Filed under: Economics, Government and Politics | Tags: Economics, Government and Politics, immigration, microeconomics, politics
ON IMMIGRATION, CURRENT POLICY, PROPOSED POLICIES AND PERSONAL OPINION.
I. Favorable Impact:
A. Rumored Competition:
Many native born Americans fear the competition brought along with illegal immigrants. They will work for little money doing hard labor and don’t ask for benefits, vacations or anything of the likes. This is presumably due to the fact that the nature of their labor revolves around a cash pay core offering work in intervals usually in the form of jobs that may only last a couple of days. But what kind of jobs do these people hold? They mow laws, paint fences, cook food, babysit for busy families…Americans find these tasks undesirable. Because the pay is low even before illegal workers get in the picture, American citizens feel the hard work involved is not worth the amount of pay and even the work itself is ‘below’ them. B. Weapon Against Inflation:
Although the majority of illegal workers do send part of their wages back to their home countries, they are still contributing to our economy here in the US. Rent, food, clothing and other necessities are all being purchased with money made in the direct vicinity. Not only are they themselves pumping money back into the flow, but by working for others they are helping legal workers contribute more than possible without their low paying work. For example, California is one of the top states for illegal workers and it is partially because of this that their economy prospers. Especially in the LA area (according to the LA Times) “tens of thousands” of illegal nannies are being paid by mothers who can then return to/start a career. This increases the families’overall income and spending capabilities, subsequently re-fueling the economy. This makes up for any lack of repayment by illegals and THEN some because of their salary opportunity being higher. C. Social Security:
When one is hired for a job, a significant amount of paperwork is filed to ascertain wages are paid and reported, taxes are paid, Social Security is paid, etc. etc. There are a significant amount of illegals that work for cash on a day to day basis, but there is also a hefty amount (as the job and pay is generally higher and more reliable) of paper filing, society contributing aliens helping our sick and senior citizens. ”Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes,” says Stephen C. Gross, Social Security’s chief actuary. When we work, the money taken out of our pay checks eventually comes back to us in the form of public pensions during retirement and the opportunity to take advantage of Medicare after the age of 65. Illegal immigrants do not have the rights to use these, thus the community benefits from their hard work.
D. Property Value:
Especially in areas that are already well populated (and the mass majority of aliens do flock to CA, NY and FL) illegal immigrants help increase property value just by being there. Although their apartments may not be up to the American standard of aesthetic living, the hard numbers are what matters and the hundreds of people taking up space is what’s causing properties to skyrocket.
II. Unfavorable Impact:
A. Healthcare:
An approximate $650 million a year is spent on uninsured immigrants for emergency room care such as the delivery of babies, paid for by taxpayers and private insurers.
B. Schools:
Babies born in the United States, despite family background automatically become our citizens and are entitled to a free public education. This causes overcrowding in schools, evident by the innumerable amount of public education classes being forced to hold classes in newly placed trailers on the skirts of the school building(s) to accommodate the new boom of immigrated babies.
C. Traffic and Overcrowding:
With more and more people looking to live in a small amount of space, not only will traffic commute time increase but health standards will be sacrificed. Air pollution, global warming, other ecological issues and the health of people are all at stake when it comes to the idea of too many people in one place. A kind of silly analogy I remember from my childhood while learning geography was the saying that the relationship between our country and the border countries could be thought of as Canada is America’s ‘hat’ and Mexico is the ‘pants.’ Well, without strict regulation, Mexico would go from being the pants to a pair of overalls!
D. The Health of Americans:
It is not only the change in environment (pollution) that will cause the immune systems of Americans to weaken, but very directly since 2004 there have been several outbreaks of tuberculosis…a disease the American Lung Association proudly proclaimed was ‘wiped out’ (of the US.)
III. Limit on Annual Immigrants:
The limit for legal immigrants should be raised. The government does a great job assuring that immigrants have the money to live here, will not go into poverty and have to rely on social services and are well cultured aspiring citizens. It’s highly doubtful half of the people living in our country today could afford to pay the fees, be willing enough to actually learn about the history of our country or wait an extremely long amount of time (for most) to gain citizenship. It’s about appreciation of the country’s philosophy and governance…people who want to live here/do live here should have certain standards and those who are willing to walk the line for our freedoms should have the opportunity to do so.
