Watch your tongue, sonny.
bttt
Posted on 09/14/2006 4:52:02 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. -- This suburb, contiguous with Chicago's western edge, is 88 percent white. A large majority of the customers of the Wal-Mart that sits here, less than a block outside Chicago, are from the city and more than 90 percent of the store's customers are African-American.
One of whom, a woman pushing a shopping cart with a stoical 3-year-old along for the ride, has a chip on her shoulder about the size of this 141,000 square- foot Wal-Mart. She applied for a job when the store opened in January and was turned down because, she said, the person doing the hiring "had an attitude.'' So why is the woman shopping here anyway? She looks at the questioner as though he is dimwitted and directs his attention to the low prices of the DVDs on the rack next to her.
Sensibly, she compartmentalizes her moods and her money. Besides, she should not brood. She had lots of company in not being hired: More than 25,000 people applied for the 325 openings.
Which vexes liberals like John Kerry. (He and his helpmeet last shopped at Wal-Mart when?) In 2004 he tested what has become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes: Wal-Mart is, he said, "disgraceful'' and symbolic of "what's wrong with America.'' By now, Democrats have succeeded, to their embarrassment (if they are susceptible to that), in making the basic numbers familiar:
The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation. By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates. Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).
People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart -- it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business -- save at least 17 percent. But because unions are strong in many grocery stores trying to compete with Wal-Mart, unions are yanking on the Democratic Party's leash, demanding laws to force Wal-Mart to pay wages and benefits higher than those that already are high enough to attract 77 times more applicants than there were jobs at this store.
The big-hearted progressives on Chicago's City Council, evidently unconcerned that the city gets zero sales tax revenues from a half a billion dollars that Chicago residents spend in the 42 suburban Wal-Marts, have passed a bill that, by dictating wages and benefits, would keep Wal-Marts from locating in the city. Richard Daley, a bread-and-butter Democrat, used his first veto in 17 years as mayor to swat it away.
Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots, and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals.
Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?
No. The current issue of The American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for "lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses'' and of having brought "great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world.''
What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).
When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?'' No, the book they turned into a best-seller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?'' Notice a pattern here?
Here's why 1) Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates.
2) Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).
You have put, into three simple sentences, everything I love about Free Republic. & why I keep coming back.
Makes one wonder how much stock Theresa has in Wal Mart.
Why doesnt this horsefaced POS find a closet somewhere to masturbate in and just go away.
He would, but I just don't think he's up to the task.
The article failed to mention Home Depot and Target. They were also 'targets' of the Chicago councils proposal.
BUY AMERICAN.
Watch your tongue, sonny.
bttt
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Ping
"People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart -- it has one-fifth of the nation's grocery business -- save at least 17 percent."
I bought "organic, vegetarian" American laid eggs yesterday at Wally-Mart, whatever those are. (My doc said I can't keep eating the way I did when I was 25 years old. Darn! Darn! Darn!) And they cost only 30¢ more than "normal" eggs.
Also bought 3 lbs. of turkey burgers (70% less fat than beef) for $4.02 - American made. That's a whole lot less money than sirloin burgers.
Picked up a loaf of American baked whole wheat bread for a buck and a half - about 50% cheaper than elsewhere.
And got a 12 pack of imported beer for $2 less than at the local grocery store. (Gotta wash down the turkey and eggs with something.)
Wally-Mart isn't cheap for veggies, but for what I needed yesterday, I saved a few bucks.
Sounds like the Great Satan to me.
/sarc
Says everything that needs to be said about this woman, I think.
People who buy their groceries from Wal-Mart . . . save at least 17 percent . . .
The big-hearted progressives on Chicago's City Council . . . have passed a bill that . . . would [have] keep Wal-Marts from locating in the city.
Didn't I hear somewhere that it was a big scandal that poor people in inner cities pay higher prices and than people in the suburbs do?
325/25,000, according to my handy number-beeber, is 1.3%.
I wonder if all 98.7% of applicants who weren't hired also think a HR flunky's "attitude" was the problem ... or is it just this particular genius.
Big scandal? I dunno. It's always been true. Retailers say it's to make up for the higher rate of shoplifting and vandalism, which seemed fair to me. Even when I lived in one of those neighborhoods and paid higher or drove out of town.
. . . No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).
Who do liberals not criticize?
- Liberals complain that oil companies polute too much and don't produce enough gasoline (i.e., they charge too much for gasoline).
- They complain that automobile companies charge too much and don't pay enough, and that cars use too much gas and make too much polution and crash too frequently.
- They complain that pharmaceutical companies charge too much money and that pharmaceuticals are addictive and ineffective and that drug tests hurt small animals.
- Liberals complain that police and the military are ineffective at controling crime and violence, and that they are too brutal and that they cost too much.
IOW, liberals mercilessly criticize and second guess people whose mission is to actually do things. And they are pussycats when it comes to criticizing people who don't do things but only talk.
- The UN.
- the State Department.
- Objective Journalism.
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