on Walmart
 

Since we keep going back to the same old toon in the other thread. I'll move this topic.

Okay, I've always heard both arguments about Wal-Mart, either
1. That it stimulates the economy by providing low-priced goods and gives people better quality of life than they could otherwise afford, and that it employs people that frankly might not be employable in other settings
or that
2. It keeps prices artificially low by paying substandard wages, by encouraging part-time employment to avoid providing benefits, and that it decreases competition by maintaining these prices that no one else can match. There are also allegations that workers are expected to work off the clock, etc etc.

so, really smart people, what's the story?

Dunno, but Walmart is the only place we'll be able to buy the new AC/DC album.

AC/DC and Walmart

Okay, this gives me a chance to vent. I hate when people say Tarjay instead of Target. It's not that funny.

I think both are true.

The economic impact of walmart will vary depending on the existing economic climate before the wal-mart arrived. My swag is that Wal-mart helps backwoods small town places that do not have many other commercial alternatives, and it may hurt communities that are already well developed, densely populated. However, those densely populated areas need jobs....and wal mart provides those jobs.

A wal-mart built out in the middle of some random town in Oklahoma, sitting off a major highway would likely be an economic boon.....locals don't have to drive 20 miles to get certain goods, teens have a place to work, people have greater access to products they would otherwise not have.

I know that folks in parts of LA fight the arrival of new wal-marts because they allegedly kill the blocks and blocks of mom and pops that already serve the local community.

Leaving the toons behoind? That's dithpiccable.

Besides Sams Club and the internet (which is available to everyone all around the planet)

The story is that a place like Wal-Mart encourages our unsupportable consumption by making everything so cheap and cheaply. Their toasters last one year, their lamps two. They're also a product of the suburbs, absolutely car-dependent, gobbler of land, terrible for town planning centered on quality of life. They're impersonal and soul crushing; physically depressing atmospheres. Wal-Mart has single-handedly bankrolled the rise of China, whose citizens are paying the environmental price.

If we consider the following values worth supporting, Wal-Mart does not: sustainability; quality; community; personableness; human connection; sensitive built environment . . . But, in return for the sacrifice of those values, we do receive cheap diapers, laundry detergent, and bath towels. For many, the trade is surely worth it.

What Walmart does is create a local monopsony (not monopoly), i.e., they are the only employer in some areas, and hence they can pay as low of wages as they want because they don't have competitors.

However, a really smart guy, Obama's director of economic policy has produced research demonstrating that Walmart actually helps the poor by providing low-cost goods.

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/w...rogressive.pdf

I haven't read the paper but it does sort out both effects (low wages/low prices).

Right, this is exactly what I was wondering. I've noticed in the past that Wal-Mart is almost like a old-time company store. They set the standard for low wages in the area, then people go pick up their walmart paychecks, have no choice but to line up at wal-mart to buy all their stuff for the week, load it up on their Wal-mart credit card with their 5% employee discount, and support the very institution that's in part keeping them impoverished with substandard wages.

Well, Sam's Club is just the Walmart version of Costco, so that makes sense and it's no surprise that one could buy it at the AC/DC website.