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04-03-2008, 20:50 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Military Professional
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Join Date: 02-23-05
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Walmart for the Nobel Peace Prize
Saint Wal-Mart? well, let's look at the record
Quote:
Saint Wal-Mart? well, let's look at the record
We might also think about the Nobel Peace Prize when we consider the retail giant's contributions to society
Fazil Mihlar
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Wal-Mart deserves the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. And the Vatican may want to beatify the world's largest retailer.
CONSIDER THAT WAL-MART:
- Provides employment to 1.9 million people; the best defence against poverty is a job.
- Creates thousands of job opportunities for people in developing countries like China and India; this keeps hunger at bay in many households.
- Doles out hundreds of millions of dollars each year in dividends that help fund the retirement of millions of people; the company had sales in excess of $348 billion and a net profit of $11.3 billion in 2007.
- Sells food, clothing and other necessities to Canadians, Americans and others at prices that are 15 to 25 per cent below what other supermarkets charge; this helps millions of low-income families stretch their dollars.
- Pushes the inflation rate down and helps keep interest rates low; this comes in handy for millions of families when borrowing to buy a house or household appliances.
- Disburses $415 million in cash and in-kind merchandise annually to 100,000 charitable organizations around the world.
- Pursues environmental sustainability; sells more organic produce than most retailers; works with the Clinton Foundation to lower prices on sustainable technologies such as energy-efficient lighting and building materials; has opened the first in a series of high-efficiency stores that will use 20 per cent less energy than a typical Wal-Mart. And its proposed Vancouver store is more environmentally friendly than any building in the Lower Mainland.
All of this was made possible by Wal-Mart's innovations.
The retail business is characterized by large inventories, big sales volumes and a thin profit margin. That means retailers must reduce the cost of holding inventory, so efficient warehousing and transportation becomes critical.
A recent publication from Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that the key to efficiency at Wal-Mart is its distribution.
The retailer integrated its data systems with those of its suppliers. This allows the company to watch what items are selling. This in turn allows the firm to keep inventory costs down, and vendors produce only what's moving fast. Estimates suggest that almost 70 per cent of Wal-Mart's merchandise is sold before the company has to pay the supplier.
Improving business productivity is the sure-fire way of increasing living standards. Ask any economist of repute.
While Wal-Mart's primary intent is not to do all the aforementioned social good, what it has done and is doing is raising the living standards of millions of families around the world.
So if we are concerned about consequences and not just intentions, doesn't Wal-Mart deserve the peace prize?
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways," Karl Marx said, "the point, however, is to change it," Wal-Mart has done more to change the world for the better than most anti-Wal-Mart do-gooders in North America ever have or could.
Recall that the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize went to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, started in Bangladesh and now established in many developing countries, for their innovative efforts to create economic and social development from the ground up by providing credit to those whom mainline banks would not lend to.
And let's not forget Jimmy Carter, the former president of the United States, who received the peace prize for his efforts to advance democracy and human rights and to promote economic and social development in the Third World.
On the basis of the evidence, it is impossible to argue that Yunus or Carter have done more than Wal-Mart to alleviate poverty.
The company that Sam Walton established in 1962 in Arkansas is not without its flaws. Critics allege that Wal-Mart doesn't pay a "living wage" or provide health care. As well, they claim that the company puts many independent small retailers out of business and destroys communities.
Wal-Mart pays an average wage of $10 in North America and 90 per cent of its American employees have health coverage. In the past few years, Wal-Mart has been named the best employer in Canada. So much so for exploiting workers.
There is not much evidence that Wal-Mart puts mom-and-pop operations out of business. In fact, studies demonstrate that if shopowners adapt to the ever-changing retail market, they can thrive after Wal-Mart comes to their town.
As to the charge that it destroys communities, how come towns like Cranbrook in British Columbia and Miramichi in New Brunswick have petitions with 3,000 and 11,000 people respectively urging the company to set up shop?
