way to go! progressallugha!

Sorry to say, things are not so black and white. Big Box stores can be pretty great for poor and especially rural communities: big box=lower prices=more money in their pockets. In fact you could argue that Walmart etc are among the poor’s biggest advocates. They hammer companies like P&G on price and pass the savings along. Big Box stores also create jobs. The idea of supporting mom and pop stores is romantic and laudable in terms of making the shopping experience more personal, but it ends up being more expensive for the majority of people.

Yeah, because the prices and service in bodegas and local supermarkets are so great.

Because nothing says “local community” like Federal government coercion…

i have to say that i don’t think these so-called “big box” stores are necessarily a bad thing for these lower income communities. i do wonder though, why can they not be franchised such as mcdonalds, sonic, and other such things?

if ownership of a wal-mart was local, yet prices still regulated by their corporate offices, wouldn’t that allow them to keep stores in the area, at the same time keeping the money local as well?

these stores DO create jobs, albeit low-paying uninsured jobs. perhaps the answer IS regulated franchising to local owners.

Hey guys, great job with the spoof paper!
I wish this would happen to Wal-Mart but Costco is an awesome company. Jim Sinegal, the CEO, makes a modest salary (last I heard it was $350,000 a year), and pays his employees 40% more on average than other retail jobs.
I wish more businesses were run like Costco.
I do like the idea of franchising big-box stores, keeping revenues local.

THANK you for this great article!

And yes, big-box retail stores are absolutely horrible for economically faltering areas. In fact, they’re bad for economically strong areas too, but this would definitely be a start. People who think that low prices are good for poor people, and that therefore are good for low-income communities, don’t realize the effect that these stores have on the fabric of those communities. It’s not simply that money going to local businesses helps those individuals: that money is more likely to stay in the community, and go to others in similar need. If small stores go under, it hurts the viability and property values of the entire neighborhood — who wants to open a business near a WalMart, when they know they’ll just be pushed under?

Big-box retail funnels money out of communities and keeps them poor and desperate. Costco is the best of the bunch because it pays living wages and does not compete directly with local neighborhood stores, but overall it takes an extremely robust area to absorb even a Costco without losing local economic vitality.

amazing. you guys rule. do more do more!

The people who defend big box stores as a great boon to the poor forget one side of the equation. Not only are poor consumers, they are also potential entrepreneurs. Big box stores may or may not have cheaper prices, but they generally get government subsidies, unlike business owners from poor neighborhoods.

The greatest creators of wealth are small businesses. It would be nice if Bloomberg and his ilk were real capitalists, instead of rich people who rely on government handouts.

I used to live a mile away from both a Target and a WalMart. Life was good. Now I live in Santa Cruz, CA, where they resist Big Box stores tooth and nail. Sure, we have our hippie surfer beach town image to uphold, and I get that, but for the most part the local mom and pop stores suck. They are expensive and have very limited choices. I find myself driving 40 miles to go to a Target rather than suffer with the shitty local choices. And nothing is better here because of the absence of Big Box stores. These stores aren’t pulling people out of poverty. Turns out mom and pop don’t pay worth shit either. It’s just a stupid fantasy that somehow things are better without the Big Box stores. This whole idea that we need to protect the poor from the very existence of WalMart is really insulting to the poor, too, I think, since the implication is that they are too dumb to realize that shopping at WalMart, which they do in masse, is bad for them. They only *think* they want to shop at WalMart, but fortunately there are do-gooders out there like these guys who really know what’s best for them. Give me a break.

Rene Oswin got a job with the Obama team? Wow, what a sell out!

Doug

Why must it always begin with a ban? An addional tax for big retail markets will keep the smaller one’s competitive. But a ban on those is killing all unwanted competition, therefore not creating any incentive for the coming smaller shops to be competitive or affordable or nice. America’s innovation has been driven by competition, and it should remain like this. If you like smaller shops more (I do), give them some counter-advantage against the economics of scale, but dont just ban all big markets.

