Redstate

Shock everyone that yes, I knew about this story. My personal favorite part of the story is the professional communications director for the union shrieking at a reporter. Very slick.

and should not be afforded any level of credibility. He is a dishonest hack and should always be referred to as such. If were hired by the Flat Earth Society, I can assure you the poll question would be "Would you bet your life that you can prove that the world is not now, or ever been, flat?"

at the idea that real people hate WalMart.  I can understand the entire state of Vermont and San Francisco.  But in the part of the country I am familiar with, I don't know ANYBODY who "hates" WalMart.  I know some folks who prefer other stores, but no one who is abjectly opposed.  Also, most everyone I know acknowledges that WalMart has a positive impact on pricing, at least it's positive if you are a consumer.

These folks really need to find something to protest that will matter.  Like the UN's refusal to protect people in Darfur.  Or the makeup of the UN Human Rights Commission.  Or maybe the ACLU's support of NAMBLA in Massachusetts.   With real issues abounding, these people need a dose of reality.

Wal-Mart saves.  Instead of running around all over the place (and in rural areas that can be quite a bit of running), stores like Wal-Mart (K-Mart, Target) allow for one stop shopping.  So instead of buying a Prius, I go to Wal-Mart and am saving more gas than my San Fran friends.

that a prominent group on your side of the aisle boycotted Disney World, for crying out loud, I don't think you have too many stones to throw.  I am a real person from a red state who chooses not to shop at Wal-Mart for a variety of reasons.  Hate is too strong a word, but disapproval is not.  Does Wal-Mart care whether I shop there?  No, they're doing just fine without me, remarkably.  My expectation isn't that I and others will shut Wal-Mart down, I'm just voting with my dollars.  Given their profit margin, I'm outvoted.  Oh well, not the first time.

I prefer not to shop at Wal-mart just because of their business tactics used on suppliers but sometimes I have no choice and have to pick something up that only they seem to have.

When I go in, I'm amazed that it's always shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, even when it's not the 'shopping season'. So when I saw that poll I thought "who the heck did they poll? or maybe people didn't understand the question".

As for hoping that more people will pay attention to something happening outside their town/city/village, I think you're being a little over-optimistic. But then again, I've become pretty jaded.

Many of the liberal points against Wal-Mart are easy prey to counter-arguments, and Wal-Mart remains popular primarily, I'm guessing, because its prices are consistently low and because you can purchase so many varieties of things in one place.  All very well.

But I'm curious what arguments might exist against Wal-Mart - and other big chain stores like it - based on conservative principles.

Any takers?

conservatives also criticize Walmart's treatment of employees, especially the way Walmart manages to pass on the cost of employee benefits to taxpayers.  For example, for many employees the pay is so low and the hours assigned so limited, that they qualify for various state aid programs.

Conservatives then counter the argument by saying, "Well hey those employees chose to work at Walmart."   I have noticed that in rural counties, there may be only one or two Walmarts in the county but since they have closed down many smaller businesses, there is little choice about where to work.

the idea that we each have unlimited free choice is a myth.

If people don't like Wal-Mart (I can't stand Wal-Mart) then they should not shop there.  If employees are unhappy with the benefits and pay at Wal-Mart, they should get a different job with another company.  And if anyone does not like a free market economy, they should move to China or Cuba.  

Some communities would like to preserve their small town feel and don't like it when Wal-Mart, Costco or Starbucks for that matter tries to move in. The aesthetics of a Wal-Mart can quickly ruin the charm of a community.  

Yes, If I don't like Wal-mart I can vote by taking my money to Target or whatever. But as someone said above, in smaller towns, Wal-mart may be one of the only options if someone wants a job but has..shall we say, a limited skill-set.

True, they can say "Wal-mart doesn't pay well" or "they don't provide medical coverage so I'm not going to take the job". So now they're on welfare which you and I pay for.

It's easy to say "If you don't like it......" but the repercussions don't just end there because you make the statement.

I don't have an problem with WalMart as an employer or as business competitor, but  I worry about one retailer becoming so important to a small town that it can run the council by proxies, or stampede the voters/customers/employees.

I also worry about PawnShops.  Pawn shops are bad for cities, but they are popular, like liquor stores or gambling.  I guess liquor and gambling can't be controlled, and in a lot of places pawn shops and title loans run amok, but that doesn't make them good, just popular.

That doesn't jibe with my belief that people should make their own mistakes, or that they know better than I what to do with their own lives until pay-day comes again, but I hate to be a slave to doctrine.

If people don't like Wal-Mart (I can't stand Wal-Mart) then they should not shop there.

Yes I agree, however it seems that the whole Wal-Mart thing has been politicized to the point that when you tell people you don't shop at Wal-Mart they assume your taking a poltical stance.  I prefer Target and Costco because my experience is that the employees are more knowledeble (don't have to ask someone else), the product lines are more to my liking, and the prices at Wal-Mart are not that much cheaper when you consider buying in bulk from Costco.

you can say it's not so simple about anything. Of course there is a downside to Wal-Mart's success but there is an upside to. On net I'm certain it is up economically. No, that's not all there is to it but what are we talking about here? The poll was commissioned by the BigLaborites. I don't think it is too tough to tease out their solutions to the illusory (on net) problems of Wal-Mart and that these solutions would create more problems on the ground.

On what conservatives think - thanks.

Especially coming from someone so well versed in what we believe.

just because they want to.  Even if I wanted to moveto, say China, I couldn't just pick up and go.  I would be deported back to the U.S. An "America: Love it or leave it" philosophy is unhelpful.

I have heard what they say.  Besides, I have quite a wide conservative streak of my own.  I suppose I am just as able to pass on what I hear as you are to pass on what you hear liberals saying.  I suppose you mean you will no longer be telling us what liberals think.

Not seening how the link makes your point, since that thread does not discuss what conservatives think.

True, they can say "Wal-mart doesn't pay well" or "they don't provide medical coverage so I'm not going to take the job". So now they're on welfare which you and I pay for.

Has anyone ever calculated what the actual cost would be to the bottom line if they just provided their employees with healthcare? Is it greater than the amount they spend on PR to protect their good name? Or has it just become a matter of principle at this point.  

This is about Kevin Drum's statement.  He says 'liberal anti-anti-Walmart backlash', and leads off with a John Kerry advisor (speaking of irrelevant)

He seems (to me) to be asserting that the pro-WM backlash is coming from the left, to counter the (right-side?) anti-WM sentiment.  To put it mildly, I disagree.  Am I reading him rightly, or did I just lose track of all the double-triple-quad-negatives there?

In whatway, pray tell, is this a conservative argument? Is it a new conservative core principle that I somehow missed that if companies choose not to offer a full range of benefits (as defined by....whom?) they are to be defined as parasites sucking at the social lifeblood?

This is preposterous. I am shocked by how many so-called conservatives abandon the pronciples of free choice the instant they don't like the result. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY,is forced to work at Walmart. Those who choose to find what WalMart has to offer superior to the alternatives.   QED.

