• Wal-Mart and America
• Wal-Mart and competition
• Wal-Mart and
  America’s bottom line
• Wal-Mart and
  small town America
• Wal-Mart and groceries
• Wal-Mart’s employees
• Wal-Mart’s wages
  and benefits
• Wal-Mart and China
• Wal-Mart’s size
• Wal-Mart’s critics
• Wal-Mart’s community
  impact
• Wal-Mart and "censorship"
• Wal-Mart and freedom

July21, 2006

We wrapped up our Wal-Mart Appreciation Week tour on Thursday at the Wal-Mart Supercenter on John Hawkins Parkway in the Birmingham, Ala., suburb of Hoover. The store itself seemed very well-maintained, and Store Manager Jeff Jay and his team have a lot to be proud of.

I was joined by three local consumers, each of whom had some great things to say about why they appreciate Wal-Mart and why they like shopping at America’s most popular retailer.

Here’s some of what local customer Lauren Brooks had to say:

I’m at this particular Wal-Mart because there isn’t one close to me yet. But I’m very excited because, within a year, we are going to have a Super Wal-Mart less than a mile from my house. I’m very excited about that, about what it’s going to do for the area, bringing in a lot of other stores around it.

I have two small children, and I love Wal-Mart because it is one-stop shopping. I can get everything I need and not have to get the children in and out of the car. Of course, I like saving money. And I like the Wal-Mart brand. I think the [store-brand] quality is just as good, in most cases, as the name-brand.

My mother always says, if you can’t buy it at Wal-Mart, you probably don’t need it, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Christy Abraham, another local customer, had this to say:

I just love Wal-Mart. I always say it is my second home.

I just like it because it is so convenient. I can have my oil changed while I’m grocery shopping, have pictures developed, get my contact lenses here. And it is very cheap. I find it’s cheaper than any other grocery store. So I love Wal-Mart.

Angela Arroyo added her reasons for appreciating Wal-Mart:

We have four growing boys in our family and our monthly grocery and household budget exceeds our mortgage. I can’t imagine what it would be if we were shopping elsewhere. I feel like, because we’re shopping at Wal-Mart, I’m able to make better food choices for my children. It isn’t just a question of filling them up, but I can feed them better and more nutritiously .

Also, we’re a home-school family, so there are times that I have the kids with me 24 hours a day, like during the school year. Because Wal-Mart is open 24 hours a day, I’m able to come at night, by myself, and that’s an immeasurable benefit to my family for me to be able to shop and spend the two hours I need at Wal-Mart without children.

Thirdly, my husband’s nationality is of a different country, and so we eat a lot of very ethnic food in our family. Before exploring those things at Wal-Mart, we would have to shop at specialty stores. I’m now able to find most of the ingredients at Wal-Mart for about half the price of specialty shops.

So because of the variety, the long hours, and the great prices, we love Wal-Mart.

Clearly, there are lots of reasons why Americans have made Wal-Mart the number one retailer in the country. Bottom line is that Wal-Mart consistently meets its customers’ needs. Americans want to save money, enjoy a wide selection of products, realize the efficiency of one-stop shopping, and Wal-Mart delivers.

The union-funded groups now spending millions trying to blame everything possible on Wal-Mart need to go back to worrying about something else, and let Wal-Mart be Wal-Mart. We’ll have more reports from Wal-Mart Appreciation Week in the days ahead, so check back in with us going forward. -- Luke Boggs

July 19, 2006

Wal-Mart Appreciation Week hit the front page of the Knoxville News Sentinel’s business section on Tuesday. Reporter Andrew Eder came out to see us at the Walker Springs Wal-Mart in Knoxville on Monday, and he did a good job summarizing our efforts. Here are a few excerpts:

You’d think Wal-Mart Stores Inc., whose sales last year exceeded the gross domestic product of Sweden, wouldn’t need a third party to help fight its battles. Luke Boggs, founder of americansforwalmart.org, would respectfully disagree.

Boggs, 38, a speechwriter from suburban Atlanta, said he started his organization in part because of the rise of two Washington-based advocacy groups, Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch.

Boggs charged the company’s critics with wanting to limit economic freedom and competition. Wal-Mart has long resisted unionization in its stores, and both anti-Wal-Mart groups are backed by labor unions.

Wal-Mart critics say the retailer fails to pay employees a living wage, contributes to the decline of U.S. manufacturing and offers inadequate health insurance.

Boggs counters that Wal-Mart couldn’t staff its stores if it treated employees poorly, that Wal-Mart buys far more from American suppliers than Chinese and that Wal-Mart is one of the largest providers of health insurance in the country.

The article featured a brief response from Chris Kofinis, spokesman for the union-manufactured Wake Up Wal-Mart attack group in Washington, DC. Kofinis, whose full-time job is trying to think up new ways to smear Wal-Mart, told Eder:

It’s not about organizing the company. It’s about changing the company. Wal-Mart has a specific responsibility to be a good corporate citizen.

Malarkey. What is clear is that the union bosses bankrolling Kofinis would rather try to cheap-shot Wal-Mart in the arena of public opinion than actually go toe-to-toe against Wal-Mart in the marketplace.

It’s a shame, really, all those millions of dollars being spent by the unions in their bid to harm Wal-Mart. You would think the unions would have something better to do with that kind of cash, but apparently not.

The dirty little non-secret to anyone paying attention is that Kofinis and his union sponsors are looking out for their own narrow special interests, not the broader interests of the American people.

Wal-Mart doesn’t need to change. It is already a boon to the American people and an admirable corporate citizen. Wal-Mart provides jobs and everyday savings to the people in this country who most need both -- and was the top corporate contributor to charity last year, with donations topping $245 million.

While Wal-Mart was busy assisting hurricane victims. creating 125,000 new jobs, and helping America’s families save $263 billion last year, Kofinis and the rest of the anti-Wal-Mart bunch on K Street didn’t save anyone a nickel. But they did make a pretty penny for themselves trying to rip Wal-Mart.

You can check out the rest of the article from yesterday’s Knoxville News Sentinel at the following link. http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/business/article/0,1406,KNS_376_4851239,00.html Registration is required.

July 18, 2006

Wal-Mart Appreciation Week got off to a fast start yesterday with a pair of press conferences in Atlanta and Knoxville.

We had an excellent event at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter, located on Windward Parkway in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. It was great to be able to talk about the rationale behind Wal-Mart Appreciation Week, and issue a certificate of appreciation to Store Manager Jim Smith and his team.

I was joined at the lectern by two local Wal-Mart customers -- Julie Phillips and Karen Baker. Julie, a mother of four, said that Wal-Mart helped her stick to her family budget for groceries. In fact, she said, Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices often gave her the chance to buy additional items she otherwise wouldn’t have purchased.

An accountant by training and a mother of two, Karen said she kept meticulous track of her family’s finances and found that they were able to save $1,300 per year just by shopping for groceries at Wal-Mart. When her young son was still in diapers, Karen said she bought all of them at Wal-Mart. Not only did she find Wal-Mart’s store-brand diapers of good quality, but she saved money on the name-brand diapers as well.

