Don’t Sell Out Your Neighbors While You Christmas Shop

I am passing on this recent posting from PuppetWatch: When Large Corporations Pull the Strings.

As reported by PuppetWatch journalist Tan YaYa:

December 16, 2008

When the WallyMart opened in the empty field behind Sesame Street no one except the Twiddlebug family living in Bert and Ernie’s flowerbox cared.

Interviewed outside the grand opening, “We’ve noticed a difference in the air quality now that the grassy field is gone. On the plus side, so are the wild birds,” said Tina Twiddlebug (birds eat Twiddlebugs for dinner).

“Who cares about that, they already have 4 dumpsters outside the store and it’s not open yet - I can hardly wait for all that extra waste! I like them already!” interrupted the local salvage and junkyard operator, known to everyone as Oscar the Grouch.

Alan, owner of Hooper’s grocery store for the last ten years, told us that another resident, Bert, had asked him to sign a petition to prevent WallyMart from opening. “We have such a long history with our customers, they are like family. I can’t imagine that they would stop coming into our store. Bert just doesn’t like change of any kind, but the rest of us think new neighbors are fun and we look forward to meeting our new friends!”

We returned to Sesame Street eight months later to check in on the community.

The Hooper’s Store building is still the hub of the community; however the business is shut down - it is now operating as a job search centre instead. Alan is still behind the counter but now he is volunteering his time to help his neighbors find work.

“At first I noticed a slight drop in sales, but people were still stopping by to say ‘hi, neighbor’. I think my sales really started going downhill when they stopped coming in at all because they felt bad for me. But how could I be upset? The prices over at WallyMart are lower so I can understand why they buy their food there instead. I mean, it’s a free country, right?”

We find out that all of the other local businesses are closed down except for the Laundromat. Maria and Luis’ Fix It Shop stopped getting customers when people discovered they could just buy a new appliance for the same price as a repair. When the new appliance broke they would just throw it away and buy a new one.  Gina closed down her Veternarian Clinic voluntarily because so many people were opting to euthanise their pets rather than pay for costly treatments.

Allan continues, “What really bothered me was when I had to lay off my assistant Chris Robinson.” Alan now has a job as a department manager at the WallyMart and he is struggling to keep up the payments on his mortgage and debt. Chris has had several interviews with Wallymart but there is a lot of competition for every job opening. He is unemployed and is depressed. Alan adds, “Of course we also provide counselling here at Hoopers now that many of us are unemployed and have increasing credit card debt.”

Gone are the sunny days chasing the clouds away. The only one on Sesame Street in the habit of putting money away for a rainy day was Big Bird - who had a little nest egg. Yet on our way to Sesame Street today, we spotted him on the side of the highway wearing an orange jumpsuit, picking up litter. We find out he was picked up at the Wallymart for shoplifting. He said he was framed by a friend, Snuffleupagus, but no one could prove that this imaginary friend of his ever existed.

We ask Alan to put us in touch with Bert, the activist we had heard about, but he doesn’t  live on Sesame Street anymore. We find out his old roommate and friend of almost 30 years, Ernie, working a shift so we visit him at WallyMart. “Bert got really angry at me when I got a job at WallyMart and he moved out,” says Ernie. Ernie looks down at his lap sadly for a moment before he continues talking. “I wish he would come back.”

Ernie has an unhealthy pallor to his skin. When we ask him about his health, he replies, “I have had some health problems recently because I stand for so many hours on the job.” Gesturing towards the fast food restaurant at Wallymart’s entrance, he adds, “I’ve also been eating here a lot because it’s so cheap and convenient. Bert used to do the shopping.”

Luckily now that Ernie has found employment with the world’s largest retailer (actually, the world’s largest company) he must have full medical benefits, right? “No, most of us don’t qualify for the medical plan… I am on Medicaid.”

While we are talking to Ernie we are interrupted by several potential customers who ask him for information about the electronics that surround him. He is friendly but obviously doesn’t know anything about the products. He shrugs his shoulders, “I mostly try to avoid them when I can because I don’t know anything about this department. It’s just because I’m standing here talking to you that they are catching me - usually I move around a lot and try not to make eye contact.”

These are the people in your neighborhood, your neighborhood, your neighborhood -

These are the people in your neighborhood, the people that you meet when you are walking down the

street, the people that you meet each day…

For more information or to read sources for this article other than the quotes provided below, please visit the following links:

Consumer Affairs

Corporate Watch 

A number of factors account for Medicaid’s growing costs and caseloads, but a clear component is a decision by employers-including some that are highly profitable-to shift onto taxpayers the costs of insuring their workers.To shine a light on large employers forcing others to pick up their health care tab, the AFL-CIO developed the model Health Care Disclosure Act, which requires states to report which employers’ workers are forced to rely on publicly funded health care.

A 2005 report from the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) finds that “Wal-Mart’s increasing reliance on imported goods has meant fewer jobs in communities around the country. Wal-Mart continuously squeezes its U.S. suppliers to cut their prices, leaving companies little choice but to close shop in states like Ohio and source goods from countries with lower production costs and lax enforcement of labor laws. Today, 60 percent of Wal-Mart’s merchandise is imported, compared with just 6 percent in 1995.7

Fast Company Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line? Wal-Mart is not just the world’s largest retailer. It’s the world’s largest company–bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?’ Sure, it’s held inflation down, and it’s great to have bargains,” says Dobbins. “But you can’t buy anything if you’re not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs.”

Report by Iowa State University and Mississippi State University Professors Supercenters…are the fastest growing type of store in the United States today.