Recession seems to have quieted the anti-Wal-Mart crowd

FROM JASON’S CHECKBOOK – As recession’s grip persists, it’s no surprise I’ve been hearing less bourgeois bitching about the “evils” of Wal-Mart.

I’ve been arguing with friends for years about the merits of the world’s largest retailer. It seems they have many reasons for hating the big box stores: perceived “unfairness” toward employees, impact on local economies, a classist dislike of the organization’s clientele, and a schadenfreude-esque attitude about Wal-Mart’s success.

But it’s been my contention that Wal-Mart is heroic, that its everyday low prices have done more for the American poor than any welfare initiative. When you can buy a can of corn for $0.79 instead of $1.29 at the local grocery, it saves families an enormous amount.

Estimates show the company saves Americans $12 billion a year.

My wife and I shop there for groceries every week, and end up saving $40 or so each trip on standard groceries. I get savings of five to 10 percent on standard goods like deodorant, video games, and weed killer. Putting that kind of discretionary income back in my pocket is one hell of an economic stimulus plan.

Increasing purchasing power is a good thing. And if you can do it for the lower class, then it’s a doubly good deed.

If you want to talk about really evil corporations, let’s talk about ones like Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch. Those are corporations that put a premium on peer pressure, and use it to reduce purchasing power by convincing young people that paying more for less is a good thing.

They prey on pre-teenagers, convincing them it’s ok to waste $80 on a single pair of jeans in order to attain social status. They create artificial class divide.

In my mind, creating low prices for toothpaste, bread, milk, underwear, paint, pencils, and plates is far more admirable. It provides inexpensive goods, reduces opportunity cost, and provides jobs. And it’s a hell of a lot better than handing someone a check and inducing a state of welfare dependency, because it creates wealth.

Wal-Mart has often been criticized for being too big for its own good, for “monopolizing too much of the retail industry. But clearly it hasn’t. There are Wal-Mart competitors who carry their own weight: Lowe’s and Home Depot have cornered the hardware industry by providing better selection and supply. Amazon destroys Wal-Mart in online sales by providing a better ‘Net store. Netflix, iTunes, et al are quickly moving to crush traditional on-the-shelf media sales. Target is eating away at Wal-Mart’s clothing sales margins by providing better-quality threads at competitive prices — and that’s an area where entrenched retailers like JCPenney and Macy’s still hold sway.

Wal-Mart might be the biggest, and often has the best deals, but it’s still just the biggest tuna in the economic ocean. It can’t eat all the other fish.

In fact, BusinessWeek reported in November that the great supplier’s advantage is already eroding as sleeker business models evolve.

Wal-Mart isn’t immune to shifting market trends. If consumers demand something better, then Wal-Mart has to change its strategy. Right now, though, the strategy seems to be working. Wal-Mart’s quarterly sales rose 1.7 percent in March while rivals struggled just not to lose cash (and while many retailers, such as Circuit City, close their doors altogether). At the same time, the company actually raised its first-quarter share guidance!

“Wal-Mart’s performance last year would be considered strong at any time and for any retailer, and certainly during one of the most difficult global economies in decades,” CEO Mike Duke wrote to shareholders last week.

“Our U.S. stores are delivering faster checkouts, a friendlier shopping experience and cleaner presentations,” he continued. “We are on the move internationally and today have more stores in more markets. People who have never shopped with us previously are now loyal customers.”

The company created 33,000 jobs in the U.S. last year.

Uber-critics of the Wal-Mart model always paint this weird vision of a future where we all wear gray jumpsuits issued by our local big-box masters, who have usurped the government and turned America into a corporatocracy. That’s just silly. As long as people want something, there will always be someone who can come up with a newer, better idea to provide it than the establishment.

The other complaint that seems most prevalent about Wal-Mart — and this one really gets me — is “how bad” the company is to its workers. This is usually presented in a twin argument: That Wal-Mart does not let its workers unionize, and that the workers are not paid enough to survive.

First: If you want to hurt the poorest of the poor, support unionization at Wal-Mart.

The problem is that pro-union activists don’t look at their track records. They see unskilled labor as a market that demands a living wage, but they don’t look at the failures of their efforts. Ford just posted a $1.7 billion loss because union labor has hijacked its profitability, and the unions can’t stop the plant closures and lay-offs.

Want another example? Just look at the U.S. steel industry. Or how about grocery stores? Prices at grocery stores that use unionized labor are much higher.

I’m not suggesting all unionization is bad. Look at what education unions have been able to do. The problem is that unions tend to work well inside a monopolized market, but elsewhere they only generate massive inflation by creating an artificial wage hike. Too many unions are busily pricing themselves out of jobs, and then wailing when industry fails and begging government for a bail-out.

