- Consolidated net sales for the full year were $443.9 billion, an increase of 5.9 percent.
- Consolidated operating income for the full year was $26.6 billion, up 4.0 percent from last year.
- Walmart ended the year with free cash flow of $10.7 billion
Social media and online news have created an almost atomic catalyst for community response. This power should give us cause for concern. While information is just a click away, the formation of an appropriate response should require a broader look than the first twitter notice read and a deeper examination then a count of multiple 'shares' from a Facebook post. The newly created desire to be the first-in-the-know (e.g. - the commercial catch phrase "that is so 29 seconds ago") has allowed an opening for us to be manipulated and has put the term 'bandwagon' into 21st century technology hyper speed.
Any online call to action that requires act now, think later should probably be held suspect. As our societal culture evolves with high tech mass communication, it may behoove each of us to utilize our internal pause button long enough to do a little research on a subject...particularly during an election season.