Actually, many critics of Wall-Mart have specifically attacked it political contributions. Chronicles Magazine is a notable publication. They also attack it for economic and political reasons, but characterizing all critics of Wall-Mart as merely jealous over its economic success is silly.

Wal-Mart is integral to exporting US inflation to Southeast Asia, primarily China, which then parks its surplus dollars in US bonds, being forbidden (think Unocal) from exchanging dollars for tangible assets.

Thus does China become increasingly desperate to move its reserves out of increasingly worthless dollars, more than one analyst (in this case, Larry Edelman at Money & Markets) believing that China is about to corner the gold market:

“You see, Beijing knows that the rest of the world perceives China’s economy as loaded down with hidden debts and plagued by corruption. So as China progresses toward superpower economic status, authorities in Beijing want the country’s currency to be a world-class, stable medium of exchange. They envision the yuan as a major international currency some day, with as much (or more) status than the U.S. dollar. That’s why they’re going to back the yuan with gold … loads of it.”

Should this or anything like it happen — i.e., should China begin diversifying out of US bonds to buy gold or anything else — Wal-Mart will be the last thing on Americans’ minds, as the ensuing bond market crash (for which the ever-worsening housing collapse could be the catalyst) will send interest rates soaring even as the economy goes into free-fall.

Bottom line: “Globalization” is really just “dollarization,” and while Wal-Mart and other importers enjoy the fruits thereof, as does the consumer, when the inflation chickens come home to roost, the only smiley faces will be on those who saw this tsunami coming and prepared themselves accordingly . . . by “going for the gold” themselves.

Companies always give in to graft and corruption of local, state and federal politicos instead of working for their money. Walmart, smartly in my opinion, started at the local level instead of the federal level where most go. But do not fear, they are working at that level too as shown by their donation to Hillary.

Walmart joins other recent give ins like Microsoft in trying to get their money from force and coercion instead of pleasing customers.

Bill

I agree that microsoft has gone political, but in their defense, they probably see it as a, well, defense. After all, during all the years that it was ignoring politics, it’s competition wasn’t. When the feds nearly destroyed them, they probably figured they had to buy off the feds. What would you do?

“I havent seen Austrian earlier complain about how the CPI is overstating inflation!

Usually it is said that the CPI is understating inflation!”

That’s because they aren’t Austrian in any measure, at least on this subject. They fall afoul of sloppy use of language in the beginning of their analysis (inflation /= price level), and move on into aggregating disparate costs (a classic no-no for any Austrian). Further, they fail to admit that, in fact, (gasp) CPI IS adjusted for increases in quality, as well as “adjusted” for changing consumer demand (steak too expensive? well, consumers will buy more hamburger then, so we’ll just substitute hamburger for steak in the CPI!).

All in all, that might be one of the worst analyses ever, from an Austrian viewpoint, of inflation. Some Keynesian analyses of inflation compare favorably to it.

Larry,

A gem of a comment. Ignorance compounded upon ignorance. Thanks for the laugh.

And a great follow-up article to Paul Kirklin’s from a few months ago. I would recommend to go into the archives for that one if you haven’t read it already.

Eric:
You are exactly correct. IT IS A PROTECTION RACKET PURE AND SIMPLE!!!! If Microsoft had paid the protection money from the middle of its rise to prominence they would have saved themselves a lot of legal bills.