Later in the morning, I had a good time talking with Denny Schaffer on Atlanta’s WGST radio. Denny said he liked and appreciated Wal-Mart himself, but he did wonder why I would go out of my way to talk about the company. I gave him a straightforward, decent enough answer on that, but I should have also underlined the fact that I’m a strong believer in free market competition, and I didn’t like seeing a great American company like Wal-Mart criticized by special interest critics.

Thanks to Julie and Karen and our other supporters for coming out to the event in Atlanta. And thanks to Denny for all the fun on WGST. I’ll have more on the Knoxville stop -- and what comes next in tomorrow’s update. -- Luke Boggs

July 17, 2006

Today, americansforwalmart.org is proud to announce the kickoff of national Wal-Mart Appreciation Week. Read below for all the details, check out the fun features on the Wal-Mart Appreciation Week participation page, and come back tomorrow morning for an update on what may well turn out to be the largest mass participation event in American history. Something to tell your kids and grandkids about, no doubt!

July 17, 2006 PRESS RELEASE

National Wal-Mart Appreciation Week Kicks Off in Atlanta

ATLANTA – Celebrating the widespread appreciation of Wal-Mart by the American people, americansforwalmart.org has declared the week of July 17 – 22 “Wal-Mart Appreciation Week” across the United States.

“Wal-Mart’s enduring commitment to everyday low prices has reduced the cost of living and boosted the standard of living for all Americans, and we thought it was about time to say thanks,”; explained Luke Boggs, executive director of americansforwalmart.org, an independent consumer campaign not affiliated with or funded by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

“We want to give Americans a chance to show their appreciation to Wal-Mart, and people can participate by simply shopping and saving at their local Wal-Mart store,” Boggs said.

The Atlanta-based group expects Wal-Mart Appreciation Week to be among the largest mass participation events in American history, with more than 125 million people taking part nationwide. That would make this week’s event roughly 25 times as large as Hands Across America (1986) and 250 times as large as Woodstock (1969).

“With more than 125 million American customers per week, Wal-Mart has many, many times more fans than critics,” Boggs said. “We wanted to make sure the voice of Wal-Mart’s customers is heard loud and clear in support of America’s leading retailer and our free market system.”

Visitors to americansforwalmart.org can download commemorative Wal-Mart Appreciation Week bumper and lapel stickers. Customers can share their own Wal-Mart appreciation stories at stories@americansforwalmart.org.

“Despite the relentless efforts of professional rent-a-critics, Wal-Mart remains overwhelmingly popular with the American people – and for good reason. Americans love saving money, we support free competition, and we know the difference between a bargain and a cheap shot,” said Boggs.

“Wal-Mart’s focus on low prices saves the American people $263 billion per year,” said Boggs, citing a 2005 study by Global Insight that examined the overall pricing impact of the popular retailer. “Wal-Mart is creating more than $2,300 in annual savings for every family in America,” Boggs said.

Boggs will kick off Wal-Mart Appreciation Week Monday morning in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store in Metro Atlanta, where he will thank Wal-Mart employees for all they do to help American families. Other local consumers will discuss why they like shopping and saving at Wal-Mart.

Boggs plans to visit Wal-Mart stores in five cities across four states over the course of the week. In addition to Atlanta, the cities include Knoxville, Tenn.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Nashville, Tenn.; and Birmingham, Ala.

An independent, grassroots consumer effort not affiliated with or funded by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., americansforwalmart.org is the sole and founding campaign of Americans For Free Enterprise, a Georgia-based nonprofit. Visit the group online at www.americansforwalmart.org.

The executive director of americansforwalmart.org is Luke Boggs, an Atlanta writer and proud Wal-Mart customer. Boggs has written about Wal-Mart for publications including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, DSN Retailing Today and Human Events. He recently spoke about Wal-Mart on a panel at Columbia University.

June 14, 2006

Charles Fishman’s recently published book on Wal-Mart, The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works—and How It’s Transforming the American Economy, is ultimately an anti-Wal-Mart volume.

To his credit, however, the Fast Company reporter has not turned out the hardcover equivalent of Robert Greenwald’s reflexively negative would-be documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.”

Fishman is a business reporter not a hack filmmaker, and he looks into the phenomenon of Wal-Mart in a serious way, with plenty of straightforward reporting that, for much of the book, offers a more nuanced and multi-faceted view of the retail giant.

In the end, Fishman comes down as decidedly critical of Wal-Mart. Among other things, he cites a miniature oxford shirt, made for toddler boys and available at Wal-Mart for $5.74. This price, Fishman opines, is “an immediate alert,” a tip-off that something sinister is going on. He backs up that belief with little more than his own gut feelings.

Our view is that apparel is inexpensively manufactured for many American retailers, not just Wal-Mart. That the final retail price is such a bargain is testimony not to anything nefarious happening but to Wal-Mart’s commitment to pass along the savings to customers. In other words, other little oxford shirts are likely produced nearly as inexpensively – and then just marked up a lot more.

Fishman also suggests that the corporate values that have made Wal-Mart such a great success – “modesty, unpretentiousness, frugality, drive, energy, determination to drive a hard bargain” – are less becoming on a large firm. He insists, rather arbitrarily, that the company has “literally outgrown those values.”

We disagree. Good values are good values, no matter how big a company may have become. Wal-Mart was founded on red-white-and-blue American values, it has prospered and grown based on those values, and it would abandon them at its peril.

While we reject Fishman’s ultimate conclusions, we acknowledge that his book is not the work of a relentlessly negative ideologue. Even as Fishman winds up embracing some of the predictable criticisms of Wal-Mart, he isn’t ashamed to pass along some of the more positive aspects of the Wal-Mart story.

For example, Fishman begins his book with the story of how Wal-Mart asked deodorant makers to get rid of the boxes which had traditionally contained the product. Wal-Mart saw all those boxes as sheer waste. Waste in cost to produce. Waste in cost to ship. Waste in cost to the consumer. Waste, ultimately, to haul away in the trash.

As Fishman puts it, “Whole forests have not fallen in part because of [Wal-Mart’s] decision…We’re saving $5 million in nickels five or six times a year – as often as we need a new container of deodorant. The nation has saved hundreds of millions of dollars since the deodorant box disappeared.”

Fishman also acknowledges that the broader savings to consumers are very real and very tangible at Wal-Mart. He writes: “For a family of four who might spend $500 a month on groceries, Wal-Mart’s 15 percent lower prices translate into savings of hundreds of dollars a year, just for driving to a different store.”

Fishman admits that Wal-Mart provides consumers with a level of retail choice and convenience that is staggering, even historic: “A Wal-Mart Supercenter offers 120,000 items. Step inside a Wal-Mart [and] you command a cornucopia from every corner of the globe that wasn’t available, not even to the richest and most powerful, one hundred years ago.

