IF you are a company you have a choice to go after Walmart business. If their pricing isn't to your liking, don't sell to them. Go to other retailers and sell your products. You go to Walmart and try to sell because you want to cash in on their distribution, if the numbers don't add up or your capacity isn't big enough- don't sell to them. No one makes you sell to them.
Wal-Mart using the strong-arm tactics of a semi-monopoly to force suppliers out of business and lowering the quality of goods to meet Wal-Mart's pricing demands are not a good thing, in my opinion. When any business gets government-like control to demand harmful changes from other businesses, I get as concerned about them as I am about the government. Concentration of large amounts of power concern me, whether that power is conentrated in a government, individual, or corporation.
Why would Walmart want to force a supplier out of business? That is just a stupid statement. It seems that reading your concern that they are too big and powerful indicates you MIGHT support some regulation on them, is that correct? You obviously love your right to free speech, but you seem to want to limit other people's right to a free choice.
Because Wal-Mart doesn't care if the supplier goes out of business and will benefit while the supplier dies. You've never heard of a company killing a supplier by playing games with their contracts and payments before?
It seems that reading your concern that they are too big and powerful indicates you MIGHT support some regulation on them, is that correct?
Not particularly, no, because I think Wal-Mart will eventually blow itself out. You'll notice that several Wal-Mart shoppers on this thread have noticed the loss in quality and no longer buy their durable goods there. I think they are failing to recognize the limits to their own mode of operation. I simply think that all the pain that gets caused learning this lesson is stupid. At some point, Wal-Mart is going to recognize that they've sacrificed too much quality to cut prices, which will happen after enough consumers realize this and stop buying durable goods at Wal-Mart. But there will be a lot of pain between now and then.
You obviously love your right to free speech, but you seem to want to limit other people's right to a free choice.
Again, please point out where I've said that Wal-Mart should be regulated. You can't, because I haven't. So instead you simply pretend that I have.
I do, however, realize that liberty is a delicate thing and that it tends to be one of the first things sacrificed during times of social or economic unrest. If the Wal-Mart style of business leads to sufficient economic distress, those people left out won't be voting Republican. Given a sufficient number of them, we'll wind up with a socialist government that will make Old Europe proud.
What I'm suggesting is that people practice their liberty responsibly, with some awareness of the consequences of their actions. Liberty is constantly struggling against security and often loses in the face of insecurity (in fact, civilization itself is a sacrifice of the freedom of a hunter-gatherer existence for the security of farming, a wall, and an army provided by an overlord). If the Wal-Mart style of business creates sufficient insecurity, it won't be me that takes your liberty away from you.