Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon expects "serious" inflation

[Cali_Democrat]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm

Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon expects inflation
By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY

U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday.

The world's largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.

Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

Along with steep increases in raw material costs, John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, says labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers. He predicts prices will start increasing at all retailers in June.

Read more...http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm

Wages are stagnant so essentially we're getting poorer, especially when you factor in the declining housing market and rising gas prices.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Breaking news! Wright Brothers have successful flight at Kitty Hawk!!

Thanks for the thread, Cali_Democrat.

[Newest Reality]

2. Add steeply rising food prices and energy

Who are they going to sell what to?

[Angry Dragon]

3. wal-mart could do their patriotic duty and pledge to

hold the line on prices ......... they do not have to raise prices

[stockholmer]

11. Wal-Mart is as patriotic for the US as Benedict Arnold was.....

Their contracts with US manufacturers where renegotiated every time to the point where the companies, in mortal fear of losing Wal-Mart, simply had to off shore their industrial manufacturing operations, thus gutting the US like a trout.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
By: Charles FishmanDecember 1, 2003

"The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?


A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."

Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement.

Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S. manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.................................................................."

[BOG PERSON]

4. the news says the average price of chocolate is going to rise 10%

because of political turmoil in ivory coast. now is the time for chocolate hoarding!

[Mimosa]

6. But how do you keep it?

Chocolate can go stale if not frozen. What if one doesn't have freezer space?

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. This is a replay of the mid 1970's. Jack Shit has been done since then

to do anything about our dependence on oil.

[madrchsod]

7. yup ......walmart will squeeze the name brands to make

a fortune on their great value brand garbage.

[Rage for Order]

8. Don't forget about "Quantitative Easing 2", which injected $600 billion into the economy

Thereby decreasing the value of the dollar further. Simple supply and demand at work: the more of something that is available, the less it is worth. Look at vacant housing to see this theory in practice. Or wait a few months and see how much less each dollar will buy when you go to the grocery store. Also, since we import the bulk of our oil, each dollar buys less oil (or each barrel of oil costs more, whichever way you prefer to look at it).

Yes, we are well and truly screwed.

[Initech]

9. Does he envision a future similar to Mad Max?

:grr: :mad:

[pa28]

10. Think of it as a tax.

That's the price we pay for re-capitalizing insolvent banks with zero interest cash exchanged for fictional collateral.

People in general are angry but if they realized just how badly they are being abused joe six pack would have been in the street two years ago IMO.

[SoCalDem]

12. $5 jeans to cost $6...$1 plastic Chinese flipflops to cost $2..n/t