How much blame to they deserve for American economic decline?

You should demand a refund.

Dumb, poor, uneducated losers who shop and work in walmart voted for donald trump? Who'da thunk it.

too bad we can't all shop at trader Joe's like you. then we would have voted hillary.

if they only opened one in my town. oh well.

>lower classes
>America as a whole

I don't think you are comprehending the fact that America and the world's lower classes aren't the same thing.

More a symptom than a cause. Their business model has beaten competition by
>low prices
>open 24 hours and carries everything
>shit wages and benefits
>undercutting local businesses, operating at losses, then raising prices
>corporate welfare
List not exhaustive of course.

So without getting too political, it's a corporation that figured out a great way to game the system; their model is/was to build local monopolies. Employee and business regulations haven't stopped their dirty (in spirit, not legality) practices.

Interestingly the company is on the downturn. Since everywhere has a Wal-Mart already, there's nowhere left to expand and undercut, which was how it grew so rapidly. Additionally, competitors like Amazon Prime and Costco are proving very stiff.

It's proof of capitalism's success and failure

>open 24 hours
This loses them money in a lot of areas. A huge part of the country STOPS at 10pm, and that means nobody is fucking buying anything.

"We wuz consumers and shiet!"

>cheap products designed to break after a year, just beyond the warranty period.
That's the manufacturers cutting costs

Not really sure what you consider a monopoly. Usually you can find everything a Walmart carries elsewhere. At higher prices sure, but still available.

Also plenty of important areas they don't touch. Try building a full computer from Walmart. Getting an oil change. Single trading cards. Purchasing anime, etc.

>implying

they keep it open because 1 cashier costs 7 dollars an hour and the rest are people who would be working overnight anyways stocking

i think they do oil changes tho

None?

>Try building a full computer from Walmart. Getting an oil change. Single trading cards. Purchasing anime, etc.

That's the most stereotypical Veeky Forums neck beard autistic list I've ever seen.

>40" plasma hd TVs

lmao loser what is this 2010

try 60" 4k Ultra HD 2160p 60HZ LED Smart HDTV (4K x 2K) for $450

>Single trading cards. Purchasing anime, etc.
yeah you just had to append that onto there didn't you
that's the real important stuff

Good article on this topic.
cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history/article/a-new-world-of-retail-supremacy-supply-chains-and-workers-chains-in-the-age-of-wal-mart/F93F3175838294981DB45EA97AA07C5F

None

>picking the person who runs the country based on your preferred grocery store chain

>Try building a full computer from Walmart. Getting an oil change. Single trading cards. Purchasing anime, etc.

They do oil changes and sell oil there.

Building PCs has always been for enthusiast non-normies and always will be. The plebs will always flock to their netbooks and pre-builts.

>anime
People are still buying anime from Japan and having it shipped here, what makes you think Walmart will do what other businesses aren't doing?

>trading cards
Literally kys-tier. The entirety of comic book/trading card/TG niche is taken care of by local comic book shops when online stores and shipping won't solve the question of demand. Wal-mart would have to expand every entertainment department across the country for the little meager scraps the local stores are fighting over.

Go to Aldis nigger, its the same thing.

>Wal-mart would have to expand every entertainment department across the country for the little meager scraps the local stores are fighting over.
Its probably going to happen. It happened to vinyl records.

Despite vinyl sales surging, record shops are failing.

Blame? I'd wager a fair bit.

How many towns are there out there with no facilities but a Wal Mart? Its an enormous decline in terms of culture if nothing else.

>Citizens of bumfuckville, Kentucky would be attending operas if they only had the facilities for it

They might be using a high street full of independent traders each with their own craft and quality.
Culture doesn't just mean entertainment, you know.

I really don't get what your butthurt is about. The decline of urban centres is NOTHING to celebrate.

Vinyl and especially audio hi-fi equipment have all fallen in price and become more available and more in demand.

Card games and comic books are probably in somewhat higher demand than before but the market is limited by monopolistic production schemes by the nature of card/board games and to a lesser degree, comic books. It's not like the price of comic books or card games will ever allow it to become more available compared to external USB DACs being only 6 years old and premium headsets costing much less than they used to and generating interest/demand in audiophile products such as vinyl.

Or there might be a town with a pricing scheme that has shit selection, ok quality, and even shittier prices because, who else is going to compete against them? Go to a town with a single gun store (guns are one of the commodities that are forced primarily into small local stores) and then go to a town/city with more than 1 and you will see a difference in price and selection.

Answer me honestly, are you paid by Wal Mart?

I worked there for 3 weeks in produce in a neighborhood wal-mart after I got out of the army. Now I'm a contractor with the Air Force.

>tfw when I still don't have a flat screen tv and still use the ones with the turn dials to switch channels.

People that shop at Joe's are more likely Sanders, Stein or no vote, voters.

Hillary supporters go to Target.

...

The economy hasn't declined in America. The economy is greater than ever, even per capita. It is just that the inequality and rat race have increased. While social mobility have fallen. I think you can blame it on a lot of things, Bretton Woods being abandoned, globalism, killing the unions, bowling alone, but Walmart is not a cause, it is a result.