What the underlying idea behind getting rid of bigbox stores should be is creating more manufacturing jobs in America. Remember when Walmart was all about “made in the USA” which was misleading at best. Big box stores only beat local businesses because everything they offer is made overseas or in Mexico, therefore they can outsell any one. The US imports far more than it exports. fix that!!

Yeah…because that makes a lot of sense. Let’s ban “big box” stores, obviously hurting their sales, which in turn hurts the economy. Yes, let’s make them shut down in poor neighborhoods, where they are giving back to the community, because that will solve all of our problems (note the sarcasm). Let’s remove the buying power of these companies from poor neighborhoods, because the low prices they offer is hurting poor people’s pocketbooks (again, sarcasm). Give me a break! There’s a reason people go to places like this, low prices = more stuff = more value = $$$ more money back in the pockets of those who need it.

This spoof site is wankery of epic proportions. What a waste of effort and time by a pack of fools.

It’s cool to hate walmart! Also, that band you like sucks! I used to like them before they sold out. Once something becomes popular we hippies start to hate it. Like walmart… It’s just too popular to be cool.

Great Job!!!
Congrats from Germany (”old Europe”, as George W. and friends used to say) !!!!!

Exactly! Because what poor people need is to be forced to pay more for stuff, and to do it in a less convenient fashion! Screw them!

The thing we really MUST remember in debating this issue is who is really paying for those extremely cheap items. What could be cost of the near slave labor to make them? The environmental rape of the countries providing the raw materials and the manufacturing? The environmental cost to all of us of petro-fueled tankers and airplanes shipping around the world what could be sold locally?

Yes, what they sell in big-box stores are cheaper, and most of us can’t resist them all of the time, but remember the TRUE cost in the lives of others around the globe in what you are buying.

I sympathize with those that say the poor need these stores, but instead of buying more crap cheaper, let’s raise the minimum wage (see article on the economy) so that more can afford quality local products! It also supports local economies, which studies show has more local bang for the buck that chain stores.

go nytimes-se!

yesss….. big box stores do NOT include the cost of environmental destruction and sub-poverty labor in their costs; so locally based business cannot compete in this false so-called free market! it’s time we all learned this before our runaway economic system implodes on it self. oh, wait…

True-cost pricing is a great idea…in theory.

Like it or not, the hiddenness of these costs is the only thing making it possible for the poor to have anything resembling a normal human life. Democrats claim to favor the poor, but the real effects of “progressive” ideas like this would be a massive devaluation of wages, resulting in outright starvation and an economic collapse that would make the Great Depression look like a pothole.

Short-to-medium term human welfare and the long-term welfare of the environment are intrinsically opposed. We can live well now and die later–or we can live like medieval peasants for as long as we like.

Wal-Mart sucks; I should know, I work there. But cheap goods are an economic necessity for the poor, and that’s all there is to it.

Wal-Mart is great, for the person working odd/long hours trying to find an open grocery store to do their shopping a 24/7 Super Wal-Mart saves time and money. I can go in there on a weekend and get my eyes checked, buy groceries and get new tires on my car at the same time, I get on with my busy life faster.

Oh Wait, I live in the SF Bay Area now and I pay two to three times the food cost I would in an area that didn’t force out the competition by using you libtards as tools.

I wanna see what DC or Marvel makes of this phoney NY times in an attempt to pass their own criticism of this position… So people… You know, next time you get into politics yell: Yes! Oh yes! Oh my god this is a friggining multiorgasm! Oh YES!

There is a place for inexpensive goods, but it isn’t in the realm of shoddy merchandise. Cheap is exactly what it looks like. We need to have products that are quality and wages higher. WalMart does neither. I’m sure there is a direct correlation between filling our landfills and buying crap that only lasts one or two usages. At some point we do need to exit the throwaway society we have become so accustomed to.

