Franklin Avenue

Before You Shop
After you stuff your belly with turkey, and before you head out to shop on Friday, take a look at the L.A. Times' three-part series on what it calls "The Wal-Mart Effect." The summary:

From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world's largest corporation and a global economic force.

It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation's largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.

Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.

The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart's checkout lines.

Yet Wal-Mart's astonishing success exacts a heavy price.

By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.

Wal-Mart's penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company's own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.

I know other blogs have already commented up and down on the series, but I finally got to read the package myself today. The stories remind me, yet again, about how living in America means sometimes living in denial. And how we want it both ways: I hate SUVs because they're making us dependent on foreign oil and polluting the atmosphere -- yet, there I went and bought a mini-SUV (Honda CRV) a few months ago and deluded myself into thinking that it's OK because it's a smaller Honda. And I think it's horrible that big box retailers like Best Buy are selling CDs below invoice, putting a hurt on smalltime record stores. But guess where we bought the new Outkast CD -- yup, Best Buy ($10.99!).

(Indeed, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich hits it on the head: "We have split brains. Most of the time, the half of our brain that wants the best deal prevails.")

As for Wal-Mart, I generally avoid the place because (a) there are few here in L.A. and because, more importantly, (b) have you ever been inside one? They're pretty unpleasant. Kids screaming, merchandise stacked all over the place -- and that gnawing feeling inside that you're supporting an evil empire. Just go to the one in Porter Ranch (near Chatsworth) and see.

What the L.A. Times package doesn't go into is whether the alternatives are any better. We're big fans of Target, which somehow manages to offer up a much, much more enjoyable shopping environment. (And that brings me back to living in denial. I know in the back of my head that Target is guilty of some of the same problems. Yet, in my mind, because Target is not the behemoth that Wal-Mart is, it's OK.)