Terry Cowgill

Wally Bashing Is A Loser

In the I told-you-so department: A new Quinnipiac University poll shows politicians who attack Wal-Mart not only stand to gain nothing, but the tactic is likely to backfire on them.

Wally bashers will have to decide whether it’s worth it to throw a sop to organized labor at the expense of the majority who either have a favorable view of the company (and, like me, shop there often) or who are turned off by such rhetoric. Watch out, Hillary!

A Happy Wal-Mart Holiday

[Photo of Sam Walton’s original Walton’s Five and Dime, now the Wal-Mart Visitor’s Center, Bentonville, Ark., courtesy Bobak Ha’Eri.]

[Update (12/14): Nice column in The Courant this morning by Owen Canfield on the shopping scene in Torrington.]

Went to my son’s basketball game yesterday in Hartland. Where’s that, you ask? On the other side of Winsted, just east of Colebrook, I think.

Hartland is a beautiful but odd town. It is cleaved in half by the gorgeous Barkhamsted Reservoir (over which there is no bridge, except a drive-over dam at the southern end). So if you want to go from East Hartland to West Hartland, you have to drive north almost into Massachusetts and then down, or all the way into Pleasant Valley and back up Route 181.

Speaking of the Heartland (how’s that for a lame segue?), on the way there we stopped at the garden spot of the county, the Wal-Mart on Route 202 in Torrington. This is not a Wal-Mart Supercenter with a large grocery area. Since there is a beautiful Price Chopper next door, there is no need for the Supercenter.

I’d venture to say I’m one of the only people in the Northwest Corner who uses the name of a big-box store and the word “beautiful” in the same sentence. But there is a good reason for this. So before you get ready to bombard me with comments about what a rube I am, hear me out.

Continue reading A Happy Wal-Mart Holiday…

Windy City Council Doesn’t Have A Clue

I couldn’t resist another Wal-Mart update:

Love him or hate him, George Will wrote a column yesterday that really nailed the Wal-Mart alarmists, especially the ones on the Chicago City Council who approved a bill that foolishly dictated the wages and benefits of stores such as Wal-Mart that wish to locate in the Windy City.

To his credit, Mayor Richard Daley wisely vetoed the bill, but the damage was done, as the giant retailer has looked to more friendly confines such as nearby Evergreen Park, where Wal-Mart constructed a store only a block from the city line. As Will noted, now the city will get no sales tax revenue from the approximately half a billion in sales the suburban Chicago Wal-Marts pull in, to say nothing of the property tax revenue the store would have brought to city coffers.

This is a perfect example of why no one but the hardcore labor union types and out-of-touch elitists trust the Democrats to mind our economic store. Members of the Chicago City Council, most of whom have never met a payroll or had to worry about how to afford to clothe their own children, have done no one a favor by practicing such prying paternalism. But, hey, I’m sure they feel better about themselves.

P.S. I know what you’re saying: the Republicans in Washington have run up huge deficits, so what do they know about economics? True, and it will hurt them in November. But on the local level, they don’t practice deficit spending (or can’t) — which is why actions such as Chicago’s hurt the Dems with rank-and-file voters.

Running Against The Wal-Mart Tide

I admit it. I have long been fascinated by Wal-Mart. Business success stories always interest me, but the chain founded in 1962 by Arkansas entrepreneur Sam Walton grew steadily into the largest retailer in the world and the second largest revenue-producing corporation as of this year.

Such a meteoric rise would in itself be enough to hold my frequent attention. But Wal-Mart has in the last couple of years become the object of strong criticism (some of it justified) for its labor practices, environmental record and the effect its hulking stores can have on host communities.

Continue reading Running Against The Wal-Mart Tide…