So I couldn't say. But reading this article:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

I think WM is better than most companies at watching their margins so healthcare is probably not a proposition they would ever consider.

I don't possibly see how conservatism can oppose the existence of Wal-Mart.

Specific practices seen in the company, such as the hiring of firms that hire illegal aliens, might be bad, but it's also the case that in any company large enough, you can find some individuals with some practice you don't like.

"Charming" communities are conservative? They are nice, but some of the most charming places on earth are raging commie enclaves. I hear wheelwright shops were real charming. Too bad we didn't have nosy busybodies around to protect them from competition.

Again, the absurdity of all this is that NOBODY is forced to shop at WalMart rather than the Mom & Pop grocery store or the quaint department store downtown. The only reason that Walmart succeeds in any community is that the people of that community choose to shop there instead of the "charming" alteratives.

WalMart succeeds because they provide a crucial basic service better than anybody else.  In my mind that commitment to an economic system in which quality reaps a reward is a bedrock conservative principle.

...the liberal argument cloaked as a conservative argument. It never seems to take into account that they pay the same wages and offer the same benefits as their competition.

But nobody is crusading against Target for some reason. Probably because Wal-Marts roots are rural and southern. As we all know, anything either rural or southern is bad.

They do offer health coverage and pick up a part of the tab. They just aren't paying the whole thing. That is hardly unique to healthcare. It is hardly unique to retail even.

Their options for jobs would be much less. I've lived in very small towns for much of my life. Without a Wal-Mart, you aren't finding a job in town, period.

The local grocery store isn't hiring anybody. They are family owned and run... if they need help there are nephews and nieces they can have hire part time and pay them under the table at a rate less than minimum wage.

Then try Canada.  Or Maine.

The alternatives are only "charming" when you are on a weekend trip away from San Francisco or NYC. They lose all of their "charm" if you actually have to shop there every day.

For people from the US to get work visas in other countries. Much easier than the other way around in most cases.

What utter nonsense. The idea that WalMart has a monoploy on jobs even in remote areas is absurd. Individuals make choices about where they choose to work. These may be god choices, they may be bad choices.  But they are choices. Even choosing to work or not to work is a choice.

To buy in to the proposition that we are going to hold EMPLOYERS accountable for those individuals' choices is 1930s union-label Socialist nonsense, and elitist to boot.

...that he is saying both the anti and the anti-anti backlash are coming from the left. I don't know of a conservative who feels the need to campaign one way or the other. They tend to be free-market guys.

The theory that Wal-Mart places stores in counties where there are no other viable employers strikes me as... what's the word... unsupportable.

The idea that Wal-Mart could sustain a store in a county where they were the primary viable employer for lower and middle class folk strikes me as even less supportable.

Where do you suppose Wal-Mart gets all its profit?  Any time they open a new store, or keep a store open, it must be because folks in the area have money they are willing to spend there.  They can't be doing this if they are the only employer in the area; they'd never be able to make a profit that way because they money they pay in wages is something less than the money they take in through gross sales.  Eventually, the money supply would dry up if there were no other viable employers closer than the next-nearest Wal-Mart.

Check out this bizarre story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10394969/

It seems in the hysteria to denounce big companies, liberals and unions have decided to try religious demagoguery.

I seem to see an anti-Wal-Mart story in the news at least once a week now.  The Left seems to have no real grounding anymore, except to attack capitalism and success wherever they find it.

unemployment that is.  If you have had the absolute privelege of free choice throughout your life, goody for you.  But most people find that the universe of free choice is not really available.  In fact, often the choices are quite limited.

Purely about aesthetics, not mom and pop vs. Wal-Mart.  A town that need jobs and/or hates their current shopping options will surly welcome a new Wal-Mart, Target or Costco.  

Re: The theory that Wal-Mart places stores in counties where there are no other viable employers strikes me as... what's the word... unsupportable.

It certainly is not true where I live (Pinellas Co. Florida). Within 15 miles of my home there are four Walmarts (incl. two super Walmarts) and six (!) Targets (incl. one Super Target), as well as two Kmarts, and three shopping malls. A Walmart monopoly? Anything but!

the crosshairs of the liberal criticism.  I am aware that other big retailers committ the same offenses.  To be consistent, I suppose they should be agitating against every other big retailer as well.

We should notice that the conservatives in this thread are not saying Walmart doesn't do what they are accused of.  They are saying:

1. Other big retailers do it too, and
   
   
2. Employees choose to work there.

They [conservatives] tend to be free-market guys.  I would say that if conservatives were to pick sides, it would have to come down in favor of WM.  Not that we are WM koolaid drinkers, it's just that the anti-WM thing is so grossly unfair and trumped up, and driven by forces (unions) whose express purpose seems to be anti free-market.

I know of at least two cases where Walmart (or the developer) influenced the local government to exercise eminent domain to  acquire property for a new Walmart location. The argument being that the sales tax revenue and jobs from a new Walmart anchored shopping center were better for the community than whatever use the property owners presently had for the land.

I think the stores are ugly, poorly laid out, and the merchandise is often of lower quality than what can be found elsewhere. That said, at least where I live, you can't beat the prices or quality from the supermarket side of a Super Walmart, so we do our grocery shopping there.

Why do we still call unions "BIG" Labor?  Last time I heard, their membership was low and falling fast.  

Also, I don't like Wal-Mart simply because every store I've been to is crowded and filthy.  However, the fact that their floors are sticky and dirty just supports the fact that they are doing well.  They can't keep up with the cleaning because they are always teeming with people and they never close.  

I hope Wal-Mart weathers this storm because I know the only people these unions are going to hurt will be the poor they claim to represent.

Only one Walmart and the K-Mart went out of business.  In Cottonword, AZ (pop 5000), only one Walmart.  Next Walmart in Prescott (1 hour's drive).  In Flagstaff, AZ (pop around 50,000 with no other significant population center within about two hour's drive) one Walmart and the K-mart went out of business there too.  In San Luis Obispo county, 2 Walmarts, 1 Target, 2 Kmarts and 1 Costco within a radius of 30 miles from San Luis Obispo city.  Only Costco is in San Luis Obispo; the other stores are in outlying communities.

immigration "points" to be accepted there and an employer sponsorship.   Maine?  Heheheh.

the employer must show that the foreigner is somehow more suited to the work than a citizen.  For example, marines in Japan can moonlight for moving companies that service military bases because the movers argue they need at least one English speaker on the moving team when they move an american household.  Another example: Schools can easily justify English teachers if they value native quality pronumciation.

I see here a lot of discussion about Walmart vis-a-vis capitalism and communism and healthcare.

I think a good principle to remember is that there is no ideal. Capitalism has it's good sides and it's bad sides. I, and other free marketers, believe the good far outweighs the bad. Communism has, I suppose, one or two good sides if you look real hard, but it also has a plethora of bad sides and history is proof of that.

