| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
All The World's A Stage (For Wal-Mart Expansion, That Is)
"My heart is filled with pride . . . I long to tell you how deep
my love for Wal-Mart is . . ." --- Lyrics from the fight song of a
Wal-Mart store in Shenzhen, China.
Who would have ever thought that a good ol' boy from
Arkansas by the name of Sam Walton would make mincemeat
out of Mao and his Marxist malarkey? It all boils down to one
thing, essentially. There's nothing people the world over like
better than stuff and nobody provides stuff to the masses more
efficiently and cheaply than Wal-Mart. Now that China has
been infiltrated by capitalism's ultimate dragon, Marxism
doesn't have a prayer of surviving "Mart-ism."
Is there anything in this world that could have been more
inevitable than that Wal-Mart would end up in China? The
big-box retail behemoth could hardly have ignored over a
billion potential customers forever. There are 25 stores in
China now, but that will increase to 40 by the end of this year.
Beyond that, the sky is the limit.
It's all part of Wal-Mart's massive expansion plan designed
to achieve world retail domination with the cold and
calculating efficiency of a military blitzkrieg. But that
expansion won't be limited strictly to China and other overseas
locations. You may think there are enough Wal-Marts in the
United States already, and with 3,400 stores, who could argue?
Well, get ready for them to increase by 50 percent in a mere five
years. That's right, 5,000 American stores by '08. Wal-Mart
doesn't fool around.
Before this expansion is over, if it ever is, there could be in
some suburban areas 180,000 square foot Wal-Mart
supercenters within five miles of each other. The rational
mind cries out to know how that could possibly be necessary or
in any way reasonable. In the words of Wal-Mart CEO Lee
Scott, "I'm not trying to be flippant, but simply put, our
long-term strategy is to be where we're not."
Nothing flippant about that. The Wal-Mart powers-that-be
have a very matter-of-fact vision of the world: wall-to-wall
Wal-Marts. One can almost imagine a shadowy command
center buried deep inside Wal-Mart's global headquarters
where the plotting of world domination occurs. In one room
there would be a gigantic map of the United States divided into
thousands of grids. Each of those grids would either contain at
least one store or no store at all. The simple and overarching
objective would be to eventually fill in all of those storeless
grids that aren't devoid of human population. If that means
ruining the downtown business district of every small to
mid-sized town in America, well, collateral damage is
inevitable.
The expansion plans call not only for more stores, but more
and various products to fill them up. If you think about it, is
there really much of anything that Wal-Mart couldn't provide,
if it wanted to, in its maniacal drive to expand its customer
base?
Take used cars, for instance. No, I'm not kidding. It's
already being tested alongside one of the Houston stores.
Would you buy a used car from a friendly Wal-Mart associate?
Why not? It couldn't be a worse experience than buying one
from Joe Slick down at the local car lot and it might be a lot
better.
When it gets right down to it, who's to say Wal-Mart couldn't
become our main cradle-to-grave provider of just about
everything? In fact, if you're into imagining extreme scenarios,
if Wal-Mart started providing medical care and undertaking
services, they could actually bring us into the world and take us
back out again, while selling us everything we need in the
interim.
If even joking about being sent off on one's journey to
eternity by the funereal department of a Wal-Mart sends a chill
up and down your spine . . . don't worry. That could never
happen, right? I mean, I'm sure that's not even in Wal-Mart's
fifty-year plan.
It's not that the possibility of the country being
commercially dominated by and pockmarked with thousands
upon thousands of these ugly boxes is terrifying in some sort of
horror movie-like sense. Instead, it's the idea that the country
could eventually be transformed into a dismal and stultifyingly
homogeneous Wal-Mart nation and that nobody would
particularly care as long as they could get everything they need
at rock bottom prices.
I'm not calling for a boycott here, but if the prospect of
Wal-Marts every five miles isn't exactly your idea of America
the beautiful, you may want to consider buying most of your
stuff elsewhere, before it's too late. Now China, on the other
hand . . . Knock yourself out, Wal-Mart!
