Wal-mart is really bad

As usual, I'm a little bit behind the curve. I had heard plenty about the fact that Wal-mart is destroying America and we're not supposed to shop there. I didn't take it too seriously, though. I'm not a regular Wal-Mart shopper, but I have made some occasional purchases -- mostly on the way to or from summer camping trips. It's hard not to when things are so miraculously cheap.

Ever since I stayed up late watching The Wedding Crashers, I haven't been able to get the cable to work on our TV. My roommates were gone all day, so my only option this afternoon was to watch another DVD. The one I chose was Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. I usually can't sit through documentary films like this without getting super fidgety, because they always seem so extremely biased and that bugs me. Michael Moore is the worst. Biased or not, this Wal-Mart film is pretty convincing. I certainly won't be shopping at Wal-Mart any more and feel pretty guilty about the cooler and pink cowgirl hat that I bought there last summer.

I guess the most shocking thing is that while turning huge profits, Wal-Mart instructs its employees to use government programs like Welfare and Medicare/Medicaid, instead of paying workers enough to be able to afford food or health care. A UC Berkeley study calculated that Wal-Mart employees cost California tax payers approximately $86 million per year. Now I know why things at Wal-mart are so miraculously cheap.