A group of lawmakers on Friday said an industrial bank owned by Wal-Mart, {...} the world's largest retailer, could threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system and drive community banks out of business.
In a highly critical letter to the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., obtained by Reuters, a group of more than 30 Congress members asked the bank regulator to reject Wal-Mart's application to open a bank in Utah.
"Wal-Mart's plan, to have its bank process hundreds of billions in transactions for its own stores, could threaten the stability of the nation's payments system," the lawmakers wrote.
"Given Wal-Mart's massive scope and international dealings, it is not possible to rule out a financial crisis within the company that could damage the bank and severely disrupt the flow of payments throughout the financial system."
The congressmen said the losses to the FDIC, which insures deposits at banks and thrift institutions, could be staggering if Wal-Mart begins to have financial troubles that bleed into its bank's business.
"Consider the consequences if Enron or WorldCom had owned a bank," the group said.
Oo, good point--but what if that happens with any huge company that happens to own a bank? Well, anyway, what Wal-Mart wants Wal-Mart usually gets.
One thing it doesn't want is to get into the hotel business--not yet, anyway. This dumb college kid, according to [http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060327/OPINION01/603270342|a March 27, 2006 article] at DesmoinesRegister.Com, planned to spend his entire spring break in a Wal-Mart just to see if it could really meet all of his needs 24/7.
Of course, the puss bailed two days in and the article doesn't say entirely why. Here are a few excerpts:
Some kids go to Cancun. Skyler Bartels, a Drake University sophomore from Harvard, Neb., went to the garden and patio department.
The great experiment had been over for a few days, but Bartels was still in great-experiment mode. As we sat at a booth in the Subway sandwich shop toward the front of the store, he glanced at the friendly white-haired Wal-Mart greeters.
Were they onto him? Why were they staring? Bartels was still suffering from greeter phobia.
He was never out to get Wal-Mart, he explained. This wasn't supposed to be an expose.
...
This was part sociology experiment, part school project. Bartels is a writing major. Maybe he'd put it all down on paper and pick up an independent study credit, or even sell it to somebody someday.
Maybe he'd move on to another Wal-Mart and produce a documentary, like the guy who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month.
All of this seems to make sense, so far, but check the following out:
Bartels got the idea from a commercial. Was it true what those happy, shiny people were telling him: "Always low prices. Always"?
Following this logic, he was doing this project simply to find out if Wal-Mart had low prices, say, at 2am or at 5:42:30am. The article goes on in the very next paragraph:
Could the biggest, most successful discount store in the world really meet his every need? Twenty-four hours a day? That's what the TV spots were telling him.
WHAT? This makes no sense. The reporter goes from the "always low prices" thing to "meeting his every need"?? There is no logic to this.
So, why did Bartels bail? Here's what the article says:
By Tuesday morning, not even halfway through the great experiment, the store was on to him.
"I noticed the greeters pointing at me," he said. "Somebody got on the intercom and announced a meeting of the department managers. One of the shift managers came up to me and asked, very politely, if I needed anything. I could have told him where everything was."
His debit account was frozen. He was exhausted and paranoid. Game over. His med-student brother picked him up and took him away.
HUH? He wasn't caught, arrested or even kicked out. He just sort of gave up. The article doesn't explain why his "debit account was frozen" or if the Wal-Mart staff were really on to him.
What terrible journalism and what a lame kid. He could have made history--he could have made his career right out of the gate--instead, he screws the pooch and gets his 15 minutes of fame for actually NOT doing something.
Wal-Mart is the perfect target for something like this. Most stores are open 24 hours--they can't really kick you out as long as you're not causing any problems, so why did he puss out??
OK, I've done enough free advertizing for Wal-Mart.
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