An anti-Wal-Mart book would seem a strange place to read such positive insights into the company, but there are plenty of them in Charles Fishman’s recent book, The Wal-Mart Effect.
 

June 2, 2006

A new study published in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly claims that Wal-Mart creates poverty. Authors Stephan J. Goetz and Hema Swaminathan looked at the poverty numbers and discovered that more low-income Americans live in counties where Wal-Mart operates.

To this we say: Duh!

Trouble is, the study’s agenda-driven writers get their chickens and eggs thoroughly scrambled. Contrary to the study’s absurd claims, Wal-Mart doesn’t create low-income people. Instead, the popular discounter locates in communities that most need its signature commitment to low prices.

By design, then, there are more folks of modest means living in places Wal-Mart serves. By the backward logic used in the study, these professors could also conclude that oceanfront hotels create beaches, ski lodges create mountains, and busy airports create nearby cities.

As regular visitors to these pages are aware, Wal-Mart enriches the American people – it doesn’t impoverish anyone.

Wal-Mart has been a huge boon to the American people – and particularly those of limited means. In fact, a 2005 Global Insight study found that Wal-Mart, by maintaining downward pressure on retail pricing over the past 20 years, saved the American people $263 billion in 2004 alone. That’s $2,329 in annual household savings.

Also, Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Solow and others have found that Wal-Mart did more to increase productivity during the late 1990s boom than any other company – by far. Rising productivity increases our national wealth and prosperity.

Contrary to the preposterous claims of this biased and deeply flawed new study, Wal-Mart has lowered the cost of living and boosted the standard of living for millions of Americans. And no company today is doing more to improve the everyday lives of low-income families.

We look forward to Goetz and Swaminathan next discovering that Nordstrom stores, Ritz Carlton hotels, boutique designer shops and Mercedes dealerships create wealthy people in the counties where they are located.

Publisher’s press release on the study: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/view_release.php?id=14555

Typical news story on the study:

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2006/05/15/daily29.html

In other news, Wal-Mart held its annual meeting in Arkansas on June 2. Company leaders had a positive message for shareholders, discussing Wal-Mart’s plans to continue building stores and providing additional retail choice to people across the United States and around the world.

More specifically, the company expects to build 600 stores worldwide over the next year, which is great news for consumers at home and abroad. Except, of course, in places like the New York City area, where anti-competitive gripe groups continue to deny regular folks a chance to shop and save at Wal-Mart.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060602/wal_mart_shareholders.html?.v=3
 

May 10, 2006

Criticism of Andrew Young Rings Hollow

A cart of groceries at Wal-Mart costs 17 to 40 percent less than a cart of groceries at other stores. Those savings are real and important to the well-being of millions of Americans of modest means, who depend on Wal-Mart’s low prices to put food on the family table.

Yet a handful of misguided activists leveled harsh criticism at former Atlanta mayor and civil rights leader Andrew Young recently for his role in heading up the advocacy group Working Families for Wal-Mart. Some even stooped so low as to suggest that Young has taken a stance against the poor in his support for the discount retailer.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.

In fact, such vitriolic criticism rings particularly hollow on the heels of Wal-Mart’s recent announcement of a “Jobs and Opportunity Zones” initiative to open more than 50 stores in areas of severe urban decay. The program will place new stores in neighborhoods with high unemployment rates, with some locations planned in abandoned buildings or even on sites that are environmentally contaminated.

Wal-Mart’s bold move into urban areas would create 15,000 to 25,000 new jobs in inner-city communities that desperately need those employment opportunities – and make Wal-Mart’s signature “everyday low prices” available to citizens currently underserved by discount retailing. And the stores would generate an estimated $100 million in annual tax revenue for local and state governments.

As staggering as those figures are, the bigger picture is even more impressive. Wal-Mart employs 1.3 million Americans, and supports 3 million additional U.S. jobs through its suppliers. Furthermore, the retailer saves its customers an estimated $16 billion annually in discounts, according to a recent Harvard study, and saves consumers many times that amount each year by keeping downward pressure on market prices through competition.

While Wal-Mart’s move into inner-city neighborhoods may seem like a departure for a company famous for its rural roots, this new development is perfectly consistent with Wal-Mart’s tradition of going into underserved areas and providing additional retail choices to residents.

Sam Walton followed this approach in building Wal-Mart stores in small towns across the rural South. His successors are now following the same path in establishing more Wal-Mart’s in areas that continue to be overlooked and underserved by retailers.

The predictable chatter from Young’s detractors begs the question: How many inner-city jobs will these critics create this year?

We’re not holding our breath, but it’s time for the whiners and complainers to stop the misguided bashing and start supporting the best interests of all Americans, particularly those of limited means.

Related stories:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/0425bizwalmart.html

http://www.walmartfacts.com/newsdesk/article.aspx?id=1758

On the commentary front, venerable Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist and editorial page editor Jim Wooten penned an excellent piece this week on Wal-Mart and its critics. Wooten was spot-on – as he so often is – in pointing out that Wal-Mart, more than anything, is being attacked for its success.

Summing up, Wooten writes that Wal-Mart’s “success should be admired. By making it possible for consumers to buy more for their money, it adds to everybody's quality of life.” Amen to that, Brother Wooten. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/wooten/stories/050906.html
 

April 28, 2006

The executive director of americansforwalmart.org, Luke Boggs, journeyed to New York City yesterday to join a panel discussion on Wal-Mart sponsored by the Columbia Political Union.

"It was a great event and terrific group of students," Boggs said. "We had a substantive and thoughtful discussion, and I enjoyed meeting the students and my fellow panelists."

Here is an excerpt from a news article in today's Columbia Spectator:

At a debate last night over the policies and practices of the world’s largest company, Wal-mart, panelists traded statistics and retorts on issues ranging from vacant lots to the very nature of capitalism
“Who will lose if the critics of Wal-mart succeed in harming it?” asked panelist Luke Boggs, executive director of the advocacy group Americans for Wal-mart. “If Wal-mart is beaten down, the poor would be the hardest hit,” argued Boggs. “But they will not be alone.”

Boggs flew from his home in Georgia to join Jennifer Sung, associate council at New York University’s Brennan Center, and Ryan Sager, a columnist at the New York Post, in discussing the pros and cons of the big box retailer.

For the full article from the Columbia Spectator, follow the link below:

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/04/28/4451d0bfa2dee
 

April 19, 2006

Former Clinton Administration Commerce Official Troubled by Attacks on Wal-Mart, Credits Competition with Driving U.S. Prosperity

In a new interview released today by americansforwalmart.org, author and former Clinton Administration Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Economics and Statistics Paul A. London said Wal-Mart’s opponents are threatening America’s economic future by trying to limit retail competition.

“I’m very concerned about the attacks on Wal-Mart because I believe they are based on the idea that there is some good alternative to fierce competition. But there isn’t,” London said. “In politics and economics, competition is the American idea that changed the undemocratic world, where elites always prevent new people from competing. When people start to think that competition is too intense or that America can’t compete, a lot of what America is about goes away.”

