Here is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my article on HawaiiReporter this morning.
But something even bigger seems to be occurring. Wal-Mart has become the poster child for an era of unfettered globalized corporate operations - “a destabilizing business model, a dangerous detriment to America’s local and national economies and to the middle class,” in the words of critic Leo Hindery Jr., former CEO of the telecom carrier Global Crossing and an active figure in Democratic Party politics.
Hindery, at a recent Washington conference organized by the Center for American Progress, noted that as recently as 1992 (the year of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s death), the Business Roundtable of top business leaders was asserting that corporations had a major responsibility not just to stockholders but to their employees, society at large and the nation’s economy. But now, Hindery asserts, the Business Roundtable - indeed, most of the corporate world - focuses almost exclusively on profits for stockholders.
The unabashed corporate and business bashing is clearly in evidence. Profits are bad! What’s more there is no reference to made to the fact that the “Center for American Progress” is an far leftwing, socialist oriented group, mostly a mouthpiece for union organizations. Yet such leeway would never be allowed for the other side. A further quote clarifies the bias.
The reply of economists friendly to Wal-Mart is based — like the company’s promotions - almost exclusively on low prices and efficiency. According to a Wal-Mart commissioned study by Global Insight, a respected economic- forecasting firm, low Wal-Mart prices saved consumers $263 billion last year. Wal-Mart defenders say that’s “progressive” because the benefits flow principally to low-income families who shop at discount stores.
But that isn’t the whole story, this is also what the Global Insight article said:
According to the study, Wal-Mart had a positive impact on employment nationwide, generating 210,000 jobs by 2004, a 0.15% increase relative to the number of jobs that would have existed without Wal-Mart. Labor market dynamics, embodied in Global Insight’s Model of the U.S. Economy, resulted in nominal wages across the whole economy declining 2.2% by 2004. This decline was more than offset by the fall in consumer prices, creating an increase in real disposable income of 0.9% by 2004. “Consumers earned less in nominal dollars, but their income bought them more in the economy with Wal-Mart because of real disposable income gains,” the study concluded.
The continual assertions of the left that it is always to the benefit of the general public when workers are paid more isn’t always the case. The overall savings of consumers due to lower prices can outweigh lower or slower income growth due to those savings. This is counter intuitive to the inflationary paradigm of the left of “higher wages at all costs.” The costs are to the lifestyle of the public, it is called inflation.
The article under scrutiny here.