“In the first two-year phase, the stores will become wholesalers, able to sell only to smaller local businesses at heavily discounted prices.”

So the response to big-box stores undercutting local retailers is…ordering them to undercut local wholesalers?

@ Sid V
HOORAY FOR WANKERY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!!! Seriously, you should try it sometime - it totally loosens you up.

So here’s the thing — I like your spoof and generally agree with you, but on this issue I think you’re off the mark. The reality is that poor inner city communities fight tooth and nail to convince large grocers and retailers that it’s worth setting up shop in their neighborhoods, so the residents can stop paying double what middle class suburbanites do for everyday items. The idea that there are masses of Wal-Marts, Costcos, Sam’s Clubs, and Targets in inner city neighborhoods just isn’t born out by observation. (There are K-Marts; it’s a slightly different business model than the others.)

Great idea. It’s way to hard to fix a the problem. Let’s just unish those who profit from it. That’s sure to work.

Great idea. It’s way to hard to fix the problem. Let’s just punish those who profit from it. That’s sure to work.

Now there’s a great idea. Let’s keep the large, discount stores out of the areas where they would be a benefit to people on a low income. You really have to love Liberal logic.

You should really do some research first before writing this kind of dreck. Costco is used by people with pretty much every income level. They sell things cheaper. They pay their employees well. They buy local produce. They are not the same corporation as Walmart/Sam’s Club, which is getting better.

Why is it better to have the monetarily strapped pay more for things just because it’s at a “local” business? They are really going to go for paying 50% more on principle? Are you kidding?

Also, small businesses depend on those horrible wholesale big box stores. Do your homework and talk to actual people who are struggling or small business owners.

Thank you #19 mmp! I was getting very concerned that no one was making this vital connection. Big Box cheap prices do not include their total social cost. What we don’t pay at the register is instead spent in manufacturing job opportunities lost in the U.S. and labor abuses abroad.

The “poor people” constantly referred to in this chain of comments are NOT doing any better now than they were 30 years ago, before the big box stores. Prices may be lower, but so are wages and opportunities. The economy at large has grown immensely, but the actual wage of the working class majority (80% of Americans)has remained stagnant. Guess who has been pocketing all the added wealth? Certainly not the enslaved children who manufacture Wal-Mart products in Asia.

Oh yeah; one other thing.

Why don’t we address the problem of low income in the first place? So called “Well Off” folks loathe Wal-Mart. I guess Free Market freedom doesn’t work so well if your income confines your options to Wal-Mart for everything…it rather becomes a bit monopolistic. Perhaps some of these local folks would rather open their own stores instead of working a minimum wage job at Wal Mart. I suppose starting a business can be a bit difficult without health insurance though… So much for capitalism, the system that proves itself to be a failure over and over again.

OK, Capitalism is a disastrous economic system and a terrible ideology. And it is now going to collapse or so we hope. But why should progressives champaign inefficiency? From the point of view of economic distribution and economies of scale these big box distributers are what we the people want and need. We want an economy that reduces waste. Centralizing distribution reduces to a tremendous degree the use of resources including energy. People PLEASE read a brilliant book called Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy. It is science fiction about a future society in which profits are no longer the goal of the economy. Instead production is for use only. Leisure time is highly valued and the work week and hours worked are greatly reduced. Wouldn’t that be a better life?

the entire model of bog-box depends on cheap fuel. we have less than 5 years of cheap fuel left with 150/bbl easily occurring by 2010. the present drop in oil price is only due to the worldwide economic collapse that is begginning to gather momentum. the whole big box concept assumes you are able to transport lettuce 3000 miles and still sell it cheaper than a local producer. This will be completely not possible in less than 5 years. but if wal mart’s close - where am I going to go to see; how people (dumb white people) whose votes for the right wing only bring them more suffering, actually live?

