tell me more about Wal*Mart

[enree erzweglle]

I watched most of Wal*Mart: The High Cost of Low Price last night. I am so sorry to say that before then, I was unaware of the specifics about the controversy surrounding Wal*Mart. Before watching the documentary, I guessed that the concerns centered around how Wal*Mart affects the economy and local communities by outpricing mom/pop businesses. I remember hearing something about Wal*Mart and medical insurance. However--and not to trivialize those issues--there's much more to it than that.

Corporate Wal*Mart zeroes in and stops--cold--employees' attempts to unionize; they distribute anti-union propaganda and, among other things, they identify union-sympathetic employees and put them under surveillance. In interviews, former managers mention that employees who appeared to be in "collusion" (those who were pro-union or who were organizing) were fired.

Wal*Mart offers substandard wages: the average Wal*Mart employee makes about $13K/year, which is about $4K below poverty levels. The high cost of Wal*Mart's medical insurance and co-pays make it so that an enormous number of Wal*Mart families are subsisting on government assistance.

There's much more: often, Wal*Marts get tax abatements from local communities and city/state government (mom/pop places get none); often Wal*Marts get subsidies to engineer and construct the stores and surrounding highway systems (mom/pop places get none); often local zoning restrictions are waived for Wal*Marts (mom/pop places must comply with zoning regulations).

There is overt racial and gender discrimination at Wal*Marts nationwide and complaints regarding these and other issues are systematically binned (ignored).

In the documentary, scores of former managers and trainers discuss the various management-sanctioned techniques that they use/d to prevent their associates from working >40 hours a week: in some cases, managers changed computer records to show that their employees were not working OT when, in fact, those employees were required to exceed 40 hours in a week and they were not paid for that time. Mostly, the managers intimidate or threaten their employees (i.e., "work unpaid OT or get fired"). In most cases, managers use less objectionable tactics, but the way they convey their message about OT makes it unquestionably clear to employees that they are expendable/replaceable and that they have no choice but to do what they are told without objecting.

I have ~30 minutes left in the documentary. I'm hoping that in that time, they do a compare/contrast between Wal*Mart and its competitors (e.g., Target, K-Mart, Big Lots). If they don't, does anyone have information about this? How do national chains like Target, K-Mart, Rite-Aid, CVS, Costco, etc. compare to Wal*Mart in terms of wages and overtime policies, medical insurance/co-pays, unionization? I wonder if there are statistics about those other nationalized stores and how many of their employees are on federal assistance.

Which other stores are in the "Wal*Mart Family?" I know that Sam's Club is and I've heard that Lowes (Home Improvement) is--is that true?

[Ace42X]

Viva Capitalism!

[enree erzweglle]

Viva Capitalism!
That's why I want more info about how the other stores operate. Something about the Wal*Mart situation feels wrong/evil to me. Maybe they're all for shit, though. I want to know more.

[cosmo105]

i have that on dvd. brought me to tears a few times.


fuck wal-mart.

[enree erzweglle]

i have that on dvd. brought me to tears a few times.I had that reaction several times too. :(

I thought it was interesting when they interviewed the German Wal*Mart employees (who are backed by a union and who seem to have a fairly decent working situation). Some of them said stuff like, "Why don't the American [Wal*Mart] workers just unionize?"

Those reactions reminded me of something someone said in Roger and Me. Michael Moore interviewed this Country Club Golf-Playing Plaid-Shorts-Wearing socialite and asked her what would solve the unemployment problem in Flint. She said something like, "Why don't these people just do something with their hands?")

[monkey]

there was an article yesterday in the times magazine (ill try to find the link in a sec) about walmart's new organic line, about bringing organic to mass market and how that's gonna ruin the farmers and what organic stands for. im all for bringing organic to people, but why does it have to be at the cost of the farmer?

[cosmo105]

^that's disgusting. a total bastardization of the organic philosophy. it's not JUST about not using synthetic pesticides and shit.

what irks me the most is when people say they shop there because it's so cheap, and they refuse to pay what other people "mark it up" to - no, what you're paying for there is the costs that wal*mart cuts. the few dollars you might be saving add up to so much corporate evil...i refuse to even go into one of those stores.

the one in my hometown is being remodeled. they're turning it into a Super wal*mart. turns out they did an under-the-table deal with the city planning commission or some crap and didn't put it up for debate until it was already a done deal. by the time people knew about it and were starting to protest and petition, the ground was already broken. as if we didn't have enough fucking cookie cutter mini-malls (when we moved there i was four and it was considered the countryside. there were more cows than people and all of what is now sprawling consumer real estate was cornfields), now the local businesses are REALLY fucked.

[enree erzweglle]

there was an article yesterday in the times magazine (ill try to find the link in a sec) about walmart's new organic line, about bringing organic to mass market and how that's gonna ruin the farmers and what organic stands for. im all for bringing organic to people, but why does it have to be at the cost of the farmer?Thanks, Pauli. I'd like to read that article, definitely.

Wal*Mart offering organics is just Wal*Mart trying to edge out that aspect of the market because there's a profit to be had and they're not yet in bed with that aspect of their consumer base. I don't believe for a second that it has anything to do with endorsing health and healthy behaviors. (Much in the way that McDonald's offering salads right after SuperSize Me came out had nothing to do with anything other than the obvious.)

Everyone with Netflix or easy access to this documentary should watch it.

[ampm]

Walmart's apples are the size of a baby's head.

[DroppinScience]

I thought it was interesting when they interviewed the German Wal*Mart employees (who are backed by a union and who seem to have a fairly decent working situation). Some of them said stuff like, "Why don't the American [Wal*Mart] workers just unionize?"


Interesting. I remember hearing on the news a year or two back about a Wal-Mart in Quebec and how the employees were attempting to unionize. The result? They just shut down the store altogether.

Wow.

[Nuzzolese]

I have assumed, or was suspicious at least, that other chain stores like K-Mart and CVS etc all operate with the same methods that Wal*Mart does.

I have not seen this documentary but I did find a Chicago Sun Times article from last year that may interest you. It regards Sears, which owns KMart.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050429/ai_n14612496


"Sears employees were told Thursday that many of their benefits will be cut, and that their pay will be based on the retailer's profitability."