Click HERE for the full text of the interview with Paul London.

In his book The Competition Solution: The Bipartisan Secret behind American Prosperity (The AEI Press), London explains that bipartisan political decisions in the 1970s to break up monopolies and near monopolies in numerous sectors of the U.S. economy made possible the growth and prosperity of the 1990s. He credits Wal-Mart with leading a “revolution in retailing” which complemented similar changes in other sectors and richly benefited the American people.

Speaking to americansforwalmart.org, London said, “Wal-Mart has been very good for America. It’s a very American phenomenon, a new guy coming along and shaking up 20 percent of the economy. It’s a model of competition that the world envies and is trying to copy. I hope there are always Americans who come along the way Sam Walton did, and the way other people did in other industries, to shake up established companies and make them serve consumers better.”

Assessing Wal-Mart’s impact on retailing, London said, “Consumers in the United States have done very well because of Wal-Mart, especially low-income consumers... People vote with their feet, and they have gone where the deals are better... Along the way, Wal-Mart did more to fight inflation than the Federal Reserve – and killing inflation makes low unemployment possible.”

London said that various commercial interests as well as several important unions are behind most of the efforts to limit Wal-Mart’s growth.

Consumers in the Northeast and other areas, according to London, are “losing out” by having fewer Wal-Mart stores. “It is harder to open a Wal-Mart in the Northeast than in it is to open one in the South. [And this] is a problem for consumers in the Northeast, where they don’t get Wal-Mart’s help in making the whole retail sector less expensive,” he said.

London credited Wal-Mart with boosting relative regional prosperity in the South and West and said that those who oppose Wal-Mart’s efforts to expand are doing so at significant cost to other parts of the country.

London, a Democrat who served in the Clinton Administration from 1994 to 1997, urged fellow Democrats to recognize what Wal-Mart has done to fight inflation and to give lower income Americans more choices. “While a lot of opposition to Wal-Mart has been from Democrats, many other Democrats realize that Wal-Mart has been very good for poor people,’ he said.

London said Democrats from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton understood the positive power of competition: “Bill Clinton was exactly right to say we have to make change our friend. And the proof that change can be our friend is the 1990s, when, for a lot of reasons, the economy did marvelously well.”

On other topics, London said the health care industry would benefit from greater competition between groups of doctors and hospitals focused on providing the best care at the lowest price. “It is not about competition between insurance companies. What the country needs is competition to give better care,” he said.

About the interview, americansforwalmart.org Executive Director Luke Boggs said, “Paul London shares our view that Wal-Mart’s opponents are attacking not only America’s leading retailer but also the very foundation of our free market system.”

“In his book The Competition Solution, Paul London argues that competition creates new efficiencies and drives investment and economic growth. As a nation, we cannot afford to let a vocal minority of Wal-Mart critics succeed in limiting competition or running it down as an idea when that is what makes the economy work,” Boggs said.

Paul A. London is now president of Paul A. London & Associates in Washington, where he is a consultant on economic and competition-related issues. London, who served as deputy undersecretary of Commerce from 1994 to 1997, is author of The Competition Solution: The Bipartisan Secret behind American Prosperity (The AEI Press).

A grassroots consumer effort, americansforwalmart.org is the founding and sole campaign of Americans For Free Enterprise, Inc., a nonprofit Georgia corporation not affiliated with or funded by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Executive Director Luke Boggs is an Atlanta-based writer who has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other publications. Later this month, he will share his views on Wal-Mart at Columbia University.

Click HERE for the full text of the interview with Paul London.


March 31, 2006

Wal-Mart Bank Charter Would Help Reduce Cost of Credit Card Transactions

Wal-Mart is seeking approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to operate an industrial loan company in Utah. If approved, this limited purpose banking organization would allow the retailer to cut its costs by processing credit card, debit card and check transactions in-house instead of paying a fee for each transaction.

Wal-Mart is able to save its customers money through business strategies that keep its own overhead as low as possible. americansforwalmart.org supports the company’s pursuit of this and other cost-cutting approaches and believes the company has every right to pursue such innovative measures. Consumers will ultimately benefit from lower costs and lower prices at the popular retailer.

The FDIC will hold public hearings on the application process in April.

Some critics, mostly from community banking interests that fear change and potential competition, have cried foul at Wal-Mart’s pending application. This may be attributed largely to a misunderstanding of the nature of the application. The public should understand that this is not a full banking charter, but rather a limited function designed to reduce Wal-Mart’s credit card transaction costs. Industrial loan companies are state-chartered and regulated by the FDIC. Wal-Mart already leases space to branch banks within some of its stores, and its officials have said that the company has no intention of setting up its own banks in its stores.

The concept of a company establishing an industrial loan company is nothing new. In fact, other large retailers already operate such industrial loan firms, including Target, which began such a banking organization after the approval of its application in 2004. If Wal-Mart’s application is approved, company officials have said the industrial loan bank would consist of a mere 1,800-square-foot office in Salt Lake City.

In other news:

A new Wal-Mart store that recently opened in Atlanta received a warm welcome from the community based on its ability to provide convenient, affordable shopping and hundreds of job opportunities to an area that lacked both. The store, located in south DeKalb County, was Wal-Mart’s first inside I-285, the perimeter highway that circles Atlanta.

The need for jobs in the area was evident in the 8,000 applications that were received for about 500 available positions. The store has revitalized a blighted, formerly empty property, and will create more jobs through the ripple effect of other new stores opening in the same shopping center.

An article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 22, entitled “Wal-Mart gets warm welcome in south DeKalb,” included the following quote:

“It's a good shot in the arm for the community,” said John Evans, a community activist and former president of the DeKalb NAACP. “We needed development there. It may serve as a real catalyst to bring in new businesses.”

Links to two articles are below:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/0322metwalmart.html

http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/03/20/daily18.html

 

March 21, 2006

From the what-else-is-new department, union groups continued to complain about Wal-Mart in recent days. Specifically, the AFL-CIO claimed that employees of the company make up the largest group of employed Americans who qualify for public-supported health care assistance across several states. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060315/bs_nm/walmart_labor_dc_1

That, of course, is only a tiny piece of the whole story. What the professional whiners don’t say, however, is that Wal-Mart is also the nation’s largest employer, with 1.3 million employees. They don’t talk about how the firm created more than 100,000 jobs last year. Nor do they note that 57 percent of new Wal-Mart hires, according to a survey, join the company from outside the existing workforce. (Many come from the ranks of unemployed workers, students, retirees and former stay-at-home mothers reentering the workforce.

Labor groups certainly aren’t telling the public about how Wal-Mart is moving workers off of public assistance, not putting them on. For example, 7 percent of new hires at Wal-Mart are served by Medicaid. After two years with the company, that number falls to just 3 percent.

