[bitt]

I heard that Wal-Mart sells ONE QUARTER of the nations groceries.

read the rest of the article...

[Sybeck1]

Low prices, but always to packed to grocery shop. We grocery shop at Kroger or Schnucks instead.

[shankbear]

The DUcraps cannot run on issues so they run against capitalism. Wal Mart isn't perfect but what is the DUthug's alternative. They never give any.

[upchuck]

Wally ping.

Bet yer glad this week is almost over :)

[RasterMaster]

[ThanhPhero]

The fight over WalMarts seems to be a matter of wealthy folks trying to pull down the preferred merchant of the less affluent people. LET THEM SHOP AT TIFFANY'S!

[jonno]

WT..?

On this one Savage is right - liberalism is a mental disorder.

[BallyBill]

When people fly on airplanes and commute on trains, I'm sure their thoughts are on how to stop Wal Mart.

[A. Pole]

Class warfare as every warfare requires two sides. The pressure to lower wages or "cost of labor" in order to increase profits is also a form of class warfare.

[stocksthatgoup]

George Will should get out of DC for a couple of years. Like a blind squirrel this time he found nuts.

[ex-Texan]

Wal-Mart's marketing is based on the public perception that it's prices are less than other retail stores. Quality is not pushed by Wally World as a marketing concept. The truth is that WM's food prices are higher in many cases than other local merchants. Bargain shoppers, if they are astute, will soon learn other merchants offer a more pleasant shopping experience with lower prices. For example, Target stores, often have lower prices and a better environment. Wal-Mart is getting a lot of bad publicity today because of very low wages. But people are more incensed by the company's attitude about health benefits. About 70% of WM employees (and their children) are dependent upon upon government for Medicare or Medicaid.

[JoeGar]

Big, big ping.

[Sonar5]

That lady who didn't get hired is an idiot...

I remember reading about the many applicants at the ev park store, and if they hired only 325 out of 25,000, I would guess many of them would be ticked standing in line without any chance of getting hired.

I used to work on 95th Street near Western on the Chicago Side. The mall there was a cesspool of gang bangers, crime, etc.....

That is what the south side, excluding Mt. Greenwood, brought you.

The attitude was probably from the applicant in this case. Of course she then goes to wal-mart to shop anyway.

And the walmart near me has no shortage of BMW's, Merecedes, and big fat SUV's on any day of the week, IMHO.

Oh well, I guess the communist unions have to continue their rants while the rest of the USA contuines supporting our economy.

BTW - No one is forced to ever work at WalMart. They volunteer to apply, get it, they made a choice.

And if it is so bad to work there, why do they stay.

Why don't they apply somewhere else like target, or Costco after they have some experience then?

Why can't walmart employees share that responsibility of making a choice of applying and working there, as well as choosing which benefits to accept ro use?

I'll tell you why, becuase it dilutes the rants and raves of communists and unions who would rather drag the workforce down with them, IMHO.

[IronJack]

I just got back from a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart, where I met with a number of folks from that company. I was inspired not so much by the people I met as by the story of Wal-Mart itself, so I bought Sam Walton's autobiography, Made in America, published way back in 1992 as he lay dying of cancer.

If that tale is to be believed, and it DOES come across as pretty credible, then Sam Walton built Wal-Mart on some very basic, even simplistic principles: buy your goods at the cheapest possible price, cut your margins, and sell your products cheaper than your competitors. "The less you charge, the more you make."

Wal-Mart is the perfect example of a better mousetrap.

What the Dems hate about it is that its philosophy is quintessentially capitalistic, and many of its donations go to conservative causes.

[spinestein]

In the early 90s I lost a decent job and immediately took a part time job (25 hrs/wk) as a "WalMart associate" until I located another "real" job. I worked there for about 5 months and the work was pleasant and easy (which is why it doesn't pay very much) and that steady income, small as it was, saved my butt in a town which had an unemployment rate of 11% at the time, and allowed me to pay my family's bills WITHOUT having to resort to taking money from the American taxpayer.

WalMart employs more than a million workers to stock shelves and operate cash registers and mop floors. Most of these positions are filled by people who are working there temporarily to pick up some steady cash either between "real" jobs or as students working part time, or they're not the major wage earners in a household but are just picking up "extra" cash. In any case, the type of work required doesn't deserve to be paid higher than it is and the type of socialist thinking that says companies should pay people more than their free market value as workers may be dripping with compassion and may make its believers feel good about themselves for their generosity with other people's money, but it ALWAYS comes at a cost to the people it's intended to help.

All those still supporting the outdated ideas of government managed wealth redistribution through mandated arbitrary wages and benefits need to gain an understanding of what REAL compassion means, and learn how free markets best help the poor as well as the rich.

[peggybac]

I love shopping at the Walmart grocery stores. I save so much more money and now only go to the chain supermarkets for emergencies only. The stores aren't union here but the prices are still higher than Walmart.

[x]

Will writes well as always, and makes a good case. But a lot of the arguments for Wal-Mart are the same as those for illegal immigration, which also keeps prices low.

One could draw an analogy between a community and its Main Street merchants versus Wal-Mart and a country or national community versus illegal immigration. Of course it wouldn't be a perfect analogy, but it would indicate some aspects that Will leaves out.

Someone who really is a localist would react to Will's arguments as one assumes Will or the rest of us would react to those of a liberal or radical globalist for whom nations and borders are meaningless.

I have been to Wal-Mart and appreciate the low prices, but I can understand why someone deeply committed to a particular local community would strongly dislike Wal-Mart, an aggressive chain store.

[handy]

Why they picked a fight where many of their voters loyally shop is a hard one to figure out. I like WalMart because i can get the same stuff cheaper than other stores. Most people feel this way. Why are Rats too stupid the figure this out?

[Westlander]

That's bullcrap. Wally flopped in Germany. Michigan has 20 Wally grocery stores-in the state. Meijer's, Kroger, and Farmer Jack rule the grocery business here.

[mc5cents]

Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion)

And there you have it. That is why liberals hate Wal Mart. It embarasses them. Capitalism will always win out over liberal government hand-out programs. They just HATE it.