statement before you typed it? "Who was this lowlife? Of course they were at walltrash, I guess that says it all."

Surely you aren't one of those too rich and too proud people who will never darken the doors of such a lowlife establishment such as Walmart? I can assure you that most of the people that actually have the nerve to shop there are not poor trailer trash.

What an asinine comment.

What an asinine comment

Maybe the poster had a temporary intelligence lapse.

Walmart attracts trouble in every community they move into. They have a policy that allows shoplifting, and because of it they attract a certain "element" of the population. Google search walmart and crime see what you find....it's not pretty. According to the police reports 70% of the victims are women.
On the one hand they have served as a great backdrop for the drug stings. On the other hand crime follows these stores everywhere they go. Maybe it's a coincidence...maybe not.

I don't think I'm too good for discount stores. I shop at Target. I choose not to give my money to a family that treats their employees like dirt. Read Nickle and Dimed in America by Barbara Ehrenreich for some examples. The author acutally worked at a walmart to do her research ...it's not pretty. They undercut small privately owned businesses. At the same time they bring low wages, almost no benefits and crime as an added "bonus" to the community.

Walmart isn't good for any community -- even the poor ones they claim to "help". They were recently outed for actually steering their employees away from the family health insurance Walmart offers and encouraging them to sign up for Peach Care (i.e. taxpayer funded health benefits for low-income families) instead.

So, let's just think about that . . . . Walmart gets huge corporate tax breaks that were created on the theory that, in exchange for community investment, corporations create jobs (the burden to replace that tax revenue in the public budget, by the way, then shifts to individual taxpayers). Then, to maximize their bottom line, they virtually force companies to outsource to China (thus, no job creation), they destroy entrepreneurial efforts (the very basis of capitalism) and make taxpayers pay for their employees' health insurance. For all of those reasons (and so many more), I do my discount shopping anywhere but Walmart.

It's not a snob thing; it's a healthy sense of values in every sense of that word.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

"Walmart isn't good for any community." -- Are you so sure?

"In Government We Trust"

by Walter E. Williams (who serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics) -- About FEMA's ineptitude following Katrina

By contrast, private firms like Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Home Depot had trucks on the road immediately after the hurricane. Stores even gave away items like chain saws and boots for rescue workers, sheets and clothes for shelters, and water and ice for the public. Wal-Mart was so efficient that there was talk among some Louisiana officials of letting Wal-Mart take over FEMA's job and a suggestion that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott run FEMA.

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"Dead-End Jobs" by Walter E. Williams

Certain jobs are derisively referred to as "burger flipper" or "dead-end" jobs.

Those who demean so-called dead-end jobs probably aren't talking about my job. They're mockingly referring to jobs such as clerks at Wal-Mart, hotel workers, and food handlers and counter clerks at McDonald's. McJobs is the term applied to these positions.

The primary beneficiaries of so-called McJobs are people who enter the workforce with modest or absent work skills in areas such as: being able to show up for work on time, operating a machine, counting change, greeting customers with decorum and courtesy, cooperating with fellow workers and accepting orders from supervisors. Very often the people who need these job skills, which some of us might trivialize, are youngsters who grew up in dysfunctional homes and attended rotten schools. It's a bottom rung on the economic ladder that provides them an opportunity to move up. For many, the financial component of a low-pay, low-skill job is not nearly as important as what they learn on the job that can make them more valuable workers in the future. [This should be the goal of all employees, but, for those who have no such goals to better themselves, then life-time employment in entry-level positions, with entry-level compensation, is all that they should expect.]

Some demagogues charge that jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonald's only pay the minimum wage. [See Williams' refutation of that myth.]

My stepfather used to tell me that any honest work was better than begging and stealing. As a young person, I worked many jobs from shining shoes and picking blueberries to delivering packages and washing dishes. Today's tragedy for many a poor youngster is that the opportunities I had for learning the world of work and moving up the economic ladder have either been destroyed through legislation or demeaned by today's do-gooders.

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"Fields of Dreams" -- With hard work and unsinkable optimism, Reynaldo Robledo went from migrant worker to owner of a California winery.

"I Was Fired!"
(And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.)

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A study in 2005 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology measured the effect on consumer welfare and found that the poorest segment of the population benefits the most from the existence of discount retailers.