>The entire model of bog-box depends on cheap fuel.>

What is your evidence for this? Have you read Looking Backwards? Who says the principle of the big boxes is cheap hydrocarbon fuel? Hell when we start making our own hydrogen from sea water we will have so much fuel we won’t no how to use all of it. You Luddites have a very narrow vision of the world and really lack imagination.

So what you advocate is that little groups of people make all of the things they might want. Small little communes building their own PC’s and tractors. Really —are we going to be allowed to have tractors in your world?

Serious people should really explore multiple ideas about what would be the BEST type or types of economic system we should have. Just because something exists doesn’t mean it is the best system available. Since in the next hundred years or so we will be using up most of our hydrocarbon fuels we should take this inevitability as a opportunity to plan for the future and future generations.

People should look at Websites like Z Net, IWW, Technocracy, INC. to get good ideas, I am certain their are many websites out there with good ideas. Arguments over Wal-Mart are silly.

I really loved this futuristic NYTIMES paper. AWESOME. I feel like I now have a whole lot of specific prayers to ask for in 2009!

I think that there are several reasons why we should consider “Small Business Competition” legislative changes including one to give small retailers national purchasing discounts so they can become more competitive with large retailers like Target and Wall Mart. I also believe that even though we may see a small price increase at the big retailers if we enforce policies of paying livable employee wages, & providing adequate health care, we should expect to see economic growth and stability in each local community that the legislation is enacted because more money will stay in local neighborhoods.

I hate big box stores as much as anyone because they take away local flavor. But seriously, people, how do you think removing a big box store could help a poor community?? That’s like passing a law that promises to take away hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs from a poor community. Think, people! A bad job at Wal-Mart is better than no job at all.

Whoever thinks this is a good idea should return to school for basic economic education.

eegor, what does “this” refer too?

You’ve got to watch the movie:

The high cost of low price - lots of layers of stuff at work when a Walmart comes to town. It’s worth a watch because you see the good, the bad, the ugly and the plain reality a Walmart ‘creates’.

I just hate the fact that Walmart is one of Chinas biggest channels in the world. I’m trying not to buy ‘made in China’ and at walmart it’s almost impossible.

I love “We have nothing to lose but our chains” in reference to chain stores, you people are brilliant.

I live in a very small town in KY. While I agree that “mom & pop” shops are good for the novelty of a small town, stores like Wal Mart can really be helpful. No, the Wal Mart in our town does not pay more than minimum wage. No, they don’t offer the greatest insurance. But the people who work there are much better off working at Wal Mart and being able to support their families than being unemployed. We still have wonderful little stores we can go to when we want specialized customer service and have a few extra bucks (because they ARE more expensive), but it’s really nice for the people in our poor, small town to go to Wal Mart and be able to buy a lot more groceries for their families. It’s nice for them to be able to afford to buy more school clothes and winter coats for their kids. And our Wal Mart, like most others, supports things like our local Little Leagues, donates money to our local charities and food drives, and, perhaps most important of all, they give our unemployed JOBS! I don’t work at Wal Mart, but if something ever happened to where I found myself out of work, it would be the first place I would apply. It’s already the first place I buy from, because it’s affordable.

Poor people shouldn’t have access to cheap food and goods! Brilliant! That will teach the bastards for being poor.

> Jennifer

> You’ve got to watch the movie:

=

I have watched the movie Jennifer and it doesn’t answer your questions or implied questions —because you haven’t asked them. It doesn’t raise issues of fundamental economics. Are the big boxes more or less efficient as a distribution mechanism? Many people go shopping in our culture as an entertainment. Is that really the best way to spend our time? What is the purpose of shopping?

Brian, you are missing the point of liberal criticism. You should see The High Cost of Low Prices. The criticism is that Wal Mart pays low wages and helps other firms pay low wages resulting in the lowering of the general standard of living. The lower wages by hiring many “part time” help. Further, the argument goes that they hirer many fewer people then those who get displaced. But the cause celebre of the Liberals is that they sell a large portion of goods made in China therefore hurting American workers and exploiting Chinese workers. There are other arguments, some bordering on racism. The China argument is specious because most companies sell large quantities of goods made in China including the adorable smaller businesses.

