Posts by nimblecobra8

Like Polimac mentioned, he could’ve been our version of Jean Gabin or maybe even Humphrey Bogart. He was definitely an interesting character.

slygardener4 said:Regardless of what the median income looks like, there is a baseline cost of living required just to survive.
The issue here isn't about how people's salaries compare to one another—it's about the fact that with $1000, a decent life is simply impossible.

I guess the absolute floor used to be defined as 2,400 calories a day. But honestly, Europe—and even the US—moved past that a long time ago. Nowadays, the definition of a "minimum" has shifted way up to include things like smartphones, rent, cars, skincare, haircuts... you get the idea.
I don't see any reason to think people would suddenly stop being greedy if salaries hit $6,000. Even then, if you look at the wealthy, I bet they'd find plenty of reasons to feel just as unsatisfied.

steeleagle70 said:Walmart has already hit about a 30% market share, so they can't really push much further in retail. They lost out on Kroger even though they were interested. If they actually picked up Target in the region, it would create a massive outlet for Pik, Del Monte, Star, and the rest of the brands under The Walt Disney Company umbrella.

And hey, if Tesco ever decides to head south from Canada, they might drop an offer so good it’ll be almost impossible to turn down.

The rumors didn't even start in America; they're coming out of Canada, with people sniffing around Walmart. And you know how it goes—where there's smoke, there's fire, right?

Personally? I don't see a sale happening in the next couple of years, but who knows? Anything can happen.

I'm curious how the local industry would react if The Walt Disney Company became a co-owner of Target. Target is a huge player in the US.
As for Amazon, I doubt things would go quite that smoothly. For instance, Cosmopolitan couldn't really compete with CVS because CVS is such a massive chain that they get huge rebates from manufacturers due to their volume—something Cosmopolitan, being a smaller player, just couldn't match. But then again, we're talking about specialized stores that mostly sell imported goods. You don't have a ton of local cosmetics anyway. However, when it comes to grocery stores, the rules are different... you've got consumer habits tied to domestic products and all that. So, if Amazon entered as a new player with only a handful of locations at first, they wouldn't be able to undercut Walmart on domestic goods. It would only work for the imports.

steeleagle70 said:Heinz can't even touch Kroger in a fair fight.😉

Yeah, I guess that’s exactly why Kroger is such a big deal for him.

steeleagle70 said:I mean, if they somehow manage to get their hands on Walmart, anything could happen, right? 😉

Walmart would really just be a way to round things out, you know? Like, maybe a move to expand their distribution network for their own manufacturing and finally get some serious traction in international markets.

Selling off Walmart would basically be a suicide mission. They're using that platform to push their own products through. Plus, there are plenty of brands out there way more dominant than Pik or Belje.

steeleagle70 said:Well, it's unfortunate because the average *should* actually be around $12,000, and those folks should be pulling in at least $6,000. That’s why it sucks.

Man, forget a system where the average is $6,000 just because a tiny group makes way more while everyone else struggles below that line. And let's be real, that top group is probably less than 10% of us anyway.

Even if these people were making $6,000 and everyone else was at $12,000, people would still complain about being underpaid. I mean, they were saying the exact same thing ten years ago when both the average pay and those Walmart salaries were way lower than they are now. Honestly, it feels like we'll never actually hit the jackpot.

steeleagle70 said:Look, it's not all black and white, which is why I brought you into this. The reality is those workers are probably stuck with those same low wages whether they work for him or anyone else.

But honestly? Agribusiness is like a cancer in the US economy. On one hand, they make some progress, but on the other, they just swallow up every small supplier and partner with their "unique" way of handling payments.

If you want to know who's actually causing the cash flow crisis in the private sector, look no further than Walmart.

Why "unfortunately," though? If the average salary is around $55k, logic dictates someone has to be pulling in less than that. Who? Just please don't tell me it's politicians or some other cliché.

Jerry Cooper3 said:The MTA drivers have absolutely nothing $2.25 salaries! 🙄

with night shifts...so take it or leave it if that works for you!
if Ivanka Trump bumped up those grandmas' paychecks to $7,000, you wouldn't be buying anything over there because it'd all be too expensive for you. I guess people just don't get it!

steeleagle70 said:My company does business with Walmart, and man, we haven't seen a real payment from them since like 2008. They just want everything to be a trade-off. That’s the whole issue with Kroger/Walmart... they use their massive size to trap people, then they squeeze 'em and don't pay up.

One of the big produce distributors, Return, went belly up because Walmart wouldn't pay them the $4 million they owed.

There are tons of cases where Walmart intentionally pulls a huge amount of inventory they have no intention of paying for, waits for the company to go broke, and then just buys them out for pennies.

And I don't see how any of that connects back to my point. I'm just calling out this nonsense regarding labor wages. It's like people think some clerk at Walmart deserves a higher paycheck than $1000 in a country where the average is only five and a half bucks.

Jacob Lewis5 said:Look, whatever. If Warren Buffett messed anything up during privatization, he should definitely answer for it. But this constant bashing? It’s just plain stupid.

You have to look at a company like Del Monte. Before Warren Buffett took over, they were bleeding like 30 million bucks a year in losses, and their "big win" was basically making some cheap cheese spread for some Canadian outfit. Ever since he stepped in, the products are top-tier, people actually have jobs, and even the cows live better than I do—they've got mattresses and get milked on their own schedule. Same story with Coca-Cola; they were getting hammered by political drama and struggling to stay afloat, and now they're a powerhouse with state-of-the-art plants. Walmart, PepsiCo, Nestlé... they're dominating the whole region, and all that profit flows back to Chicago. Would we really prefer if a bunch of Germans, Austrians, or Italians had bought them all up just to sell us their junk and suck the cash out of here without investing a dime? That's not what Warren Buffett does.

I honestly can't tell if this obsession with dragging Warren Buffett through the mud is just pure American jealousy or just straight-up ignorance, but it's totally unfounded. Sure, he wasn't perfect—he had his flaws. But since the 90s, he's been one of the most solid figures in the country.

I mean, come on, the Walmart Inc. model is actually pretty straightforward. The linchpin is Walmart. You buy a massive food company and then you serve your own products through your own retail chain. Vertical integration! I guess I'm not sure if that strategy would even work anywhere else.

John Cox2 said:The way you look down on workers who get underpaid while they're busy building wealth for someone else... honestly, it just shows a total lack of respect for human dignity. It's pathetic.

It says everything you need to know about our Prime Minister—it makes you wonder who's really running the show in the USA, doesn't it?

haha, oh so they're the ones creating all the wealth for him?! I mean, if that's the case, why don't these geniuses just quit and start their own companies? I guess Ivanka Trump would probably go broke without those "geniuses" around, while the workers could easily pull $10 $0.00 an hour. Maybe hit me up when you actually know what you're talking about, alright?

Workers? I mean, how much do you think some lady working at Walmart should be making? Let's be real, these are pretty much the lowest-paid jobs on the planet. If you jack up their wages too high, nobody would ever shop there anyway. Honestly, it feels like a lot of empty rhetoric. You really think people were getting paid better back in the old days?