Wal-Mart Watch has posted the form letter that Wal-Mart Mexico is sending to people who (prompted by this video) complain about the company not paying teen baggers in Mexico: Dear [name omitted]: You are wrong in your appreciation on the Mexican Government sponsored student program. The student volunteer baggers program is a long-standing activity in […]

New from Wal-Mart Watch:

From Business Week: Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), which obtained a Mexican banking license a year ago, began offering loans for purchases at 16 of its 997 Mexican outlets in November. In the U.S., the retailer markets itself as a friend to the budget-conscious. In Mexico, it charges interest rates that might set off popular and political […]

Often it’s hard to tell in print whether something is written tongue-in-cheek or with earnest intent. I’ll reserved judgment on this Op-Ed piece in Cincinnati, Ohio’s The Enquirer on one solution to concerns over illegal immigrants crossing over from Mexico. Why do illegal immigrants come to this country? Is it for the weather? Of course […]

Apropos of Robert’s previous post about our growing status as a third world nation, comes this news that workers in Mexico are organizing against Wal-Mart. Like the United States, the union movement in Mexico has a long history. Unlike the United States, workers in Mexco are willing to go face-to-face with Walmart. From Bloomberg: Protesters […]

My source says these Walmex customers are chanting “They shall not pass” and “Don’t buy this sh*t.” I’m not entirely sure why (other than the fact that those potato chips are probably pretty gross).

Wal-Mart de Mexico took a 2 percent hit on its same-store sales during July, dropping even further than the 1.3 percent expected by market analysts. The drop was the greatest in three years for the retailer. From Reuters: Walmex said that while customers on average spent less each time they visited its outlets, traffic to […]

Here’s a post about this week’s hot topic that I couldn’t have written as it’s much too informed. I recommend it highly.

Jeff’s post from yesterday on Wal-Mart’s teenage baggers in Mexico probably set some kind of record for most comments on this blog in the shortest period of time. It also generated a whole bunch when I posted my take on it at Daily Kos, and started a fight at the Consumerist as well. However, of […]

[Update — 1511, 2 August: Over at the Consumerist the comments seem to be echoing my position and one of the conmmenters reminded me that the baggers in U.S. military commisaries work for tips.] [Update — 1833: Blogger Edward Champion has this to say on the subject: Well, if Wal-Mart is going to “employ” “volunteer […]

Citing a 5 March Wall Street Journal article, blogger Tom Barnett makes the case that Wal-Mart best serves the bottom of the economic pyramid and that it only fails when it tries to drag itself higher. It’s easier to sell to the desperate than those able to make real choices. Barnett writes: Wal-Mart keeps screwing […]

A week ago I posted about Wal-Mart’s back-end deal with India’s Bharti. At the time I wondered what the numbers were going be. This morning the Associated Press has a figure we can chew on $2.5 billion. I think that number is strangely low. Why? Because on Thursday I posted a story about Wal-Mart investing […]

Wal-Mex, the Mexican division of Wal-Mart, intends to spend nearly a billion dollars on expansion this year to open 125 new stores. Wal-Mart is Mexico’s top retailer, with stores in 139 cities and more than 140,000 employees. From Hispanic Business: Eduardo Solorzano, the top executive of Wal-Mart Mexico, told a press conference that the Wal-Mart […]

Political and Labor opposition to Wal Mart in Mexico got more organized over the weekend when activists banded together to form a unified front in what they see as a fight to save both local businesses and national culture. From The Associate Press: Activists from several U.S. groups and 10 Mexican labor, community and commercial […]

Just found this post by Ruben Garcia and Andrea Buffa on Common Dreams. First, suggesting that Wal-Mart might want to re-think its voter education initiative: But judging from what happened when Wal-Mart got involved in the recent presidential election in Mexico, the company may want to think twice. Since it was revealed that Wal-Mart’s top […]