The veer to the left of the Democrats is accelerating. Now there is a concerted effort to vilify Wal-Mart going on in the Democratic party. The politicians believe they have a good populist strategy in turning Wal-Mart into the bad guy. Never mind that the biggest beneficiaries of Wal-Mart's pricing are the poor. Never mind that forcing wages and benefits higher leads to higher prices that the poorer people will get hit with disproportionately. Never mind that Chicago is forcing much needed jobs inside the city away by passing "living wage" legislation.
The focus on Wal-Mart is part of a broader strategy of addressing what Democrats say is general economic anxiety and a growing sense that economic gains of recent years have not benefited the middle class or the working poor.
Their alliance with the anti-Wal-Mart campaign dovetails with their emphasis in Washington on raising the minimum wage and doing more to make health insurance affordable. It also suggests they will go into the midterm Congressional elections this fall and the 2008 presidential race striking a populist tone.
Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations that might be inclined to make contributions.
Still, what is striking about this campaign is the ideological breadth of the Democrats who have joined in, including some who in the past have warned the party against appearing hostile to business interests.
Yeah, bandwagons are like that. Politicians like to jump on them when they think it might bring in a few bucks. What is painfully obvious is that the backfire of this strategy is already forming.
Yet there are clear risks for Democrats, not least in alienating Wal-Mart employees and customers.
Wal-Mart has begun a counterattack. In interviews on Wednesday, company executives warned that they would alert their 1.3 million American employees to the anti-Wal-Mart campaign. They also pointed to a poll the company financed that reported that Americans were generally supportive of the company.
“There is far more evidence to show that this short-sighted political strategy will backfire than that it will actually work,” said Mona Williams, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores. “We believe our associates vote, and it is our responsibility to let them know when a politician speaks out for or against our company.”
The Democrats are playing with fire on this issue, but they appear to be intent on playing to the left wing and to the union leadership (the campaign may not sit well with the rank and file, however). The unions are, of course, the chief sponsors of the campaign:
The criticism has become more intense as Wal-Mart has grown into an increasingly major influence on the American economy and culture. For example, there is an ongoing cross-country bus tour, now in Iowa, organized by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-financed group highly critical of the retailer. The campaign includes news conferences with elected leaders in 19 states, may be the most ambitious tactic to date.
Wake Up Wal-Mart’s communications director, Chris Kofinis, said a large cast of Democratic candidates was joining the rallies. They include candidates in Senate races in Ohio and Maryland, and the governor’s race in Maryland, where Wal-Mart’s practices have been the subject of a legislative battle. “Who can disagree with the proposition that corporations should provide affordable health care, pay decent wages, protect American jobs and help provide a safe and just workplace?” Mr. Kofinis said.
Ms. Williams, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the rallies would not resonate with voters. Democrats, she said, were “attending a union-sponsored protest with small crowds of faithful union activists, and there is not a swing vote in sight.’’
I rather suspect Williams is correct here. The groups that are attending are party faithful. It may play well with activists, but is really unlikely to be well received by the people who work and shop at Wal-Mart and count on the low prices to help them make ends meet or that much-maligned $10 per hour job that they need.
I have yet to figure out how the Dem’s attack on Wal-Mart will posture them to appear tough on national defense/national security. It would seem the NYT would be a better target. But, then, what do I know of liberal politics?
Read the facts!!!!
Learn more about Wal-Mart’s health care crisis, gender and racial discrimination, and poverty level wages at http://www.wakeupwalmart.com
Attacking Wal-Mart is only an “attack on the poor” in the sense that preventing more Wal-Marts will reduce the number of poor people, or at least prevent the number of poor people going up. Studies show that poverty increases when Wal-Mart comes into a community.
Nonsense
Here’s one:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:NOn1kzlXpccJ:cecd.aers.psu.edu/pubs/PovertyResearchWM.pdf+wal-mart+poverty&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
Quoting from this study:
“We find, after controlling for other factors determining changes in the poverty rate over time, that both counties with more initial (1987) Wal-Mart stores and with more additions of stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced greater increases (or smaller decreases) in family poverty rates during the 1990s economic boom period. We offer three possible explanations for this finding, including that Wal-Mart stores destroy civic capacity in the communities in which they locate by driving out local entrepreneurs and community leaders.”
It’s always helpful to look at the facts when discussing these issues. The facts indicate that Wal-Mart is unhealthy for communities.
Or it could be that the presence of a store with affordable prices leads to increased concentrations. Not even discussed in this paper. The rates are barely significant, either.
Or it could be that shipping large amounts of money to Wal-Mart headquarters negatively impacts communities.
