"Richard Clark" wrote in message
...
The social cost to America from Wal*Mart's business practices is on
the order of $1.5 Billion.

I have a suspicion that, depending on whether you're pro- or anti-Wal*Mart,
that number can easily more around by an order of magnitude...

Presumably that $1.5B translates into higher taxes, right? The average person
would rather pay $1 at WallyWorld and $0.25 in taxes rather than $1.10 at a
different store... it's just human nature. And even if you convince the
average person that their taxes are higher due to WallyWorld being around,
most of them would just say to cut tax rates and hence reduce spending on
whatever their favorite 'target' is -- the military for more liberally minded
individuals, social programs for conservatives, etc.

When you look at if from the Chinese
perspective, they are getting gang-banged too. The presentation
showed how Wal*Mart paid workers 6¢ apiece for an item selling at $12.

That strikes me as a red herring. For many products, there's very little
relationship between the selling price and any one constituent cost involved
in producing it, such as labor. (How much were the labor costs of the
salesguy who sold you a one karat diamond ring for, say, $10,000, after all?)