What was Wal-Mart like way back when Hillary worked there?

Was it the Evil Empire that Barack "I had my wife quit her high-paying Wal-Mart connected job after we did polling and found out people didn't like Wal-Mart" Obama wants people to believe?

I'll just keep laughing.

and we'll keep laughing at you.

And I had no problem shopping there. In fact, I spent an average of $250 a month on groceries and other items at Wal-Mart..........

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/15/reviews/981115.15newmant.html

Sam Walton was no friend to American business.

Here is the website of the lawsuit on behalf of Walmart's female employees.

http://www.walmartclass.com/public_home.html


They charged unequal opportunity and unequal pay. The suit was filed in 2001.

Try, and learn.

Fun to know that before Clinton left it was impossible for Walmart to do wrong.

was what happened AFTER Sam died and Hillary had left the Board. Sam was all for American Made Products and Hillary was dogged in her determination to help workers gain Health Care and for women to rise in the ranks of the corporate ladder.

Needless to say, although Sam loved her and appreciated her intelligence and drive, the overwhelmingly male Board absolutely hated her.

:thumbsup:

:sarcasm:

Out damn facts...out

support of "Peoples Companies" in '92? She was on the board for 86-92, and did nothing to discourage Wal-Mart's anti-union practices. She STARTED at $15,000/yr - for attending 4 meetings a year. That's what, $3,750 per meeting? Not bad, if you can get it.

for a company which had the majority of it's business with Wal-Mart, but certainly not bad.

i'd wager it was a shitload more than $15,000. What was that company that Michelle Obama worked for. Did it allow unions? Was it American owned? Did it depend on China and Indonesia for its products?

was American owned and did not depend on China or Indonesia instead being a strong advocate of "American Made". The abandoning of those core principles happened after Sam died and Hillary had left the Board in 1992.

In 1998, Walton was included in Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. Walton was honored for all his pioneering efforts in retail in March 1992, when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. That year, the Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China awarded him the Golden Star Foreigner's Award for "tireless assistance in the development of People's owned factories in the Suzhou area".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton

He got a frickin award from China. He did. Not WalMart. To get an award from the people's republic there must have been some history there. He was still alive. Hillary was still on the board.

Wal Mart was responsible for 16% of Treehouse's sales. Sixteen percent is not a majority.

Please retract your statement. Thanks.

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Obama's Wal-Mart connection: Wife served on board of big Wal-Mart supplier

As I noted earlier today, Barack Obama pounced on Hillary Rodham Clinton in last nights CNN debate for serving on the board of directors of Wal-Mart in the late

1980s and early 1990s, the successful company the Left loves to hate.

But attacking the world's largest corporation has a way of producing blowback, as Obama knows.

Shortly before Thanksgiving Day in 2006, then-unannounced presidential candidates John Edwards and Barak Obama took part in a teleconference sponsored by

Wake Wal-Mart, and advocacy group financed by the United Food & Commercial Workers.

About a week later, Edwards was embarrassed when it was discovered that through a staffer he tried circumvent the long lines and essentially uses his prominent

status to get a just-released PlayStation 3 for one of his kids--from a local Wal-Mart store.

A few weeks later, it was Obama's turn to look like a hypocrite when it was revealed that his wife Michelle was a board member, making $51,200 a year, for TreeHouse

Foods, whose biggest customer is Wal-Mart. She elected to the board five months after Barack was sworn-in to the Senate.

Last May, while Michelle was still serving on the board of Treehouse, the senator boasted about Wal-Mart, "I will not shop there."

Eight days later, "citing increased demands on her time," Michelle Obama resigned from the board of directors of TreeHouse. But the heat was on the Obamas by

then--he was being called a hypocrite.

Several times in Obama's The Audacity of Hope, he takes left-hooks at Wal-Mart. That book was written, and published, while Michelle Obama served on Treehouse's

board.

Beware of blowback, Barack.

UPDATE: January 23: Taking a different look at things, Balloon Juice is also critical of Obama attacking Wal-Mart.

