Well I slacked off the last couple of days, so I will make up for it today. To start with I am going to discuss a viral plague that is destroying our nation, one store at a time.
Walmart.
Time announced today that Walmart is planning a new program, that seems specifically designed to try and put it’s competitors out of business. While this may seem like a redundancy, since all businesses want to put their competition out of business, the problem here is simple.
Walmart views everyone as their competition.
Here is the opening paragraph, it spells out the problem, without trying to draw attention to it.
“Walmart loves to shock and awe. City-size stores, absurdly low prices ($8 jeans!) and everything from milk to Matchbox toys on its shelves. And with the recession forcing legions of stores into bankruptcy, the world’s largest retailer now apparently wants to take out the remaining survivors.”
The economy is already in bad shape. If they drive all those stores out of business, what happens to the workers? I pose another simple question. If our economy collapses, who will be shopping at Walmart?
This is why I hate corporations. They have forgotten the cardinal rules of Economics. Don’t charge more than the people can afford, and don’t risk your customer base.
You see it in every type of corporation. They only care about keeping their margins up, and to hell with the consequences. Traditionally during a bad recession, businesses lower their prices to accommodate and preserve their customer base. Yet during this recession, prices just keep going up.
Minimum wage was raised for the first time in years, so they just raised their prices. It is a sobering and pathetic fact that the minimum wage, and the cost of living have not been balanced since the 50s-60s, Which means a minimum wage earner then, was actually making better money (by comparison), than a higher dollar earner now.
The problem with Walmart is they do have lower prices than almost everyone else, and that’s why people shop there. Except the result, is that all the other stores are losing customers, and going out of business.
While part of me acknowledges the fact it’s their own fault for chasing off their customers with higher prices, I also shudder to think at what would happen if the only store left to shop at was Walmart.
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