Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Do you think Wal-Mart could do a better job running Wall Street?

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) more than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer. And most can't speak English

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World ..

7.. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which

1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street. Better yet . . . let them run the Government!

Perhaps Wall Street could undergo a slight respelling of their name - Wal-Street...what d'ya think?

Update:

Granted, I got the bulk of this from an email, but it got me thinking. Why aren't more big businesses that are doing well, taking over more of these failed businesses - it seems to be a buyers market right now. Wal-Mart could do worse than taking over some of these smaller big businesses (not AIG big, but there's gotta be several other big businesses down for the count). Certainly the big businesses would like to stay afloat, even if it is as a Wal-business.

Like Mom said, "If Wal-Mart don't have it, you don't need it." Perhaps they could get into the car industry next, or dive farther into the banking world???

Update 2:

By "run Wall Street" I mean take over (in part or in full, in cooperation with the Federal Government, or not) some of the businesses that are failing, inject capital into them, make management changes as necessary, close or merge as needed, and generally turn the company from a leech on society to a positive producer of goods and/or services.

True, WM has it's problems, chief among them is paying a decent wage to its workers in the US as well as overseas. However, you can't point to a couple of things it does wrong, and condemn the whole. There's something more inherently wrong about that, than about the government buying AIG and still allowing them to give tax payer money as "retention bonuses".

WM has VERY deep pockets and is more solvant than the US government. Why not give them an incentive to spend a portion of their vast reserves on America. I wouldn't expect them to take over EVERY failed/failing company, but some show of support would be nice.

Update 3:

I know what you're talking about Caveman. But I'd still like to see what WM might do with say ... the big three automakers. With WM extreme "dislike" for unions, and the redundency of many cars currently on the market, I can see WM doing a lot of good in bringing car costs down should it so desire to enter the car business.

And while I'm not in favor of nationalized banks, WM could probably negotiate a better deal with the Chinese than the Feds have, given that WM employs many of the Asian workforce, and has a nasty little habit of dropping all the services used by a company if WM doesn't like what that company is doing (take Rubbermaid for example). If WM didn't like the terms of service the Chinese or any other country offered the US for country to country loans, the mere threat of exchanging Chinese (or other Asian workers) for South American, Indian, or (heaven forbid they actually return to their roots and employ) American workers, would certainly provide "incentive", yes?

Update 4:

A word to Billy: While I agree that it would take some time to do the crossover, I'm not convinced that WM is totally inept at finance matters. First they have their own bank - not just the one that's in the store either. They literally make so much money and handle so much money that the normal clearinghouse banks couldn't handle it, so they had to create their own clearinghouse bank. OBVIOUSLY the people dealing with that kind of money have a LOT more education and financial know-how than the check out clerk or the stock boy. And they certainly aren't working for minimum wage + $0.25!

As far as insurances, and pensions go, WM does that already too. Granted to the individual employee it may not seem like a lot, but WM DOES have access to decent insurance. And they, like most companies now days, don't do pensions, but do have a 401(k) program, which could still be used by those in the finance sector. And finally, I'm not saying buy AIG (please DON'T buy AIG), buy something small ...

Update 5:

...buy something small first, or several smaller somethings and work at turning a profit on them. Let AIG fail. Or divide it up and allow WM to buy a small part of what was once AIG.

I'm not saying to take WM store associates and put them in charge of billions of dollars - that would be no better than keeping the fools who got the companies into the mess to begin with. I'm saying use the WM business plan. You do realize WM has a business plan, right? WM stores are built to cater to a specific demographic of society. Wall Street does not cater to the same demographic unless a BUNCH of the WM stores demographic get together and purchase "stuff". I'm not saying create a Wal-Street Super Center, but obviously WM Inc is not the same DIY five and dime Sam Walton created in Bentonville, so why continue to think of it as such.

4 Answers

Relevance
  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Since Wal-Mart has been the demise of many a small business, it may pose some interesting situations in small town America if Wal-Mart would buy out those businesses that they force out of existence when they move into a small town/city. I'm not saying that Wally World Executives consciously or intentionally force small businesses to close, but by their mere presence, the small business is not able to survive.

    Another thought about Wal-Mart in control of any more than what they already are, is that I'm sick of all the imports from China. Even the fish that is sold in the grocery department is from China. Walton based the business on "made in America" - but that premise is now dead and buried.

    I do have respect for the shrewdness of Wal-Mart executives. They certainly have something going for themselves. Now I have to stop typing and head on over to my local Wally World - only one mile away.

  • 1 decade ago

    There is a very simple question to this answer and it is NO. Because Walmart is not trained to run finances. Walmart is a discount mega store which is perfect in selling items and inventory rotation.

    Using a business aspect if Walmart were to run Wallstreet it will take some time for Walmart to accomodate to some of the new business processes because financing and selling items uses very different accounting methods. Walmart will also have to learn how to do banking and investment and pensions and insurances.

    Walmart's personnel currently are only low qualified employees who aren't trained for even the most menial accounting task.

    Walmart no matter how huge their company is do not have enough capital to absorb even AIG. The financial industry no matter how many write downs has more capital than Walmart.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    I'm not sure if you actually mean "run Wall Street" or if you are talking about the company increasing their reign over more of our economy. I'm going to assume the latter.

    Sam Walton embodieds the American dream. In a capitalistic society, the goal of the population is to be as successful as possible and to amass as much money as possible. Wal-mart runs one of the most cost efficient companies in the world.

    The only problem with Wal-mart expanding their reign over an increasing amount of our economy is the fact that a family cannot live on a Wal-mart wage. The average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed $27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the average associate's annual wages $17,114

  • ?
    Lv 4
    4 years ago

    Why you do no longer help the OWS... it extremely is evident that YA Cons don't have from now on connection to actuality, then they do to midsection-individuals, or the ninety 9%. This record contains what i think are a itemizing of issues that have in no way got here approximately to a YA Con, and is the reason why they are so heartless while it contains their fellow individuals. Having their pay or interest decrease so as that her CEO can get a pay improve. dropping their interest or the employer they artwork for to a badly-performed gamble by way of greater than a number of of her bosses. Having their shares and/or fee decrease fee rates worn out by way of playing bosses and brokers whose strikes are previous their administration. looking themselves caught with a adverse and/or debilitating wellness difficulty owing to tainted food or risky chemical utilized by way of a company, and then completing interior the area above. Having some suited or technique upon which they matter without notice imperiled or revoked via fact a politically-related employer spent a great number of funds to take it away. Having their shrunk pay and reward "re-negotiated" with out their consent by way of politicians who claimed to prefer "small government." living in a city the place the final public of the roles have been shipped foreign places, subsequently making it harder to locate or save a job close to their living house. Having firms make "gentleman's agreements" to suppress wages of their area, so as that a individual working there could make purely plenty funds. * Any mix of the above. consistent with probability while they have suffered the way the ninety 9% have, they'll experience diverse, yet i do no longer choose those studies on anybody of my Fellow individuals.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.