"Many of Sears' benefit programs are more generous than those of the retailer's toughest competitors, including Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy, according to an internal memo sent to employees"

So I'm not sure about the fairness of the company practices, but I do see that they are being influenced by Wal*Mart and because Wal*Mart is so successful financially, I wouldn't be surprised if other companies are adopting their methods.

[enree erzweglle]

what irks me the most is when people say they shop there because it's so cheap, and they refuse to pay what other people "mark it up" to - no, what you're paying for there is the costs that wal*mart cuts. the few dollars you might be saving add up to so much corporate evil...i refuse to even go into one of those stores.I have shopped there, yes, and in Texas & Louisiana after the hurricanes, Wal*Marts were the only stores that were open in a lot of affected areas. For a long time, they were the only ones who sold this type of cat food that my oldest cat eats and so I'd go there. :( Now I feel like shit for doing that.

the one in my hometown is being remodeled. they're turning it into a Super wal*mart. turns out they did an under-the-table deal with the city planning commission or some crap and didn't put it up for debate until it was already a done deal. by the time people knew about it and were starting to protest and petition, the ground was already broken. now the local businesses are REALLY fucked.They address that in that documentary--about how these family-owned businesses had to fight hard (or work with zoning regulations) to get their buildings built in the 80s and 90s and how Wal*Mart not only could ignore the zoning in some (lots of) cases, but how the communities FUNDED the planning and construction of the stores. So these family-owned storeowners went to the same organizations (local community organizations, city/state government) and asked for the same considerations and they were denied.

There is something evil about the way Wal*Mart treats its employees (associates). The one woman--I got shivers watching her because she said her managers would basically be telling her that if she didn't do X or Y that she'd be fired. But she said this: "They'd say it with a smile." The way she painted the picture--the whole scenario gave me the willies.

[monkey]

the link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/magazine/04wwln_lede.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) you need a login. free. easy. like your mom.

The Way We Live Now
Mass Natural

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: June 4, 2006

"Elitist" is just about the nastiest name you can call someone, or something, in America these days, a finely-honed term of derision in the culture wars, and "elitist" has stuck to organic food in this country like balsamic vinegar to mâche. Thirty years ago the rap on organic was a little different: back then the stuff was derided as hippie food, crunchy granola and bricklike brown bread for the unshaved set (male and female division). So for organic to be tagged as elitist may count as progress. But you knew it was over for John Kerry in the farm belt when his wife, Teresa, helpfully suggested to Missouri farmers that they go organic. Eating organic has been fixed in the collective imagination as an upper-middle-class luxury, a blue-state affectation as easy to mock as Volvos or lattes. On the cultural spectrum, organic stands at the far opposite extreme from Nascar or Wal-Mart.

But all this is about to change, now that Wal-Mart itself, the nation's largest grocer, has decided to take organic food seriously. (Nascar is not quite there yet.) Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods — food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers — in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will soon be available to the tens of millions of Americans who now cannot afford it — indeed, who have little or no idea what the term even means. Organic food, which represents merely 2.5 percent of America's half-trillion-dollar food economy, is about to go mainstream. At a stroke, the argument that it is elitist will crumble.

This is good news indeed, for the American consumer and the American land. Or perhaps I should say for some of the American land and a great deal more of the land in places like Mexico and China, for Wal-Mart is bound to hasten the globalization of organic food. (Ten percent of organic food is imported today.) Like every other commodity that global corporations lay their hands on, organic food will henceforth come from wherever in the world it can be produced most cheaply. It is about to go the way of sneakers and MP3 players, becoming yet another rootless commodity circulating in the global economy.

Oh, but wait. . .I meant to talk about all the good that will come of Wal-Mart's commitment to organic. Sorry about that. When you're talking about global capitalism, it can be hard to separate the good news from the bad. Because of its scale and efficiency and notorious ruthlessness, Wal-Mart will force down the price of organics, and that is a good thing for all the consumers who can't afford to spend more for food than they already do. Wal-Mart will also educate the millions of Americans who don't yet know exactly what organic food is or precisely how it differs from conventionally grown food.

The vast expansion of organic farmland it will take to feed Wal-Mart's new appetite is also an unambiguous good for the world's environment, since it will result in substantially less pesticide and chemical fertilizer being applied to the land — somewhere. Whatever you think about the prospect of organic Coca-Cola, when it comes, and come it surely will, tens of thousands of acres of the world's cornfields — enough to make all that organic high-fructose corn syrup — will no longer receive an annual shower of pesticides like Atrazine. O.K., you're probably registering a flicker of cognitive dissonance at the conjunction of the words "organic" and "high-fructose corn syrup," but keep your eye for a moment on that Atrazine.

Atrazine is a powerful herbicide applied to 70 percent of America's cornfields. Traces of the chemical routinely turn up in American streams and wells and even in the rain; the F.D.A. also finds residues of Atrazine in our food.

So what? Well, the chemical, which was recently banned by the European Union, is a suspected carcinogen and endocrine disruptor that has been linked to low sperm counts among farmers. A couple of years ago, a U.C. Berkeley herpetologist named Tyrone Hayes, while doing research on behalf of Syngenta, Atrazine's manufacturer, found that even at concentrations as low as 0.1 part per billion, the herbicide will chemically emasculate a male frog, causing its gonads to produce eggs — in effect, turning males into hermaphrodites. Atrazine is often present in American waterways at much higher concentrations than 0.1 part per billion. But American regulators generally won't ban a pesticide until the bodies, or cancer cases, begin to pile up — until, that is, scientists can prove the link between the suspect molecule and illness in humans or ecological catastrophe. So Atrazine is, at least in the American food system, deemed innocent until proved guilty — a standard of proof extremely difficult to achieve, since it awaits the results of chemical testing on humans that we, rightly, don't perform.

I don't know about you, but as the father of an adolescent boy, I sort of like the idea of keeping such a molecule out of my son's diet, even if the scientists and nutritionists say they still don't have proof that organic food is any safer or healthier. I also like that growing food organically doesn't pollute the rivers and water table with nitrates from synthetic fertilizer or expose farm workers to toxic pesticides. And the fact that animals raised organically don't receive antibiotics or synthetic growth hormones. Sounds like a better agriculture to me — and Wal-Mart has just put the force of its great many supermarkets behind it.

