Two views of Wal-Mart.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson concedes that Wal-Mart ". . . promise[s] to bankroll private development in economically depressed areas without asking for a dime of taxpayer dollars, thereby creating thousands of new jobs . . ." But Mr. Hutchinson vigorously opposes Wal-Mart's effort to locate stores in those depressed areas because it has ". . . a well-documented record of labor and environmental abuses, and a much-deserved reputation for corporate arrogance . . ."

Excuse me, but isn't just about the biggest labor abuse not having a job? Isn't the opposite of environmental abuse doing business in run-down, inner-city areas that other businesses won't go near?

Steven Malanga, in City Journal, writes a much better piece. Among the interesting bits:

--Wal-Mart is trying to reform health insurance so that it covers disasters, not every sniffle. Just as car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes and life insurance doesn't pay for disappointments. And Wal-Mart's plan doesn't cover visits to chiropractors.

--Sam Walton's son strongly supports school vouchers and charter schools. He donates liberally to support such programs. Forget the "labor and environmental abuses" stuff, that, by itself, is enough to enrage union executives and liberals.

--A great two sentences that answer the charge that Wal-Mart is predatory: "Before Wal-Mart, general-merchandise stores typically operated on profit margins as high as 45 percent of sales, but Wal-Mart managed on an operating profit of just 22 percent and passed the difference on to customers, who flocked in when they saw how much they could save. Merchants predicted that Wal-Mart would hike its prices as soon as the competition disappeared, but years later Wal-Mart is still considered among the sharpest-priced, best-value retailers in the world—even in its original small-town markets."

Comments

[tee bee]

interesting comparison on coverage of what inevitably ends up being a controversial topic. which makes me wonder about who decides what is controversial, but that’s another topic.

what caught my eye was Hutchinson’s remark about Walmart’s “reputation for corporate arrogance.” he is clearly playing to a crowd who will never ask him to explain what he means by that, which should tell you a lot about the rest of what he says. maybe this has something to do with my posit about who decides what is controversial, after all… of course, it’s an LATimes piece. I can only refer here to Betsy’s note on the media perception polls.

do I know what to make of the Walmart phenomenon? it separates 1. those who want to think for the people from the examined thoughts of 2. the people. explanation: most ranters [party of the first part] prioritize stopping peripheral problems before they exist; ex post facto, which is illogical if well meaning. the idea is, stop the tyranny of Walmart’s foreign oppression (importing cheap goods, thereby extending colonialism’s oppression of underdeveloped nation’s workers) and domestic lawlessness (see any recent news story about hiring illegals) before it gets a foothold. anywhere.

the unwashed masses for whom the Hutchinsons deign to speak [party of the second part] have concerns that are at the bedrock of having a viable society from which to make such grand pronouncements: can I get a job (which pays taxes and feeds the economy through consumerism), and are there goods available that I can afford? people, families and communities are society, and government. but grand theorists (ranters) forget that troublesome quantity, preferring a neat x variable. so the leaps from there are often as irrational as they are irrelevant.

thwack me for generalizations if you will, but there are always the key participants: the doers and the talkers.

[Jake]

The noblest act a person can do is to give another person a job.
Everything else is a distant second.