Brian the liberal criticism is mostly correct but as I answered to Jennifer not a convincing argument. The lowering of wages effect is countered by the lowering of cost of goods effect.

The question from a rational point of view is to figure out how everyone can benefit: the general good. This means all of use whether in the role of worker or consumer, Chinese, American or anywhere else things are made. We need to raise questions about equality, fair play, solidarity and the good life including future generations. We also need to consider quality of goods made and so on.
=
What we should be considering is what would be the best! economic system.

By your definition I’m one of those low-income consumers you write about and I happen to religiously (every Sunday) patronize my local Costco. It’s about the only store I do shope at for one reason I get great quality and value for the money I spend. This article however bogus it is does a great disservice to a lot of working class lower income peeps you upper class types always claim to be fighting for.

YOU’LL YOKELS WILL HAVE TO PRY MY COSTCO EXECUTIVE MEMBERSHIP CARD FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

Being a Dutch national (Europe) living in Mexico.. for some time now we have Wallmart here too.. and thousands of people shop there every day..
Most fresh produce (and certainly most other items) is imported and thus the local farmers do not profit.. and neither do the people in the local markets, nor those taking care of local distribution and certainly not the small family stores who miss out on all their regular customers. And they profits are repatriated to the US.

Poor people here do not have cars in the first place.. so they end up at the local shop anyway….

By the way- most items are sold one by one.. this ‘ big box’ business is a farse. It is cheap because they buy in bulk, are efficient (read pressure suppliers and employees) and cut out everybody else in the chain..

How big is big?

I’ll write about what I know, places I’ve lived in …

Should the local food coops in Minneapolis and St. Paul be banned too as most of them are now larger scale as the coops have to compete with even bigger grocery chains and hypermarkets such as WalMart, SuperTarget, etc.

The food coops over time got bigger as it’s easier for them to do volume, buy in volume, sell in larger volumes, do more joint ventures in terms of competing against even the larger retailers, so they’re not the coops of my youth in the 1970s in dinky storefronts with limited selection of products and all of them just using volunteer labor.

I don’t want to go back into some pining for nostalgia as it’s not better really, small stores.

San Francisco, yeah, right, just try getting people to give up Trader Joes, Whole Foods or the Rainbow Grocery because those stores are banned in favor of some even small neighborhood vendor.

I’m not opposed to supporting smaller businesses, the local farmer’s market/s and storefront greengrocers, yet it can be sometimes hit and miss depending what’s left, what’s good quality, if it’s not local why am I paying the small stores even more than I’d pay elsewhere for something that’s also imported from far away, etc.

And how if the frigging flying duck … am I going to know if the local small shop pays a good wage, give benefits, treats their workers well, do I screen each mom and pop place as much as I would any larger chain store? Do I ask them also then their stances on issues, so I’m not shopping at my local homophobes small shop?

And I’ve worked both in very small grocery stores (in Evanston, Illinois) and worked the larger chain grocery stores in Minnesota.

I cannot say the speciality grocer in Evanston was better just because they were small in size of storefront. The big chain store actually treated me better as an employee as they were unionized, so I got way better benefits and a better wage.

Nah, I don’t like this idea of banning big box stores, let the people who want to shop at WalMart or other stores go there, though it’s true, WalMart and maybe more large big box stores are probably the most predatory in terms of killing smaller town retail in many small towns across the USA.

So … maybe this subject, banning big box stores makes sense in some locales or some situations … yet I think in most poorer areas, like East Oakland, West Oakland (when I lived near downtown Oakland), if Walmart were to build in poorer areas and the store was easier access for many people than a long bus ride to where the stores are, yeah, I think they’d take the Walmart as a nearby local option.

