I found
this article by Rich Lowry “Fear
and Loathing Wal-Mart” to be a real history lesson on all of the unjustified
and unfair criticism Wal-Mart is experiencing at the moment.
It turns
out that in the retail business this is nothing new. As Rich points out here:
A
new paper from the Competitive Enterprise Institute details the long history of
resistance to retail advances. In the late 19th century, the advent of department
stores caused outrage. The same reaction met the rise of mail-order catalogs, which
were burned in public at the behest of local retailers. The rise of chain stores in
the 1920s also inflamed local merchants, who claimed that they threatened “the
future of the children.”
Hence the
next graph:
Now,
it’s Wal-Mart’s turn. Founder Sam Walton realized that by offering customers
discount prices he could make more profits based on increased volume. Hence, the Wal-Mart
revolution, and the movement against it that The High Cost celebrates.
Then there
is this:
The
first thing to know about low price is that it has a wonderfully low cost for Wal-Mart
customers, a category that includes 8 in 10 Americans a year. A study by Global Insight
— paid by Wal-Mart to study the company’s economic effects, but granted
independence — estimated that Wal-Mart lowered the consumer price index by 3.1
percent between 1985 and 2004, making for $263 billion in consumer savings by 2004.
In a widely cited report, Jason Furman of
better off by the equivalent of 25 percent of annual food spending.”
Imagine
that, because I always shop at Wal-Mart I probably saved my family 25 percent on annual
food spending or in my case I was able to provide that much more food for my family.
That means I can splurge and buy Junior “Cheerios” instead of “Krusty
O’s”.
This seems
to be something that the left and the democrats in this country would be heralding
as a good thing. But because the left and the democrats are so tied to unions, special
interest groups and their own desire to keep their voting base (the poor, minorities,
and seniors) dependent on government and them, they criticize and try to destroy Wal-Mart.
This is wrong.
So I say
to the folks at Wal-Mart, do not cave to unions, do not give into harassment by local
city councils, do not surrender to your competition and keep up the good fight. For
every one critic you have, there are 100 more cheerleaders and you can certainly include
me as one of your biggest cheerleaders. A diehard capitalist to the very end and I
will continue to sing your praises as long as I have breath to do so.