I agree with Pippy, to an extent. The problem is that things aren't so cut and dry. Shopping at Wal-mart is bad for local economies and good for... a few people in Texas?
The problem isn't as simple as people making a choice to shop at Walmart. It's a downward spiral that creates people with less money, and empowers corps like Walmart to offer increasingly low prices that local business have no way of competing with. It's a back-and-forth effect that drains a local economy and drives small businesses into ruin.
This wouldn't be a problem if Walmart used that money to help those communities, but beyond offering low price goods, it doesn't. Walmart sends that money straight out of those places and into the pockets of a handful of already wealthy people, the only people who are truly profitting off this shameful racket.
Supermassive global corporations like Walmart can, on paper, operate fine and enrich communities, but they don't. With the amount of money they make at the top of the pyramid, they could afford to pay a lot of people very decent wages and improve a lot of lives. With the incredible advantage they have via supply and distribution, the Gordon Gecko of the Walmart world could still make a tidy profit and fund plenty of yachts and mansions while letting the Greeter Joes buy a fishing boat and a bungalow every now and then.
But that's not good enough. They have to push that profit margin to the redline. They need to squeeze every drop out of the world to please the shareholders.
Fuck, I just got myself all pissed off typing that rant. Summary: The world is a shitty place and people don't care about each other.
The problem isn't as simple as people making a choice to shop at Walmart. It's a downward spiral that creates people with less money, and empowers corps like Walmart to offer increasingly low prices that local business have no way of competing with. It's a back-and-forth effect that drains a local economy and drives small businesses into ruin.
This wouldn't be a problem if Walmart used that money to help those communities, but beyond offering low price goods, it doesn't. Walmart sends that money straight out of those places and into the pockets of a handful of already wealthy people, the only people who are truly profitting off this shameful racket.
Supermassive global corporations like Walmart can, on paper, operate fine and enrich communities, but they don't. With the amount of money they make at the top of the pyramid, they could afford to pay a lot of people very decent wages and improve a lot of lives. With the incredible advantage they have via supply and distribution, the Gordon Gecko of the Walmart world could still make a tidy profit and fund plenty of yachts and mansions while letting the Greeter Joes buy a fishing boat and a bungalow every now and then.
But that's not good enough. They have to push that profit margin to the redline. They need to squeeze every drop out of the world to please the shareholders.
Fuck, I just got myself all pissed off typing that rant. Summary: The world is a shitty place and people don't care about each other.
- Meatball
