[Vision2020] Food/gas prices

[Garrett Clevenger]

Donovan writes:

"This is why you need a Wal-Mart Super Center in
Moscow, the competition keeps the prices low."

Donovan,

I wonder, do you not see the problem Wal-Mart poses to
not only our local economy, but of the unsustainable,
and exploitative, nature of Wal-Mart's leverage?  

I ask this because I assume you would have a problem
with the ethics of a company that seems to violate
moral reasoning, such as exploitation of workers in
China who, no matter how deserving of earning money to
live, are still treated as expendable.  

These Chinese companies Wal-Mart purchases from, on
top of competing with American companies, do not have
to follow the same environmental, labor or other
regulations that the US makes American companies
follow, so are thus at an unfair competitive advantage
as they dump their wastes into their rivers, and send
their pollutants into the air that the US Park Service
is now able to sample in our National Parks.

How many poisoned products do we have to import before
you say this isn't right?  

How many small businesses that go under because they
can't compete with the buying power of Wal-Mart do you
think is acceptable?

Will you recognize that Wal-Mart is a major instigator
of Chinese trade, and thus our trade deficit?  That
the Wal-Mart/China relationship is a major factor in
the down-turn in the US economy?  After all, it's
reported that China is holding $1.5 trillion of our
dept, a lot of it for the Iraq War, which has caused
oil prices to increase as you recognize.  The hundreds
of billions of dollars Wal-Mart spends in China on
cheap goods is now being lent back to us to support
the war machine.  Kind of ironic, I think.

It seems if we focused more on our local economy, and
limited the amount of foreign made products we could
be providing for ourselves, we would in the long run
be keeping prices low.  After all, as fuel prices
continue to escalate, we are only going to find how
important it is to reduce transportation costs.  What
better time to start that than now?

I believe in the long run Hawkins, and Super Wal-Mart,
will be more of an expensive burden on Moscow than if
we were to start using those resources to build our
local economy in a more sustainable way, rather than
subsidizing the wealth of China.

gclev