On Tuesday, Citigroup analyst Deborah Weinswig downgraded Walmart stock from a buy to a hold, reportedly because of fears that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would "make it easier for employees to unionize [and] would raise the retail giant’s labor costs and hurt its competitiveness."
It was hard to view this as anything but an overt political act intended to set off panic in a fragile economic climate (and an an attempt to bulldoze Blanche Lincoln), since the bill hadn’t even been introduced yet and its passage is far from assured. In fact, not much has changed since February 19th when Weinswig gave Walmart a "9.5 out of 10" rating.
You can listen to Weinswig rave about the stock on the embedded CNBC clip.
Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston compared it to bond ratings agencies who threaten to downgrade bonds just before state regulators are about to take votes on utility rate hikes. "None dare call it "interference in the market," he said.
Now, Sam Stein reports today that Weinswig participated yesterday in a private Citi conference call led by a lobbyist from the US Chamber of Commerce to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act."
Yes, you read that right. The Citigroup analyst who downgraded Walmart over fears about Employee Free Choice proceeded to participate in an anti-EFCA conference call led by the Chamber of Commerce.
Citi has received $50 billion in taxpayer bailout money. They, like Bank of America, are trying to pretend that there’s some kind of iron wall that prevents bailout money from being used to lobby against Employee Free Choice–as if it isn’t the bailout money that is keeping the doors open in the first place.
The hubris and the conflicts of interest here are pretty gobsmacking.
Yet another example of why we need Congress to demand transparency before shoveling any more money into the corrupt banking system.
Please join us at 5:30 pm ET today for a live chat with David Cay Johnston on the need for bank bailout transparency. And sign the petition here: No More Dough Til We Know Where It Goes.
Related posts:
- Chamber of Commerce’s “Buy an Economist” Health Care Strategy Identical to its Anti-Employee Free Choice Campaign
- Chamber Of Commerce Attacks Schumer’s Public Option Amendments
- “Feinstein Bailing on EFCA” or “Reporter Punk’d By Chamber of Commerce”?
- Note to Chamber of Commerce: Please Update to This Century
- Progressive Groups Target Companies over Their Chamber of Commerce Membership
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
Yea it’s just insane.
On Tuesday, Citigroup analyst analyst Deborah Weinswig
Does that mean that she analyzes Citigroup analysts?
Good.
j/k
This is so wrong. Aftern Enron, WorldCom, and Sarbanes-Oxley the independence of stock analysts were questioned.
ChineseEthical walls were to be set up to keep the analysts opinions “independent” from the stocks the company was pushing. Does anyone have information on Citibank’s and Walmart’s relationship. In a perfect world, this woman should lose her job for conflict of interest and malfeasance.I am sure her professional organization has ethics rules that she just violated. Lets turn her in. They may not do anything, but she will have to suffer through a few days of investigation.
Should we call Weinswig and ask her why she is doing what she is doing?
Jim Cramer already explained for everyone in great detail:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..73824.html
This guy and the entire system are flawed at the most fundamental level. They both need to be canned immediately.
Why don’t we start talking about the REAL upper class, since the Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express. It’s important to keep in mind that those Zombie Banks we’ve been hearing about are the owners of The Federal Reserve. So we have the Zombie Banks who caused all these problems bailing out themselves through THEIR Federal Reserve with OUR money. I think we should nationalize the Fed and cancel all that interest debt we owe them. Why in the world do we need to pay interest to THEM when our government could print its’ own money interest free. The United States of America can no longer afford this CRAZY arrangement that was crafted by Bankers.
It’s not the reason I have in mind. It’s the influence of calls on her. Why should we have calling programs only for pols? Other people, like Weinswig, have a responsibility to the people at large, and should be made aware of it.
i posted this earlier,guess i ll give meself a ht
From http://www.sas.com/news/featur…..treet.html
She aparently does not belong to any professional organizations except the UofChicago GSB Alumni Association. And we know Chicago freemarketeers do not believe in any regulation, instead the markets will punish the evil doers.
the price of labor has nothing to do with the cost of items at the register
stores price based on what people will pay not based on what they pay
walmart prices to get people through the door, the will take a hit in profit not foot traffic
You’re wrong. The influence of the cost of labor on the price of the product depends on the slope of the supply and demand curves.