So let's just assume for the sake of argument that Walmart does in fact run away smaller businesses and leaves some people without a job. As bad as that is, it comes with the territory -- that's just the harsh reality. One could complain and moan and try to change it via government regulation, but that would cause big problems too; to free marketers and capitalists, the problems that stem from government regulation are WORSE than the few problems inherent to capitalism.

Each case is different and must be judged on its own merits. Most free marketers agree that forcing 12 year olds to work 80 hour work weeks is not good. So we accept (and even embrace) regulations against such action.

You're making the case FOR wal-mart.  Imagine if walmart wasn't there.  maybe shop once every two weeks after quite a road trip.  Or is it your thought that 25-30 separate stores will show up all of a sudden and fill the vacuum at higher prices for the community? How is that helpful?  How do you know that the town can support a for ex, a lighting store?  Maybe hardware, clothes and electronics keep the lighting dept going.

A town of 5,000 people probably cant support a lot of specialty stores.

with an MBA also.  

Studies have shown Wal-mart has increased the GDP of America and kept inflation down.  You can make social contract arguments about walmart but certainly not economic ones.

BTW, do you know Walmart is the largest employer of single mothers in America?  That skews the medicare numbers WAY up.  Any idea why these people want to work part-time and not be eligible for health insurance?  Without Walmart these ladies would be unemployed, so not only would medicare go up, so would unemployment.  

places until Walmart came in.  ButI understand what you are saying.  I once lived in a community of 2500 in Idaho.  If one of the many little stores didn't have what you wanted, you could place an order with the general store or drive an hour to Spokane.  

I don't envy the few brave souls that venture into the moonbat collective that is KD's comments section to do battle.  The result resembles trying to fight a swarm of piranhas with a chainsaw while swimming in sewage.

stepfather says that when Walmart moves into town, it's time to move out.

should be very important to conservatives...

Wal-Mart, more than any other firm, has pushed the American economy forward - in terms of technology and productivity.  A Motley Fool story I read a while back argued that Wal-Mart (not Microsoft or Intel) is America's number one technology company.

The pressure WMT places on its suppliers and competitors to constantly update and streamline their systems has profoundly raised the standard of living of every American over the last 20 years.

If that's not reason enough, WMT is also a well-known Republican company (in terms of who it gives money to).  And the Walton family has been contributing millions (if not hundreds of millions) to school voucher and privatization programs.

And WMT is under vicious assault from a broad coalition of left-wing special interest groups.

It's not just the unions going after Wal-Mart.  It's environmentalists, trial lawyers, academics, black political "leaders," the New York Times, and a number of Democratic Congressmen.  

If there's one reasonable conservative objection to Wal-Mart, it could be that - oddly enough - Hillary Clinton was the first woman to serve on the company's board of directors, making her the First Lady of Wal-Mart;)

The Kmarts went out of business? It is a horrible store. About the only place they can really be successful is when there is no alternative.

I can think of a few reasons for me to hate Wal Mart that are related to their healthy bottom line:

1. the crowded parking lots
   
   
2. the crowded aisles

and the most important reason: my wife almost never gets out of there without spending at least $100.

(Removing tongue from cheek) I don't really hate Wal Mart, but if I only need a few things, I'll go somewhere else, for reasons 1 & 2 above. And I think Wal Mart is great for America.

(Full disclosure: My wife was an employee for 7 years. They do provide good jobs for low skilled people.)

I doubt WalMart would open a store in a small town that lacks low income jobs.  Who would be their customers?  They cannot depend on retirees alone for their revenue.  Even retirement communities require service employees, and those employees would likely shop at WalMart.

..in this day and age:

"....one retailer becoming so important to a small town that it can run the council by proxies, or stampede the voters/customers/employees."

With everyone having more than the adequate ability to travel outside of their own community, the idea of a town enthralled by the 'Company Store' would be highly improbable.  

Yes, and Microsoft and Intel are the target of just as much hysteria and hatred from the Left as Wal-Mart.  Somehow, it has become wrong in America to be successful or to have a widespread impact on society.

but part-time is all they get.

After discovering that an HP printer I bought at Walmart had already been relegated to HP's obsolete list, I did an experiment.  I wrote down the model numbers of several technology products, and then looked them up on the manufacurer's website.  Almost all were obsolete products from they day they were put out on the shelf.  This was not true of comparable products from Staples or OfficeMax.

I agree that the left hates Microsoft and Intel - but they haven't put together the same well-financed machine against those companies like they have Wal-Mart.  ("Wake Up Wal-Mart," the organization calls it self, and it's being run by a number of a Democratic strategists.)

Then there's the largest class action suit in history (filed, conveniently, in San Francisco federal court - where all appeals will be heard by the 9th Circuit) and now the documentary.  

And they have virtually stalled Wal-Mart's expansion in California.

The left's effort right now against Wal-Mart is really unprecedented.

Town and county councils can simply refuse to authorize Wal-Mart a permit to build.  

I believe the free market does more good than harm, and above all, especially for the little guy, both entrepreneurs and employees.  

Also, the Leftist attacks on Wal-Mart have the smell of privilege.  Why don't they attack Target, Costco, Home Depot, and other big stores?  There may be several reasons, but one is likely that they like shopping at those places while Wal-Mart is too plebeian.

But fidelity to free market principles doesn't require us to support every single result of the market, nor should the silliness and inconsistency of the Left bar us from considering the issue independently, on the basis of our own thinking.

Here is a short (not exhaustive) list of pro and con.  Whatever side we lean toward, I think we should recognize that there are disadvantages, and that the disadvantages may not be small.

PRO

1. Very low prices
   
   
2. Large variety of items in one place
   
   
3. Jobs for the less skilled

CON

1. Drives out local and regional business
   
   
2. Local economies, and local governments, can become dependent on what Wal-Mart does and wants
   
   
3. Big, national chains in general wield influence in Washington that can be detrimental, and that is hard for their smaller competitors to combat

Attack or defend, add or subtract, as you wish.

fundraisers in front of Walmart (and other stores, different teams at each store)twice a year.  The group stopped going to Walmart because the kids were too often bothered by passers-by (drunk, rude, etc), while the customers at other stores were courteous to the kids.  The group made this decision even though Walmart has a program where they match the funds made in front of their store up to $1000 because we didn't want to subject our children to the annoyance.

Come on now. Now you're just being dishonest.

I'm talking about the logistics - how they move hundreds of millions of products over the whole surface of the globe with relentless efficiency.

I'm talking about their insistence on the latest shipping technologies - such as the bar code and scanner (in the late 1970's) and now RFID technology.

I'm talking about the fact that WMT is the largest software developer on the planet. (The company makes all of its own software to run on its computers.)

I'm talking about the fact that they have built the largest database in the world - twice as big as the internet to keep track of the flow of goods.

I'm talking about how way back in the 1980's - when it was still a small Arkansas-Missouri chain - WMT had the foresight to build the world's largest privately owned satelite system to keep all their stores and distribution centers in communication.

