Our customer base is not necessarily a leader, an early adopter.
Lee Scott
Where we're not wrong or where the cost of settling is so much that it is totally disproportionate to the harm or the error that we made, we're not going to settle.
And the greeter is what sets the tone for this company and I've been on TV a little bit this morning.
I would guess that any criticism about Wal-Mart could have some element of truth with 1,500,000 people.
Where we have been incorrect in what we have done, then I think we have an obligation to settle.
I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.
I just think that it's maybe fashionable today to try to take individual actions and individual failures and take the broadest possible brush and try to paint a company.
If we take care of the customers and associates and grow the business, Wall Street will be pleased.
It's hard for us in our stores to be a leader in technology.
So I think we have an obligation with our size to make sure that we are open to what people have to say to us because the people who criticize us, they're not all mean-spirited.
One of the things that strikes me is so many of the critics are people whose lifestyle doesn't change when the price of fuel changes, or if they keep a Wal-Mart store out of their area.
I don't think we'll win every election.
But they are also better, our competitors are better because Wal-Mart exists.
People aren't going to talk about it except me and that is communication and the visits I have personally had in our meetings with our store managers saying if you do these things you will be terminated, period.
There are going to be some people who never want Wal-Mart. That's OK.
Don't say it's because of benefits, because our benefits are good.
The beauty of this country and what people participate in is the competitive nature that we allow to exist and the fact is that we are better because we have great competitors.
Many of them are doing it because they are concerned about smart growth.
We've got to figure out a way to cause communities to also want them, the political, organized bodies.
Retailing, it's always true that there is some items that I wish we had a lot more of like the iPod and there is some items I wish we had a lot less of.
We want to set a tone going into our fiscal year that starts Feb. 1, that Wal-Mart Stores is going to be aggressive in taking care of customers, taking care of our associates, communications and merchandising.
You know, we opened a record number of stores last year.
More and more, more and more digital, in particular, I think you'll see in our stores next year, as we start combining these digital products and they interface with each other, you'll see that represented in Wal-Mart.
And what I am trying to say to them that through our ads and through our discussions is if you don't want us in your community, that's your choice, but don't say it's because of wages.
Because the truth is our wages are really competitive and they're good.
In some ways, people forget about average working people, and how they live their lives.
I expect that our associates will walk with a little more bounce in their step and understand that this company is behind them and has respect for them.
