There are other ways of improving one\\\’s situation other than \\"organizing\\" under unions. No one is suggesting that employees haven\\\’t the right to such organization – they most certainly do, but why is forcing an employer to comply with employee demands the primary thought on \\"improvement\\"? How about this: you don\\\’t like what you get paid? Figure out how to go into business for yourself. That\\\’s what Sam Walton did. If he can do it, so can others. The \\"great expense\\", in my humble opinion, is the failure of free people to exercise that freedom in industry on their own behalf. Could Walmart pay their employees more? Sure. But then they\\\’d have to change the pricing on all their merchandise resulting in \\"lower income\\" customers not being able to purchse as much of what they want or need. You allow people freedom under a set of impartial laws and they\\\’ll cure their own \\"ills\\".

On the topic of how much money people make, or should/deserve to make, again, why is it my business how much Tom Hanks makes? If he sells his \\"acting services\\" to Hollywood and if there\\\’s enough free people who want to give their money to watch him act, who is anyone to say he shouldn\\\’t get it? If you don\\\’t agree with it, don\\\’t contribute. If you like his acting, but not the fact that he gets paid so much, just be glad that you didn\\\’t have to pay him all by yourself. Why would you care what he makes? He didn\\\’t take money from you. You voluntarily paid to watch him.

On the \\"subprime mess\\", regulation caused the failure. The Community Reinvestment Act required lenders to make loans in poor urban areas regardless of credit-worthiness. Regulation started the debacle and kept it going. Neither you nor I would loan money to people who have demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to be responsible with money or other property. Once again, public intervention in the private system causing destruction. A $20 million exit package is a pittance compared to the multi-multi-billion mess getting worse by the moment.

I do not identify, personally, with either the left or the right. I try not to, at least. I make it a point to read material generated out of the philosophies of both sides.

But to say that Wal Mart has enabled lower income people to buy more stuff, and to say the left condemns Wal Mart, leaves much unsaid.

First, buying more stuff is the obvious end-all of what it means to prosper if the market is left to its own devices. That is fine. But more stuff, unfortunately, doesn’t solve the underlying ills of society.

Wal Mart may have helped lower income people buy more plastic salad shooters (okay, to be fair, Wal Mart has probably helped lower income consumers markedly increase their standard of living – again, if “standard of living” is directly tied only to more and better salad shooters), but this comes at great expense.

What expense? Those employees, for example, that are forced to work “off-the-clock” and are persuaded (to put it diplomatically) not to organize so they cannot improve their situation and have Wal Mart pay them livable wages.

This is probably a “leftie” argument, but I’d like to think at some point all of us can get beyond left or right, and realize that we need to look beyond plastic salad shooters as the answer to happiness.

I like this Web site and enjoy reading the posts. A free market is probably a good thing. Much better than a completely state-controlled market, as an extreme comparison.

But things are just never black and white. We can blame each other for our problems, citing our differences, and we are both right in doing so.

“The billions of Chinese and Indians who have risen out of abject poverty in the last decade or so are a major accomplishment of free trade, and that increase in wealth has benefited American citizens as well.”

Wal Mart has enabled those in the lower economic bracket to buy more middle class goods – many made in China. The left condemns Wal Mart.