Thank You, Wal-Mart, For A Cheap Christmas

"Operation Main Street" Just Another PR Hoax

By Al Norman

The headline on Wal-Mart's press release this week simply makes no sense: "Wal-Mart Backs Main Street."

After having ravaged Main Street merchants for the past 46 years, how could Wal-Mart "back" Main Street by any stretch of the imagination?

It turns out that Wal-Mart's promise is not to Main Street---but to "thousands of rollbacks...targeting the needs of American families and communities." Wal-Mart has vowed "to lead on delivering a Christmas that costs less."

Wal-Mart's PR team thought that helping "Main Street" sounded good--even though businesses on Main Street will tell you that Wal-Mart is the Grinch who stole their Christmas. This October alone, 38,000 jobs were lost in the retail sector. Those bells you hear ringing are definitely not coming from Main Street cash registers.

As part of Operation Main Street, Wal-Mart is cutting prices for the next seven weeks, with a particular focus "on the prices of items families want and need most." Wal-Mart says that shoppers will be "amazed" at the depth of their price cuts on such essential items as: Betty Crocker potatoes; a General Electric 14 speed blender; and the board game Battleship. Most American families need Battleship, and it's hard to imagine what life on Main Street is like without the Littlest Pet Shop Play Pack.

A cheap Christmas is perfectly timed for those "Wal-Mart Moms," many of whom must have voted last week for Obama. The New York Times magazine described these white woman as "slightly older and more downscale...more culturally conservative and more attuned to economics--who look most like the pivotal swing-voting bloc in 2008." If Wal-Mart Moms were supposed to pivot the election to McCain---they blew it! What has been pivotal for many of these Wal-Mart Moms is that their husbands have lost work, and the Moms themselves have had their hours cut back. Wal-Mart cannot help these families with their mortgage costs, or with their hospital and doctor bills---but the retailer is bringing down the cost of Betty Crocker potatoes.

Many Wal-Mart shoppers are working less, thanks, in part, to Wal-Mart's lack of appetite for American products, and a relentless pursuit of cheap labor in Third World sweatshops. We'll celebrate a cheap Christmas by default this year, as the American economy sours, and families cut back on their presents. If Wal-Mart were willing to be brutally honest, their Main Street press release would proclaim: "Our price rollbacks have led to American job rollbacks."

Wal-Mart's aim is to cut the cost of Christmas with "deeper values" for customers. But what Americans deeply value is a steady job at a decent wage--and those are hard to find at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer. GM may be laying off hundreds of workers and running out of cash, but Wal-Mart is doing its part for transportation by taking $10 off the Power Wheels Barbie Princess Lil Quad Ride-On.

So thank you, Wal-Mart, for bringing us a cheap Christmas. As America's manufacturing base hemorrhages to China, Thailand, and Vietnam, and Wall Street implodes, it's comforting to know that we can still get an 8" Home Decor Digital Picture Frame with iPod-Ready Input for only $99.

Wal-Mart, we thank you from the bottom of our Main Streets.

Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters, and the author of The Case Against Wal-Mart. His website site is http://www.sprawl-busters.com

Comments

[jerrypl]

Wal-Mart's minimum and below minimum prices comes at a price. The price is that the manufacturer must lower their price to Wal-Mart, since they are being forced to do so, and then, wages get dropped at the manufacturer because they have to take a financial hit for the world's biggest retailer.

Wal-Mart is a retail predator. It will do whatever it takes to sell their stuff at a cheaper price than the smaller retailers that surround them. They are not there for YOU or ME but for THEMSELVES. Their goal is to kill the retailer so they are the only ones left standing. Their motto is "Kill The Infidel Retailer".

Wal-Mart has destroyed most of the American Made labels and have slipped into the cozy bed with China and other off-shore, cheap labor manufacturers, destroying jobs in America so they can feed the frenzied shopping habits of the socially lawless Wal-Mart slobs.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

[InofTouch]

Note that your Ipod is made in china so ...Wal-Mart shouldn't get the whole blame but hey when your number one, people focus on you the most...kinda like Calfornia

[Checquoline]

I live within walking distance of a Walmart and have not been in one for over a year and will no. I can live without Wal Mart and so can everyone else.

[LBA7895]

Anybody who patronizes Wal Mart ought to be ashamed of themselves. They screw their employees, don't give them health insurance, fire them before they go perm, force nearby small businesses to close, cut supplier profit margins so thin they can't make any money doing business with Wal Mart, get their crap from China, not American companies. I could go on and on. There's NOTHING good about the way Wal Mart does business. My wife's and my credo is "There's nothing at Wal Mart we can't do without...." We wouldn't set foot in there and urge our fellow Americans to think twice before THEY DO this holiday season. Shop somewhere else, PLEASE.

