ip, Wal-mart can seem like a harmless modern version of those oldtimey stores. Which were, of course, not making any of their employees rich.

However, the profits raised mostly stayed in the community; whether to build mom&pop a big ranch house, go in the bank to be loaned out on mortgages or small businesses, invested in Junior's new gas station or record shop, or whatever. Now, every penny you spend in a WMT goes instantly to Walmart headquarters, to be used to build new stores in some new town that doesn't want one, or to go home in an overstuffed CEO paypacket. It doesn't even spend a night in the local bank. The large shareholders of this outfit are so stinking rich they wouldn't need another dollar for a thousand years, but they are not content, they are driven to concentrate much of the wealth of the countryside in their own hands.   WMT, and a lot of other chains, is gutting our country, pruning off entrepreneurs by the thousands and replacing them with 'assistant managers' of a 'local' store which will close its doors the instant there is a better spot to open a store.

I didn't have a problem with Walmart 25 years ago either, it was a well-run business replacing some old bankrupt Grants and Woolworths. It wasn't yet trying to put the local grocer, gas station, optometrist, autoshop, stereo store, fabric store, and jeweler out of business. Now it is a too-large juggernaut bent on senseless world domination of commerce, and it has left a lot of empty stores and wrecked downtowns in its wake. And for what? For the benefit of the people at the top, who don't need another red cent.