A wise old man once told me that there were two ways to "pay people off". One was money the other was the appearance of friendship. The latter seems to be the method of choice in our community.

I have been told that practices like these are simply a cost of doing business in Mexico. It is impossible to get anything accomplished without tithing several layers of Government.

I'm sure it NEVER happens in Oregon.

Except for that one Portland parking meter guy: an anomaly for sure. And that food buyer for the Oregon State Prisons: another isolated incident.

Hardly worth mentioning.

executives focused more on damage control than on rooting out wrongdoing

Certainly that assertion can be made for just about every corporation on the planet. Its not just the "evil" Walmart.

Why are you above commenters looking at this from the point of view sympathetic to the party that stood to make a lot of money by breaking laws and cheating?

Why would any of you make excuses for them? Do we no longer value furthering the rule of law around the world? Are you just cozy with this kind of filth? We have things like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for a reason. If WalMart had nothing to hide... they wouldn't have tried so hard to hide it.

Yet, when bribes and other scandalous dealings are a normal way of life here in P-town, with developers and light rail interests getting favored treatment at City Hall and average Joe citizen has to pay tens of thousands in "permit fees" just to build a patio on their property, nothing is said of it.

Last weekend I made a stop at IKEA. I thought to myself, "What the hell is the difference between cheap crap sold at WalMart, and cheap crap sold at Target, Fred Meyer, IKEA, H&M...?" Oh, the only difference is that Sam Adams hates WalMart, therefore WalMart is bad. H&M good. IKEA good. Same cheap Chinese made crap. Heck, it's OK for 20 Chinese kids to die to manufacture an iPhone, because it's an Apple product. It's OK for Apple to make insane profits. Because they're Apple...and it's OK to sell computers and phones that are several times more costly than the alternatives. But it is not OK for WalMart to actually use its power to sell items at a lower cost to the end consumer.

I would say that IKEA has a track record of taking better care of their employees than WalMart does. And because they do not really sell many commodities a lot of the major complaints about WalMart just aren't applicable.

Apple... doesn't seem to be let off the hook. There was a ton of reporting about conditions in Taiwanese factories the last couple years, compared to their peers. You surely have a lot more stuff made by Foxconn than your Apple gear. If anything it seems they have a much higher bar due to the "cool" factor. Which is fine by me. Apple should do more and so should everyone else.

Bribing government officials to get stores built faster in Mexico? I think that probably says as much about Mexico as it does WalMart.

Heh - I was reading today that Apple wants Australia to redefine its 3G network to 4G because its 4g-compatible iPhones and iPads don't work on that country's 4G network.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57417780-501465/apple-wants-australia-to-redefine-3g-as-4g/

It's okay - it's not as though they're WalMart.

Heh - I was reading today that Apple wants Australia to redefine its 3G network to 4G because its 4g-compatible iPhones and iPads don't work on that country's 4G network.

Similar thing happened here in the US on AT&T. I have an iPhone 4S, and when iOS 5 was released, it strangely changed from showing "3G" to "4G". Since the 4S uses HSPA+, with everything perfect it can barely attain 4G speed, so they changed the display on AT&T 4S phones. But it is still a 3G network.

Apple... doesn't seem to be let off the hook. There was a ton of reporting about conditions in Taiwanese factories the last couple years, compared to their peers.

Yes, there was. But nothing changed.

Well, look here. Walmart's not the only one.

http://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/index.ssf/2012/04/nike_executive_in_china_gave_b.html

and more!

http://freebeacon.com/dreamworks-nightmare/

even more!

http://freebeacon.com/dreamworks-nightmare/