Wal-Mart companies like it are the reason why the US continues to develop into a technological capitalist utopia.

I most certainly was not talking about the relative quality of the computer printers they sell.

my HP printer already obsolete I did this experiment.  Try it yourself.  The technology products tend to be at least one or two models behind at Walmart.

I am just curious why you feel the need to push this anti-WM agenda on this site? I know this is popular with the left but you are bringing up more and more unjustified garbage on a conservative website. Yes there might be legitimate reasons to not like some of WM practices (eminent domain, etc) but you are starting to invent these personal stories that somehow are supposed to bolster your case?

Come off it dude, dailykos is a lot more receptive to that kind of crap. I've read 10s of various hate-filled anti-capitalist anti-WM threads there. I think your examples would definitely prompt quite a few 4s and amens.

As a shopper in one of those small rural towns, there are some things Wal-Mart does well, and frankly, competition is good for the consumer. However, as a book seller, they leave a lot to be desired. Here is one area where Wal-Mart has no real competition. We happen to have a local resident who is a somewhat high-profile author--she's been featured in the local paper, made a best seller list or two, and you'd think that if Wal-Mart was on top of its game, they'd be selling her book, at least in the local store, if not regionally. But they don't. I wonder why Wal-Mart even bothers to sell books at all, as it really seems to be an after thought for the store.

About a year ago, a book came out called "How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It".

Walmart featured it prominantly on their website (at 15% off) until someone within the organization realized that webpage had become the internet joke of the day on message boards all over the world and took the page down.

Nature of the business.

I don't think you mean "obsolete".  Surely you took it home and could print with it.  I would imagine you looked at the specs for the printer and saw it met your particular printing needs and decided to buy it.  In short, it did what you wanted it to do and may even be doing it today (assuming you still own it).  The printer is not obsolete unless it fails to print with the quality or volume you require.  It's just not the latest and greatest.

The savvy computer user will buy hardware 2-3 generations back to get the biggest bang for the buck.  Sounds like Wal-Mart maximized your hardware investment for you without you even noticing.  Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Now with the money you saved from Wal-Mart's smart offerings, you can donate to a charity or buy something else and further grow our economy.  It's a win-win with Wal-Mart!

I'm not pushing an anti-WM agenda.  I'm just saying this stuff happens.  I even provided a pro-WM example (albeit buried).  To unbury it, Walmart has given community non-profits, including the one my children belonged to, thousands of dollars.  If we are going to discuss Walmart, it seems to me to be more useful to have the full story than to disparage information we don't want to hear.

Is it just me or does every liberal lately has a story like "My father has voted republican his whole life but now that Bush..."?

... so your point is kind of meaningless.  This is always brought up as some kind of proof that Wal-Mart is bad.  Many people work part time to supplement income, maybe working moms fall into that category?  Work a few hours, get the employee discount and still have time for your family, not to  popular an idea among many feminists but still very popular among many Americans.

because that's the title of the list, "Obsolete Products", on HP's website where I found it.

I guess I'll take the money I saved and donate it to charity or put in in the savings account.

Second, the first time I heard him say it was in 1995 a little after Walmart came into Sonora, CA.

Wal-Mart may be great for America, but I can't stand to shop there and never do.

But that doesn't mean I don't love to see lefties and unions pissed.

Ok,

Let's not go overboard to make a point.

Is Walmart really good at logistics? Yes, in fact there are probably only a handful of companies that can match them.

Do they use the latest technologies? Yes.

The largest software developer on the planet? Hardly. Do they write their own software? Yes, as do most other large e-commerce companies.

They've build the largest database in the world? Twice as big as the internet? The "internet" is not a database, it's a network. (or did you mean all the data that can be accessed via the internet?) And how big is the internet?

Actually, the largest database belongs to Yahoo. The top 10 are:

1.  Yahoo
   
   
2.  AT&T
   
   
3.  KT IT-Group
   
   
4.  AT&T
   
   
5.  LGR - Cingular Wireless
   
   
6.  Amazon.com
   
   
7.  Anonymous
   
   
8.  UPSS
   
   
9.  Amazon.com
   
   
10. Nielsen Media Research

http://databases.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://wintercorp.co
m/VLDB/2003%5FTopTen%5FSurvey/TopTenProgram.html

Has Walmart driven other companies to keep up? Absolutely and that's mostly a good thing.

Sorry, I just couldn't let this one go.

featherstone said, "I guess I'll take the money I saved and donate it to charity or put in in the savings account. "  Doesn't that about sum it all up about the Wal-Mart phenonemon?

Because of their agressive pricing and ability to pass the savings on to you through their built-in efficienies, you now have a printer that can do what you needed and still have money left over to support your favorite charity, invest in the economy or just save it for a rainy day yourself.  If more retailers followed the Wal-Mart model, imagine what could be done.

I HATE "Mom & Pop" stores.  With the exception of places that offer specialized products in no way competing with something like a Wal Mart, I have always found them to be totally lacking in selection, service, and price.  Shopping at them has always been like buying a $5 gallon of Milk at a 7-11: You're doing it because for whatever reason it's your only option, or it's convenient, but it's sure not preferable.

So since then he's been moving from town to town when Wal-Mart moves in, each time walking off into the sunset like Bruce Banner at the end of the Hulk TV show?

in Tuolumne.  These single moms wanted to work full-time but Walmart continually held their hours below the mimimum for benefits.  As someone else pointed out, other big retailers do the same.  Another thing Walmart like to do was assign a split schedule, where you worked early in the morning (the hours you be getting your kids off to school) and late afternoon and evening (exactly the time your kids are home.  These ladies had to pay twice the gas (for two trips, average commute one way 10 miles) every day plus work exactly the hours their kids were out of school, increasing the child care costs.  

Adding up the costs of gas (average $3.00/day) and child care (usually $2.00/hour/kid) for a couple of kids, at $6.50/hour (I'm talking about 7 years ago, I don't know what the Tuolumne Walmart pays now), for a 6-hour  split day, these ladies could clear maybe $12/day before taxes.  It was almost pointless to go to work except that they were also being squeezed by the welfare office.

I chuckled at your comment.

What sort of healthcare coverage did "Mom & Pop" give them at the hardware store before it closed down when Wal-Mart came?  I hope they were able to roll over their Mom & Pop 401k into an Ira before being assigned their blue vest.

and still take better care of their greatest asset, their people, to help meet Bush's goal, "We're not going to rest until every American who wants a job can find one. We're going to continue to work for good policies for our workers and our entrepreneurs. I'll continue to push for pro-growth economic policies, all aimed at making sure every American can realize the American Dream."

Politically motived anecdotes like this one have very little to do with reality. I know plenty of people that work in retail. While it is not a great career choice, it is not horrible either.

You can easily get full time if you are a good employee. If people have a hard time getting to be full time and are given a lousy schedule... there is a reason for that and it isn't because they are single mothers.

