Wal-Mart reshaped America
Small towns and cities across America were the backbone of the country's virile economy of goods and services. In my own hometown of 12,000 when I was growing up, thriving businesses included local and chain department stores, men's and women's shops, a dozen drug stores, supermarkets and grocery stores and a wide variety of others from auto and hardware to furniture stores.Now these things still can be bought in my town and hundreds of others like it across the land, but only from one place - Wal-Mart.
Not since the government decided that Standard Oil controlled too much of the petroleum market - or that the cross ownership of Dupont and General Motors posed a similar threat to free enterprise - has the idea of healthy competition been as challenged as it is by the Arkansas-based retail behemoth "that is simultaneously the most admired and the most reviled in the world."
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Posted by Brendan - June 29, 2005 09:07 AM - High Costs