Reason why when I lived there, city government was trying to get just about any big box retailer downtown, so there would be more of a there, there, in terms of retail. Yet Target said No. But if Target were to do a SuperTarget in downtown Oakland, yeah, I’d say, go for it, do it.

I’d rather not have someone limit my ability to choose where I can shop. Yet I will do what I can to limit my consumption and I shop nearby to save on gas even though it’s now under 1.70 and going down, still my nearest stores are chain and other largish big box stores.

One other thing I’ll say re: my little pocket of the world, ruralish yet suburban, near St. Paul Minnesota.

I can live without it, yet I have shopped there and found some cheap well designed common household utensils but not a lot else I liked or wanted to buy … yet … just try taking IKEA away from people in Minnesota.

The big problems of big chains are: too much political influence, low wages, no benefits, harms development of local competition, profits leave community. Potentially competes with distant retailers in adjacent community.

The problem of small businesses are: low wages, no benefits, high prices, old stock, tax evasion, petty legal violations.

A lot of this hate against wal mart is a kind of dislike of the poor. It’s just aesthetics — they don’t like k-mart either. It’s got no teeth.

However, defending walmart as being helpful to the poor because they have low prices is even more stupid.

Walmart is creating poverty in the retail sector the same way that thread factories in the late 1800s were creating poverty in mill towns, and the way McDonalds innovated poverty in the restaurant business. They automate everything, and deskill the job, and make everyone replaceable. Then, as the final insult, the “managers” are paid peanuts compared to the volume of business!

Large enterprises like Walmart have the power to raise wages and reduce poverty, because of their efficiency. Instead, they have used their size and power to push wages down, and lock in poverty.

I have to add, as a followup on Paul, that the big stores can pay better wages and create good working conditions. The prices might not be so low, but, they can be okay. The unionized grocery stores around my local walmart pay a little better and pay into the union’s health fund, so they get health insurance.

The price increase doesn’t have to be huge. I shop at a few discount markets that are unionized (El Super and Food4Less) and the prices are as low as Big Saver, which I think is non-union but I may be wrong, and nearly as low Walmart. They’re half the price of the chains like Vons and Ralphs, and a bit less than Costco. (I just looked at the UFCW Don’t Patronize list http://www.ufcw770.org/dontpatronize and I see no relationship between unionization and prices.)

The thing about supermarkets is — they are big, and that size allows them to pay better wages, offer very good benefits, operate scholarship funds for their workers’ kids, etc.

Walmart stores (and to be fair, Target too) are being jerks about this. They just keep the wages for the workers low, and turnover high.

I’m all for shoppers having choices, but, if cities are scrambling to give their residents better choices, especially in the ‘hood, they could do everyone a favor by seeking out only those big businesses that pay fairly well and have health insurance. What’s the point of “creating jobs” if those jobs also create permanent clients for the local public health clinic?

@Holy Prepuce!

I think those K-Marts are in the “inner city” because they started out as Kresge stores back in the early 20th century, and then expanded to the first suburban areas in the 40’s and 50’s. Today, those first suburbs are now the “inner city”. (The old city having been razed to put up office buildings and an industrial zone.) It’s just circumstances.

Also, the lack of big boxes in the inner city (which isn’t entirely true) doesn’t mean that people are paying double for everything. I lived in Oakland and shopped at the local Asian markets for half my food. The prices were 1/3 of what they were at Safeway. I live in L.A. and shop at Mexican markets and bag-it-yourself stores for half my food - same story (and these stores are unionized). There’s an open-air wholesale area on Olympic, that’s like a Mexican street-Costco. There are swap meets all over. Downtown, until it got gentrified, was filled with immigrant stores. There are also a lot of stores attached to warehouses that sell things really cheap, like 5 tshirts for $10, or shoes and toys. There are luggage merchants in the garment district. It’s mostly the same type of cheap goods from Asia that they sell at Walmart.

