Revitalizing Utica

[bobbbiez]

Clipper, you're such a smart a**!

Be my guest and go with the CDC and all the documented facts and research findings and then ask yourself "WHY' then even with people receiving the flu shots there is always an epidemic every single year.

Duh! If you believe all research findings you read, I have this bridge in my backyard I'd like to sell you. ;D

[Clipper]

Teachers, healthcare workers and anyone working with the public increases their risk of contracting flu. If anything is going around and you have kids in school, they will be sure and bring it home to you, haha.

The reason that you stay so healthy since retiring is because of RJ. You have become French Canadian by injection, and we are tough and healthy stock, hahaha.

You have a bridge in your backyard?? Where didja get that from? I know RJ is a kind of a packrat, but where did he pick up a bridge to bring home? How many trips did he have to make with his little pickup truck?

[bobbbiez]

SAN FRANCISCO!

"Teachers, health-care workers and anyone working with the public increases their risk of contacting flu," ..........and that's even if you received the flu shot. ;D
So what's the argument?

As far as that other canuck living with me. Like my three grandkids who have the flu, he came down sick and if he has the flu he will be sleeping in the backyard till all is over, and "yes" he had his flu shot.

[chris]

Thank you BobbbieZ...your answer is good enough. I would have only responded the same ;D

[bobbbiez]

You're welcome Chris.

Ya know most is just common sense and guiding yourself by your own experiences. As far as all this researching and findings, one day this is good for you and then shorty after they say it's not. Plus the fact, that most researchers will always disagree with the other. Go figure! What is one to believe?

[rodwilson]

Oct 29, 2009 19:32:44 GMT -5 gearofzanzibar said:

Oct 29, 2009 17:11:27 GMT -5 @rodwilson said:

Seriously. Perhaps not a Physician. I'll take an RN or a PA. I just don't think doing it in a shopping center is the place for it.

I'm sure there are a lot of doctors that would agree with you, since trivial, in-office procedures are the main profit drivers for medical practices. One of the easiest ways to cut health care costs is to let trained professionals concentrate on cases that actually require their expertise and training. A vaccination? Swab, jab, depress plunger. Cheap and easy. Of course, you still have the option of seeing a doctor for the procedure if you think it's really necessary, but if someone can do the same job for less, why bother?

Your choice. Me, I'll see a pro.

No, it's not. You mean the Wal-Mart that almost single-handedly cut the cost of nearly every generic prescription to $4? The Wal-Mart that flooded every American disaster zone of the last two decades with supplies and resources within hours? The Wal-Mart that donates millions to charity?

The profit motive is a strong motivator for the company, but it's not the only one. Painting it as some kind of single-minded rapacious monster is simplistic and facile.

You mean THIS Wal-Mart?

"In spite of its large volume of sales, Wal-Mart's corporate contributions are small. Wal-Mart ranked last among major discount retailers, donating four-tenths of a percent of its earnings, well behind its competitors (U.S. corporations average just over one percent). A cornerstone of the company philosophy is that it "gives something back" by keeping prices low."

www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores2.html



Then how do they keep their brutally exploited and abused employees from, you know, quitting? If they care so little for them why do I see the same faces at the checkout and in the aisles for years? Is it possible that, horror of horrors, the employees aren't the mindless, moon-faced, stupid sheep you think they are?

Don't know where you're shopping but the turnover is high and most of their employees are prob otherwise unemployable so they may be doing society a favor here.

www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

www.campusprogress.org/features/279/ten-things-wal-mart-doesnt-want-you-to-know

www.hrmguide.com/relations/wal-mart-child-labor.htm


Because Wal-Mart drives inefficient companies out of business? That's a *good* thing. The best thing that could possibly happen to consumers is that a business can't compete with Wal-Mart on price, since that means they're forced to compete using service, selection, quality, or the dozens of other variables that go into a purchase decision.

The general public understands far to little about the impact of their purchasing decision.


Well, we've already soon more than a few societies where competition was to be avoided at all costs...and those experiments didn't work out too well.

