COLUMN: Falling to the Wal-mart solution
There I was, just down the road from the Super Wal-mart, across the street from the Home Depot and Petsmart, next to the Shopko and Staples, staring at a sign. It’s red, white and blue letters brought tears to my eyes, and as I read I fell to my knees and praised God for finding us humble Loganites worthy of such a sacred message: “Coming soon Sam’s Club.”
That’s right folks, the savior of discount stores is coming to Logan. And make no mistake, “It’s a Big Deal.” Cheap prices and plenty of parking, must be the American dream. Not to mention all those deals on disposable plastic crap you don’t really need. But before you start polishing up those credit cards, before you succumb to the temptations of the biggest of the big box stores, take another look at the Wallyworld empire.
According to the standards of capitalism, Wal-mart (who owns Sam’s Club, duh) is the ultimate example of a good thing. It has almost a million employees, making it the largest private employer in the country. The company owns 3,500 stores on four continents, and a new one opens up every two days. It netted profits last year of $4 billion, and is well on the way to becoming the first company to gross $400 billion in a single year.
Big profits, but at what cost? The pattern is well established: Wally builds a gigantic cinder block warehouse at the edge of town and sells most everything imaginable at a discount. Soon the masses are driving in from miles around, taking advantage of the convenient one-stop shopping and avoiding the downtown businesses completely. The locally owned shops just can’t compete with Wally’s low prices, especially when business has dropped so much. One by one they go out of business, and Main Street U.S.A. becomes a ghetto of empty store fronts and “for rent” signs.
A study in Iowa revealed that after 5 years of Wal-mart, there was a 25 percent reduction in local businesses. Ten years after Wally came to the state, over 7,000 businesses had closed, mostly specialty shops like optometrists or photo studios, but also grocery stores and pharmacies. Fact is, 87 percent of the average Wal-mart’s profits are captured from other merchants, especially small business owners. A Dartmouth University study suggests that while the typical Wal-mart creates 140 mostly minimum wage jobs, it destroys 230 higher paying jobs in the process.
Sure, Wally pays the most in sales tax, but overall tax revenues actually decline when Wal-mart comes to town. Local businesses tend to “recycle” profits in their own community, spending their hard earned dollars at other locally owned stores and generally sharing the wealth. Compare this to Wal-mart, which funnels its billions in profits to a distant corporate headquarters in Arkansas where no one cares what happens to the folks in Cache County.
Even worse, many local governments (like Logan’s) offer big tax breaks to Wally as an incentive for him to build a store in their town. Five years later, when the downtown business district is ruined, the same local governments will use our tax dollars to embark on “urban renewal” or “downtown revitalization” schemes to try and fix what Wal-mart has destroyed.
Wally likes to tout the rags to riches story of Sam Walton. It likes to hide behind those smiling yellow happy faces and patriotic flags, even going so far as to come up with a “Buy American” campaign. (They also have “Buy Mexican” and “Buy Canadian” campaigns in those countries). Ironically, Wally is the largest seller of Chinese goods on the planet, and over 80 percent of all garments Wally sells our made outside the United States, usually in countries where 80-hour work weeks and daily wages of 50 cents or so aren’t uncommon. No wonder those bras are so cheap.
In short, Wal-mart sucks. They bleed a town dry, then use the profits to do the same thing somewhere else. Do you really want to support this? Sure, you might get a cheap hairdryer, but in the long run you’re harming the community in which you live.
My suggestion: Spend your money elsewhere. Not at another big box store either, but at one of the many small businesses here in Logan. Prices may seem higher, but they will be offset by the reduction in impulse buying of Wally’s garbage. This isn’t a boycott of Wal-mart, it’ s an investment in the future of your community.