This was first written and placed on this web site 2/20/2018, and it’s still appropriate!
I make it a habit not to go into a Walmart. I think it is because I have always nick named Walmarts, “Chinamarts,” and I am old enough to remember Sam Walton’s vow to “Only sell Made in America,” and that as soon as he died in 1992, and his kids took over, everything seemly suddenly came from China. It almost seemed like a miracle, so fast did it happen. That’s when I stopped going into Walmarts. I had no other real reason. After all, Walmarts do have low prices, but after reading a 2006 book titled “The Wal Mart Effect,” (I just bought another on ebay for $4.77 free shipping) I now have dozens of reasons not to go into Walmarts. The book is available on e-bay for under $5 used, or a couple of bucks more for a new one, and it is electric, to put it mildly.
Walmart, I am certain, in the 12 years since that book was published, has indulged in the actions and policies mentioned in the book, several times over, as much and as often. It nauseates me. The thousands of factories put out of business, and millions put out of work because of Walmart’s buying policies, are truly criminal, but perfectly legal, albeit totally unscrupulous. These figures are not exaggerations. Sam’s kids, who have done this to America, its citizens, towns, counties, and even states, perhaps are kids who were raised with no scruples, and maybe even not having a father present, as Sam was constantly flying around, visiting his stores. It’s not pleasant to see kids who were poorly raised, or maybe well raised, and strangely not give a good damn about anything but themselves. When Sam died, his kids instantly became probably the richest kids in America, and probably the world, and rather than stay the course, they decided they needed more wealth, more fame, and obviously, unless they are dim-witted, nailed America to the cross of manufacturing oblivion.
I’m having a difficult time writing this, after I just finished the book, so excuse me, because as a geezer who realizes something from a book I should have read 12 years ago, I am in sort of a daze I suppose. Walmart is so big, and so powerful, that its suppliers, mostly in China, but rarely in America, deliver merchandise, disguised as of excellent quality, but cheap. Be it lawn sprinklers, jeans, or anything sold in a Walmart, these items used to be made in America, of high quality, with American labor, in American factories. When Donald Trump campaigned about America losing 70,000 factories, he was absolutely correct, and the blame can probably initially be laid at Sam’s kids, although the author doesn’t mention that fact. The Kids are old now, maybe like me, and they have probably nothing to do with Walmart now, but what they started when Dad died, and they inherited control! That has always been my gripe about Walmart, and the reason I won’t go into them, but the author of the book never once mentions the fact about what I have just written. He goes into the closing of factories, but never mentions once, that Walmarts doesn’t anymore sell things “Made in America.” The reader can easily figure it out, and deduce that with all the factories having gone bankrupt and workers laid off, which he does mentions with good examples. He never lays the blame on the Sam Walton descendents, or the fact (except casually in the last pages), that it should never have happened or even begun. Without Walmart starting the cheap China labor purchases, America might still be whole.
The book deals with Walmart going into the grocery business in detail also, and do read about the salmon farms in Chile. The whole book is chock full of things a huge corporation can do, all legally, to make itself huge, domineering, and basically untouchable.
The book is rife with Walmart’s heavy handedness with its employees, managers, and especially suppliers. The book it totally riveting about that. I can see that it is maybe too late to ever bring America back to its once manufacturing greatness. As the book points out, most Walmart shoppers come away with lots of low-priced items, except some groceries, all made in thousands of Chinese factories, or clothes from Bangladesh maybe, in filthy factories manned by 13 cent an hour labor. How could America possibly close thousands of Chinese factories and open them again in America? I’m still not going into Walmarts, and I strongly suggest that you spend $5 and get this book. Even though it is 12 years old, it is easy to imagine how much further down the primrose path, Walmart has gone since its publication.
After Walmart’s ‘big box’ stores got even bigger and became ‘super,’ America then had Home Depots and other big box stores, all selling Chinese made items, and I have heard that if you need to buy a power tool, never buy one at a Home Depot, as the brand name items are of inferior quality, as opposed to the same brand being bought at a local hardware store.
-Don Stott, don@coloradogold.com. 970-249-4646