Wal-Mart Hikes Toy Prices Just as Congress Gives the Waltons Huge Tax Breaks
If there was ever any illusion that the super-rich would start acting nicer after Congress gave them both income and estate tax breaks, I present Wal-Mart’s thanks for Congress’ willingness to make the Walton family even richer: (h/t Consumerist)
Wal-Mart managers in the U.S. received instructions to mark up an average of 1,800 types of toys per store, according to a company e-mail dated Nov. 30 obtained by Bloomberg News. The e- mail didn’t disclose specific increases.
[snip]
“In previous years Wal-Mart has come out and hammered everyone with unbelievably low toy prices,” said Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire. “They stepped away from that this year, and after Thanksgiving their prices have crept back up.”
In a year when kids keep begging Santa for bare necessities for Christmas, the Walton family has been made even richer by Obama and Congress. And the thanks Congress and the American people get is higher prices for toys.
You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
Um-hum, “You really are a heel.”
Haven’t those people ever heard this song?
They need the extra money to hire the unemployed, you see. Without the tax cuts, no new jobs!
There are no boundaries to greed, it is limitless.
“‘Need’ can be satisfied. ‘Want’ expands to fill the Universe.”
Walmart hikes toy prices at Christmas, even as Obama asks them to be nice after he had already agreed to continue Dubya’s Tax Arrangement in exchange for nothing.
Just as Herbert Hoover did, Obama convened a group of savvy business leaders – asking them to help spur the economy by retaining their employees – in exchange for nothing. Obama pretends to believe – with Hoover’s failed model as a glaring example – that if he asks them nicely -savvy business leaders – sitting on billions in profits – will do right by the people.
Obama is not a fool. He pretends to be a fool because he doesn’t want to get a horse’s head in his bed.
That does not do the citizens any good. Obama must be impeached.
Tangential– Is Wal-Mart– and other participating businesses– getting money from the Fed to put TSA’s signs up on their real estate?
Assholes.
Of course the REAL conspiracy here is that the same email likely circulated Target, K-Mart, Costco, etc. etc. etc. etc
Oh, and fuck the Waltons.
‘night John Boy.
Gee, one of my best leftie relatives will spend $3+/gallon & drive out of her way to get bargains at Costco. She is completely unaware of the influence of her own actions on the general situation, including her weird personal budget decisions.
I gotta admit that one completely over my head. If I said something wrong, sorry.
As an aside though about driving out of one’s way. I live in Loudoun County, Va, near a town called Leesburg. In Leesburg I guess they decided to help the environment. The Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco are all within walking distance of each other.
Wallmart is risking loosing market share to other stores why I fail to see any logic here.
Not if my comment @ 7 is correct.
If you read the whole article, it’s pretty clear they ARE losing market share to ToysRUs and Target, as much because they don’t have the most-wanted toys as because of their mark-ups.
They have had a bad 6 quarters of same store sales I assume they can buy the must have toys why they don’t buy them, why they are marking toys up before Christmas still makes no sense to me.
I’m betting they are expecting heavy traffic right before the holidays and are hoping to wring more profit and boost December numbers. As Christmas approaches the end of the season shoppers aren’t going to get bargains, they’re gonna get penalized for waiting until the last moment(even if some may be putting it off because they can’t afford to think about toys.)
It’s called “margin.”
If you’re going to sell a bit less toys, why sell them cheaper?
Math example:
If Wal-Mart toy sales are $1B (just an example number) raising prices to pre-rollback of about 3% (again, fake number) is = $30Million
Don’t be fooled – Wal-Mart doesn’t care about percents in the abstract, they care about actual $$$.
In a lot of small towns, Wal Mart has become the only game around. Not much competition there.
I hear that, there’s some southern IL towns where everything else closed up. In Chicago, there’s NIMBy’s marching against Walmart on the elite north side, while they let the first Walmart(s) in on the more minority population south side, after many years of refusing to let them in anywhere. Daley sold out the parking meters, and now the Walmart. Appropriate that Rahm is now primed to take over.
