Basic Wal-Mart Fact Sheet

• Revenue in year ended Jan. 31: $312.43 billion, making it the world's largest retailer.

• Profit: $11.23 billion.
• More than 5,700 stores, including Wal-Mart and Sam's Club warehouses.
• About 1.7 million employees, whom the company calls "associates."
• Headquarters: Bentonville, Ark.
• History: The first Wal-Mart Discount City opened in 1962, although founder Sam M. Walton had operated variety stores going back to 1945 in Arkansas. The first Sam's Club opened in 1984, and the first Supercenter, combining groceries and merchandise, opened in 1988. Since 1992, the company has ventured overseas, including Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Wal-Mart: "Back to Basics"

Recalling Rocking Chairs
Wal-Mart is living up to their word going directly back to basics when it was announced yesterday that the world's biggest retailer is recalling about 643,000 rocking chairs after reports that poor construction and over-curvature of the runners caused 45 injuries, U.S. regulators said. The re-called chair was the Mainstays Love Seat Rocker model IT-13380, which were sold from May 2004 through September 2005 for about $100. Also involved is the Mainstays Porch Rocker models IT-13379 and IT-13270, sold from April 2004 through March 2006 for about $50.

Getting back to basics, Wal-Mart has recieved 55 incident reports that involve the chair, the reports range from a pregnant woman having contractions after the chair she was sitting on flipped over backwards, to injuries that include a cuts in a legs requiring stiches, fractured ribs, back injuries, pinched nerves, wrist sprains, and a shoulder joint tear. Wal-Mart has clearly gone back to basics providing Americans with their always high quality life-time lasting products.


Plano Update
I've got a some more info I didn't get a chance to post up yesterday on Wal-Marts new 'Upscale' store in Plano Texas.

• Plano, has an average household income of $140,000, three times that of the retailer's typical market.
• The new features to a "New" Wal-Mart
• WI-FI Internet Cafe
• It is also testing new store signs and a different layout, based upon research that focused on women shoppers.

In the News
On NBC's Today, Katie Couric introduced a report on Wal-Mart's expansion of its retail business in China by telling viewers: "It's a company that is as American as mom and apple pie."

MediaMatters.com, has put together footage of the clip, along with an array of facts explaing why Wal-Mart is the farthest thing away from Mom and Apple pie, read the very informative report here

The Chronicles of Wal-Mart

Wal-Marts New Plan: A High Society Wal-Mart

• As previously noted, the new "High Class" campaign to change and re-model at least half of the Wal-Mart stores in the United States has now started... Yesterday the first Up-Scale Wal-Mart opened yesterday in Plano. With an expanded selection of high-end electronics, featuring more fine jewelry, hundreds of types of wine ranging up to 500 dollars per bottle -- and even a sushi bar the largest company in the history of the world takes its first step towards re-amping its image and appeal. Wal-Mart is eager to see how communities surrounding Plano respond to this new image, if successful the re-modeling of more stores will begin immediatley.

Wal-Mart Bank Update

• Witness's for the scheduled Wal-Mart Federal Bank proposal hearing were announced today. Among those scheduled to speak are Jane Thompson, president of Wal-Mart Financial Services, representatives of the American Bankers Association and America's Community Bankers, and officials from the AFL-CIO, Wake-Up Wal-Mart.com and the National Association of Realtors. Wal-Mart is seeking to open an industrial bank in Utah, a move that's been bitterly opposed by community banks wary of competing with the retail behemoth. Industrial banks allow retailers and others to offer consumer loans and other banking services to their customers, and do business for their own accounts. Other companies, including General Motors, General Electric and Wal-Mart rival Target Corp. maintain industrial banks. But Wal-Mart's drive to open a bank has drawn special fire, owing to the company's status as a mammoth retailer. Industrial-loan banks are state-regulated but also fall under the supervision of the FDIC. Still, some critics say since the Federal Reserve doesn't supervise the banks, they're subject to less-stringent regulation. Federal Reserve officials including Chairman Ben Bernanke have expressed concern about the growth of industrial-loan banks.
• The FDIC is planning two hearings to take public comment about Wal-Mart's application. Thirty-eight individuals are scheduled to testify at the first hearing April 10 and 11 in Arlington, Va. The second hearing is scheduled for April 25 in Overland Park, Kansas. Thirty-two witnesses are scheduled to testify

Action must be taken to prevent Wal-Mart from acquiring a Federal Bank, notably Allan Greenspan has recently spoken out against allowing Wal-Mart to operate a Federal Bank.
Visit WakeupWalMart for more information.

The Wal-Mart World: Population nearly 2 Million Employees throughout the world...and still growing

Wal-Mart Stores plans to hire up to 150,000 employees in China over the next five years, five times the number of workers it currently has there, as it expands its number of stores, the company said Monday.

Wal-Mart now has 56 stores in China, with about 30,000 employees, and plans to open 20 stores this year. Amy Wyatt, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, declined to say how many stores would be added longer term.

Internationally, Wal-Mart is active in China, Japan, Korea, Britain, Germany, Canada, Mexico and eight countries in Latin America.

The company does not provide a country-by-country breakdown of international financial results, but the division accounted for about 20 percent of last year's overall net sales of $312.4 billion. The international unit is growing faster than the company's larger United States operations.

Late last year, Wal-Mart extended its global business by buying 140 Sonae stores in Brazil and increasing its stake to a majority in the Seiyu chain in Japan, which has 405 stores.

Forbes.com has created a slide show to illustrate the globalization of Wal-Mart, it is a very eye opening and awakening presentation that you must check out! Heres the link Forbes: Globalization of Wal-Mart

61.5 Million Dollars

A study concerning the "Wal-Mart Tax" was released in New York yesterday by www.wakeupwalmart.com. The study analyzes the amount of State and Federal Taxpayers money that is used by Wal-Mart Workers and dependents, a problem that can be easily solved if the worlds largest company simply provided health-care to its employees. New York was among the top five in most Taxpayer money, concuring that 61.5 Million Dollars of New York's Taxpayer money is going directley to Wal-Mart Workers health care funds. Wal-Mart Workers rely on government provided healthcare simply because of the worlds largest employer refuses to provide decent0 health benefits. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 100 things this state could be doing with that money if Wal-Mart acted responsible...States across the country are now introducing legislation to help ease this tax as well as help provide Wal-Mart and other Big-Box employees with benefits. The entire study is available for reading here here. And to see how the other states match up check out the Wal-Mart Tax Map.
We encourage all New Yorkers to read and educate themselves about how Wal-Mart is affecting lives everyday.