To reiterate (in a different way) what others have said with the very harsh, and verbose, business perspective.

Wal-Mart starts by identifying what people will buy and what price they will pay. From that point, their purchasing department works backwards to identify what is available to meet that profile.

Wal-Mart is not in the business of employing underage workers in asian countries. They are in the business of meeting demand for what consumers (that is, "us" - sans much of present company.... ) want. They do that through manufacturers who Wal-mart attempts to screen...sometimes unsuccessfully.

If we don't buy, they don't procure, etc.

Despite my (I'm sorry) pretentious (in hindsight) Waterford post (oops, didn't mean to be pretentious...), we did buy three packs of cheap walmart ornaments a couple weeks ago to replace the very time consuming practice of tying a ribbon to each branch as we have in years past.

Using us as an example, if the $3 ornaments had cost $30, then we would have used alternatives. BUT, the $3 ornaments were available and for $9, we saved hours of 'work' on a year that we didn't have time to dress the tree as we normally would.

So, let's not blame Wal-Mart. As many have said, it is about what WE purchase. If Wal-Mart doesn't do it, someone else will...

Years ago, a local TV station cancelled their news program and fired all the news staff. The newspaper picked up on this with "shame on you, how could you do that" coverage directed at the station owners. It was interesting to hear what the owner said:
  • we tried for years to make news work
  • it cost us a lot of money
  • but we were selling something that the consumers didn't want to buy
  • so, we're not going to sell it anymore
  • if you don't like what we did, blame it on the people who didn't watch...


Hmmm, the owner had a point...

Sorry for being verbose...