Even assuming that Wal-Mart is an imperfect entity (it has paid fines for violating labour laws), that's not reason enough to deprive it of the peace prize. After all, many Nobel laureates aren't exactly without flaws -- Henry Kissinger (1973), Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat (1978), or Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat (1994) come to mind.
Now, to the possibly more controversial issue of beatification/sainthood for Wal-Mart.
Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa, who died in 1997. In 2002, the Vatican recognized the healing of an Indian woman as the miracle needed to beatify Mother Teresa.
One can plausibly argue that Wal-Mart's innovations and the resulting "Everyday Low Prices" are nothing short of a miracle.
Last, but not least, Wal-Mart is able to provide low-priced goods because the company is positively parsimonious. Its executives fly cattle-class, share low-priced hotel rooms and empty their own trash. Every penny saved ends up in the pockets of customers, many of them on low incomes.
How much more saintly can a corporate entity get?
fmihlar@png.canwest.com
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__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3
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04-03-2008, 20:51 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Military Professional
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Join Date: 02-23-05
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The Austrian Economists: More Evidence for Wal-Mart's Nobel Prize
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More Evidence for Wal-Mart's Nobel Prize
Because you can never blog about Wal-Mart enough...
As you have probably seen on TV and elsewhere, in September 2006, Wal-Mart launched its $4 prescription program. Now, 18 months later, it reports that it has saved consumers over $1 billion (yes, billion) as a result of that program. That's $1 billion that poorer consumers have to spend elsewhere on the things they need (or that is reducing insurance costs and premiums), not to mention they can now buy prescriptions they might not have been able to afford before or not have to cut pills in half to save money. Moreover, that program prompted Wal-Mart's competition to create similar programs, the benefits of which can be placed on top of that $1 billion. For some strange reason, the major media didn't cover this story when Wal-Mart's press release went out last Friday.
Is Wal-Mart my favorite place to shop? Nope. But then for me, price isn't the key variable. For many Americans it is. And it continues to astound me how so many on the left, who claim to be so concerned about the plight of lower-income families (the "working poor" included) nonetheless have no hesitation in turning Wal-Mart into the Great Satan of the 21st century economy. (UPDATE: Oh, say, like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.) It's all about intentions vs. consequences: you don't have to "like" Wal-Mart to realize the ways in which it has both dramatically increased the productivity of the US economy (and contributed to higher wages in the process) and reduced the cost of food and other basics for the people who need it most. Then you can tack on the over 1 million jobs it's created and the legions of folks in the Third World it has enabled to escape poverty.
If Wal-Mart were a government program that created that many jobs, lifted that many out of poverty through higher wages, and gave poor folks back a billion dollars to spend while providing them needed prescriptions, you better believe the left would call it the greatest anti-poverty and healthcare program ever. But when the suppliers profit from it, the consequences take a back seat to the intentions.
And folks on the left have the chutzpah to say conservatives and libertarians are uncaring and blinded by their ideology?
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04-03-2008, 21:09 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Regular
Join Date: 03-26-08
Location: where the aliens meet predator
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shek
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wow!! lol. 
If only employment was the criteria. No one can beat the armed forces.
The nobel peace prize goes to the chinese red army!! The largest employee in the world  
If that is a problem, may be one can award our laloo, the Indian railways 
largest employer in world - Google Search
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It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the Chinese army, the British National Health Service, and the Indian Railways.
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The walmart deserves after these.
Last edited by ravi12 : 04-03-2008 at 21:15 PM.
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04-03-2008, 21:16 PM
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#4 (permalink)
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Burgomaster
Join Date: 08-02-03
Location: Minneapolis
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Global Insights claims that Wal-Mart saves US consumers $287 billion annually, or $957 per person, $2500 per household.
Come to think of it, I ought to do my grocery shopping at Sam's Club. I could probably save a few hundred bucks per year.
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