Perhaps you can back up your viewpoint with some research that supports it.
http://economics.missouri.edu/Working_Paper_Series/2002/WP0215_basker.pdf
From the abstract of the article you linked to:
“This paper estimates the effect of Wal-Mart expansion on retail employment at the county level. Using an instrumental-variables approach to correct for both measurement error in entry dates and endogeneity of the timing of entry, I find that Wal-Mart entry increases retail employment by 100 jobs intheyearofentry.Halfofthisgaindisappearsoverthenextfive years as other retail establishments exit and contract, leaving a long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs. Wholesale employment declines by approximately 20 jobs due to Wal-Mart’s vertical integration. No spillover effect is detected in retail sectors in which Wal-Mart does not compete directly, suggesting Wal-Mart does not create agglomeration economies in retail trade at the county level. ”
This doesn’t suggest a great positive economic impact. It the article doesn’t address the effect on wages. Believe it or not, it is possible to increase the number of jobs and at the same time increase the poverty rate, by substituting low-paying jobs for high-paying jobs.
The words “poverty” and “income” appear nowhere in the article you linked to.
Can you show me a study that shows that Wal-Mart increases income and lowers poverty in areas where it operates? That’s really the question at hand.
The Truth, your argument is based a major economic fallacy outlined here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
If you extend your anti-Walmart views to all parts of the economy you’ll see it would be impossible for you to live at the standard of living currently enjoyed in America. I’d like to see someone in your hometown design and build a CPU, motherboard, and memory chips that are compatible with the operating system his neighbor wrote. At least I hope you’d buy from them and wouldn’t support Dell/Microsoft or any of those other evil companies that bring affordable technologies to people that couldn’t otherwise build it themselves.
Here’s a fun story that puts it in the simplist terms possible:
http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html
So, Bill, you’re denying that companies have effects outside of the people they hire in a community? That’s just absurd.
There certainly is a place for large companies–it’s certainly difficult for a small company to build an affordable automobile, for example.
But in retailing the economies of scale are really about buying power–having so much buying power that you can drive down the cost of both goods and labor. Yes, this benefits some people, especially the people who work in industries not reliant on selling to Wal-Mart. If I’m an engineer for Boeing, making great wages (Wal-Mart doesn’t buy airplanes), I can then turn around and purchase things for cheap at Wal-Mart.
But if I’m trying to support a family at $8/hr. in a community where I used to be able to work for $10/hr. for a local retailer, their low prices don’t help me so much. If I used to own a small retail store and now I have to work at Wal-Mart, my standard of living is probably much lower.
If you think that mom and pop stores pay wages better than Wal-Mart you are showing that you do not know what you are talking about. Most small retialers pay more in the minimum wage range than the $10/hr range.
Great analysis Gauis.
As a business owner I can tell you that it would be impossible for me to pay employees who do the same kind of work as the ones at Walmart $10.00 an hour plus benefits. Truth is blind in this case.
I personally don’t like some of Walmart’s business practices with respect to their suppliers but I don’t see Walmart as evil. I’ve also spoken to individuals who work at my local Walmart and they are more than happy to have a paying job and the majority of them don’t want the unions to get involved and they sure as heck don’t want the government screwing with their paychecks – which translates to telling the DEMS to stay the heck out of Walmart’s business.
What the dems and groups like “Truth ” want to do is destroy Walmart and create a tsunami of unemployed former Walmart employees. As always the radical left is trying to control our capitalistic system and if they are successful we had better prepare for an economic disaster as Walmart is the WORLDS LARGEST EMPLOYER.
diva, I understand that most small business owners can’t pay employees $10/hr., but Wal-Mart could, but doesn’t.
Furthermore, the effect of Wal-Mart goes beyond their direct employees.
I’m a small business person myself, and I find that small retail stores are willing to carry my merchandise. Often, the smaller the store, the more willing they are to deal with an individual vendor–as they get bigger, they tend to want you to go through a distributor. The big box retailers are out of reach for most small vendors like myself.
So if Wal-Mart comes in and the local shops are forced to close, not only are the shop owners and their employees out of jobs, but many small vendors lose places to market their wares. Their is a negative ripple effect.
I’m not trying to destroy Wal-Mart, but I am trying to get them to be good corporate citizens. And, come on now, do you really think that Wal-Mart is in danger of being shut down? If so, can I interest you in an Alpine home in Kansas?
Unless Walmart is a non-profit, they are obligated to their share holders to maximize shareholder profit. This means paying employees as little as possible. It’s the responsiblity of the worker to find a job that pays as much as possible, and improve their skillset so make themselves worth more. That sounds harsh, but that’s the free market. It’s one of the foundational principles of the United States.
If you don’t like it, try any one of the crumbling communist states. From those with ability to those with needs appears to be working just as expected there.
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