WalMart refuses to sell Playboy or Maxim but sells guns

[angus]

This hypocrisy is ridiculous.

Note: I am not asking about rights here, just what you would do if you ran a WalMart.

I vote Yes/No.

they don't sell playboy?!

actually I've never purchased a playboy.  or a gun.  or a maxim (whatever the hell that is).  but I have no intention of selling my walmart stock.  oh, I haven't found a walmart in manhattan yet, by the way.  In fact, this pretty much tops my list of Things I miss about CA/TX/MA/MS/MN/FL when I'm in the city.  No Walmarts!  Ah, well, at least I found the Cheap Red Wine Store pretty quickly.

[angus]

I believed that Wal-Mart was in the business of selling the necessities and incidentals of life (food, clothing, hardware, etc.) at bargain basement prices. In some parts, a gun qualifies as a necessity; in others parts, a nice incidental piece of hardware used for sport and recreation. I see no harm in it.

That goes for the sex recreation as well: Wal-Mart sells lubricants and such as well, in addition to condoms.

So I don't see what you're complaining about, unless your imagination is so impoverished that you cannot use the sex items Wal-Mart offers without printed stimulation.

word.

still, if I were a playboy afficionado, I'd be upset too.  If you're a fan of walmart and a fan of playboy, then this must be disappointing.  I'm only a fan of one of those two, so it really doesn't bother me.  Unless, of course, this causes WMT stocks to tank.  As I read it, and I think I read it correctly, stocking guns is a good call.  Bound to be good for business, given the demographic.  As for not stocking nudie mags, well, so long as they still sell Hustler (which has much more entertaining reading and cartoons), then I don't see it's a problem.  Hey, even with a bazillion square feet, you still have to make choices about what you can stock and what you can't, and Playboy always struck me as the sort of higher-end nudie mag that wouldn't be the choice of the Wal-Mart demographic anyway. 

[angus]

I never noticed them in the wal-mart store just north of Revere, Massachusetts, but then I wasn't really looking for them.  I have noticed them in other stores though.  I'm trying to remember if I ever saw them in the SFbay stores or the columbus store I frequented, but honestly I can't remember. 

[angus]

angus, I assume you are joking about Hustler, as I would assume you are aware that the religious that own Walmart would not sell any porn.  It is a decision based upon intolerance, not what sells.  By the way, why should there be a Walmart in Manhattan?  I suspect the prevailing wage is above $6.50 an hour, which would incense the Arkansans sense of fairness, and Manhattanites may be less amenable to cheap junk than people trapped in suburbia and rural areas.

storebought, the lubricants and condoms and so forth are useless to many in America, as it is a purritanical land where sex is not redily available to many.  In this miserable place, masturbation is all that many men can hope for, and porn is their only sexual enjoyment.

Ha.  actually, the scavenging is pretty good here.  so there's a profusion of free "junk"  And there's no shortage of cheap stores, especially in East Harlem and also down around Essex subway station.  They're the sub-Walmart variety, and even I don't like those.  Though I do enjoy practicing my spanish.  No, walmart's grand, and New Yorkers will agree that there's no reason to pay 7 dollars for a bottle of Pantene when you can get it for 3, and the main reason, I suppose, for not having one here is that there's simply no room. 

And yeah, I'd assumed that if they didn't sell Playboy, they weren't selling Hustler, Oui, Penthouse, and the rest.  But I've said repeatedly that a store can sell what it wants to whom it wants.  WMT is $47.35 apiece today, down from about 53 when I bought it.  I don't know whether that's related to its refusal to stock porno mags, but I'm not about to sell when it's underperforming.  Let's just ride it out.

[angus]

Lotsa Kmarts, I'll mention.  I've seen several in Manhattan, and some in the surrounding burroughs.  But no Walmarts!  Too bad.  Neither my wife nor I like Kmart at all. 

[angus]

walmart's back up to 50.  Target's at 54. 

