Sure. It's a nice store layout. The products are reasonably sturdy. Fair number of brand names. Quality isn't quite that of Costco/Kirkland. But it's good stuff. As someone suggested, check out K-Mart, and you'll see the difference in Wal-Mart. Target isn't so bad, either, and precisely a similar sort of discounter. I just hate the queues at Wal-Mart, and Costco. But the quality is perfectly fine.
It's the problem of the 'system'. Wages for many are stagnant, which means they lose purchasing power (or I should say, rather, investment power) every year, even with relatively low inflation (many items, like gas, suffer huge inflationary hits). How to maintain the 'middle class' lifestyle? Well - Home Depot, Loews, Wal-Mart, Target, Costco. Etc. And whatever one thinks of retail management, or these retail managers and employees, this country is well-served and getting by with these sort of large-box chains. Customer service isn't always great, even sometimes hostile. I don't think there'd be a suburbia without all those imports, dutifully sold at Cost Plus, and Trader Joe's, and all the others mentioned and not.
But isn't is even more a necessity for those not in 'affluent' suburbia but still in the city flatlands, and the 'old neighborhoods'. I personally WOULD prefer to see far more people earning a living wage, and not by any ruse of a minimum wage, which by all rights should be $20/hr. As Rush points out, if it can't be that, then it can't be - AT ALL. Jobs paid real money in the post-war boom. That even true in the 80s, for many people, in the opening of the Reagan boom. But under Clinton, many of the poor, in my opinion, have grown worse off because they aren't paid wages to match inflation. And assuming, if, that's a structural problem that will only grow worse in the coming years, then no one should be complaining about the large chain stores importing slave labor items mostly from Red China. I would complain of the slavery. And I would complain of the tyranny. And I would ask - can't business find another way, and bypass the Chicoms? Can't one single 'brain-trust' figure out a way? But without that product, the illusion of a middle class life would elude so many Democrats. And on the other hand, if the consummerism weren't so easy . . maybe they'd get serious about the politics, and stop voting for a buch of leftwing socialists, who only want to tax and impose intrusive government. Perhaps that sounds like the worst elitist thing to suggest. But I eagerly shop at Wal-Mart and Costco, much moreso at the later. And so I do think that criticizing these stores is completely off-base, and wrong for so many reasons.
How many workers does Wal-Mart employ?
How much was their actual profit last year?