The New York Times gave the Justice Department more work to do yesterday (the JD is already up to its ears in News Corp bribes to UK cops n’ Russian billboards) when they published a bunker-busting exposé about Wal-Mart bribing everybody they could in Meheeco (~ $24 million) in order to build their dime-store empire under the volcanoz.
Oh who cares, right? It’s just a little mantequilla to grease the wheels of commerce for Los Creadores de Empleo. And while Wal-Mart brags a lot about all the jobs they create in Mexico, in 2007 the Daily Beast revealed that Wal-Mart de Mexico had 19,000 teenagers (between 14 and 16 years old) working for them as grocery baggers for nada. Wal-Mart said, “Yeah? So?” and the world turned over, farted and went back to sleep. Pinches pendejos.
In that same year, Wal-Mart de Mexico earned more than $1.1 billion in profits. If they had paid 19,000 baggin’ slaves at the Mexican minimum wage of about $5 a day, they’d be looking at more than $34 million in extra expenses. Also too, if you figure in one bathroom break per day, a cookie, a pair of plastic sandals for each teen and no healthcare coverage (because they’re part-time, 14-hour-per-day employees, of course), well, Wal-Mart’s looking at a serious chunk taken out of their profits: 3%. Híjole cabrón.
Hush, hush, those of you (3) who cry, “But what about the children?” Wal-Mart’s fiscally responsible corporate decision makers (who are smarter than you, so STFU) must weigh the realities of doing business in the land of sinsemilla and raicilla: $24 million in government bribes so they can get their stores built really fast so they can enslave more teenagers OR $34 million to pay undeserving teenagers to work in stores that haven’t been built yet. Maybe it’s simply a case of what comes first, la gallina o el huevo?
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Surely this must be legal, in Mexico.
That is one of the cute notes in the Times article – the general counsel of Wal-Mart International sent out a memo at one point reminding the Wal-Mart executives that, believe it or not, bribery actually was illegal in Mexico. Fortunately, they ignored her.
Who knew?
Bribery might still be tax deductible, however.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&da…
They have laws in Mexico? I keep hearing that the Fox government surrendered to the drug cabals ages ago.
Lisa you are so right, making these kids bag for free, how demeaning. They should be cleaning toilets.
I will send them a letter right away to suggest that. Although, they probably already thought of it.
They can take on Newter as CEO when he drops out of the race. He's got lots of ideas regarding making lose lazy poors work.
In quiet rooms, in quiet rooms.
But make him do it IN Mexico, por favor.
He is, after all, the idea man. I think he should just go to the moon to implement all his ideas.
Nah. Toilet cleaning is only for inner-city blahs. It's in the Bahble, and Constitution and such as.
One more thing to despise Wal Mart for. Great.
Like you really needed one more thing to despise Mal Wart for?
I'm working on hating Target. Also pays minimum wage, supports wingnut issues, fights unions, etc.
Srsly? Well that's just great. Now where am I gonna buy all my cheap crap?
Seen their special video they like to show all new hires about how awful them unions are?
I started boycotting them after the 2010 elections when I found out they were supporting wingnut political campaigns. It was disappointing because Target actually donated a thousand dollars back in the late 70s to help a wildlife rescue group in Boulder, CO live-trap prairie dogs before they built their new store on the prairie dog town.
Yes, but their shitty trinkets are more purttier and more klassier, and you can say the stores name with a faux-French accent. So, there.
Always low morals. Always.
in 2007 the Daily Beast revealed that Wal-Mart de Mexico had 19,000 teenagers (between 14 and 16 years old) working for them as grocery baggers for nada.
Look, those internships will lead to valuable networking connections.
Soon they'll be in position to write for the Huffington Post! WIN!
I'm sure their English grammar is better than most HP writers.
Burn!
Because, Brad & Angie and Kim and Bieber and (fill in the blank) aren't covered enough. lol
Program is declared a for-profit pre-university and franchised in the U.S. in 3…2…1…
They will lead to valuable candy from checkout line racks in their pockets. No, they got tips, like at the supermarket down the street here. They are very strong at shaming for tips for the baggers here.
Walmart is poised to succeed at what no American corporation ever attempted – lowering the standard of living in Mexico.
What a joke. Wal-Mart has a strict code of "ethics" governing how they will work with their vendors and ad agencies, to avoid even the appearance of kickbacks, bribery, "gifts", inappropriate relationships, etc. This is why Wal-Mart people are no fun to work with, on a corporate level. I guess all that ethical bullshit is just for white people.
