Totally agree. And if the Dems weren’t such pea brains they’d be yelling about this. I’d listen.

Look no further than the automakers. The UAW, overregulation, excessive corporate taxes, and now SarBox have eaten the Big Three alive, while Honda and Toyota gain market share; even as they expand their U.S. manufacturing base. Mind you, they also break sales records while refusing to incentivize everything down to the bone. We need to dig a lot deeper than Wal-Mart if we want to resurrect our manufacturing base, my friends. A lot deeper.

The toaster factory in Michigan or Tennesee or New Jersey folds. Jobs are lost.

Not really. the toaster factory closed years ago because the management discovered that it couldn’t compete with China. It also discovered that with automation, those toasters could be made with less “manpower.” jobs were already lost.

Anyway, it’s an interesting conversation, but it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault. Like i said, too much government regulation and interference drives the costs up for all consumers.
The oil industry is a prime example.

I wouldn’t be caught dead in Walmart, partly because they have driven a lot of companies to ruin, partly because they have dreadful stores and merchandise. I will give them one thing, in a time when wages for the average Joe have been stagnant over a decade and CEOs have had an average 25% per year comp increase (based on F 500 past decade) they have been pretty good about keeping their top execs within reasonable salaries.

An economist would agree with you guys, and unless we’re Bill Gates, we all have to be economists. But it’s short-sighted economics. You can get a $5 toaster at Walmart? Well,whoopie! The toaster factory in Michigan or Tennesee or New Jersey folds. Jobs are lost. Bad enough. But that’s a toaster factory that can’t be retooled to turn out stinger missle parts or night goggles or whatever else in heck you need to fight a modern war. Or do we plan to buy them from the most likely antagonist, China?
Madness.

costs such as: healthcare benefits for part time workers, retirement packages, union wages, insurance, and I could go on.

Oh, and the biggest cost to business??? TAXES. forgot that one.

WalMart is why every damn thing is made in China and why the USA is losing its manufacturing/industrial base

No, it’s not Wal-Mart – they just take advantage of the fact that stuff in China is cheaper because they aren’t REGULATED to death. Made in America is great, but remember that it the cost of those items are passed down to the consumer – costs such as: healthcare benefits for part time workers, retirement packages, union wages, insurance, and I could go on. Not to say that this is all necessarily bad, but it must be paid for somehow – and that ‘somehow’ is by increasing the price to the consumer. So, we either deal with it by paying the increased costs, or we buy stuff made in china. i think most people on a strict budget will choose the latter.

Much as I hate and despise democrat polticians, I have to dissent here. WalMart is why every damn thing is made in China and why the USA is losing its manufacturing/industrial base. It is an urgency of national defense that this be reversed. As long as I’m able to I’m buying ‘made in the USA’, or doing without.
Leave it to the Dems that even when they have a legit issue to totally fack it up.

dhimwit –

I understand (and shar) the desire to but American. But business isn’t a zero sum game, though nanny state dems seem to think so. (“That man over there is making money! Who did he take it from!?”)

I look at it this way. The money I save by shopping at Walmart, Aldi’s, and Value City over the course of a year add up to an extra morgage payment. Walmart is shortening the term of my morgage from thirty years to twenty years and saving me about $10,000 dollars in interest. If that ain’t buying American, I don’t know what is!

If Walmart doing business abroad is a win for China, (and, unfortunely, it does promote some people and practices I don’t like) it’s also a win for us.

dhimwit, your issues are to be considered but they are in addition to the dems wanting to regulate business from every end/facet, in their blind aim of robbing Peter to give to Paul, while Peters and Pauls shop at WalMart and their own 401Ks contain plenty of WMT shares.

Il terrorismo? Un invenzione dei perfidi neocon. Gli stati canaglia? Simpatici buontemponi che si oppongono all’imperialismo a stelle e strisce. La minaccia nucleare iraniana? L’espressione più pura di un anelito di libertà….

I guess I’m just nuance-challenged.

They are just to stupid to check their retirement funds.

As Cap’n Ed notes, they won’t fight in Iraq or against al Qaeda, but they’ll sure as heck fight against Wal-Mart. Nice priorities, huh?

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-m…

1.3 million employees you say. That’s a lot of votes come November.

Hard to believe, yet another Democrat strategy is destined to backfire on them. Who’d a thunk it?

Hound successful US businesses, and undermine every effort to protect ourselves. Oh yeah, they’re on their way to majority status alright!

Liberal democrats are nothing socialists, or traitors, or worse. God help us.