IV. Wages and Jobs:
Should a new national policy be adopted causing all aliens to be rounded up and sent home and construction and agriculture to raise their wages to attract workers, the US would most probably benefit…after some time of adjustment. Because compensation is the ultimate initiative to the mass majority of people, a raise in wages would attract a lot of people such as high school drop outs, even holders of a high school diploma or GED. The work force is evolving and more education is needed each day. It was once a possibility to graduate high school, find a job and be able to raise a family on your earnings. Now an AA, AS is the new high school diploma. That’s the bottom of the food chain. To be anywhere near marketable one should at LEAST aim for a BA/BS. These people, rather than working at McDonalds or Sears (minimum wage jobs) would opt for the higher paying (although harder and even less prestigious) job. Also, with the prices of food and housing going up (due to payroll of course) it is to be expected that the government would help fund programs for these industries. With this program the number of people on welfare may go up at first (reluctance to take the new jobs) but once the jobs are thought of in a different light, they will become more desirable, more people will be employed, crime will likely go down because of the share of wealth, people will enjoy new career options in areas previously looked down upon and the economy will stabilize. At first it may be hard and it may take awhile to adjust to pricier food, lawn services and buildings, but now land will be more bountiful, rent more affordable to middle class families, pollution a bit less of an issue in cities, people would be healthier and kids would not have to take biology in a portable trailer.
V. What Should We Do:
Operation Wetback should be reinstated but in a sensible manner. Illegal immigrants should be granted (as Bush proposed) a “guest worker card” ONLY if they can pass the citizenship test all of the legal immigrants must pass and only if they can speak conversational English. Those who pass should be given the card for up to 1 year in which time they need to learn enough English to be at least semi-fluent and have enough education to meet the standards of the average American. When the one year is up they should be tested and if they fail they should be deported immediately. If they pass they should be placed on probationary citizenship for 4 additional years during which time they should not dip below the poverty line or have to rely on social services or else they risk being sent back. When the 5 years are up and they are still successfully staying out of poverty and off welfare, they should be granted the citizenship they deserve. This program would make it so only those who really, honestly WANT to be an American can be. Our country is the land of opportunity…but only for those who are motivated enough to take advantage of it.
Works Cited
1. Immigration: How Welcoming Should Lady Liberty Be?
2. Streitfeld, David. “Illegal – But Essential.” LA Times 1 Oct. 2006. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/10/immigration_is_.html>.
3. Beck, Roy. “NumbersUSA.” 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.numbersusa.com/video/>.
4. Krikorian, Mark. “Should the United States Get Tough on Illegal Workers? Yes.” CIS. 26 Dec. 2004. Center for Immigration Studies. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/mskoped122604.html>.
5. Porter, Eduardo. “Illegal Immigrants are Bolstering Social Security with Billions.” The New York Times 5 Apr. 2005. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.html>.
VI. The Candidates’ Positions* (2008)
A. Hillary Clinton:
Hillary voted yes for the comprehensive immigration reform advocating an increase in border patrol, use of border barriers including physical barriers, radar and aerial vehicles, workplace enforcement and Z-visa alien processing. She voted no for declaring English as the official language of the US government stating that, “I believe this is a States rights issue and those constitutions of those States ought to be respected.” She points out that in New Mexico their State Constitution holds a provision saying that many documents within the State must be provided in both English and Spanish. The same is true for Hawaii. She voted yes for the nonimmigrant guestworker program, yes for building a fence along the Mexican border, yes to giving guest workers a path to citizenship and yes to allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. In general it seems she is in favor of federal assistance to state and local governments (whom she feels are better off dealing with immigrants than the federal government) and heavier punishment to employers of undocumented workers. She is also empathetic to aliens already here who she feels should have a path to citizenship should they keep up motivation, keep working, paying taxes, respecting the law and learning English.