Of course they don't want "their people" being bribed, that might diminish profit: Bribing others, extorting "savings" from them, to the point of destroying them, greasing locals is a long time standard for conduct.
Wal Mart employees have to buy their own office supplies.
Total piece of crap company.
With all the kids working at Wal-Mart, who's gonna be left to make the big Ameros…directing the Touristas to the Donkey Shows?
Bah, in my day bag boys worked long hours for beatings. And they were sad, at the end of the day if their hard labor didn't pay off with a vicious, pummeling. So these kids have it easy.
Having been a bag boy for the A&P in my childhood, I was a union thug in the Retail Clerks and made mas dinero of $1.25/hr. Probly moar than Wal-Fart pays their Messican bag boyz today.
That's nothing. We walked to work in the blazing heat, up to our waists in snow. On the way home, we cleaned the road with our tongues.
You got to use your tongues? Think of all the delicious asphalt! We had to use our vaginas and if you didn't have a vagina, you had to carve one, with the air.
You had asphalt? Looxury!
We had to do it while carrying the boss home on our backs, and he lived in the gated community up on the hill above our middle-class shacks.
The Walmart cartel is ruthless.
Wal-Maricón, same-o, same-o.
In their defense, that $24 million bribe costs $30 million at the Mom-and-Pop store down on Main Street.
It's much cheaper when you outsource the manufacturing of those bribes to Chinese factories.
WIN!
Hey keeping those Waltons and their ass kissing minions in the luxury they "deserve" is tough.
That $10 million they saved paid for the "art" they're bringing to Arkansas.
Yeah that kind of lucre can buy a lot of Thomas Kinkade paintings.
What a snob you are for thinking that an art museum apparently named after a stripper ("Crystal Bridges") must only contain kitsch.
What, you didn't mention that? Just trying to help out here.
Crystal Bridges, the stripper with the heart of gold and the eye for art, who Sam Walton fell in love with at the age of 94.
Mostly modern art captured by purchase and outbidding other museums, even in charity they don't like to play by the rules others do.
♫ Money for nothing, grocery baggers for free. ♫
So, Lisa, you speak English AND Spanish/Messican, and you must speak le Francais, too, also, aussi. What a cunning linguist you are!
EDIT: Yeah, yeah, I know, old joke, but I'm old, too. Also. Aussi.
Not to mention R Schoenkopf and Kirsten B-J. Probably a coincidence, but what a happy one!
Trop tôt ! Tous, Katie ? C'est une bonne nouvelle pour McCain…
I wonder if they speak Spanish as well as I do, and by that I mean very little. With Spanish, I can fake it 'til I make it.
Is there a union of cunning linguists I can join so I can be a communist cunning linguist? I will research. I'm going to work in Mexico this summer so I needed to start practicing my Mehican.
I am not sure about galllinas but there are indeed huevos involved. Big giant huevos made of brass
Wal-Mart announced plans to open its first retail stores in India and China. Tags on clothes and stickers on items will read, "Made Here."
Flyers lead by 2 goals, bitches!
Workers in China and India make too much money. All the clothing and other items are made in Vietnam and Thailand now.
Well, one night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster.
My 60-something year-old neighbor is in the yard in a bikini. I bet she remembers when the Mastodons pranced across the Earth. I hope I don't hurl my eggs benedict. It took me forever to make them.
If your neighbor is Helen Mirren you should have no digestive consequences. Otherwise, yes, let me stand at least a prudent projectile's arc away from you.
And against whom are the Flyers competing? [Curling, right?]
I like curling, believe it or not. The Flyers are playing the Penguins.
Pics or……eh………..well, sure, what the hell,
Pics or GTFO.
These guys?
Mittenomics at work.
The term is Job Creators. Not Wage Creators, my friend.
Wal-Mart de Mexico, the original shopping cartel.
I don't see the problem. That kid in the photo has one big sammich. He's well fed.
Clearly the Daily Beast hates the Mexicans for their freedom! What about giving them the chance to feel the dignity of work?
I thought the Romneys no longer lived in Mexico? Whatever, glad to see the dignity of work is well established there.
It would be good to see Mitty with one of those bags over his head. But only until he went to sleep.
Bunch of his Cousins still live there. They're totes Mexican. Except they look like square jawed white people.