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"Democrats vs. Wal-Mart"

With this in mind, here is a novel idea for Maryland Democrats: How about letting Marylanders decide whether or not a job at Wal-Mart is worth their while? To be sure, it would be peculiar indeed that Wal-Mart could have achieved its status as the world's preeminent retailer if the conglomerate couldn't attract employees who wanted to work for it--as exhibited by the fact that Wal-Mart job applicants often exceed by a factor of ten the number of positions available.

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"The[Liberal] Crusade Against Walmart"

by Thomas Sowell (a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy, and has taught at prominent American universities including Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA)

After all, they wouldn't be working for Wal-Mart if someone else valued their labor more.

Nor are they confined to Wal-Mart for life. For many, entry-level jobs are a stepping-stone, whether within a given company or as experience that gets them a better job with another company.

Think about it: What the busybodies are saying is that third parties like themselves -- who are paying nothing to anybody -- should be determining how much somebody else should be paying those who work for them.

It would be devastating to the egos of the intelligentsia to realize, much less admit, that businesses have done more to reduce poverty than all the intellectuals put together. Ultimately it is only wealth that can reduce poverty and most of the intelligentsia have no interest whatever in finding out what actions and policies increase the national wealth.

They certainly don't feel any "obligation" to learn economics, out of a sense of "social responsibility," much less because of any "social contract" requiring them to know what they are talking about before spouting off with self-righteous rhetoric.

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"Mrs. Clinton's Wal-Mart" [who served on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors (and received payment) and owned stock]

Quinnipiac University released a poll of 1,072 New York City registered voters and found that 51% of them support Wal-Mart opening stores in the city, while a scant 37% oppose it. The poll found that even in union households, 63% said if there was a Wal-Mart in their community they would shop there. Given the well-funded propaganda campaign that has been waged against Wal-Mart by its competitors and the labor unions, the ability of New York voters to see through to the facts is heartening.

Betraying Wal-Mart may help Mrs. Clinton appeal to the left-wing activists who will choose the Democratic Party's 2008 nominee. But as Mrs. Clinton might remember, the last Democrat to get elected president did it by winning the votes of Wal-Mart shoppers. Senator Kerry spent the 2004 campaign denouncing Wal-Mart as a "disgraceful" example of "What is wrong with America." One can imagine Mr. Kerry shopping at a Wal-Mart only if one opened on Nantucket or in France. He lost the election. President Clinton, meanwhile, appeared in 2004 during the peak of the presidential campaign at a Fayetteville, Ark., Wal-Mart to sign copies of his memoir.

We don't mean to be too hard on Mrs. Clinton. Her newfound aversion to Wal-Mart has been widely and openly shared among left-wing elites, which is why the Democrat-dominated New York City Council is so ardent in its efforts to prevent the nation's largest retailer from opening a branch in the nation's largest city. Somehow, the shoppers find their ways to the everyday low prices, even in the suburbs. Making a show of contempt for a store where so many Americans shop is no way to win a political majority. We say, watch this issue. It'll portend whether Mrs. Clinton ends up a winner like her husband or a punch-line like the junior senator from Massachusetts.

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"At Wal-Mart, Clinton Didn't Upset Any Carts"

Clinton often touted Wal-Mart without reservation. But as the labor-backed campaign against Wal-Mart intensified in recent years, she has tempered her public enthusiasm, even giving back a $5,000 political donation from Wal-Mart's political action committee in 2005.

Clinton amassed nearly $100,000 worth of Wal-Mart stock as a director, much of which she and her husband placed in 1993 into a blind trust that they still maintain.

Clinton's board appointment provided a welcome income boost [while Bill was governor] . . . . Wal-Mart paid her $18,000 a year, [as well as] $1,500 for each meeting she attended, and steady increments of stock that eventually totaled 1,600 shares. [She resigned when Bill planned to run for president "to devote full time to the campaign."]

She is not the only Democratic candidate with Wal-Mart ties. During his Senate term, John Edwards disclosed owning between $1,000 and $100,000 in company stock. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, serves on the board of a Wal-Mart supplier. And Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut accepted $5,000 from Wal-Mart's PAC in 2004.

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"Should We 'Save Jobs'?" by Walter Williams

Job destruction and job creation through natural market forces are enriching. Calling for Congress to save or create jobs is to court disaster.

