I would agree with this. It was my understanding that Mr Walton was a
shrewd and tough competitor, but also a decent, fair and patriotic one.
With his death, it seems the corporate ethic changed greatly, and not
for the better IMO. For example, Walmart's "Made in the USA" campaign
pretty much went out the window. The stupidity of this is obvious. If
you provide business to suppliers in your own country, then that
company's employees now have income to ultimately spend at your stores.
Henry Ford knew this. They thought he was insane when he increased his
employees wages to the levels he did. But he paid those employees enough
that they could afford to own cars. And they became loyal Ford
customers. They also spent more in their local economies and that
trickle down created more people able to buy cars.
What gets me is that these companies that get into this profit at all
cost, and by next quarter, attitude don't seem to realize that those
business practices are detrimental in the long run. But none of them
seem to think of anything other than showing a profit at the next
stock-holder meeting.

Nate Duehr wrote:
> 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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