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.
I have never noticed any prices at Brooks Brothers that I would characterize as a bargain.
You've put your finger on it exactly. What I've seen in the small towns which Wal-Mart is supposed to have "destroyed" is that Stein is right - the sudden price cut in all consumer goods has the effect of raising everybody's disposable income. This means that now that people can spend a lower fraction of their income on Pampers and cereal, they have more money left over to buy baseball cards, quilting supplies, specialized auto parts, used video games, personal computer peripherals, gourmet foods, and so on.
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.
Ben Stein works in the entertainment industry. The kind of people he hangs out with consider Brooks Brothers a discount store, because it's off-the-rack.
Customer Service Center? That doesn't even exist at my Walmart! I've complained in the store and no one speaks english well enough to understand me, so I figure the situation is totally hopeless. The Best Buys store is almost as bad. Half the people speak english there, but no one even knows the names of their managers or where they are located. There is no such thing as good service in these large stores.
The language problem may have more to do with the area of the country you live in. I live in central Illinois and haven't had that problem with anybody but doctors.
I not only know of one, I have one. It's an AMERICAN MADE SUNBEAM!!!
Oh, they're not made in America any more?
Well, I knew something was wrong, because it is 55 years old and it still works as well as it did when it was new. No chineeeeeeze-made piece of junk will ever equal that, I'll betcha.
I guess Ben is right. (again)
Half SE Asian and half Central American immigrants. I'm in a very, very poor part of the country with a large immigrant population.
You need to quit climbing the Eiffel Tower.
Man.
You've been a naughty boy.
You've let your face grow long.
I am the eggman.
bttt
Huzzah, good article!
Detroit Bulls? You mean he had a Bulls top and Pistons shorts or something?
You must live in a tough area. The 20-odd Wal-Marts I've seen (all in the Pacific Northwest and Canada) have all been fairly clean and bright with native English-speaking staff and reasonable waiting times at the checkout.
Flagstaff, AZ, City of Endless Annoyance, is in the process of passing a "Big Box Ordinance" to protect the local cartels which already have their feet in the door. I drive 60 miles (one way) to shop at the Cottonwood SuperWalmart. Even allowing for $1.89 gas, I still come out 10 to 20% ahead and don't pay Flagstaff's extortionate sales taxes either (which go to support bike paths and "municipal art" for liberals).
This is simply not true. I work for Walmart part-time while I'm in school getting an RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician) Associate's Degree. Wal-Mart has a very strict policy about working off the clock and taking breaks and such. You can't even make up hours that you missed or called in sick anymore. Real strict policy, Wal-mart has cracked down on that stuff.
No, Congress and their policies are the reason. Stop blaming Walmart for problems caused by high taxes and punishing regulations.
Well-put. Amazing how the free market works.
There's no way a American worker can compete with a $.28 an hour worker. It's Labor Arbitrage, plain and simple.
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