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"Political Demagoguery" by Walter E. Williams

Politicians have a field day misleading Americans who, as a result of having been dumbed down by our education system, can't think, reason or analyze. [Williams writes about health care.]

[According to] "How Outsourcing Creates Jobs for Americans," over the past 15 years, foreign corporations have moved jobs to the United States at a faster rate than jobs have left. "Jobs insourced to the United States increased from 4.9 million in 1991 to 6.4 million in 2001," reports Bartlett. There's been an 82 percent increase in insourced jobs compared to a 23 percent increase in outsourced jobs.

Moreover, because of the higher and increasing productivity of American workers, the jobs that move here pay more than the ones that leave.

The next time you hear a politician whining about our "awful" job climate, ask him which European country we should look to for guidance in job creation. The fact of business is that our country is the world's leader not only in job creation but in terms of where the world wants to invest its money.

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"make taxpayers pay for their employees' health insurance" -- Health insurance is not a "right." You won't find it listed in the Constitution. If employees are signing up for PeachCare, then eligibility requirements need to be tightened. Employees can always look for employment elsewhere.

Another solution: Become educated and acquire work skills and experience BEFORE becoming a parent so that you can provide for the children you have rather than expecting others to pay for them.

"they destroy entrepreneurial efforts (the very basis of capitalism)" -- It seems that Wal-Mart's "entrepreneurial efforts" are working quite well, and the "very basis of capitalism" is freedom of choice (for both employees and employers and consumers).

I don't work for Wal-Mart or own any stock, but I say let consumers decide AFTER learning about economics. "Freedom of choice" applies to deciding where one wants to work and shop. Stop listening to the propaganda.

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For all of those with a sense of humor or for those who hate and fear Wal-Mart, here's a musical parody (some objectionable language) that will enhance your fears or tickle your funny bone. The choice is up to you.

"Walmart isn't good for any community." -- Are you so sure?

Yes, I am sure.

Your lengthy response spoke to everything but the fiscal impact to taxpayers -- the actual point of my response. And I must say that I'd have a lot more respect for your position if it didn't rest so heavily upon the singular opinion of Walter E. Williams, a wannabe Rush Limpbaugh and shill for the faithfully hoodwinked. A professor who holds a doctor of laws degree but doesn't practice law is a sure sign of someone who couldn't "do" and, instead, has to teach at a third-tier school for a living.

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I didn't say anything about government being the panacea for economic ills caused by Walmart but you jumped right in with Bush Republican Standard Standard Talking Point #1 ("if attacks one of our biggest campaign donors, call it big government-loving liberalism").

I didn't say anything denigrating about the people who work at Walmart or the value of the work they do. Your statement, "Today's tragedy for many a poor youngster is that the opportunities I had for learning the world of work and moving up the economic ladder have either been destroyed through legislation or demeaned by today's do-gooders" is simply not responsive to my point but I should point out that NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and other anti-American-working-class legislation had bi-partisan support. So, if there is blame to be placed for destroying those "character-building opportunities", there's a wide field of blame-worthy Dems and Reps upon which to put it. One hopes Williams takes his own tribe to task for destroying what you enjoyed as a "poor youngster".

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An interesting note about that 2005 MIT paper about the effect of discount retail business on consumer welfare, Page 6 refers to an instance in Houston where 2 Walmart supercenters opened and, upon a 10% decrease in sales, the nearby Krogers dropped worker hours by 30-40% and decreased prices. That is a classic example of the locust-like infestation business model of Walmart and its effect on communities. First and foremost, the managers of both Walmarts are competing with each other in close proximity of each other. They will be forced to treat their employees (and, ultimately, their underserved customers) like dirt to try to claw ahead of each other. But, in addition to that, the Kroger employees end up poorer and left with little alternative but to shop at their employer's competition. Maybe you see that as a consumer benefit; I see it as grinding the working-class into a survival existence.

As a side note, the MIT paper indicates that it is a "U.S. Dept of Agriculture revised draft". I wonder if this is yet another instance of a government appointee overriding a career government employee to alter a research paper to reflect a position consistent with the Bush Administration and it's loyal Bushies. I guess there's no way to tell but it does give me pause to wonder.

