Is Wal Mart good for America?

The question whether Wal Mart is good or bad for America is a bit controversial. As the world’s largest retail store, Wal Mart has a big influence on the economy and millions of people’s lives worldwide.  Wal Mart provides one of the cheapest and most convenient products that attract huge numbers of costumers. With the one stop shop, more people prefer shopping at Wal Mart. Especially with the tough economy; people cannot afford to spend extra money on a product that’s available at Wal Mart for lower prices. Furthermore, being such a large company, Wal Mart provides millions of jobs to people worldwide. As the company grows biggest and attracts more customers, it needs more workers to run the company. Therefore, hiring more people and providing them with jobs. Not only does Wal Mart employee workers within the US but also in countries such as China. In China, millions of workers are employed by Wal Mart in companies that export the cheap products that they send to America. In such way, Wal Mart benefits America and the economy; helping reduce consumer spending by providing merchandise at lower cost and employing workers within America and low wage countries.  

On the other hand, Wal Mart hurts the economy by taking the opportunities away from smaller businesses. The low prices destroy other businesses, which causes economical issues for them. Furthermore, he products are all imported from other countries (China mainly) which causes US money to flow out of the country. In my opinion, Wal Mart is not such a great benefit to America. First, the quality of the items sold in there is not that good; they either break quickly or stop working properly; this equals, in the end, paying for something you’re not able to take advantage of. Second, Wal Mart is becoming a barrier for local small businesses and many of them cannot survive with Wal Mart coming to their town. Thus, supporting local economy becomes difficult when there’s a competition such as Wal Mart.  Finally, as the video stated, Wal Mart lowers the standard of living through the cheap quality products.