Snowy,

I stand corrected. My reference was to countries that are developmentally between Western market economies and the Third World economies of the impoverished nations, such as China, for instance.

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but I don't know how you can casually divorce "monopoly" and "supplier abuse" from the core of Walmart's economic model.


I dont. I have serious difficulties with this and it is upon these points that I used to trash WM. On more thorough observation though, Ive seen that WM sustains rural economies in the US.

I dont know how old you are. I will date myself though. When I was young, if you needed anything beyond what the country store provided, you had to go to town. This was something like a monthly event. It took up the better part of a day. Then WM came and going to town became a matter of at most a couple of hours. And, the disparity between rural incomes and urban incomes was greatly diminished, meaning that rural people were granted purchasing powers similar to those of urban people. That is a big deal.

When contrasted, in my opinion, the net effect is positive. You do make good points though (despite the fact you are expounding on points I made :eek ).

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We get low-cost products and free up our human resources to sell low-cost products.


There is truth in that. But I dont think it is the total truth. The fact is that more Americans than ever have high levels of job training. They must be somewhere. If theyve left California that only goes to illustrate the value of a good education and decision making.

April,

My mom is retired and she is experiencing the problems your mom is. Her health care costs almost exactly equal her SS income. This is a growing problem. I dont see the problem as being so much one of poor planning as it being one of impossible planning. But that is as much an effect of government interference as anything. My mom should be living with us. That largely fixes that problem. But we have driven our elderly parents out of our homes (or is it the other way around) and in so doing driven up the cost of living for the family whole.

The government cant fix this stuff. Step back and look at them. They are hard headed opportunists who are immersed in the most money rich pool of grift and graft history has ever known. It doesnt matter what they promise you, they, all of them, are only in it for themselves. The only chance we have at maintaining a free republic is to keep them as close to equal in power as we can and to keep them at each others throats. If we cannot game them better than they game us, we will continue to lose.

Joel.