Walmart's New Research: A Grandiose and Distorted Self Portrait

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/walmarts-new-research-flattering-self-portrait



Last year Walmart commissioned a study on itself, and now its findings can be revealed: Walmart is the greatest thing since penicillin. More specifically, the study sees the chain-store titan’s widening footprint on America’s retail landscape as a gift for the communities lucky enough to have a Supercenter land on them.

The research, conducted by the Hatamiya Group, a Davis-based firm owned by Lon Hatamiya, is predicated on a comparative analysis of taxable retail sales and retail business permits, and reaches two conclusions: “On average,” California communities with Walmart Supercenters in them have fared better economically than those without them.

Of course, while it may be difficult to name a community that doesn’t have a Walmart in it, California is a very large state and has places where even Walmart won’t tread — economic no-go zones that have been especially hard-hit by the recent recession and slow recovery. (One community the study uses to represent a non-Walmart town is the bankrupt city of Vallejo.) Hatamiya’s comparisons are a little like saying towns with Neiman Marcus stores in them fare better than those without them — you wouldn’t attribute Beverly Hills’ affluence to the presence of Neiman Marcus, just as you wouldn’t blame Bombay Beach’s lack of prosperity on the absence of a Neiman’s.

In a prepared response to this study, United Food and Commercial Workers union spokeswoman Sierra Feldner-Shaw pointed to contrary 2004 research conducted by Philip Mattera and Anna Purinton:

Though the 105 Walmart Supercenters in California may indeed bring “total taxable retail sales” (presumably mostly Walmart sales) up, this must be balanced with the overall downward drag on the community. Walmart and other superstores kill jobs, suck up taxpayer money in the form of development subsidies and public assistance for its workers, force small businesses to close their doors and drive wages down for retail and grocery workers in the surrounding communities.

Walmart has grabbed an estimated 70 percent of the taxpayer funds available for building in economic assistance zones in California over the last decade. Rather than gaining jobs, studies have shown that when superstores open, local, small businesses close, workers lose their jobs, wages are depressed, and the environmental impacts from these large format stores lead to increased traffic and pollution for the residents of the local community.

[Ron Green]

1. Three words:

True Cost Accounting.

[jsr]

2. What a bunch of crock