Moreover, the people whining about Wal-Mart are essentially complaining about a glass that is 95 percent full. They aren’t talking at all about how far more people would need far more assistance if Wal-Mart weren’t creating more than 100,000 US jobs each year, employing more than 1.3 million Americans, and promoting from within. (76 percent of store managers come from the hourly ranks.)

The labor lobbyists certainly aren’t mentioning that Wal-Mart employees aren’t the only ones depending on the company’s continued success. Wal-Mart buys billions of dollars of goods and services each year from 61,000 suppliers in the United States, supporting more than 3 million supplier jobs in this country.

Lastly, the professional complainers aren’t talking about the great benefits that accrue to the American people thanks to the competition that Wal-Mart represents in the marketplace. As regular visitors to this site are well aware, a 2005 Global Insight study found that Wal-Mart, by keeping downward pressure on retail pricing over the past 20 years, saved the American people $263 billion in 2004 alone. That’s more than $2,300 per household, all across the United States.

Ongoing whining about the cost of public health care help for a small percentage of Wal-Mart employees completely misses the tremendous, big-picture benefits the company provides its employees, its customers and the broader American public.

February 28, 2006

Today, americansforwalmart.org Executive Director Luke Boggs issued the following statement in a press release from Atlanta:

“On behalf of americansforwalmart.org, I congratulate Working Families for Wal-Mart on the appointment of Andrew Young to the position of steering committee chairman.

“Like millions of Americans, I have long been an admirer of Ambassador Young. He is a man of unquestionable courage, character and integrity, and a leader who has never hesitated to stand up for his convictions.

“This is an exceptional appointment and a great day for the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not want special interest lobbyists to succeed in harming our nation’s top employer and leading retail innovator.

“From the historic early days of the civil rights movement through a lifetime of public service, Ambassador Young has made a difference. Along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ambassador Young called on us all to realize ever more fully our greatest, most fundamental American ideals. His efforts have made our nation immeasurably better.

“As a lifelong Atlanta resident, I am particularly honored to have our former mayor joining the fight to defend Wal-Mart against those now doing all they can to smear the name of a great American company.

“Critics of Wal-Mart claim to speak for the poor and downtrodden. But Ambassador Young understands that Wal-Mart is a tremendous positive for the people of this country, particularly those of modest means.

“Not only does Wal-Mart employ 1.3 million Americans, but the company’s signature commitment to low prices has reduced the cost of living and raised the standard of living for all Americans.

“In fact, a 2005 Global Insight study found that Wal-Mart, by maintaining downward pressure on retail pricing over the past 20 years, saved the American people $263 billion in 2004 alone. That's $2,329 in annual household savings.

“At americansforwalmart.org, we are excited to see a leader of Andrew Young’s historic stature at the helm of Working Families for Wal-Mart. We wish him every success as he continues, in this new role, to make a difference for America’s working families.”
 

February 19, 2006

A few days ago, our executive director fired off the following letter to the editors of The Daily Free Press, the independent student paper at Boston University.

A student letter-writer had seen fit to blast two highly successful American companies, Wal-Mart and Starbucks, and it seemed like a good opportunity to set the record straight. The response letter was published on February 9, 2006.

The Editors:

A recent letter to the editor, "Starbucks and Wal-Mart share similar practices," (Feb. 7, p.7) made quite a few unfounded claims about Wal-Mart

Truth is, Wal-Mart grew from a rural Arkansas startup into the world’s most successful retailer because it has consistently met the needs of the American people for quality merchandise at affordable prices.

In fact, a 2005 Global Insight study found that the downward pressure on pricing exerted by Wal-Mart over the past 20 years saved the American people $263 billion in 2004 alone.

In terms of community involvement, Wal-Mart was the top corporate donor to charitable causes in 2005, donating more than $200 million. More than 90 percent of the money went to local causes in the communities where the company operates.

Wal-Mart also offers very competitive wages and benefits. A company that wasn’t treating workers well couldn’t hope to maintain a workforce of 1.3 million Americans, staff 3,800 U.S. stores or attract 25,000 applicants for 325 jobs, as Wal-Mart did at a recent store opening outside Chicago.

Wal-Mart and Starbucks are successful because both companies give customers what they want. Americans love bargains, they love good coffee and Wal-Mart and Starbucks deliver.

Luke Boggs
Executive Director
americansforwalmart.org

February 19, 2006

When Wal-Mart opened a store just outside Chicago recently, nearly 25,000 people showed up to apply for the Supercenter’s 350 jobs. You read that right: 25,000.

It was an exceptional turnout, even by Wal-Mart standards. New store openings routinely draw thousands of applicants eager to win one of hundreds of new job opportunities.

The obvious question for Wal-Mart’s relentless, labor-bought critics: how does a company that doesn’t offer welcome opportunities to workers or pay market wages or provide sought-after benefits attract close to 25,000 people, all vying for positions at a single new store with 350 openings?

The answer, of course, is that a store that didn’t do those things wouldn’t attract many job seekers at all.

Notwithstanding the outrageous and phony claims of its critics, Wal-Mart is providing jobs and wages and benefits that are highly competitive.

After all, you can’t create and fill 125,000 new positions in a year – as Wal-Mart did in 2005 – without being competitive. You can’t begin to maintain a domestic workforce of 1.3 million people and staff more than 3,000 stores if you aren’t competitive. And you don’t attract 25,000 job seekers to a single new store if you aren’t competitive.

Wal-Mart is creating more than 2,000 jobs a week. It says something very powerful about the company that they never seem to have trouble attracting people eager to come to work at Wal-Mart.

The professional critics, meanwhile, sit around sipping their lattes in Washington’s lobbying district, whining and complaining full-time with wild claims that Wal-Mart mistreats and abuses its employees. Too many folks on college campuses and in news rooms find this nonsense convincing.

But not most Americans. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans who know Wal-Mart best, who work and shop and live in the heartland of this great country, they know PR hooey when they hear it. They also know what an honest bargain looks like, what more for your money looks like, and what a welcome opportunity for employment looks like.

The smug PR flacks in Washington say no one could possibly want to work at Wal-Mart. Close to 25,000 folks in the Chicago area would beg to differ, as would the retailer’s 1.3 million American employees.

Here are two news stories about the store opening just outside Chicago:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-walmart26.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060127/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_chicago_1


January 28, 2006

The state of Maryland jumped into the union-led campaign against Wal-Mart earlier this month with the passage of a law regulating the amount of money the retailer must devote to providing health insurance coverage for workers in its Maryland stores.

Democratic legislators in Maryland didn’t let the facts get in the way of doing a special favor for their union pals, who contribute gobs of time and money to Democrats every election cycle. Nor did they let any basic sense of fairness intrude on their decision to single out America’s most successful retailer for specially-crafted regulation applying to Wal-Mart and no other store.

It is pretty basic and obvious to most folks, but let ’s point it out anyway: in a free market system, benefits should be established by the mutual agreement of employers and employees, not busybody bureaucrats or state legislators in the pockets of special interest groups.