She was Changing big things even back then! :thumbsup:

What that means exactly, I'm not sure.

:shrug:

his children are the spawns of Satan

Sam tried to use small American businesses as much as he could and was considered a decent man. that all stopped when he retired but HRC was gone then too.

which was the major retailer for a company whose Board his wife sat on -- and made $50,000 a year plus stock options from -- as of 9 months ago.

Not the same Wal-Mart Hillary worked with and tried to change for the better.

to seek out the facts.

small towns all over the country, launching a company that is now just a conduit for cheap Chinese crap ... Great guy, great company, way to go, Hillary!

That unfortunately happened after his death and after Hillary had left the Board.

Nice try, though.

I know she served on the board back in the 80's when the company was about American products and American jobs.

Sam Walton was a great man to work for and he made sure he promoted American made goods. His store always highlighted local products at the front of the store where ever possible.

Wal-Mart stock was the stock to own in the 80's and even into the mid 90's. We owned and still own Wal-Mart stock in the 90's it split 2 different times and would bounce right back up in price. Made a down payment on my first home with Wal-Mart stock.

Not such good activity these last several years.

Did Hillary personally have anything to do with that performance? I don't have any f@#@ idea.

:)

instead of Chinese made goods. Thats the time period when Hillary was on the board.

And Wal-Mart's Made in America campaign, which for years touted the company's sales of American products in its stores, was launched after Bill Clinton persuaded Walton to help save 200 jobs at an Arkansas shirt manufacturing plant. The Made in America campaign has virtually vanished in recent years, as the company's manufacturing has gradually moved overseas -- another point of criticism by many Wal-Mart critics.

:thumbsup:

NT

Hillary chose to spend it as a corporate lawyer, enriching businesses like Wal-Mart, while Barack, even though he had all sorts of opportunities to "cash out" as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in their 104 year history, chose instead to represent community organizers, defending voting rights cases and discrimination claims.

If you're trying to determine whose heart is really in the fight, and who is just in it for the prestige, a look back like this shows a lot.

All great progressives.

That's like saying that an illegal with an overnight canning job at Vlasic has a "Wal-Mart connected job" because Wal-Mart sells Vlasic pickles. Big difference between that and sitting on the board of directors.

keep that money. Their goal is also to shut out the competition.

Wal-mart has destroyed small, independent stores in rural America.

Who paid below living wages and fucked over their employies every chance they got. A lot like it is now, only smaller.

Tell me, what do you think Charlie Manson was like, you know, before he killed all of those people?

Tell us how you really feel! :)

He did try to be fair to his employees, although he didn't see the need to provide health care benefits to the store workers. He ran the campaign, "Made in America" and wasn't kissing up to suppliers of cheap Chinese made items.

That's when it was a mom-and-pop operation in Northwest Arkansas. The first Wal-Mart, which opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, was at first just an extended part of the downtown area, which was a place where one could do all daily shopping. Then Wal-Mart got bigger and moved into a larger location catty-corner from its original digs in the '70s, and the once vibrant downtown area started going into decline. During the '70s and perhaps later, local Wal-Mart TV ads would show how many new stores had been added.

They didn't really become the monolith they are today until Hillary was in a position of power in the White House.

ie, the 90s.

Now, I'm not saying she loves the way Wal-Mart treats it's workers, but the company didn't become the Starbucks of retail big box stores until Clinton was in office.

otherwise Treehouse wouldn't have been able to pay her $50,000 a year plus stock options to sit on it's Board and have the majority of it's business with Wal-Mart.

I guess this means the Obamas have Tony Rezko AND Wal-Mart to thank for their $1.7 million house (which Obama paid $300,000 under the asking price for).

