Wal-Mart Faces Its Day of Reckoning

via AlterNet:



Wal-Mart Faces Its Day of Reckoning

By Frank Nelson, Miller-McCune.com. Posted August 24, 2009.

Wal-Mart's relentless growth and Darwinian competitiveness have created a world that is increasingly inhospitable to its own success.



Since Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Ark., in 1962, the company has grown into a global retailing colossus employing more than 2 million people in almost 8,000 stores worldwide and ringing up annual sales topping $400 billion.

The sheer size and scale of the empire is such that when someone holds up a mirror to Wal-Mart, what we see reflected back are many of today's most potent social, political, economic and cultural issues.

Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, provides such a mirror in his latest book, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.

He previously edited a collection of essays on Wal-Mart published in 2006 that defined the chain as "the face of 21st century capitalism." He began to focus on the company during the long-running 2003-2004 grocery store strike in Southern California, when three major grocery chains cited fear of Wal-Mart selling groceries for their hard-line stance in negotiations.

As a labor historian, he was a close observer of the dispute and became a regular source for reporters. He even sent his students to interview picketing grocery workers, and in April 2004, he organized a one-day conference on Wal-Mart at the UCSB campus.

"For 20 years I studied the auto industry, the classic industry of the 20th century," he said. "Then it dawned on me that retail, and Wal-Mart in particular, had in some sense taken over that role as the most important and influential industry." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142143/wal-mart_faces_its_day_of_reckoning/

We need to go back to repairing and otherwise improving our lives and houses on our own without outsourcing it to the China men, etc. I found a great handyman site, YourHandymanZone.com, that helps do that: http://yourhandymanzone.com/

It has very simplified, how-to-step articles that has helped me repair my house and vehicle, and I believe others would benefit from it to.

So, to h@ll w/ wallllmart and its outsourcing and the such....