You’re 100% right about quality. Ever had a loaf of bread from Great Harvest? Or a cinnamon scone? oooh baby.

Those small grocery stores? I’m sure they COULD have survived, but chose not to or sold. I don’t know details.

Why did Osco fail when Walgreens is prospering?

You’re avoiding the question, Junior – and, most likely, you just don’t know the answer. Why do companies like Williams Hardware, Johnson’s Garden, Johstons Clothiers, Gentry Ltd, Star Lumber, Olive Tree, Kobe, Lamars Bakery, Beards 66, Dandurand Drugs, Lawrence Photo, Leekers, Great Harvest, Finley’s Hobbies..etc..etc..etc..all remain healthy and growing?

Answer: Service. They provide something Wal-mart doesn’t. And they have ownership that understands that a company has to be flexible and responsive to the market. It’s not the big that eat the little, it’s the fast that eat the slow.

Slavery equals having a job? Even a low-paying job? Are you talking about your job, CapnAmerica? Can you quit your job, or is someone forcing you to do it?

And JR, what made you so hateful to the working world? Even if you’ve had bad experiences and want to give up on the mean ol’ world, please leave the rest of us happy people alone. Don’t force the solutions to your perceived misery on everyone else.

What is misearable is to be lumped in a government retirement plan, a government school, and government healthcare with folks like you. Get a life!

Dillons/Wal mart

Calhouns, Mc Donalds(clothing store) Davids, Skaggs, Osco, Otasco, Mcleods, Ardans, many others

Wal mart

But why go on with YOU goofnuts? YOU are in the business of getting the most work out of people for the least amount of pay. All I got for you is a punch in the nose.

I know those business I listed above, Junior. They’re not struggling. They’re GROWING.

You still didn’t answer how, Junior.

For every business you have named that struggles to survive, I can name 20 that did not.

And of those that did survive the wages for their workers are sublimated by the resulting lack of competition.

And you would take away Social security. The one thing that lets folks have some assurance there is a bit of rest at the end of their drudgery.

How do so many local restaurants flourish in the face of chains like Chili’s, Applebees, Outback? How about Johnson’s Lawn and Garden? Heck, Wal-mart sells shrubs and trees. And why are there so many oil change shops when Wal-mart does that, too. Play It Again Sports is RIGHT NEXT TO WAL-MART on East Kellogg. Doesn’t Wal-mart sell sporting goods?

How about grocery stores? Dillons seems to be doing just fine in spite of Wal-mart. ‘Course, they’re a big corporation, too – but Leekers IGA isn’t. And they’re still in business (and growing).

Dandurand Drugstore? How do they survive with Wal-mart and Walgreens right down the street? Wait – Wal-mart sells clothes, yet, Johnston’s continues to grow every year.

I could go on and on (and I might later)…

There are countless small businesses that prosper in the face of Wal-mart. How? You figure that out, Junior.

I’ve already shown you that the free market is not really free.

Only today’s glassy-eyed Republicans would gloss right over $1+ trillion in bridge financing without blinking. I guess they don’t call you guys Big Government conservatives for nothing.

BTW, n clearly jumped the shark at 11:14 a.m.

Continue to carry on with you insults against me personally in lieu of actual evidence . . .

I stand behind that statement–slaves did have jobs. Actually, it’s not original to me, Jim Hightower wrote in one of his columns.

They didn’t have very good jobs, did they?

That’s the point which was apparently lost on you–having a job doesn’t mean much when that job doesn’t pay a living wage and you have no essential benefits like health care.

They are oh so free market….right up until it touches something they care about!

Kia? How much free market has the average worker got in this ever shrinking field of employers? A Wal mart comes into a community, wipes out two dozen small buisness owners AND all their employess. Then ALL those folks have a choice. ONE CHOICE.

Work for Wal mart for what Wal mart will pay.

What you free market advocates don’t get (among many things) is that too much of any good thing is not good. Too free a market creates tyrants IN that market.

And Social Security? Yeah I can see why you’d like to kill it. Get those workers just a little MORE nervous. Makes ‘em ask fewer questions and make fewer demands. Keeps their noses on that grindstone.

Is that ad hominem enough? What a moron! And from someone who has no qualms about reeling off insults.

But don’t worry, we’ll protect Social Security for you.

And let me guess, you won’t have any problem cashing the checks . . .

Face it, CapnAmerica, you are collectivist. You are a socialist. There’s no other explanation for what you post.

I’m not surprised that you won’t acknowledge the absurdity of what you post. No thinking person could believe it.

What is it that you do for a living, if I may ask? Does it require thinking?

A free market is a market where the price of each item or service is arranged by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers (supply and demand).

A free market (like we have in the US) comes from the laissez-faire economic philosophy, which basically confines government intervention in economic matters except to regulating against force and fraud among market participants.

Government force limited to a defensive role, government itself does not initiate force in the marketplace beyond levying taxes in order to fund the maintenance of the free marketplace.

It should be noted that a few extreme free market advocates oppose even taxation.

Who are you with this “collectivist” crap to tell me what my best interst is?

Funny how selling arms to terrorists is bad because it “puts us all at risk,” but destroying Social Security is just fine because you don’t have any responsiblity for me and I don’t have any for you . . .