As for Wal-Mart, the company provides health care benefits to 51 percent of its employees, significantly more than the average percent covered in the retail sector. Another 24 percent of company associates are covered by the plans of parents and spouses as well as plans offered by secondary employers and the military. Also included in this 24 percent are seniors working at Wal-Mart who are covered by Medicare.

By creating and filling 125,000 new jobs in 2005, Wal-Mart is providing important and welcome employment opportunities. As such, Wal-Mart is moving people off public assistance, not putting them on. Thatís what jobs do, after all.

Fifty-seven percent of new Wal-Mart hires are coming from outside the ranks of the employed. When you create lots of entry-level opportunities, you are going to hire some people on public assistance. In this, Wal-Mart isn’t adding to the public burden but reducing it.

For example, 7 percent of new Wal-Mart associates are enrolled in Medicaid before joining the company. After joining, the number drops to 5 percent. After two years, it falls to 3 percent.

We’ll have plenty more to say about the wrongheaded Maryland bill and efforts to enact similar legislation elsewhere. For now, however, be sure to check out George Will’s terrific column on the Maryland bill, which rightly slams the action of state legislators as "something not easily distinguished from theft."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801873.html

 

January 9, 2006

Veteran political analyst and US News & World Report contributor Michael Barone puts the success of Wal-Mart in the larger context of long-term US economic growth and prosperity in a new opinion piece titled "The Wal-Mart Model."

Barone notes how well the economy has performed over the last quarter century, despite all the doom-and-gloom economic reporting. A generation ago, he writes, "Many economic commentators said that the era of low-inflation, high-job-creation economic growth was over. In the ensuing 25 years it has come to be the norm."

The overall success of the US economy has been driven by firms like Wal-Mart, which Barone praises for being very "skilled at adapting to market conditions." With Wal-Mart's advanced inventory and distribution systems, the company, he notes, is able to adapt quickly to meet changing customer needs and tastes.

Barone also takes on the criticism being leveled at Wal-Mart by professional, union-paid critics with some basic facts: "Wal-Mart does not pay high wages or provide healthcare benefits to all employees. But not all workers today want full-time jobs (they may want to be home when kids return from school) or health insurance (many are covered by a spouse's policy or Medicare)."

Summing up, Barone concludes that pessimists a generation ago failed "to foresee that more nimble firms like Wal-Mart would rise and would supply the amazing resilience that has enabled the American economy to thrive...even when hit by calamities like September 11 and Katrina."

To that, we at americansforwalmart.org say, right on! And it is precisely for this reason that the marginal minority of labor-funded critics now attacking Wal-Mart must not be allowed to succeed in harming the company or its ability to compete in the marketplace. America has been well-served by intense competition in general retailing -- and the grocery business is no different.

For a look at the entire piece by Michael Barone, check out the link below.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michael/barone010306.php3

 

December 29, 2005

A recent news article in the Tampa Tribune (link below) shared the less-than-stellar-success story of a labor-sponsored group in Tampa that is attempting to organize Wal-Mart employees into a proto-union. Labor leaders and activists clearly hope the group will become the basis for a company-wide union. http://tampatrib.com/Business/MGBHYT6UJHE.html

Published Dec. 23, the article, "Churn Plagues Wal-Mart Labor Effort," blamed employee turnover at Wal-Mart for the failure of the labor group to attract many members. And the group has certainly come up short in winning members. In fact, after starting in Tampa in March 2005, the organization has signed up only about 300 of the 96,000 Wal-Mart employees in Florida -- or less than one-third of one percent.

We believe this so-called Wal-Mart Workers Association has a far more fundamental problem than employee turnover: employee satisfaction.

As we have noted here before, 58 percent of recently surveyed Wal-Mart employees said their jobs were “much better” or “better” than their previous positions elsewhere. Just 11 percent said the opposite. In addition, Wal-Mart has a culture of promoting from within, with 76 percent of store managers coming from the hourly ranks.

Employee turnover at Wal-Mart isn't the real obstacle for labor activists. More fundamentally, unions and would-be unions are having trouble organizing at Wal-Mart because the overwhelming majority of company employees are generally happy with their jobs and uninterested in unionizing.
 

December 22, 2005

The following opinion piece by the executive director of americansforwalmart.org appears in the December 19 issue of DSN Retailing Today, a retail trade magazine serving the food, drug, mass and specialty channels. It is addressed to readers in the retail business.

Why I’m fighting for Wal-Mart

By Luke Boggs

We are living in the Golden Age of retail choice in America. Year after year, retail competition and innovation is creating tremendous benefits for real people, folks with kids and mortgages and retirement plans.

The irony, as you well know, is that there is now an entire cottage industry devoted to criticizing modern American retailing. While small in number, such critics are making a big splash in the media, which tends to amplify their various doom-and-gloom complaints.

The critics’ ire is currently focused on Wal-Mart, America’s largest retailer and top employer. The company is criticized for just about everything, from its size to its competitive spirit to its employment practices to its supplier relationships to its "always low prices."

Today, Wal-Mart is a booming success because of millions of individual consumer choices. As it has grown, Wal-Mart has lowered the cost of living and lifted the standard of living for millions of Americans, even non-customers.

In fact, a recent Global Insight study found that Wal-Mart, by maintaining downward pressure on retail pricing over the past 20 years, saved the American people $263 billion in 2004 alone—or $2,329 per household.

Bankrolled and directed by organized labor, Wal-Mart’s most vocal critics paint themselves as friends of low- and middle-income Americans. But people of modest means stand to lose the most if opponents succeed in injuring Wal-Mart.

Truth is, labor leaders are primarily interested not in helping workers but in trying to help themselves to the prospective union dues of Wal-Mart’s 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of whom are currently unionized.

Contemptuous of the free-market system that has made our economy the envy of the world, Wal-Mart’s opponents fairly begged for an independent response. Last month, we began giving them one with the launch of americansforwalmart.org, a grassroots consumer campaign not affiliated with or sponsored by Wal-Mart.

It all started about a year ago, when I was having lunch with a buddy. We talked about the absurdity of an American company—any American company—being unfairly hounded merely for serving customers and succeeding in the marketplace.

In the ensuing months, as the attacks on Wal-Mart grew ever more outrageous, I kept thinking about the company’s 130 million weekly customers. I decided to give voice to those customers, and the overwhelming majority of Americans who still believe in economic freedom. That, ultimately, was the genesis of americansforwalmart.org.

In a free-market system, Wal-Mart will continue to try to attract customers. Competing retailers will do the same. And that’s as it should be. Our beef, then, is not with competing retailers but with the hired-gun public relations flacks trying to deny Wal-Mart the chance to compete freely for customers.

You may be tempted to think that if you compete with Wal-Mart, its opponents are your friends. They are not. To its critics, Wal-Mart is only the most obvious symbol of modern retailing. And, if opponents manage to turn public opinion against Wal-Mart in any significant way, it will not help the company’s competitors but harm the entire industry.