One of the more glaring (utter bullshit) claims in Weinswig’s assertion is that EFCA could damage Wally-World’s competitive position. So hey, Weinie, what other behemoth is in a position to compete with that entity? How Fn stupid do these people think we are, anyway?
As for Cramer…Scheduled for Daily Show tonight. Should be interesting.
Weinswig received….a BS in accounting from Indiana University.
That ’splains it.
Indiana University *has* been known to produce some major-league BS.
I worked for (and got laid off from) a company that conducted surveys in the workplace (among other things), and one of its recommendations was never to let employees form a union.
Certainly, we’ll be seeing BigMedia all over these stories, since they cut right to core of why there’s an economic crisis, right? I mean they’re always talking about looking for the next big story to break, and here it is on a platter and they angry public would eat it up thereby increasing ratings and/or subscriptions. Although, if BigMedia’s motive is something other than profits, say pushing BigMoney-supporting ideology on the electorate, then they’ll take a pass and make sure few see these stories.
Related: Heard NYTimes “reporter” Jodi Kantor on Stephanie Miller’s radio show the morn and was shocked at how vacuous she is. It was difficult enough to listen to that voice and her speech pattern (OMG!!!!!!! like this whole DeeCee thing SOOOO cool!!!! Obama just needs to learn how it works and he got in over his head!!!! OMG!!), but she then concludes with this jaw dropper…
“Well, Obama asked us to hold him to a higher standard and we’re gonna do it then!”
Like OMG!!!!! totally. So if someone asks to be held to a lower standard, like say Shrub, then DeeCee “reporters” will hold them to lower standards? Would explain the last eight years I guess. It’s so clear that BigMedia owners control the message by hiring vacuous butt kissers who won’t rock the boat. Meanwhile, it’s then easy to keep the Deborah Weinswig or Jim Cramer stories out of the major news, and the general public goes on their merry way talking about Michelle Obama’s arms.
Thank you. Someone sent it to me but you deserve a h/t anyway.
Unfortunately, the markets are equal opportunity punishers. They punish everyone, not just the guilty. All in all, it results in an economy like the one we’re currently in.
Who the hell is Blanche Lincoln afraid of, anyway? Every single constitutional officer in Arkansas is a Democrat, the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic, and the federal delegation is entirely Democratic but one. She’ll likely draw an opponent with Bush ties — perhaps Tim Griffin if she’s really lucky — and coast to re-election.
So why isn’t she giving EFCA her full-throated support? She should.
Oh, and Barney Frank needs to smack some Citi ass.
walmart is expensive ON THE CRAP THEY SELL….A 10Cent box of nails 10 bux,a cheap chinese broom 5 bux prolly costthem 25 cents …etc,etc…ad nauseum
I don’t think Barney Frank’s ass-smacking is an appropriate topic for this blog.
They can run, but they can’t hide. The mask of the corporate conspiracy is being stripped away. I thought this sort of stuff only happened in the 1950s. Silly me. We are in a time warp.
gracias….and you deserve a Pulitzer….not Lilly…*g* or Peter ergh
I think Deborah Weinswig understands the dynamics quite well. Her ability to deceive with a straight face probably helped her get her jobs, and she probably promotes this ability when she’s interviewing for this kind of work. She doesn’t work for “We, the people…” that’s fer shure, and probably couldn’t care less about what we think.
The bursting of the housing bubble, the financial meltdown, our entry into depression, and the fact that companies like Citi have become a joke stock totally dependent on government handouts have not impinged in any way on Wall Street and the way people there think. This is something fundamental to consider. All these disasters, all this government aid, and they are still playing the same old games every chance they get. We probably are not going to get out of this with our current group of political leaders but we definitely aren’t as long as the upper echelons of Wall Street remain in place. Weinswig needs to be fired, and she can be fired, because oh let me see, she doesn’t belong to a union.
