I complained about their malicious and immoral business practices, intentionally driving their own suppliers out of business so that they can provide a cheap, low-quality overpriced item to the consumer.
You'll have to be more specific: what malicious and immoral business practices? If you mean not accepting unionised people then I can sortof agree; but remembering the clusterfuck that the auto industry unions inflicted on the American auto industry I'm not shedding any tears. I'd add also that Wall Mart is a huge employer of handicapped people, which though it is motivated by paying less brings the benefit of them getting a job which they probably wouldn't otherwise. Bad job > No job (unless you live in Sweden
If they drive their suppliers out of business, where do they get their products in the first place? That makes no sense. They have to get their stuff from somewhere. I'm gonna assume here that you mean that they're squeezing the suppliers' margin. And if they are, this means that you get the products cheaper, thus become increase you purchasing power, which is good as I explainer above. Actually this makes for more jobs overall.
Also, if the consumer is willing to pay, the product's not overpriced. That's economics 1oh1.
You know, maybe we should spin this off into a Hate/Love Wall Mart thread - seems like I'm derailing the discussion from it's original subject.
I agree with you on the unions. That is an instance of socialism gone bad (although that's pretty much the only way socialism has ever gone in the long run). Socialistic economies end up being parasitic. As do elements of applied socialism (such as corrupt unions). It's just human nature that when you aren't working for yourself, you won't work. Not to say that it can't be overcome, it just isn't something you can bet your economy against and hope to win.
That said, before continuing you need to go back and read the rest of the topic. You aren't the one derailing this topic, I am, Lego Lord having been the one who brought up Walmart. The excuse for the change of topic has been given. And if you read the earlier posts you won't have trouble understanding what I'm talking about.
I'm just not going to go back and dig them up again, so rather than demanding explanations you'll have to go read the thread. I'm referring to specific strategies currently utilized by Wmart that I have already described.
My posts have constantly been in support of a free market, but not the "capitalistic" business approach, which is to put monetary gain before all else. A free market must be tempered by morality, and where that fails, law. And no, I'm not talking about squeezing suppliers for a fair profit margin; I mean exactly what I said. Please read back. Pardon me for abruptness, but you ought to at least read the thread before jumping in.
There is a market price for items, which competition (ie free enterprise) keeps reasonable. An immoral abuse of the system to create and maintain a monopoly (other than a monopoly of convenience) violates free enterprise just as much as a government mandate can. It gives whomever is monopolizing the market the power to set whatever price they please. Walmart's business practices (as described previously) are simply downright immoral, and are also aimed at creating such a monopoly.
If you really, really want to get into it, look at the way Walmart scums the profits from all kinds of privately developed and patented products by creating "Great Value" brands. They control the point of distribution AND the ability to set their own artificial market price, which they abuse to a high degree. That's as much backtracking as I'm willing to do.
Many thanks to Krash for debunking RAM's string of strange and seemingly unresearched comments.