B. Barack Obama:
Obama’s solution to the immigration problem includes creating secure borders, improving the government systems itself, removing incentives to enter illegally, working with Mexico and cracking down on employers. He also supports the idea that undocumented immigrants with no criminal history should be allowed to learn English, pay a fine and have the opportunity to become citizens. He hopes that by promoting economic development in Mexico, punishing employers with undocumented workers more severely and adding more personnel, barriers and technology to the borders that there will be less incentive for people to come here illegally. Another point he supports strongly is in fixing the immigration bureaucracy in effect today by increasing the amount of legal immigrants allowed in an effort to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs. Obama’s main concerns regarding immigration revolve around whole families, respectable employers and a fair bureaucracy.
C. John McCain:
John McCain states that, “A secure border is an essential element of our national security.” He feels the answer to the immigration problem lies in building allies in Latin America and Mexico, in supporting pro growth policies so businesses can hire and pay the best, making a reliable, respectable education system to prepare young workers for the market and modernizing assistance programs for new opportunities for displaced workers. He feels that an important aspect of immigration to our country should include learning English, American history and civics and learning to respect the democratic values of our society. As does Hillary, McCain feels that our country should be an opportunity for those willing to live a life built on hard work and optimism. He voted yes for comprehensive immigration reform, yes to declaring English as the official language of the US government, yes to building a fence along the Mexican border, yes to establishing a guest worker program and yes to allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. He also voted yes to giving guest workers a path to citizenship, on allowing more foreign workers into the US for farm work, on visas for skilled workers and on limit welfare for immigrants. In general McCain wants to round up all illegal immigrants who have committed crimes and deport them. Then, once he is sure the security of the border won’t be sacrificed he will encourage the remaining immigrants in good standing to learn English. McCain is sympathetic toward the immigrants stating that, “…
These are God’s children as well,” and once he weeds out the criminals and secures the border (an issue he is extremely adamant about) he says that they can pay penalties to adjust their status’.
Works Cited:
1. “Hillary Clinton on Immigration.” On the Issues. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Hillary_Clinton_Immigration.htm>.
2. “IMMIGRATION.” Barack Obama.Com. 14 Apr. 2008
<http://www.barackobama.com/issues/immigration/>.
3. ” Border Security & Immigration Reform.” John McCain.Com 7 Feb. 2008. 14 Apr. 2008
< http://www.johnmccain.com/informing/issues/68db8157-d301-4e22-baf7-a70dd8416efa.htm >.
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* Just a note: I’m personally rooting for Ron Paul but he wasn’t an option for this assignment (:
THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
I. Definitions:
A. Mass Production: Mass production is described as the creation of many of the same thing (i.e. a car factory produces many cars.) Founded on technology, mass production is built on process and strategy. Economies of scale came about naturally through this way of production as it’s much cheaper to produce (for example) many cars on an assembly line rather than one car at a time (1.)
B. Division of Labor: The breakdown of complicated tasks of production by means of creating smaller subtasks, many of which could be assisted/replicated by machines (1.) Adam Smith felt division of labor was responsible for the increase in production of the average worker (as opposed to saying increase in production was due to a conveyor belt or something other than the workers themselves.) The Ford assembly line is a later version of Adam Smiths pin factory (average time required to develop one car went from 12h 28m to 1h 33m because of simplification of tasks and steady work.)
C. Economies of Scale: When output goes up, cost per unit goes down. This term relates closely to mass production in that you must create many things (mass production) for economies of scale to take effect (1.)
II. Biographical Profiles:
A. Henry Ford:
Henry Ford lived from 1863 to 1947. Known most famously as an automobile manufacturer, he was the first person to use an assembly line as a means to mass produce cars. Ford was born in Michigan but dropped out of school early for a job in Detroit as an assistant mechanic. He later returned home to set up his own freelance shop where he produced his first car in 1896. Ford originally started dabbling in the auto industry by creating the company ‘Detroit Auto Co,’ unfortunately, it went bankrupt after about two years but it was only seven years later in 1903 that he created Ford Motors Co. With the new company he hoped to start making affordable cars, which he successfully accomplished starting with the Model N. Unfortunately, what with the cost of labor and lack of technological design in production, cutting down prices was a very difficult thing to do and even Fords line of Model N’s which were supposed to be cheap and affordable were still a bit pricey for the average American budget. This is where Ford’s fame came from. In 1913 he invented the first conveyer belt assembly line which was to produce Ford Model T’s…the first mass produced automobile that came at an affordable price for the masses. The sale of Model T’s went from 78,000 to 500,000 and the price fell from $1,000 to $600 to an astonishing $350 in 1916. Not only was Ford an admirable entrepreneur but he also had great relations with his workers and openly admitted himself that the thought of such repetitive work scared him silly (2.) Shortly after the Model T was swapped for the Model A, Ford’s son, Edsel took over the business. There were many disputes between the two over style/color etc, and when Edsel died at a young age Ford reassumed his position as president. In 1945, two years before his death, Henry Ford II (Edsels son) took over the family business and till this day Ford remains a family company (2.)
