wal-mart weasels

WAL-MART WEASELS

Mohave Rat, the lone Pollyanna here, a rebel amongst the doomed, has his very own web site now that you are invited to visit and gaze in awe.
http://mohaveratstwocentsworth.blogspot.com/
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As I’ve said before, I used to love Wal-Mart and now I loathe them, as a lover scorned. In the mid Nineties I started shopping there as they were opening their grocery stores and I never shopped anywhere else for ten years. Pretty much, Wal-Mart helped me to survive the most brutal years of child support poverty. I’ve lived with multiple roommates, I’ve rented out both bedrooms of my mobile home and slept on a stow away mattress in the living room ( a pile of blankets was the mattress ) and I’ve lived in cramped travel trailers to afford an actual roof over my head since support payments have at times reached over seventy percent of my gross income. And short of just eating grain and beans, the only cheap way to eat has been Wal-Mart. Now, there are those who go to high upper class retailers and sooth their conscience that they aren’t taking away American jobs by buying Chinese. Fine, if you can afford that more power to you. I’ve always blown a raspberry their way, since the All American system put me in poverty and if I have to pay an illiterate commie peasant to make my crap just to scrape by ( both of us ), it isn’t like I have a choice. But, really, thinking about it, over the years I haven’t bought much more than shoes and underwear, vitamin C and solar panels from China.

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The only thing I’m guilty of, unemploying American workers wise, is not buying American made solar, because everything else is virtually a Chinese global monopoly. Other than luxury brands, almost every shoe out there is Chinese. Two coastal provinces make almost all the worlds socks and underwear ( at least the socks in cotton-winter socks I’m not too sure about ). And China makes something like 97% of the worlds absorbic acid. In actual fact, I’m forced to buy Chinese crap since the Super Patriotic All American corporations outsourced to Asia long ago. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bank Of America, should it stay solvent and not steal my $500 that the FDIC will insure by issuing me Obammy Bonds that mature one year after I’m dead, couldn’t somehow figure out a way to employ Indian chaps to replace half the jobs it just cut. Most of my clothing is from thrift stores, as are some of my shoes. I’ve never bought new furniture, but trash picked it. I’ve rarely bought Chinese electronics ( Taiwan doesn’t count ) although I’m sure they are made up of their parts. In short, when I go shopping at Wal-Mart, I’m mostly supporting American farmers. Most of my shopping there is for food. And I don’t even buy as much from them as I used to. I’ve cut back on Wal-Mart shopping from 100% of my needs to about 25%. Sorry, but I can’t see spending 50% more on a lot of grocery items just because I’m boycotting one particularly larger asshat ( they are all scumbag anal whores, just some more than others ). Have you compared a bag of pinto beans at Wal-Mart and any other grocery store? The Wal-Mart generic coffee to anyone else’s? Insane mark-up.

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In the news this week, Wal-Mart profits are up, even as it is losing business for the ninth quarter in a row. Three years running, Wal-Mart is losing business. Yet their profits are up. They are obviously screwing their customers. When Wal-Mart used to screw their suppliers to bring its customers savings, I cheered. American companies, for the most part, are heartless bastards that screw their employees and their customers ( Maytag, GMC, etc. ). I was not sad to see their profit margins squeezed to benefit me. But now, I’m the one they are trying to squeeze. Even when I am very careful and shop around, I still sometimes get screwed by them with shoddy merchandise. Shoddy, to include the game of shrinking weights. Or dropping certain brands, or not including generic anymore. But it is all minimal, since I am shopping around for everything.

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How much loyalty do you owe a company? I would have understood a bit of price gouging for a short period of time as they adjusted to a fall in their growth that reflected the economic times. But its been going on so long it is the new normal. Which is why they’ve lost most of my business. It’s pretty damn sad when the local west coast chain catering to Yuppie’s has a regular discount item week after week that beats Wal-Mart. Frankly, they deserve to go out of business.

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Now, why go on and on about this? We all know about shopping around at twenty different stores to pay the absolute lowest grocery prices. We all know Wal-Mart is perfectly reflecting the economy ( slow to negative growth ). However, I’m quite proud of myself for just now thinking of this point ( you’d be surprised how often I only have an item of interest I’m talking about and only while writing does my subconscious come up with the point ). You no longer have to live near a Wal-Mart!!! This is actually quite exciting, believe me. I know most survivalist writers are well off Yuppie types ( until free web sites, writing was a hobby you paid for, so this makes sense ) that can’t see what all the fuss is about. But to us dirt poor types, Wal-Mart was a necessity for food shopping. You were almost forced to locate near one of their stores or you couldn’t afford to live with a small income and live more self sufficiently. Until recently, shopping for flour and beans and salt and other basics at Wal-Mart saved 25-50% on your groceries. Living on only a few hundred bucks a month, this was a huge deal.

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But now, as Wal-Mart raises their prices, even on the basics ( flour $2.08, Kroeger $1.99 ) in relation to other stores, it matters less and less if you ever step foot into their stores. You can now move farther away from society, further out into the boonies, and you will be penalized less than you were before on your grocery shopping. Thank you, Wal-Mart weasels, for cutting our dependence due to your incompetence and greed.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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