She completely overlooks the strong possibility that WallyMart’s customers will be assisted by EFCA, and their disposable income increased. A shallow and vacuous analysis, even if it wasn’t riven with conflict and done on the taxpayers’ dime to boot.
It depends on that but more on the proportion of labour cost going into the price of the final product.
Ha-ha! Haven’t read that old FDL chestnut in a while…. *g*
they have never lived through STAGFLATION…dumb as a box of rocks
Never mind the obvious. Weinie knows best.
Well, there’s just a little ‘ol company in Arkansas called Wal-Mart. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
heh. I wouldn’t have tossed that at just anyone….. *g*
I can assure you that if she had dozens of phone calls in her day from people who won’t increase her compensation, she’ll get some message. Wall St. analysts have planned every minute of their days, and having to deal with “extraneous” phone calls will influence how they work somehow or other.
And we should have a calling plan for other Wall St. analysts too when the public good conflicts with their recommendations.
A Citigroup analyst? Is this not a synonym for idiot? Or is it those that think such a moron would have something important to say?
Let us Digg!
Whether or not a retail business can recover rising costs depends in part on whether it is only THEIR costs that are rising, or if competitors are similarly affected.
In the case of Walmart, I don’t believe that it’s major direct competitors are unionized (Target, K-Mart, etc.) In that case, if ALL were unionized, the odds are pretty good that there would be a rise in prices to cover any incremental costs.
Normally though the pricing decisions are not directly related to operating costs
One tries to mazimize GP dollars and then minimize operating expenses. The most likey result of unionization would be an attempt to lower the size of the labor force.
There have been several studies that show overall, you don’t save money shopping at Walmart. Their scanners for years test in the 15% error range (almost always up). The loss-leaders at the end of aisles give people the illusion that everything else there is cheaper too, and then people buy more than they need because they think everything’s such a great deal.
That’s just in the direct ways, and when you factor in the societal costs, in the long term especially, having Walmart in a community is extremely detrimental. None of us should spend money there or any other big box if at all possible.
ave you read this?
Dr. Patrick Byrne Mark Mitchell Judd Bagley
Deep Capture founder & Overstock CEO
The Deep Capture Analysis
Introduction
The Setting
1.The Players (hedge funds)
2.The Pawns (journalists)
3.The Regulators
The Crime
4.The Crime: Naked Short Selling
5.The Corporate Democracy Hoax
6.Ruined Firms & Looted Pensions
7.Systemic Risk
The Cover-up
8.The Deep Capture Campaign
9.The Disinformation of Social Media
I have entered a Wall-Mart only once (iirc), and that was with a friend who wanted to buy something there. I did not buy anything.
Won’t they just start ignoring the calls, and maybe get another line or something for actual business calls?
I know people that do this when they start getting deluged with calls from the public.
Seems like CITI has needed considerable Federal help. Let us apply the same arguments to them as have been applyed to GM. The employees are making to much money, we need to eliminate their Health insurance, they need to get rid of some product lines. They need to shut down a bunch of their dealers.
and the ROLLING BAGGER many oldfolks leave a bag orr 2,my friend went back after discovering her loss,and they told her to pound sand
I always find it surprising that Wal Mart gets so much abuse while other retailers get off scot free. There are very few unionized retail operations outside of super markets….
Traditional dept. stores are notorious for underpaying employees and denying them benefits….
Why doesn’t anyone investigate say Saks?
Almost seems like a class issue. Do some hate Wal Mart just because it’s blue collar?
Hadn’t thought of that, but you’re probably right. We should still do it until the point at which they think of a way around it.
it is atrocious,however im about to ask them to DONATE DOG AND CAT food on a national level,because they maake a fortune on it!!!!!!!!!