>community college
So this is the type of people who go on Veeky Forums. Explains everything.

>wasting money on a femlit brainwashing course at a four-year university instead of just transferring the credit from a community college
pell grant babby spotted

>American economic decline

You know that doesn't exist, right?

All you lads making fun of walmart wages clearly know nothing about american retail, their starting wage and yearly raises are seen as a beacon of progress compared to the truly shit wage of a place like Kroger.

>those examples

You realise autistic neckbeards are a small demographic right?

Can we discuss the balance between capitalism and the preservation of culture. How could one make a reasonable argument against the spread of things like Walmart, which ultimately (along with McDonalds or any franchise) displace local culture, while trying to preserve the idea low cost services they provide?

Although, seeing as America is a very wealthy nation, we could afford to pay a little higher prices to preserve local culture and avoid the destruction of particularity.

[spoiler]Is the solution Christianity?[/spoiler]

>I really don't get what your butthurt is about. The decline of urban centres is NOTHING to celebrate.
What is the solution?

Islam.

>Muh Culture

You can still buy whiskey and fuck your sister

>Islam
>whiskey

Retard

No, I'm saying that as of right now you can do that, even with walmart
If you convert to the true faith tm then you can't

Capitalism has seeped into culture to the extent that it has replaced a lot of what would be normal human values. To be wealthy isn't just preferable, but morally good, while to be poor is to be immoral.

For the chunk of the population who by design cannot be wealthy this creates an impetus to be perceived as at the least not poor. Buy shit you don't need, that looks fancier than it functions, and because it costs more as a status symbol. Plunge yourself and your family into perpetual debt to maintain a lifestyle that's a step above what your job pays, because otherwise you're not a good American anymore.

If you get this out somehow, return "Goodness" as a desirable trait over "Seems to be well off" then you might see more people willing to resist the temptation to buy everything at Wal-Mart.

He's not talking about the big green numbers on a stock market screen, but the death of the small economies in towns and cities across the country. Rural areas that are at a dead stop.

Why would I convert to a religion of a fraudulent pedophile? I've already got Christ, there is no better religion before or after, his followers have proven to be the best of the best. I was born a Christian and I'll die a Christian.

Islam is a superficial solution to a problem that has permeated our society. Islam hasn't made the middle east any better.

>God has a son, whose magically human and divine at the same time.

No one is more fraudulent than that crook Saul, the prophet told the truth. If you want to stay a Nazarene, have fun.

there's a reason for their low prices, little do people know, but walmart has the largest logistics operation in america, their system of storage to sales floor is quite sophisticated and very efficient.
I think their biggest competitor is amazon.

>To be wealthy isn't just preferable, but morally good, while to be poor is to be immoral.
I disagree with your premise, but I agree with your assessment of the situation. Depending on who is judging, wealth is viewed as moral or immoral. From the way Bernie Sanders and his followers sounded it seemed as though wealth was immoral, whereas a trickle down neocon would view wealthy creating jobs as moral people.

I do agree that wealth is a desirable thing for most people, but it can't come at the expense of culture. Do you think a resurgence of Christianity would help instill this desire for "Goodness" over the desire to enjoy material wealth.

Typical cultist of Mahmoud, you are incapable of understanding that Christ is Logos incarnate, you would believe anything that your pedophile father would tell you. You can't understand the transcending nature of God, and you should go blow up a school or concert or something.

>To be wealthy isn't just preferable, but morally good, while to be poor is to be immoral.
says who? wealth in itself isn't good, It was brought you your wealth and what you do with it that people judge you in. You think people would respect someone who just mouched his entire life from others?

Capitalism doesn't change someone's morality, it just a system that affirms self-ownership and mutual trade. Morality doesn't stem from an economic system, if it does, then communism would have been deemed a very violent and self destructive moral system. But it isn't. its just a way to structure your economic system.

> Buy shit you don't need, that looks fancier than it functions
look at all of the useless state projects by communists countries that often brought huge misallocation of resources which ultimately meant suffering for the masses. isn't that done under the precept of "fancier than it functions"

>Plunge yourself and your family into perpetual debt to maintain a lifestyle that's a step above what your job pays
You have a very obtuse view of hte world. no one is telling you to spend all of your savings, heck society looks down upon idiots who bury themselves in debt, there are countless seminars about debt reduction and about reaching the point of zero debt (which implies that there's a huge push for the reduction of debt in society). No one in their right minds uses what you materially have as a metric for how much of an american you are. Heck isn't this the rally cry of republicans? that they are the true patriots, not because they ascribe to free market principles or materialistic desires, but because they ascribe to the higher notions of what it means to be an american, to live free as your own person, to be independent, to be proud, strong, conscious about government tyranny, family oriented, etc.

Most of what that phrase is referring to is the presently occupying generation. Boomers and the intermittent peoples up till roughly the 80s.

