WAL*MART

I have a cousin who used to be a social worker in Los Angeles. I think he's pastor now, but one day he told me not to buy products from Wal-Mart. He explained that the corporate giant had been ruining the local economies throughout the nation. I did not really understand the concept of economy and why Wal-Mart was bad at that time. 

Some 4 years later, now I have a pretty good idea of what Wal-Mart means to the economy of the nation and the rest of the world today. It not only crushes the local economies by bottoming out the prices of goods, but I've learned that it is also one of major culprits for sweatshops.

It's one of the few corporate giants today that has been fiscally performing better as the U.S. economy struggle. It's no surprise, however. With all the commodity prices skyrocketing and inflation rate to reach a double digit this year, it's not so hard to picture millions of Americans flocking to Wal-Mart for the cheapest price "guaranteed."

The Chinese economy has been growing blazingly fast, but it also has shown signs of slowdown recently, as wages and commodity prices are inevitably rising in China and Vietnam, indeed dramatically. Americans won't settle for "cheaper than domestic" prices. They will find THE cheapest price. Where will we exploit next?