But before you pour yourself a celebratory glass of Wal-Mart organic milk, you might want to ask a few questions about how the company plans to achieve its laudable goals. Assuming that it's possible at all, how exactly would Wal-Mart get the price of organic food down to a level just 10 percent higher than that of its everyday food? To do so would virtually guarantee that Wal-Mart's version of cheap organic food is not sustainable, at least not in any meaningful sense of that word. To index the price of organic to the price of conventional is to give up, right from the start, on the idea, once enshrined in the organic movement, that food should be priced not high or low but responsibly. As the organic movement has long maintained, cheap industrial food is cheap only because the real costs of producing it are not reflected in the price at the checkout. Rather, those costs are charged to the environment, in the form of soil depletion and pollution (industrial agriculture is now our biggest polluter); to the public purse, in the form of subsidies to conventional commodity farmers; to the public health, in the form of an epidemic of diabetes and obesity that is expected to cost the economy more than $100 billion per year; and to the welfare of the farm- and food-factory workers, not to mention the well-being of the animals we eat. As Wendell Berry once wrote, the motto of our conventional food system — at the center of which stands Wal-Mart, the biggest purveyor of cheap food in America — should be: Cheap at any price!

To say you can sell organic food for 10 percent more than you sell irresponsibly priced food suggests that you don't really get it — that you plan to bring business-as-usual principles of industrial "efficiency" and "economies of scale" to a system of food production that was supposed to mimic the logic of natural systems rather than that of the factory.

We have already seen what happens when the logic of the factory is applied to organic food production. The industrialization of organic agriculture, which Wal-Mart's involvement will only deepen, has already given us "organic feedlots" — two words that I never thought would find their way into the same clause. To supply the escalating demand for cheap organic milk, agribusiness companies are setting up 5,000-head dairies, often in the desert. These milking cows never touch a blade of grass, instead spending their days standing around a dry-lot "loafing area" munching organic grain — grain that takes a toll on both the animals' health (these ruminants evolved to eat grass, after all) and the nutritional value of their milk. But this is the sort of milk (deficient in beta-carotene and the "good fats" — like omega 3's and C.L.A. — that come from grazing cows on grass) we're going to see a lot more of in the supermarket as long as Wal-Mart determines to keep organic milk cheap.

We're also going to see more organic milk — and organic foods of all kinds — coming from places like New Zealand. The globalization of organic food is already well under way: at Whole Foods you can buy organic asparagus flown in from Argentina, raspberries from Mexico, grass-fed meat from New Zealand. In an era of energy scarcity, the purchase of such products does little to advance the ideal of sustainability that once upon a time animated the organic movement. These foods may contain no pesticides, but they are drenched in petroleum even so.

Whether produced domestically or not, organic meat will increasingly come not from mixed, polyculture farms growing a variety of species (a practice that makes it possible to recycle nutrients between plants and animals) but from ever-bigger Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFO's, which, apart from using organic feed and abjuring antibiotics, are little different from their conventional counterparts. Yes, the federal organic rules say the animals should have "access to the outdoors," but in practice this often means providing them with a tiny exercise yard or, in the case of one organic egg producer in New England, a screened-in concrete "porch" — a view of the outdoors. Herein lies one of the deeper paradoxes of practicing organic agriculture on an industrial scale: big, single-species CAFO's are even more precarious than their conventional cousins, since they can't use antibiotics to keep the thousands of animals living in close confinement indoors from becoming sick. So organic CAFO-hands (to call them farmhands seems overly generous) keep the free ranging to a minimum and then keep their fingers crossed.

Wal-Mart will buy its organic food from whichever producers can produce it most cheaply, and these will not be the sort of farmers you picture when you hear the word "organic." Big supermarkets want to do business only with big farmers growing lots of the same thing, not because big monoculture farms are any more efficient (they aren't) but because it's easier to buy all your carrots from a single megafarm than to contract with hundreds of smaller growers. The "transaction costs" are lower, even when the price and the quality are the same. This is just one of the many ways in which the logic of industrial capitalism and the logic of biology on a farm come into conflict. At least in the short run, the logic of capitalism usually prevails.

Wal-Mart's push into the organic market won't do much for small organic farmers, that seems plain enough. But it may also spell trouble for the big growers it will favor. Wal-Mart has a reputation for driving down prices by squeezing its suppliers, especially after those suppliers have invested heavily to boost production to feed the Wal-Mart maw. Having done that, the supplier will find itself at Wal-Mart's mercy when the company decides it no longer wants to pay a price that enables the farmer to make a living. When that happens, the notion of responsibly priced food will be sacrificed to the imperatives of survival, and the pressure to cut corners will become irresistible.

Up to now, the federal organic standards have provided a bulwark against that pressure. Yet with the industrialization of organic, these rules are themselves coming under mounting pressure, and forgive my skepticism, but it's hard to believe that the lobbyists from Wal-Mart are going to play a constructive role in defending those standards from efforts to weaken them. Just this past year the Organic Trade Association used lobbyists who do work for Kraft Foods to move a bill through Congress that will make it easier to include synthetic ingredients in products labeled organic.

Organic is just a word, after all, and its definition now lies in the hands of the federal government, which means it is subject to all the usual political and economic forces at play in Washington. Inevitably, the drive to produce organic food cheaply will bring pressure to further weaken the regulations, and some of K Street's finest talent will soon be on the case. A few years ago a chicken producer in Georgia named Fieldale Farms persuaded its congressman to slip a helpful provision into an appropriations bill that would allow growers of organic chicken to substitute conventional chicken feed if the price of organic feed exceeded a certain level. That certainly makes life easier for a chicken producer when the price of organic corn is north of $5 a bushel, as it is today, and conventional corn south of $2. But in what sense is a chicken fed on conventional feed still organic? In no sense but the Orwellian one: because the government says it is.

After an outcry from consumers and some wiser heads in the organic industry, this new rule was repealed. The moral of the Fieldale story is that unless consumers and well-meaning organic producers remain vigilant and steadfast, the drive to make the price of organic foods competitive with that of conventional foods will hollow out the word and kill the organic goose, just when her golden eggs are luring so many big players into the water. Let's hope Wal-Mart recognizes that the extraordinary marketing magic of the word "organic" — a power that flows directly from our dissatisfaction with the very-cheap-food economy Wal-Mart has done so much to create — is a lot like the health of an organic chicken living in close confinement with thousands of other chickens in an organic CAFO, munching organic corn: fragile.

