Wal-Mart...The New Mafia

Watching the video on Wal-Mart was very eye opening. My emotions fluctuate between boycotting Wal-Mart and not boycotting it. The question is, “Is Wal-Mart good for America?” I’d say the bottom line answer is, No!

I can appreciate that Wal-Mart give the consumer rock bottom prices so that they can have more money in their pockets, and that Wal-Mart gives jobs to many people in various town throughout America, but I think the price is way to high.

Wal-Mart greatly contributes to the very materialistic society we have become. We want more and more, and even the recession has not taught us to stop spending all our money on junk. The jobs that Wal-Mart provides are minimum wage, and often replace jobs in towns where industry paid them two or three times more. Now, they are struggling paycheck to paycheck, because Wal-Mart sent their jobs to China, and they are left with minimum wage jobs at the local Wal-Mart.

Clinton signed a free trade agreement, and it appears the American people thought that agreement was to benefit China, and America. It clearly benefits China much more. If we are sending China 3 billion in raw materials, and they are sending us 36 billion in goods, there is a great imbalance.

I had to laugh at the Wal-Mart chanting going on during morning store meetings, and conferences. It’s obvious they are using these chants as motivational tools to get the workers pumped up to continue thinking Wal-Mart is the greatest thing ever. It’s almost cult like.

While they are smart with their bar code encyclopedia, and getting products at rock bottom prices, they are very much a mafia in the world of commerce. They clearly bully the little guy, trying to make him give in to their demands or be put out of business. Do they not think about the hundreds of people, and their families, that they are affecting when they put a company out of business? It seems that Wal-Mart is building up China, and tearing down America. Do they not stop to think what this will do to America in the long run? Look what they did to Rubbermaid? If I were Rubbermaid, who had built a good product line with a durable product, I would take it to other stores, and let the consumer get mad at Wal-Mart that they don’t care the product anymore.

Now that I know the “Opening Price Item” trick, I will make sure to look elsewhere before thinking they automatically have the lowest price. Is anyone concerned that the lowest price most likely brings the lowest quality?

If any of the other factors did not matter, what about supporting a company that gets their products from companies in China, who pay their workers 25 to 50 cents an hour? That is ridiculous, and seems cruel. I wonder what they would do if they knew that the item they were building was being sold for several times their hourly or monthly salary.

Looking at China in the video I could see the skyline was polluted from all the industry there. That is very sad for the health of the people living there.

It was very interesting that the CEO of Wal-Mart wouldn’t answer any questions. He would either say it was before his time, or he couldn’t comment. Why are we letting them get away with this? I want to say I will boycott Wal-Mart, but then I think about the ease of one stop shopping, and how I can get so many things there. I think what I am going to try, is getting the items I want at other places, and really seeing if that price at Wal-Mart is the cheapest.

I’m only one person, but at least I will feel better if I am doing less to help Wal-Mart take away the job of the hard working American, paying a Chinese worker so little, and filling our world with more crap.