How about 'Is PBS Good For America?'
Posted on 11/16/2004, 10:33:55 PM by churchillbuff
Like nearly all its investigative reports, tonight's Frontline deals with a national story - the overwhelming, controversial success of Wal-Mart. ...
Is Wal-Mart Good for America? (9 p.m. today, KRMA-Channel 6) is anything but an esoteric documentary about a high-powered company whose association with consumers is irrelevant or secondary. While the title suggests the answer should be provided by viewers, the documentary's content offers ample ammunition for those who contend Wal-Mart's business policies do not benefit the nation's economy and the work force.
Even with this biased angle, Frontline has produced a full-blown portrait of the growth of this business monolith, while exploring the relationships between U.S. job losses and the American consumer's insatiable desire for shopping bargains.
As reporter Hedrick Smith notes: "Wal-Mart's power and influence are awesome.
"By figuring out how to exploit two powerful forces that converged in the '90s - the rise of information and the explosion of the global economy - Wal-Mart has dramatically changed the balance of power in the world of business."
The hour follows two main themes, outlined by Smith.
• In today's business economy, retailers (particularly Wal-Mart) are more powerful than manufacturers.
• Wal-Mart policies have produced huge "offshore" production, mostly in China, where cheap labor manufactures what American consumers desire - from clothing to electronics - to be sold at "everyday low prices" at local Wal-Marts.
Such policies have produced the closure of many U.S. manufacturing plants and created unemployment for thousands of workers around the country.
But Frontline does provide some equal time, allowing Wal-Mart supporters to voice opinions.
"I think Wal-Mart is good for America," says Brink Lindsey, an economist for the Cato Institute.
"Wal-Mart is doing what the American economy is all about, which is producing things consumers want to buy and offering consumers a wide range of goods at rock-bottom prices."
Ray Bracy, Wal-Mart's vice president for federal and international affairs, tells Smith: "We do depend on products from around the globe to draw our consumers into the stores.
"We feel they need to have the best product, the best value and the best price we can achieve."
Larry Michel of the Economic Policy Institute provides an anti-Wal-Mart stance.
"If people were only consumers, buying things at lower prices would be good. But people also are workers who need to earn a decent standard of living. The dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-Mart and other places are undercutting the ability of many, many workers to earn decent wages and benefits and have a stable life."
The hour offers much more than soapbox oratory. Frontline provides a history of Wal-Mart, showing how founder Sam Walton's economic and merchandising ideas quickly spread across the country.
Smith and a camera crew traveled to Shenzhen, China, Wal-Mart's most important goods procurement center, where at salaries of 50 cents an hour or $100 a month Chinese laborers turn out products that wind up on Wal-Mart's shelves.
And the documentary personalizes the effect Wal-Mart has had on several struggling U.S. communities, including Circleville, Ohio (population 13,000), the home of Thomson Consumer Electronics.
For many years Thomson, which manufactured RCA television products, was the town's major employer, a source of steady jobs featuring good pay and benefits. In 2003, the company lost most of its production orders to China, forcing closure and throwing 1,000 people out of work.
Ironically, new jobs are coming to Circleville courtesy of a huge Wal-Mart supercenter. But the Wal-Mart jobs will represent a steep cut in pay from the $16 an hour workers made at Thomson.
As a longtime former Thomson employee notes, jobs at Wal-Mart will be a "far cry" from the pension, health and job security that had been the norm at Thomson.
Is Wal-Mart good for America? The question should produce some interesting answers from viewers.
Walmart is great for America.
Wasn't all this covered last week on "South Park". Now PBS is ripping off Comedy Central.
Walmart has been the reason that inflation has been kept so low in America. They constantly push their suppliers to lower prices and become more efficient, driving productivity. If it wasn't for that they would have had to jack up rates long ago making the recovery from the last recession far more difficult.
How about 'Is PBS Good For America?'
Willie:
Are you in agreement with the Public Broadcasting System that Wal-Mart is bad for America?
I seem to recall a recent post of yours in which the article argued that way.
Please clarify your agreement or disagreement with PBS.
It amazes me how stores who sell cheap goods are blasted by the left.
Their anti-capitalist agenda I guess. They see Wal-Mart as an oppressor of some sort.
But the thing is, is that wal-mart doesn't force people to apply for the job. They have the freedom to work there, or work anywhere they want.
Is PBS good for America?
Did anyone see that special on Wal Mart CNBC did? That was great, it showed the inside process of vendors making pitches to Wal Mart purchasers. One vendor pitched a type of toy to them and Wal Mart placed orders for it, however they said they had to cut their price in half. I think that's good for the consumer.
Should we slow the entire economy down to make sure that unskilled workers get to keep their jobs for the rest of their lives? Or should the American economy grow, change and thrive? I vote for the latter, which is why the answer to the question is "Yes." Wal Mart is great for America. It outsources tedious jobs to the developing world, service jobs come into the country and it is a HUGE HUGE HUGE curb on inflation. Ask anyone who remember the '70s if THAT was a good economy. No misery indexes today. It's hard to tell 50-year old men w/ union jobs as machinists and at textile plants that their job is obsolete. But many of them are.
You need to qualify that. They sell the same goods as the others stores at a sometimes cheaper price.
In leftist world, 5 people employed by a small business being paid $8 per hour is better than 100 people being employed by Walmart at $7.50 per hour.
Two nights ago on MSNBC they had the best Walmart show. It ran around an hour. I am so proud that Amercas has produced this. You should have seen the many Chinese running and fighting in the store in Bejing. The head guy there said that they were planning 16 more stores in China next year and 200 more in the USA. They're like a Coca-Cola stock...
Regards,
Steve
I resent that my tax dollars are being wasted on the public broadcasting system.....now there is a mission for the FREEPERS to undertake...
A "former" employee notes the job security ... Not so secure!
How so, when many small business owners are Pro-Bush?
The commies at PBS need to learn how capitalism works. People vote with their pocketbooks. If something is good for America it prospers. If it is not, it goes out of business. Case closed!
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