Wal-Mart has a great story to tell—and so does the modern retail business. You’re giving people what they want, and, on behalf of your customers, thank you. After all, when retailers compete honestly, the American people will always come out ahead.
 

December 20, 2005

Don't miss a terrific new opinion piece by Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_
hassett&sid=aCJurSBQqfLM

Hassett pulls no punches in denouncing the "vicous" union-funded attacks on Wal-Mart. He also points out that many of the PR hacks leading the labor groups attacking Wal-Mart were formerly political campaign operatives linked to several high-profile Beltway Democrats, including John Kerry.

In a particularly sleazy turn, Kerry and other politicians have been echoing the attack lines of their onetime operatives, who Hassett rightly dubs "high-tech goons."

In other news, another pro-Wal-Mart group has formed up and is joining the fight to defend America's leading retailer and top employer against unfair PR attacks.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_supporters_1

The group, Working Families for Wal-Mart, is led by a 16-member steering committee composed of clergy, activists, politicians and artists. Wal-Mart is the largest financial backer of the new group. You can visit the group's new website at http://www.forwalmart.com/index.php

americansforwalmart.org welcomes the new group to the battle and wishes them well. Along with Wal-Mart's millions of customers, supporters and fans, we can help turn the tide of criticism against one of our nation's great corporate assets. Welcome to the fight!

Meanwhile, in some sad and pathetic Christmas news, it looks like the unfunny clowns running one of those Washington-based attack groups decided it would be cute to dress up like Santa and his elves and hand out empty presents to kids at a Florida Wal-Mart.

The union-funded groups have shown they will do anything to try to hurt Wal-Mart, but upsetting children with empty presents is only going to hurt the attack groups themselves.

One would have thought these people would have had enough of such puerile stunts when they were protesting about whatever issue was fashionable during their undergraduate days. http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?
id=27277&cat=PR+Newswire&more=/pr_newswire/

In contrast to some questionable polling numbers released recently, a new Pew Research Center poll has found that most Americans continue to view Wal-Mart positively. In fact, 81 percent of people with a company store nearby say Wal-Mart is a good place to shop. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051215-045308-4640r

Lastly, writing on The Huffington Post, author and technology expert Russell Shaw tells his fellow liberals to stop picking on Wal-Mart, which he concludes is "a positive economic and social force not deserving of blanket condemnation."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-shaw/quit-picking-on-walmart_b_12230.html

December 12, 2005

Grotesque. That's just about the only way to describe the latest union-funded attack against Wal-Mart, which claims that Jesus Christ would not approve of the retailer. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=57842

Of course, in a free country, Wal-Mart's labor-backed critics have the right to make outrageous TV commercials and send out equally ridiculous press releases, but we would appreciate Wal-Mart's opponents having the basic decency to leave Jesus out of this.

Tens of millions of Americans believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God, that He left his place of honor in heaven to become the baby celebrated at Christmas, and that He later died and rose from the dead in order to free the world from sin and death.

Attempting to make Jesus Christ into a union spokesman is sick and wrong and pathetic.

The critics' bid to use the name of Jesus to smear Wal-Mart shows, again, that they are willing to say or do just about anything to further their own narrow political and economic interests. They should be ashamed, invoking Jesus' name and quoting scripture. But they aren't.

The special-interest attack groups in Washington have plenty of money, but they have shown they are short on common sense. Attempting to bash Wal-Mart with references to Jesus and the Bible may score points with the media, but it is going to backfire with people of good will of all faiths -- and particularly with Christians.

Wal-Mart responded to the critics in a press release, pointing out that the company contributes some $200 million to charity annually, created about 100,000 new jobs in 2005, and saves America's families more than $2,300 per year. Here's a link to the press release:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/
www/story/12-09-2005/0004231308&EDATE=

It is worth pointing out again that Wal-Mart is particularly valuable to low- and middle-income Americans, who devote a greater percentage of their income than other Americans to the basic home goods and groceries that Wal-Mart provides at a significant savings over other retailers.

Low- and middle-income Americans would be harmed most if union-funded critics ultimately manage to keep Wal-Mart from growing. Which makes the company's critics -- not the company's leaders -- the real enemies of Americans of modest means.
 

December 2, 2005

Americans love Wal-Mart. You wouldn’t know it from the media’s overblown, out-of-proportion coverage of the company’s bought-and-paid-for critics, but the reality is that Wal-Mart remains our nation‘s favorite retailer.

All the media seems to talk about, day in and day out, is the company’s special interest opponents. The company, meanwhile, keeps going about the workaday business of helping Americans get the absolute most for their hard-earned dollars. During the big, post-Thanksgiving shopping rush, Wal-Mart customers turned out in droves to get their share of retail bargains for which the company is famous.

Wal-Mart continues to help real people with kids and mortgages and budgets and plans for retirement. The critics continue to offer zero help to anyone, just wild accusations and endless complaints. You would think they’d get tired of hearing themselves whine, but they don’t.

In an AP story on December 1, critics claimed that they had made some serious headway in running down Wal-Mart and driving up its negatives with the public. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051201/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_opinion

The opponents figures are suspect, but, even if they have managed to boost Wal-Mart’s public negatives from 20 percent to 38 percent since January, it wouldn’t begin to legitimize their efforts or demonstrate that Wal-Mart has done anything more sinister than serve customers and succeed in the marketplace.

What even a more realistic increase in negatives would show, however, is that one of the easiest things in the world to do, when you have large numbers of reporters willing to repeat your charges uncritically, is to go out and smear an individual or company with a bunch of phony and malicious claims.

Wal-Mart’s enemies have millions of dollars in union dues jamming their bank accounts, many in the press eagerly parroting them, and a complete lack of scruples. They are getting paid big bucks, they would like to keep the money rolling in, and they are willing to say absolutely anything to try to bring Wal-Mart down.

Frankly, I’d be surprised if all that negative nonsense and the fawning media coverage hadn’t brought down Wal-Mart’s reputation with a few people here and there. Phony attacks work as well as honest ones in the short-term. But time and the truth are on the side of Wal-Mart.

That’s one of the reasons we started americansforwalmart.org. The critics’ attacks deserve an independent response and that’s what we’re up to here. Help us combat the misinformation campaign against Wal-Mart by sharing our address with your friends and family. And tell the media to tell the real story.

*****

Just so you know, we’ve added several new posts to our articles page. Among other new pieces, there’s a column from a liberal writer who understands how Wal-Mart, unlike its critics, actually helps the poor. Another article shares the story of a one-time welfare recipient who found success at Wal-Mart.

Keep checking back and stay tuned. We’ll be launching the “Your Wal-Mart Stories” page very soon, and we would love to share yours. So be sure to let us know how Wal-Mart is helping you and your family at stories@americansforwalmart.org.
 

November 23, 2005

This Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful for Wal-Mart -- and so are millions of other Americans.

I’m thankful for other things, of course. Family stuff and personal stuff you’ll forgive me for not mentioning here. But, last week, as the nation endured a coordinated frenzy of special interest attacks on Wal-Mart, I thought about how the vast majority of Americans are actually thankful for the company.

