DUmmy Drew Richards talked to a checkout clerk at WalMart, whom he suspected to be the store manager working incognito:
Drew Richards (304 posts) Tue Aug-16-11 07:25 PM
Original message
Talked to GM at my local walmart today. WTF!
I asked him what the heck is going on!?
He said they were directed to raise prices across the board over night.
Everything in my local walmart was raised from 9 cents up to 50 cents per unit.
I cant even fathom what would be the rational for this.
He could not explain the directive either.
Gas per barrel is down to $98 dollars but prices at the pumps have not fallen more than 3 cents from when oil was $156 per barrel.
There have been no shipping disasters that I have heard of.
There have been no world reports of reduced food production.
The only report I have seen is drought in Africa but they are an importer not an exporter of food stuffs.
Maybe its a US drought thing?
Except most of their vegetables are actually imported from other countries and not from US farmers.
I am freaking a little bit...this just doesn't make any sense.
Someone please give me a logical rational why I should not blame this all on monopolistic Corporate Greed?
Walmart has run all other grocery stores out of my area, If I was to shop elsewhere I would have to drive 40 miles away rather than 12.
I am just totally disgusted.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1753598By the way, DUmmy Drew, a barrel of oil is 42 gallons. It will yield 12-15 gallons of gasoline (I nadined that, so it's accurate). You have transportation costs, refining costs (all unionized), enormous taxes, selling, general, and administrative costs. At $100 a barrel, it's remarkable that gasoline price is as low as it is.
The WalMart checkout clerk is stumped, but know-it-all nadin never is:
nadinbrzezinski (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-16-11 07:29 PM
Response to Original message
2. I can, and I am not surprised he can't
there is a food shortage, like 2008, and it has nothing to do with production but all to do wiit[sic] futures and speculation,
Yep, it's a food shortage. She nadined it, and readyed all about the shortage in Somalia, which is a trend that has finally
shown up at DUmmy Drew's WalMart.
BeyondGeography (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-16-11 07:30 PM
Response to Original message
3. Wal-Mart customer traffic numbers have been dropping
They've been losing on the low end to dollar stores and upmarket to Target. Just a guess, but they might be trying to make up the difference with those who are staying loyal.
Hallelujah! WalMart is in trouble!
Whoa, maybe WalMart isn't in trouble:
lonestarlib (175 posts) Tue Aug-16-11 08:54 PM
Response to Original message
11. Wal-Mart Raises Full-Year Profit Forecast
Profit in the fiscal year ending in January will be $4.41 to $4.51 a share, up from a previous projection of $4.35 to $4.50, Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart said today in a statement. The average estimate of 25 analysts in a Bloomberg survey was $4.47. Second-quarter net income climbed 5.7 percent.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-16/wal-mart-raise...
DUmmy warriornumber gives WalMart some marketing advice:
warrior1 (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-16-11 07:31 PM
Response to Original message
4. yea jacking up the prices needlessly
will really bring in the customers. Not.
AndyTiedye (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-16-11 07:33 PM
Response to Original message
5. Start a Food Co-Op!
You don't have to live in a food desert.
Start a food co-op and ditch Walmart except for their loss-leaders.
Now a couple of DUmmies who have no idea how slender profit margins are in the grocery business:
femrap (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-16-11 10:16 PM
Response to Original message
17. It's all about PROFIT MARGINS
FOR THE SHAREHOLDERS.....IOW, GREED, BABY, GREED!!!!
LET'S SQUEEZE THE F*CKING POOR AND WORKING POOR...THEY ARE SADISTS.
in_cog_ni_to (1000+ posts) Wed Aug-17-11 12:19 AM
Response to Original message
20. G-R-E-E-D!
HopeHoops (1000+ posts) Wed Aug-17-11 09:48 AM
Response to Original message
22. They're doing to grocery stores what they started out doing to toy stores.
Every WalMart would under-price (below cost) their toys until all of the other regional toy stores had closed. They WHAM! Prices jumped up overnight to more than the other stores were charging. That's how they built the myth of being cheaper.
madokie (1000+ posts) Wed Aug-17-11 09:05 PM
Response to Original message
25. Thats what walmart done[sic] here in this 4 town area
we used to have clothing stores, Otasco's stores, western auto's, and numerous others and a whole host of mom and pop stores in each town now all we have is empty store building downtown and a big ass walmart right smack dab in the middle middle between all the towns. 'nuf to piss this old man right the f**k off. Oh and yes the prices have gone out of sight.
Out of sight. WalMart wants nearly $3 a pound for hamburger. I can remember buying it at the mom 'n' pop store for 39 cents. Damn WalMart.
fasttense (1000+ posts) Thu Aug-18-11 10:24 AM
Response to Reply #28
29. It maybe from the US but it is not local.
I just did a walk-thru of our local TN Wal-Mart produce prices. I grow Certified Naturally Grown (NOT Organic) vegetables and sell them at a local Farmer's Market. So, I check out the competition's prices on produce regularly.
If you add up all the produce items not from TN in the Wal-Mart there were 33. Those from within the state were 10. Then there were many that were not identified as local or not.
But here is the interesting thing. Those items identified as local were from 5 cents/lb (Tomatoes) to $3.00/lb (Okra?) more than what they sell them for at the Farmer's Market.
Much of the supposedly local produce was wilted, brown, bruised and wrinkled.
I think Wal-Mart doesn't know how to handel fresh food.
DUmmy fasttense has a keen understanding of overhead.
And the only decent farm products grown in Tennessee are tobacco, Bernie Ellis's weed, and hay. There's no dirt.
