A Scary Reality About Wal-Mart's Customers Might Be Coming To A Head

[Sherman A1]

Wal-Mart shares are tanking after the company's executives called February sales a "total disaster."

“Have you ever had one of those weeks where your best-prepared plans weren’t good enough to accomplish everything you set out to do?” Wal-Mart exec Cameron Geiger wrote in one of the emails reported by Renee Dudley at Bloomberg.

“Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” Geiger asked.

Wal-Mart is facing a scary reality: the ailing finances of its core customers, Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions, told us.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/scary-reality-walmarts-customers-might-195023259.html

[Fumesucker]

1. Their customer's money is in the Walmart heir's accounts already

QED

[upaloopa]

2. I always thought that at some point right wing

ideology would be bad for business.
Maybe business will favor a jobs bill or get off their cash and start hiring people.

[hobbit709]

3. Offshore all the jobs and your customers won't have any money.

Reactionary old bastard that he was, Henry Ford understood that.

[Trajan]

4. Such is the fruit of a low wage economy so prized by the RWers

Welcome to your new reality - citizens without money enough to buy your goodies because you've been so effective at reducing wage increases to nil ...

The conservative economic approach will always kill the economy, because it degenerates the demand in the marketplace to only the barest minimum of spending ...

When you fear for the livelihood of your family, you don't by extra crap ...

Reap what you have sown ...

[enlightenment]

7. 30 years ago I had a cartoon posted above my desk -

long before outsourcing, but during the heart of downsizing. It showed a CEO sitting at his desk, with a city skyline visible through the plate glass window behind him. He was writing a memo that read:

To all Employees:
Our downsizing efforts have been so successful that now we are out of business.

Nothing has changed.

[Sherman A1]

8. I think I remember that cartoon

it was great!

[enlightenment]

11. I wish I still had it.

(I do still have the "when you're up to your ass in alligators . . ." and the "patience my ass, I'm going to kill something" cartoons!)

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Well, $15.00 a week can be a huge difference

It translates to a tank of gas every two weeks.

Alas, during the protests on Black Friday evidence was shown that if these cheap skates rase base at to 15 an hour, it will run 2 B, but it will return 7-9 B in profits. Low numbers, that is 5B. Oh and it would be a stimulus to the econiomy. Tempted to send that to them and go...see cheapskates, them chickens are coming home to roost...finally.

[dkf]

14. Wow your car needs only $30 to fill?

That doesn't even get me half a tank.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. It's a hybrid.

The jeep takes more, short distances unless there is an emergency.

[spinbaby]

18. You have a large tank

My hybrid takes about 7 gallons on a fill.

[CreekDog]

6. wel Wal mart, you've been fighting so many things that help your customers have money

you got what you wanted.

[susanr516]

9. The price of gasoline went up

That's what happened. For those of us living close to the edge, something has to give. The price of gas goes up, my food budget goes down. There's almost never money to spend on clothing.

[Sherman A1]

17. Agreed

however, it's most likely a combination of things with gas prices being a significant factor. The end of the payroll tax holiday is another to be sure along with prices moving upward across the board. Just noted today when talking with one of my delivery guys that his bread route it down by some 30% due to several factors, but one of them being his main selling bread moving from $1.99 a loaf to $2.69 a few weeks ago.

It never is just one thing.

[HereSince1628]

10. gee, it's like KEYNESIAN or something! Who would have thought??!!

A connection between full-time jobs with benefits, consumption, and demand.

HOLY RAZOR BACKS!!!! Could it be the Arkansas Boys have discovered real world economics?


Was Lafer laughing at us or what?

[Katashi_itto]

12. They decided to use the 3rd world as their business model. Now it's biting them in the ass.

[OmahaBlueDog]

13. Part of it is their own doing. They've built too many stores competing with each other

Part of it is that the economy is improving. People who switched to Wal mart due to tight budgets are now returning to old, more expensive choices, and revisiting organics and other higher end food stuffs Wal Mart doesn't carry.

Also, there was a little blizzard in the Northeast that put a damper on sales.

[bvar22]

16. Don't Worry.

WalMart is not doing anything that hasn't been codified and approved by BOTH political parties.

Any minute now, the Invisible Hand will reach down from the Heavens,
correct The Free Markets,
and save us all.

Ross was Right.

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You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their rhetoric, promises, or excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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