Walmart smacks down the New York Times for its shitty article

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This is just priceless. Much respect to David Tovar, Vice President, Walmart Corporate Communications, for a great response.



31 thoughts on “Walmart smacks down the New York Times for its shitty article”

  2. Cute. I like how one “correction” suggests bringing back manufacturing to the U.S.

    This from a company that forces U.S. manufacturers it does business with to undercut foreign commodity pricing.

  3. Walmart is a shitty American corporation that does everything in its power to ensure that there will always be a lower class in America. The PR guy is using the same old tactic of the energy companies. Say meaningless things out of context to prove your point. regard;ess of the numbers they tout:

    The biggest taxpayer? By what measure? In dollars? Meaningless. How about retained earnings after taxes?

    Hiring 42,000 vets while noble on the surface, is a sham. Minimum wage jobs below the full time threshold is telling our returning veterans, “Thanks for your efforts. There’s a cleanup in aisle 6.

    While the New york Times has had its editorial moments lately, this article remains more on point than a rebuttal from a PR shill. Jim Dalrymple, you’ve been suckered.

  4. I tend to agree. Not sure which is more pathetic, the New York Times piece or Walmart’s attempt to defend itself.

  5. Yep. So much of their “response” is either parenthetical, not really applicable, or vague. For example in response to their 28% unfavorable rating, they imply that as a result they have a 72% favorable rating, and while that’s possible it’s likely the survey had more than just one choice. Also, touting your “average hourly wage” doesn’t mean a lot, I’d like to see the median hourly wage. Finally, employing a lot of veterans is great, unless you’re paying them poverty wages. I won’t even start on the idea of justifying huge income for the founder’s family by saying they have a nice foundation.

  6. Sorry, but that Wal Mart response is typical nonsense coming from them.

    First, Apple is the largest corporate taxpayer in America. So says Tim Cook two meetings with stockholders ago. I’d believe Tim Cook before I’d believe a PR flack from Wal Mart.

    And their responses are nonsense. They deny that they are a drain on taxpayers, but the FACTS are that a majority of Wal Mart employees are not given enough hours in a week to make a decent living and so they end up getting food stamps. Just because someone goes off Welfare because they got a job does not mean they are still not a massive drain overall to the system. And let’s talk about their resistance to providing medical which is a hallmark of the “self-righteous” Starbucks. Starbucks has plenty of faults, but healthcare is not one of them. Wal Mart on the other hand, is really, really bad on this subject, and a massive drain on the healthcare system driving up the prices for everyone who pays insurance to the hospitals that shift the cost of treating Wal Mart employees to the insurance payers.

    And his responses after that are in the same vein. Hired 42,000 veterans? Yeah, how many vets are there and how many Wal Mart employees who aren’t vets?

    Sorry, that’s not smack down of the New York Times (who I really don’t like because of their bogus articles aimed at Apple). This time, they got it mostly right. The straw man arguments are so numerous, he ought to worry about them ganging up on him.

  7. Sorry to chime in again. My newspaper recently created a multipart series on poverty in our county. While the stories require a subscription, I created a set of tools to show what poverty really means:
    http://www.kenoshanews.com/gettingby/tools.php

    You can calculate your economic standing and determine just what you can afford.

    try it out.

  9. Dalrymple is a shitty writer and isn’t very smart. If he didn’t have sources inside Apple that told him when to “yep” or “nope,” nobody would pay any attention to him.

  12. I’ve seen actual poverty and worked there. Its called Africa, and its absolutely nothing like “poverty” in the US.

    Actual poverty is digging a hole in the ground and using mud bricks to place around the “bathroom”, not only one Vizio LCD TV and access to all required calories for $3 from McDonalds.

  13. You’re a moron. That there are people in worse poverty doesn’t mean that poverty doesn’t exist. You’re inhuman.

  15. it is harsh, but as an analytic writer it’s pretty accurate. writers like Gruber really set the bar for calculated thought and useful analysis. not bad for a blog of one.

    this site is running on former glory and the invaluable inside-apple contacts made. its part of my rotation for apple news mostly because of the comments.

    which ironically jim disabled for iphones, making them second-class citizens. what the fuck.

  16. yep. it’s total BS. not sure why jim feel for it, but i suspect it has to do w/ his zeal to defend apple from its opponents. sad.

  17. Couldn’t agree more. Except, there is a context to poverty that needs to be addressed. Generally, you are impoverished if you can’t meet the necessities of life in the society you live in.

  18. when people are rooting on the PR shills from the #1 fat cat, the terrorists have already won.

    but hey, tech has always had its share of quasi-libertarian knuckleheads. comes with achieving middle-class or something..the self-adoration paired with scorn for the poorer. delusions of becoming that fat cat.

    there have been studies of this behavior, in which participants were placed in a line ranking their status, each given money, but then told it would be taken away…but they can either give it to the person higher in rank than themselves, or the person lower. guess what people picked? theyd rather give their money to somebody higher in rank than themselves, not lower. thus the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

  19. Calling a respected photographer like Jay Maisel a “Jackass” does not signify calculated thought and useful analysis to me. Gruber lost a lot of points with me for that one.

  20. The Loop has a different personality than DF. I’m just saying that Jim doesn’t go to the Sam Adams site, create a fake name, and tell them their beer sucks.

  21. None of that changes the fact that this site coasts on Dalrymple’s occasional “yep” or “nope” posts. It’s nothing but a bunch of links with one-liners and asides that add little to no value.

    And what’s wrong with going to the Sam Adams site and telling them their beer sucks? Who else are you going to tell?

  22. Whatever, man…some people, myself include, like this sort of commentary.

    You don’t have to tell anybody…just don’t visit the site. Just don’t drink Sam Adams…nobody will care.

  23. well written fact check — it actually exposes the “fact checks” of walmart’s PR flak to not be….factual. oops.

  24. still proving youre a tool, i see. but — what do the MBA bean counters at apple think? surely your #1 complaint…

  26. Walmart says it is equivalent to Starbucks as “a leader in providing decent wages, stock and retirement benefits, and health care – even for part-time employees.” Really?
    And “full time average associate wage is $12.91”. Walmart has been infamous for keeping employees part time, so only counting full time ones is a biased sample.
    Their response is at least as problematic as the original.

  27. oh yeah, i remember that guy now — he’s the multi-millionaire who sued the creator of a fair-use transformative work and forced him to settle out of court. sounds like a jackass to me. being talented has no bearing on that.

    but as you knew, JG’s snarky links arent the sort of analysis we’re talking about.

  29. Not a fan of walmart at all (most of the red corrections were BS), but I just realized this format would be perfect in knocking down all the mindless, fact-less Apple-bashing articles these days from the same publications.

  30. The most hilarious thing is all the Walmart fanboys in the comments, that seem to have loyalty and emotional bond to the company. I guess everything has fans, but WTF?

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