Stocking Wal-Mart’s issues
I applaud the running of Geri Dreiling’s synopsis of Wal-Mart’s current legal woes in your October 12 issue [“Wal-Mart’s everyday low wages”]. However, the unbalanced inclusion of Susan Sorensen’s sidebar, “Cents and sensibility,” detailing how great the deals at Wal-Mart look to an average shopper, makes it appear that, “social justice issues aside,” the consumer experience of Wal-Mart’s existence is largely one sided: good deals. Nowhere in your coverage of the Wal-Mart issue was there even hint that there are much larger ramifications from those “everyday low prices” that an educated consumer should be aware of.
For instance, when a Wal-Mart comes to town it is usually accompanied by a 25 percent decrease in retail sales for surrounding businesses, an increase in commercial vacancies and a corresponding decrease in tax revenues. Most importantly, and Sorensen’s piece proves this point, Wal-Mart is adroit at positioning its most discounted items, giving the impression that all items in the store are similarly marked down. Yet once the consumer is in the clutches of Wal-Mart’s monopolistic arms, most people continue to shop for a wide range of items, most of which are priced on par with their competitors. This effectively gives the appearance of greater savings when the reality is often much different.
If you factor in the gas it takes to drive there and back, the extra time to get there and navigate capitalism’s shrine to world domination, Wal-Mart becomes less and less of a deal. Considering the wide ranging economic effects of Wal-Mart on communities, can we really afford to shop there if it contributes to locally owned businesses disappearing, the proliferation of jobs below a living wage and all of the social injustices that keep appearing behind the scenes?
Your coverage also avoided the issues of Wal-Mart’s impact on jobs moving overseas and foreign sweatshop labor. I recommend anyone with the slightest interest in being an educated consumer to see Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town, a PBS documentary of a few years back when Ashland lost in its battle against Wal-Mart coming to town.
Matthew Spitzer
Charlottesville
Check it out
Thank you for highlighting the Election 2004 website (jmrl.org/on-elections2004.htm) in your October 12 issue [“Webster’s linktionary,” Ask Ace]. This summer, Jefferson- Madison Regional Library’s website was updated, revamped and re-freshed. Not only are links of current interest posted, but also the website provides announcements of both adult and children’s programs at Central and the branches, and provides access to a wealth of online resources. These materials are free to card-bearing patrons from home and include such usually expensive sources as magazine and newspaper articles, health and wellness, and most recently, a Standard & Poor’s database for business and investor types.
Joyce MacDonald
Reference Librarian
Jefferson-Madison Regional Library
CORRECTION:
In last week’s 7 Days news in review, we misidentified one of the owners of West Main restaurant. He is Anderson McClure, not Andrew McClure.