Just like how they catapulted Vlassic Pickles into super profit:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

I just don't know whether Wal Mart is but a symptom or a major cause of the downfall of the American manufacturing economy.

If you want to be virtuous, buy from a thrift store that supports your favorite cause. Or take up a carpentry course, and build your own. If you have to move, well than you can sell your place more easily with original one-of-a-kind furnishings!

Unless "all of us" were Americans with garment manufacturing jobs or people who wanted a quality pair of jeans:

http://www.traditionalconservative.com/Levis.htm

Levi Strauss was desperate and they caved in at the expense of the American economy to Wal Mart's insane supply chain and pricing demands.

"Niggas are broke these days." That's just one reason why we buy cheap junk and with the fact that the majority of Americans are overweight which = extremely lazy, Wal-mart and IKEA make it EASY for us Americans to buy crap.

Going out and taking the time to research and go from store to store to find good quality products, well we're all just too damn lazy to do that. I personally prefer thrift store shopping of decent quality furniture and just fixing it up to make it look like half decent furniture at a relatively low cost but in the end, most Americans again are just way too lazy to do that. Our society would much rather pay someone else to do the work for us rather than get off our fat asses and do it ourselves. It's not China, its not Wal-mart, it's just the fact that we are so used to convenience and getting what we want now with the least amount of time and effort is what makes us so prone to buying lower quality products at a cheap price. Europeans don't shop like Americans because they aren't as fat and lazy as Americans and that's just the bottom line.

"Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States."

Then I saw an advertisement for Shaker-made furniture, the Shakers being a northern New England equivalent to the Amish, "Made for China but not in China." Catchy but I'm sure I can't afford it and, like millions of other Americans, will continue to destroy Asian rain forests in a quest to fully furnish my home.

Wal-Mart has already begun to pay attention to the movement to eat locally grown food. They also see dollars signs in organic food and are hooking up with local suppliers.

I don't necessarily want to eat locally grown stuff, but want to purchase fruits such as a wild blueberries, also found in northern New England, which have a tarter favor. They've managed to become a niche item in a national market saturated with bland tasting Michigan-grown blueberries because they are high in antioxidants.

Flappers went through fashions wicked fast. Followed by the 30s scowling matrons, who kept things the same for three decades. We've got to make sure that as much as possible, everything we use is recyled and lovingly prepared. But we also have to make sure that our surroundings continue to reflect who we are now, prompt us toward who we want to be. Buying something that looks like it could last 30 years is cool enough; buying something expecting it to last the same, is more often than we might now be willing to acknowledge, quite sad.

So if I buy one item that lasts a lifetime as opposed to a crappy Chinese product I have to replace four or five times how many Chinese do I put out of work and how many of their children starve to death? Why does Stephanie Zacharek hate Chinese babies?! Buy cheap Chinese crap, please. IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!

Tranquilizers and dim glasses are almost a requirement, to dull the throbbing masses of value-hunters and blank-eyed "sales associates".

After going there I feel the need to throw up, or at least have a few gin and tonics.

Ah, I knew it would only take a second to find out the truth.

"Torture generally involves being injured. Anyone who has really been tortured knows there was never torture at Guantanamo."

Oh, and "shop at Wal Mart".

You're fucking pathetic. Anti-American too, apparently.

In historical terms, everything will soon be digital.

Books will be digital. Newspapers will be digital. Comic books will be digital.

(Music and movies have already become digital, so it's remarkable that a simpler medium, based in ink and text, is playing catch-up.)

Every single book in the world will become redundant. Some books will have vintage value -- nice bindings, collectability, etc. -- but will otherwise be pointless. They'll make a Kindle or other digital reader that's so durable and elegant, you can read it while sitting on the toilet.

So here's what is going to happen: People will be throwing away their books. Recycling them. Burning them. Turning them to mulch. Cutting out the inside to hide a gun.

Then what will we need bookcases for?

Incidentally, I question the idea that craftsmanship is more important than cost-effectiveness. Zacharek takes it for granted (or the author of the book she's reviewing does). But what is the point of having something that's well-crafted? Pride in ownership? Aesthetic appreciation? Seems to me like a mislaid investment of one's discernment.

Ikea bookecases, properly put together, will last a very long time. The only real danger to their structural integrity is if you have an accident while moving them.