National Review‘s Rich Lowry takes on the Wal-Mart foes today, offering nuggets of wisdom such as this:
Attacking oil companies for allegedly price-gouging is unquestionably good (if grossly opportunistic) politics. What Wal-Mart perpetrates, however, is price-gouging in reverse. It sweats every inefficiency out of itself and its suppliers so it can pass those savings on to consumers. Attacking the company for that isn?t populist, it?s perverse. A mom struggling to make ends meet might be angry at spending another $2-a-gallon to fill up at the pump. She?s not going to be so exercised by getting a great deal on diapers.
And Lowry senses that the real reason for Wal-Mart hatred lies elsewhere:
Something deeper is at work, as well. In Democratic politicians? contempt for Wal-Mart, there is an element of snobbery. They have a distaste for such a down-market, lumpen-bourgeois operation where few of their voters shop (one poll found that 76 percent of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers are Bush voters), let alone anyone they socialize with.
Speaking of price gouging, be sure to listen to this weekend’s Carolina Journal Radio, in which Dr. Roy Cordato discusses the myths linked to the discussion of price gouging.