And that's a good thing, isn't it? Otherwise there would be no motivation to improve your own product or service. I *love* my competitors, and I'm more than happy to steer a potential customer to them if I think they'd be a better fit. There's a place for inexpensive, utilitarian goods as well as high-end, high-quality ones. That's the glory of the marketplace- there's room for everyone, and everyone benefits from having all those choices.

Competition is great and necessary. Wal-Mart does not compete, they dominate with the help of government and unknowing taxpayers.

There are more manufacturers in the US today than ever before. They're small, they're agile, and they're creating more products than in any other time of history. For every Huffy moving to Mexico there are probably a dozen boutique bike builders employing just as many people as a group.

Thanks to the internet I can sell my goods around the world, something that was impossible twenty years ago. There's no possible way I could have supported myself producing the kind of high-quality metalwork I do back then- there simply wasn't enough local demand. Now close to half my customers are outside the US.

For all the businesses like mine Wal-Mart matters not a whit.

With all due respect what do you contribute to the local economy? How many do you employ? Are you in fact a "manufacturer" or an artisan? Big difference.



To quote Wikipedia:



Wal-Mart is the king of commoditization, and that's a very, very good thing. If the only difference between products is price everyone wins when the commodity's price goes as low as possible. That's where qualitative differences in product assert themselves, opening up the market to multiple vendors and competitors.

You do know that anyone can post to wiki right? No credentials necc.



When Rubbermaid refused to meet Wal-Mart's price targets they were dropped and replaced by Sterilite, a company that could meet them because they were more efficient. Rubbermaid downsized, was bought out, and came back with more efficient manufacturing and product development. Bad for the employees of Rubbermaid, no doubt, but in the end a net win for everyone else.

The Rubbermaid story isn't an indictment of Wal-Mart, it's a vindication.

So the loss of American jobs is somehow a victory? And Sterlite absolutely BLOWS as a product. They use garbage materials that have been shown in fact to be carcinogens.

If you're goal is complete domination without any regard to anything but profitability, then they are right on top of the heap. The problem is that all of those issues outside of profit are truly more significant that people realized.

I think we actually agree about more than we disagree, but we're coming at the same conclusion from opposite directions. You see Wal-Mart as negative for the same reasons I see it as a positive- it encourages efficiency. In the short term commiditization is painful and costs jobs, but in the long term it opens up even more economic possibilities by setting up a baseline for qualitative competition. I'll never be able to sell a stool for less than Wal-Mart, but that just means I have to make stools that people *will* pay more for. I'm more than happy for Bentonville to dominate the <$40 stool market since their customers wouldn't be interested in my artisanal stools anyway.* Their customers get what they want, my customers get what they want, and everybody wins.




*It still cracks me up every time I write "artisanal stools". I'm a ten-year old kid at heart.

[Deleted]

Oct 2, 2009 20:38:30 GMT -5 fiona said:

Kracker: Have you ever considered moving?

Nah, I like it here. I mean where else can you see the show that we have around here? Didga hear the latest on how O.C. is getting sued by some residents in the Town of Lee? Seems that some good 'ol boys in the county allowed a developer to put in septic tanks that were too small for the houses that were built. The local news media is as usual ignoring the story, but Strikeslip as usual has the scoop on Fault Lines. Check it out.

[rodwilson]

Saw that kracker, good stuff.

[Clipper]

The OD had a short article about it the other day. Someone should follow that one to the end and see who paid off who.

[rodwilson]

Whoops, I forgot this piece about Wal-Mart, their $4 co-pays and their stellar labor relations history.

"Publicity Stunt or Diversion?