In fact, I can't think of a place you can advance faster than in retail since 1) the turnover is so high... you are a veteran if you've been there a year and 2) the quality of most of the other employees is pretty low. Even 18 year olds can make department manager.

But they aren't at the mom and pop stores that are being put out of business. Agricultural jobs, industrial jobs, manufacturing jobs are the bulk of the employment in a small town, not retail.

are often no better and sometimes worse.  Walmart is okay when quality isn't so important.  For example, if I need a roll of cellophane tape, since one is about as good as another, why pay premium prices especially for a comsumable?  Even without Walmart in the picture, I would propbably buy my cellophane tape soemwhere besides the local drafting supplies store.

I too hate shopping there.  The first time I went to the Wal-Mart where I now live, I compared it to a UN disaster relief site.  It was like a refugee camp teeming with unwashed screaming kids, and the entire scene was utter chaos.  Also, I was probably the only native English speaker in the building.

However, I don't live in one of these places with no  alternatives, and yet these people are chosing to shop at Wal-Mart, because being low income familes it allows them to stretch their dollars (or pesos) a lot further, the entire point of Wal-Mart.

I am saying that this happens to them.  The tuolumne Walmart had a policy of assigning the split schedule to the newest employees, a kind of paying your dues.  Once you had been there awhile, you could get the convenient school-day hours.  But there policy was quite a hardship for the single moms.

Wherever there is a Wal-mart a red light district springs up? Gangs move in? Drug pushers open for business? I don't get the point of the anecdote.

Like the internet? The only time I ever buy a book in a bricks and mortar store is if I have to catch a flight and don't have anything to read. Bricks and mortar bookstores all suck, even the huge dedicated ones. Certainly a tiny area in a general merchandiser will be even worse.

in their parking lots.  This is handy in California and other places where the campgrounds fill up late afternoon or early evening.  The parking lot in Butte, Montana even has hookups.

Perhaps not as well as you want them to.  But certainly better than most of the mom and pops they replaced. Better than K-Mart took care of all the employees it laid off.  Ditto for Sears.  And Montgomery Wards.

The hundreds of current applicants on file at every WalMart do not believe they will be mistreated if they get a job.  Why do you think you know what's better for them than they do?

I also don't like paying high prices at small convenience stores, but the convenience store niche may be the only alternative for independent store owners (for some types of goods, like groceries).  Before Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, there were many more medium-sized local and regional businesses which could offer a variety of things at competitive pricing.  I'm sure the prices weren't as low as Wal-Mart's, but they were closer to those than to the convenience stores you dislike.

Since you say you are not a liberal, let me explain their objection to Wal-Mart a little to you: They don't think it should exist.  When you just need to buy a random widget, they want you to search through a half dozen small stores all over town before you eventually pay too much for it.  Because these shop owners, you see, are your neighbors, and this is what community is all about.

Also, that tape you bought needs to be organic, vegan, fair-trade certified dolphin-safe tape.  Have  you seen the working conditions in the tape mines of Paraguay?!  Boycott Scotchguard!!

The new guy always gets the shaft, in pretty much any job imaginable.  Heck, the newest Lyndon LaRouche volunteer probably has to make the coffee.

is apples and elephants.  Disney is an entertainment company.  Nothing they do is a part of "real life".

WalMart, on the other hand, is a major factor in reducing prices on necessity items across the board in the US.  You can not like their business practices, you can not like their employment practices.  But overall, they let consumers, and especially poor consumers, keep literally hundreds of billions of dollars that they would otherwise spend on necessity items.

"Why do you think you know what's better for them than they do?"  People have often been in situations that were not good for them.  I am thinking of the children who worked in factories before child labor laws were passed.  Or the girls in the shirtwaist factory that jumped to their deaths rather than be burned alive when their building with no fire escapes burnt down.  In both of those situations, there were plenty of people waiting in line for those jobs.  That there are lots of job applicants is not necessarily an endorsement.

just like that.

In my opinion, Wal-Mart is a target for two main reasons.

First, because some groups like to imagine that only the poor, unwashed, uneducated, mostly-conservative, rural masses shop there.  Non-stop, post-Thanksgiving coverage of shoppers elbowing each other out of the way to get a $200 computer adds to the image of Wal-Mart shoppers as something less than the urban, elite, college-educated Target shoppers.  You can't attack Target.  Everyone will happily admit they shop there.  But if for some reason we have to admit we shop at Wal-Mart, we quickly qualify it with something like "...but only for things like batteries, music, or movies.  I'd NEVER buy clothes or electronics at Wal-Mart!"

I think it is terribly condescending of the liberal upper crust and intelligentsia of this country to believe they know what is best for the lower classes and less educated.  They assume that because they wouldn't take a job working at Wal-Mart for $6 per hour, working at Wal-Mart for $6 per hour must be a raw deal.  They think that because they wouldn't take a job without benefits, jobs without benefits are raw deals.  They think that because they wouldn't buy a no-name TV set fresh off the boat from China, no one should want to own such a television.  They think that because they would never stand in line at 5am to buy a $200 computer, the people who do and are crushed are subhumans who get what they deserve for their greed.  It is no different than their take on how rural folks vote.  They think the working poor should vote democrat because the democrats will be like a giant union that gives them things and takes care of them as a defense against a mean and capitalist world.  They say that working poor who vote republican are "voting against their interests" just like they say that folks who work at Wal-Mart are taking jobs against their interest.

I have a lot of family in Kingsport, Tennessee.  They LOVE Wal-Mart out there.  They love shopping at Wal-Mart.  They love spending time at Wal-Mart.  They'll go there just to have lunch and chat with the greeters.  People there love working at Wal-Mart.  Sure there are other places to work, but Wal-Mart is a big deal to them.  Why wouldn't you want to work for the place that everyone loves?  And Wal-Mart has so many departments that they offer lots of opportunities for promotions and management experience, which you just can't find at small mom-and-pop outfits.

And the second reason I think Wal-Mart is a target is because it is a fabulously successful example of capitalism at work.  Those who want to undermine capitalism need to try to tear down the successes, not go after lower-value targets.  Capitalism isn't a perfect and pristine thing, but I like it a heck of a lot better than I'd like a system where the government felt the need to step in and dictate store size, merchandise breadth and depth, prices, and employee relations.  Of course, there are a lot of people who would disagree with me because they think society would be a more fair and equitable place if things were "planned" and "dictated" for them instead of leaving such decisions to the will of the market.

They look for people to fill certain shifts and new people tend to be the least desirable ones, but this is not because they are maniacally laughing in the background. It is because existing employees move into the better shifts when they become available.

This is not that common of a schedule anywhere in retail, including Wal-Mart, anyway. Weekends, on the other hand, will usually be required of all employees. That is a fact of life working in retail.

There are medium sized grocery stores and even medium sized discount retailers all over the place. They are horrible. Not quite as bad as the mom and pops since your groceries usually aren't caked in dust when you buy them, but their prices are just as high.

