Why I hate Wal-Mart

Posted by Evan in Random Thoughts

I was doing my daily news browsing online today and I saw a story on the Palladium Item website that really made me mad. It’s the story of a small, privately owned grocery store in a small town in Indiana that’s closing down partly because Wal-Mart is moving in 4 miles down the road.

At one time I liked Wal-Mart. Not because I thought they were a good store or anything, but because I liked that they had lower prices than most other places. Then I started hearing about how badly they treat their employess and I wasn’t quite as thrilled with them anymore. Now, I see a trend developing that’s very scary.

A friend of mine told me about a Wal-Mart that moved into a relatively small town. With their relatively low prices they gradually ran all of the locally-owned and operated stores out of business. Then, once their competition was gone and they had the market all to themseleves, they gradually raised their prices. That doesn’t seem like a friendly organization interested in helping people does it?

If you take a look at this section of Wal-Mart’s website, you’ll see that there’s a lot of talk about serving the customer and helping the communities they’re located in. Am I alone in thinking that Wal-Mart is one of the worst things to happen to this country? The small, privately owned
businesses are what gives this country its character. Why don’t people
fight against large corporations that threaten to take over such
establishments? We have a similar situation here in Richmond with the struggle to keep Hayes Arboretum intact and unadulterated. If you’re from this area, you need to show your support and keep big businesses out.

Here are a few books/videos that talk about how Wal-Mart has done a real diservice to this country:

• The Case Against Wal-Mart by Al Norman
• How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It by Bill Quinn
• Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town