Here’s what you call mixed good news, about which I intend to follow the Python’s advice:
WalMart executives are freaking out over lousy sales, according to this article in Business Insider. After a disastrous January, one WalMart exec wrote in an email that February sales so far are a “total disaster,” according to a Bloomberg news story.
(via Daily Kos)
Now there could be several reasons for this, but I prefer to savor the delicious irony that the Walmartization of the American workforce is about to destroy a company that, if it did not start the trend, has certainly done more to impoverish the nation than almost any other. It’s that impoverishment that’s the most likely reason for the sales decline, though, as the linked article points out, there is even possibly a brighter side: perhaps the number of Wal-mart boycotters (I can proudly say I have never set foot in a Wal-mart) has grown, as Costco is not seeing similar declines.
When you make your money selling crap in volume to people on the margin, you really need to maximize the number of people who are at least at the margin. Even Henry Ford, bigot that he was, recognized that it was in his own interest to pay his employees a living wage. But again, the Waltons have already made their pile, and whoever’s presently running Walmart has probably made his or hers. It doesn’t matter to them if the company tanks, just like it doesn’t really matter to the bankers and hedge fund managers if the institutions for which they work go belly up as a result of their actions. They’ll walk away with more than anyone would ever need. There is literally no incentive for the people running these corporations to think about the long term.
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