Don Boudreaux cites Bill Steigerwald in his smack-down of Liza Featherstone's latest (reported earlier here):
And because Wal-Mart indisputably keeps prices to consumers low, by far the most plausible conclusion is that Wal-Mart promotes the economic prosperity of the places it which it operates � it creates better jobs and increases the availability of goods and services. In short, Wal-Mart makes its workers and its customers (and, yes, its stockholders) wealthier.That last sentiment was mine exactly upon reading Ms. Featherstone's article. Steigerwald gets the last laugh, though:But in the expos� in The Nation, Wal-Mart�s commitment to serving lower-income communities is treated as dastardly, sinister, almost Satanic. The author -- Liza Featherstone -- however, never explains why specializing in serving the needs of lower-income communities is suspect. Would lower-income people be better served if, instead of Wal-Mart, Nieman-Marcus and Tiffany�s open branches in rural and blue-collar regions of the country?
There are too many problems with this expos� of Wal-Mart to deal with here
Unless it really is a clever put-on, Featherstone's desperate diatribe is the worst article I've ever read in The Nation, which, for reasons known only to my psychiatrist, I've been torturing myself with regularly for almost 15 years.
Posted by Kevin on December, 30 2004 at 08:28 PM
