WAL-MART Watch releases 2005 Report.

[reprehensor]

WALMARTWATCH.COM ANNUAL REPORT 2005: LOW PRICES AT WHAT COST?

From the report:

Everyone loves a bargain, and Wal-Mart’s “always low prices” draw millions of Americans to its stores. In fact, 8 in 10 Americans shop at Wal-Mart’s stores. Is Wal-Mart really such a good value, or do consumers pay in other ways?

Where true retail competition still exists, Wal-Mart’s prices are usually the lowest. The company regularly monitors competitors’ prices and responds quickly by lowering its own. Wal-Mart has a “Never Be Beat” list of about 1,000 household items (such as toothpaste and toilet paper) on which it will not be undersold. But in many small town markets, little competition is left, leaving Wal-Mart free to set its own prices.

Take local gas stations in Oklahoma, for example. Station owners expected a boon from all those cars driving to Wal-Mart, and they got it. But then Wal-Mart seized the opportunity and began pumping gas right at their stores, undercutting independent stations. In 2003, a federal judge ordered Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart, Inc., to stop selling gas below wholesale cost after the court found Wal-Mart had lost up to $300,000 on gas sales at three stores over an 8-month period.

The broader issue, of course, is the hidden costs Wal-Mart imposes on American taxpayers. Wal-Mart is one of the biggest recipients of corporate welfare in the world. Year after year, Wal-Mart’s low pay and insufficient employee benefits programs leave hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart workers to rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing assistance to make ends meet. Call it the “Wal-Mart Tax.” It costs American taxpayers at least $1.5 billion in federal tax dollars every year, and hundreds of millions more in state and local subsidy costs.

more@link

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Coming Soon: Robert Greenwald's new documentary: WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price

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[benevolent dictator]

1. I hate it when people complain about social welfare but

don't even think about corporate welfare. I'm like, you're a moran, we spend WAY more on corporate welfare than we do on social welfare. Who do you think needs the money more? The poor mother down the street who has to feed her kid, or the McDonald's because they want to promote their Big Mac in China? Hmm...

[getmeouttahere]

2. Mass Boycotts are the only way.....

to bring down these bastards! If you don't have to shop there, why would you?