I. Imagine living in Smalltown, U.S.A. Your whole life you have gone to the same mom and pop grocery store for all your needs. You have never needed anything else. One day, you go in the store and good ole mom, owner of the store, says that they will be out of business in a week. You will have to find your groceries somewhere else she says. You question why. The answer to that question is Sam Walton.
A. Sam Walton opened his first Wal-Mart in Rogers, Arkansas on 1962. Walton had only one goal in mind. He wanted to expand his Wal-Marts all over the United States.
1. Today, Wal-Mart opens a megastore every two days. By 2004 they plan on opening a new store every day.
2. These stores are 200,000 square feet in size. In addition to these giant beasts of capitalistic crap, Wal-Mart also owns smaller discount stores and SAM'S clubs.
English: Inside the Walmart (still branded as Wal-...
A protest in Utah against Wal-Mart
English: Statue of Sam Walton and his dog outside ...B. Not only do these stores take up huge amounts of space, but they also mess up small town's economic structure.
1. When Wal-Mart moves into town, they steal away much if not the entire small town stores business. Putting many people out of jobs.
2. Wal-Mart creates net job loss because they take business away from these little stores. The result is little or no economic growth.
3. Another way that these stores destroy small towns is that they desert their stores that do not meet sales expectations.
a) As of May 2000, Wal-Mart had left 25 million square feet of unoccupied space in the U.S. When asked about this, Wal-Mart said they try to sell this open space.
b) The fact is that Wal-Mart does not want to sell to its competitors. Just an example of this is in one small Kentucky...