[enree erzweglle]

Interesting. I remember hearing on the news a year or two back about a Wal-Mart in Quebec and how the employees were attempting to unionize. The result? They just shut down the store altogether.

Wow.I remember hearing about something like that too now that you mention it. It's a hazy memory. Damn.

I was talking about this with a co-worker who was like, "Why don't these people just go on strike?" And I thought, wow, you really need to get out into these communities to see how hard it is for a person to quit a job, even an awful one. Plus, Wal*Marts basically wipe out entire towns...if you quit your WM job, you can maybe get a job at some of the fast-food stores that pop up around WalMarts but it's probably not going to get much better than that. The thing is this: Wal*Mart Corporate knows all of this, probably banks on it.

[Nuzzolese]

Here's another article, this one about Target. It compares the management practices to WAL*MART, stating that the aggressive anti-union dealings are pretty much the same.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13508


"Of more than 1,400 Target stores employing more than 300,000 people nationwide, not one has a union. Employees at various stores say an anti-union message and video is part of the new-employee orientation. At stores in the Twin Cities, where Target is headquartered, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union Local 789 has been trying for several years to help Target employees organize, with little luck. "

this is pretty weird

"Perhaps Target’s oddest singularity is the fact that it boasts one of the nation’s top forensics labs at its company headquarters. A product of its efforts to stop shoplifting and property destruction at its stores, its mastery of surveillance and investigative technology and strategy is now eagerly subscribed to by law enforcement agencies nationwide, including the FBI. The company provides training for police and federal agents on investigation and prevention of everything from arson and robbery to smuggling."

[ampm]

Proctor & Gamble could fall under this category to except they pay really well. The only thing is is that you have to work swing shift 12 hours per shift. But I know they shove all this propaganda down their throats. Every person I knew that worked there suffered from some kind of ailment. Tough job.

[ampm]

One of the many things I have been doing with myself in the past few months was I helped organize an unsuccessful union campaign at my company. I have been dealing a lot with this issue recently.

Wal-mart is far and away one of the worst things to ever happen to the American worker for all the reasons you listed. Although it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against anyone for their union activities or feelings, companies like Wal-Mart will usually fire someone and simply deny any knowledge of the persons union activities. It's iwhat they call an "Unfair Labor Practice or ULP" for an employer to impede a union campaign in any way, they aren't even allowed to ask you your opinion about the issue as it can be considered a form of intimidation. People have the legal right to be represented by a union and bargain with their employer collectively for compension for their labor. Yet unless a person is willing to file a report and appear in front of the National Labor Relations Board and testify about the ULP's the management usually gets away with committing them.

Costco on the other hand is considered the anti-Walmart. They work together with their employees union (Teamsters) to help achieve good pay and benefits for the employee while helping the company to achieve it's financial goals. Not all Company-Union relationships have to be adverse.

We lost our vote 28-33, but I feel like I won anyway. We have to wait one year until we can file for union representation again and the management knows it. They have one year to fix the problems or they know all we need is 3 people to change their minds next year and the union will be voted in. If the promises of "We will make things better if you don't vote the union in" don't happen in a year it will be pretty easy to convince at least 3 people to change their vote to a yes. Things are already begining to change a bit so I feel like I did accomplish something.

It's better to fight and loose than to not fight at all.

Create an alias and try again. Good Luck!

[abcdefz]

"Of more than 1,400 Target stores employing more than 300,000 people nationwide, not one has a union. Employees at various stores say an anti-union message and video is part of the new-employee orientation.



...I worked for Target for a couple months about three years ago. It had pretty crappy management/people skills, but there's no anti-union message in the training video I saw. If only it had been so lively.




"Perhaps Target’s oddest singularity is the fact that it boasts one of the nation’s top forensics labs at its company headquarters. A product of its efforts to stop shoplifting and property destruction at its stores, its mastery of surveillance and investigative technology and strategy is now eagerly subscribed to by law enforcement agencies nationwide, including the FBI. The company provides training for police and federal agents on investigation and prevention of everything from arson and robbery to smuggling."



Yeah -- the surveilance stuff is outrageous: pretty much every square inch of the property -- including the parking lot -- is filmed and stored. If you try to say you fell in Aisle 16 on May 15, 2005, they can dig up the record. Pretty nuts.

[Bob]

i'd be kind of curious to see what this anti-union propaganda is that they spread in their training videos. not curious enough to apply for a job at walmart, but still pretty curious.

[abcdefz]

i'd be kind of curious to see what this anti-union propaganda is that they spread in their training videos. not curious enough to apply for a job at walmart, but still pretty curious.


There is none. Not the video I saw, anyway.

[Bob]

There is none. Not the video I saw, anyway.

no, i mean in the wal-mart ones

[abcdefz]

Ah. Sorry. Got all defensive, feeling unheard.

[enree erzweglle]

"Costco is anti-walmart." That's interesting and I didn't know it. I wouldn't have guessed it. Thought all of the mammoth stores had very similar practices, just maybe shades of evil separated them, you know? So that's what I want to understand. Are the other companies just a step away from becoming the next Wal*Mart? ...are they there already.

I think most people think the way I thought: when I shopped at Wal*Mart, I knew in the back of my head that there were controversies about the stores, but I thought such controversies were probably reverb from local stores being undersold and then forced out. Which is not a great thing anyway, but I didn't know how WM was different from the other chain stores like Target and Costco and K-Mart.

In fact, I had this image that WM treated their employees well, better than K-Mart, because of the old smiling WM employees who greet you at the door. I thought, isn't it nice that they're not neglecting that subset of society. They do that intentionally.

I was duped and I started to realize it when I saw a commercial showing a Wal*Mart truck driving through Small Town America and they had these old people and storeowners giving testimonies like this: "I am so glad a Wal*Mart opened down the road! Because now more people drive past my store to get to Wal*Mart. Wal*Mart is good for communities like ours." paraphrased from memory, but you get the idea.

In the documentary, the one trainer said that when he was establishing new Wal*Marts, he'd drive down the main street of the given town (which was still thriving then because WM hadn't opened there yet) and he'd look at each ma/pop store and think, "3 months. 6 months. 3 months. 3 months." (In other words, he was mentally calculating how long it would take for each of those stores to go bankrupt.)

