re: Wal-Mart update thread.

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Wal-Mart is hardly for "common rabble" only, but their wide array of goods at low prices have doubtlessly helped people improve their lifestyles. If towns don't want Wal-Mart, they can keep such businesses out, but it will be at the cost of their own townspeople and such an attitude will drastically inflate prices on homes and goods, widening the gap between rich and poor and causing migration out of the city (see Boulder, CO). If that's a cost people are willing to bear, then that's their business, but there are consequences, and most often the people most directly affected are the lower-income individuals these anti-Wal-Mart types seem to care so much about.

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Kind of a double edged sword isn't it? Your assessment doesn't take into account the peoples whose jobs were lost due to price pressures resulting in the vast majority of Walmarts goods being imported from outside the US when those things used to be made IN the US. Perhaps those "low-income" types being forced to move because there's no Walmart might not have been "low-income" types to begin with. I could also argue that cheap disposable goods has only improved quality of life if you view sitting on your fat arse watching Oprah on your $150 36" TV is an improvement on quality of life. Or disposable consumerism has harmed quality of life in a lot of ways...........but in general I do agree with this notion.

Anyway, I don't hate Walmart for the standard "they're killing small business" reasons, but your portrayal doesn't really show the whole picture. I dont really view Walmart as bad or good, it just is. Consumers are going to go where their pocketbooks lead them for the most part. The question to me is really did they have to commit any questionable practices to get prices down so low.