B. William C. Durant:
William C. Durant lived from 1861-1947. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, quit high school to work for his grandfather in the lumber industry and later ended up partnering with Josiah Rallas to run the (to be) nations largest, leading company in horse drawn carriages, Coldwater Road Company. In 1904 he assumed the position of general manager for Builer which in 1908 was named one of the top four auto companies in America along with Ford, Reo and Maxwell Briscoe. Briscoe proposed that all of the companies should merge and form International Motor Car Company…however this fell through when two of the companies withdrew so Durant then took it upon himself to create General Motors. On September 16th, 1908 GM incorporated, bought out Buick which then bought out Cadillac to sell to GM. Unfortunately, Durant’s interest and acquisition of almost 30 other automobile makers caused him to become financially overloaded and he lost control of GM in 1910. Soon thereafter in 1911 he partnered with Chevrolet and used profits to regain ownership of GMC however he once again grew power hungry, lost control of the companies he’d acquired and in 1920 GM president Pierre Du Pont offered to pay him for his resignation. Although hope seemed futile, Durant’s love for the automobile industry led him to create Durant Motors in 1933…this too failed rather quickly due to a decline in the market and the great depression. From 1934 until his death in 1947, Durant played around in the stock market, politics and other social movements but left his love and ingenuity for automobiles and the likes in his past (3.)
C. Alfred P. Sloan:
Alfred P. Sloan lived from 1875-1966. He was born in Connecticut but moved to Brooklyn at a young age with his family. Throughout his life he was a dedicated scholar and model citizen. In 1892 he was the youngest in his class to achieve a degree in electrical engineering; he would have graduated even earlier had the institution accepted him however they felt he was too young when he first applied. Although he started out in auto accessories, he soon climbed his way up to becoming involved in auto production. Starting off he worked for a small company, the Hyatt Roller Bearing Co. of Newark NJ. It was there that at the young age of 24 he took his first company presidency, gained by the fact that it was because of all of his intellectual, innovative contributions that caused Hyatt Roller Bearing Co. to become the industry standard for bearings. Soon after Hyatt became more recognized it merged with United Motors Corporation, of which he became president as well. Two years later United Motors Corp. became part of GMC and he was quickly named vice president over accessories and put on the executive committee. After he’d served as vice president for a while he was then promoted to president after Pierre Du Pont. For 23 years Sloan expanded and improved GMC’s share of the auto market. He was named honorary chairmen of the board upon retiring and kept the title until his death in February of 1966. In 1934 He established the Alfred P. Sloan foundation which still awards intellectual, motivated, inspired individuals funds for their work (4.)
III. Why has Ford been stuck in second place in the auto industry after years of success?
Mr. Ford produced his first car in 1896. He dominated the auto industry until about 1920. Then, General Motors became Number 1 and has outsold Ford each year up to the present. From what you have learned in researching and responding to sections I and II, what are the main reasons Ford slipped from the Number 1 seller to Number 2 among American auto manufacturers? From the research I’d conducted regarding the earlier sections of this case, it is partially because of Ford’s entire philosophy that it is in and has been in second for so long. Although at first mass producing cars at a very low price was a good idea as it got many average income American families moving, after Ford set the standard many other manufacturers followed in his path. Once most cars were around the same price range, aesthetics became more the issue for consumers to deal with and consequently Ford was at a disadvantage. Because GMC owned (at least in part) so many other auto companies, consumers had a wide range of models, colors and other aesthetically appealing traits to choose from as opposed to Fords reluctance to accept new, innovative styles (exemplified by the disputes he and his son had before he died) in addition to his lack of ownership in other companies. With all of GMC’s companies and the amount of cars they produced (not to mention the selection of styles in the now pickier middle-income-car-buying-family) GMC had a much better chance at selling cars than did the ‘stick to the basics, keep prices low’ company, Ford.
