7 Responses to “The Greening of Walmart”

1. Sashka says:

   May 16, 2011 at 1:42 pm

   Out of curiosity: what do you find wrong with Walmart?

   The lesson that will no doubt be lost on some of the intelligent readers is how much good stuff can happen without government intervention.

2. Keith Kloor says:

   May 16, 2011 at 1:54 pm

   “what do you find wrong with Walmart?”

   Everything but the cheap prices.

   As for, “how much good stuff can happen without government intervention”:

   That doesn’t mean good stuff can’t also happen with government intervention.

   The problem with these discussions is that people seem to believe an extreme version of one or the other.

3. Sashka says:

   May 16, 2011 at 2:10 pm

   That was a dodgy answer, to be honest. Everything, huh? Including hundreds of thousands of jobs that they created?

   I find it hard to avoid extreme positions in the USA where the gov-t created an unholy trinity of financial black holes (Medicaid, Medicare & Social Security) that will ruin the country.

   Nobody seriously considers that the sides won’t make a deal during the next 11 weeks. But if they don’t the expression “full faith and credit” will take a very different meaning. More importantly, nobody will need to worry about GW for a very long time.
    

4. cagw_skeptic99 says:

   May 16, 2011 at 5:18 pm

   The growth of Walmart did not create hundreds of thousand of jobs.  It destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs and caused the failure of thousands of ‘main street’ businesses wherever it operates.  Walmart combines the efficiencies of large scale operations and brutal price negotiations with its suppliers to obtain very low prices for its merchandise.
    
   Smaller retailers can purchase their inventory cheaper at Walmart than they can buy it from their distribution sources.  Over time, people abandon the local merchant and drive to Walmart.
    
   If the objective is the cheapest possible merchandise, usually made in China, then you would like Walmart.  If the destruction of the middle class merchant retailer in thousands of communities is a concern, then maybe not so much.
    
   Walmart will be ‘green’ and socially conscious to the extent it makes them more money and maybe avoids inconvenient regulations.  Otherwise foreign factories that just barely clear the sweatshop category will likely be their first choice.

5. John Puma says:

   May 17, 2011 at 9:19 am

   Please, ignore it.
   The religion of hyper-consumption IS the problem.
   Wal Mart is the cathedral of hyper-consumption … with or without streamlined packaging

6. Sashka says:

   May 17, 2011 at 10:40 am

   @ 4

   Fair enough. They destroyed many jobs and businesses as well. Since Walmart is more efficient the net job count is probably negative.

   However while you are free to view Walmart as a personification of evil, this is generally known as progress, competition and capitalism. Inefficient businesses always go extinct. Walmart only guilt is they do their job well. It’s like blaming the lion for eating the antelope.

   While I am sorry for the disappeared mom & pop convenience store at the corner, remember that America lost whole industries due to economic shifts, globalization etc. That’s how we became a service economy. Who is to blame for the loss of coal and textile industries? For the loss of software jobs to developing countries?

   I could be sorry for the closed local hardware store but frankly I am not. Because I really like the idea that I can find just about anything I ever need in Home Depot. That’s how it should be.

   > Smaller retailers can purchase their inventory cheaper at Walmart than they can buy it from their distribution sources.

   Is that a bad thing, too?

   > Over time, people abandon the local merchant and drive to Walmart.

   It’s a big country. For good or bad, Walmarts are not everywhere yet.

   For the record, I live in Northern NJ and I’ve never seen a Walmart.

7. TimG says:

   May 19, 2011 at 1:12 am

   Of course what gets lost in this story is Walmart was free to pursue cost savings opportunities on their merit. They did not have some nanny state regulator imposing arbitrary CO2 requirements.