NBC Action News reminds us that the there's more of a future in cheap goods manufactured by Chinese toddlers than the Kansas City Public School District: Former Waldo school may become Walmart
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Great. The government pays $2.5 BILLION annually to subsidize Wal-Mart's employees, to a tune of $400,000 PER STORE, because they're not paid enough to survive. Fuck Wal-Mart. They are dragging America down into the gutter.
ReplyDeleteThis is bullshit. I live in Brookside and I am pissed. I hope an organized movement to stop them will work.
ReplyDeleteThis is seriously depressing. But won't they face exactly the same issues that Hen House faced?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, this would not be a Wal-Mart. It would be a Wal-Mart neighborhood market like the one at 91st & Metcalf. Second, Wal-Mart is not asking for any TIF or other taxpayer subsidies. Wal-Mart's offer was higher than those who were going to put in a Hen House (with TIF and assorted subsidies). (I don't know why this proposal was not considered number one given its financial advantages to the school district, but maybe math is no longer taught there.) I suspect the shool district and Waldo residents were played by the Ball family to get favorable lease terms for their store at 85th & Wornall, but it's hard to know the whole story since nobody on that team is talking. I sure hope they lost some of their "good faith money," since they don't seem to have been negotiating in good faith.
ReplyDeleteAs it is now, the folks who live near what was Bingham school are faced with the choice of a Wal-Mart neighborhood market or a decaying building. The school district is faced with selling the building or continuing to maintain it at taxpayer expense. The city is faced with having this valuable property contiue to decay or having a new owner with deep pockets who will be paying property taxes.
What's not to like?
Every Friday will be Black Friday at WaldoMart.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly race was brought up as an objection when the Aldi store moved into Waldo. Not the folks here love Aldi. As for "Black Friday," have you ever shopped at the Brookside Price Chopper?
ReplyDeleteI meant "Now the folks here love Aldi."
ReplyDelete9:07, otherwise known as consultant on the payroll to Wal-Mart:
ReplyDeleteYou treat your employees like shit, your vendors even worse. Wal-Mart is what is killing small business in this country, and we as taxpayers are subsidizing them to kill us (to the tune of $2.5 BILLION per year). And let's ask the Bangladeshi's what they think of your shit products. Fire sale anyone?
Actually, 9:47 not only am I not a consultant for Wal-Mart or anyone else, I don't even own stock in the company.
ReplyDeleteBut thank you for you well-reasoned and insightful comments which demonstrate that you have given this question a great deal of thought and have considered all sides of the arguments for and against Wal-Mart even thhough the store that would be going in the Bingham site is a neighborhood market that would be pretty much a grocery store.
It is irrelevant what is being sold, it is the integrity of the company doing the selling. I don't want Wal-Mart in my neighborhood (which is Waldo), because their business practices are un-American. They treat their employees like shit and they treat their vendors like shit (slave labor in sweatshops like Bangladesh anyone?). And they treat America like shit. Feel free to condescend, but I notice you've got no response to these points.
ReplyDeleteThe same overseas factory that you were referring to also made products for target, JCPenney, and others. Why no outcry about how horrible those companies are? A little biased? Your credibility is blown because it's obvious you just don't like Walmart.
DeleteThere are a few ways to look at all of your points, and I'm sure you've considered all sides of each issue. Their business practices are un-American. I'm not sure what that (or you) mean. They treat their employees like shit. Maybe, but I've been employed by other companies and have been treated like shit. Wal-Mart is not alone in this respect. They treat their vendors like shit. Again, maybe, but so do a lot of other companies and no one forces vendors to sell to Wal-Mart. As for slave labor in Bangladesh, Wal-Mart claims the work there was unauthorized. That does sound like a lie to me, and it should be investigated, but Bangladesh is a very poor country, and sad to say, slave labor may be better than no labor. Remember America and England both had child and (for all practical purposes) slave labor until the Progressive era. In fact, one of the justifications for slavery in the south was slave owners took better care of their slaves than did northern factory owners.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate there are many ways to look at issues. I live not far from Bingham in Waldo, and my considerations are what is better for the neighborhood, a new grocery store or continued deterioration of a blighted former school. That seems to be our only choice given the constraints the school district has to work with.
I presume you'd prefer to impose the current conditions on Bingham's neighbors rather than allow the Wal-Mart neighborhood store in Waldo. Is that true?
Most companies (think Hostess) treat their employees and vendors like shit. If you really want to be treated like shit, be a government contractor. Especially one that contracts with the Corps of Engineers. Or EPA for that matter.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would prefer to spend my tax dollars keeping Bingham empty than I would subsidizing Wal-Mart's underemployment practices in MY neighborhood. You use the deplorable factory conditions of America's past to somehow justify the present day slave labor in Bangladesh and elsewhere? And to excuse Wal-Mart's business practices here? Holding economic ruin over the heads of vendors and workers may not be the literal "forcing" of people, but it's still pretty shameful in my book.
ReplyDeleteThen why single out Wal-Mart when every other retailer does the same?
ReplyDeleteAnd just because I pointed out America's shameful labor past doesn't mean I'm "justifying" anything. The point was to provide perspective. America was once like Bangladesh is now. China, Japan, Taiwan, and Mexico were once the low price labor capitols of the world. All have moved up the ladder. What's to say the same won't happen in Bangladesh? And what will happen if all the jobs, shitty as they are, were suddenly removed from Bangladesh?
