Growing up, Walmart proudly advertised their products were all made in America. My grandparents proudly shopped there because of that.
Imagine America if that persisted.
Rural America was duped by Walmart. They are being duped by the MAGA movement. Their interests are selfish, and not America. Sure, some anecdote has a good job in podunk America that we can talk about, but bigger picture, they just suck.
A world without globalization? What would it look like?
Ah, yes - “Made in America.” It was a fantastic marketing gimmick, and it worked beautifully.
Yes, Wal-Mart did have “Made in America” stuff. It still had considerably more “Not Made in America” apparel and such, and given the choice it would default to the cheaper stuff unless it was … being incentivized … to sell “Made in America” stuff instead. And in the end, consumers voted with their wallets and they preferred non-American stuff because … rea$on$.
Wal mart has proven via always the low price that consumers don’t care about where anything is made.
Globalization I think is separate from how Walmart marketed their way into rural communities and started selling cheap crap made in China.
Anyone else have a anti-mom and pop bias because of Mrs Olsen and Nellie on LHOP? AFAF
So I went to a union rally in Detroit in the mid 90’s. I wanted to ask everyone to turn the collar of the shirt of the person in front of them and read the country of origin. Then I decided I liked living more than proving a point. (My dad worked in the apparel industry).
We only have ourselves to blame.
I like some of the mom and pop shops. We have many interesting grocery stores in our neighborhood run by recent Iranian and Chinese immigrants. They have excellent fresh produce and interesting items that are not found in the big chains. They are competitive with the chains on fresh fruit and vegetables presumably because they concentrate on those foods and their labour cost is lower by having the whole family work there.
Importing child labor to your country. Cool!
And that generation will be extremely successful in Canada if past generations of immigrants are any indicator.
how do u know if the general standard of living increased 15% and walmart decreased it 10%?
I don’t know that, but what other measures can we use?
Global trade has increased the standard of living. Wal Mart is a master of global trade. They have had an input. Even in small towns where everyone bemoans the loss of mom and pop businesses due to Wal Mart there are more mom and pop businesses than ever and there is still a Wal Mart too. I think the mom and pop stuff is BS griping by people that were making a lot of money selling the same goods for much higher margins.
The global temperature has steadily increased since the day I was born, probably because of my hotness.
FYP
This is where I was coming from in my original post on this subject: I was thinking of the type of small town merchants that Sinclair Lewis skewered in “Main Street”. These merchants gouged the local people for many decades until competition finally arrived.
Hard to feel very sorry for the passing of this particular type of small town store owner. Small retailers now largely have to provide niche products and/or a better level of service than their predecessors to compete with the Walmarts of the world.
