What is Digg?89 Comments
- zachlutz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+35Personally I think that any signs of Wal-Mart going green is a good thing. Obviously there's the point that Wal-Mart is a contributing factor to traffic and sprawl, but maybe that's just a sign of the times. Here's to a step in the right direction!
- rtbenson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+30Regardless of anyone's feelings about Wal-Mart as a company, I have to admit that they certainly are the epitome of efficiency and profit maximization when it comes to stuff like this.
- jewbilee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32I would never trust you to write my English papers for me.
- DrOBoogie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Good for them. Hopefully it'll drive their prices even lower.
- apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23Thats nice. Couldn't care less though.
- jabbalphie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Damn when walmart starts providing electricity to consumers it would be cheap, under cutting other power producers/distributors. That would be great for the consumers not the competition ;-)
- rholloway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Your parents obviously didn't hit you enough as a young child.
- rholloway, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15UFO sightings, global warming, positive Wal-Mart stories on a site called "Treehugger"...the end is nigh.
- apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Speaking of power companies... anybody else hate that you usually only have 1 option for power? Why is that? I basically feel like they can do whatever they want and I can't do anything about it!
- DrOBoogie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Why wouldn't they? They're always trying to cut costs to bring their prices lower since it brings in more customers, and this is probably just another way to do it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I don't hate Wal*Mart. There are obvious and legitmate gripes about how they've handled their near monopolistic power, but they got there with the best business model in retail. Low prices to keep consumers coming back, great technology for distribution and warehousing (reinvesting profits to get to this), low overhead.
- Rosco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wal-Mart uses its own solar power, you know what that means don't you? Sam's Club will make their own nukes now!
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6In other news, internet nobody mikesbaker has reportedly claimed that he's "tired of 'in other news' jokes," a remark sure to confuse one-trick ponies and market analysts. More on that at 10.
- baxtermaddux, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6wal mart may be evil, but i find them far less despicable than the oil companies. after all, i dont see wal mart getting tens of billions in tax breaks and they do give a lot of money back to charity.
i would also argue that wal marts efficiency and centralization, actually helps reduce consumer waste and in the end is better for the environment. - vikingcoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The Enron scandal was about extreme levels of accounting fraud, not bulk purchasing of electricity. It wasn't the market that got them in trouble, it was their duplicity.
- PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10In other news, Wal-Mart, long laughed at by Google and Amazon, joins the ranks of "companies which may take over the world."
- rowlodge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6i wish they would sell dsl cable or fiber at half price.
- dracostimpy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8...and yet the clueless masses digg you down.
I guess we like our businesses bloated and pricey. Do people not realize how much more expensive toothpaste and TP would be if Wal-Mart wasn't using its corporate muscle to transfer their profits to their customers via lower prices, unlike just about every other corporation who've never heard of such a thing as a "price drop" (unless they're stocking PS3)?
I pray every night to His Noodliness that Wal-Mart expands into generic imported drugs and private banking and utilities and every other facet of our economy that is controlled by a cartel of some sort, because only then will we see the benefit to the consumer for drugs/utilities/banking that we see with things like movie rentals or microprocessors.
EDIT: Okay, now that I got done typing this, you're moving up in the world. Phew! - chocobomog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No, it isn't.
A monopoly would be if they bought out all their competitors and raised their prices. - mynameisdave02, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Make your own.
- MonkeyFarts, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I doubt that. They already squeeze every penny they possibly can out of their retailers. This will just make their wallets a bit fatter; $15 million annually, from the article. Maybe, though, they will use this money for benefits for their employees. Heh, that's even more likely than lowering their prices, though.
- oxigen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wal-Mart is quickly becoming it's own sovereign nation
- krellor, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7And you thought Bill Gates had a monopoly. Wait till wall-mart runs its own banks (which they tried to do for processing all of their credit transactions), utilities (this article), and manufacturing plants (next logical step?). It's like the mega-corporations from shadowrun forming before my eyes. But all that aside, I don't particularly dislike wall-mart, I just think that they need some regulation to prevent a monopoly and a excessive control over the flow of goods and money in the country.
- phantom_mullet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wal-Mart really is getting more POWERful!
Wow...that was a really bad pun... - Avalontor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3read the article again. they are not creating electricity nor are going to provide it to you. They formed a business unit to use their buying power to purchase bulk power for their own stores from large electricity providers.
- TVarmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Enron was also somewhat unethical in their managing of the Californian energy market, however. They'd try to make the grid perform poorly to drive up their profits because then electricity would be valued more with less supply.
