Wal-Mart

I am so sick of the Wal-Mart commercials during the Olympics. They all feature a breathless American just about squirting her shorts over the fact that she could have saved $7.25 if ONLY she had shopped at Wal-Mart. Oh.....Fail!

Two points....

1. Wal-Mart has single handely destroyed small town America. They did this by just undercutting small local merchants. They did this by buying boat loads of shit made in China by workers making 25 cents an hour. I hate Wal-Mart but I'm equally depressed about America the consumer that ONLY looks at price and not the effect. Yes you can save a couple of bucks by shopping at Walmart but at what real price? The price is having a really ugly box in your town (actually just outside by the interstate)  with a giant black top parking lot. The price is having no small shops or neighborhood merchants. No walking down the street and window shopping. No expertise. No real choice. You're going to have to buy the Chinese shit that comes on the giant Walmart truck or nothing since all of your downtown shops are now closed. Wal-Mart did this but we went along.

2. Shopping at Wal-Mart is not a fun thing like it shows in the commercials. Much like how they show casino commercials without any oxygen bottles. It's a depressing place with shitty merchandise, dirty floors, uncaring, uneducated, minimum wage help if you can find them, and a depressing, flourescent display of tattoed Americans.

You have to decide if the money you save on buying a fucking bag of Cheetos is worth what a Wal-Mart will do to your neighborhood. Last Christmas I shopped at all small shops in my home town of Chicago. I shopped on Broadway and on Lincoln Ave in Lincoln Square. I had pleasant conversations with merchants and bought interesting little things for people. It was a Christmas shopping experience that I really enjoyed. Can you say that after doing an hour at a Wal-Mart during the holiday season?

People will say that Wal-Mart generates jobs. Sure, minimum wage, retail jobs with no skills needed while the Wal family is currently worth over 100 BILLION dollars. Yes, I had to check that myself - B I L L I O N S.  So your joy at your $7.25 discount is laughed at by the Wal family as they enjoy their BILLIONS and fuck small towns.

Oh, forgot the blog. . . There is no God either!