Ben Stein: Wal-Mart

Ben Stein ^ | 01/09/2005 | Ben Stein

[Former Military Chick]

Here’s a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know it’s almost always on the receiving end of bad press. It ruins neighborhoods. It puts small businesses out of business. It wrecks the balance of trade. It pays its workers poorly and treats them mean. It makes overseas workers into slaves. That's what the news says. The truth is that Wal-Mart is a major blessing for most Americans who live close enough to one to shop there and for the people who work at them. My smart friend C.L. Werner in Omaha made the point really clearly. When a Wal-Mart opens in a town, he said, it's as if everyone in the town got a raise. That's because the stuff at Wal-Mart is so much cheaper than that same merchandise was anywhere else. This is not a trivial thing. Now, don't get me wrong. Target and Sears and K-Mart and J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers also sell good stuff usually at bargain prices, but they do not have the same reach of stores, the same astounding prices that Wal-Mart offers every day. This makes the people who shop there richer. Price matters a lot to most people. I am sure Wal-Mart is stiff competition for the stores and supermarkets across America. I feel bad for the people who lose their stores because of Wal-Mart. But not everyone is a store owner. Everyone is a consumer, and Wal-Mart is about as good a friend as the consumer ever had.Is Wal-Mart ruining the balance of trade? Well, let me put it like this: I buy American whenever I can find it.

But there are a lot of things that are just not usually made in the USA any longer. Toasters. Hot pots. Color televisions. Underwear. Since the goods are almost always made overseas, why not buy them at the best possible price? By the way, if someone knows of a good American made toaster, please stand up and shout.

Is Wal-Mart wrecking small towns? Not the ones I see, which are mostly in North Idaho. Those towns are booming. And the closest you get to a town square is the Wal-Mart, where neighbors visit with neighbors in the aisles all day and all night, in air conditioning, out of the rain.

Is Wal-Mart impoverishing third world workers in sweat shops? Heck, no. Conditions in those places are far from ideal. But they are far better than working on the farm or begging in the streets or selling themselves into prostitution or whatever they were doing before they came to work for foreign suppliers of US stores. The gains in prosperity in the developing countries because their people can sell to America through Wal-Mart are astounding. As to the people who work at Wal-Mart, they seem to me to be bright, alert men and women who work there because it's the best they can do in their town or at their age. Plus, they seem happy. The usual clerk at Wal-Mart gives a lot better service than the clerk at Tiffany. I would like it if they were paid more, but they are in a competitive labor market. And what about those greedy stockholders? A lot of them are those same Wal-Mart clerks, many of whom got rich from their stock.

In the real world, Wal-Mart is as much of a boon to the American shopper as the Sears catalogue was long ago.

Jeer at it all you want, all you cool people, but, it's progress, big time.

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm sorry that I sound insensitive, but the job belongs to the employer, NOT the employee.

How about other jobs? About 10 years ago I was working for a large telecommunication firm located in midwest on a project that involved bringing in house a software application that had been vendor supported. We had to find people with expertise in a particular software language and database, ones which Walmart also used. We went to a contacting company to find 6 people to bring in on a contract-for-hire, and they found 6 people willing to throw over life in Bentonville for the bright lights of the big city. Well, the folks down there in Walmartland didn't appreciate that and it went up to the CEO level where David Glass and our CEO were personal friends. Shortly after the 6 came on board word filtered down that we were not under any circumstances to look at any candidate who were working at Walmart. Walmart's way of easing their problem of attracting people to Bentonville, I guess.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons why I don't shop at Walmart or Sam's Club, along with the shoddy quality, dirty stores, unfriendly staff, etc., etc.

[tiamat]

I love Ben.

Thanks

[eno_]

Although I like Stein, his concept of everyone getting a "raise" because of WM's prices is negated by the fact its employees cost taxpayers (in CA at least) over $1000 a year in government services. Lower prices are washed out by the higher taxes.

Is that Wal-Mart's fault?

Seriously: If we are dumb enough to make those benefits available, who's fault is it?

Similarly: If the Mexicans are overrunning schools in California, is it the Mexicans' fault for taking the free ride? Or our fault for being suckers?

[eno_]

Uhhh, maybe you need an overall change of venue. Where I live Wal-Mart is where normals go to get motor oil, garden hoses, and detergent and not get ripped off.

[upchuck]

From what I've seen, if you get the mail one, it won't be in the Sunday paper. If you don't get one in the mail, there generally will be one in the Sunday paper.

That may well be. I don't take the paper as I rarely have time to read it.

[eno_]

Fort not much more than the inflation adjusted price of your 55 year old Sunbeam, you can get a very solid and elegant toaster at Williams Sonoma. My "coffee machine" is a $5 filter funnel. Lasts indefinitely, because I can lift my ($200 Williams Sonoma - hey, not all decisions are rational) teakettle myself.

[upchuck]

I do like the stuff in Target also, but if that story about them not letting the Salvation Army ring a bell outside thier stores are true, they will not be getting my business anytime soon.

