% of ALL countries Gross National Product (GNP)...and that is only ONE port ...and only one way that Wal-Mart gets it's stuff.

14. Of the 1.6 million employees, only 1.2% make a living above the poverty level. Another example of Wal-Mart's concern for it employees.

15. Wal-Mart's head office is located and centralized in Bentonville. Due to this fact, there are more millionaires per square mile there than any place on Earth.

16. The official U.S. Government position is that Wal-Mart's prices are no lower than anyone else's when compared to a typical family's weekly purchases. That's the view of the statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) responsible for calculating the consumer price index (CPI).

17. 92% of everything Wal-Mart sells, comes from China. Another 4% comes from Chinese-owned companies in the U.S. or in third world countries. There have been many scandals involving Chinese-sourced products: unsafe lead levels in toys, melamine-tainted milk scandal; and, many others.

18. Wal-Mart and MOST large companies, take out life insurance on it's employees, without their knowledge. If an employee dies, ALL the insurance monies go to the companies (NOT the family). i.e. An employee making $18,000 per year, dies, and the company might make as much as $1 million. Most often these monies is put into a fund they have nicknamed the "Dead Peasant Life Insurance Policies", and is used to pay out executives as bonuses. (A common practice, unknown by the common man.) Pretty damn disgusting, if you ask me. (Another example of how Wal-Mart care for its employees.)

19. Wal-Mart now averages a "profit" (not sales) of $36 billion per year. How about giving the 98.8% of your employees you are allowing to live below the poverty line a raise? Statistics show you can well afford it.

20. Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street. If not, consider shopping someplace else.

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