Wal-Mart Seeking to Counter News of Massive Wage and Hour Violations in Pennsylvania. Less than a week before Wal-Mart announced its drug program expansion, a Pennsylvania jury found the company guilty of $78 million in violations for making workers miss breaks and work later hours without pay. The news was a major blow to the retailers, who lost a similar case in California for $172 million less than a year prior. [Bloomberg, 10/13/06]

Wal-Mart Facing Similar Lawsuits in Vast Majority of New Drug Program States. Wal-Mart is being sued for similar wage and hour violations in 12 of the 14 states into which it is expanding its drug program. As of 2006, the company faces active lawsuits in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Texas, according to the company’s own reporting."

wakeupwalmart.com/press/20061019a.html

And this one:

"in order to profit on the $4 prescriptions, Walmart imports the drugs from cheap overseas suppliers. One of the suppliers, India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories, has been repeatedly investigated by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice for “inadequate” safeguards against contamination, falsifying records and submitting false information to the FDA. The situation was so bad that in 2008 the FDA banned drugs from two Ranbaxy plants and in 2009 halted review of applications from a third"

www.changetowin.org/connect/2009/06/the_hidden_cost_of_4.html

AND DON"T FORGET TO VOTE TOMORROW!

[Clipper]

There will always be an anti-Walmart sentiment fueled by people such as yourself Rod. Idealistic and admirably so, but not in touch with today's retail world and the reality of where it is going in the future.

I find it hard to think that ALL of their benevolence is born of a desire for publicity.

The huge and efficient distribution system at Walmart has benefited those in need BEFORE the government could even mobilize or become involved.

During the major ice storm in Northern NY in the nineties, Walmart sent trailer load ,after trailer load of donated foodstuffs, bottled water, baby formula and other emergency needs to the North country. I was driving for a Walmart dedicated trucking contractor at the time, and personally delivered generators to Watertown, escorted by the national guard and state police. Those generators were hurried into place to aid those that needed power for oxygen machines, respirators and other health related emergency needs.

After 9/11 Walmart sent trucks daily to NYC to feed rescue workers, furnish bottled water,soda and coffee, and also provided for those displaced from their homes by the dust problems. That went on for months, not days.

After Katrina, Walmart did the same sort of things, at no cost to those receiving the goods.

Should something of that nature happen where I live, I would rather see a Walmart truck coming to town than a half dozen nitwits from FEMA and a flyover by Obama's helicopter.

Walmart does nothing that most American corporations don't do to compete. FDA controls the quality of drugs, and I am confident that contaminated drugs don't reach the shelves of Walmart any quicker than they reach Walgreen's or Rite Aid. Walmart's drug program saves many lives for those that have no other outlet or financing to pay for their medications. While we sit back and moan about Walmart, there are people dying that can't afford their blood pressure and heart meds and DON'T have any way to pay for them. As for unpaid hours, I am sure that they will pay for those offenses, as they have in other places. Retail is cut throat, and Walmart is in it for profit, make no mistake. That sort of offense is usually a local problem generated by local management, not corporate policy.

If our government was run as well and efficiently as Walmart Stores are, we would not be in the economic mess we are now. We would be getting a little bit of value for our tax money.

With more than one hundred tractor trailer drivers, thousands of distribution center warehouse workers, all of the stores in the area, maybe one should look at the numbers of people that might not be employed if not for walmart, regardless of the wage.

So while your "principles" may prevent you from shopping there, I am more than glad to have walmart in MY community and yes, I DO shop there. Truth be known, your wife probably does too. With young children, if she doesn't, she is putting principles ahead of good sense. As for quality, I have a Carhart jacket from Walmart, and I have a very similar jacket that cost more, and came from a local sporting good retailer in Utica. The one from Utica was $12 more and was made in Bangladesh. Tell me about Walmart quality issues.

As I said at the start of the post Rod, there will always be those that hate Walmart and all that they stand for, but then again there are many many more that are grateful for their presence in the community and appreciative of the employment and contributions to the local economy as well as for their low prices on everyday needs.

Living in Utica NY, you are in the wrong place to find much sympathy for your opinon, with someone in most any family working at the distribution center in Marcy or at one of the stores.

I respect your ideals Rod, although I don't agree with some of your assessments.

