WalMart refuses to sell Playboy or Maxim but sells guns

[Storebought]

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. 

I tested some rifles with several Wal-Mart employees, so absolutely yes, you can buy them direct from the store.

[Keystone Phil]

The danger of a gun is greater than that of a magazine. I guess it's not purely hypocritical though.

And liberals say conservatives are the ones who make everything seem so simple?

[opebo]

WalMart is run by a bunch of christian intolerants, and most of the customers are the same type.  Please, everyone, abuse their 90 day return policy - to the max!

Do you think that actually hurts the stock holders and owners, or the minimum wage student they have working there that interacts with the annoying customers?

It is impossible to hurt that minimum wage person (she is typically an adult), as she cannot fall any lower.

Heh, obviously you've never worked for minimum wage.  If lots of customers treat you like sh**t and give you trouble, it makes your day so much worse.

What you're advocating doesn't hurt the managers or stockholders.  It hurts those that you "care" about.

How does returning something 'hurt' the slave-wage employee?  I'm unfailingly polite in all my dealings, including those returns.

[opebo]

Yes / Yes.
Why would you vote againts selling guns in Walmart unless you oppose selling guns anywhere?

Why would anyone oppose selling Playboys at Wal-Mart unless they oppose selling Playboys anywhere?

Because we want to maintain a level of decency in society.

Hah hah, I'm sure your allies would find dragging the likes of you behind a pick-up truck an even better way of promoting 'decency'. 

The concept of 'decency' is nothing more than subjective preference as there is no objective morality.  You're an intolerant for attempting to impose your preferences on others, and so is Walmart.

[opebo]

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 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.

[Citizen James]

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. 

I tested some rifles with several Wal-Mart employees, so absolutely yes, you can buy them direct from the store.

As long as it was with and not on...

[Ebowed]

WalMart is run by a bunch of christian intolerants, and most of the customers are the same type.  Please, everyone, abuse their 90 day return policy - to the max!

lol  You are so full of sh**t.  Hillary Clinton used to be on the board of directors.

Proves my point, eh?

Haha, you think Hillary Clinton is a "christian intolerant"?

[John Dibble]

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.

By the way, I had been under the impression that Wal-mart offers guns through mail order only and not off the shelves. At least this was the case several years ago. Is this no longer the case?

I don't imagine federal law allows that anymore, especially with background check requirements and all.

[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. 

[jacob_101]

No...No...neither one has a place in Wal-mart.  It's a department store/grocery store not an adult bookstore or gunshop.

[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. 

[opebo]

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.)

Cheaper labour (particularly slave labour) always 'wins'.  You may congratulate yourself that you are not among thouse affected, but over the long term nearly everyone will be.  It most emphatically will not be 'ok', for the vast majority of people - either in China or the US.

[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.)

[WalterMitty]

today on my trip to wal mart i nabbed some spicy brown mustard for 86 cents.  beenie weenies were  66 cents.  i also got a package of ball park franks for $2.50

who cares about hustler and guns?  im eating the all american lunch.

[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...

[Blue Rectangle]

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...

I eat it all.  I also pay a lot more that $3/pound (not by choice), so I can't see wasting it.

[opebo]

today on my trip to wal mart i nabbed some spicy brown mustard for 86 cents.  beenie weenies were  66 cents.  i also got a package of ball park franks for $2.50

who cares about hustler and guns?  im eating the all american lunch.

Wow, that is very disgusting.  Are you stupendously flatulent, Mitty?

[opebo]

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. 

Actually one can have one's cake and eat it too if one simply abandons the old-fashioned notion of employment as the key to economic security and comfort.  Simply allow the free trade which does tremendous damage to the bottom 80% while enriching the top 1-5%, and then redistribute through a generous welfare state.  So you still have the slave-made products you love so well, angus, while the working-class americans made destitute by this trade are saved by the State.

Of course that leaves the chinese slave-workers holding the bag, but I suppose if they want to improve their lot they should rise up and slit the throats of their oppressors (like they did in 1949). 

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Nonsense my man, individual effort and decision making is highly exaggerated in importance.  Nearly all of one's economic future is determined by birth class.  I for example have little money to invest, and will only have large amounts such when (and if) I inherit.  So there is nothing I can do to gain investable funds, except.. well maybe I'd better not type that...

[KEmperor]

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.

[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.

[opebo]

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.

[Bono]

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.

Yes, I'm sure everyone beloew $150000 is interested in living in a stagnated economy.

[opebo]

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.

Yes, I'm sure everyone beloew $150000 is interested in living in a stagnated economy.

Hah, what a baseless claim!  Besides, the economy is stagnant for the bottom 90% even in the current laissez-faire system.

[Bono]

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.

Yes, I'm sure everyone beloew $150000 is interested in living in a stagnated economy.

Hah, what a baseless claim! 

I learned from the master.