[Nuzzolese]

The Wal*Mart near my home has a pathetic produce section. It's always been scrubby - very little selection, poor quality. But I am surrounded by farms and there is a regular farmer's market every Saturday that people love. They seem to do well. The other stores (Kroger, Schnuck's, Cub) have much better produce, I mean the difference in quality is huge. I wonder about that. I'm not sure if people care about their produce at all, or if they do and they just shop for it elsewhere.

[ampm]

The Wal*Mart near my home has a pathetic produce section. It's always been scrubby - very little selection, poor quality. But I am surrounded by farms and there is a regular farmer's market every Saturday that people love. They seem to do well. The other stores (Kroger, Schnuck's, Cub) have much better produce, I mean the difference in quality is huge. I wonder about that. I'm not sure if people care about their produce at all, or if they do and they just shop for it elsewhere.


It's just the opposite in my walmart. Like I said, the fruit is big and fresh.

[enree erzweglle]

The Wal*Mart near my home has a pathetic produce section. It's always been scrubby - very little selection, poor quality. But I am surrounded by farms and there is a regular farmer's market every Saturday that people love. They seem to do well. The other stores (Kroger, Schnuck's, Cub) have much better produce, I mean the difference in quality is huge. I wonder about that. I'm not sure if people care about their produce at all, or if they do and they just shop for it elsewhere.
I always like to hear the names of other stores from other cities. We used to have Kroger, not now. I've never heard of Schnuck's or Cub.

I had friends over last week and I was making a fruit salad with berries that I bought at Giant Eagle (our local grocery store) and berries that I bought at Whole Foods. I held one berry from GE in one hand and another from WF in the other hand and I said to my friends, "I'm going to show you one berry and then another. Guess which one is from GE and which is from WF." So they got all serious and examined the GE berry first and then I closed that hand and opened the WF berry hand and and they were prepared to study it, examine it, and then make this informed decision but instead, they laughed out loud because the GE raspberry was tiny and shrivelly and a weird color; the WF raspberry was easily twice the size and was the right color red and was the right kind of firm. Perfect. Gorgeous. No mistaking which was which. I don't even think they sell berries in Wal*Marts.

[enree erzweglle]

It's just the opposite in my walmart. Like I said, the fruit is big and fresh.
I wonder if each Wal*Mart is responsible for acquiring their own produce. In other words, do they contract with locals for the produce that they sell...could that explain the disparity? (I doubt that this is the practice, though, given their corporate mentality.)

I've only been to a local WM produce section once, in the winter, and it was pitiful and bland although they had a whole lot of bananas--they had bananas at the head of a lot of aisles and by nearly every checkout line.

[ampm]

Walmart is a haven for scumbags, but where else can you get everything you need in one store. Sad, but true.

[Nuzzolese]

I always like to hear the names of other stores from other cities. We used to have Kroger, not now. I've never heard of Schnuck's or Cub.


I do too. It's like hearing other people's names for their parents' parents. (Grandpa, Mamaw, Poppop, Gammy, etc)
Where I grew up we went to Big Bear. There were also Food Lion, and Cub (I never saw a Schunck's until I came to IL) and Hearts was a discount dept store similar to Target. Once I saw a Hearts/Big Bear combo.

In my childhood neighborhood there was a tiny locally owned grocery/deli called Manseurs that had everything, all kinds of gourmet stuff, ethnic foods. They're still in business too, which is nice. People around there are loyal old stubborn bitches who hate change and I guess that means they have some good qualities.

[enree erzweglle]

I do too. It's like hearing other people's names for their parents' parents. (Grandpa, Mamaw, Poppop, Gammy, etc)
Where I grew up we went to Big Bear. There were also Food Lion, and Cub (I never saw a Schunck's until I came to IL) and Hearts was a discount dept store similar to Target. Once I saw a Hearts/Big Bear combo. Sometimes the people from California who post on the boards (here) will refer to chains or restaurants and the only way that I know that it's a restaurant is by context. So funny some of the names.

Food Lion! They have those at the beach that I used to go to with my kid. I used to think it was a funny-sounding name but then I realized that it made more sense than Giant Eagle. :)

In my childhood neighborhood there was a tiny locally owned grocery/deli called Manseurs that had everything, all kinds of gourmet stuff, ethnic foods. They're still in business too, which is nice. People around there are loyal old stubborn bitches who hate change and I guess that means they have some good qualities.Oh, we have one of those stores too. It's Italian, run by two brothers. They make food, sell the meals (reasonable prices) for people who don't have time to cook. They sell a bit of everything--I guess they're the original convenience store. The store has wooden floors. They'll deliver your groceries to you. They still use paper bags with handles.

Those types of stores always have a peculiar smell--a good smell--to them. I think it's the baked bread and the fact that someone's cooking in there somewhere. And I'm not talking cooking defrosted food via a microwave and then handing out samples of some sort of egg roll on a toothpick--it's real food and they sell it there. And the owners will still run tabs/keep accounts for people. (!)

[marsdaddy]

Nugget is a bad name for anything but a Casino, but there is a grocery chain in the Sacramento Valley area called Nugget.

WalMart and the other "big box" stores (Target, Costco, etc.) also have taken advantage of a tax loophole written years ago to encourage grocery stores to open in poor communities. That's one key reason these places sell food -- the tax rate is lower than retail only stores. And another way they drive out competitors.

www.corporations-suck.com once had an article that the majority of Medicaid recepients in Georgia are WalMart employees.

Hercules, CA just voted to not allow WalMart in their community.

One big problem with the mass marketing of organic is that organic doesn't mean what it used to, anymore. Thanks to Bushy and the nicknamed posse, dolphin safe tuna isn't dolphin safe, thresholds for low emission standards have been raised, and USFDA organic is problem written in lead-based ink.

I'm not sure unions work anymore. But as our economy has shifted from blue collar to the service section, we do need better protection for workers rights. There have been several court decisions granting workers back pay for OT hours worked and/or expected but for which they were never paid. But still, the lawsuits are cheaper than paying fair wages upfront.

