Sunday, May 08, 2011

Walmart: More Selective Than Harvard

"Walmart has a history of growing their management team from within. Nationwide, nearly 75 percent of Walmart’s store management team started as hourly associates."

~From this press release announcing the creation of 4,000 new jobs in South Carolina over the next five years. 

Maybe that's one reason that it's harder to get a job at Walmart than it is to be admitted to an Ivy League school.  (HT: Steve Bartin)

See previous CD posts here and here

8 Comments:

At 5/08/2011 8:32 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Walmart stock has basically flatlined since year 2000. Interesting how a couple of the giants of the 1990s, Microsoft and Walmart, are now dead in the water.

The private-sector free market just makes mincemeat of any management that goes astray, or even sleeps at the switch a bit.

Compare that to our federal military and civilian agencies, where mistakes, blunders and lard are rewarded with bigger budgets every year,

 
At 5/09/2011 1:19 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Walmart stock has basically flatlined since year 2000"...

Hey pseudo benny you never tire of makkng inane, factless comments, do you?

Anyone else would be embarrassed but not you...

From Seeking Alpha: Wal-Mart: A High Dividend Growth Stock

 
At 5/09/2011 8:01 AM, Blogger hal said...

This comparison is wrong.

walmart accepts 99.9% of customers who want to enter the store and buy stuff.

Harvard only lets in 6.9% of students who want to enter the college and learn stuff.

This is the problem with higher education. Colleges and universities do not act like businesses and grow to meet demand.

Harvard needs to get 'greedy,' and start making some real money, by building campuses in every state and accepting everyone who's willing to pay.

With increased supply and competition, prices will go down.

 
At 5/09/2011 9:37 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

hal-

that's a very interesting way to look at it.

perhaps we should be comparing them to harvard professors..

i find idea like "walmart more selective than harvard" to be ridiculous.

i would be willing to bet than any of the folks who got into harvard would get an instant job at walmart.

the top 5% of the bottom 20% of americans is a much less select group than the top 6.7% of the top 10%.

it's a cute media soundbite, but it's a meaningless comparison.

 
At 5/09/2011 12:20 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Juanditos:

Look at the 10-year charts on WalMart. It traded in the $50 a share range 10 years ago and now.

You are deeply deluded as to WalMart's stock performance.

It may be great buy today. I do not know. But Microsoft and WalMart have been in the toilet for 10 years now.

 
At 5/09/2011 2:16 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

Harder my foot.

Less Probable, maybe.

 
At 5/09/2011 3:53 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Obviously the pseudo benny didn't look at the charts from the Seeking Alpha article and obviously didn't compare the chart at Seeking Alpha to any other charts...

So typical...

 
At 5/10/2011 9:43 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

bunny-

regarding microsoft - i'd actually say that flat is a helluva result given that they have been prevented from competing on a level playing field with their competitors.

perhaps you recall the anti trust case?

they now face apple and google who can integrate their products in a way that MSFT cannot. google has a browser based OS. this is particularly hypocritical given that the participated in the lawsuit again microsoft that prevented them from creating one much earlier.

google sets itself as the search engine in all it's software, but microsoft cannot.

it's hardly a level playing field.

you are not discovering management failure, you are seeing the effects of government interference.

that same might be said for walmart. if there any other retailer who is greeted with such hostility when they look to open a store or faces such constant scrutiny and attacks on its practices? (yet has better working conditions than a great many other retailers)

this is not the private sector making mincemeat, it's the government picking winners, increasing prices, and disrupting innovation.

 

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