Wal-Mart Roundup, the Hot Air Balloon Edition
If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.
From the Blogosphere
Sebastian Mallaby's Washington Post article continues to draw praise, this time from Robert over at the Cafe Hayek blog. Meanwhile, Dustbury tackles the "Wal-Mart is on corporate welfare meme", Mister Snitch argues that Wal-Mart is a convenient scapegoat for groups with other agendas, and FBSR piles on to the Wal-Mart cleaning crew scrum. In case you are wondering, FBSR stands for Feeling Blue, Seeing Red. The blog's devoted to a boycott of five corporations: Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Exxon-Mobil, General Motors, and Coca-Cola, but not Target, Burger King, BP, Daimler-Chrylser, or Pepsi. If you wonder why the first five and not the last, here's the answer:
The must-read post comes by way of Steven Silvers over at Scatterbox who questions whether Wal-Mart's creation of a war room, led by former Reagan loyalist Michael Deaver, and its use of political campaign tactics against its critics are the right move. Steve notes that while it's appropriate for the company to get it's side of the story out, and forcefully, there's a fine line between courting swing voters and swing consumers- one that the may have been crossed in the company's rush to defend itself.
From the Blogosphere
Sebastian Mallaby's Washington Post article continues to draw praise, this time from Robert over at the Cafe Hayek blog. Meanwhile, Dustbury tackles the "Wal-Mart is on corporate welfare meme", Mister Snitch argues that Wal-Mart is a convenient scapegoat for groups with other agendas, and FBSR piles on to the Wal-Mart cleaning crew scrum. In case you are wondering, FBSR stands for Feeling Blue, Seeing Red. The blog's devoted to a boycott of five corporations: Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Exxon-Mobil, General Motors, and Coca-Cola, but not Target, Burger King, BP, Daimler-Chrylser, or Pepsi. If you wonder why the first five and not the last, here's the answer:
Our concept is simple. We’ve chosen 5 corporations to boycott. Each of these corporations makes large contributions to the Bush administration. These corporations also behave in specific ways that are detrimental to the world in some way, such as damaging the environment, working with sweat shops, adamently preventing unionization, or supporting state terrorism, etc.
The must-read post comes by way of Steven Silvers over at Scatterbox who questions whether Wal-Mart's creation of a war room, led by former Reagan loyalist Michael Deaver, and its use of political campaign tactics against its critics are the right move. Steve notes that while it's appropriate for the company to get it's side of the story out, and forcefully, there's a fine line between courting swing voters and swing consumers- one that the may have been crossed in the company's rush to defend itself.
Finally, the next time someone tells you Wal-Mart is invincible or that it sucks the life out of its suppliers, point them to this counter-example about how the company recently got its can kicked by Steve Jobs and Apple. In the words of Wal-Mart Senior Vice President and Treasurer Jay Fitzsimmons, "He (Jobs) won, we lost." Find out why and how.
In the News
Lauren Weber of the Hartford Courant considers the intesifying debate about Wal-Mart in an even-handed manner and asks a great question: When was the last time a single corporation was the subject of so much hand-wringing and public angst?
On Public Broadcasting
Robert Cringley sees parallels between Google's data center and Wal-Mart's supercenter strategies. Frontline, the PBS newsmagazine, asks the question "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" While the tagline "They're rolling back prices, rolling back competition, and rolling jobs overseas..." is a bit of a giveaway, you can watch the entire program online, for free- my favorite price- and decide for yourself.
from the Wal-Mart Critics
Over at Wal-Mart Watch, the epicenter of anti-Wal-Mart activism, there's a "Wal-Mart in the News" section where I found this statement: "Every day, our researchers scour newspapers big and small and the Internet to find out where Wal-Mart is making headlines." When I looked over the headlines, I couldn't help but notice that only articles highly critical of Wal-Mart have been included. Maybe they ought to change that quote to something like "We filter the news about Wal-Mart so you don't have to."
Also on this blog:
The Political Dimensions of the War on Wal-Mart and Five Forces Analysis of Wal-Mart and The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart and The Empire Strikes Back and the Wal-Mart Archive
Linked at The Political Teen and Don Surber and Is It Just Me and The Conservative Cat and Bacon Bits and
Comments
Found your blog via trackback. I quite agree that the business of America is business. Don't know if that is original with you or not (sounds familiar) but it is more profound a concept than most folks would credit it for.
As far as "Wal Mart Watch", yes, I also noticed the one-sidedness of their coverage. The WaPo piece I linked to doesn't seem to have found its way in there. (I'm not holding my breath, either.)
And as far as Jib-Jab's swipe at Wal-Mart, well, let's just say I have far less respect for them than I did when they were making even-handed political satires. There are two sides to Wal-Mart jibes, but Jib-Jab decided that in this case, one was enough to suit their purposes.
King of the Hill, by comparison, took a far more even-handed approach to their own skewering of the "big box" discount giants.
Posted by: Mister Snitch! | November 30, 2005 11:03 PM