Wal-Mart shouldn’t be unionized. Shelf-stockers and check-out operators were never intended to earn living wages in part-time, unskilled positions. Upping hourly wages and benefits for unskilled workers might seem like a humanitarian thing to do, but consider the ripple-effect it has on pricing; higher pay means higher prices means less purchasing power for the lowest earners. Lower purchasing power means less consumable utility, which means recession, which means lower purchasing power for everyone, not just the poor.

The average hourly pay at Wal-Mart is just under $10, and is always heads and shoulders above the minimum wage. That’s not bad for the hundreds of thousands of non-skilled workers they employ — who in many cases would not be elsewhere employed.

Wal-Mart has helped me. Wal-Mart has helped you. It has helped the poor, and has generally evened the playing field and slowed class divide. What more can you ask for?

I suppose you could ask for $250,000-a-year jobs for every man, woman, and teen in America, with a free convertible in every driveway and 55-cents-a-gallon gas at the pumps. But does anyone really think that’s realistic?

At some point, the “gimme-gimme” entitlement attitude here in America became the norm, and we all became complacent. We forgot that we became an economic superpower because we worked hard and were competitive.

Midnight showing: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

FROM JASON’S INDIE THEATER — There are very few movies my wife has the patience to sit through, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is her favorite.

The bright colors, the singing, and her obsession with all things Roald Dahl are enough to overcome the mild ADD that has her wiggling out of her seat during the movies I like. So she was like — and forgive me here — a kid in a candy store last night when the local $3 theater gave a midnight showing of the 1971 “children’s” movie.

The place was packed with the gangly and socially awkward denizens of the nearby Oberlin College, which made the experience fun. Dorm life being what it is, they were keyed in to every drug reference and sexual subtext thrown up on the screen. They sang along at all the right parts. How could we not join in?

They went bananas at all manner of phallic symbols — from the pumping pistons of the Everlasting Gobstopper machine to the ejaculatory tubas in the “car wash” scene (especially when Mrs. Teevee was shot in the face with a big wad of… “bubbles”).

There were huge laughs when Bill said, “You were born to be a Wonka-er,” because it ostensibly sounded similar to “wanker.” Everybody started rolling when 13-year-old Charlie insisted on buyinghis grandfather tobacco.

One loud-mouthed frosh in the front row bellowed, “WRONG!” when Mrs. Teevee identified Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” as Rachmaninoff. But for such a literate crowd, they sure were scratching their heads at the Oscar Wilde or Ogden Nash quotes. One girl didn’t get the Shakespearean origins of, “Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head,” and shouted, “What the hell?!”

And we were all a little uncomfortable together in the dark theater when watching how the on-screen adults acted toward the children. The threat of child molestation has profoundly changed the acceptable ways to touch kids in the past 30 years. When Slugworth (aka Wilkinson) would grab a child from behind and start whispering in his or her ear, it took an insidious tone. And even some comments by Willy seemed wildly unacceptable and inuendo-filled.  It’s easy to see why Johnny Depp took the Michael Jackson interpretation in the 2005 remake.

Next Saturday, the same theater is screening Labyrinth at midnight, with several more as-yet-unnamed cult classics to follow through the summer.

I’m eager to see whether the college kids will arrive at the same conclusions as The Greatest Movie Ever Podcast host Paul Chapman about the film — whether it’s all about a young girl’s escapist repression of childhood sexual abuse.

Won’t that be enlightening?

I’m glad for experiences like these. I mean, I have a 42-inch flatscreen plasma TV at home, so there’s nothing really pressing anymore about going out to the movies… that is, unless they offer something I can’t get at home. At least one cinema owner is trying to foster an actual movie-going experience instead of just collecting an outrageous sum to slap people in cramped seats.

The management didn’t get pissy at the kids for being boistrous. Nobody was upset at the singing, or yelling for anyone to be quiet. It was a communal experience, a kind of group enjoyment typically only available at a ball park. And it’s why I’ll be going back to the Apollo Theatre.

So if you made it this far, here’s a reward:

Wallpaper of the Week: G.I. Joe

FROM JASON’S DESKTOP – I’m not sure how I feel yet about the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe movie, The Rise of Cobra. But if it is anything like the recently-launched G.I. Joe: Resolute on Adult Swim, then it at least has a fighting chance.

And that’s half the battle. The other half, as you can imagine, is knowing.

I was grinning madly and hopping up and down in my chair watching the Resolute webisodes the other night. This ‘toon is serious. People die. They get shot in the head at close range. There’s blood. A familiar Joe is assassinated, and 10.4 million Russians are murdered in a single thrust by Cobra.

There are no Viper pilots parachuting to safety at the last second. And Snake Eyes… let’s just say Snake Eyes is badass, even with a trench knife through his palm.

Like anyone born in 1980 or thereabouts, I watched the old cartoons and played with the toys until the legs and thumbs were broken. Lots of days were spent building sandbox Joe forts and waging complicated campaigns, so there’s a powerful nostalgic connection.

