Christmas Has Been Cancelled Due to Wal-Mart
By HTO's News Correspondent - Jam Handy
NORTH POLE (Reuters) - Greenlanders and Norwegians were the first to hear the
distressing news Monday that seven traditional toy manufacturing plants have
been scheduled for closing in early December at the North Pole. Lay-offs of
Elves may number into 10,000-15,000 workers. Wall Street financial analysts
have discussed the possibility that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) may be
single-handedly responsible for the down-turned economy at the North Pole.
John Q. Public, of I'mAhead Financials points to Wal-Mart's insistance on producers
meeting their demands for lower prices that has driven the Elven Toy Manufacturing
Co., Inc. to it's knees.
Public gave the following assessment of the Toy company's financial woes: "Today's
business world is no longer run by the large manufacturing firms that once
held national pride and manufacturing quality as it's stipulations to encourage
retailers to market their products. Instead, it is massive retailers, like
Wal-Mart, who now can dictate to the manufacturers what products they need
to produce for sale in their stores, and at what price they will produce the
same products. At one time, manufacturing giants like the General Motors Corporation
(NYSE: GM) dominated the world trade markets. GM and other manufacturing companies
were accustomed to a 'hey-day' in which they could design any product, use
any process of manufacturing they pleased, and then contact the retail outlets
last in order to market their goods. Today, that has all changed. Now, big-name
corporate retailers like Wal-Mart are actually calling the shots, and causing
a lot of stir in the U.S.A., and now that stir has reached the melting pot
of toy manufacturing at the North Pole."
Saint Christopher Kringle, (a.k.a. "St. Nick") Chairman, Chief Executive
Officer and Head of North Pole Operations for the Elven Toy Manufacturing Company,
Inc. forsees a bleak holiday season for the world. In a meeting with top Wal-Mart
executives last Friday, Kringle and his Vice Chairman of Product Development,
Nosgood P. Elfenworth, III returned empty-handed from the Wal-Mart bargaining
table. H. Lee Scott Jr., Chief Executive Officer, President, Director, Chairman
of Stock Option Committee and Member of Executive Committee (who makes 5.37
million a year according to YahooFinance.com) could not be contacted for comment
on the toy manufacturing factory closures.
Kringle reminded Reuter's news that Wal-Mart had a similar role in the Rubbermaid,
Inc. sale to competitor Newell in the 1990s. The former Rubbermaid company
now trades under it's new legal name "Newell Rubbermaid, Inc." (NYSE:
NWL). Rubbermaid made the lethal decision in doing business with the "low-price
wolves" at Wal-Mart, only to experience a skyrocketing price increase
in the resins that were needed to manufacture the company's plastic products.
Rubbermaid approached Wal-Mart with their fiscal price increase strategy to
cover the costs of the higher resources, only to have Wal-Mart turn them away
as a customer, bringing Rubbermaid to it's knees, and eventually forcing the
permanent closure of the main Rubbermaid manufacturing plant.
Elfenworth III reported that Wal-Mart refuses to accept the Elven Toy Manufacturing
Company's pricing offer of "free toys," instead, demanding that Kringle
and the Elves pay Wal-Mart to promote the holiday at their 3,762 stores in
the United States. It was believed that the strategy, one of the first of it's
kind on the planet, was set in motion to generate revenue for Wal-Mart's intended
400 new store openings for 2006.
Wal-Mart spearheads globalization stategies worldwide which encompass the globe
in search for "the lowest price." When U.S. manufacturing firms would
not meet Sam Walton's price demands in the mid-1980s, Walton went to Asia and
many third-world countries in search of "the lowest price." He indeed
found what he was looking for in the People's Republic of China. Chinese workers
will work for the equivalent of 25 cents per hour, with some of the country's
higher-paid workers making as much as 50 cents per hour. This was a great discovery
for Walton, and well within Walton's "Low Price" margin of profitability.
For example, under the newly globalized Wal-Mart practices, one Chinese-made,
imported pair of cotton socks at Wal-Mart may have an average of 60%, 70% and
even 80% profitability when sold at their stores throughout the United States.
