Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:18 am Post subject: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
Market saturation rears its ugly head, so it's "into the cities" with a new small-store format by the name of Marketside.
FWIW, I support this move for right-sizing America's retail.
Quote:
Marketside, Walmart's (WMT) New Small Store Chain, Spotted Out In The Wild (WMT)
Corey Lorinsky | Aug 27, 08 6:23 AM
Walmart's (WMT) latest plan for world domination is called "marketside".
It's everything Walmart isn't. A chain of smaller, friendlier stores with a neighborhood quality--providing fresh and prepared foods for higher prices.
And now the FT has spotted one in the wild in Mesa, Arizona. Mesa is a suburb right outside of Phoenix, the area where WMT is building its first 4 pilot stores.
The intial rollout may be small, but WMT inadvertantly revealed its true plans for Marketside via a job post that was quickly taken down: The store is planned to be a chain of more than 1,000 locations with more than $10 billion in yearly revenue.
...
Clusterstock _________________ "It's called the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."
Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 3068 Location: The Urban Village
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:42 am Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
Yep, here they come. That particular picture doesn't look too urban of a location though.
Their White Plains store is more of an urban format, but still Gawd-awful ugly
This store has two levels of store topped by about 5 levels of parking and special escalators that you can ride with your cart loaded with junk made in china.
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1012 Location: In the suburban sea of strangers
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:53 am Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
I have always thought that the predictions of Wal-Mart's demise by Kunstler and others were greatly exaggerated. Sure the warehouse on wheels will be a broken business model, but Wal Mart will have the foresight and resources to adapt to what still works.
Still it's sad to think that the corner store of the future will be owned by our global corporate overlords. When I was a kid I went to school with the kids of the family that owned the corner store in our neighborhood. _________________ The battle to preserve our lifestyle has already been lost. The battle to preserve our lives is just beginning.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3626 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:00 am Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
dinopello wrote:
Yep, here they come. That particular picture doesn't look too urban of a location though.
What, too many organisms? Looks like your typical suburban strip mall to me. That's where they're headed, 'twixt Ready Nails and a Tae Kwon Do studio.
By no means are they usurping zoning laws, which is what it'll take to have real "corner grocers" again. This is just SamCo moving into Plaid Pantry territory. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
C'mon man, who're you gonna believe?
Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 1786 Location: Republic of Texas
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:06 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
NeoPeasant wrote:
When I was a kid I went to school with the kids of the family that owned the corner store in our neighborhood.
Thus, you weren't old enough to remember paying the high prices for limited selection and their ursury rates.
I am.
Wal-Mart hating is so retarded. It's a private enterprise like any other.
You people are as bad as Rush Limbaugh about harping on demonized caricatures. It's so lame. Grow up and get educated. _________________ Conform . Consume . Obey .
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1012 Location: In the suburban sea of strangers
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
TommyJefferson wrote:
NeoPeasant wrote:
When I was a kid I went to school with the kids of the family that owned the corner store in our neighborhood.
Thus, you weren't old enough to remember paying the high prices for limited selection and their ursury rates.
I don't remember my parents complaining about paying higher taxes to fund public services for their underpaid exploited workforce either.
I do remember they sold jolly roger kites, balsa wood gliders, and hostess fruit pies for a dime and large candy bars for a nickel. _________________ The battle to preserve our lifestyle has already been lost. The battle to preserve our lives is just beginning.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
Gotta say I'm on the fence with Wal-Mart.
On one side you have the Sprawl the outsourcing of US jobs and underpaid workers getting locked in overnight.
On the otherside, there are the opportunities and benefits. Penn and Teller did an amusing but insightful look into how Wal-Mart operates and the people that benefit from its presence in a Chicago store. Of course like the anti-Wal-Marters, they have their straw-man and women too.
Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 3068 Location: The Urban Village
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
I like our local stores. Our hardware store actually stocks stuff we need in our 100 year old homes, and they know what people want that they don't carry and make sure they stock up. I like being able to talk to the owners and they always know what's going on in the neighborhood. They are engaged in the community and sponser youth sports teams, bands, local newsletters, etc. Walmart is probably good for some stuff, but I don't even know where one is around here so can't comment.
The ant works hard all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and he laughs, dances and plays the summer away.
When winter arrives, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well-fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, CNN and ABC show up to provide footage of the poor shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a fully stocked pantry.
America is STUNNED by the sharp contrast!
How can it be that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everyone cries while singing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house. The news stations film the group singing, "We Shall Overcome."
Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper. They both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Hillary Clinton contracts her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant. The case is tried before a panel of Federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recepients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends with the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while sitting snugly in his new government issued house. Which just happens to be the ant's old one.
The ant has disappeared into the snow.
The grasshopper is later found dead in a drug related incident in the poorly maintained, crumbling house, which is later taken over by a mean gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
Joined: Nov 24, 2007 Posts: 140 Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
TommyJefferson wrote:
Thus, you weren't old enough to remember paying the high prices for limited selection and their ursury rates.
I am.
That may be so, but at least the money stayed in the community. That seems better to me than shipping most of it out of the community and into the pockets of the already-rich waltons.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: Re: Wal-Mart debuts urban small store format
Interesting story neocone. I think you left out a bit. You left out the part where the ants show up at the grasshopper colony starving and penniless. After being fed and given shelter by the grasshoppers, they proceed to declare it their manifest destiny to take over all grasshopper lands. They massacre the grasshoppers, push the few that survive onto grasshopper reservations. Take their children to schools thousands of miles away and raise them to act like ants, beating the children brutally any time they speak the grasshopper language or practice grasshopper religion. Then they go to another continent, enslave another type of grasshoppers, bring them to their newly stolen home and force them into generations of slave labor. Once all the lands have been stolen and the slaves have been replaced by machines, the ants suddenly develop amnesia about their history and get highly incensed by anyone suggesting they were ever anything but admirable or questioning how they got all their land and goodies. _________________ "We were standing on the edges
Of a thousand burning bridges
Sifting through the ashes every day
What we thought would never end
Now is nothing more than a memory
The way things were before
I lost my way" - OCMS
Well, I'm trying to educate myself, but somehow I keep coming up with a different opinion than yours. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Looks like your typical suburban strip mall to me. That's where they're headed, 'twixt Ready Nails and a Tae Kwon Do studio.