That’s absolutely incorrect. The cost of labour has everything to do with the cost of any commodity. Wal-Mart is able to dictate the price they will pay for a commodity and the manufacturers, most of whom are in China, will adjust what they pay in wages to meet that figure. Wal-Mart will lower the price of certain items as “loss leaders” to attract customers, hoping they will also purchase other items that may or may not be overpriced.
This clip should have it’s own post at the mothership.
I know BooRadley has it up at Oxdown, but it needs and deserves the exposure it would get from being here on the front page.
It is, quite simply, the Downing Street Memo of hedge fund chicanery, and should be sent to every member of Congress so Cramer’s ass can be hauled before a committee and explain in detail his remarks.
He is all but admitting fraud and illegal market activity and, because of his relationships with hedge fund managers, probably knew they were about to go on a shorting spree last fall which led to his infamous “Sell Everything” call on the Today show.
People hate Wal Mart because it’s big and exploitive. If you could bring Wal Mart to heel (fat chance), there’d be a domino effect on the others.
This starting to remind me of some sick comedy;
You get mugged outside your front door, when the police arrive they beat you some more and steal your TV, your insurance guy shows up with some thugs who take your new refridgerator, and finally your banker/creditcard company sends you a post-card that says you’ve become a risk due to obvious deterioration of your health so they’ll be forced to call in your loans and raise your card rates.
They also have reduced product sizes. Example I buy Iams for my dog. At Walmart the bag size is 7 lbs at the local grocery where I shop it is 8 lbs This trick is repeated throughout.
I understand THAT argument- but there always seems to be a bit of a class issue surrounding the Wal Mart critique.
They just call themselves Democrats… in truth I think very few of them really are. Watching my home state vote plus 20 points McCain last November and watching the state legislature produce and overwhelmingly pass numerous pieces of what I would consider the most outrageous right wing-nut bills this year.
‘
It’s time to stop calling these people Democrats.
that is just VILE
I buy Pedigree at Sam’s. 52 pounds for about $20. I haven’t found a better deal.
The base ingredient of every bubble is corruption.
They also make the competition goout ofbizand then raise their profits when they are the only game in town….Talk about a ponzi scheme……………EEK cap attack pleaze forgive….gg
[mod note: fixed]
Aren’t we supposed to hate sam’s too?
Without intense regulation, our system will always go there it seems to me. It’s just human nature, which is highly predictable.
I still don’t see a good reason as to why there is a “Wall Street” or multi/national stock market to begin with (don’t have time for that discussion now!). It will always lead to this situation that Jim Cramer admits to in that clip. Their corporate charters say they’re supposed maximize shareholder value, so they think what they’re doing is justified and legal, as long as they can get away with it.
please add egg or some other protein source,if your feeding dry
yes its true…..part you from your money likkittty split
okay 4 litter boxes await me and my industrial gloves……later all
How about they destroy WAY more communities than any other big box? Would that deserve more critique?
Dunno, the criticism I usually levy and see talks about big boxes in general. Walmart is the biggest of these by far. Don’t see it as a class issue.
True — a Walmart staffer told me when I was shopping for computer ink that the reason the price was X% less than elsewhere for their private label printer ink was because it contained X% less ink.
A cautionary tale…. you gets what you pay for.
Hope ya don’t mind me helping out a bit.
Robert Ludlum couldn’t pose a plot this thick. It’s a GREAT read, and ties a LOT of people together.
Cramer, I’m delighted to see, is under the microscope AND the gun lately. Couldn’t happen to a better anal cyst. Weinsbag should be cuffed and jailed, then taken to trial in a decade or so . . . ;-)
Ya still gotta look beyond MSM (Daily Show notwithstanding) for real sunshine, but it’s definitely not as dark as it was a year ago . . . . and I applaud the blogosphere and many FDL’ers for spreading the candle flames.
It’s slow, but the ‘awareness’ of the evil we’re up against is spreading to the general population.
Perhaps there’s hope . .
Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
Well, that settles that. Move along, nothing to see here…
yeah
I think so.
I have a good friend who is VERY left in his politics. He is an ex corporate counsel but detests corporations and particularly Wal Mart…
Turns out that he only wants to shop at trendy places- who are every bit as anti union as Wal Mart and offer WORSE benefits. He must drive a Lexus and wouldn’t touch a Chevy…
I accuse him of loathing the very people he pretends to want to protect politically.
He enjoys being the great patriarch but not the brother of the teeming masses- thinks they smell bad and have very bad taste in literature and religion.
Funny huh?
Analysts are on conference calls all the time; it’s their job. That is, calls where CFO’s or CEO’s go on record about his or her company’s performance. The calls are one data point in evaluating their target companies/industries.
If this call was only about EFCA, it’s a strategy call, not a financial conference call. While that’s relevant in evaluating a target company’s prospects, this analyst has veered very close to becoming a player, not an analyst. At best, her “objectivity” is in question.
Of course the analyst is on the call, they’re researching efca…. OMG, BREAKING NEWS! haha wow jane, I expect this from emptywheel, but not you!
one reason the volvo driving latte drinking liberal elite stereotype works, is because your friend isn’t the only one.
It certainly used to be the case that Wal Mart destroyed other retail businesses in small towns. Saw it myself in GunBarrel City Tx. However, the people who lost their jobs in Mom’s dress shop and Clarence’s liquor store got jobs at Wal Mart with BENEFITS and higher wages, and the town got a lot more stuff for their money- so arguably they were much better off..
Clem’s Bait and Gun shop survived cause he was providing a service that Wal Mart couldn’t match- as was Oscar’s appliance repair.
At PetsMart they normally carry Iams cat food in 8 and 4 pound bags. For about 3 weeks they carried a 10 lb bag for the same price as the 8 lb had been. After that, poof, no more 10 lb bags but the 8 lb bags went up in price. I hate PetsMart, but like Wal-Mart they destroyed all the local mom and pops and we’re stuck with them. What mom and pop’s are left can’t stock a lot of stuff because the distributors won’t ship to them because they don’t move enough product.
It’s a Walmartopia! Let’s frolic everyone!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycrHX14Q_FI
i’m not shopping at saks, so saying i won’t shop there any more doesn’t mean much. so, yeah, i agree it’s a class issue but to a large extent it’s about the class of people who actually would do a lot of shopping there absent the other issues.
Wow, economies of scale! What a crazy concept!
As a retailer, I would guess that they don’t national brand name products because customers could price compare with bad results. Better to stick to expensive high margin products that aren’t available at the supermarket.
Supermarkets survive on VERY low margins- and require very high volumes to stay afloat. They usually make about 1% of sales net. A small business can’t match their prices.
LOL. i almost included that part, but wanted to end with a line on hate. love that song probably listen to it half a dozen times a week.
It’s not that simple IMO. Some great research has been coming out about this issue.
http://www.small-mart.org/the-…..revolution
This author, Michael Shuman, claims that the localized vs. globalized economy fight will be the make or break battle of this century, and will determine whether our current society survives or not. I think he makes a great case.
Prolly the only “modern” song I can sing along with. I can do a really contemptible “all lily white and squeaky clean.” *g*
Very true, which is why I maintain there’s no such thing as ‘free markets’, because without proper regulation (such as what Glass-Steagall provided) it’s only a matter of time before The Smartest Guys In The Room figure out how to game the system to their advantage, the rest of us be damned!
There’s a local pet store here that caters primarily to dogs but they do carry some cat stuff. I asked about them carrying a particular brand of litter that PetsMart carries 6 40-lb bags and 6 20-lb bags. The distributor told them they wouldn’t ship to them because their total store volume of sales weren’t high enough. That’s a horseshit attitude.
eeeett eeessse allll boooshit
hehehe. i just bet you do…
Interesting
Since I currently own a small retail business with my brother, I certainly don’t disagree with at least part of the premise….