Unfortunately, Tarzhea is a real tightwad and grinch:

Target Corporation has a long-standing "no solicitation" policy at all of our stores. Like many nationwide retailers, Target Corporation implemented this policy in order to be consistent with all the groups that request access to our stores and to provide our guests with a comfortable, distraction-free shopping environment.

Therefore, Target Corporation restricts the use of its parking lots and facilities to only business use. Target does not permit individuals (including political candidates and/or their campaign organizations) or nonprofit organizations to solicit donations, distribute literature, sell merchandise or hold events on our premises.

Target has received attention for applying this policy to all groups, including the Salvation Army. We receive an increasing number of solicitation inquiries from nonprofit organizations and groups each year and determined that if we continue to allow the Salvation Army to solicit, then it opens the door to any other groups that wish to solicit our guests. While some of our guests may welcome the opportunity to support their favorite charity or cause, allowing these organizations to solicit means that Target would also have to permit solicitation by organizations whose causes or behavior may be unacceptable to our guests.

Link.

What a bunch of effete snobs! I shop at Target but only when absolutely necessary.

[Naomi4]

I heartily agree with Ben Stein. I shopped the first time in a Wal-Mart in 1984 in South Carolina. It was the nicest, friendliest, cleanest and best stocked department store I had ever seen. I am not sure I noticed the prices were the lowest. I was so astounded and delighted to be greeted at the door when I entered. Then later when I was looking for something I could not find, a store employee escorted me across the store to the item and did not leave me until satisfied I did not need anything else.

They deserve their success.

Their employees stay with them for years. Someone ought to ask them why.

[Mad Dawgg]

"If Ben Stein was a chick, I would marry him."

Laz, if anyone was a chick you'd marry them.

[SunnySide]

"It would be nice if Walmart would advertise in the local papers though, the way local companies do."

They do, they buy up small town newspapers. Nothing like keeping everything in house.

[SunnySide]

"dirty stores, unfriendly staff"

Total lies. I've been in enough across America and have never ever seen one dirty store or unfriendly employee. And no, I don't work for Walmart. Now the former Zayres stores, ewww they were nasty nasty nasty. It's why they went out of business.

[SunnySide]

" Where I live Wal-Mart is where *normals* go "


LOL! I love it. "Normals" Viva La normals!

[radicalamericannationalist]

Wal-Mart instructs its employees on how to apply for those state benefits. The company knows that its wages are unsustainable and uses the public as a method of subsidizing those wages.

Another economic effect is Wal-Mart's forcing the migration of manufacturing jobs to China. This helps to increase our trade deficit. All in all, Wal-Mart's low costs come at a high price.

[claudiustg]

---The canny retailers have opened boutiques instead of general-merchandise stores. Wal-Mart sells everything, but they don't sell the highest quality of anything, and they don't sell the complete range of anything. A thousand niche markets have suddenly sprung up, and everybody now has the money to afford niche goods.---

Bingo! And that's a good part of the puzzle of keeping your old downtown alive as well.

[lawgirl]

But there are a lot of things that are just not usually made in the USA any longer

Yes but walmart is one of the reasons they are not. Walmart gets them in bulk from china and resells them for nothing and no american company can compete with that when you look at the huge market walmart has. A good example is their new electronics line that are made in china directly for walmart. Walmart is helping to feed and clothe a nation that is NOT our friend. I refuse to shop there, and I have also worked there FWIW.

[eno_]

I believe you. So, what's the cure? Ban Wal Mart, or examine our welfare system?

Let's say it's hard to pay the rent in your town on a Wal Mart paycheck. It is Wal Mart's fault, or is it more likely that local regulations keep the housing market artificailly tight?

And waht about the luxuries of life? What do you say about making it possible for people earning $10 per hour to afford 27" LCD televisions? When government isn't in the equation, it all works out quite well.

[television is just wrong]

I saw him at Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake, about a year ago. He is a wonderful human being.

[adam_az]

I emailed and asked him to run for Senator from Cali - he responded... <> No political office seeking for me....I can't afford it, morally or financially, alas. But many thanks, Ben

[television is just wrong]

LOL, on Fox news website, Angelina Jolei wants to be some kind of good will ambasador somewhere.

[radicalamericannationalist]

"What do you say about making it possible for people earning $10 per hour to afford 27" LCD televisions?"

First, can they afford it or do they put it on the credit card, contributing to the record high debt level the American consumer is currently piling up?

Secondly, my point is that that TV is not that cheap when you factor the extra taxes that are paid as a result of WAl-Mart employees being subsidized by the state.

The solution? Part of it is our trade policy. So long as we are blase about our manufacturing sector being shipped over seas, there is little that can be done.

I think in the end, the real solution is going to have to be cultural and not political. Henry Ford paid his workers generous wages not because he was acting philanthropically but because he knew that well paid workers were more productive and could buy his own product. Today, I fear that we have an executive culture that puts short term pops in the stock price above long term sustainability and the interest of the community and nation.