There are plenty of reasons why people should not buy at Wal*Mart. It offers us low prices and wide selection, but at a really large price. It cost us wages, jobs and damages local economies.
Yet the store has it’s supporters including conservative columnists such as JONATHAN GURWITZ, of the San Antonio Express-News:
From The Wichita Eagle, Sep. 08, 2006:
Democrats denounce Wal-Mart at own peril
“For all its good works, low prices and incomparable efficiencies, Wal-Mart may not be the corporate messiah. Neither, however, is it a corporate Satan, as an increasing number of Democratic politicians are making it out to be.
The New York Times reported last month from the campaign trail in Iowa that Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a presumed presidential candidate, delivered a 15-minute stem-winder of a speech to party activists. His main target was Wal-Mart.
He is not alone. The new election rallying cry of many Democratic leaders, the Times reported, is denouncing Wal-Mart.
I don't know who's mixing the Kool-Aid for the Democratic National Committee these days, but a populist political strategy is supposed to have popular appeal.
Despite charges of substandard wages and nonexistent health care benefits, Wal-Mart is the nation's largest private employer, with 1.3 million employees. And notwithstanding the high proportion of "made in China" labels on Wal-Mart products, more than 100 million customers shop at its U.S. stores every week.
Biden and company might want to look at a poll conducted last year by the Pew Research Center.
It found that 84 percent of Americans said they had shopped at a Wal-Mart store in the previous 12 months, with half of these shopping regularly. Wal-Mart's most faithful shoppers have annual incomes of less than $30,000.
Eighty-one percent of respondents said Wal-Mart was a good place for families to shop, 68 percent said it had a positive impact on their neighborhoods, and 64 percent said the company had a positive impact on the nation -- sentiments that were even more pronounced among African-Americans and Hispanics.”
Yes it may seem that Wal-Mart is popular, but not everyone is fooled by a few low prices.
According to Fat American:
Sweat Shop Superstore - When this monster moves into your hometown look out. Mom and Pop will soon be looking for work, Brother and Sis will be taking a pay cut, and our cousins accross the border will lose gallons of sweat. But who cares, it will all be worth it because you will be able to change your oil, buy groceries, get new glasses, wardrobe and a haircut all under the same roof. Oh, and Don't forget to Super Size everything!
At ReclaimDemocracy,com, the make the following points from a film:
"Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price" focuses solely on Walmart Corporation while ignoring the existence of other giant retail chains (Sam's Club, which is mentioned, is a division of Walmart) that create most of those same destructive impacts. Walmart indeed is unique in its size and impact, has a worse record than most in compliance with the law, and certainly deserves most criticism it receives. But while Walmart differs in scale and degree from other corporate chains, is it different in kind?
Target Corporation, Walmart's most direct competitor, is invisible in the film, yet it:
* Pays workers wages essentially identical to Walmart and is ardently anti-union;
* Drives down wages at competitors, especially unionized supermarkets;
* Has an equally devastating impact on many of the communities where it locates "superstores" and on independent business in and near those communities;
* Wields its amassed power to extract taxpayer subsidies around the country, with all the accompanying harms the film blames on Walmart;
* Uses corporate funds to help elect candidates favored by its directors, undermining democracy
* Sells mostly imported goods from the same countries and often the same factories as Walmart (the prices and quality tend to be slightly higher, but an equally low portion of sales go to the people who make them);
* Drives sprawl, increased costs for roads and services, and consumes enormous amounts of land for single-story buildings and parking lots isolated from any other destination."
And let’s not forget that their TV’s are made in China for wages of 50 cents.
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