I DO find it hard to place much stock in the links you provided, seeing as one is a UNION generated site, and the other is simply a blog.

[rodwilson]

As did MANY others Clipper. My post was simply in response to Gears comments. The facts regarding Wal-Mart and the quality of their pharmaceuticals is simply fact regardless of where I pulled the info from. You take the garbage I'll make sure my family gets quality meds when they need them.

I get it, you guys like Wal-Mart and I really don't care. My point is that a community needs balance between the two. And you'll never catch my wife at a Wal-Mart, there is absolutely nothing they have to offer us. For example. Byrne Dairy milk is prob around $3.50 a gallon @ Wal-Mart. I can get it for 2.50 @ Byrne Dairy.

And by the way Clipper, I actually live here. Know people that work at the stores and the distribution center. What they wouldn't give to have other opportunities. Most people work there because there is little other option and the distribution pays great money in comparison to what little else there is here. Wal-Mart preys on communities like these. I don't hate Wal-Mart, I hate what they do to people. You guys go ahead and cheer them on for it. Wal-mart thrives due to consumer ignorance. All I want, is for government to stop subsidizing and using tax payer money to destroy better jobs and opportunity.

I do think it rather ironic that you try to discredit a source of mine because it's UNION but yet you defend Wal-Mart as a former contract employee.

[Clipper]

I don't know what you find ironic in the fact that I worked for a "contracted trucking" company. I made about $1200 a week for working well managed hours, with our log hours tracked by Walmart's safety folks. It was just another benefit brought to the area by the Walmart Distribution Center.

As far as condemning a source of yours, I simply point out the bias that is evident, when the source is a union that has been unsuccessful in fighting Walmart, as well as many other retailers.

The united food and commercial workers union would love get into Walmart, as well as many other large chains of retailers. When the DO accomplish that feat, we will see the stores prices go up, the quality decline, and eventual failure, just as we have with the automobile industry and the death grip that the autoworker's unions had on them.

I was not always anti union. I am a former teamster, a former firefighter's union president, and a former member of AFGE at Griffiss. Unions have, or have had, a place in american industry, but their unreasonable demands and greed of their leaders have had a horrible effect on America and her economy. Unions, like government, have gotten too big for their britches, and do more harm than good in many cases.

As far as my living in that area, you will have to live there for many more years to equal the time that I lived there before retiring here to Tennessee. I love that area, and it's people. I love the entire Central NY area, and I WILL be back. If not as a permanent resident, as a seasonal resident. It is my home, and my roots are there.

By the way, Walmart keeps many small town economies moving. We used to haul egg crate foam mattress pads from a place of Rt 33 NW of Allentown Pa. There were 10 or 15 trailer loads a day hauled from there to be placed into the walmart distribution system and shipped nationwide. They buy several trailer loads per day of pillows and comforters from a factory located in Frackville Pa. , a small coal town in the mountains south of Hazleton. They are the major buyers of cookies from a commercial bakery in Burilngton Iowa, a small town along the Mississippi river. There is a small town in New Hampshire that is only about the size of Oriskany. Their only employer is a factory that makes picture frames exclusively for Walmart. There is a company in a similar town in Northern Kentucky that survives on gift wrap for Walmart, as does another small Kentucky town that makes paper plates for Walmart.


Ya see Rod, unless you have been out there and seen some of the sources of Walmart goods, you would never know that they keep the lights on for MANY MANY small US manufacturing and distributing companies all across the country. Wherever we went to pick up goods, we saw line upon line of 'Walmart trailers, keeping people working at those facilities. Clorox bottling plant in Aberdeen Md, and Cranberry NJ. Dunkirk NY had two major suppliers. One that shipped juice boxes and one that shipped dog food, both the Walmart. There is a place in Southern Connecticut that started out as a family run greenhouse. They now bag and ship potting soil nationwide to Walmart stores and employ 40 or 50 people. Generic cereal comes from a plant in Clinton Mass. Employs half the town to produce cereal for Price Chopper, Save alot, Hannaford, and Walmart.