One thing that is especially telling is that the paper concludes with the suggestion that zoning regulations (you know, like those anti-big box regulations we Fayette County folks hold near and dear) are the reason poor people can't get access to those "great benefits" of having a Walmart nearby. The paper doesn't disclose the fact that Walmart's business practice is to enter into long-term leases for 50,000 square foot stores within 10 miles of each other and, after some of those neighboring Walmarts decline in sales, they close the declining stores but won't abandon the lease. That leaves the community with an empty 50,000 square foot eyesore or two. Just think of it like a neighbor who moves out, rents his home to Section 8 folks, lets it fall to ruin and then leaves it sitting empty, inflicting the damage to your property value. Yeah, Walmart is that kind of neighbor.

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It would be devastating to the egos of the intelligentsia to realize, much less admit, that businesses have done more to reduce poverty than all the intellectuals put together. Ultimately it is only wealth that can reduce poverty and most of the intelligentsia have no interest whatever in finding out what actions and policies increase the national wealth.

Wow, reaching back to voodoo economics? Yeah, that trickle-on theory worked really well for working-class people. The 80's were pretty dry for them. I remember the days of Ketchu -- I mean, vegetable soup under that theory. I remember the deficit spending . . . the military industrial complex reaping profits by the barrel . . . . Oh, wait, was that the 1980's or the last 6 years? I forget. Anyway, I also recall that from 1992 - 2000, this country enjoyed a period of tremendous economic prosperity at all levels of income. The same can be said of post-WWII America. So, clearly, there have been periods in which business and working-class Americans mutually prospered. And, while I have serious problems with Clinton for a lot of other policies and practices on his watch, about this much he was right: It's the economy (not economic theory), stupid.

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You then launch in to Bush Republican Talking Point #2, "But . . . but, Hillary ...!" As former residents and politicos in Arkansas, I am not surprised that the Clintons had dealings with Walmart. For that matter, I expect that every Georgia politician must bow down to kiss the rings of Home Depot co-founders, Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus. That's the nature of politics where elections are polluted by the need for un-Godly sums of money. You fail to address how that has anything to do with Walmart's community practices?

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Health insurance is not a "right." You won't find it listed in the Constitution. If employees are signing up for PeachCare, then eligibility requirements need to be tightened. Employees can always look for employment elsewhere.

You are right that health care is not a right and nowhere in my post did I suggest that it is. My point, had you cared to read it, is that Walmart -- which sells itself to communities as a good business neighbor that creates jobs which improve communities -- is actually leeching off of the taxpayer dime by deliberately steering its employees to publicly-funded health care. That suggests to me that they don't create the kind of jobs that pay well enough to, in fact, improve communities. And I find it particularly interesting that your suggestion is to tighten the requirements for people to qualify for Peach Care rather than punishing the corporation who was caught directing their employees to sign up for it.

Another solution: Become educated and acquire work skills and experience BEFORE becoming a parent so that you can provide for the children you have rather than expecting others to pay for them.

How very Bush Republican of you to assume that every person who is working at Walmart is a future/former welfare queen. And what, Frau Conner, are the moral failings of the senior citizens who work there because they cannot afford medicine on their retirement income? What moral failing have the outsourced middle-class employees of long-standing corporations committed when their jobs went to China or India and Walmart was the only job left in town? How did Enron retirees "expect others to pay for them" when their retirement funds were STOLEN? In that one statement you did what you accuse others of doing in your own post by denigrating the people who work at Walmart.

"Freedom of choice" applies to deciding where one wants to work and shop. Stop listening to the propaganda.

Might I suggest that you do the same? My post was directed at my choice to patronize businesses that are good community partners. You know, the kind of businesses who don't make me pay for their business model, even when I choose not to shop there.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

I find it particularly interesting that your suggestion is to tighten the requirements for people to qualify for Peach Care rather than punishing the corporation who was caught directing their employees to sign up for it.

"interesting"? Try "DISGUSTING".

PeachCare was set up as a safety net to provide health care to children through the age of 18 whose parents do not qualify for Medicaid.

Human sewage like Denise Conner would deny children even the most basic of medical care.

Jesus wept.

I have heard through the urban grapevine that walley-trash-drugs-are-us-mart has terminated women who take maternity leave? I don't have any sources to comfirm this....but .....this sounds like a typical "christian family value".

Can any former employees of wally-drug-sting-shoplift-as-much-as-you-want.. confirm or deny this???

I would have called the cops and let her do her explaining to them.

I yam what I yam...Popeye

I will never understand why some people are so mean and cruel.