On Dec 17, 2006, at 12:09 PM, James Newtons Massmind wrote:

> other than hearsay to support that opinion. I was told there was a  
> ban on
> Wal Mart in Denver due to a study they commissioned that showed Wal  
> Marts
> actually hurt the local economy, but I found nothing about that on  
> the net.

As a Metro Denver area resident, I don't recall that having ever been  
the case, but there have been a few suburban zoning meetings that  
have hotly-debated the usefulness of allowing a WalMart into a couple  
of the suburbs.  Westminster, CO and Littleton, CO both have had some  
battles.  Pretty sure Westminster residents lost their fight, not  
sure about Littleton.

A little Google-trolling of the topic turned up that San Diego County  
in CA banned them, though.

Some early articles on Sam Walton when he was still alive seemed to  
allude that he was an interesting person, and ran his businesses with  
an iron fist, flying from town to town unannounced in his Cessna 340,  
hitching a ride or using the loaner car at the local (usually rural)  
airports to visit his stores without warning.

Early on he seemed to think it was important to purchase products  
made in the USA vs. buying from overseas, no matter if it were higher  
priced.  There were a number of good articles about him in the early  
years, bringing affordable goods to rural areas by the leverage his  
bulk purchasing power to bear.  Sam's Club was his answer to other  
large "club" outlets in the cities that had just started up, and I  
remember when they claimed they were going to sell nothing but  
products "Made in the USA".

But his death, and globalization mixed with the economic realities of  
US manufacturing being too expensive for low-priced and "bargain"  
products, and additionally the apparent high levels of greed of the  
four (or is it five) children that inherited his (large) fortune --  
who certainly don't need more money -- have utterly wiped out any of  
that early good his company may have brought to local economies and  
small-town America.  People still love the cheap crap, that's for  
sure... but nowadays it's mostly cheap Chinese-made crap.

An early business experience with WalMart and some telecommunications  
equipment they purchased would indicate that they were (and are)  
ultra-paranoid about their internal communications, but since I'm  
still in the telecommunications industry I won't share details.   
They're beyond ultra-paranoid down in Bentonville, AR.

I personally know someone who was bodily thrown out the door and his  
site-visit credentials were removed (as well as the other technician  
from the same company being asked to leave) after lifting a floor  
tile in a data center without written permission -- to install  
equipment he was on-site and contacted to install.  The credentials  
to even go on-site required a background check and a signature that  
he and his company didn't mind if a polygraph test were administered  
on-site.

I'd estimate the equipment price to be just shy of two million  
dollars back then, but a single floor tile almost had the equipment  
shipped back to the supplier for good.  Two security guards arrived  
within seconds of him pulling the tile to look underneath to see if a  
cable could be run.  This was in the very early 1990's.  I have no  
doubt from later dealings with them that their level of paranoia is  
still just as high as it was back then.

Other articles and second-hand knowledge seem to indicate that the  
cameras in the employee areas of the stores outnumber the cameras  
watching the customers by about 3:1.  I can neither find a way to  
confirm nor deny this, but it matches with their corporate ultra- 
paranoia that I have personally witnessed.  They're more worried  
about organized pilfering of goods by their own (badly paid)  
employees, than they are about shoplifting -- the other stories here  
showing that they're awfully serious about that.  I wouldn't like to  
see how that "interrogation" session in the back room goes if they  
spot an employee stealing something.

I've heard their NDA's are ridiculously huge...

--
Nate Duehr
nate@natetech.com


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