[DuganS1]

You could say pretty the same thing about Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, JC Penney, TJ Max, Kohl's, Lord and Taylors, Macy's, or anybody. For selling foreign made merchandise why not include Polo, American Eagle Outfitters, Limited Brands (Victoria Secret), Gap, J Crew, Ann Taylor, Abercrombie, Children's Place, Guess, Dicks Sporting Goods, Sports Authority, Urban Outfitters, or pretty much ever single retail store that exists. Don't you think all retail companies try to get the best deal from their suppliers? Do you think all these companies give their employees health insurance? Do you think these companies try to reign in business so they don't put some ma and shop store down the street out of business?

[nomoredead]

I normally will not shop at China-Mart but was in a small mid-west town two weeks ago and went to the local one. It is pitiful to see the 'friday night wealthy' loading up their sopping carts with crap that they really shouldn't be buying. For every dollar that some bloggers claim these families save there I'm sure they blow $20 on impulse junk. They would save shopping at the Mom n Pop stores. It is the 'Costco Syndrome'.....buying a 5 lb bag of pretzels that get thrown away when they get stale. I'm sure if a study was done on the money families waste shopping there it would show the store in the long run does not save families money.

[DuganS1]

Mom and Pop stores are usually more expensive, have fewer products, have shady return policies and often little to no customer service, have worse looking stores, and usually pay their employees less. Goods at Walmart are usually so cheap that it doesn't matter if you buy more than you need. You walk out of the store with all kinds of stuff and have spent less than $100.

[JBS]

"items families want and need most."

The "item" my family needs most is decent pay. Is wallmart finally unionizing?

[Donkslayer]

Goodbye low prices and jobs, then.

[nomoredead]

Hello happy workers..

[Semaj51]

Wow, lets bash someone because they want to reduce prices... The main question should be, do I pay $10 for a Battleship game at Walmart or $20 at a small toy store?

Now where can I spend that $10 I just saved?

[spinns17]

http://walmartwatch.com/

[DuganS1]

The great expansion of Walmart over the past decades has resulted in a massive increase of goods and services available to American families, particularly low income families. Some factory workers have lost jobs, but the money saved by families has been spent elsewhere, resulting in job gains in other sectors. The factory jobs losses are small relative to the massive increase in goods and services available and the massive general expansion in the economy over the past two decades. The number of folks that have lost jobs simply does not compare to the increase in standard of living that has benefited every American. Last, I don't know how anyone could feel sorry for the old ma and pop shops that have gone out of business because of Walmart. The vast majority of them were very inefficient, offered few goods and services, and hired few employees. The increase in productivity by the conversion of numerous inefficient enterprises into very efficient larger ones has been substantial and has benefited everyone that consumes.

[weaselbasher]

Standard of living has increased? Now so many business try to copy the Walmart business model of low wages, reduced hours, minimal benefits, imported cheap slavewage produced crap while food and energy prices, education and housing costs and health care premiums increase. Yes I can buy slightly cheaper pet food but it killed my dog. The extra jar of chinese baby food i was able to buy made my baby sick so i had to spend more money at the doctors office. Your whole post is laughable. Do you own stock in these types of companies? That would explain a lot of your posts. Soon everyone will have a walmart job (hence the term 'working poor')and no one will be able to even afford the necessities of life. Hasn't even Walmart seen their sales decline? Walmart, low wages....always.

[DuganS1]

Keeping inefficient and poorly run mom and pop shops alive is unproductive for the economy and reduces value and choice for consumers. Most Walmart employees make more than what employees for mom and pop shops ever made. Mom and pop shop employees rarely ever had benefits either.

[SisterAnn]

Toys R Us buys their toys overseas from China. When Thomas the Trains were found to have lead in them, Wal Mart and Toys R Us both had purchased them from China.

The difference is how much the head haunchos take out for their pay, bonuses, and other perks. Some don't know how to manage, but they manage to get their pockets full.

[spinns17]

wake up man.walmart is one of the reasons our companies are closing ,and moving overseas.its time we start telling these companies, to look out for america .or take your but ,and company off shore.they should lose all there rights to be american.thank you bill and hillary for this beast you created.

[gfcloud]

You have bought into the Walmart mythos, and the logic is great. I can tell you from first hand knowlege of their preditory practices and merciless offshoring of manufacturing that the net benefits from their low prices are more plastic potatoes on the table and thousands of great business and professionals twisting in the wind., lowering the living standards of millions and the eliminating the manufacturing base that is the real sustainable basis of wealth in this country.

[DuganS1]

Walmart often buys goods from vendors abroad rather than in the US because it's a better value. It's not like Walmart is closing factories and starting their own abroad. By the way, Target, Home Depot, and Lowes get most their good abroad as well. Goods from lower labor cost producing countries are also propping up frequently at companies like Nordstrom and even Nieman Marcus. I'm not aware of any athletic shoes or outwear made in the US anymore, but that's not the fault of Dicks Sporting Goods of FootLocker, it's the fact that producing those goods in the US is not profitable, thus no one invests in it in the United States. You can bash China and foreign producers all day long, but that doesn't solve the problem that American investors don't want to invest in the production of those things here. It simply doesn't make any money.