Costco or Walmart, American or Chinese.

Walmart’s price for a Dell Inspiron 15R Touchscreen Laptop, Intel Core i5 is $448. Costco’s prices the same brand for $599. You’d probably think that Costco is ripping you off, but you would be wrong in that assumption. Walmart ‘s model has only 500GB hard drive, while Costco’s has 1TB. So even though they might look the same, they are not, you get more for your money with the model sold at Costco.

You will find a Whirlpool (model 9451) washer (26x27x43) for $449 at Costco and a Golden (GLP26R) washer (23.7x24.1x39.4) for $493 at Walmart. Not only Costco sells a washer that is larger, but also the model at Costco has 11 wash cycles and a fabric softener dispenser that the model at Walmart does not.

Let’s compare grills, the all American outdoors cooking experience. While it is true that Walmart offers junk grills for very affordable prices, let’s compare a good one, because Costco doesn’t sell the ones you can find at any grocery store, like Walmart does. At Costco you can find a KitchenAid (Deluxe 304) gas grill for $749.99. This grill has 5 burners, 696.8 sq. inches of grilling surface and 10-year warranty. Walmart sells a comparable model made by Weber at $849.00 (Genesis S310). However, the model sold at Walmart for a higher price has only 3 burners and a cooking area of 637 sq. inches. Both grills are made in the USA, but once more, you get more for your dollar at Costco.

We can  continue comparing prices between Costco and Walmart. I can assure you that you will find cheaper prices for not as good a quality at Walmart but you can also find comparable prices for better quality products at Costco.

With the current economical situation, it is understandable that families that are trying to stretch their budget will shop at Walmart, thinking they are doing what is best for their families, but they are not. They are perpetuating the economical crises in this country by purchasing their goods from a company that purchase most of their products in China, which benefits that country but not ours. On the financial end you’re not helping the economy move forward, you are perpetuating the current situation.

On the moral end, Walmart is a slave driver. a company that does not believe in paying their workers fair wages, who only offers part-time jobs, forcing their employees to work during the holidays with the real threat that they will be fired if they don't and a company that offers their "associates" no health insurance… Walmart does all this due to greed, to make as large a profit as possible... it's never enough for the Walton family. Most of Walmart's employees have to get help from the government or charities to make ends meet.

Costco, on the other hand, offers its employee decent wages, health care insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, 401K and stock options to all their employees – whether they are full time or part time.  Every Costco employee is eligible to receive these benefits one month after they began working at Costco! Costco also offer their employees the time to spend the holidays with their families. While Walmart doesn’t believe in family, Costco does.

You may not know anyone that works at either store chain, but… what about if you worked at Walmart? Wouldn't you want people to care?

I am boycotting Walmart, they don’t care for the economy of our country and much less for the American people. I rather buy American, I rather support a company that cares for its employees – the treatment a company gives to its employees reflects on how those employees will treat you, and I think it is not too difficult to see who will treat you better.

Wrongmart

A Walmart store in Cleveland is conducting a food drive for their own “Associates in Need” so they can enjoy a Thanksgiving Dinner. This simple act of asking patrons to donate food not for the homeless, not for the poor but for their own employees has caused, and rightfully so, an outrage not only in Cleveland but all over the United States thanks to the Social Media where this picture has spread like wild fire.

Walmart should be embarrassed that their employees don’t make enough money to have a decent Thanksgiving dinner! But of course, the only thing Walmart cares about is to make an obscene profit! Walmart employees, as well as those employees of most of the giant chains will be working during the holidays while most of us will be with our families.

Walmart is advertising the “breaking prices” they will be offering during Black Friday, urging people to buy more Chinese junk. It is extremely sad to see in the news the imbeciles that spend the night waiting in line for those doors to open. Have they ever stopped to think, for just a minute, that this “fantastic sale” could have been held on Saturday? No, people are insensitive and think only of themselves… They are much to blame for these workers having to work during the holidays for crap.

Walmart offers their employees part-time jobs at minimum wage; hence most of their employees need assistance from the government because they are at or below poverty level. It is sad that a person that works has to receive assistance to survive. Many receive not only food stamps but also Medicaid that we, as taxpayers, pay for. The country’s financial situation its not stable enough to be subsidizing workers because they happen to work for a corporation that refuses to offer them a full time job and decent wages.

	Workers	Cost	Month	Total
Food Stamps	1,500,000	$160	12	$2,880,000,000
Medicaid	1,500,000	$75	12	$1,350,000,000
Handling & Processing	1,500,000	$25	12	$450,000,000
TOTAL				$4,680,000,000

This has to stop and fast. Walmart owes us, for one year alone, about $4,680,000,000. If the Federal government starts demanding a reimbursement for what we spend on their employees, I am sure that Walmart and the others will pay fair wages and offer full time jobs.

Let Them Burn It!

As many of you already know, I am a Liberal/Socialist. What you might not know is that a family that is mostly Republican/Tea Party surrounds me. This contrasting difference in political opinion leads to many heated discussions that at times has turned into a full blown ideological confrontations.

My brother came to visit me a couple of days ago and, from the minute I opened the door to welcome him he blurred out “How are you liking your president now?” I instinctively knew where he was coming from… the “news” circulating around the extreme right media claiming that President Obama “apologized for the Affordable Care Act. My reply to my brother’s hello was – and this I stole from my son – I love him even more! He apologized for people that want to keep a crappy insurance instead of a more economical and better plan to keep it… I am still waiting for your president [Bush] to apologize for starting a war based on lies. He laughed and said that we “liberals” (as if that was an insult) always bring into the conversation President Bush and blaming him for everything. I replied that as far as I knew, I was not blaming Bush for a single thing; I was just pointing out that the bastard sent thousands of our youth to their death for a war based on lies and to this day he still has not apologized to America for his “mistake.”

Let me make this very clear. President Obama DID NOT apologized for Obamacare, actually he was very smart and decided to fight fire with fire.

Insurance companies informed some people that their plans were being cancelled due to Obamacare, without further explanation. This caused that the recipients of these cancellations were outraged and raised hell, reminding President Obama of his promise that they could keep their old insurance if they were happy with it.

Our President is a brilliant man and instead of refusing to make any changes ACA he apologized for the cancelations and made some changes to the ACA. With these changes, insurance companies are now able to provide their old insurance plans but they must inform the insurers exactly what their plan offers and what its not covered; what is more important, they have to inform the insurer that in the Health Insurance Marketplace there are other plans that cover much more for far less. In essence, the insurance companies must inform insurers of what they are giving up in order to keep their sub-standard and over-priced insurance plans. If these people want to burn their money let them, after all Republicans and Tea Partiers are known for not being the sharpest knives in the block!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB0s34BcjGI&w=853&h=480]