I live in the country and have about 5 large to medium sized grocery stores within 15 miles. And at least a half a dozen mom and pop grocery stores. There is also a ShopKo and a Pamida which are medium sized regional discount retailers. Of course I don't shop at any of those, Wal-Mart has the best prices, product mix, and selection so I shop there all the time.

When Flagstaff was discussing the idea of a supercenter, there was a flood of letters to the editor.  Many that began "I'm a single mom" or "I'm a starving graduate student" or somesuch wanted the supercenter.  Others not so much.

The issue was put before the voters, but the voting was very confused.  Earlier in the year, the city council had approved a measure prohibiting retail establishments of more than 200,000 square feet.  The wording of the measure before the voters read something like a Yes vote upholds the decision of the city council and a No vote rejects the decision of the city council.  

A lot of voters thought the measure was a Walmart supercenter measure and thus Yes would mean I want a supercenter, and No would mean No supercenter.  Every Yes vote would then have the opposite effect of what the voter intended unless the voter was clear about what they were voting for.  Many were confused and the results ended up a meaningless waste of taxpayer money.

your kids couldn't stand in front of Wal-Mart anymore because of rude drunk thugs that hang out there.

In general you've made a lot of points against Wal-Mart that are specific anecdotes of your experiences there, a worm's eye view that contributes little to the bigger picture.  Sometimes when I go there they are out of towels in the bathroom, I don't consider this a bullet point in the pros and cons of the Wal-Mart corporation.

something of the {Walmart shopping ambience http://www.redstate.org/comments/2005/12/9/115642/914/85#85].   It wasn't just my kids.  We set up two-hour duty rosters.  During each two-hour shift there was an adult supervisor present.  They all reported similar  confrontations on not just one but two separate occasions, so the whole group voted to not hold their fundraiser in front of Walmart anymore.

I think people bothering children is a little more significant than no towels in the bathroom.  

and I know they're an endangered species, but I still have a fond place in my heart for good bookshops that don't sell coffee.

Anyway, cruising bookshelves at any brick and mortar store can often be a journey of discovery, and Wal-Mart doesn't offer that. On-line, I usually only find books I know I'm looking for.

What does this have to do with Wal-mart?

Sams Club or anywhere else.

What is your conclusion? This is what I was getting at with #87.

Matt,

Just for your info, a NYT's business story from Nov. 2004 entitled "What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers' Habits" noted the following:

"By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to experts."

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1279640/posts

You can hairsplit about the exact definition of "database" all day - but my point was that Wal-Mart's database has twice as much information as the entire internet (not to mention Yahoo!).

According to eWeek.com:  "It's only fitting that the largest retailer should have the world's largest database, but at more than one-half a petabyte, that's a lot of information, even for Wal-Mart."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1675960,00.asp

On the point about software, what I meant to say was that Wal-Mart is ONE of the largest software developers in the world.  So, you're right, I was  really sloppy on that one.

I mean, if WMT were a country, it's GDP would be bigger than the GDP of Sweden or Saudi Arabia.  And the company only uses its own software.  So - you know - that's alot of software.  So, while I was sloppy, I don't think it was gross sloppiness.

For more background on Wal-Mart's technology consider this from the WSJ's Steven Malanga:

"The folksy country retailer also quickly recognized the value of efficient inventory and delivery systems, ultimately leading a technology revolution that spread throughout the retailing industry and its chain of suppliers. With its first units in isolated rural markets, Wal-Mart's front office had unusual problems communicating with its stores and getting merchandise to them, so the company experimented early on with new technologies. It was among the first to put computers--and later, scanners--in stores to track inventory, starting back in the 1970s. With information from those computers telling headquarters what consumers were buying and what items needed to be reordered, Wal-Mart managers realized they could revolutionize the way merchandise moved to stores. Instead of building warehouses that stored vast stocks of items, they constructed a network of computerized distribution centers, which on one side received needed goods from suppliers and almost immediately sent them out the other side to individual stores just before the stores ran out of them. The company even added a satellite system that could track its delivery trucks through global positioning technology and tell store managers exactly when shipments would arrive. So efficient did the whole system become that Wal-Mart was soon selling goods in its stores even before it had to pay its suppliers for them, vastly cutting its inventory costs.

Nor did Wal-Mart stop these innovations at its own doorstep. It compelled suppliers to squeeze out their own waste and to connect to its computerized inventory system, so that a factory could know when it was time to stamp out 20,000 more ten-inch frying pans or 15,000 more 12-inch ones. The ordering, manufacturing, and delivery of products became one seamless process, continually responding to consumer demands, with a minimum of waste. It also spurred a vast boom in technology investments by U.S. retailers, helping to produce tens of thousands of high-tech jobs... [...].

Pursuing this formula brilliantly, Wal-Mart has led a productivity revolution in retailing, which has supercharged the American economy, making a vast cornucopia of merchandise affordable to ordinary consumers, thanks to Wal-Mart's much lower prices than in the days when small-town merchants took their 45 percent profit margins. The McKinsey consulting firm best summed up the cumulative impact of the company's influence in a report entitled "The Wal-Mart Effect," which estimates that the retailer's focus on low prices and its constant stream of money-saving innovations accounted for up to one-quarter of the entire U.S. economy's prodigious productivity gains in the 1990s boom--when inflation held steady despite a soaring economy. Savvy investor Warren Buffett even declared that Wal-Mart--not Microsoft or some other technology company--has contributed more than any other business to the health of the U.S. economy."

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_what_does_the_war.html

to risk being annoyed in front of Walmart, that's fine.  Your #87 was a little extreme and a strawman in that sense, so naturally subsequent comments have little to do with your strawman Walmart,

I will add one more anecdote. (If you liked my earlier stories, you'll love this one).  There is a private school for at-risk students about 10 miles into the desert outside Cottonwood, AZ.  The dorm staff routinely search the kids when they come back from their weekly supervised Walmart trip, because somehow they manage to come back with marijuana rather regularly.  How do I know this story is true?  The principal goes to my church.

I'll bet it was cheaply produced marijuana grown by sweatshop weed factories in China, too.  How are single mothers who sell dope supposed to compete with that?

While I'm filing all of this into the catergory of "not even worth arguing with", I will point out how amazing it is that you called somebody else's points extreme and a strawman.

Since they really happened, I guess they are neither extreme nor strawmen.

The principal still hasn't figured out how it is these students come back with the marijuana, only that they do.  I knew you would like the story.

I have opportunity to move around a lot in my work, mostly in rural communities.  I have only lived ten years of my adult life in the US so all of these stories have happened within that time frame in a variety of places.

I know that researchers are fond of saying that anecdotal data is not as good as empirical data, but what is a survey but a collection of stylized anecdotes?  It turns out the latest thing in research today is to revisit the concept of anecdotes.  Just because something is an anecdote doesn't make it invalid.  I suppose if I had a lot of anecdotes about Walmart that made you happy, those anecdotes would be acceptable.  It is only when a story challenges a cherished belief, that the teller is called dishonest or a liar.

