I think Penn and Teller pretty much debunked the vast majority of myths about Wal-Mart, including most of those mentioned here. I think you should watch that segment if you get a chance, if you can stand their vile humor.

My mother-in-law works at WM, well, sort of. She moved from the Joplin WM to the one in Monet, about 30 or so miles away. Then she moved back. Then she moved here, Branson. All in the space of a year or two. While here she has been on leave with a bad back for months on end. Weve lived here for three years now and I dont think she has worked more than 8 months of that, and is still an employ, with insurance. Her insurance has taken care of her very well. At her age she could not get this kind of care anywhere at all.

The fact is that Americans have grown to be so freaking selfish and expectant of entitlements that we assume that unless you work for Wendys you deserve top end benefits. That just isnt true. The jobs you see at WM are for four types of people. If you arent one of those types of people and you work at WM then there is something wrong with you. 1.) Old people. 2.) Young people, 3.) Married women with children 4.) People between jobs.

Hacking on WM for not providing super benefits for retail people is just bizarre. I never knew that retail people got good benefits. In fact, would any WM haters out there mind providing me with some examples of retail people who get benefits superior to WMs.

I think WM haters are like too many others in this society. We invent some imaginary ideal and then apply it to this or that event/condition/entity as if there is nothing else to compare it to.

Ive known several people who have worked for WM, including my wife, my niece and my sister-in-law. None of them liked it. But every one of them was damned glad they had the opportunity to keep a check coming in. People from small towns need WM, both for job parachutes and for the opportunity to be able to buy necessities.

Oh yea. I have problems with the way people are dealt with overseas in the manufacture of the products we buy. I hate the idea of it in many if not most cases. But, again, we have the imaginary ideal fallacy at work. You see, what we dont realize when we are looking at these circumstances is that those people view those jobs as gold. They have this attitude because outside of the opportunity to work in a sweat shop, they have only sweat to eat. Our phony view of poverty, people with tvs, two cars, a house, nice cloths, poverty American style, is just that, phony. Real poverty rules the world. And in real poverty the opportunity to have a job that pays real money, even if it is 10 bucks a week, is a hell of a lot better than the standard fair of 3 fried rats and a kick in the arse on your way out the door.

Happy Valentines Day all, :evil

Joel.