[enree erzweglle]

I saw the final 30-40 minutes of the documentary. :(

Deals with Wal*Mart's hideous labor practices (they hire foreign labor at incredibly cheap prices and do nothing to improve the awful conditions for the workers); how Wal*Marts have been fined for violating EPA standards (they've contaminted local fresh water sources by leaving palattes of open, leaking pesticides and chemicals sitting outside, unprotected); the various security issues in Wal*Mart parking lots (some Wal*Marts installed security cameras in their parking lots to monitor employees who were organizing unions and then how they didn't use these cameras to do actual security monitoring and how many violent crimes happen in WalMart parking lots); lastly, how some communities fought back and kept Wal*Marts from being built in their neighborhoods.

Along the way, they offered some interesting statistics about things like labor costs and how much Wal*Mart "gives back" to the community (they basically don't).

Interesting that the Waltons, after 9-11, built an underground bunker with fortified perimeters and barbed-wire fences. :confused:

[Medellia]

Yesterday I was at my aunt's house because my grandparents were there. They were making home-made ice cream and had a huge bottle of vanilla extract for it. My grandmother looked at it and called them traitors because it was imprted from Mexico. My uncle replied "yeah, they're evil and trying to take over (he was serious, BTW. As much as I would like to say he was nocking her, he wasn't) but it was only eight dollars and if we'd gone to Wal Mart it would have been more expensive."

I know that most of this thread is about WM driving mom and pop shops out of business because of their pricing tactics, and that little anecdote kind of goes against it (in that they got the vanilla extract much cheaper at a mom and pop grocery) but the dependence on WM, even when it's not the cheapest (along with the blatant racism) really bothered me and I thought this thread was the perfect place to share that.

[DGAF]

check out http://www.wakeupwalmart.com

[jabumbo]

i won't buy produce, or any perishable food item at a store that doesnt exist solely for that purpose.

[cosmo105]

mom and poop shops
*snicker*

[Medellia]

Dammit. :o

[enree erzweglle]

check out http://www.wakeupwalmart.comThat's so cool. Thanks for posting the link. I'm going to browse through that site tonight.

[enree erzweglle]

i won't buy produce, or any perishable food item at a store that doesnt exist solely for that purpose.I have had the absolutely best bananas from Whole Foods. Before then, I don't remember ever having a banana that was great enough to make me stop in mid-bite and ponder the thought. Usually, bananas are noteworthy only when they're too mushy or not ripe enough; I don't know that I've ever had a remarkably good banana from any place other than WF.

[Documad]

I think I knew everything there was to know about Walmart before I saw the documentary from the tort suits to the union stuff to the killing of small town america to the twisting arms at the local planning commissions, but it was moving to see it all strung together and see the faces of the real people hurt by it. It also gives NOTHING to local communities because it ships all the profits to Arkansas. My friends had been complaining about Walmart before they even came to our state. They came late and they've been shunned in the nicer areas because Target is from here and has a huge record of giving money to United Way and local schools, etc. I'm intensely loyal to Target even though it's a big corporation because I paid my way through high school and college working there and many of my friends work at the corporate headquarters. Plus Target is super cool now with the fun ads and funky furniture. :p

The worst part to me is what Walmart did to our small towns in our rural areas. I've driven through the ghost towns and I always want to cry. We heard it was going to happen and then basically watched it helplessly. I don't know how you stop it. People will buy stuff where it's a lot cheaper. My friends' families lost pharmacies, hardware stores, etc., but I dont' want to pay twice the price for a smaller selection of paint either.

What the movie brought home to me is the comparison to the republican party taking over some midwestern states. I don't understand why people consistently vote against their self interest, just like I don't understand why local government encourages Walmart to come. Then again, one came to my neighborhood without any of us knowing about it. There were rumors that our mayor took a payoff. At least we have an "upscale" walmart with different coloring. It's the only one I've seen. (I don't live in an "upscale" neighborhood by the way.) Anyhow within a short period of time, they still had a light out on their sign and the carts look rusty. I've never been inside.

Interesting. I remember hearing on the news a year or two back about a Wal-Mart in Quebec and how the employees were attempting to unionize. The result? They just shut down the store altogether.

Wow.
McDonalds has done that too.

The Wal*Mart near my home has a pathetic produce section. It's always been scrubby - very little selection, poor quality. But I am surrounded by farms and there is a regular farmer's market every Saturday that people love. They seem to do well. The other stores (Kroger, Schnuck's, Cub) have much better produce, I mean the difference in quality is huge. I wonder about that. I'm not sure if people care about their produce at all, or if they do and they just shop for it elsewhere.
Wow, your Cub is better than ours. I would never buy produce at our Cub. It is cheaper than Byerlys, Kowalskis and Rainbow but it rots the next day. I think of Cub and Walmart as the same thing because the stores have the same feel inside.

One of life's big mysteries to me is that people actually put a "I heart my Cub" sticker on their car. Who wants to be wearing Cub's logo? But again, Cub is a trailer trash shit hole here so maybe it's nicer elsewhere and I'm being unfair. (My fault, but I always associate it with blue food because the people I see shopping there always have blue food for their kids in their shopping carts. And those people never have any fresh food in their carts.) I'm a huge snob about groceries I guess but you wouldn't know if from looking at me. :o

By the way, a lot of you talk about Whole Foods fairly often. WHOLE FOODS IS A CHAIN THAT KILLS LOCAL COOPS AND BREAKS UNIONS. I also heard all kinds of nasty rumors about their food being mislabeled and heard you should never eat their fish. This may be pure rumor and/or old news, but it was in my local paper a lot when they came to town. I've never been inside one to sample their fabulous produce because of the bad publicity and because I'm lucky to have several great local coops, but I realize that many people don't.