Honestly, why are these true stories about Walmart so threatening that I get called names (like "liberal") for sharing them?  That's the part I don't get.  

I guess if I made a tally, only a few stories cast a positive light on Walmart.  Oh well.

what some people here don't understand is what do your personal anecdotes have to do with Walmart and their business practices. These generic stories could happen anywhere. You individual experiences mean nothing unless corroborated by a long proven history of such events happening on a national scale.

but they do sell crystal meth.

This diary is discussing the corporate practices of Wal-Mart, if their existence helps or hurts small communities,

You have made some contributions to the thread looking at this bigger picture, so I know you're capable of continuing to do so.  But now you're stuck on this "around here people who shop at Wal-Mart are jerks" meme.  

I'm sure they are.  There are over 3,700 Wal-Mart stores, in a variety of areas, in a variety of neighborhoods.  Not all of these are the hives of scum and villany that yours apparantly is.  I could provide my own anecdotal evidence of this, but again, big picture.

to put the matter at rest.  Are my expereriences normal to retail in general, a fluke, or a national characteristic of Walmart?  I also concede that my sample of less than ten Walmarts is not enough to draw a conclusion.  This is the main reason to distrust anecdotes, not that they might be false , but that they might not be characteristic.  So what happens is that people who already don't like Walmart are confirmed in their opinions, and people who like Walmart don't want to to have their opinion challenged.

Walmart sells marijuana.  I am saying that students from this particular school seem to have a contact who meets them at Walmart.

What do YOU think is the connection? Are they paying people to harrass kids and sell them drugs? Are they tolerating it? Do otherwise nice neighborhoods turn into dumps as soon as Wal-mart rolls in? What is your point? You must have one if you are telling us these stories.

Who could Democrats pander their big government welfare and unemployment programs too?

Democrats waste what little brainpower they have trying to fight basic supply vs demand economics like they will ever change Wal-Mart it is truly mind boggling.

do not live in remote rural counties. Yes, the shopping opportunities are lousy in such places-- that's part of the package deal you get for living in wide open spaces. Any place there's a modestly high population density you will find an abundance of shopping opportunities.

Re:  The dorm staff routinely search the kids when they come back from their weekly supervised Walmart trip, because somehow they manage to come back with marijuana rather regularly

LOL. At my high school kids came back stoned from lunch at Taco Bell. Down with that drug-pushing Chihuahua!

from your quaint, local bookshop, then there's a good chance that it wasn't Wal-Mart that put it out of business.

The book aisle at Wal-Mart and, say, a used bookstore with tens of thousands of books are barely even competing with one another.

I would say that if your favorite bookshop goes out of business, your most likely culprits are Borders, Barnes and Nobles, and the internet.

Why Liza Featherstone has spent all day on here posting comments about Wal-Mart???

Liza, care to share?  You getting paid for this?

But I think the truly big reason is that Wal-Mart has grocery stores.  Although Target and K-Mart have a handful of super stores, their numbers pale in comparison to the number of grocery stores Wal-Mart operates.

Nationwide, (largely) unionized grocery chains - Albertson's, Safeway, Giant, etc. - are struggling against Wal-Mart because unionized grocery prices are often 30-50 percent higher than Wal-Mart's grocery prices.

The United Food and Commercial Workers has already lost a number of members to Wal-Martization, and when it became clear in 2003 that Wal-Mart was going to start building Supercenters in California, urban Chicago, and the Northeast, it became clear to the Democratic Party (and its sundry appendages) that Wal-Mart was about truly bankrupt the unionized grocers - i.e. destroy the UFCW - i.e. dry up a huge source of funding for Democratic politicians in the blue states.

In 2003 the Dem's were suddenly running scared because WMT was about to throw a wrench in their corrupt urban money machines, about to disrupt that disgraceful cycle of high prices, union dues, and tons of money flowing into Democratic coffers.  

And almost overnight, destroying WMT's good name became prioty #1 for the left.

That's the main reason, I think.

What an interesting coincidence, but I am not her.  She's from New York. I have never set foot there, and God willing, never will.

I was also beginning to think what a waste of a day since people just want to call me a fabricator.  Why, indeed, would I spend all day making up stories?  I really am ambivalent about Walmart, but facsinated by the apparent need for people here to contradict real life negative stories, calling them garbage.  Yet elsewhere in the threads, Walmart's negative aspects are not disputed, but defended basically in two ways:

1.  A lot of retailers engage in the same practices.
   
   
2.  Employees chose to work there in spite of the negative aspects.

about Wal-Mart. They do some things well. They don't do well selling books. Few places do, and it probably is the case that there's no real profit in it. I know it isn't Wal-Marts fault, it's the nature of bookselling. I suspect if my town had a half decent bookstore, Wal-Mart might give up the whole book section altogether.

Competition is good--and where Wal-Mart has to compete, they do well. Where there is no real competition, Wal-Mart does a pretty crummy job.

I agree this assault on Wal-Mart is enormous.  But I worked for Microsoft a few years ago and seem to recall a spot of bother with Clinton's justice department.

In that case, it was initiated by businesses that had been left behind by the PC boom.  Microsoft had neglected for years to make political contributions, which left it open to attack with no powerful friends in Washington (as opposed to Intel, which got a light finger wagging for more or less the same set of practices).

But the Left also dove into that affair, in the form of anti-business academics like Lawrence Lessig and a few Princeton professors who had barely ever seen a PC before they testified.  I've long agreed with the political philospher Eric Hoffer, that Lefism is to a big extent the product of intellectuals who feel marginalized by captialism.  And as a computer scientist, I can tell you without a doubt that CS academics are very unhappy about being eclipsed by the successes of the computer industry.

But it's a microcosm of the much larger problem facing Wal-Mart, which has a broader leftist opposition, not just a collection of frustrated computer geeks.

these same two "conservative arguments" several times today.  

With regards to #1 (the fact that many other retailers engage in the same practices)... Well, this is significant for several reasons.

First, it calls into question the stated motives of the anti-WMT crowd.  They claim to be just trying to help the working class.  If that were the case, why are they only attacking WMT - and not Target or K-Mart/Sears or Walgreen's or CVS or the so-called mom 'n pop stores that offer the same (or less) pay/benefits as WMT?

You do realize that if WMT started paying more, it would have to raise its prices, which would allow its competitors to destroy it?  Right?  It seems more logical to attack the retail industry as a whole - not just one particular firm in the industry.

Additionally, many of the people you meet who despise WMT are just fine with (or emphatically love) Target or Costco - both of which are as guilty as WMT when it comes to creating big box sprawl, destroying local businesses, importing foreign-made goods, pressuring suppliers to low their labor costs, etc.  

And the merchandise at every retailer is mostly imported.  The only difference between WMT and, say, the GAP or Kohl's is that WMT only charges you $12 for that pair of tennis shoes made in Sri Lanka for $4; the other stores charge you $50.

