Wal-Mart
keeps making noises about an increase in the federal minimum wage. Why? Because the rapid deindustrialization caused by Wal-Mart's own
pressure on its suppliers is depressing the purchasing power of its clientele.
It's not so much a store as a process that destroys jobs and economies, and that process is starting to starve as there's no more jobs to eat. After rolling over the communities that tried to resist, attracting applause from the free-marketeers, they come to the government demanding that their business model be kept alive by regulatory fiat.
For a while, this had some positive effects for Canada, as a more skilled workforce and lower-cost social benefits (health care etc)
drove the remaining good jobs north. Then, the economic growth that Wal-Mart and others helped direct to China started to increase China's appetite for raw materials -- such as petroleum from northern Alberta's oil sands. The rising cost of oil and the spectacular (and
insanely destructive) development of the oil sands has Alberta's inflation running over 5% (likely 10% or more in northern Alberta). The built-in costs of Alberta's urban sprawl, in the form of single-family houses and car-centered travel patterns,
worsens the inflationary effect (pdf). In turn, this has forced the Bank of Canada to
maintain higher interest rates, making Canadian exports less competitive and helping
eliminate 239,000 jobs in the past three years alone.
What's left to do? Cannibalize what's left of the continent, literally
tearing out our past and shipping it to China to be melted down and sold back to us as low-cost lawn chairs. At Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is fuckin' up!