Originally Posted by kjroh

Wal-Mart uses market forces to exact a pound of flesh in order to keep prices low. You pay them. I pay them. I will continue to pay them. Their prices are lower. Until someone else comes along who can compete by matching or beating their prices Wal-Mart is here to stay. Unfortunately U.S. manufacturers who cannot compete with low cost labor pools abroad will continue to disappear as Wal-Mart and other retailers buy products from these markets to sell to you at the lowest possible price. It's a market force. You can try and regulate it through trade sanctions and import tarrifs but this will lead to other countries doing exactly the same thing to us.

It's ironic that the trade agreements struck with the likes of China during the Clinton Administration (that I for one thought would benefit U.S. manufacturers) has had a mostly detrimental effect by simply opening markets to lower cost labor pools. It will balance out over time but make no mistake boys and girls...the U.S. economy is changing and in order to compete/survive you need to be educated, and be willing to adapt to doing more with less. Innovate, invest, and learn to do things better, faster, and cheaper or get run over.

Wal-Mart....I will continue to shop there and I suspect you will too. Unless for some odd reason you enjoy paying higher prices. If that's the case you probably also voted for higher taxes but that's a story for another thread!