Now Don attacks Ms. Featherstone's lack of economic logic:
One of Featherstone’s claims that I didn’t deal with there is her allegation that Wal-Mart free-rides on government welfare payments. Her argument (which, I recall, is not unique to her) is that welfare payments enable Wal-Mart to pay lower wages. The allegation, in other words, is that taxpayer-funded welfare increases the supply of workers....Don continues at length... read it all. IMHO he's thinking WAY too hard about Ms. Featherstone's essay. Why? She's not using a logical argument.
IMHO, Ms. Featherstone believes that Wal-Mart's low prices put competitors out of business. Essentially, WM eliminates the high wage competition... and then uses welfare subsidies to hire the desperate employees at lower wages. It's competitors don't do this because, unlike WM, they're moral. As Don notes, evidence is lacking for this theory.
But assume WM does put the competition out of business. How does Wal-Mart manage to hire people when it initially moves into an area, since it must compete with higher-paying better-benfit businesses? Unless one is willing to admit that WM pay is equal to competitors, or that the quality--dependability, experience, language competence, demeanor, etc.--of WM employees is inferior, this is a rather big problem for the WM-eat-dog theory. Asking people to go on the dole mightily disadvantages WM in the labor market--giving competitors a distinct worker quality advantage--,but this seems to be of no consequence to Ms. Featherstone.
I've been reading this anti-WM rhetoric for months. To me, Ms. Featherstone's piece was so... stale.
Posted by Kevin on December, 31 2004 at 10:53 AM
Dave Meleney wrote:Whatever the merit of the arguments.... there looks to be a real storm coming their way. Lots of my liberal friends view Wal-Mart as the arch villan.... and if you saw the Frontlines report, the reporter doesn't seem to have a clue that he is doing a hatchet job. Reminds one of Guliani's career making prosecution of Milken or more recently the sandcastle of charges agains Martha Stewart.
-- December 31, 2004 07:44 PM ∞
la wrote:WE call Wal Mart the Great Satan around here. I have been Wally World free for 2 years now and I am loving it. I actually went into Sears this Christmas to shop for tools. The tools were made in America and a lot higher quality than the schlock you get at Wally World. The store was clean and well laid out. The staff friendly. It was like a different planet from Wal Mart.
-- January 1, 2005 01:08 PM ∞
Roy W. Wright wrote:And you paid for it. That was your choice.
-- January 4, 2005 01:21 AM ∞