One thing I’ve always found interesting with any 1980s cartoon franchise is how much more compelling the villains are than the heroes. I mean, who else found themselves silently rooting time and again for Destro and the Baroness to finally hatch a winning scheme, or for Cobra Commander to grow a pair (boy, does he ever in Resolute!)?

I think much of that feeling is wrapped up in character design. While Cobra agents are slick and powerful and domineering almost to the point of being alien or robot, the Joes are near-uniformly tall, strapping lads and lasses, clean-cut and boistrous in all-American gear. They’re practically quarterbacks and homecoming queens in red, white, and blue-speckled military garb.

Which gives birth to a realization, watching one or two episodes recently as an adult: The series was incredibly jingoistic, to the point of being an overt recruiting tool for the armed forces. It’s probably just as responsible for today’s rash of “rah rah sis boom bah” patriotism as any Reagan speech.

The ‘toon might as well have been intercut with Starship Troopers-level nationalist propaganda. They’re doing their part. Are you? Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world!

I can’t imagine that the new movie will have that same slant. After all, this is war-weary America, and Hasbro and Paramount surely are smart enough to understand that cheerleader patriotism doesn’t really jive with post-Korea, post-Vietnam, post-Iraq viewers. Right?

At any rate, just given the leather outfit and sexy glasses, I’m already backing Sienna Miller’s Baroness.

That aside, enjoy these older-school Joe wallpapers. More can be found, strangely enough, at Skywarp’s Hardy Boys Casefiles Encyclopedia. There’s a mash-up for you.

Død Snø: Shawn of the Dead meets the Third Reich?

FROM JASON’S DVD PLAYER – I now know two words in Norwegian. Død means “dead,” while Snø translates easily enough to “snow.”

I doubt I’ll ever have use for the phrase, except when I go hunting at Blockbuster this summer for the Norwegian-indie-Nazi-zombie-horror-comedy flick Død Snø, set for release June 12 in the States.

Seemingly taking queues from Shawn of the Dead’s simultaneous genre-revitalizing and self-mocking humor, the Scandinavian undead epic pits reanimated fascists against vacationing teens who stumble on a cache of stolen Nazi gold.

The pillaged treasure was hidden during the Reich’s occupation of Norway during World War II, and a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque cursed horde rises to claim it back when the protagonists find it in a desolate mountain cabin.

Seriously, this is a geek orgasm. I can’t wait to see it.

I’m not normally a fan of zombies flicks, though several works in recent years have worked to change that (the aforementioned Simon Pegg film and Left 4 Dead among them). I’ve never been a fan of gore for gore’s sake; but if a work can be more about creativity and subtle fun-poking at genre cliches instead of blood and intestines, then I’m all in.

I also don’t really give a hoot about another Romero allegorical commentary about American consumerism.

Dead Snow sounds like it’s going to be more horror than comedy, but with consistent piss-taking — I’m just not sure whether they buzz around the movie is due to intentional or unintentional humor. Norwegians are smart. They can’t possibly think they can get away with stock baddies like Nazis rising from the icy grave, for shit’s sake.

One thing is sure: I like Scandinavians. They seem so laid back. I’ve never heard of anyone being prejudiced against them. The northern ladies are hot (I’d like to bjork de bjork de bjork them like the Swedish Chef). And somehow they seem to be at once at the leading edge of fashion while still wearing Thor hair and knit sweaters.

The film was released in Norway on my birthday in January, and was shown at Sundance before IFC purchased North American distribution rights. IFC is the same indie party behind Y Tu Mamá También, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the controversial Transamerica.

Unfortunately, kids, you won’t be able to slap Dead Snow on your Netflix queue this summer because IFC has an exclusive distribution deal with Blockbuster — though I give even odds that Blockbuster will be belly-up in the next year.

Regardless, Død Snø is already getting decent ratings from folks in-the-know, scoring 7.0 on IMDB. That’s better than Innerspace, The ‘Burbs, Young Guns, Heavy Metal, Hot Shots!, Ghostbusters 2, or Talladega Nights.

There are some weird demographic splits in the mix, too. Usually, zombie and other horror flicks are the demesne of the male geeks, but tracking for Dead Snow is actually better among females. What’s more, it’s getting an average IMDB rating of 9.5 from women 45 and older, while men in the same age group only give it an average 6.2.

And that’s got me wondering.

I’ve only got one beef so far with the movie: the tagline. It’s “Ein! Zwei! Die!” That’s fine, I suppose, but if you’re a Nazi German, then you think they’re saying, “One! Two! The!”

Oh, and by the way, I know that pesky Ø symbol has been nagging at you the entire time you’ve been reading this. Here’s the wiki entry so you can stop obsessing.