It's not that they look like square-jawed white people — Mexico has all kinds of people. But like the Amish, they live in compounds, and interact very little with the mainstream culture of their nations.
Wal-Mart — we care. In the United States. When we're required to by law and we haven't paid someone to look the other way.
Yet. As far as you know.
Now that he's laid up after Tommy John Surgery, how 'bout Joakim "The Mexicutioner" Soria goes & avenges his Chicano brethren by taking out David Glass & every other Wal-Mart heir?
Hey now. Just wait till the Jays leave KC.
Looks like we found the next stop for the Gingrich campaign!!
Bonus: Now Callista can see the place where all her sparkly
whore diamondsanniversary gifts are smuggled into the US. ¡Diviértete, chica!No snark, as I just had a nice plate of migas, tortillas and some bourbon to take care of the hair of the dog as we say around here.
Walmart is about to enjoy the DOJ trans-vaginal probe called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). FCPA is powerful in that it goes after the individual(s) who offered the bribe AND their employer. A lot of my clients require mandatory FCPA training as a condition of contracts that I engage in. It doesn't take much for a person or corporation to be charged and convicted of violating FCPA – it's a very well written law in my mind. And if they deducted the bribe (it happens a lot), the IRS gets to employ it's even larger trans-anal probe.
Which is why I shop at that French store based in Minnesota, Target (pronounced Tar-jae).
But charging corporations for breaking laws is socialism/class warfare/punishing the job creators/etc.
And the Waltons could give a shit about a slap on the wrist fine. Their sole focus is to get rid of the estate tax and extending the Bush/Obama tax cuts.. (As always fuck you Frank Luntz.) I wonder how much they've given to Romney so far.
BTW, this issue is going to be a maelstrom come late November.
Even more "great" when you realize that a lot of corporations do not even bother paying their fines and then the Feds start lowering it to get them to voluntarily follow the law before just blowing it off.
Yeah, but what of Wal-Mart's $1,000 an hour K Street cartel?
"the company’s much publicized commitment to the highest moral and ethical standards"
I must have missed that publicity. I just thought that they were about the lowest prices, standards, regulations, and class.
Makes me wonder how they can do (at least) $25 million in bribes in Mexico and $0.00 in the USA, oh, that's right, we have Citizens United, nevermind.
Wages? We don't need no stinking wages!
This is good news for people who camp at WalMart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYz91NRoAuM
You mean like Justice and Mrs. Thomas? They love RVing and I'm sure they would do anything to avoid paying some poor entrepreneur campsite owner.
Jeezus, no shade and the asphalt is probably 150 degrees in the middle of the summer in Wyoming. They must have the air conditioning cranked up to 11. Such an inspiring video to watch on Earth Day.
But I'd do her any day.
Wow, you leave this site to get liquored up on a Saturday night & two more new posts appear. I am unused to this level of efficiency from Wonkette.
I heard that – this is fucking crazy. I'm testing the theory that saying fucking subtly makes pee scores go up.
It's the time difference that allows such things. It was really Monday for me.
OT, but here's proof that high-speed rail and mass transit are bad. Two trains collide head-on, and one 68-year-old woman is dead. O the humanity!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/…
Absolutely! Instead of tending the crumbling infrastructure, between now & Election Day Barry should swap HemiCudas with no seat belts for pick-up trucks in the swing states. It would be priming the pump for the Darwin Award, but hey this is an election year.
Also awesome:
http://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2010/0…
Can Hummers do wheelies? It would really complete their big Finger to the environment. On auto blogs the hostility towards even hybrids is so palpable you can feel it.
Hemi Under Glass still races, amazingly–it was just in Vegas a couple of weeks ago.
Where was Gomez Addams before that crash?
This is what happens when someone named Beer is in charge of trains, would you put someone named Bong in charge of Air Traffic Control? I think not.
Beer Meerstadt, the director of The Netherlands' railroad operator, NS, said: "Two trains colliding on the same track is a nightmare".
You're very perceptive Beer….
I guess it would be bad if they collided on different tracks too, eh Beer? Sounds a lot like W pontificating about natural disasters.
She was probably died in her sleep on the train before the crash.
And, yet, daily freeways fatalities are treated as the cost of living, because, well "that would never happen to me/That stuff happens to other people."
Welcome to the Koch brothers plans for America.
