Pulling up to my local Wal-Mart; I parked in front of a trash can that had an empty box of Pampers and 4 cans of Keystone beer stacked on the top. Kind of said it all for me.

Maybe it's just me, but do Wal-Mart employees weigh just a tad more than the typical Target employee?Maybe it's the blue smock vs. the red shirt.

Same issue with the customers. 

While it is popular for politicians to wail about injustices towards employees and the public in general..they really are the employer of first and last resort..........It is easy to get a job there when you are young and the same when you are old. When Congress kicked millions of folks off of welfare in 1994, where do you think they started their first job. Hopefully, they learned the work ethic and moved on. Many didn't. I once met a retired female 1st Sargent who started there after retiring from 25 years in the military, and she moved up to Assistant Store Manager with no difficulty. She loved Wal-Mart and was going to work there until they threw her out. So, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

My sister worked at Wal-Mart as a Greeter. Since she was not known for being a particularly out going person, nor particularly patient,so I wondered about wisdom of that move; she told me that Greeters are not really there to welcome folks, they are really the last line of defense to keep people from walking out with unpaid merchandise.When my sister became ill and needed nursing home care, she wore out her coverage after several months...but still needed care...Wal-Mart took care of it. So maybe they are not the monster everyone says they are.

Every time I buy something from China, I feel as if I am buying the Chinese Army another bullet. Curiously, Target imports more from China than Wal-Mart does. I wish that both (and the Dollar Stores) would buy from Haiti and Dominican Republic to try and build the economies of countries in our hemisphere. 

Wal-Mart saves themselves money by moving a lot of the logistics problems to their vendors. They even have the vendors do the ordering. This costs the vendors more and erodes there financials to the point that many go out of business because they lost money trying to serve Wally. Schwinn bicycles come to mind, I believe they went into bankruptcy although they were shipping more bikes than in any time in their history, but they were losing money on every bike.Many vendors are afraid to ask for increases or are unable to justify increases to Wally and they end up in a catch 22.

Wal-Mart is in Bentonville, Ark, which is not close to anything. If you were flying there before 2002,you would either go to Dallas and fly to Fayetteville and rent a car, or go to Tulsa and rent a car. Now you can fly to "Northwest Arkansaa Regional Airport" directly from O'Hare, Newark, and Houston.I guess they didn't want to call it the Wal-Mart airport, so they gave it the clumsy name it has. I can remember going there back when they had about 60 stores, and the buyer's first question was;"Which plane are you on?"...... Because there was only 4 flights a day, and he didn't want you to miss your flight.

You can get all kinds of hotel rooms in Bentonville, but if you want to live there, you basically have to wait for someone to move, because they can't build houses fast enough. 

I went ot Wal-Mart HQ in Mexico City...it is better armed and walled than many military bases I have seen.Everyone had a gun....'cept me. 

Enough on that.