Town R govt here was replaced by Ds a decade or more ago over WalMart. They didn’t come in, but Lowe’s managed to get a megastore on the town border.
A couple years ago I was doing some research in a small town in my state that had fallen on such hard times that they took to burning PCBs in the 1980s from states with stricter environmental laws as a way to make a buck (they have high rates of cancer there now). The old downtown business district is almost a ghost town. The town had just approved the construction of a Wal Mart, and a member of the local government told me how the town would benefit both from the Wal Mart and be able to revitalize their decrepit old business district at the same time. She wasn’t crazy, just desperate.
Because if there’s anything that’ll draw shoppers, it’s the tasty smell of burning PCBs.
Like moths to a bug light.
Actually, the town has a small but working oil refinery. It provides all the Wal Mart-appropriate smell one could want.
Good point but in places where they have competition this will hurt.
The toys seem pretty competitively priced in my market. We have a Walmart, Target and Kmart. I actually split my shopping up among the three as well as hit an independant local shop(way higher priced but had niche items such as the playmobil advent my kids look forward to annually).
They’ve driven out the competition in a lot of them, and only partly by undercutting the prices.
My view of W*lM*rt is that you get what you’re paying for, which is crappy merchandise. Pay a little more somewhere else, and get better quality without the need to replace the crappy stuff as often. (I’ve heard of at least one manufacturer that stopped selling to W*lM*rt because they couldn’t maintain their quality and meet the price they were being asked to sell at.)
And they put the kibosh on unions, which also negatively affects quality.
this is the key.
Not to worry. According to USA Today the kidz are asking Santa for such lavish gifts as coats. Shoes and socks. Mittens this year. Oh, yeah, and the little boy who asked Santa to find his momma in heaven and give her a hug.
Guess the Walton family is not-visitin’ schoolkids along with Mr. Boehner these days.
Scum.
There was one of those articles–about what kids were asking for this year–which repeated a girl asking for money because her mom needed it for food.
Couldn’t find it–but it’s the one I meant to contrast the Waltons’ greedy bastards with.
Excuse me, but there are Waltons who are not related to Sam.
http://my.firedoglake.com/thingscomeundone/
Wallmart I bet is not the only company using its tax cut money to create jobs…Overseas.
interesting that the sam’s club pop up is right under this front page post
For you.
Not for me.
Targeted web ads reach different readers differently. But there’s not much reason to be surprised that some ads would trickle into a post about Wal-Mart, especially if someone lived near one. Or something.
Could it be that the ads track the sites by words used?
Web advertising is a great mystery to me, but I know we all see something different. Depends on a lot of different things, but I would imagine the web-placement software would be sticky at a post with the name of the advertiser in the title.
Happened during the auto bailout too, I think.
People always seem to see either some great conspiracy or some great irony in it, but it’s usually just dumb ‘bots making decisions based on cookies in all of our computers. I speculate.
Yep – I got “overstock.com”
Belch has been searching on-line, I must assume, as there’s an overstock.com cookie too.
The Joy of Web!
Good to know Belch is looking out for the O !
He always has!
Heh I got a Target target ad.
God bless the free market and all the greedy capitalist assholes along with their corrupt friends in congress. Explain to me again whyI should continue to live in this country? explain to me again whyI should continue to pay my mortgage and my credit card bills… Or any bill for that matter. The end result is the same either way.
Two words: Costa Rica
I was thinking Copenhagen. :-) although I’m sure no country wants Americans moving to their country at this point.
I think it is really difficult to get into a European country. Costa Rica is still taking Americans but that may change soon.
Don’t pay your credit card bills. Nothing will happen to you.
As for reasons to live in the US? A lot of the people are nice . . . and the quality of domestic beers has greatly improved over the last 20 years . . . shit . . . that’s all I got. :)
Oh, and I recommend Paraguay: easy to get in, cheap, and very few cops.