It's gonna be okay, boys and girls.  (unless, of course, you're in the blue-collar industries being crowded out by Walmart and Target and their chinese cohorts.  Ah, well, can't win 'em all.)  My guess is that Wal-Street doesn't give a damn whether Wal-Mart carries these porno rags, so long as they're turning a profit.  Anyway, cheap chinese goods are picking up steam, if WMT and TGT trends are any measure.

    Low prices.  Every day. 

[angus]

tough call, I realize.  on the one hand, discount stores which send their finance people to high-pressure meetings in Hong Kong in order to bid down the cost of production have the effect of offering products at a lower price.  (often, it's a forgone conclusion that the chinese are the only ones who can, which is why the meetings are conveniently held in East Asia in the first place.)  These lower prices allow consumers to get a bigger bang for their buck.  The US census department defines a parameter it calls "standard of living" which is inversely proportional to the aggregate cost of all goods and services in a given market, and directly porportional to the average income in that given market.  Normalized such that Los Angeles standard of living is at 100, for comparisons and referencing I suppose.  (NYC, for example is about 85, reflecting not lower salaries, but higher prices)  Thus by decreasing costs of consumer goods, outfits like Target, Walmart, Kmart, etc., offer us a higher standard of living by decreasing the denominator in the "standard of living" ratio.  But, bear in mind that many US manufactures have closed in recent years because they simply cannot compete with the cheap chinese labor.  (And you're right, the chinese people aren't getting rich, but only a handful of chinese entrepreneurs are.)  Thus the numerator in the "standard of living" ratio also decreases because of these practices.  You can probably do a careful analysis of this situation and optimize the US standard of living using the quotient rule for determining first derivatives for this quotient function.  Of course many assumptions would have to be made.  Moreover, it is certainly not universally agreed-upon that the duties of government should include optimizing the "standard of living" for the People.  Presumably, on one end of the spectrum we have the Socialists, who would argue that it is a reasonable function of our government.  But, on the other, you have the Libertarians who would argue that it is not, as that is a private sector/free market matter.  Democrats and Republicans, of course, fall somewhere between those two extremes.  My advice, since laws are much harder to change by one man than investment strategies, is to give some serious thought to where you invest your money.  Is Walmart/Target/Kmart/etc. a good investment?  Only if you correctly predict that the laissez-faire types will prevail in terms of policy-making.  If you feel, however, that the controlled-economy/protectionist types will win out, then it may not be such a good investment.  After all, no matter whether we invent notions such as "standard of living" or "economies of scale" we are still left with the reality that your own situation is affected more by your own choices than by any god or government.  You can be poor in a rich country, or rich in a poor country, or any combination of the two, depending on your choices.  (Assuming, of course, that the freedom to make those choices exists.)

[angus]

my man!  that's what I'm talkinabout. 

we do miss walmart 

did find a place called Fairway in the 'hood, though.  Merlinda's XXXXtra reserve habanero sauce:  $2.29+tax.  Soy Milk:  $2.99 per half-gallon.  8-oz Brie:  $1.49.  Not too bad by Manhattan standards.

Do youze guys cut, or peel, the bloom offa brie, or do ya eat it?  I throw the bloom out, but I know many who eat it.  Oh, Oh, Oh, that's my 2 kinds of people input.  I'll be right back...

[angus]

You won't find a Wal-Mart in the City.  Every time they want to put one in, the stupid protesters fight it.  To find one, you'll have to head out to the suburbs.