We run a bike shop and also sell Italian Motorscooters..
Wal Mart is in the bike business- but there is little similarity between the two.
Wal Mart can’t sell anything for over $200. We sell nothing UNDER $300. We service what we sell and guarantee our work. Wal Mart does not. We are able to offer adivice- the big box guys offer a sign (usually with incorrect information) We spend $20- $40 assembling the bike- Wal Mart pays a contract employee $5. We handle a wide variety of sizes, Wal Mart offers men’s and women’s
Our bikes weigh as little as 15 pounds, Wal Mart’s weigh 40.
It’s really not the same business.
hearing is done. going to make some transcriptions… later….
I remember having a Lambretta years ago. What’s a basic Lambretta go for nowadays?
I don’t know- they just came back into this country and we don’t sell them- but I would guess 3-4 thousand bucks. We sell Vespas and Piaggio’s other brands- Piaggio and Aprilia.
Try the fresh produce at Sam’s Club Wallmart’s sister store in the winter the crowds of fruit flies are worst than out door markets in Mexico where at least the fruit is fresh.
By something there its cheap not the good kind of cheap the kind that breaks down, gets you sick etc.
When people get higher pay they stop shopping at Wallmart. Its the market in action Wallmart sales are up now because of the bad economy.
Where do they get their dog food from Wallmart has lots of Chinese contractors and Chinese pet food is suspect.
I shop at Wal Mart. I actually find their quality pretty good. They, for example, know how to buy inexpensive electronic gear- wheras their competitors at Target do not. I bought two things at Target that promptly broke- I have never had that experience with the stuff I bought at Wal Mart including lawnmowers, television sets, sporting goods, etc.
Much of their stuff is brand name- same as you’d get anywhere else for a sizable discount.
Same place everyone else gets Pedigree Dog Food.
I have to disagree with one commenter. The current state of the MSM is far worse than it was under the lunatic. The statements made are more ridiculous, the people making them are more vapid, and that is what we get. There will never be any real truth to it. Even Keith and Rachel’s shows are paid for by corporate crime.
I will not participate in that kind of bullshit ever again. We enable these crooks, so it’s time to end our sponsorship. MSNBC is owned by the weapons maker of the world, the nuclear waste dumper, the ocean’s greatest enemy. They have an ex baseball reporter and a new gal that came up the hard way as their representatives to the “hard core left wing” How stupid are we? This is a money making deal, and nothing else.
We should re-examine our priorities a bit more often perhaps?
BT way upstairs with Michael Steele…
I used to buy food at Sam’s the occasional bit of clothes.
The issue with Wal-Mart is not just price; it’s how they get those prices and from where. Things like labor practices, child labor, “cooperative” agreements with foreign governments not generally regarded as having minimal labor protections, abuse of suppliers, and so on.
I wonder how much of this Citibank woman’s analysis is pre-scapegoating for the real WalMart troubles still to come.
The WalMart business model depends on China. WalMart drives local competition out of business with prices kept low by China’s quasi-slave labor and then drives the prices back up as far as they can to maximize profit. Without the cheap and compliant labor that the fiercely antiunion Chinese “Communist” government guarantees, WalMart is just a bloated, inefficient, and decidedly unattractive general store.
Multiple current and emergent crises make China a very doubtful proposition these days. I wonder if that is what this so-called analyst is really nervous about. China has unprecedented ecological disasters underway, an energy crisis, and, if Western production falls even a little, a food crisis. Their population is increasingly restive and resentful of corruption, confiscation of land, and unequal distribution of wealth. The hope of some upward mobility through factory work has been holding this in check. But as savings vanish, demand for Chinese goods flags, and layoffs begin, the balance is sure to be upset. Protests and even riots are already common enough to be reported in the West.
I wonder how often this so-called analyst has hyped the business climate in China in the past? When China blows up in her clients’ faces, perhaps she’d prefer that the union bogeyman take the blame, rather than 20-30 years of Wall Street wisdom?