Gautam, et al,
When WalMart moves into a community, it sells a lot of stuff. It sells a lot of things more cheaply than anyone else could do it. This has two wonderful effects. It allows people to buy stuff that they couldn't otherwise afford (employing more people making it, etc.). And it allows them to spend more money on _other things_ (again, employing more people mkaing it, selling it, etc.)
Typical supply-side tripe.
Unfortunately, the "people making it" find themselves in increasingly dire straits as a result of doing business with Wal-Mart, which /requires/ that its suppliers lower their prices to Wal-Mart every year or face replacement by even-more-desperate competitors. Suppliers are forced to open their books to Wal-Mart analysts, who insist that the companies cut "unnecessary" costs, such as using union labor.
For more information about the way the company's suppliers treat /their/ employees, see the National Labor Committee's report "Toys of Misery" <http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/he-yi/he-yi.shtml>.
All WalMart has done is figured out a bunch of ways to do this more cheaply than anyone else has.
Whether you think of this as a good thing or not depends on whether you think that the company's policies are ethical. As it turns out, drug cartels have also figured out a bunch of ways to "do this" more cheaply than anyone else has, too. By your logic, we should be praising the efficiency of drug lords.
Truth: A company guidebook for supervisors reads, "Wal-Mart is opposed to unionization... You, as a manager, are expected to support the company’s position.... This may mean walking a tightrope between legitimate campaigning and improper conduct." Basically, squash unionization attempts, just don't get caught. When meat-cutters in a Texas Wal-Mart store voted to join the UFCW, the company just eliminated their jobs, and started selling pre-packaged meats.
It's literally no different than me inventing that widget I talked about that can manufacture cars more cheaply. If you would think that's a good thing, then you should think WalMart's a good thing.
No, I shouldn't.
Abusing workers and muscling suppliers is not "a widget," it's "a racket."
For what it is worth I was wrong here. WalMart employess who work 32hrs/wk *are* eligible for insurance. Bad information on my part and bad interpretation of what I was told otherwise.
Nonetheless, only something like only 38% of Wal-Mart employees actually have insurance. Apparently, the high premiums price it out of reach of many. Which is not to say that cheapness on the company's part is the only factor that contributes to this low participation rate. For all I know, most employees are married to someone who already has insurance.
Good for them. Who cares where the health insurance comes from, as long as it's there?
Lots of people do: look how many people got their knickers in a knot when the Clintons proposed Canadian-style national insurance.
The irony occurs to me that WalMart constantly wraps itself in the American flag, yet keeps it's employees as poor as possible. Eventually this may undo their model.
I don't think they do that, that's the thing. I think they pay what the market will bear, and get cheap goods to people who need them. The first is morally neutral, the second morally positive. If you _don't like_ what the market will bear (and I've _never_ said that I do), then I've already proposed one change that would help a lot (immigration reform). A second would be further expanding the EITC.
The EITC is nothing more than government-funded underwriting of companies who refuse to pay a decent wage. YOU and I are forced to make up for the meagerness of the salaries that companies like Wal-Mart pay. If you /really/ believe in "the invisible hand of the market," then let Wal-Mart pay a salary that doesn't force people to apply for EITC.
But don't blame WalMart for doing what a business is supposed to do as well or better than any business in history.
You know, it's just possible that there are people on this big wide earth who would be willing to eat shit in order to put food on their children's table. And if there was some company somewhere that had a lot of shit to dispose of, would you praise them for finding more minimum-wage shit-eaters than the next company?
I cannot accept that Wal-Mart is doing "what a business is supposed to do" as long as we have to define "what a business is supposed to do" as "grind people and suppliers down to squeeze every last dime out of them.
... when WalMart does what it does, it creates a huge amount of wealth.
Which is why S. Robson Walton is worth more than Bill Gates.
Oh, enough of this. I have to create some economic value here.
Dave
All That Glitters is Not Gold Maru _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
