This will probably once again cause folks to wonder if the Heritage Foundation got to me – (we ve had a lot of that lately).

Oliver, I have news for you: You’re getting older.

 Anyone who is not a socialist before he is 30 has no heart; anyone who is still a socialist after he is 30 has no head.

What I’m actually saying is that Wal-Mart will not locate in an area where the only population is say a town of 2,000. (see destruction of frame below) They might technically be in a town of 2,000 but in a metro area of 200,000 or as in Quakers Wal-Mart, it was a small town but a growing county of 25,000 on a major regional roadway. And I’m not saying there is an orchestrated campaign, but definitely a campaign to get Wal Mart. And I’m saying Wal Marts decisions are not based on driving Mom and Pop out of business but in succeeding at their own business. There is a diffrence.

frame,

You are just too easy. My serious advice to you is think first, type second. Thats: THINK FIRST, TYPE SECOND. Your very first example. Go back to your map. Hit the little button that makes the scale smaller. Bingo. See Kansas City and Topeka? Know anything at all about demographics? Edgerton is a suburb of Kansas City. Do you want to relook any of your other ‘killer’ examples? Would it be better if I didn’t embarrrass you further?

Dugger

And yet Wal-Mart drags us back to the 19th century with low-wage, non-unionized, relatively unskilled labor with little if any of the kind of long term benefits that lead to the growth and stability of a middle-class. This isn’t suprising since Wal-Mart takes advantage of ultra-wage, non-unionized, unskilled labor in other countries to sell so many of its products at such steep discounts. It accelerates a race to the bottom that requires a multifaceted approach to halt and reverse. One place to start is a trade policy that encouraged unions and environmental rules rather than one that discouraged them.

So even if you live in a town in Kansas with less than a thousand people you can find a Wal Mart in any direction within an hour and a half of where you live. How far would you drive to save money on your prescriptions Dugger?

Dugger, you really don’t know shit.

Here’s a map showing TWO Wal-Mart locations within 20 miles of Edgerton , Kansas (zip code 66021), projected population in 2008: 1,750.

Witness major movies? You don’t know shit Dugger. Do you know who is the biggest distributor of movies in America? It isn’t one of the studios, it’s Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart accounts for 37 percent of all DVD sales in the country. Hollywood studios are not out to destroy Wal-Mart and neither are the major media hardware corporations — like Sony and GE — that own them. The studios are so utterly beholden to Wal-Mart as a retail outlet for their products that the studios are now greenlighting movies based on Wal-Mart sales figures. Forget the box-office. If a film sells well on DVD at Wal-Mart you can bet there will be a sequel.

I maintain that what you said earlier (i.e. that a town of 2,000 people won’t see a Wal-Mart) is demonstrably untrue, and that it is demonstrably true that Wal-Mart runs other businesses off, or at the very least makes a concerted effort to. By way of a personal, and provable example, when a Wal-Mart opened off Central Avenue in Charlotte (where I used to live), independent Pike’s Pharmacy nearly closed. They only survived from the income generated by the soda shop they also run. Why? Becuase Wal-Mart used prescription drugs as a loss-leader, and they were successful in shutting down two other local pharmacies that I’m aware of. Mr. Pike is, I’m happy to say, still in business, and Wal-Mart has raised their prices to something like his, now that they’ve done away with most of the competition.

I’m not making a judgment. That’s just the way they do business. Make of that what you will.

You also provided no proof any any kind of vast left-wing media campaign against Wal-Mart, nor did you provide anything to back up your assertion that the opposition to Wal-Mart is not populist in nature.

OK by me, but you gave a ‘personal’ example as a means of proving a key point (Wal Mart driving out small businesses in a very small town). It seems only fair to question you on the location of this now anonymous Wal Mart (not your family) which helps you make a point.

BTW, I sometimes assess businesses and do market studies involving extensive demographics as my retirement job and am quite aware of what businesses look at before they locate in an area. I remain deeply skeptical re your example, but if you don’t wish to provide details, I will drop it.

Dugger

The only _possible_ incentive I might have to lie is to make you look bad. I don’t need to lie to do that. Quoting you is usually sufficient.

It’s not that Walmart does certain “questionable” things compared to many other businesses (anybody want to talk about the textile industry and the slave labor they employ all over the globe). It’s that Walmart is the largest employer in the world and changing their practices will have a much more profound effect than chasing smaller fish with similar ethical shortcomings. Getting Walmart to behave like a responsible corporate citizen would not only help their employees, it would ripple out to all their suppliers, including, maybe, even th Chinese.

Sorry if that sounds “leftist.”

http://alternet.org/walmart/

http://www.workertimes.com/ltribune/index.html

And you know as well as I do, that Wal Mart would go bankrupt if they started putting Wal MArts in palces where there was insufficient demand to sustain them.

We have Alco for that.

“Dugger also seems to believe that there are no small, independently owned businesses in metro areas, so Wal-Mart s appearance in those areas can t affect them.”

Didn’t adress it one way or the other. I know the Wal-Marts down here in metro Atlanta are full of poor people buying cart loaded of stuff. Doubt me. Check one out in north Cobb or Cherokee.

Seems to me the issue is at least complex. We would still be in the nineteenth century if we didn’t allow for commerical competition and for the better run, better managed business to win. OTOH, a fair question is what to do when and if they become monopolistic? You’ll hate this, but imo the problem for our larger society is not the good old ‘mom and pops’ being driven out of business (sad but a fact of life), but the fact that other major retailers are unwilling to fight Wal-mart in lower populated areas.

Dugger

Undoubtedly some smaller businesses were squeezed out and thats sad, but the truth is that the Wal Mart was probably a much better thing in the county for many more people

That’s a separate topic for another day.

My only purpose was to weigh in on the exchange between you and Concordian about the kinds of towns where Walmart puts its stores.

Short answer: big ones and itty bitty ones, too.

The same people complaining about WalMart now complained about Marshall Field and Rowland Macy’s “department stores” in the late 1800’s. Small town newspaper editors attacked catalog houses like Sears and Montgomery Ward as leeches on their economy. Hostile merchants spread rumors that Sears and his partner A.C. Roebuck were African American in an attempt to repel white customers.

A good paper titled “WalMart and the politics of American Retail” can be found here -

http://www.cei.org/gencon/025,04992.cfm

The same people complaining about WalMart now complained about Marshall Field and Rowland Macy s  department stores in the late 1800 s.

That would make them, like, 120 or 130 years old. Ain’t medical science great?