Wal-Mart: The Evil Empire?

Within the last couple of decades, Wal-Mart has been a store that is slowly taking over other stores across the nation. Wal-Mart began primarily as a retail store selling things from shoes and clothes to sports and car equipment. One day there was a meeting with the board of directors at their headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and soon, Wal-Mart was moving up to bigger and better things. This is when they opened their first "Super Wal-Mart". Customers became excited and overwhelmed when they found out that they could do all of their shopping in one big store. Before we knew it, many other companies were going out of business. K-mart, struggling to keep up with their arch-enemy, opened up the "Big K-mart". Unfortunately, this was a failed attempt and Wal-Mart still continued to soar past them. Many popular grocery stores such as Food World, Delchamps, and Win-Dixie were closing down. In fact, the Delchamps in Center Point, Alabama was replaced, to nobodies surprise, with a "Wal-mart Neighborhood Grocery Store". The Question is, is Wal-mart a wonderful store that contains all of life's needs at a low price, or is it really just the evil empire?

For the average person, a trip to Wal-mart begins after falling out of bed and realizing that they are out of coffee. Still dazed and with your hair a mess you get in the car and drive 5 miles to choose from the 7 Wal-mart stores along the way. On the way to the coffee isle, you spot from the corner of your eye a delicious looking chocolate cake. Knowing that you couldn't make it through the day without that cake, you pick it up and proceed. While looking through the 3 rows filled with numerous kinds of coffee, you see your old friend that you haven't seen since your last trip to Wal-mart. After indulging in a long conversation, you decide to use the restroom before you leave. On the way there you become distracted by the clothing department(or for men the automotive department) and decide to take a detour. Finally, after searching through all 47 of the checkout lines to find that only 3 of them are open, you take what seems to be the shortest line and you wait...and wait...and wait. After realizing that you still have morning breath, you pick up a couple of packs of Wrigley's $.25 gum. And at last, two and a half hours later, you are back in your car after having spend $87.43 when you originally planned to buy a three dollar can of coffee. That is a trip to Wal-mart.

Many people claim that Wal-mart is a greedy, money hungry company who really doesn't care about their customers or employees. Although this is probably true, we still continue to shop there over and over. Why is this? Maybe it's because we are lazy and we like Wal-mart because it is convenient. Or maybe it is because Wal-mart is cheaper than most other stores. Most likely, its both. After nineteen years of having the slogan "Wal-Mart, Always low prices, Always", they changed it to "Save Money. Live better." Although many agree with the fact that Wal-mart saves you money, they don't all agree that it causes you to live better. A parody of their first slogan is "Wel fare, always low wages, always".

A lot of the problem people have with Wal-mart is the way the treat their employees. Many complain that associates don't earn enough money to support a family. Actually, health care fails to cover 775,000 employees, and even those in charge of this admit that public health care is a better value. Also, employees complain that the growth of the company actually hurts them. This is probably because power corrupts, and the more powerful the company gets the less they care about the little people. Is there a solution to this problem? Of course. If you don't like it then DON'T WORK THERE!

While many Americans think that Wal-mart is saving them loads of money a year, it may not be saving them as much as they think. This is because our tax dollars are helping to pay for Wal-mart's greed. So as the business grows larger and the sales increase, so do taxes. While this is a valid complaint, many Wal-mart haters are making stupid claims against the company. Some of these are that it destroys the environment, increases vehicle traffic, and is blighting communities. Actually, I found on walmartsucks.org(which i think is a hilarious name) that one man wanted to sue Wal-mart because a manager asked if his girlfriend was gaining weight. While Wal-mart may be a selfish company that really only cares about our money, some people are making stupid claims in attempt to drive them out of business.

So maybe Wal-mart is a greedy power/money-hungry company, and maybe to some degree it is the "evil empire", but there is a reason for this. Hilary Clinton actually served on the board at Wal-mart for several years. If she can do this much damage to one business, then how much damage can she do to our country? Although, her time serving on the Wal-mart board was quite a few years ago...back when she actually looked like a woman. haha But in all seriousness, if Wal-mart is as bad as some people say it is then the shoppers must be pretty bad. If Wal-mart is really this terrible, then we much be pretty greedy, lazy, penny-pinchers ourselves for shopping there. But whether Wal-mart is good or bad, or whether it is worth saving a little time and money is your choice not mine.

~*Elizabeth