Don't Blame Wal-Mart for the Wal-Mart Economy
Low wages, the trade deficit, the collapse of U.S. manufacturing—the business press says Wal-Mart's responsible. Actually, you are.
How about you, for one? After all, Wal-Mart is a mere pass-through for its customers—one that takes a slim margin for the trouble. At Wal-Mart, the customer is king, everyone else be damned: competitors, employees, and the domestic manufacturing base. Everything Wal-Mart does—particularly its low prices—is done in the name of slavish devotion to consumer demand. And every day, millions of Americans ratify Wal-Mart's strategy by shopping there. Stores don't kill economies, consumers do.
Steve Jobs’ Dream Device Has Arrived, and It's Made by Microsoft
Tornado Survivor Finds Her Missing Dog in the Rubble of Her Home During a TV Interview
Texas Judge Blocks Lesbian Couple From Living Together
Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com and follow him on Twitter. His latest book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, has just been published in paperback.