Posted on 01/29/2005 9:23:51 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Heres a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know its 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.
There's a large multi-page color supplement in the Sunday paper almost every Sunday here.
You can see a pdf version of it at the Wal-Mart web site:
http://www.walmart.com/ecircular/ca_ecircularfinder.gsp
The Wal-Mart employees I know love working there.
"I've never gotten good service at a WalMart. Most of the people working there can't speak english or pretend not to"
I have never experienced that problem at any of the four near my home....
I responded: "Putting words in the mouth of a U.S. president counts as public service, yes? (Stein was a speechwriter for Nixon.)"
You responded: "Did I miss something, I said I thought he would make an excellent public servant. I am sure he learned much during Nixon's term. Yeah, Nixon had his troubles but I do not hold that against Ben."
All right, now ... where are confusing each other here? You said Stein WOULD MAKE an excellent public servant, and I simply responded by saying that, well, in a way Stein ALREADY HAS BEEN a public servant. And I made a goofy little play on words about a speechwriter putting words in a president's mouth.
What's the controversy?
And all this time I thought you were a chick.
Stein is right on the money.
Thanks for the ping, and your military service.
He then added: "How did you do that when you just joined today?"
Come on, I know it can't be that hard to figure out! Think about it for a second ...
... a little more ...
... OK, you thinking? ...
... you ready? ...
... I used to have a different user name! (Insert Triumphant Brass Flourish Here)
I signed up with the new name because I've got a new blog, and I wanted my blog nickname to be in sync at all the other websites where I post.
I can be a chick.
Depends on your earning potential.
And there was once a time when you could have won it, too.
---There's a large multi-page color supplement in the Sunday paper almost every Sunday here. ---
I'll check our Sunday paper. There may be an insert I've been ignoring!
Didn't change your a-holness any did it.
What's more likely is that you have been zotted a few times.
Hmmm... interesting... I followed your link. That circular is the one I received by mail this past week, Tuesday I think.
My earning potential is 'bout at the cornbread and beans level so I think we're both safe.
Shopping at Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is like beaming down to Planet NASCAR - a world known for its fetid atmospheric gases, harsh overhead lighting, and grunting, apelike humanoid inhabitants. It's usually dirty at Wal-Mart, not to mention funny-smelling, and the poorly-lit parking lot is a gauntlet of panhandlers, drifters, and guys that look like the Randy Quaid character from Christmas Vacation, right down to their grime-encrusted RVs - all of whom "just need a couple of bucks for gas so they can make it to Uncle Lonny's". Once inside, it's a mind-numbing nightmare to fimd what you're actually looking for, and if you do find it there's usually one checker for every 100 checkout aisles, guaranteeing that you will end up waiting endlessly in line behind the funny-smelling old white lady who purchases eveything with rolls of pennies (which she counts twice to make sure she hasn't been cheated), the scowling black teenager in full Detroit Bulls uniform buying a single package of batteries with a Amex Platinum Card (and no ID), and the gum-snapping crimped-haired Latina who insists on paying for her 49 cent package of SpongeBob SquarePants hair scrunchies with an un-numbered third-party check drawn on the Bank of Guatemala and made out to CASH. "Ax me fo' my driver's license? Oh no you dih-int!"
All this to buy a can of WD-40.
And I didn't even mention the legions of screaming, mucus-encrusted children that run through the store like packs of Morlocks from an H.G. Wells novel. Your average Wal-Mart is like a combination day-care center and meth lab - a reeking bedlam of overstimulated, gene-damaged, poopy-pants pre-teen mutants with mullet haircuts and WWF sweatshirts, all purple-faced and screaming for Daddy to buy them the ceral with the free Nazi armband in every box. Yeah, that's the atmosphere I want to be in after a hard day of work.
Do I like Wal-Mart? Hmm. Let's just say that if a smallpox plague were to hit Tarrant County and the only place to get the vaccine tonight was the 24-hour Wal-Mart SuperCenter, I'd take my chances waiting until Target opened tomorrow at ten and pay ten cents more to buy it there. Call me a snob, but next to the prospect of an evening spent among the Wal-Martians, even the threat of having virulent, suppurating pustules covering my eyes, nose, and throat seems somehow less scary.
Throw in a RC Cola and a Moon Pie and then we can talk.
I love his wisdom ! Please see his website esp.
http://www.benstein.com/writing.html
He has some REAL JEWELS there...
Here's a image of the front cover of this week's edition:
And just to show you it's current, here's a close-up of the date:
It's the exact same one that you can view on-line at this location:
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