Paraguay? Why? I don’t think anybody wants to be neighbors with the Bush’s. Of course, you will get to buy your water from them in the future if you live there.
It’s a nice place. The people are decent and they smile at you. And parts of it are damn near lawless. Not because of any criminal element (card game murders notwithstanding), it’s just that . . . out where there is no electricity or running water (quite a bit of the country), you just don’t need that many cops. It’s a good feeling.
Agree on three beer front. Wait…. Dos Equis is American right? St Paulie? shoot everythingI drink is foreign.
a lot of people are nice but a lot of people aren’t. If I had one word to describe the American public in general it would be sheeple.
Shiner has been putting out some great brews lately. Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo is a favorite.
Sheeple? I’d say scared shitless, from which, unfortunately, it can be a quick ride to sheeplehood. On the bright side, sheeplehood is not an inherent condition. :)
Wouldn’t it be great if they priced themselves out of the market?
I hope they raise their prices and keep raising them, and raise them some more. I hope they raise the prices to where NOBODY can shop there anymore.
My one-liner for WalMart is that people who work there can’t afford to shop there.
Good one, and TRUE! Or, I should say Twooph!
I just want to live in a country that actually cares for the less fortunate and unlucky people. It has been crystal clear for some time now that this country does not.
Good. Fuckin make a toy for your kid. Buy him a harmonica. Fuck this shit.
My ex-next door neighbors had two small kids, and there were enough toys in that damn house to supply a small nation, including shit like a fucking miniature John Deere freaking tractor for the little kid to drive in the driveway.
I realize I’m ranting about the disease of mindless consumerism, as opposed to the topic which is corporate greed (its arguable parent). Anyway I’m not sorry to see either of them devour each other. Fuck this meaningless, bizarre way of living and its absurdist excess imperative. I have hated it since I was in fucking kindergarten. Way before I really understood all the ways it hurts people.
oh well, just a little xmas ranting .. goodnight Maryellen
No plastic toys. Sort of like no wire hangers.
My one-year-old has a lot of toys. Most of them are plastic. They are also stimulative for his intellectual development, which is the important thing. Just try buying non-plastic toys, these days.
Many, if not most, of his toys are used, purchased from thrift stores. That’s about the best a parent can do these days, unless they are a toymaker.
And instead of lumps of coal, the idiotic democrats give them a huge Estate tax cut.
Just a reminder that no one has rescinded the boycott of Target, which gave money to an anti-gay political action committee that supported the candidacy of the anti-gay GOP candidate for governor in their home state, Minnesota. The guy, Emmer, lost, but the principle still holds.
Please find a way to spend your Xmas money, if you spend it at big box stores, elsewhere than at Target. Thanks.
Maybe we should all remind Target again that we are not shopping with them by writing to them. Don’t want to get mixed up with the bad economy non-shoppers.
Thanks for informing me of that Teddy. I wasn’t aware, but consider it done. I don’t shop at Target, but my mother does and I drive her there since she’s never driven in her life. Next time she asks, I’ll suggest another option.
On a related note, it’s that time of year again for the Salvation Army to be standing outside my local Giant supermarket. Wonder if others feel as guilty as I do when I pass it by every time. I feel guilty because I know they do some real good, but their stances on teh gay were very disappointing and thus I boycott them. Don’t know if that’s a popular or oranized boycott or not, just remember them being assholes about the issue too.
The way around this is to give to an organization that helps without prejudice. And then when you walk past the Salvation Army person tell them why you are not giving to them (in a nice way, of course).
Aside: OFG, where are you that you’ve got a local Giant supermarket?
I’m in western Loudoun, Virginia, actually west of Leesburg in a small town called Round Hill.
There are Giant supermarkets all over the place here. I’ve shopped at the ones in Ashburn and Leesburg, but mostly my local one in Purcellville, which is about 4 miles from my front door.
