Posted on 03/30/2004 10:55:58 AM PST by Mike Bates
Chicago aldermen are taking a break from whatever it is they usually do to save the city’s populace from a fate that’s apparently at least as bad as death.
They’re fighting to keep Wal-Mart from defiling the toddlin’ town.
Aiding them in this valiant struggle are labor unions. The president of the Chicago Federation of Labor outlined a terrifying scenario for the Chicago Sun-Times: "Once this first Wal-Mart comes, you’ll see two more pop up quick and, within a year, you'll probably see 10 of ‘em. This is Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of labor."
What he should have said is that Wal-Mart is Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of union labor. Almost 90% of American workers don’t belong to a union. Their Public Enemy No. 1 possibly, just possibly, might not be a giant retailer offering a large selection of merchandise at good prices.
Who knows? There may even be a union member or two who wouldn’t mind saving a few bucks.
Opening a Wal-Mart means jobs and plenty of them. Many of them would be at entry-level positions, which are so badly needed in the inner city.
But they’re not union jobs. It must be an alderman’s sacred duty to protect Chicago’s unemployed from the humiliation of earning less than what union bosses dictate.
Those who would have been hired by Wal-Mart may be impoverished. They may be dependent on public assistance of one kind or another. They may have to ask for help from relatives and friends.
But, thanks to Chicago’s city council, they’re able to hold their heads high and proudly proclaim, "No, I don’t have a job, but if I did, it’d pay union scale."
One of the aldermen blocking the proposal to build a Wal-Mart told the Chicago Tribune, "I’m here for union labor." How very comforting. Can you spell "lapdog", boys and girls?
Not to be overlooked are the millions of dollars in tax revenue that a Wal-Mart or two would bring to the city’s coffers. Certainly Chicago has a reputation for fiscal prudence. It’s renowned for having absolutely no fraud, waste, mismanagement or kickbacks. Still, I’m sure that city officials would have found a way to spend all that additional revenue.
Wal-Mart seems to aggravate the heck out of some liberals, and it’s not just the company’s non-union policy. There are other problems.
John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, said a few weeks ago that Wal-Marts "drive me crazy" because "they destroy communities."
The same week in a Los Angeles debate, her husband also disclosed his revulsion for the retailer: "And you've got companies like Wal-Mart . . . that hire part-time people, that have actually advertised to come and work, so they won't do their health care."
Not all of us are as wealthy as the Kerrys, who own five multimillion-dollar homes. We weren’t raised in an affluence that permitted shopping at the most exclusive and expensive stores.
There is, I suspect, an element of elitism in some of the opposition to Wal-Mart. I recently heard from a reader critical of a column I wrote about Costco executives giving large contributions to defeat President Bush.
Wal-Mart wasn’t even mentioned in the column, yet the reader wrote how the store "pays miniscule wages, offers lousy health benefits, and stabs consumers with voodoo pricing," whatever that is.
What particularly interested me was the way he finished his communication: "I'll stick with Costco, you go ahead and fill your double-wide with Wal-Mart crap." For those of you not familiar with the James Carville School of Deprecating Remarks, the double-wide reference is a suggestion I live in a trailer.
Again, there seems to be some snobbery at work in all the Wal-Mart loathing. Is it because the stores provide decent goods at affordable prices to the great unwashed, thereby improving their living standards even to the point of having some of the same conveniences as their betters?
Perhaps a reason is the chain has a policy of not selling CDs with sexually explicit lyrics. Maybe the irritation is the senior citizens hired to be greeters. Wal-Mart sells religious literature, even Bibles. Possibly that’s an annoyance.
Or is it because Wal-Mart is a prime example of how free enterprise can benefit millions of Americans, including the more than one million who work there? Capitalism can just be so unbridled sometimes.
No, Mr. Bates, that is a near-sighted view of the issue.
Wal-Mart is in the vortex between the living standard of the U.S. and the living standards of the countries where Wal-Mart's goods are produced.
Any reputable History of Economics will show that a situation like that will elevate the living standard of the producer and lower the living standard of the consumer.
I'll wait to see what comes out in court. Either party could be twisting the truth to support their position.
The more I read of this kind of information, the more blessed I feel. In the next town is a small, mom-and-pop creamery that sells minimally-processed whole milk with the cream on top in glass bottles. It comes from cows that are strictly grass-fed. They also sell free-range pork and beef, free-range eggs, homemade ice cream, local cheese and butter. For a low-carb shopper like me, it's like going straight to heaven...
I'm not just talking about the greeters, who I assume are part-timers. This store has over-55's working in various positions. This suits its customer demographic, which draws heavily from Sun City just down the road.
How many over-55's does your average Democrat-run, politically correct San Francisco design house employ?
How does leaving consumers with more money to spend (because they've saved by paying lower prices) lower their standard of living? Thanks.
I remember reading many years ago about George Meaney's (then head of the AFL-CIO) yard fence being torn down in a storm. He went non-union to get it fixed.
You're not suggesting that Teresa's face would stop a clock, are you? :)
There. That should be enough reasons for any rational human to praise and patronize Wal-mart.
Because, in the macro view, they have given up their means of earning money to those who produce. They can only spend for a short time without earning more, and they can't earn if their jobs have gone to a foreign country.
It makes little difference how cheap goods are if you don't have any money left to buy them.
Case in point:
The Spanish came back to Spain with a lot of gold from the new world. They used it to buy all sorts of goods manufactured in Italy and other countries who gained the expertise of production.
The end result was that Spain consumed like mad for a while but ended up being very poor after their gold ran out. The producers not only had their gold, but they had the means of production so that they could generate more wealth.
This is the direction America is in danger of heading with respect to India, China, etc.
Funny, when you consider the following information from Drudge in late February:
Teresa Heinz Kerry blasted WAL-MART last week week -- but an investigation reveals she has over $1,000,000 in WAL-MART stock, and purchased a ton of it throughout 2002!
If you search on Drudge using the terms "Kerry," "stock," and "Wal-Mart," you will find the story. It really amuses me when the liberals attack Wal-Mart, always suggesting they would never shop there. I like to say the only thing liberals want to buy from Wal-Mart is the stock! I see from this thread that there are widely divergent opinions on Wal-Mart, but I hope there isn't a lot of dispute as to the Kerrys' hypocrisy.
LOL! Dane, you must work at Wal-Mart!
Thanks for the response, but it doesn't necessarily follow that consumers who save money at Wal-Mart "have given up their means of earning money to those who produce."
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