No? Good. Because I am going to keep doing it and keep doing it until the morons of this country get it through their heads that Wal-Mart is detrimental to our pocketbooks, despite its appearance of being a cheap place to shop. And, yes, I did just call people who shop at Wal-Mart "morons."
The other day, I posted that Wal-Mart supports NPR (probably much to the chagrin of NPR listeners -- I should pledge and tell them to ditch Wal-Mart). This slightly warmed (about, oh, a nanodegree) my icy feelings for Wal-Mart. Another nanodegree was awarded for the Wal-Mart "bio friendly" stores I read about on Treehugger (but see the comments too).
Now, however, all those degrees and more have been lost. Here's an excerpt of an article Jimmy linked to regarding Walmart and the state of Georgia:
"I like Wal-Mart prices the same as the next shopper, but there's a downside, too. Many Wal-Mart employees lack the fringe benefits and insurance that makes the difference between existence and a good quality of life. Yet, we customers pay a surcharge from a different pocket — subsidizing health care for Wal-Mart employees who can't afford it."Mark then described how Friedman's book pointed out that more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees are in a Georgia health-care program, which costs the state's taxpayers nearly $10 million a year. Mark also pointed out that a New York Times report found that 31 percent of the patients at a North Carolina hospital were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid.
Mark's column really wasn't about Mr. Walton's store, but about Pensacola and how we're becoming a Wal-Mart kind of town, "cheap and comfy on the surface, lots of unhappiness and hidden costs underneath."
This columnist (who is being quoted in an article regarding why Walmart has stopped carrying the Pensacola News Journal) is pulling his information from a book by Thomas Friedman called "The World is Flat."
Mostly, this just underscores what I've heard before, including coverage on NPR about the problems caused by Walmart (conspiracy theory time: why do we really think Walmart supports NPR? Is it to get NPR off it's back?). Walmart lowers the average wage in a town and also reduces the number of people on private benefits. Even if you save money by shopping at Walmart, you probably pay all of it back in (1) taxes, (2) increased social problems (because poverty causes lots of people to do things they otherwise wouldn't), and (3) lack of diversity within your town.
I'm proud to say I've never been a Walmart shipper, and I try to encourage other people not to shop at Walmart. There are alternatives, and not all of them include things like REI and Whole Foods (altho I do shop at both of those places). I'll keep sharing data as I come across it, but I'm sure a few google searches could find more than enough data regarding the problems of Walmart, from the economic issues to the now apparent attempted bullying of public news outlets. (I really think newspapers would be much more impartial if they didn't have ads, but then they'd initially cost more too.) Overall, from all the evidence I've seen, it's just not worth it to vote with our dollars at Walmart. Even if we can't change the government on a daily basis, we can change our country by being responsible with our dollars.