Works Cited
1. Heilbroner, Robert and James K Galbraith. Understanding Macroeconomics. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1987.
2. MacMillian Library Reference USA. Tycoons and Entrepreneurs. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc, 1998.
3. Classiccar.com. 26 January 2008. General Motors Cooperation. 27 January 2008 <http://www.classiccar.com/articles/william_durant.asp>
4. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 27 January 2008 <http://www.sloan.org/main.shtml>
5. The article on the yellow handout we used for the assignment (case study 25.3 The Ford assembly line)
Filed under: Economics, Government and Politics | Tags: case study, Economics, microeconomics, monopoly, oligopoly
QUESTION: Should Wal-Mart be considered a monopoly?
I. Why Wal-Mart Should Be Considered A Monopoly:
For the fifth time in six years Wal-Mart has been named the biggest company in the world. Below are some figures from CNNMoney’s section on fortune 500 (global) companies for 2007:
General Merchandise Industry
| Revenues, profits | Profits as % of… | |||
| Rank | Company | Global 500
rank |
Revenues | Profits
($ millions) |
| 1 | Wal-Mart Stores | 1 | 351,139.0 | 11,284.0 |
| 2 | Target | 96 | 59,490.0 | 2,787.0 |
| 3 | Sears Holdings | 114 | 53,012.0 | 1,490.0 |
| 4 | Foncière Euris | 204 | 32,237.0 | 95.4 |
| 5 | Macy’s | 227 | 28,711.0 | 995.0 |
| 6 | PPR | 296 | 23,191.6 | 859.8 |
| 7 | J.C. Penney | 352 | 19,903.0 | 1,153.0 |
| 8 | Marks & Spencer | 458 | 16,267.5 | 1,248.1 |
| 9 | Kohl’s | 487 | 15,544.2 | 1,108.7 |
From the July 23, 2007 issue
Looking at the figures, it’s rather blatant that Wal-Mart is monopolizing. What exactly is going on? Is it legal? Is it good for America as a nation?
The text book reason for why Wal-Mart is ’successful’ is because of its ways of increasing profit and revenues by restricting output …the goal all businesses have. The not so clean reason is that the way they restrict output is by ‘rolling back’ their employee’s wages and rights, and acting as their own distributor rather than having a wholesaler. Although the latter may not seem like bad idea at first, if you take a closer look and take into consideration the fact that all the smaller businesses and local stores do not have the means of eliminating THEIR wholesalers (keeping prices up)…the general merchandise industry becomes a scary place to be in right now in a free market economy such as ours. Why would people buy something from a smaller store in their town for more money when they can walk down the street and buy the same thing at a cheaper price? This very situation is the reason Wal-Mart has in fact become a monopoly…the elimination of competition. Smaller stores selling the same products will inevitably go out of business because people will search for the smallest opportunity cost and with the big box giant stores on every corner, you just can’t beat low prices AND local availability. As for the manipulation of employee’s wages and rights, this tactic is blatantly unethical and bad for society. The average Wal-Mart employee hardly makes enough money annually to hit the poverty line which in 2001 was $14,630 and employees were making on average $13,861. ‘Associates’ were making $8.23 per hour as opposed to the average hourly rate of $10.35 for supermarket workers. This may not seem all together too bad but you must take into consideration the fact that Wal-Mart rarely lets workers work 40+ hours a week (full time) and they also do not include a healthcare plan or offer ones at affordable prices for a person working there. It’s pretty obvious that this is a problem if you read the itemized taxes on your own pay check every other week. On average, for one Wal-Mart with 200 employees taxpayers pay $421,000 a year. All of this money goes toward free and reduced lunches, section 8 housing assistance, federal tax credits and deductions for low income families, title I education funds, children’s health insurance costs, and subsidies for energy assistance. And that’s just for ONE store!