[monkey]

whole foods happens to be one of the few ways you can get organic or even "alternative" foods outside of nyc (for me). although my local supermarket (stop & shop) is carrying a lot more organic stuff and has a better "health foods" selection than most other stores, it's still not enough sometimes. but if i have a choice, i hit up the farmers markets and get local produce and whatnot.

and the other day, i got the most amazing veggie burger from wf. i was the happiest grass-eater in the world that day. :cool:

[supermars]

thank you for this thread. i've been trying to convert people out of the wal-mart mindset for quite some time now. i almost want to puke when my one friends blabs about how she 'just went to wal-mart to buy toiletries and they were so cheap! everything there is so cheap!'. but whenever i say, 'wal-mart sucks!', i'm matched with a weird look, as if i'm stupid for putting a store's philosophies ahead of my hard-earned cash.

i haven't been to wal-mart here in a while, but i don't think we have produce at the stores in canada. i could be wrong on that though.

apparently wal-mart was trying to build on a plot of land that was either mennonite territory or sacred indian burial ground around guelph (it's a city in ontario, canada, in case any one has the mojo to research that). i'm not sure what happened, but when i heard that on the news i wanted to throw up.

the whole point for me though, amongst all the other reasons to hate wal-mart, is that i support the canadian economy. i'd rather shop at a store that sources in canada, or is at least based here. there aren't many of them anymore, and it's sad. ugh, wal-mart (n)

[Deep_Sea_Rain]

Click. (http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a176/Bluemetroid/jesussaves.jpg)

[Justin]

i was a cashier at walmart during a summer while i was in college. It was ok. I remember telling people to go else where if they wanted a better deal haha.

[cosmo105]

whole foods/harry's and wild oats/henry's definitely are local biz killers. my old store is barely afloat since the henry's came into town. it's terrible. their prices are much lower than henry's, but since they're so much smaller they just can't compete. i try to only shop at local places - i get almost all my groceries at my store or trader joe's. occasionally - maybe once a month or every few weeks - we'll make a trip to whole foods for something we can't get otherwise. there really aren't any other places to get some of these things around here, so i don't feel too guilty going there. i hate, HATE the henry's in my hometown though. shitty service, and the selection is barely different from a regular grocery store. astronomical prices too.

/health food industry rant

[jabumbo]

I have had the absolutely best bananas from Whole Foods. Before then, I don't remember ever having a banana that was great enough to make me stop in mid-bite and ponder the thought. Usually, bananas are noteworthy only when they're too mushy or not ripe enough; I don't know that I've ever had a remarkably good banana from any place other than WF.


agreed (y)

[enree erzweglle]

whole foods/harry's and wild oats/henry's definitely are local biz killers. my old store is barely afloat since the henry's came into town. it's terrible. their prices are much lower than henry's, but since they're so much smaller they just can't compete. i try to only shop at local places - i get almost all my groceries at my store or trader joe's. occasionally - maybe once a month or every few weeks - we'll make a trip to whole foods for something we can't get otherwise. there really aren't any other places to get some of these things around here, so i don't feel too guilty going there. i hate, HATE the henry's in my hometown though. shitty service, and the selection is barely different from a regular grocery store. astronomical prices too.

/health food industry rantWe have a local co-op where you can buy organics and I belonged to it for a long, long time. But it started to cost too much to belong and the produce was awful. Then it became slightly trendy and then more than slightly when they started selling stuff that told me that they were going in the wrong direction. I stopped going there. I probably should have tried to instill change from the inside out, but I didn't. WF is probably the WM equivalent to stores like that.

There is a health food store, owned and operated by the mother of a local naturalist MD. I go there for a lot of my vitamins and stuff. They don't sell produce, though, and she has this tendency to sell 90s new-age stuff (candles, books, incense) but it's largely an okay place.

[Loppfessor]

I haven't seen the documentary yet but I stopped shopping at Wally World a while back because it gave me the creeps. They seem to want monopolize every single aspect of retail. I got an eerie picture in my head of a future where there was not alternative because all stores were Wal-Mart. I'll definitely check out that DVD though...

[Qdrop]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

best doc i've seen so far.

[enree erzweglle]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

best doc i've seen so far.I don't watch much TV and I don't think I've ever seen Frontline. Thanks for posting that!

I so want to stand in front of Wal*Marts and distribute copies of one of these DVDs. Everyone with netflix should rent it--like it should be every single person's obligation to use a rental and clunk down for 90 minutes and watch the damn thing.

[enree erzweglle]

thank you for this thread.Thanks for saying that. I think long and hard before I start threads here, so it's nice to know that some people are finding value in this one.

i almost want to puke when my one friends blabs about how she 'just went to wal-mart to buy toiletries and they were so cheap! everything there is so cheap!'. but whenever i say, 'wal-mart sucks!', i'm matched with a weird look, as if i'm stupid for putting a store's philosophies ahead of my hard-earned cash.
The "China" section of that documentary is the piece that your friend should watch. Those workers who are forced to give 14-hour days/7 days a week, who live in hot/steamy Wal*Mart subsidized dormatories (they have to pay monthly for these dorms whether/not they live in them), who are forced to lie about the number of hours and the number of days they work each week--those people are getting paid ~twelve cents an hour.

In the documentary, several of the Chinese workers were interviewed. These young, college-aged kids working so hard, often just to help their parents. These very polite and honorable people having to endure so much. The one said that if she runs across a Wal*Mart shopper who exclaims about the bargains that she got at Wal*Mart, she will say something like, "Gentle and kind Wal*Mart customer, do you know what we had to endure to make that toy so cheap for you?" That scene of the documentary, man...damn.

[Lex Diamonds]

I'm eating a microwaveable chicken jal-frezi which is from Asda... and Asda is owned by Wal-Mart.

It's pretty tasty. (y)

[enree erzweglle]

I'm eating a microwaveable chicken jal-frezi which is from Asda... and Asda is owned by Wal-Mart.

It's pretty tasty. (y)What is Asda?

[Lex Diamonds]

UK supermarket chain. Probably the closest we have to Wal-Mart, although they don't sell guns.

[enree erzweglle]

UK supermarket chain. Probably the closest we have to Wal-Mart, although they don't sell guns.It's probably just a matter of time. Guns? ...aisle 2, next to diapers/nappies.

[drizl]

there was an article yesterday in the times magazine (ill try to find the link in a sec) about walmart's new organic line, about bringing organic to mass market and how that's gonna ruin the farmers and what organic stands for. im all for bringing organic to people, but why does it have to be at the cost of the farmer?

i dont think the organic movement will be hurt by this...one serious issue is big business interference with organic standards. i think another is the monoculture aspect of it. beyond organic, we must think of sustainability and also of the quality and life force of the planet as an organism. but those are much deeper, more serious and much more difficult issues.

but of course the solution is simple....buy local organic, cut down on consumption and support good ideas.

few of us consider the total energy value put into our consumption. even if a product is organic, if it has been flown around the world and shipped across the country it is still wasting massive amounts of energies getting to the store and then to you. i read this really interesting article (but cant find it!) about equating petro-use into calories...showing the amount of calories (energy) it takes, from sowing the seed, to consumption to waste treatment...and its ridiculous per pound of food.

anyways, my point is that we need deeper consideration of what is the greater issue here- sustainability/health. organic food, sustainable agriculture and architecture, alternative fuel sources, cutting way way down on consumption....these are all part of that! PERMACULTURE!!