The critics may have the ear of the media and a predictable, attack-by-the-numbers movie may have the attention of Hollywood, but the American people are voting with their feet -- and overwhelmingly in favor of Wal-Mart. More than 130 million Americans shop at Wal-Mart each week, and they are thankful for a company that provides quality, name-brand products at consistently low prices.

Americans like saving money, and they are saving lots of it at Wal-Mart. As visitors to this site are well aware, a new Global Insight study has found that downward pressure on retail pricing exerted by Wal-Mart over the past 20 years saved Americans $263 billion in 2004 alone. That comes out to $2,329 of annual savings for each US household.

I’m also thankful for a company that employs 1.2 million Americans and supports 3 million US supplier jobs.

There has been a lot of fact-challenged carping by Wal-Mart’s professional critics about the quality of jobs and compensation at Wal-Mart. These complaints, however, are not about trying to help Wal-Mart’s workers but about serving the narrow interests of the two unions bankrolling the attacks.

For the most part, Wal-Mart’s employees are thankful for their jobs, their wages, and their advancement opportunities.

In fact, in a recent independent survey, 58 percent of employees said their Wal-Mart jobs were “much better” or “better” than their previous positions. Just 10 percent said the opposite. Regarding wages, 52 percent of employees said their pay at Wal-Mart was “much better” or “better” than they enjoyed previously. Twenty-three percent said the opposite.

Wal-Mart has a culture of promoting from within, with 76 percent of store managers starting as hourly employees. This approach is not lost on employees, either. According to the same recent survey, 60 percent of employees said they had a better chance for advancement at Wal-Mart than elsewhere. That’s more than five times the 11 percent who figured their chances for advancement were worse.

During the upcoming Christmas shopping season, millions of Americans will shop and save at Wal-Mart. They will make the most of their hard-earned dollars. They will be able to afford more and better gifts for their families and friends. And they will have Wal-Mart to thank.
 

November 18, 2005

Welcome back to americansforwalmart.org. Yesterday we added our first entry to the Articles page, a terrific opinion piece by Rich Vedder of Ohio University and Bryan O’Keefe of the American Enterprise Institute.

In their research on Wal-Mart, Vedder and O’Keefe have found that Wal-Mart’s commitment to low prices is very real and tends to benefit poor and middle-income Americans most of all. New research by the pair has also discovered that communities with new Wal-Mart stores tend have stronger employment growth than other communities.

In addition, the authors offer some historical perspective, noting that this is not the first time critics of more modern, more efficient retailers have sought to hold back the tide of retail industry progress and keep consumers from enjoying better selection, enhanced convenience and lower prices.

Be sure to read Vedder and O’Keefe’s “Three Cheers For Wal-Mart” on our articles page.

While you’re here, also be sure to check out a couple of new additions to our News page. First, we’ve posted a link to a news story about americansforwalmart.org that appeared Thursday in The Morning News of Arkansas.

Also on the news page, we’ve added a great new 20/20 story about Wal-Mart by John Stossel, who gets to the point and gets it right. At what he does, no one even comes close to Stossel.

 

November 16, 2005

Here’s the bottom line: Wal-Mart saves the American people money. Lots and lots of money.

By keeping markups and prices low, Wal-Mart creates tremendous savings for the millions of Americans who shop at the company’s stores. Even those who don’t shop at Wal-Mart save money because the company‘s commitment to low prices helps hold down prices at other stores.

For years, we’ve known that Wal-Mart is saving Americans money. Earlier this month, we started to get a sense of just how much money people are saving thanks to Wal-Mart when an independent, academic study was released on the subject.

Authored by Jerry Hausman of MIT and Ephraim Leibtag of the USDA’s Economic Research service, the study found that the downward pressure on retail pricing exerted by Wal-Mart over the past 20 years saved American consumers $263 billion in 2004 alone.

That translates to an annual savings of $2,329 for every household in America. Meaning? Meaning Wal-Mart couldn’t have helped the people of this country more if it had written a check for $2,329 to each and every family in the country.

(Wal-Mart’s help was actually much more valuable than a check would have been, since we would have been taxed on it. And the IRS hasn’t figured out a way to tax people for the benefit of prices not going up.)

Wal-Mart’s domestic sales last year were around $229 billion. Compare that to the $263 billion in savings -- and you find that Wal-Mart saved American consumers 15 percent more than the people spent in their US stores.

Wal-Mart earned $10 billion in worldwide profits last year. The American people, in racking up $263 billion in savings thanks to Wal-Mart, profited 26 times as much.

* * * * *

If you’re wondering, yesterday was a great first day for americansforwalmart.org. In fact, we pretty much ran the table on firsts on Tuesday, receiving our first comment, first reader story, first media inquiry, and even our first donation. We also lined up our first outside article, which we will be posting soon.

We also issued our first press release, which you can view here: http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/051115/89798.html

Thanks for stopping by and checking out americansforwalmart.org. We appreciate your interest, and we appreciate you sharing our web address -- and point of view -- with your friends and family.
 

November 15, 2005

Wal-Mart is a great American success story and a tremendous national asset. The company’s signature commitment to low prices has boosted our purchasing power, lowered our cost of living, and lifted the standard of living for millions of Americans.

Despite all this, Wal-Mart has always had critics. Comes with the territory of being a large, successful American company. More recently, however, the wrongheaded attacks on Wal-Mart have grown ever louder and more shrill and more irresponsible.

Today, those criticizing Wal-Mart represent a scattered mix of viewpoints in America. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has won the business of 100 million US customers each week, giving the company far more fans than detractors.

Despite their relatively small numbers, Wal-Mart’s elite critics -- who come from the ranks of political activists, labor leaders, trial lawyers, professors, journalists and would-be intellectuals -- have access to some key cultural megaphones. For the most part, Wal-Mart’s loyal customers do not.

At americansforwalmart.org, we offer a soapbox to the people. We want to give voice to Wal-Mart’s 100 million weekly customers -- and the 1.2 million company employees who have made it all it is today.

We want to provide an outlet to the vast majority of Americans who haven‘t lost sight of the power of free market competition -- and all those who understand that our national prosperity is directly proportional to our economic freedom.

Just so you know, we are not funded by or affiliated with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. As an independent campaign, we welcome the support of families and individuals who share our passion for the free market system and for defending it whenever it is threatened.

In a more perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary for an independent group to form up around the idea of defending a great American success story like Wal-Mart. These times, however, are far from perfect, and, so, here we are.

Today, we embark on a journey, and we ask all Americans who love liberty to join us. Together, we can turn back those who would harm our most successful company and damage our free enterprise system. Together, we can preserve for all times the bright promise of economic freedom.

There will be more to say in the days ahead, so keep checking back with us, and bring your family and friends. For now, take a look around, stop by our issues section, and pardon our construction dust. We’re just getting started -- and it is going to be fun.