Thread: The End of The WalMart Era (FINALLY!)

When Sam was alive he insisted that as many products as possible be made in USA. Don't you remember the USA label push years ago? At that time WalMart was strickly small town locations. Then Sam died and his greedy offspring raped the American people and did everything legal or not, to run small businesses out of business. Poor Sam must be spinning in his grave over the changes his company has made. VIVA Walmart ! I would love to see them go belly up! I agree with the COSTCO people here. I've been a member ever since they opened a couple miles from Sams Club and damned near shut them down.

While we're wishing don't forget to add Home Depot and Lowes to the list.

WOW! Some Wal-Mart "virgins"! I never thought I'd meet or even hear of one...congrats to you all.

I hope Costco beats the pants off Wally World. Everytime I go into Costco, I wanna drop like $5000. The place makes me want to spend spend spend!!!!!!!

Grayrider, you are correct. That was when I shopped at Walmart because I knew the stuff was made here by Americans.

Here's some more interesting news on the pharmacy prices at Costco.
I know I have posted this before, but it's good info to have. The more business we can give Costco, the less wally world gets!!!

This email is a few years old and I imagine the prices have increased, but they are not that far off even at today's prices.
This is an email I received so there's no link attached to it.

COSTCO! read this...

Let's hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington, DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America.

The data below speaks for itself.

Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $ 0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 1 0 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc: 10 mg < tablets): (100 price>Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809

Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor:/B<B 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

I have gone into Walmart, and had bought groceries in their "supercenter" and was not impressed AT ALL. Plus, they have weird sized products, I am sure were made specifically for Walmart, and could not find many things I would normally buy.

As for the clothing and household, to be honest, their prices are really no cheaper than many stores locally and also stores such as Target.

My husband and I decided that from now on we would shop locally. Our favorite grocery store is "Winco", and I am not sure if they have any beyond OR/WA/CA. My nephew lived in Minnesota with his dad and worked at a store called "Rainbow", which he said Winco here was identical to. This store sells a lot of bulk products (i.e, dry soup mixes, pastas, rice, baking goods of all kinds, pet food, parmesan cheese, coffee, honey, I could go on).

I will not buy my groceries anywhere else as this is a company owned store and the employees, although they are not union, do make good incomes and also the benefits for their families are incredible, plus they also get profit sharing after their first year of being there.

Originally Posted by PhredE

If you've got a Costco in your area in lieu of a Wal-Mart or Sam's Club - go there instead. They're much better in terms of corporate responsibility (not perfect, but much, much better than WM). They're beating the pants of Wal-Mart at the moment in terms of growth/expansion and you can find great deals there at times as well (quality stuff, not cheap crap). Oh yeah - minor detail, you've gotta have a membership of some kind to shop there normally. But, there is a notable exception - they do allow non-members to purchase items from the in-store pharmacy section which can be a big $ saver for those folks too.

Don't recall ever buying anything from Wal-Mart. I will never, ever knowing what I do now...

A few years ago in Calif, when Sam's Club had just opened up in my area, I was only able to join because I owned a business at the time. I don't know how they are now. Also, they only sold in quantity.

I was through will WalMart a few years ago!!!! They are Anti American, IMO... all the way around!!!!!

I wouldn't care if they went broke!!!

Here's a website if you want to buy American. It's a database of US suppliers for just about anything. I use it.

http://www.usstuff.com/