America's
Concerns

ITEMS OF INTEREST IN THE USA

By Friends of "True Democracy"

Wal-Mart, for some time now, has been bringing in a company to sell its products. It gives them space and makes the contract for a certain period of time. For example: cell phone companies. After Wal-Mart has them "secured" in all its establishments, they then have access to all the information of that company and start their wheels rolling. By the time the "lease" is up, they do not renew it. Rather they take over the sale of the products, and work a new deal, and that company is "out the door" and they control that company's inventory within their own walls.

Wal-Mart brought in banks.... then they "became a bank."
They brought in pharmacists; now they are the pharmacy.
They brought in "eye doctors;" now they own those businesses, and on and on.

Funeral businesses (non-corporate, privately owned with LOW prices) are also being eliminated... sort of like the Mom and Pop businesses. At one point Wal-Mart was going to do a test run in one of the Western States and would be selling caskets, cremation urns, etc. This was written up in a "business magazine" Independent funeral homes as described above knew that this would change the entire complexion of the funeral industry if they got this "under wraps" after doing their "study case." Several independents sold out and or moved their facilities in order to maintain lower overhead and be able to survive in the event that Wal-Mart added the "funeral business feature" to all their establishments. Moves such as this are very expensive and tiring for the owners. Some survived the moves while others, having to renovate, were put through the rigors of meeting regulations which sometimes included long waits for inspections of facilities before they could begin operating again. Therefore, they could not continue to exist during the wait and cost of bringing things up to the new codes established. Bye bye low cost funerals.

Time will tell whether Wal-Mart is "in" the funeral business or not. They have brought in many new enterprises, insurance companies, etc. But they do these "tests" in various locations so it's not very noticeable to the public until they suddenly "install them" in all their facilities permanently.

We have been watching the "rollback prices" rolling UP. We have been watching their inventory "change"... eliminating low cost items and raising their product's prices almost weekly. The "space" where the low cost items everyone has been accustomed to buying becomes "smaller" each time you go there until it just completely disappears, a quiet way of eliminating those products. In many instances now their products are more costly than some of the regular grocery stores and other types of shops.

We have watched the quality disappear, the cheap Chinese products appear with larger prices especially in the home product departments and clothing departments.

It is our understanding that some Wal-Marts in various locations have been painted the drab military colors and have added high fences around those properties. We are wondering, if this is so, why they would do such a thing, unless they are planning on using these facilities for some other purpose at some point.

The dollar stores are also changing their products now, and raising prices eliminating good items for poorer quality. Fred's, another store which appeared a couple years ago, has now put food in their "clothing and other items" store. Their prices, are in line with the dollar stores at this time. Milk at Wal-Mart is now $3.98/gallon. (more than gasoline per gallon...at the moment anyway!) At Fred's it's $3.00. At a locally owned grocery store it's $2.50. At Walgreens it was $2.50, but has increased to $2.63. But most stores which sell groceries are corporately owned.

We are wondering how many of these dollar stores, etc. are spin offs of Wal-Mart, but we just don't know yet.

Auto parts for vehicles pre-year 2000 (when GPS was added to all vehicles) are now very difficult to find. It seems that when any type of accident occurs, the insurance companies immediately write them off as being "a total loss" and off they go to the "crusher" thus eliminating usable auto parts for the older (pre year 2000 vehicles.) Guess everyone has to be "on the tracking device."

And, of course, construction and re-vamping the roads is a big issue now, and with it come 'new light posts and traffic signals." Seems that when this occurs the cameras are installed, and they seem to be showing up most everywhere these days. Most people pay no mind to this and think it's great that we have "new things" being added to our roads. So guess everyone will have to maintain their dignity, etc. in their vehicles or else they will find themselves on the GPS "candid camera" when they least expect it.