Thanks, Hillary! :hi:

They got started long before Clinton came into office.

thought it might be good to post here too

"Sam Walton's "Made in the USA" business plan worked to drive American manufacturers' prices into the ground before running them out of business. He took American suppliers that had loyally supplied his company for decades and stabbed them in the back. He would dispatch Wal-Mart representatives into southeast Asian markets to get price comparisons, then he would bring those slave-labor prices back to show to the American manufacturers. If the American manufacturers would match or beat the price, he would proudly display their goods under a "Made in the USA" banner at his stores. If they didn't, he would buy the shit from whatever slave labor camp would be willing to stitch the shit together for $.02 per garment (and often times would still display the foreign made goods under the same "Made in the USA" banner and hope nobody noticed). SO in other words, American prices, which had historically been an indicator of the American lifestyle of good pay and a high standard of living, became a race to the bottom against slave labor in countries with very low standards of living at the time. To compete, American companies started laying off workers in order to stay lean and mean with slave labor camps in Southeast Asia (and to a lesser extent, Central and South America). They also decided to cut corners wherever possible, especially in safety regulations and benefits. Eventually, companies that stayed in the "Made in the USA" program went under because they couldn't afford to continue price matching with factories in China and Bangladesh.

You can read more about how the Sam Walton myth was created and why it still persists today in "In Sam We Trust" by Bob Ortega. You can read about Sam Walton's hands-on approach to union busting (like the time he personally threatened Wal-Mart truckers when they attempted to unionize) and other wonderful things he did. "

The "Sam Walton" myth persists, apparently.

It has been a while since I read that book, but I recall that Sam Walton appointed her to the board personally and it was more for show than anything else ("See? We appointed a librul. We care about the workin' man")...and maybe a bit of access to her husband too.

By all accounts, Clinton's tenure on the board of Wal-Mart was fruitless and deserves no real consideration to either gain or lose political points. She did try to advance some general ideas like trying to get the board to consider paying female associates the same as male associates, trying to get workers health care, stuff like that, but she wasn't very successful at any of it because the rest of the board just voted her down or refused to enforce the policies.

However, to say that she "collaborated" in any of the day to day bullshit Wal-Mart was involved in is simply not true...although I suspect you might have intended a sarcasm smiley there.

that Churchill wants you to believe? How many Jews did he kill?

(please don't think I'm serious here)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)<1> is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:<2><3>

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Godwin's law is often cited in online discussions as a caution against the use of inflammatory rhetoric or exaggerated comparisons, and is often conflated with fallacious arguments of the reductio ad Hitlerum form.

The rule does not make any statement whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued<4> that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

To use a reference to the deaths of 8 Million Jews as part of a "joke" you're making is disgusting.
If you were Human, you'd delete that post.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Nice quote there in your post.

I do apologize.

does not negate the post itself.

As I remember it, in the 80s, when WalMart was kicking off the Made In America, it was running #2 against K-Mart, and the whole campaign was to undercut K-mart for using cheap Asian goods. There were already horror stories about WalMart going into a community, and 6 months later the local hardware, Five and Dime, electronics, etc., stores going out of business because they couldn't compete.

I guess WalMart was much more aggressive, because I don't remember K-Mart getting the same kind of reputation even though they were more alike than different.

Bill pushed NAFTA through, with the 'hope' that others would buy "our" goods, and that we could get cheaper stuff, while spreading economic democracy throughout the world.

How is this working for us?

I can't blame the state of our country on the Clintons, but if they are going to point fingers and sling mud, they need to remember that the mud sticks on your fingers too.

and putting thousands of locally owned stores out of business. Don't kid yourself. It was never a responsible corporation.

Michelle Obama did the right thing and resigned her position quickly. Hillary kept feeding at the trough.

Pretty balanced report, showing all sides, imo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

As a Director, Clinton Moved Wal-Mart Board, but Only So Far

died, I suggest you go back and check the facts. Walton was fiercely anti union, going so far as to threaten to fire all of the companies truck drivers if talks of a union didn't stop. The "Buy American" program began to wain long before Sam passed because American manufacturers couldn't or wouldn't meet his demands for every decreasing prices.
The only thing that happened when he died was Wal-Mart lost the best public face it ever had. Everything that was going on below the surface came bubbling up for everyone to see.
By the way, I worked for Wal-Mart for 20 years, from the early 80's until '03, so I saw it all first hand.

which is a whole lot less connected than being on the board of directors.