The wise Jeremy Bentham once said “…It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” Who is benefiting from the practices of this massive merchandiser? It may seem like we are paying less for our goods, but we make up for it in our taxes. All in all, Wal-Mart is a detriment to America as a nation and is illegally acting as a monopoly. The big box retailer, the biggest company in the world, needs to either be shut down due to illegal practices or start paying their employees reasonable wages because American citizens should not be the ones doing it for them (3, 2 and 4.)
II. Why Wal-Mart Should Not Be Considered a Monopoly:
Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world. That also makes it the largest (private sector) employer in the world! All allegations stating the big box retailer is bad to employees and makes healthcare plans unattainable are false accusations.
It is a fact that 86% of the associates do indeed have health insurance and those that do not are only lacking because they chose themselves to go with Medicaid rather than with one of the company’s plans. Wal-Mart is not a monopoly, there are plenty of other general merchandisers in the industry including Target, Sears, Macy’s and J.C. Penny’s all of which have the same opportunities to work with but all of which choose to keep prices high in an effort to gain substantial profits. Wal-Mart chooses to help the people (and stockholders, many of which are associates!) by keeping goods affordable. The annual stats from 2007 show the company’s’ revenues to be $351,139 million, profits to be $11,284 million, assets to be $151,193 million and stockholders’ equity to be $61,573 million as opposed to, say, Exxon Mobile’s stats (in slot number 2) of $347,254 million in revenue, profits of $39,500 million, assets of $219,015 million and Stockholder’s equity of $113,844 million. It’s obvious from these statistics profit is not the main concern. As for having a large company in rural areas…yes, the bigger stores do tend to cause the smaller ones within a small radius to die out…but that’s the consumer’s choice and it’s mostly just due to convenience. If you travel a few miles down the road you will see Wal-Mart actually IMPROVES competition in that stores adapt and start to offer better services and goods in order to stay in the game. Not only that but for example, unlike Sears, a more catalogue based store, Wal-Mart offers so many jobs to people in the community it’s actually helping the economy flow locally. Stockholders for saw the success of Wal-Mart and invested, what would happen to them (many of them who are also employees) if the store is labeled inappropriately as a ‘monopoly?’ They made a good choice, made some money and then would have to lose it all only because some feel the store is getting too big.
To conclude, I’d like to again point out that the Wal-Mart store is in business to help people and it’s because of this motto that everything has been successful (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)
III. Conclusion:
After reviewing multiple sources of research, it is plain that Wal-Mart is guilty of monopolistic practices. Why should they have an un-fair advantage over other businesses when the only reason they’ve ‘gotten ahead’ in the game is by manipulating others and basically just cheating their way through loop holes? They don’t pay their workers well enough, they need to give full time workers who’s families depend on their salaries better (if they had any to begin with) heath care plans, and they need to stop contributing to the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Okay, sure 86% of the stores ‘associates’ DO have some sort of health care…buuut only 48% of them are insured directly by their employer whereas the other 86% are under either their spouses plan or something else. Healthcare plans are not cheap; why aren’t the other 86% (with the exception of those using the insurance of their spouse) under a plan set up for them by Wal-Mart? American tax payers should not be the ones paying the difference between a Wal-Mart employee’s salary and the money he/she should be making in order to be able to afford basic necessities. Although it seems they are trying to shape up (only because the media has it’s eye on them now) this is a matter of ethics. Wal-Mart shouldn’t need the pressure of widespread media criticism to treat workers like human beings; it is obvious by the insane amount of money they undoubtedly spend on advertising to tell America how good their ‘associates’ are really being treated that they care more about the company then their workers as people and an eye should be kept on their practices at all times.
Works Cited
1. Soderquist, Don. The Wal-Mart Way. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005.
2. Parkin, Michael. Microeconomics. Boston: Greg Tobin, 2008.
3. “Fortune Global 500 2007.” CNNMoney. 31 Jan. 2007. CNN. 18 Mar. 2008 <http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2007/snapshots/2255.html>.
5. Courser, Zachary. “Economists Explain Why America Benefits From Wal Mart.” CFIF. 15 Dec. 2005. University of Virginia. 19 Mar. 2008 <http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/wal-mart-is-good.htm
