🚀 go-pugleaf

"Bolwerk" <no@no.org> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.02.02.18.17.46.640000@no.org...
>Does the money trickle down from the super-rich to everyone else
> too? How does that happen?

They form and expand businesses, which provide jobs, or they provide seed
money for entrepreneurs, or they buy stuff. Even just sticking it in the
bank gives the bank more capital to loan.

As to Wal-Mart, it provides what the consumer wants. If the mom-and-pop
store cannot do that, it *should* go out of business. Learn to adapt or get
out of the way. No local store- an all Wal-Marts *are* local stores, after
all- has any more right to be in business than Wal-Mart.

My own father's hardware store was hardly touched when Wal-Mart opened,
because we continued to provide what our customers wanted better than
Wal-Mart. We never tried to beat Wal-Mart on price (although it turned out
we often did, on the exact same brands), which is the big thing that most
small merchants whine about. Is price all they have to offer? What do they
offer that Wal-Mart doesn't, and is it important enough for the customer to
choose them over Wal-Mart?

Yeah, I hear violins playing whenever I hear someone complain about how
Wal-Mart stomps the competition. It comes from a dinosaur complaining about
having to learn something new.

As to the environment, that's horseshit. Wal-Mart's record is as good or
better than a lot of "local" stores. Right here in Florida, in Alachua,
Wal-Mart wanted to locate a distribution center. Their environmental plan
greatly exceeded requirements- buffers twice the size that were needed and
far better drainage as well. What a shame that the local businessmen had to
*lie through their teeth* when they claimed they were concerned with the
environment, when Wal-Mart's plan would have protected it even more than the
law required.

If Wal-Mart is a threat to your business, you haven't got much of a
business.