The present counter-culture, the one Sanders is speaking strongest to, is born from the rejection of those principles entirely. Raised in a culture where it is implicit, though never explicit, that "Wealth" is a moral good, and seeing the harm created by it, has created a generation which is the antithesis. They lived in a culture that has demanded, demanded, demanded, and promised, promised, promised, but never fulfilled that promise. They rightly blame the Boomers for it, and rightly or wrongly demonize everything the Boomers held dear.

>Most of what that phrase is referring to is the presently occupying generation. Boomers and the intermittent peoples up till roughly the 80s.

But no one equated wealth as part of the metric for how moral you are and this is especially true when talking about the baby boomers.

>They lived in a culture that has demanded, demanded, demanded, and promised, promised, promised
And yet you don't see them going against the same mindset of demand and promise. They demand everything to be given to them via the state, they demand jobs, they demand financial forigiveness of debt, they demand healthcare, rather than demanding an environment in which they can make their own jobs, rather than demanding to reduce the pitfalls (non collaterable government student loans ) that pits people into a spiral of debt. and rather than aspiring to live a better and more wholesome life through their own efforts.

and what do they do to "counter-balance" this act? they give us ludicrous promises. Bernie supporters aren't rebels, they are just followers of what came before.

>Sanders is speaking strongest to
I'd say you're wrong about that one.

I don't think wealth is seen as a moral good, but rather that boomers just want more than they can afford and their greed has had negative impact on society. The Bernie Bros don't have a viable solution.

I think this guy said what I'm trying to say

I think you're wrong. The essence of a modern understanding of The American Dream is founded on material wealth. The ownership of a home especially. There's very rarely critical thought given to the ways and means by which the wealth was accrued. It's definitely true that a lot of the perceived good of wealth is through philanthropy, but we don't really hold people accountable to where and how and why they are doing so.

None of this is explicitly stated, but it's understood that to be wealthy is good. To be poor is bad. Not just in terms of quality of life, but to be poor is to have been a failure, to be lazy, to not understand the American system, while to be wealthy is to have worked hard to get where you are. No matter the actual circumstances that brought you there. Trump basically ran his campaign on that principle; "Look at how rich I am, so I must know what I'm doing", even though there's so much evidence to the contrary.

I've never seen Bernie supporters say give us everything for free. But they want to be free of the shackles of the systemic issues that are hampering their progress

Debt that really makes no sense to begin with. Debt to the government for the privilege of learning the skills and trades that the selfsame government will require in the future to be prosperous. Someone, somewhere, mistook the existence of education as a financial investment rather than something your citizens return to you in the form of a robust, educated workforce. You can't both have that workforce be educated, out there making jobs and innovating but at the same time paying back tens of thousands of dollars in their early years. Pick one or the other; moneyed debt, or social debt.

>they demand healthcare
And when they demand healthcare nobody in their right mind thinks it will be free, but that it will be affordable, functional, and fair. Universal healthcare isn't free. You pay for it with taxes.

About the presence of that counter culture or that Sanders is speaking to it? I kind of wish you hadn't posted at all if this was all you wanted to say because I'm not sure how to address it.

Most of what Sanders goes on about is a fundamental return to fairness. You can't believe in what he says at all if you hold the contradictory belief that the system is still fair; And that belief has its foundation in the principle that to be wealthy you have to work hard, and to be poor you have to have failed to work hard.

Our former and present healthcare systems were fundamentally fucked. The outcomes they produced were lesser while the costs were greater. Medical emergencies, something that is almost inevitable in the average human life, creates bankruptcy. It's an unsustainable nightmare. Talk all you want about "Demand" in that sense, but you can't pretend they're wrong to want something else, especially when they can look to so many other countries in the world that have it better.

>The American Dream
The american dream does not equate to the american moral character.
Yes, its the american dream to have a two tiered house with a white picket fence and a loving wife/husband. but that says more to what americans want in life, and its quite simple, they don't want anything extravegant, just a piece of land, and a loving family.

America's ideal for one's moral character is seen in its documents, They wanted people of goodwill, people who are moral, yet unrestless in their defence of liberty, they want people who are independent and yet cooperative. people who has the gall to look and forge forward absconding the pitfalls of mediocrity for the heights of achievement.

>"muh peedofile" meme
>mixing up Wahhabism and Islam
Tell me again how you are authoritative on the subject of Islam

>How dare they provide cheap goods to working class people

What if I told you that there are less and less working class people every day and it's partly because of wal-mart.

Not really. They have to stock shelves and clean at night anyway so to keep a single cashier going through the night is pretty negligible

Yes and part of the reason they have to cut costs is Walmart trying to bully them so they can get the product cheaper

>wallmart
>top quality anything
They meet the bare minimum scraping by the fda.

My hometown's downtown was completely devastated by walmart

it's pretty obvious he was not being serious and you are just a massive autist
wew lad indeed

woah it's almost like the democrats chose to elect Hillary instead of caring about the working class which pretty much lost them the election. But go ahead and be a snob I am sure that will work out real well.

>How many towns are there out there with no facilities but a Wal Mart?
literally nowhere