So these teenagers are "volunteering" to work for Walmart? What is Walmart, some poor old blind lady on the street corner? I understand that the teenagers can get tips, but still, if that isn't some evil shit, I don't know what is.
They're demonstrating their willingness to go to work there as adults for 5 pesos per hora.
Someone enjoyed showing off their multilingual chops on this post. Taco, enchilada, borrito? Si?
Si. But I had to look all the (English) words up.
The free market FTW!
Typical 'mañana' attitude.
Why can't they just get the invisible hand to do the bagging?
The Hand is currently engaged in masturbating each of the Waltons individually.
The Invisible Hand won't work for free.
Their bags always have holes in them; you pick them up and the merchandise just comes right out. Who'd a thunk?
Don't think of it as working for nothing or slavery; think of it as auditioning for a job: It may take decades to make that decision on whether or not to hire them, but in the meantime they get to hone their bagging skills to near perfection without paying for training. I see this working in the states as a means of getting people with limited skill sets, due to the deteriorating public school system, marketable skills in a constantly changing and challenging job market. Fascism and slavery can sound so patriotic sometimes, can't it?
I assume that Lisa is strolling around the Left Bank getting interviews with the French electorate.
Also, WTF?
http://www.bocq.be/english/ownbrands/deugniet.php
Maybe he's showing off his "braised meats."
blond, …. with a fine and generous head
Soundz like Barb. Are you a blond, too, Lisa?
I was, when I was trying to get laid. Now, not so much.
I was picking up my neighbor's child from her ax murderer ex, then drinking some blonde (and getting some fine and generous head) while watching the qualifying race of the French presidential election. I will report soonish.
Mexico and Walmart – now there's a lethal combination. They treat their people like shit, and Walmart treats it's employees like shit. Guess they both have found a lower level of shit to sink into.
I'd rather be a non-paid bagger at Walmart than be one of their fucked-up, brain-dead, trailer-trash customers.
I thought 'baggers were Wal-Marts prime customers.
Let me get this straight… Wal-Mart pays millions in bribes to the Mexican elite but literally nothing to people who actually work in its stores?! Let the wonders of capitalism never cease.
Actually, it's no worse than when I was a caddy at the local country club. We weren't paid, but your player was expected to cough up for your services. I learned at a very young age that some lawyers, accountants, and captains of industry can be real cheap bastards.
The executives at Coca-Cola are heaving a huge sigh of relief over this news: finally, someone else is busted for giving the Messicans a Dirty Sanchez, for a change. BTW, what is that I hear? "Breitbart, Colson, now Cheney, party of one, Cheney?".
Sweet Jeebus why doesn't anyone try to bribe me? I could use a boat of some sort.
Needs moar dida.
Mordida = vigorish = the juice = bribe = PAC, it's the grease that turns the wheels of gooberment the wide world over. Should Mexican pols have to operate on higher ethical ground that those from the USA, USA, USA?
To be fair, the kids are working for tips, so while Walmart isn't paying them, those kids still have access to the wealthy, generous people of Mexico who probably tip as much as a peso (about 7 cents) when they tip at all.
I can't even say anything snarky about this shit; I am an atheist but I truly hope there is a hell of some sort for these shit bag executives. Probably not though; I'm sure hell is just a watered down version of Danbury. Blech, I need to get baked as fuck because I must return to my own corporate overlords tomorrow.
This tangentially reminds me of when Michigan-based Meijer, a regional hypermarket, tried to recall a local township board because they'd blocked one of their monster stores in a rural township, but got caught directly forming the recall organization.
Walmart brags about the jobs they create in Mexico? Where, at CPAC conventions? Or in quiet mexican rooms?
If you think the shifty illegal immigrant/roaming packs of mexican rape squad problem is bad in the US, imagine how bad it must be in mexico where the ENTIRE population is shifty illegal immigrant/roaming packs of mexican rape squads
Those dum ass chilli shitter kids! They should jump the fence, come to America, and go directly to the HUD office! Then they could skip doing unpaid work and get a free Section 8 rent check and food stamps while sitting at home watching Sábado Gigante reruns on Univision all day long instead of working for a living. You see, lib-tards! Somebody is always getting something for free. Down in Mexico Walmart is getting something for free. Up here in Amerika, the chilli shitters do.
Shacks? SHACKS!!!??? The height of soft living, that! We had to make tents, from our own skin, held up by our own bones, which we removed with our teeth, if we had any.
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