Economists present gloomier view of Walton's "American Dream." They
site the chain of events in a much broader, more comprehensible form. When
a manufacturing company contacts Wal-Mart in order to enquire about retailing
their goods at the Wal-Mart retail stores, they are often faced with extremely
informed Wal-Mart representatives. Manufacturing firms are finding out that
Wal-Mart has been "doing their homework" on the manufacturing world.
Wal-Mart buyers are often already supplied with the accounting books of the
manufacturers, a detailed list of their business practices, and even average
payroll information. This gives Wal-Mart the leverage it needs to demand that
each manufacturer who does business with Wal-Mart will offer the lowest price
for manufacturing that Wal-Mart is willing to pay. It is a retailer's market.
But that is also what is driving many American factories, and now the Elven
Toy Manufacturing Company, the North Pole's leading source of employment, out
of business. Low Price.
" Free toys were not good enough for Wal-Mart" states Kringle, life-long
resident of the North Pole who takes no pay whatsoever to manufacture and deliver
toys on Christmas Eve all over the world. "Now they have gone one step
too far, and are demanding that WE pay THEM for our products." Kringle
has long-since signed off his copyrights and trademarks to the name "Santa
Claus" and his world-reknown trademark red suit. "I did it for the
children" states Kringle, "every good little boy and girl deserve
free toys at Christmas, and until this year, we have always been able to run
the shop in such a manner as to afford toys for everyone."
Not so with Christmas 2005.
This year, if Wal-Mart wins it's lawsuit against the Elven Toy Manufacturing
Company (ETMCo), Elves may, for the first time in history, have to pay a duty
fee to Wal-Mart in order to even come to work at ETMCo. Parking premiums for
sleds and feed bag costs for reindeer have also been added to the mix of tariffed
structures required of ETMCo by Wal-Mart. The last straw was when it was discovered
by ETMCo lawyers that in the Wal-Mart contract, Wal-Mart wanted a kick-back
on every cookie and glass of milk left at each delivery location on Kringle's
Christmas schedule. It was even rumored that several hundred "good little
girl and boy lists" were potentially being replaced by similar "non-ethic" lists
which included extra stops over the houses of Wal-Mart chief executives, regardless
of goodness, badness, or spoilednesses.
A picketing campaign has been planned by key Elven dignitaries for the Bentonville,
Arkansas headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It was rumored that the Salvation
Army may donate costumes and dingy-bells to help publicize the existence of
the labour dispute between the Elven Toy Manufacturers Union (ETMU), Local
00001, North Pole and the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. USA.
" The whole North Pole looks like a ghost town," quipped Zeeble D. Crooch,
long-standing member of ETMU Local 00001. "I've been in the Elf union
now for 841 years," said Crooch, "and I've never seen anything like
it. The last time any significant deterrent occurred pertaining to Christmas
was when I had just started in the toy manufacturing business in the year 1,166AD
during the time of the Crusades in the Middle East. Moor tribes had pushed
their way into traditionally Christian homes and villages, refusing the Eastern
European inhabitants from celebrating Christmas. The Moorish penalty for celebrating
Christmas in those days was to be publicly beheaded, and then to have your
body publicy drawn and quartered by four Arabian Stallions. That was a sad
time for world history indeed, but I sincerely think this year's blood-thirsty
attack from Wal-Mart tops even the hatred of the Moors."
With plant closures looming on the horizon, Wal-Mart's chief of worldwide expansion
offers a glimmer of hope for the soon-to-be-out-of-work Elves. "Never
fear," was the anonymous statement given by a top Wal-Mart executive, "Wal-Mart
is already looking into purchasing the real estate on several of the soon-to-be
closed toy manufacturing plants. We intend to create jobs in the Elven community
by opening up 72 new stores in and around the North Pole region."
Asked whether or not they would shop at Wal-Mart should the retailer start
opening stores at the North Pole, several elves interviewed all had the exact
same comment: "BAH-HUMBUG!!"
Copyright 2005, The HTO's News Agency, Ann Arbor, Michigan