It's nice that you feel so strongly that the world is black and white and that you would prefer to keep Bingham as a monument to your values (at everyone else's expense). I suspect you don't live too close to the school, and I doubt those closest to the school share your vision for their neighborhood's future.
You say you aren't justifying it, and then you continue to do just that. And not every retailer engages in the egregiously unethical business practices of Wal-Mart, contrary to your claim. That is a false equivalency. Do you want to spend your tax dollars subsidizing Wal-Mart's oppression of workers here and abroad? Go for it. I'm sure as shit going to fight them any chance I get, especially when it's IN MY NEIGHBOORHOOD (you seem to miss that in all of my previous comments).
ReplyDeleteAnother vote in favor of keeping an empty building there instead of letting WalMart into Waldo.
ReplyDeleteYep, 12:47, you say you're in Waldo, but Waldo is a large area from Gregory to 85th & from State Line to Troost. Unless you're very close to Bingham you could live in Waldo and never know the school is there. Here in the poor section of Waldo I'm close enough to know the school is there.
ReplyDeleteWaldo stops at Holmes on its eastern boundary dumbass.
DeleteTarget's employees are not happy about the early Black Thursday. Are we boycotting them too?
ReplyDeleteWhat, you want my exact address now? You can't respond to my arguments against Wal-Mart, so now it's a personal attack on my proximity to Bingham? IT IS IN MY NEIGHBOORHOOD, AS I'VE SAID OVER AND OVER. IT IS IN MY NEIGHBOORHOOD. I'M YELLING AS LOUD AS I CAN. CAN YOU NOT HEAR ME? IT IS IN MY NEIGHBOORHOOD. If you want, you can go outside, and I'll step out and yell FUCK YOU real loud. Then you'll see how close I am.
ReplyDeleteAs long as it ain't being ran by the KC school board I'm all for it.
ReplyDeleteOh, in this part of town and on this blog people are always yelling "fuck you" real loud, so I probably wouldn't notice you. No. I don't want your address. I already know enough closed-minded bigots although not so many in Waldo.
ReplyDeleteBut good luck selling your neighbors on keeping Bingham as it is. That's sure to win you lots of friends.
Mr. Tony,
ReplyDelete$$$$
NO FUCKING WAY!!!!
..
Oh, well, ah, excuse me, sir, but honestly! Walmart is a terrible corporation. They do not pay a real living wage. They have cowed their staff into futile submission. How can one support a HUGE corporation that sends it's employees to the local state government for food stamps and health care instead of scheduling a worker to full time status. No, they like to keep them at part-time wages so they don't have to pay benefits. How can this city support a huge corporation that was investigated for LOCKING employees into the stores overnight to clean the stores? This corporation does not pay for the overtime that it requires it's employees to perform.
AND LASTLY, how can this city support a HUGE corporation THAT OWNS THE ROYALS? My freaking God, they run that team like a Walmart store...cheap and stupid.
HELL NO, I WON'T GO INTO A WALMART.
Please, city council, do not give these bastards ANY tax incentive. You have already done that when that marginal Beck Nace engineered the tax write off for the 40 highway store. Remember, please, when Walmart Corporate said that the new store would have minimal impact on their Hypercrazy store in the Bannister Mall area?
No, it just won't do. It won't do to help build a store that will be abandoned in 12 years.
Ummm. Miss Sweetie Pie, they're not asking for any tax incentives.
ReplyDeleteNow do an Emily Litella, say "Never mind," and go away.
I think the school district is only interested in getting the most money for this property. There were other proposals that the school district did not allow to be presented to the neighborhood. People should demand to see those too. No just the ones that offered over a million.
ReplyDeleteFuck the nigger school board fuck the niggery assed school district fuck Wal-mart & fuck you 2 KC assholes get a clue!!!!!!
ReplyDelete7:05: It's OK with me if you want to think that, and 5:08, it would be nice if the school district were trying to get the most for our property. (It belongs to taxpayers.) As I understand it, the property is appraised at roughly $3 million and the district has to recoup a certain amount to satisfy bond holders. The only three proposals that were high enough to be considered were the WalMart one, the now defunct Hen House one, and a nebulous one that was put together by someone associated with the brokers hired to sell the property. We don't know how much each bid, but we know the WalMart bid was (a) higher than Hen House and (b) not contingent on TIF or other subsidies. The third bid was not taken seriously by either the school district or the neighborhoods involved and may have constituted a conflict of interest, anyway.
ReplyDelete7:32: Thanks for your contribution to the dicussion. Now go sleep it off as it appears you got a whole lot of fucking ahead of you. Do you have any idea how many people work for WalMart?
You could literally fuck your brains out if you had any to start with!
ReplyDeleteWhole shit ton of morons work at wal-mart !
ReplyDeleteJust for the record. The city of Raytown sold the heart of Raytown to JMC Realty. They will start the constrution of a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market late summer but don't let anyone know the city officials don't want to talk about it. The area known as the Green Space in Downtown wil be the new Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market.
ReplyDeleteElisa Breitenbach