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What is forgotten in the bash Wal-Mart debates are all of the small stores put out of business by the Kroger, Publix, Safeway, etc. chain stores. I remember when the hours for stores was 8 or 9 to 5 during the week and maybe til noon on Saturdays. You paid pretty much retail on everything. Good riddance. And America doesn't owe the Unions the exorbitant salaries they demand. If Wal-Mart hadn't filled the vacumn for volume discount sales someone else would have. The money I save by going to Wal-Mart can go toward my other bills and my kids. If Wal-Mart hikes up their prices to K-Mart levels, someone, someday will undercut them. It's called free enterprise.

You have good points, but forget the concept that "small stores are put out of business".

That is urban legend stuff. Ancedotes used by idiots (not you) that don't understand markets. Look around any Wal-Mart store, Sam's club, Supercenters, etc. Do you see desloute land? No, you'll find more and more businesses that actually compete against the Wal-Mart. Strip malls, local stores, fast food, restaurants, other retail outlets.

The people that think Wal-Mart is taking over have blinders on. If they weren't so young and stupid, I'd say they were they same ones I knew as a young kid when I heard K-Mart, Sears and JCPenney would NEVER be taken down. When Wal-Mart really started exploding (post mid-1980's even though I knew they'd been around and started building mostly in the early 70's providing a service to mostly rural areas), the critics said they'd never get the market share to beat K-Mart or Woolworths, etc.

HA! The whiners live in the past. And what is ironic to me is that it's the left wing thinkers living in that past are being supported by so-called conservatives that really don't understand the free markets. They think for every Wal-Mart opened there is equivalent loss in sales from others. False. It increases the sales of all. As I pointed out above, the competition creates more opportunity and jobs to compete. If they were right, which they are not, then wouldn't a large Wal-Mart organization wipe out Home Depot, Lowes, Circuit City, Costco, etc? We even now have a Kohl's next to our Super Wal-Mart and Kohl's is run by left wing commie loving libearls that have their top gun in the U.S. Senate.