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Could you imagine a fight between the CEO of walmart and Stalin? That would be sick!
- Guydevice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3More like vertical expansion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_expansion - Dufresne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I really don't know what to say. Wal-Mart is doing terrible things to the economy, but thing really is a good thing
- jhbradl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have also heard plans that they are trying to set up broadband wireless internet and cable that will surround a certain area around each store.
- TVarmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I love PBS! And I love that documentary! But I don't get why they insist on using such sucky methods for video streaming. If it's public, how about they offer something more open, like an mpeg stream and/or a torrent.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Walmart isn't the only one doing this, Staples is also doing it.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/free_solar_powe.php#ch01 - MonkeyFarts, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Because they can only get the retailers to sell so low before the retailers have to go out of business. Saving money on electricity isn't going to change that, and I guarantee you that Wal-Mart isn't going to sell their products so low that they end up losing revenue, even if they make it up through electricity savings.
- tgunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Samsung anyone? From the latest cell phones and MP3 players to oil tankers and robot soldiers, Samsung does it.
- Jeeum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ha! At first I thought "Eyes Wind Power" was the name of the company.
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There is a such thing as a vertical monopoly (unfortunately the wikipedia article on monopoly blows and doesn't mention it, but it's mentioned briefly in vertical integration). In order for Wal Mart to have one though, they'd have to own the people making goods as well, I think. If you think about the shear amount of stuff Wal Mart sells and consumes, a vertical monopoly would be damn near impossible for them to attain (though if any company could, it'd be them).
- vannyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In other news, walmart creates a small army of 500,000 men and women to protect all its us retail locations. These peace officers will have full authority in cities and small towns bought by walmart and will work with state and federal agencies to protect walmart and its customers. Also walmart savings and loan has announce that it will give those recently unemployed by its new stores a 30 extension on paying their mortgages. In business news Federal regulators has approved the buyout of all other retailers by walmart plus the acquisition of citigroup by walmart the company has decided to change its name to Omni Consumer Products and will trade under the new symbol OCP.
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2>>Because they can only get the retailers to sell so low before the retailers have to go out of business.
Your argument doesn't make sense to me here. This will reduce overhead costs, the savings from which could be passed on to the consumer. Basically it would mean that Wal-Mart could charge lower prices for items while paying the same price to purchase them, because the saved costs on overhead could make up for the thinner margins on actual products sold. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was over at a buddy's house, he gets "the week" magazine, and it had this article saying newspaper companies have higher profit margins than the oil companies. Where's the outrage!?!
- jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's 'its'. These last couple of headlines are killing me.
- quetranza, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2> Energy savings are an operations expenditure. Operations is mostly a cost center, and not a profit center.
Someone read the back of a business textbook and thinks he knows what the hell he's talking about. Listen up, genius: Anything that reduces the cost of operations improves the bottom line, period. WM can either maintain prices, and thus increase profits, or decrease prices, and maintain profits. In the past, WM has always chosen to lower prices. There is no reason, other than blind elitist hatred of WM, to think that they won't lower prices in the event that they save money on electricity. - Dedpoet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thousands of companies have higher profit margins than oil companies. The difference is that oil companies sell us 22 million barrels of the stuff *per day*. Even if they made 1 cent profit per barrel of oil, they'd make 80 million dollars per year. I think we all know they make more than 1 cent per barrel.
- Dedpoet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1krellor is dugg simply for the Shadowrun reference.
- PhantomBantam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think somethings wrong with your shift or caps lock key.
- gmarks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Finally, a really red company doing a green thing.
- gruvsf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wind power? Seems like that it would be cheaper to power stuff by the hot air that their PR arm churns out daily....
- jhbradl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Arvest bank was originally formed by one of the Walton's. So, they sort of do own a bank.
- bobartig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If you want to know what these giant mega corporations, you need but look to asia where they already exist. You can buy your car, rent your apartment, pay utilities, buy food and clothing and work all at the same company. Giant mega corporations make everything from housing to bubble gum, and its been that way for decades. Whats the economic effect of all this? I don't really know, I'm not a far east economist (IANAFEE?)
- saifatlast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1>>Incidentally, this was one of the markets that got Enron into trouble.
This is a stupid point. All power companies engage in some buying and selling of power to make up for the gap between the power generated and demand. - mschellhouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Are you kidding me??? Do you know how much plastic junk gets bought because of ignorant Walmart shoppers. Their cheap prices lead to cheap products which leads to our disposable society!!!
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