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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (4963)	11/7/2005 12:29:02 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541412

If it's clips you want, you should rent the DVD "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" The real problem with WallMart is the same as any company with close to Monopoly power. A good illustration is a Walmart commercial that runs here. It shows a pumpkin grower discussing how well Walmart has been for their business and how they in turn expanded their pumpkin growing activity and hired more workers. Prior to Walmart there were lots of pumpkin growers. It's the kind of crop a small farmer can manage. Walmart won't buy from a lot of small farmers though, they only buy from the one they picked because it offered the lowest price. That grower in turn buys pumpkins to resell to Walmart, but at a much lower price than pumkins used to sell for wholesale. The net result is a whole lot of farmers get poorer while one gets much more profitable. The examples for manufactured goods are even more startling, with most production being forced to leave the U.S. Besides the effect on wages, the consumer gets far less choice. As the competitors go out of business the consumer can buy the brand and size offered by Walmart or none at all.