Posted on 08/25/2006 8:14:54 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: Democrats disapprove of your buying habits.
Democrats are fleshing out their domestic agenda with attacks on the company that brings you everyday low prices. The party is divided about how to address the threat of the insurgents and militias bedeviling us in Iraq, but is united by its response to the threat represented by extremely affordable retail goods and groceries. Appearing at Wal-Mart-bashing rallies has become practically mandatory for Democratic presidential aspirants, according to the New York Times.
The Democrats call their broadsides against the super-retailer “populist,” but it’s an odd populism that attacks a company that attracts more than 100 million customers a week with no-frills convenience and rock-bottom prices for everyday consumer goods. If Wal-Mart specialized in selling high-end wind-surfing gear, yes, it might be a juicy populist target. But detergent and toilet paper? Huey Long himself would be mystified at this choice of demagogy.
Attacking oil companies for allegedly price-gouging is unquestionably good (if grossly opportunistic) politics. What Wal-Mart perpetrates, however, is price-gouging in reverse. It sweats every inefficiency out of itself and its suppliers so it can pass those savings on to consumers. Attacking the company for that isn’t populist, it’s perverse. A mom struggling to make ends meet might be angry at spending another $2-a-gallon to fill up at the pump. She’s not going to be so exercised by getting a great deal on diapers.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware declared at a recent anti-Wal-Mart rally in Iowa, “I don’t see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people.” Who does Biden think is strolling the long aisles of the nation’s Wal-Marts? It’s not the malefactors of great wealth. Wal-Mart prices make the most difference for exactly those families spending the greatest portion of their budgets on the basics. One estimate is that Wal-Mart saves the average household as much as $2,300 a year. That’s nothing to big donors to the “Biden for President” campaign, but for most families, it’s real money.
Wal-Mart’s attackers say that its low prices come at the expense of its 1.3 million wage slaves who are denied decent pay and health benefits. But the wages and benefits offered by Wal-Mart are comparable to those of other retailers. The stumbling automaker General Motors has, in contrast, engaged in a long experiment in paying wages and benefits that are unsustainably high in its industry, and it hasn’t been a happy one. If retail-level wages and benefits are unconscionable in America, perhaps we should shutter the entire sector and ship it overseas. Then, of course, Democrats would complain about the loss of jobs.
Wal-Mart shouldn’t be romanticized. It doesn’t deliver low prices from the goodness of its heart, but because it’s a way to thrive in a competitive economy (nor does it pay relatively low wages out of malice). Its ruthless efficiency drives competitors out of business. This is painful, but there is no reason to believe that America was a better place when it bought retail products from Ames or Caldor, extinct discount chains that never developed a business model successful enough to be pilloried by politicians.
Why do Democrats target Wal-Mart? As in so much else in Democratic politics, from trade issues to the minimum wage, part of the answer is to follow the unions. When Wal-Mart began to sell groceries, it ran afoul of the unions that dominate supermarkets, and they have made Wal-Mart a hate-brand on the left. Something deeper is at work, as well. In Democratic politicians’ contempt for Wal-Mart, there is an element of snobbery. They have a distaste for such a down-market, lumpen-bourgeois operation where few of their voters shop (one poll found that 76 percent of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers are Bush voters), let alone anyone they socialize with.
The Democrats’ anti-Wal-Mart campaign ultimately represents a politically unappealing snooty-populism. Their rhetoric is with the common man, but their noses are in the air.
Leaders like Joe Biden are why Democrats never should be trusted with profssional responsibility.
Ping.
Walmarts are jobs. Kids going to school, retirees, married people who have spouses in other jobs. And yes, even someone who was displaced by a closure of their business, but that is the minority.
This is about RATS getting unions into these stores. The model is like it is everywhere a union infiltrates. Prices will go up, strikes will occur and eventually the store will close its doors, put people on the unemployment line who will then vote for Democrats who want to help the little guy and blame the cbig bad company for making this happen.
It is amazing how the 'rats rail against anything that lets ordinary folk keep more of their own money. Maybe if goods are too affordable, people with low incomes won't need the Mommy State to take care of all of their needs.
Will the exposed roots of WalMart-bashing finally alert anti-Walmart freepers to the elitist, left-wingery of those who would hogtie competition?
Will the blind anti-capitalist pigs of socialism lead freeping Wallie-haters to the smelly truffles of protectionism's folly?
And what about Naomi?
("Let them eat cake.")
The Democrats:
"Oil companies charge too much, making profits! The government should step in!"
"Walmart charges too little, making profits and hurting other companies! The government should step in!"
Well, at least they are consistent about having a Kim Jong Il/Fidel-Castro style economy, though the justification is ever-shifting.
Yep. Democrats are stupid. One of my childish coworkers signed me up on the email list for Howard Dean's illegal 527c Shadow Party called "Democracy for America". So now I get emails that say "A message from Paul Hackett for DFA."
Guess no one bothered to think what those intitials suggest to a reader "Howard Dean for Dumb F...... A....."
No less a bona fide left-winger than John Kenneth Galbraith believed that retail giants were wonderful ways to counter what he was sure was the monopolistic power of manufacturers. It was just a small chain in Arkansas when he wrote that, but I suspect he would've approved of Wal-Mart. My how the left has fallen.
This is the thing that drives me crazy. Wal-Mart wages and benefits are also often GREATER than mom and pop stores. How Democrats can think that being anti-Wal-Mart is to be "for the little guy" is really odd and a very visible sign of the disconnect between the current Dem philosophy and what they think they stand for.
Weird.
That sort of thing makes me sick. People should concentrate on getting their own stuff wired straight. I don't claim to be Warren Buffet rich myself, but I also don't go around wanking about what I lack or blaming someone else who's played the cards life dealt them better than myself.
I'm reminded of Theresa Heinz stopping at a Wendy's with her husband on the campaign trail and having NO IDEA what any of the items on the menu were.
Good for America = Bad for Democrats = bad for Unions. A simple equation, really.
Nothing mystifiying about it. Its all about unions.
That's ok -- if Theresa's pursuit of happiness is buying a sandwich at the Club for $20.00, that's her right as an American. Nobody forces Theresa or anyone else to shop at Wal-Mart or eat at Wendy's. If she wants to buy her furniture at an expensive boutique, that's fine also.
BUT, having more money and shopping at more exclusive stores and eating in fine restaurants and clubs does NOT mean that one is a better person or somehow "lower". It is a free choice of millions of Americans to shop at Wal-Mart or eat at Wendy's.
I guess "free choice" is ok for a 13-year-old when it comes to what to do when pregnant but not OK when it comes to where an adult can buy a toaster.
Populism has been a joke anyway since Billionaire Ross Perot became a "populist" in 1992.
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