Andrew Warner

Is this still good news if they start laying off employees and thousands of Americans are out of work?

It's great news when they find a job at a competitor that is unionized, offers health benefits and a 401k – all while raising profits.

That should be pretty easy to do. Maybe you should change your 'when' to 'if'.

This is simple economics guys: If Wal-Mart loses money and business to competitors who treat their employees better causing Wal-Mart to lose jobs, then that means better-minded establishments are getting the business Wal-Mart is losing.

If we accept Brendan's premise that losing money causes Wal-Mart to cut jobs (a logical assumption), then we must also accept the premise that competitors gaining money will lead to a creation of jobs.

From what I read, Walmart didn't lose business to their competitors. Walmarts base chose not to shop as often due to higher gas prices. It wasn't as if they went down the street to Target. Additionally, while overall profits were down it was due to closing stores in Germany. Those stores who remained open saw same store sales increase.

Bearman,

The main reason for loss of proifts was the sale of all their German stores to a friendlier competitor. That would seem to me that they are indeed losing business to a competitor.

Here is an article for you.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2006/gb20060728_594752.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe_companies

It has nothing to do with a "friendlier" competitor. It has to do with not understanding cultural differences of how to do business in Germany. They could never get more than 2% of the market share.

Bearman,

It is a rejection of the entire business model. A big part of the business model is its bottom line attitude.

walmart lost in germany for several reasons. one of them being that the competition was too much for them to handle. there are several large chains of super-cheap-but-good-quality grocery stores that walmart couldn't stand up to (if anyone has ever shopped at aldi's in cincinnati you've gotten a taste for it). in the states, maybe walmart is the cheapest place, but not so in germany. and on other levels, walmart lost because the german cultural mindset is antithetically opposed to mega-anything, and is embracing of quality and ethical consumerism: not a walmart forte.