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Originally posted by Spanky
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After reading the following article, it occured to me that one area where one can see the basic philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats is with Walmart. Republicans see Walmart as an American success story that brings thousands of Jobs to people, lowers prices improving the standard of living in this country and that it has an overall positive influence.
Democrats see wall Mart as a company that kills small businesses, pushes out high paying jobs and replaces them with low paying jobs, exploits its workers by giving them cheap wages and no health insurance, and is evil because it won't tolerate Unions.
Democrats don't want Walmart to come to their town, and if it does want to limit its size, Republicans welcome Walmart to their town and will put no restrictions on Walmart.
And Ty please note I was disappointed in George Will for using a dubious "Median" stat. I bet you the "average" household income for Walmart employee is below $35,000 and that is why he used the Median stat.
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I note that George focussed on the consumer side of the equation in supporting Wal-Mart. It's instructive that he didn't address the liberals' problems with Wal-Mart head-on.
Over half of Wal-Mart's workforce is part-time. Supervisors who make the unpardonable mistake of allowing any employee to get over 35 hours a week are fired. Wal-Mart introduced their fisdt universal employee health plan last year. Yes, last year. The premium for coverage that matches a typical health program exceeds the average semi-monthly gross earnings of most Wal-Mart employees.
Wal-Mart's buyers frequently force their vendors to source from a single overseas supplier, generally in China. Their only option is to lose the Wal-Mart contract and go out of business.
I'm not denying that Wal-Mart has done wonders for some communities and for some peoples' lives. They have brought products and jobs to rural areas where there was no employment before, and there is a certain virtue in putting food on the tables of people who had gone hungry before.
But before you go lionizing Wal-Mart's achievements and size, consider that the price of that success has been paid mostly by the same people that Will claims Wal-Mart is doing so much good for. And consider that the corners Wal-Mart cuts are imposing greater public costs than its supporters tend to count into the Wal-Mart equation.
Like evryting else, Spanky, there are two sides to this story and neither of them are completely right or completely wrong.