Thanks. Didn’t know that. I avoid buying from the Salvation Army for the same reason: their anti-gay agenda. My wife and I still buy toys for kids at Christmas for them to distribute. I know, it’s a fine line. But no sense in kids suffering for the behaviors of cruel adults.
this is only slightly OT, since Wal-Mart is owned by the Walton family and the Waltons were the poster-child for enormous estates that would dodge billions of dollars in estate taxes under the Obama-Republican taxcut deal.
The House Rules committee earlier tonight (Wednesday Dec. 15) adopted the rule on the WH taxcut bonuses deal. The House will debate and vote on a major amendment that will claw back some of the gross billions given away in the estate-tax payoff.
FDLers can hail this as a major success.
According to the summary on the Rules Committee’s website, the Pomeroy amendment would save $23 billion:
Nobody in the Walton family is involved in Walmart management.
Yes, they may raise the prices on the toys, but they do say “Merry Christmas” so I am sure the rubes at Fox News Channel are happy with them.
Shouldn’t we be directing families away from mindless consumerism this season? You know, consume less and save the planet for the children instead of teaching them to consume more. Let Walmart’s toy prices go sky high for all I care. Give the kids a camera or art’s and crafts lessons or classes instead. Teach them the gift of giving at the local food bank or homeless shelter or through Heffer Projects. We need to stop being dependent on corporations and get our minds and our children’s minds out of that ridiculous trap.
Sorry, completely OT, but wasn’t ‘The Gray Lady’ missing a kidney? was she held in Kosovo?
‘Kosovo ‘prime minister is the head of a “mafia-like” Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.’’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/14/kosovo-prime-minister-llike-mafia-boss
More OT via the AP:
I have always said this, the cost of an item has nothing to do with the price it sells
items prices are based on what people will pay, not on what they cost
walmart has a captive audience now, they can begin to raise their prices, just as home depot, first put all local stores out of business then raised prices while lowering quality
prices are based on what people will pay not on what an item costs
I love having conversations with people who bemoan ball players salary with;
“ticket prices are so highhhhh, we have to put a caaaappp on what the owners want to payyyyyyyyy”
I point out, if an owner can charge 100 bucks and maintain good and positive cash return over all, he doesn’t charge 10 bucks, when he can only get 10 bucks he doesn’t charge 100
thus, walmart recognizes they will still get relatively the same amount of buyers, what they lose will be far offset by the amount they make, therefore, prices go up
I found this the other day…
Assange: “For the rise of social media, it’s quite interesting. When we first started, we thought we would have the analytical work done by bloggers and people who wrote Wikipedia articles and so on. And we thought that was a natural, given that we had lots of quality, important content. Surely it’s more interesting to write an article about top-secret Chinese [inaudible] or an internal document from Somalia or secret documents revealing what happened in [inaudible], all of which we published, than it is to simply write a blog about what’s on the front page of the New York Times, or about your cat or something. But actually it turns out that that is not at all true. The bulk of the heavy lifting — heavy analytical lifting — that is done with our materials is done by us, and is done by professional journalists we work with and by professional human-rights activists. It is not done by the broader community. However, once the initial lifting is done, once a story becomes a story, becomes a news article, then we start to see community involvement, which digs deeper and provides more perspective.”
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040,00.html
My first response was, well, he might not be aware of the emptywheels of the blogging world. But this nonsensical “Walton’s Revenge” post reminds me that one of the many perils of blogging is the need to provide an outrage a day – blog readership and the patience to wait for in-depth work are not exactly fellow travellers, day one responses are all the rage.
Blogging might “tag”, but it does not by default rework, refine, or, ultimately, publish – not even on the level wikipedia does, not even here, where the commendable timeline collection marks the beginning and the end. Who blogs with a copy editor or an ombudsman? Or reworks a draft post after a week of comments?
Pace Hullalaboo, I also finally realized that most political blogging just adds another voice to the choir of thousands of mini-Beales asking us 24/7 to open our windows and shout out that “we have enough”. Network, indeed.
Which makes blog commenting even more nonsensical. Oy vey. I suppose I better stop here.
Best wishes for 2011!