[enree erzweglle]

i dont think the organic movement will be hurt by this...one serious issue is big business interference with organic standards. i think another is the monoculture aspect of it. beyond organic, we must think of sustainability and also of the quality and life force of the planet as an organism. but those are much deeper, more serious and much more difficult issues.

but of course the solution is simple....buy local organic, cut down on consumption and support good ideas.

few of us consider the total energy value put into our consumption. even if a product is organic, if it has been flown around the world and shipped across the country it is still wasting massive amounts of energies getting to the store and then to you. i read this really interesting article (but cant find it!) about equating petro-use into calories...showing the amount of calories (energy) it takes, from sowing the seed, to consumption to waste treatment...and its ridiculous per pound of food.

anyways, my point is that we need deeper consideration of what is the greater issue here- sustainability/health. organic food, sustainable agriculture and architecture, alternative fuel sources, cutting way way down on consumption....these are all part of that! PERMACULTURE!!It does take a massive shift for a lot of people, but the extent of that makes some people go glassy-eyed and then they retreat further. Maybe baby steps. I remember on campus, they had this project (a few years ago) where for like a week, you had to carry all of the garbage you generated during that time. It was a tiny thing but it caused a bigger shift in perspective for a subset of those people and a lot of them went on to do bigger, more powerful stuff because of it...

[iceygirl]

there are stores in my town called great scot. i had a neighbor who joked that they were named that because when you would go in to purchase something there, the price would make you gasp, "Great Scot!" $$$$$$$!

[drizl]

It does take a massive shift for a lot of people, but the extent of that makes some people go glassy-eyed and then they retreat further. Maybe baby steps. I remember on campus, they had this project (a few years ago) where for like a week, you had to carry all of the garbage you generated during that time. It was a tiny thing but it caused a bigger shift in perspective for a subset of those people and a lot of them went on to do bigger, more powerful stuff because of it...


those are the kind of things we need to realize! how much we waste...how much enery it takes to make all of these things we have.....the costs in dollars, in energy, in human suffering, just so we can live as we do.
i dont mean to blame us, or americans, or westerners...but all of these things are just out there for us to buy and we often dont consider what went into them, and what comes out of them

[Nuzzolese]

Wow, your Cub is better than ours. I would never buy produce at our Cub. It is cheaper than Byerlys, Kowalskis and Rainbow but it rots the next day. I think of Cub and Walmart as the same thing because the stores have the same feel inside.

One of life's big mysteries to me is that people actually put a "I heart my Cub" sticker on their car. Who wants to be wearing Cub's logo? But again, Cub is a trailer trash shit hole here so maybe it's nicer elsewhere and I'm being unfair.



Oh no, Cub is trashy here too but they do have two kinds of parsely.
Just look at your krazy grocery store names! Come on, you made those up! I would love to be a writer for entertainment just to invent fake store names.

[Documad]

I don't watch much TV and I don't think I've ever seen Frontline. Thanks for posting that!
You've never seen that episode, or the show itself?

Frontline is an excellent show. I can't count the number of times I've seen an episode that moved or disturbed me so much that I remember parts of it even a decade later. Since 9/11 the subjects have been too terrorist-oriented, but my library system has prior episodes available for checkout. They had the best coverage of the fake kid-sex scandals like McMartin, and whenever they cover a criminal story (like the juvenile justice system or the public defenders' office in a major city or the LA Ramparts scandal or the meth epidemic) it's golden. I still think that every teenager should be forced to watch the one on Viacom and how advertisers market to teens, so I understand how you feel about the Walmart one.

I also love American Experience, but then I'm a huge fan of American history.

[Documad]

Oh no, Cub is trashy here too but they do have two kinds of parsely.
Just look at your krazy grocery store names! Come on, you made those up! I would love to be a writer for entertainment just to invent fake store names.
Most of our better groceries were named after their owners. :p I temped for Byerlys in their main office doing minor accounting work and ate at the same lunch table as the owner once. Oh yeah. They had free cans of pop. Last time I've had that perk at a job. :(

[Clockwork Ninja]

One thing that had me puzzled occurred during the first few minutes that documentary...

What was the deal with showing those racist bumper stickers adhered to the truck of the man who worked at the hardware store we were supposed to be feeling sorry for?

That one-second-long shot didn't really help the whole "Wal-Marts management is racist" argument much if you ask me.

[enree erzweglle]

You've never seen that episode, or the show itself?I've never seen the show itself. Sounds like I should give it a go, though. Thanks!

[enree erzweglle]

You've never seen that episode, or the show itself?

Frontline is an excellent show. I can't count the number of times I've seen an episode that moved or disturbed me so much that I remember parts of it even a decade later. Since 9/11 the subjects have been too terrorist-oriented, but my library system has prior episodes available for checkout. They had the best coverage of the fake kid-sex scandals like McMartin, and whenever they cover a criminal story (like the juvenile justice system or the public defenders' office in a major city or the LA Ramparts scandal or the meth epidemic) it's golden. I still think that every teenager should be forced to watch the one on Viacom and how advertisers market to teens, so I understand how you feel about the Walmart one.I had to follow up and say that I've watched two Frontlines now and my Netflix queue contains every one of their DVDs, including the one about how promoters work.

I enjoyed (if you can say that) watching the one about George Tenet and Dick Cheney. Excellent in terms of the facts and story, but also in terms of presentation. It was very matter of fact and straightforward, narrated well, no effects, no detectable attempts to do anything but present a factual, well-supported story. Perfect.

Thank you to you both (Documad and Qdrop) for recommending the show. I am indebted. So much so in fact that I thought about starting a thread to get people to list the positive effects other board members have had on them and to launch the thread with thanks to you both. But I fear starting threads so this will have to do. :o

[kate]

i work at costco. go anti-wal-mart!! i work for the anti-wal-mart, so when i shop there it cancels itself out, so i don't have to feel bad about it like all you suckers:cool: