Wal*Mart fun

[Chaerophon]

If Walmart drives all of the book stores out of town through anti-competitive practices, and undercuts the prices of any that try to hold out by a large margin, people will buy the book at Walmart.  They will buy the book because they hate Walmart for driving away the bookstores.  They will buy it at Walmart because Walmart offers a good book for a low price without having to drive 200 miles.  Walmart will get rich off of sales of the book.  And then Walmart will be one step closer to RULING THE WORLD!  Muahahaha!

Muahahaha!
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Unfortunately, you forgot the last half of that equation... After having driven off all of the small businesses in the community, Wal-Mart will become a major, if not the major source of employment for the community. Jobs that once paid a fair wage and benefits will be driven out in return for minimum wage/part-time (under)employment with no benefits. When the workers try to unionize in order to gain some rights, Wal-Mart will pack up shop and leave, as one tiny store, or even a dozen, is but a drop in the bucket, leaving all of those people who were once, before Wal-Mart, happily and gainfully employed, in a massive lurch.

They may not be on the verge of taking over the world, but their record on worker's rights is about the worst in North America. One unionized store (in Quebec) out of how many hundred (most likely thousand)? Wal-Mart is one of the primary causes of the service industry's continued inability to make any gains in terms of worker organization. Like it or not, (as in, whether you like unions or not) the service industry must organize if the real average wage is ever going to increase in North America (it has fallen for the last twenty years).