so we learned.  We've been doing most of our shopping at Met soupamahkets lately.  That reminds me, yesterday, as I was walking into the one on Amsterdam near Columbia, a chick asked me whether I was a Registered Democrat.  I spat back at her, "Certainly not!"  Then walked in and got my stuff.  Oh, man, an Isaac Hayes tune was playing inside.  Isaac Hayes!  How often do you hear that for background music when you're in the supermarket?!  Anyway, I got to thinking, she was really pretty.  About 21.  Nice T&A too.  (no, I'm faithful to my wife, but even people on diets are allowed to read the menu and drool)  And I'm into politics, so I really should at least talk to her.  So on the way out I saw her, gave her that million-dollar smile, and asked her what she's up to.  Well, she explained, she needed registered dems to sign a petition to get ...oh, I forget his name... anyway, this candidate on the ballot as borough president.  Borough president?  So, I engaged this friendly, bouncy, young democrat for a while in conversation and learned all sorts of things about NYC politics.  Apparently the city is unique in that it contains five counties (most US cities are a subset of a county, not the other way around) and that each county is also called a borough.  Apparently, the Borough President position was created, way back when, in order to get Brooklyn to allow itself get annexed by New York.  Or so the story goes.  Anyway, borough presidents actually have some authority.  They can form committees, do independent investigations, and make recommendations.  They are well-funded too.  Apparently voter participation in the city is quite low, and most people who are into politics get involved by joining "political clubs"  These clubs musta been powerful at one time, but have declined.  Anyway, there are five, says she, that are still pretty active and interesting on the West Side.  Four democrat, and one Republican.  She said I should check out the GOP one if I was interested.  Or, better yet, one of the democrat ones.  Ah, the idealism of youth.  Of course I had to ask her whether she was considering supporting Bloomberg for re-election.  She rolled her baby-blues and said "yeah, right," and gave me a sarcastic grin, in a way that was rather sporting and somewhat arousing.  Anyway, she went on to explain that she needed 45000 signatures.  Or was it 4500?  Anyway, that I should send people over if I knew any registered democrats.  (and surely I must.)  So I said I would, and I bid her farewell, wished her luck, and went back to my apartment with my bread, brie, roast beef, and australian cabernet sauvignon and did a little reading about the local political scene.  Weird politics here.  Very cliquish.  Also, apparently the over-under income here is like five times the national average, or something like that.  According to the NYT, the income above which more than half the voters, nationally, voted for Bush was $24,700, or thereabouts.  The same parameter for manhattan?  About $110,000.  Ouch.  By NYC standards I'm still considered a democrat, I guess.

[angus]

You sure shop for groceries and such a lot angus.  I must admit I never enter grocery stores - prefer to dine in restaurants.

Visiting a normal grocery store (in St. Louis the Shnucks chain) is only mildly depressing, but going into Walmart is such a display of America's new third-world standard of living - fat poor people struggle through the aisles of garbage - that I really can't manage it more than once every few months.

Your figure that a majority of American's over $24,700 voted for Bush is dismaying.  I think the cut off at which it would make sense to vote for him would be about $150,000-200,000 or so.  One wonders when people will notice their own self-interests.

I prefer daily shopping to weekly, as bread and vegetables are fresher that way.  And I rarely enter restaurants, as I prefer food that tastes good and my wife and I are, respectively, the second-best and the best cooks I know.  But when I am into the weekly shopping, Wal-mart can't be beat.  Fat people struggling through garbage is more synonymous with those lazy bastards who pay extra and let others cook for them, and take taxis and pay whores to f**ck them, rather than those who shop for fresh foods and prepare it themselves, and walk or bicycle, and generally out-alpha the nerdy guys for the best lay.  Strange mind you have there, boss.  But I suppose we all have our own definition of "depressing."

[angus]

It's really exacerbating to actually try to have an intelligent conversation with you opebo.  And it's particularly frustrating since I know you cannot possibly be as dense, or as insensitive, or as hypocritical as you put on.  You're toying with me and all the rest of us.  Nevertheless, I have allowed you to get the better of me.  I didn't come here to get bothered, but I just cannot take this ridiculous anti-walmart hysteria sitting down.  That's the one thing that really gets my blood boiling these days.  Wal-mart bashing.  Maybe it's best if I just log off before I say something really offensive.  Good night.

[angus]

ah, I think I meant exasperating, not exacerbating.