@James N.

Fuel is required, but even a situation where more production is local doesn’t halt the development of big box businesses. The big box is like a continuation of what happened with drug stores becoming larger, with supermarkets, and hardware stores getting larger. (Now, if you’re under 25 years of age, you will have no idea what I’m talking about. Until around 1950, supermarkets, big drug stores, and large hardware stores did not exist. They were still mostly in downtown shops on “Main Street”. The supermarkets all developed from around 1945 to the 1970s.)

The main thing these larger stores developed was knowledge about self-serve retail. (In the distant past, many stores had counters, and you walked up to them to make your order… and they would go to the back and get your stuff. Like at the auto parts store.) With self-serve, people buy more. Also, the store owner is not only the vendor, but like a “real estate agent” for shelf space, who negotitates prices down by offering better shelf positioning. So they were all set up as this merchandising operation.

Now, these giant stores perform a gatekeeper role, by demanding that suppliers lower costs. They also limit choice, by selling only from their preferred (compiant) suppliers. They are, in some ways, taking on the role of a “government” the way a Communist totalitarian government sets production targets for its products.

If fuel prices go up for the long term, then, Walmart will simply find that it’s cheaper to source locally. Local manufacturing will boom. Unfortunately, what will not boom is unionized manufacturing jobs like the auto industry, where people get paid $20 an hour or more. These manufacturing jobs will pay minimum wage and have no health benefits, because they will be suppliers to Walmart, and Walmart, being such a powerful force in retail, will demand the lowest price. If you don’t go along with Walmarts price, they will find another supplier who will.

Also, by this time, Walmart will have purchased the Wackenhut security outfit. So, every Walmart supplier’s factory will get “free” “security” from the Walmart police forces to “protect” the business from “agitators.”

That’s about the lamest thing I heard in a while. Why would you kick Wal-Mart out of low income areas? They need cheap products.

Like most liberal fantasies, this would be disastrous for the poor. But it would make liberals feel good about themselves, regardless of the real world consequences, and that’s what is most important.

FREE TIBET!

Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya

Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
O Lord, kumbaya

Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya

Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya
O Lord, kumbaya

I shop at Wal-Mart and will continue to do so. Their low prices give me more money to spend on imported beer.

Target & Costco are okay (actually I really like Target), but Walmart & Sam’s Club are full of ghetto trash hauling around all their screaming kids, especially Walmart. I used to go there for one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else, and that was just once a year, and I hated it. They wanted to put up a dozen super centers here and I almost gagged. That plan came to a screeching halt due to the economy and various lawsuits. One location, in a very nice quite affluent neighborhood, they wanted to put up a super center in place of an old mall that had been closed for years. Neighbors fought tooth and nail to stop it (additional traffic, late night delivery trucks) and Walmart had to bow to their requests, making the store smaller, a design befitting the area, and restricting delivery hours. I’m not even sure if they are still going to build it.
If you like shopping there, fine. Me, I hate it. It puts local stores out of business and forces those workers into minimum wage jobs with crap benefits. Maybe over time things will change. One can hope…

I understand that the money spent in the Big Box stores does not make it back into the community. The money does go to Wall Street. Therefore, I would agree with Big Boxes getting kicked out of communities, or passing a law making the Big Box stores put 100% profits back into the communities where they are located. It should be illegal to take all the money a community has and never giving anything back to it. Great article.

What needs to be done, not just in low income neighborhoods, but also in rural towns is to force big boxes to up their prices and pay more local taxes. that money will then be given to mom and pop stores thus allowing them to make their prices less than or the same as big box prices, allowing mom and pop stores to compete with big boxes. Thereby allowing mom and pop stores and big box stores to coexist. With local pressure, the big box store could be forced to leave the town. Minimum wage also needs to be increased, and minimum benifits laws also need to be passed.