"17. 92% of everything Wal-Mart sells, comes from China . Another 4% Comes from Chinese owned companies in the U.S."
China pretty much owns the United States now anyway. lol
(actually not that funny, is it?)

I assume this is from the forwarded email. Has anyone verified this stuff?

18. Wal-Mart and MOST large companies, take out life insurance on it's Employees, without their knowing. If an employee dies, ALL the Insurance moneys go to the companies. I.e. An employee making $18,000
    Per year, dies, and the company might make as much as $1 million. Most often these moneys, coming from what is commonly referred to as "Dead Peasant Life Insurance Policies", is paid out to executives as Bonuses. (A common practice, unknown by the common man)

Come on, give us a break! What insurance company is going to insure an $18k employee for a million dollars and pay out on that? Fer pity's sake!

Since it's already over the top, let's add a few more:

21. All Wal-Mart employees are forced to practice Voodoo on their lunch hour. Beheadings are a common way to get big insurance payouts for managerial staff.

22. In 1987, a Wal-Mart employee in Hooterville, Iowa, was eaten by a gigantic Chinese cockroach that escaped from a shipping container and attacked before it could be stopped. The cockroach was eventually brought down by 3 gunshots. The employee who died has never been named and his family has never been notified. They think he's still in a longer-than-normal training session. Meanwhile, the Big Wigs in the Top Offices each received a million-dollar payout from a Top Insurance Company recently.

23. Last year, an Alabama Wal-Mart sold 243 billion pairs of mens' cotton underwear briefs. Yesterday, President Obama named a special Underpants Czar, Harry Bumm, to look into this suspicious number as all wives know for certain that their husbands each only own 6 pairs of briefs, 2 of which are holey and grey.

24. Unsuspecting job-seekers are lured into Walmart with promises of $150.00 dollar-an-hour aisle-cleaning jobs, only to find out that after the first two hours of employment, they are forced to take a $148.75 pay cut per hour and they are never allowed to see their family members ever, not even on Christmas. Upfront, they are promised new Lexus vehicles and gold Rolex watches, only to find out that they will be forced to wear plastic name tags and paper bakery hats when actually on the job. Some are rumored to have been secretly kidnapped and shipped to Chinese factories where they work 26-hour work shifts making "biodegradable" paper plates, which are actually made out of wings plucked from baby butterflies and then pressed and decorated with Spongebob Squarepants logos.

25. Anyone else want to give it a try? Bueller? Bueller?

Mostly accurate according to Snopes... but the email there only lists 13 statements.

I agree the insurance one is just ridiculous.

Here is a link that might be useful: Snopes... How Big Is Walmart?

Email's been around since 2008.
Mostly accurate according to Snopes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Snopes' Says

I don't care I like Walmart except for the new floor plan and a few other things but all in all I like it. I wish Zayres and The Treasury were still around too!!

I rarely shop at Walmart.....never have liked the stores in our area.

Wow, I haven't thought of the name Zayre for years! Around here there was also Shopper's City and as I recall they merged. There was also Spartan & Atlantic Mills, later merged to Spartan/Atlantic. They too handled a lot of cheap quality merchandise but there wasn't the hysteria about it (mostly via the internet) as there is today with Walmart.

Yes, the life insurance deal it true:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/insurance/p64954.asp

It was in the news several months ago.

We have shopped at Walmart maybe five times in 20 years - two of those times were when we were traveling and it was the closest store when we needed something. We HATE Walmart just because it drives out so many local stores.

Yep, we used to have Zayre's too. A year ago, the National Wholesale Liquidator store closed. They had some really good deals. Now if I need something new, I go to Ross, TJ Maxx, and Syms (which might be a local store).

So, while I doubt WalMart insures it's elderly greeters for a huge amount, my husband did have an insurance policy, paid for by his company, on his life, to benefit them if he died while employed.

Neither of us considered it a big deal - they paid the premium, and we also had another life insurance policy through the company which was quite generous. They insured him because he would have been difficult to replace, and the patents he and his team were working on would be in jeopardy.

If a company is paying a premium to insure an employee - why would the employee's family expect to collect? They've paid nothing. They didn't insure their loved one. And I really don't think these companies are knocking people off to collect the life insurance.

I can't get a life insurance policy on my husband without his knowledge, it's not right that a corporation can, in my opinion.
I read that WalMart stopped doing it in 2000.

The insurance thing is true in business. It is sometimes called "key man insurance". Also many companies sell these policies in a transaction called life settlements.

Did you know many people sell their life insurance policies in transactions called life settlements? Many people don't need thier polices any longer, or can't afford the premiums, or have no heirs left to benefit from the policies. So instead of not paying the premium and letting the policy lapse, they can sell the policy for more than the surrender value but less than the face amount. The new investor becomes the beneficiary and pays the premiums to keep the policy in force. When the person dies, the investor collects the face value amount. It is a win-win for everyone except the insurance companies because the figure over 85% of life insurance policies will lapse, therefore they never have to pay off on the policies. The old person gets more than he would if just cashing the policy in or letting it lapse in the case of term insurance. The investor gets a great return as long as the deal is structured right. There are many variables in these transactions such as persons age, health, premium amounts, life expectancy, cost of the policy, ect.

As an example of a 1,000,000.00 policy with a 75,000.00 surrender value, the old person may walk away with 200,000.00 and the investor will cash in on the million when they pass. Premiums can be all over the board depending on factors, but say they are 30,000.00 a year and the person lives for 7 more years. Now the investor has 510,000.00 of his money tied up to take in a million when the person passes. Very interesting business transaction.

Headline on AOL This morning Walmart going back to Brands
I didn't read the whole article but WM Headquarters must have gotten the message

Years ago when Walmart 1st started, I was in Florida and shopped at one, just loved it and couldn't wait for one to come to our area at home...Well, we now have them on almost every corner and I go out of my way to avoid shopping at Walmart...I still say, Sam Walton is doing flip flops in his grave....Not what he envisioned.....

Wal-Mart works just fine in our little community of 20K ...it hasn't driven out anyone who was a successful business. There are 4 major grocers right here....I know people have a lot of gripes about them but if you check, most of the local business do not pay insurance etc for the employees...when I read all the gripes about Wal-Mart I just think how funny that they are the biggest retailer in the world no matter how much some people complain about them. I much prefer Wal-Mart to several local stores...Oh and now the locals are forced to compete instead of gouging the way they have done for years. Mr. Sam would be doing flip flops...but for reasons different than most could imagine.

I founf (yesterday) the simple little frozen entrees Michelina's that sell for $1 at Walmart to be $1.79 at Albertson's and most of the prices are higher for the same items
I try to be a smart shopper.

Slave labor, IMO. I never shop there.

Guess what company lobbied hard against reforming health care insurance in the USA? Not hard to see why; just look to their bottom line.

When I can buy a pair of reading glasses for $1.00 in rhe Dollar store ... WalMart ... or wherever ...

... I'm benefitting from near-slave labour in the country of manufacture, even if scarcely so, here.

Remember how The Gap ... and some others ... cried so much about being unaware, when people accused them of having their clothing made in sweeatshops, for a few dollars ... then selling them for big prices, here?

At the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. was the largest creditor nation.

At the beginning of the 21st century, it's, if not the largest, almost the largest debtor nation.

The U.S. Dollar is at serious risk as the world's reserve currency.

ole joyful