John Kuthe wrote:
> Thanks for your efforts though.
>
> John Kuthe...

Oh **** THE HELL OFF with you a endless Wal Mart bitching!

Damn you're a useless waste of electrolytes!

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publi...al-communities

The Wal-Mart effect: Poison or antidote for local communities?

Wal-Mart even scares businesses that aren't direct competitors, at least
not yet. Banks, for instance, lobbied Congress hard to keep Wal-Mart
from becoming an industrial loan corporation, which, in effect, would
have allowed it to offer banking services.

But some argue that the company can be, and often is, a force for good.
Wal-Mart's low prices are hard to dispute, and the biggest benefactors
are low-income shoppers. Wal-Mart has been widely lauded for its $4
pharmacy program, which has rippled through drug and pharmacy industries
to the delight of consumer advocates.

The company has received considerable attention for various
environmental initiatives. It has widely replaced store lighting with
energy-saving bulbs and given the bulbs prominent space on store
shelves. The company announced in November that it has increased the
energy efficiency of its buildings and truck fleets by 15 percent since
2005, and has committed to using solar energy at 22 sites. It also
promised to cut solid waste from its U.S. stores by 25 percent by next
October. Earlier in the year, the company announced a pilot program with
a small number of suppliers (among its 60,000 worldwide) who will start
measuring, and hopefully reducing, their carbon footprint.

Given the terror that Wal-Mart is purported to inflict on communities,
the fedgazette's findings of the firm's economic influence are almost
mundane. Despite its kill-them-all reputation, Wal-Mart is not the
threat that many fear, at least in terms of economic benchmarks commonly
associated with healthy, growing communities.

For example, Wal-Mart is widely believed to destroy local firms and jobs
and to have a dampening effect on wages. But fedgazette findings suggest
the opposite: Firm growth, employment and total earnings were somewhat
stronger in Wal-Mart counties and, in some cases, even in the retail
sector. The research does suggest that retail earnings per job fell in
virtually all counties studied. But they actually fell by less in
Wal-Mart counties.

It should be emphasized that there are big differences in population,
income and employment growth rates among the counties studied. Some
counties with a Wal-Mart had strong growth, and other Wal-Mart counties
had slow growth. Similarly, there were fast and slow growers among
non-Wal-Mart counties. The point here is that Wal-Mart's presence
explains little of this disparity pattern. Still, some notable outcomes
did show through in the study.

In sum, fedgazette findings suggest that Wal-Mart has a slightly
positive effect on counties where the retailer decides to set up shop.