#289 Mall Wart

I watched this movie last night called “The High Cost of Low Prices.” Actually, that was the subtitle. The main title featured the name of the mega store it was about. I think it was something like Mallwart. Anyhow, this wart on the carbuncle of capitalism maintains their supposedly low price reputation by going in to depressed communities, driving out all the competition by selling items below even Mallwart cost and then jacking the prices back up again once mom and pop have gone to an early broken-hearted grave. City Councils rolled over like trained puppy dogs to let Mallwart come in and scratch their yellow belly. Yellow, they hoped, with gold and prosperity because of all the jobs Mallwart promised the community. Twp things happened. The jobs Mallwart offered were too low paying for their employee/slaves to buy anything anywhere but at Mallwart, and as soon as the tax kickbacks ran out Mallwart moved out of the city limits into a new non-subsidized non-liable-to-local-sales-tax facility. Everyone loses with the same low prices. So you ask me, Funny Guy, why the hell do you care? You believe in the spirit of American enterprise don’t you, this is just capitalism in all its glory. Well here’s why I care. The foundation of America is small business people. Small business people respond to the needs of their community. They hire the local kids growing up. They teach them the value of hard work and an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. The small business hires people for their whole life, and pays them a decent living wage so they can go out and buy other stuff from other small businesses and keep other people working too. They provide something called service. If you have a question about a product or a way to do something, the small business has people that can answer those questions. The small business system of America is like an organism. Or like a complex digestive tract. Food goes in and at every stage of the way nutrients are extracted and used to build fiber and muscles and tissue. The Mallwart system is like a seagull on laxatives. In and out and nothing in between. A money machine for the few owners and a load of crap for everyone else. And finally, small businesses give back to their communities in many small ways. Oh sure, they don’t come up with a giant cardboard presentation check to give to the chamber of commerce. But they give everywhere and everyday to make their community strong. The members of the Walton family mountain, at about 18 billion apiece, give back less than 1% of their wealth. Bill Gates gives back 58%. The Mallwart employees, with lower pay than just about anyone in the US, nonetheless contributed 1.6 million out of their paltry paychecks into the Mallwart employee fund to help fellow employees in need. The Walton’s contributed a grand total of 6000 dollars to the fund. Not the way John Boy would have done it. And not the American spirit. That’s why I’ll never shop in a Mallwart. If you’ve ever tried to remove a wart you know it’s not easy and it’s painful. But you must, because—
America, ya gotta love it.