“I have never quite encountered an intrinsically less fair institution than the university, at least in liberal terms of egalitarianism and respect for the underclass. A full professor may damn Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart would never get away with the two-tier system that the university in built upon: the PhD part-timer has no job security, sometimes […]
Archive for the 'Wal-Mart' Category
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Academia, Economics, Education, General, University and Wal-Mart. 1 CommentJobs:
They came in droves — high school students, retirees, young moms, the unemployed — all for a shot at a job at a new Wal-Mart on Memorial Drive in central DeKalb County.
In just two days, and with virtually no advertising or even any signs, a staggering 7,500 people filled out applications for one of the […]
“Ever since Starbucks blanketed every functioning community in America with its cafes, the one effect of its expansion that has steamed people the most has been the widely assumed dying-off of mom and pop coffeehouses. Our cities once overflowed with charming independent coffee shops, the popular thinking goes, until the corporate steamroller known as Starbucks […]
Wal-Mart Is The Poor And Minorities Friend
Published by in Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Wal-Mart. 12 CommentsLatino Politics Blog reports that, Wal-Mart Named One Of The Best Companies For Latinas…yet decided to continue its boycott of the company anyways.
You can read the blog and fellow commenter’s reason for taking that stance but I post here the other side of the argument. I left this comment on the blog (a comment that […]
The Politics Of Unions
Published by in Economics, General, Minimum Wage, Unions and Wal-Mart. 1 CommentGary Becker, Nobel Laureate in economics, writes:
Unions always favor increases in minimum wages, even when as in this case the minimum only apply to some employers. Any increase in the minimum wage would raise the demand for unionized skilled workers who would substitute for the less skilled employees displaced by the minimum. Unions have […]
One Of The Many Reasons Why I Like Wal-Mart
Published by in Economics, General and Wal-Mart. 3 CommentsWal-Mart is doing what it does best - bringing employment to areas that are in desperate need of it:
Bringing Wal-Mart to Chicago was a four-year journey that pitted unions and small business owners against politicians and activists eager to bring jobs to the city’s economically depressed West Side.
More than 15,000 people […]
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Economics, General, Minimum Wage and Wal-Mart. 17 Comments“The nonsense we hear from liberals about “living wages” at Walmart is just another example of liberals trying to babysit everybody with their dumb economic ideas. Ideas which can be tested very easily, by the way. If Walmart isn’t paying enough, they should have a hard time filling openings, but if people are willing to […]
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Economics, General, ModernPolitics and Wal-Mart. 0 Comments“Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America’s political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans […]
George F. Will, writing in the Washington Post, gives the difference Wal-Mart makes:
The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study […]
Reactionary Democrats Attack Wal-Mart
Published by in Economics, General, ModernPolitics and Wal-Mart. 2 CommentsPankaj Ghemawat of Harvard Business School writes that the attack on Wal-Mart is nothing new:
History also provides perspective on the current clamor around Wal-Mart. When catalog pioneers Sears and Montgomery Ward seemingly threatened small-town retailers with extinction in the nineteenth century, those retailers mounted an energetic counterattack. The rise of chain stores in the 1920s […]
“Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month. With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports), Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each […]
Democrats’ Shameful Wal-Mart Demonization
Published by in Economics, General, ModernPolitics, Unions and Wal-Mart. 2 CommentsThat’s the title of a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times. Here is the article in full:
Democrats’ Shameful Wal-Mart Demonization
Presidential hopefuls only hurt themselves when pandering to unions by bashing the country’s largest employer.
WITH ONE EYE ON 2008 and one on their labor union base, Democratic luminaries are canvassing Iowa and other states this […]
Defending a Vilified Wal-Mart
Published by in Economics, General, ModernPolitics, Unions and Wal-Mart. 2 CommentsThe New York Sun has a great article on Wal-Mart and the Democrats campaign against it:
What Democrats Attack On Wal-Mart Says About Democrats
Published by in Economics, General, ModernPolitics, Unions and Wal-Mart. 10 CommentsDaniel Griswold writes:
Wal-Mart and other price-conscious discount retailers are really a working family’s best friend. They operate in the marketplace as representatives for millions of consumers, ensuring that they get the best and lowest prices possible from wholesalers and producers. Tens of millions of American shoppers vote with their feet every week by visiting their […]
“A range of studies has found that Wal-Mart’s prices are 8 percent to 39 percent below the prices of its competitors. The single most careful economic study, co-authored by the well-respected MIT economist Jerry Hausman, found that grocery sales by Wal-Mart and other big-box stores made consumers better off to the tune of 25 percent […]
Karl Zinsmeister, writing in the American Enterprise answers why Wal-Mart is so successful:
Mind you, Wal-Mart’s economic accomplishments add up to a whole lot more than just nickels and dimes. As the company gained strength in the national retailing scene over the last 20 years, productivity on the part of the trade in which it […]