It is in where you live and what perspective you look at from. For every mom and pop that is closing, there are many people thriving on the business Walmart brings to manufacturers and distributors in their areas.

Your mission to revitalize the inner city, is wrongly focused if it is focused on blaming big box retailers for the loss of downtown business. It is simply an evolution in the shopping habits of the people.

As for redeveloping such things as hotels and small shops and boutiques, failures in that area could be attributed to corrupt politics, patronage, and money misdirected to pet projects and personal pockets. Many cities have accomplished that. Kingsport Tenn. is an example, but their downtown district was developed through cooperation, dedication of the citizens and business people, and a legitimate government that didn't have their fingers in the pot all the time.

As for prescription medications, FDA would be on them like flies on Sh*t if they thought for one moment that they were selling contaminated drugs. As for obsolete drugs, that may be. I take atenelol for blood pressure. It is available in generic form, and has been on the market long enough that Walmart probably carries it for 4 bucks. If I didn't get it from VA, had no insurance and had to pay for it out of my pocket, I would be glad to get it for $4.

I will make a wager that when the fire in your belly burns low, you will be in line with the rest of us at the checkout at Walmart. Maybe not tomorrow, but sometime later in life. I saw how fast the enthusiasm died when the recall thing went astray. If I remember correctly YOU were going to leave town at that point.

I was born there, love it there, and will most likely die there, although I have moved here to care for my since deceased parents. Can you say the same? If not, don't insinuate that I have no business in commenting because I don't live there.

Simple fact is this. I STARTED this forum for that area, specifically so that I could PARTICIPATE from here in discussions about the area that I love so much. Never doubt MY dedication to the area or love for the city.

[rodwilson]

But bias couldn't be evident from someone whose paycheck ultimately came from Wal Mart? Really? You don't see the irony there?

I didn't once claim that Wal Mart had anything to do with a dying downtown area. It does have very much to do with undermining an already eroding tax base. I no longer have any effort underway or plans to do anything in Utica. Goes along with the moving part. If you're referring to the flag football league, it's not mine. Just something I thought would be fun until I left.

Thriving? I'd be interested as hell to hear if the folks that work in those town and factories would use the same word.

You won't catch me in line. Like I said, they have nothing for me. I won't buy their groceries, I don't wear any of the clothing lines that they sell, I choose to patronize a local drug store where we actually have a relationship with the pharmacist. Like I said, nothing for me.

As for the recall issue, I don't live in Utica and given the legal hurdles that existed regarding whether or not a recall was viable, I chose not to "tilt at windmills". There was also a conscious effort to distance myself from the fiasco that ensued. And I am moving. Stated that and have not since stated otherwise. I also stated that my wife was was a teacher and would finish out the school year. My decision to leave had nothing to do with the recall. It was after I did some work and discovered that Utica and David Roefaro really don't have a Master Plan nor do they have any plan. In conjunction with other reasons.

NO where did I say anything or insinuate anything about your right to comment. But like I said, I know people here that feel stuck in Wal Mart because of lack of other opportunity. Have you had conversations with locals here that have expressed to you how grateful they were to be stuck at a dead end job resulting in debilitating injuries from tossing boxes all day?

But you're right. I wasn't born here. Thank God. It makes it much easier to leave.

Like I said, I was just trying to engage in a debate, why you people get so worked up is beyond me. You're free to share your opinion but when one differs it results in a personal attack?

[bobbbiez]

Awwwwwwww come on Rodwilson, we ain't all that bad.

Hope you don't mind me jumping in but I feel we do have a very good and fair forum going here especially if you checked out all the others around. Sure it gets heated once in a while but like a good marriage.....a good argument fuels the interest again.

Don't be too hard on Clipper. After all he is a senior citizen and like me is set in many ways but he is very informative and I do enjoy most of all his post (also love to remind him he is a senior with senior moments. lol!)

You both are making some good points and I am learning a lot from both of you concerning this topic. Take a deep breath and stay with us. ;D