"My heart is filled with pride . . . I long to tell you how deep
my love for Wal-Mart is . . ." --- Lyrics from the fight song of a
Wal-Mart store in Shenzhen, China.
Who would have ever thought that a good ol' boy from
Arkansas by the name of Sam Walton would make mincemeat
out of Mao and his Marxist malarkey? It all boils down to one
thing, essentially. There's nothing people the world over like
better than stuff and nobody provides stuff to the masses more
efficiently and cheaply than Wal-Mart. Now that China has
been infiltrated by capitalism's ultimate dragon, Marxism
doesn't have a prayer of surviving "Mart-ism."
Is there anything in this world that could have been more
inevitable than that Wal-Mart would end up in China? The
big-box retail behemoth could hardly have ignored over a
billion potential customers forever. There are 25 stores in
China now, but that will increase to 40 by the end of this year.
Beyond that, the sky is the limit.
It's all part of Wal-Mart's massive expansion plan designed
to achieve world retail domination with the cold and
calculating efficiency of a military blitzkrieg. But that
expansion won't be limited strictly to China and other overseas
locations. You may think there are enough Wal-Marts in the
United States already, and with 3,400 stores, who could argue?
Well, get ready for them to increase by 50 percent in a mere five
years. That's right, 5,000 American stores by '08. Wal-Mart
doesn't fool around.
Before this expansion is over, if it ever is, there could be in
some suburban areas 180,000 square foot Wal-Mart
supercenters within five miles of each other. The rational
mind cries out to know how that could possibly be necessary or
in any way reasonable. In the words of Wal-Mart CEO Lee
Scott, "I'm not trying to be flippant, but simply put, our
long-term strategy is to be where we're not."
Nothing flippant about that. The Wal-Mart powers-that-be
have a very matter-of-fact vision of the world: wall-to-wall
Wal-Marts. One can almost imagine a shadowy command
center buried deep inside Wal-Mart's global headquarters
where the plotting of world domination occurs. In one room
there would be a gigantic map of the United States divided into
thousands of grids. Each of those grids would either contain at
least one store or no store at all. The simple and overarching
objective would be to eventually fill in all of those storeless
grids that aren't devoid of human population. If that means
ruining the downtown business district of every small to
mid-sized town in America, well, collateral damage is
inevitable.
The expansion plans call not only for more stores, but more
and various products to fill them up. If you think about it, is
there really much of anything that Wal-Mart couldn't provide,
if it wanted to, in its maniacal drive to expand its customer
base?
Take used cars, for instance. No, I'm not kidding. It's
already being tested alongside one of the Houston stores.
Would you buy a used car from a friendly Wal-Mart associate?
Why not? It couldn't be a worse experience than buying one
from Joe Slick down at the local car lot and it might be a lot
better.
When it gets right down to it, who's to say Wal-Mart couldn't
become our main cradle-to-grave provider of just about
everything? In fact, if you're into imagining extreme scenarios,
if Wal-Mart started providing medical care and undertaking
services, they could actually bring us into the world and take us
back out again, while selling us everything we need in the
interim.
If even joking about being sent off on one's journey to
eternity by the funereal department of a Wal-Mart sends a chill
up and down your spine . . . don't worry. That could never
happen, right? I mean, I'm sure that's not even in Wal-Mart's
fifty-year plan.
It's not that the possibility of the country being
commercially dominated by and pockmarked with thousands
upon thousands of these ugly boxes is terrifying in some sort of
horror movie-like sense. Instead, it's the idea that the country
could eventually be transformed into a dismal and stultifyingly
homogeneous Wal-Mart nation and that nobody would
particularly care as long as they could get everything they need
at rock bottom prices.
I'm not calling for a boycott here, but if the prospect of
Wal-Marts every five miles isn't exactly your idea of America
the beautiful, you may want to consider buying most of your
stuff elsewhere, before it's too late. Now China, on the other
hand . . . Knock yourself out, Wal-Mart!