Thursday, June 29, 2006

Wal-Mart is Not Evil

If you read any article today, it must be this one. I am a part of this mailing list and was intreagued by "The Ultimate Pro-Wal*Mart article".

A sample:

Wal-Mart's Critics

In spite of Wal-Mart's outstanding achievements and tremendous benefits to the public, a determined group of Wal-Mart critics has appeared on the scene. These people have made it their life's mission to smear and obstruct Wal-Mart at every turn, many of them behaving with the same passion that one might expect from religious fanatics. The critics are utterly ignorant of economics, yet they pretend to be authorities on the subject, and loudly proclaim such things as: "Wal-Mart causes unemployment," "Wal-Mart lowers wages," and "Wal-Mart reduces access to healthcare." In addition to these alleged economic sins, they say: "Wal-Mart destroys communities," "Wal-Mart treats its female employees unfairly," "Wal-Mart causes greedy consumerism," "Wal-Mart desecrates sacred ground." To listen to these critics, one might think that Wal-Mart was the source of all evil.

Every time Wal-Mart tries to open up a new store, there is a good chance that these anti-Wal-Mart crusaders will be there to interfere, attempting to persuade zoning boards and local governments to intervene and make it impossible for Wal-Mart to operate. They've created websites such as Wakeupwalmart.com and Walmartwatch.com that provide "public education" on their incorrect version of the economic effects of Wal-Mart. They've held anti-Wal-Mart demonstrations, and put out advertisements, books, and movies. They've called for crippling regulation of Wal-Mart, and increased taxes on Wal-Mart. One of their favorite activities is to point to someone who they believe has been, or could be, negatively affected by Wal-Mart's success — no matter how temporarily — misinterpret the meaning of this phenomenon, and proceed to work themselves into a frenzy because they are convinced that this proves that Wal-Mart is destroying the world.

All of their objections are based on profound ignorance of Wal-Mart's actual economic significance, and their behavior is destructive to themselves and everyone else. The huge amount of media attention given to these critics by many willing accomplices has strengthened their negative influence. The critics have succeeded in making themselves impossible to ignore. They have dragged Wal-Mart's good name through the mud, causing the general public to associate Wal-Mart with the endless list of accusations, rather than with the incredible service they provide.


You must read the rest, great read.

2 Comments:

Blogger Somena Woman said...

You do know that Wal-Mart in the US collects almost a Billion dollars a year in Corporate welfare didn't you? And that it actually has sections of it's training manual for new staff that teaches them how to fill out government applications for subsidies for medicaide and TANF programs. Google it.

Fri Jun 30, 05:54:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Nicol DuMoulin said...

Funny how the left who hate Wal-Mart care not about the fact that many poor people shop there for the lower prices.

They also do not care about taxing people so much that they can't put up a business themselves.

WalMart is like McDonald's and Coke to the left. A symbol of right wing globalisation...of course they have no problem when the corporations are Hollywood and values are being exported.

Good post!

Wed Jul 05, 09:13:00 PM EDT  

Post a Comment

<< Home