Wal-Mart

These are the last two books i've completed. It amazes me, first of all, how huge Wal-Mart has become. Whether you shop there or not, a strong argument can be made that they have a huge affect on the world around you. Did you know that 100 million people in the US shop at Wal-Mart every week? That is over 1/3 of the US population!

The other thing that is incredible to me is how far the company has migrated from Mr. Sam's original vision. There is a part in the biography where Sam is talking about other retailers that have gone out of business since he started. he says, "It all boils down to not taking care of their customers, not minding their stores, not having folks in their stores with good attitudes, and that was because they never really even tried to take care of their own people."

Does this look like someone with a good attitude?

Seriously, i think the company today is completely different from the ideals Sam Walton imagined when he started. But I imagine he got caught up in the growth, and the obsessive dollar-saving and laid the foundation for what it is today. I've learned more about Wal-Mart in the last two months than i ever thought i would know.

And with that said, I've pretty much decided to stop shopping there. It doesn't have anything to do with the outsourcing of American jobs, or the treatment of its employees, or the detriment to the environment caused by a lot of their offshore suppliers. I'm a strong proponent of the free market, and i don't think there's any way to guarantee that the retailer you exchange them for is any better. I think it's strictly a matter of size. I don't think any one organization should be that powerful. And that's the egalitarian coming out...