Again, if all these other companies are doing the same things as WMT - then it makes it look like you're singling out WMT for a reason.  It strongly suggests that you have some other reason why you hate WMT.

And various commenters have pointed out the other motives:

(1) WMT is (quite accurately) seen as a Republican company, which contributes heavily to GOP candidates, and whose founding family contributes millions to school voucher/privatization programs.

(2)  It's the usual left-wing snobbery - the idea that all those red states in the middle of the continent are populated by restless, illiterate hordes.  And WMT is the red state store of choice; so it follows that WMT is awful.

(3) WMT has grocery stores (which makes it much different from Target), and those grocery departments are about to bankrupt Albertsons, Safeway, Giant, and other unionized grocery chains.  And the United Food & Commercial Workers, which stands to lose hundreds of thousands of members by WMT's entrace into California and Northeastern grocery markets, is a major source of funding for many left-wing politicians.

(4) WMT is an embarassment to the left.  While they preached for decades that the free market will only result in higher prices, WMT comes along and starts lowering prices.  While leftists go on and on about the rising price of health care and rising prices of housing and rising price of education - the price of everyday necessities like food and toilet paper keeps falling - largely thanks to WMT's "race to the bottom."  The one sector of the economy where prices are going down, and liberals gripe about that TOO.

Prices go up, and you guys get upset; prices go down, and you guys get upset.  I'm not sure if there's anything that will please you people.

Also, WMT squeezes the profits of giant companies - suppliers and manufacturers - and passes the savings on to everyday consumers (and, btw, all of WMT's workers are also "consumers" and benefit just as much as anyone from the low prices).  For a century or two, the left has dreamed of swiping the wealth of giant corporations and passing it out among the masses; now WMT uses it's immense bargaining power to do just that. And, sure enough, the left is off and nagging about it.

There are probably other reasons why the left is singling out WMT, but those are the major ones.

And, again, we suspect that you have these motives - precisely because it is so irrational to single  out WMT for criticism.  

Secondly, you claim that the only other conservative defense of WMT is that people choose to work there.

I am somewhat sympathic to your position here; obviously everyone would be a doctor or lawyer or CEO if they could magically "choose" to be whatever they want to be.

Unfortunately, many people find themselves in a place in life where they have to work in the low-end of the labor market.  If you destroy the low-end of the labor market (as the have in France  and Germany), most of those WMT hourly workers would be unemployed.  And, in such a case, we'd wind up with 10 or 11 percent unemployment rates (like they have in France and Germany).

And when it comes to the low-end of the labor market, though, WMT jobs are good jobs.  The entire time I was growing up both of my parents were hourly workers at WMT.  (Granted, my parents were together - which created a two-income household, as opposed to a one-income household, which is an expressway to poverty.)  And we always had a middle class lifestyle - health insurance,   a vacation once a year, two or three cars, etc.

If you stick with WMT (as opposed to leaving after six months) and show yourself to be a stable, dependable worker, you'll do just fine.  No, you won't be rich, but it's a solid middle class lifestyle.

Stated otherwise, as an empirical matter, it's simply false that WMT workers do without.  

And there are plenty of other conservative arguments displayed in these comments that you have overlooked: WMT's technology and the way it has revolutioned the productivity of the American workforce, the way it saves everyday people (especially women) incredible amounts of time by effectively placing twelve different stores under one roof, how the incredibly low prices are a lifeline to the desperately poor, how the company employs many people who would otherwie be unemployed (or working at a far worse job).

As I believe has already been pointed in the above comments, you are grossly oversimplying reality to say that conservative arguments in favor of WMT amount only to what you claim them to be.  Your black-and-white worldview is, I'm sure, as difficult for to swallow as it is for the rest of us.

If you're interested, I've written extensively on WMT at my blog:

http://alanandpaul.blogspot.com/

the cost of free healthcare would wear off pretty quickly.

So you bring up bizarre anecdotes then refuse to tell us why you are bringing them up and what you think they mean. Excellent.

It's only a matter of time before Amazon puts them most of them out of business. Even the biggest bookstore has a pathetic selection compared to Amazon and their prices are much lower.

If booksellers started selling at 30% below list they would be able to compete... but I doubt that is a workable business model for the B&M stores.

Books are easy to ship and one of those things you rarely need right this minute. Two factors that do not work in the B&M store's favor at all.

I bet they just go here instead for their local one-stop shopping, where the employees actually have decent wages and benefits.

I think there can still be a role for a few of these kinds of bookshops, but it will probably be along the lines of a coffeshop/entertainment place that also sells books, a place for people to do book signings, meet with others and so forth. Few, if any small towns will be able to support such a place.

I'm not sure selection matters much to most customers--I do use BN.com for academic books, though I am just as likely to buy those directly from the publisher (since as an academic I can often get a pretty steep discount) but I can find most of my recreational reading at a decent big-box store.

Used books are an entirely different matter. With Alibris or abebooks, I can pretty much find any book I want used--and that is something you'll never see in a used bookstore.

of browsing a bookstore cannot be duplicated by Amazon. Hence I suspect the large chains like Borders (who have the advantages of economy of scale) are not going to disappear. True, you can find unusual or out of print titles on Amazon, but most people aren't looking for such books.

If you will check the title of the diary, you will see that I did not single out Walmart.  I agreed that other retailers engage in the same practices.  I focused on the specific two defenses becuase those are the defenses set against the concession that Walmart does not treat its employees well.

The first defense is nothing but, "Gee, Mom, all the other kids do it," and has been justifiably debunked by generations of parents.  We both get the problem with the second defense.

The whole thread illustrates the problemn of assuming a partisan agenda in every discussion.  You may be right that Democrats hold the motives you listed.  I'm not a Democrat.

My point is that Walmart (and all employers) should consider employees an asset rather than an expense or liability regardless of where their salaries appear on a financial statement.  I do not agree that Walmart (and other such retailers) would have to raise prices if they raised salaries.  The low prices should not be at the expense of the lowest paid employees.  If I were one of the highly paid CEO's, I would favor a reduction of my salary so that my employees could make a living wage.  I am already making enough to live on several times over.

In this way, we could come closer to achieving the goal expressed this week by Bush, "We're not going to rest until every American who wants a job can find one. We're going to continue to work for good policies for our workers and our entrepreneurs. I'll continue to push for pro-growth economic policies, all aimed at making sure every American can realize the American Dream."

From the WSJ:

Cerberus Group Nears Albertson's Deal

Excerpt:

The number of traditional grocery stores nationwide has dropped to 41,455 in 2004 from 118,920 in 1982 because thousands of small independent grocers have shut down, according to figures from Willard Bishop Consulting, a retail-marketing consulting firm in Barrington, Ill. But the total square feet of traditional grocery store selling space has grown as traditional grocers build larger stores and Wal-Mart blankets the country with supercenters that sell groceries.