To Wal-Mart or Not to Wal-Mart?
I knew it would come up sooner or later: Isn't the "low price place" a natural choice for a cheap woman? After all, Wal-Mart is what made my college budget bearable ... that and an all-inclusive meal plan paid for with financial aid. In fact, I guess you could accurately say I'm paying for all that "free" college food now. If I'd realized then that I'd be spending the next fifteen years of my life paying for those chicken fingers, I could have stored them up ... maybe frozen them or something. I guess it's a little pathetic that I'm at a point that a freezer full of stolen caf meals actually sounds pretty appetizing.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: Is my budget really so important that I can justify furthering that atrocities that Wal-Mart propagates every day (i.e. low wages, no health insurance, heavily gender-biased hiring policies and actual imprisonment of employees inside the building, not to mention those tacky vests). It's easy (and probably appropriate) to villify Wal-Mart and pretend that such a corporate giant can afford to keep prices down while improving quality of life for employees. But I'm convinced that these strategies are integral to providing those low prices. If they treated employees any better, prices would go up, and then they'd just be Target with poor lighting.
I have always tried not to take a polarized stand on Wal-Mart. I would prefer not to shop there, but it's hard to tell a poor working family not to take advantage of good prices and the convenience of having everything in one place. Basically, I've thought that it's best not to shop at Wal-Mart, but it's not morally wrong if you're in a desperate financial position.
The question is, am I in that position? I face this question with Wal-Mart, with deciding whether or not to shop at independent retailers, with whether I can budget for eggs from farm-raised chickens. All these are issues I feel rather strongly about (Wal-Mart creates a poor quality of life for its employees; independent retailers help local economies in more ways than we can imagine; keeping chickens in small cages where they can't move for their whole lives while pumping them full of antibiotics is just plain mean, whether you're a vegetarian or not), but can I afford to take a stand for them with a dollar that I don't even have?
Are these principles that I should hold to at any cost, or are they actually just fashionably politically-correct decisions that allow me to keep my nose in the air while justifying my escalating debt? I'm not sure. In the meantime, eighty sugar cookies for a dollar sounds mighty appealing.
SHOUT OUTS
John ... for the beer you're about to buy me
Jen K. ... for the Baileys that made those inconsiderate little girls easier to bear
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: Is my budget really so important that I can justify furthering that atrocities that Wal-Mart propagates every day (i.e. low wages, no health insurance, heavily gender-biased hiring policies and actual imprisonment of employees inside the building, not to mention those tacky vests). It's easy (and probably appropriate) to villify Wal-Mart and pretend that such a corporate giant can afford to keep prices down while improving quality of life for employees. But I'm convinced that these strategies are integral to providing those low prices. If they treated employees any better, prices would go up, and then they'd just be Target with poor lighting.
I have always tried not to take a polarized stand on Wal-Mart. I would prefer not to shop there, but it's hard to tell a poor working family not to take advantage of good prices and the convenience of having everything in one place. Basically, I've thought that it's best not to shop at Wal-Mart, but it's not morally wrong if you're in a desperate financial position.
The question is, am I in that position? I face this question with Wal-Mart, with deciding whether or not to shop at independent retailers, with whether I can budget for eggs from farm-raised chickens. All these are issues I feel rather strongly about (Wal-Mart creates a poor quality of life for its employees; independent retailers help local economies in more ways than we can imagine; keeping chickens in small cages where they can't move for their whole lives while pumping them full of antibiotics is just plain mean, whether you're a vegetarian or not), but can I afford to take a stand for them with a dollar that I don't even have?
Are these principles that I should hold to at any cost, or are they actually just fashionably politically-correct decisions that allow me to keep my nose in the air while justifying my escalating debt? I'm not sure. In the meantime, eighty sugar cookies for a dollar sounds mighty appealing.
SHOUT OUTS
John ... for the beer you're about to buy me
Jen K. ... for the Baileys that made those inconsiderate little girls easier to bear
8 Comments:
carrie, don't shop at wal-mart. be fashionable. be politically correct. keep your nose in the air. carrie, please don't shop at wal-mart.
I agree with Jenn. Publix can supply you with all that you need.
but trip, i can buy 5 belts at wal-mart for the price of 2 belts anywhere else
but who needs 5 belts? do you think that you will spend less or will you just buy more stuff that you don't need because there is so much more available? and is it worth the stress and anxiety associated with even setting foot in their parking lot?
But Walmart doesn't even sell cool belts so it's a non-issue
don't shop there! i did my statistics project (when i was your roommate, mind you) (or i might have been leah's...it's all a blur now...) on "is walmart really cheaper". and my results PROVE that it's NOT! sure they mark down their prices on some things, but on others they totally raise the prices. it's plain as day. back when i did my project, one that i remember was laundry detergent. it was almost twice as much at walmart than at brunos. GROSS!
don't shop there. there has to be another way.
eat beans and rice. if you feel like splurging, buy brown rice. and maybe some seasoning. fennel makes everything better, right?
i'm not a fan of walmart. and not just because they recently abandoned their "always" slogan (to "Save Money. Live Better,") :
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-walmart-advertising.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
watch this if you like. its interesting and its frontline so its like a visual NYTimes:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
tacky vests!
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