They take anything which can possibly compete with them and bleed them dry. Market dominance is one thing, but predation to the point of one company becoming the market is intolerable.

Hey, that's monopoly capitalism.

I don't have one in my front yard, and I can understand not wanting the traffic associated with it around a person's house. That's what commercial zoning is for.

As for them "bleeding" other businesses dry, I don't really buy that argument either. My town has 12,000 people. The Walmart here opened almost 20 years ago. In that 20 years no business went out, that wasn't already in danger. The grocery stores that failed went out of business before the Walmart became a Super Walmart, and we still have the same number of pharmacies we had 20 years ago. Actually I think we have more now that the Walgreen's opened.

I would recommend checking out the episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit, they did on Walmart, and the real impact they have communities.

You also don't seem to live in a town of > 200,000 people and 5 Walmarts (and a Sams). They have opened where other grocery stores are located, all stores that were doing well prior to the placement of the Walmarts. We lost 3 chains (about 8 stores) and are about to lose a 4th. Walmart has now eliminated all it's competition by bullying neighborhoods and bribing counties and protection groups. We could also discuss their hiring practices. Practically no one in their stores is given fulltime hours or benefits. So I pay in taxes to support the employees who have to get medicaid which makes the $.88 cent jar of pickles they sell me cost quite a bit more. I spent 3 years studying Walmart. It's not the same company Sam started.

This group obviously has a bias but interesting none-the-less http://wakeupwalmart.com/facts/

K-Mart and Sears are together. :nod: