WalMart's Mission is not to Save Your Life

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Nor is it the mission of any other corporation, business or government agency, except maybe FEMA, FDA, HHS. Folks have been bemoaning the fact that corporations aren't forthcoming with info, that supermarkets and discount stores aren't ramping up their inventories and doing more proactive Y2k selling. But ask yourself this: suppose WalMart faces two choices of action, A & B. A, continuing business as usual, offers a 100% guarantee of profit. B, changing its ordering and inventory, turning its stores into Y2k prep warehouses, offers a 5% chance of saving lives and a 99% chance of no profits, perhaps even losses. How much money does Walmart stand to lose if it chooses B and is wrong? And would they really care about that 5% chance? After all, that is not Walmart's job. It's job is to make profits for its shareholders, pure and simple. Repeat that across the spectrum of businesses. Business is a numbers game. The numbers, right now, don't speak in favor of changing the way WalMart or anyone else does business. Corporations may hire "forecasters," but something as whacky as this can't be accurately forecast. So everyone is sticking with the conservative, tried and true, dependable courses of action. In a meltdown, all bets are off, as the synergistic complications will have all manner of consequences. So they keep on keeping on. If this Christmas season is as grand as everyone hopes, they'll all have some fat to live off for a while if things get bad. Better that, numbers wise, than to cause chaos in your organization and be wrong and then get eaten by the competition, which chose option A. Make some modicum of sense?

-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), November 28, 1999

Answers

So Kurt, are you advocating that people take responsibility for themselves? Perhaps by weighing the risks as well as they can, (being aware that not all of the information is available or reliable), and then preparing accordingly?

That is fairly radical thinking, but this forum is one place you might find agreement.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), November 28, 1999.


Interesting take. However, there is no excuse for the gov't, which we fund, for lying, lying, lying. You are correct that profits/sales/stock price are the gods in corporate America. That's what really matters in a corporation's daily functioning. Not altruism to its customers. A hard and cruel reality as it relates to Y2K.

The citizenry have simply relied on the other guy, be it Bill Gates, GM, or Kosky to "fix" this. Their socialistic tendencies have taken away their will to responsibly investigate and prepare. If they GI'ed it would mean have to put down the remote, missing a game, and spending some money. Most won't even consider it.

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), November 28, 1999.


Pretty radical, Gus

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), November 28, 1999.

My sister is a Wal*Martian. I told her about some potential JIT inventory problems next year, but she's made absolutely no preparations.

Wal*Mart has become China*Mart.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), November 28, 1999.


Earlier this summer, when I had no money, I was telling people to invest in WalMart, because they would be making money hand over fist as folks started to prepare. At that time their stock was in the low 40s range. Now that I have money, the stock is at 55, but do I throw $10,000 at it to try and make a few simoleons in the weeks remaining? Hmmmmmmmmm.

-- Incognito (layinglow@thecrib.com), November 28, 1999.


Kurt--You said it so well. Of course the corporation will go after the profits. As a matter of fact, WalMart stores have just about every Y2K product available one would need and they stock it year-round. I saw a huge candle at WalMart and the sign in front of it said "Y2K compatible." It is not the corporations fault people are not purchasing goods to get them through whatever lies ahead. The products are subtley there for the taking. If this Xmas is grand, yeh, the corporations will be sitting pretty, while the sheeple are playing with their worthless Pokemons. And, it is not my fault ITSHTF that people are not prepared. I'll just roll my eyes at the neighbors as they board the BIG WHITE BUS, I may even throw them a kiss!

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), November 28, 1999.

Don't know if it has anything to do with y2k but here in south Austin Texas...the two nearest WalMarts have many (20+) large tan colored ocean shipping type containers taking up a corner of their parking lot. These have appeared quite recently and I think more have been added. each one is about the size of a large semi-trucks trailer and have locks on them not that I have done more than drive by....don't know what they are for or what is in them, but could be stock to ride out J.I.T. glitches????

-- Dan Simon (suijuris@freewwweb.com), November 28, 1999.

Have a friend whose husband is a manager at the local Wal-mart. The trailers are normal this time of year. They don't have storage room in the building for all of their Christmas merchandise, so they use these trailers for extra storage space. The trailers you saw are probably not Y2K related.

LauraBeth

-- (lbp@ready4_00.com), November 28, 1999.


Dear Mr. Kurt Ayau

Sir, in answear to your observation about Walmart and it's respondsibilities. I have now gone to two other cities with-in a hundred miles of where I live, to see if the Walmarts there are doing what the super Walmart has done here. In Abilene, I counted 46 of the over seas containers, all locked and full (loaded) with material...I say material, because, like the ones parked at the K marts, here at home and in Abilene Texas. There are paper signs taped on the back which say no merchandice, fixtures only, or else there is a hazmat sign and a notice not to open the door more than once a day.(This is at K Mart, who has some pretty serious looking old boys with radios lounging around the parking lot).

The super Walmart here in our city has 43 tractor trailors all parked in the back and taking up a goodly part of the public's parking for the store. And all these trailors are fully loaded and locked.

While I might buy that Walmart is stocking up for an interruption in the JIT system. There is no way that this is or has ever been a normal practice for any of the Walmarts..

Now this leads to two questions, is the build up because of the fear of an interruption in merchandice from over seas?

Or is it because we are going to have gasoline rationing after the first of the year?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), November 28, 1999.


re: Trailers in Walmart lots... Why can't someone just walk into the store and ASK??? Yes, I know, there is a possibility they might lie to you. But then again they might not. Is this so difficult?

-- Joe (paraflyr@cybernet1.com), November 28, 1999.


Incognito, Wallmart did a two for one split this Fall, so in reality it is not at 55 but it is at 110. I doubled my money with call options when it went from 88 to 110 this summer. Then on it's way down to 90 I again made money with WMT put options. Options are exciting because you make money when a stock goes up (Call Options) and also when it goes down (Put Options).

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), November 29, 1999.

Well put Kurt. I worked this one out a year ago, and note that if they'd overstocked, they'd be trying to generate more business, not saying "Plenty for all."

Regarding ASKING Wal-Mart about the trailers: why is no one doing this? I'm a UK resident, so it's a bit tricky for me to do so. They haven't replied to my emails on the subject, from either their customer or press addresses.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 29, 1999.


I work at Wal Mart. They operate with a system called "Perpetual Inventory". When a cashier scans an item, the sale goes into the computer and that item is ordered from a regional warehouse (daily). They have very limited space in their small stockrooms. They don't have to have a lot of storage space because they are restocked by computer DAILY.

We had a power outage this summer. We had to herd the customers to the front of the store to wait for the electricity to come back on. We have battery back- up for half the registers for twenty minutes but can not use them because the inventory system goes down when the power goes out. So we just stood there for 35 minutes. They have no contingency plans.

If the power goes out they are screwed. If their satellite goes down they're screwed. If they can't keep their trucks on the road (daily) they are screwed. The pharmacy was supposed to get a new computer system this month - nothing yet. It is hooked up to many other insurance systems e.g., medicare.

You are talking about a company that pays their employees just a little above minimum wage. Most of their goods have a Made in China stamp. IMHO, they are screwed.

Wal Mart stock has not split since I have worked there - last May.

-- Ellen (Ellen@watching eyes.com), November 29, 1999.


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