Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
John Oliver discusses dollar stores and why Irish Spring is not his soap of choice.
Video Duration: 21:53
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4QGOHahiVM
Invidious Link (privacy-respecting frontend for YouTube): https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=p4QGOHahiVM
Comments:
- John Oliver promotes awareness for work reform.
- Highlights systemic corruption in dollar stores.
- Calls out unsafe conditions and human rights abuse.
Oh excellent. I'm really glad he tackled this major, major problem, especially in small towns and rural areas. Dollar stores are predatory and should be reigned in. They're also not cheaper than supermarkets. I went to a Dollar General recently because my daughter was desperate for a drink. They had bottles of water. Not huge ones, just normal Aquafina bottles or whatever. They charged me $2.75. If my daughter hadn't been so desperate and we were closer to a gas station, I would have just gone there. And I'm just going to keep water in my car for her from now on.
Hey about keeping water in your car, be careful: cars get hot, and plastic water bottles leech chemicals in the water when they're hot (particularly in direct sunlight, but true even in the trunk if it gets hot enough)
They’re “cheaper” as in “you walk out the door generally having spent less money”, but they are absolutely FAR more expensive in terms of how much you pay per quantity/volume of products purchased.
It’s a chain that’s specifically designed to predate on poor people. The business model is “separating poor people from their money by making them a shitty offer that they can’t really refuse”.
So the "dollar" in the name doesn't mean anything anymore?
at this point all it means is that you spend dollars there and not euros or pesos or dinars
Inflation means a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to. You don't see five-and-dimes or penny candy any more either.
Some things are still exactly a dollar, but often they have far less product in them. For example, a roll of tape with only a third as much tape on it as a full roll at other stores.
Dollar General is not a "dollar store". It just happens to have the word "dollar" in the name. They are a normal general store whose bread and butter are poor neighborhoods or far enough out in the sticks that Walmart won't build.
I'm just going to keep water in my car for her from now on.
Um...gross?
Dang, I've seen way cleaner and better organized homeless camps and shantytowns than some of the featured dollar stores and warehouses.
If freight is seriously being dumped on the employees (or singular EMPLOYEE) before they can stock the previous shipments, or left to such neglect that birds shit on the goods, then at that point as an employee you'd be better off allowing customers to take the boxes with them to clear up inventory.
Should be a sign saying, "thieves welcome, just don't pull a gun on me."
I remember this cashier confronted a thief and was ready to fist fight him. The thief had a knife. Another vagabond went up to the thief and spoke to him and escorted him out.
Cashier was THE ONLY PERSON WORKING. And he was going to get stabbed for $9/hr.
Dollar stores are a shit show.
Seriously, if someone is supposed to be a cashier, stock clerk, security guard/watchman, delivery handler all at once, paying them anything less than $25/hr is a freaking disgrace.
Haven't seen this one yet, but Wendover did a reality good one on the same topic recently.
I feel like a few times in the past year or so Wendover does a video and then Last Week Tonight does one on the same topic. I think at least one of them they credited/referenced Wendover? Could be fans on the writing staff, could be they're both reading similar news stories that prompt deeper dives that lead to videos.
Not saying its bad or anything. LWT definitely has a different/bigger audience that's good.
I am surprised those stores can stay open in that state. That looks like wall to wall cardboard and chemicals.
What happens if a fire breaks out?
There was a fire at one of my local (Canadian) ones, and it seemed like it was closed rebuilding for almost a year, I’m wondering how much delay was investigation and how much was remediation.
Burnt plastics is one of the more rancid things I’ve come across in my industrial career.
I wish he'd of hit on the ongoing wage theft at these places.
Wish they would have pulled stats on which percent of their employees get state sponsored benefits as they aren't paid above poverty levels. Not a single stock grant or option should be allowed to be awarded under erisa if a company has a single employee on state welfare.
I want to know, and this is somewhat rhetorical, how in the Hell do companies get to break laws, and at best only ever get fined? Better yet, how can they not be held accountable when they "promise" to make changes?
No no, I get it. Companies pay lobbyists and all. They buy their way out of trouble and pay lip service to a very complacent society. When will we wake up and do something about it?
Something something free market something something lack of competition something something monopoly corporate greed exploitation of the consumer after putting competition out of business.
They built a dollar general right across the street from some section 8 housing near me, even better than the ice cream stand in front of the gym down the road.
Links don’t work for me (Canada).
Hey, sorry I'm not sure why. The YouTube video link comes directly from YouTube.
Here's the full YouTube URL to the video rather than the shareable one I had in the post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4QGOHahiVM
Invidious:
I shared an Invidious video link through the most stable Invidious instance I'm aware of. Perhaps you can try checking other Invidious instances: https://docs.invidious.io/instances/. There does not appear to be a local instance hosted in Canada.
Piped:
The alternative Piped does not appear to have this video yet as the video was just posted to YouTube today Nov 20th.
Here's the Piped link to the "Last Week Tonight" channel. Perhaps it'll show up several hours from now when it indexes YouTube (not sure how quickly Piped sees newly posted videos): https://piped.video/channel/UC3XTzVzaHQEd30rQbuvCtTQ
The invidious link worked after half a minute, in Canada.
Oh hey... It's Monday!