My wife and I met in the "Stone Age" in college. The college was in a small Pennsylvania town in Dutch Country--neat, clean, no graffiti. Small main-street businesses did well, employed people.
S.S. Kresge (Kmart) was the big threat then, but one had to travel to Allentown to find it.
Now, there's Walmart and the town's a shell. Proprietors didn't benefit from "favored-nation trade" and special "tax incentives" to open a store, or get a tax break or tax subsidy on goods they offered, as favored nations do today.
Our tax dollars subsidize "Made in China" products that folks buy at Walmart.
Additionally, our huge government favored-nation subsidies ensure manufacture and importation of things we can't make here because EPA, or some other government agency, won't allow the same product to be made domestically.
Oh, I get it: Those were jobs Americans didn't want anyway. Right? You know, "jobs Americans won't do."
Do Americans really want to work for the big box "company store"? A single Walmart offers more cheap products and employs as many people as the small shops and stores in that little college town, where most goods were then made in the USA versus made in China today.
What kind of jobs does Walmart provide? Cleaning crews, part-time work (without benefits), and a few good jobs that pay a living wage to one or two so their families can buy a new house or car. Isn't that wonderful?
Dave Roberts
Spotsylvania