Wow, it is so great to finally get some vindication! I've been saying this for years to my fake vegetarian friends. (I call them 'fake vegetarians' because they say, 'I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish.....' Like fish isn't meat!) Fish is about the worst thing we can eat! Fish are full of heavy metals, toxins and parasites. The methods used to raise fish are, as we read in this article, terrible for the environment, unfair to the people who process them, and let's not forget, horrifyingly cruel to the animals themselves.

I find it interesting that it took Wal-Mart's involvement in this hateful flesh-dealing industry to make the Salon run an article about it! Salon is happy to hate on Wal-Mart, which as every good knee-jerk liberal knows, is a vastly destructive corporation. But the global effects of consuming animals and animal products are more devastating to our planet, and, arguably, poor non-Americans across the world, than any other industry or corporation, with the possible exception of the fossil fuels concerns.

Eating animals is wasteful, inefficient, cruel and above all, unnecessary. Bitch all you want about 'needing' protein or whatever your selfish reasons are, but understand that you are simply justifying your own laziness.

(I had written much more, but Salon's cookie expired and I lost everything I hadn't saved up to this point. Since what I lost mainly consisted of more vegetarian propaganda, I will allow it to stay lost. So here's what y'all missed, in the proverbial nutshell: Don't eat living creatures. It's selfish, inconsiderate, bad for the earth, and needlessly cruel. Enjoy.)

-Anonymouse

And he thinks if American consumers understand what's required to deliver salmon at $4.84 a pound, they won't think the price is worth the cost.

The statement quoted above is mostly true, and mostly false. Obviously if everyone understood they were shooting their children in the head, they would put down the gun. This is true. But will most ever come to see the long view of it this way in reality?

The evidence seems to incidate that in fact consumers will en masse take the lower prices and not care about the details. They have enough stress in their lives without worrying about the copper mines of Chile of the last several decades, or the salmon mines for the next several. Wal-Mart, and so many other businesses, are in fact built on this imperative. It's naïve to think otherwise.

A second problem with the sadly idealistic statement is that while cost analysis of long-term sustainable sources, and the potential financial impact of a public scandal, may be important they are by no means the only facets to be considered by a multinational corporation. For example, perhaps they decide it is cheaper to launch a disinformation campaign (as we have seen from monster corporations, time and time again) to combat potential scandal, rather than eliminating the source of the scandal? This has been somewhat effective in the past. Also, perhaps their analysis finds that it does not matter if their Chilean sources dry up, they may except other sources (or other products) eventually to replace these. There are many more options.

I was heartened by the optimism of this article, and surely it would be an amazing thing if those predictions became reality. I would love to be wrong in my corporate pesimism.

It is a well known given that corporate planners are notoriously and purposefully short sighted. While long term planning is important, it is not as important as the next year end financials in most cases: the share holders want a return on their investment, now.

I wish good luck to Wal-Mart on this. We all may be counting on it.

I buy my wild Alaskan salmon here in Seattle & have to spend anywhere from $9-19 to do so depending on time of yr. and species. I wouldn't buy fish from Wal-Mart no matter how low the price. Not every American can get such superb salmon for themselves. But this fish can be found in many places. Yes, it's expensive. But I'd suggest if you're buying Wal-Mart fish that you eat fish less, but go to a real fishmonger known for the quality & freshness of his/her fish. Pay more, eat it less. Enjoy it more.

Farm raised fish tastes nothing like wild fish. It's worth spending more to find out the difference.

"If salmon poo needs to be cleaned up and properly disposed of, well, that's not a way of making salmon cheaper -- it's potentially a way of making salmon more expensive."

Although I can understand the thinking that produces such a reaction, the reality is that cleaning up salmon poo IS a way of making salmon cheaper...in the long term. Short-term thinking seems to pervade business, which, I suppose, explains how companies can sacrifice their future for larger profits in the present. The question is whether investors will be content for companies to continue these short-term practices, when these companies could instead secure their future profits through actions in the present (such as cleaning up salmon poo). I'm just curious as to when investors will begin to ask the necessary questions.

I think anyone compelled to read this article is also aware of how Wal-Mart leading this country and others into an economic despair. The quest for low prices has nothing to do with serving Americans or producers, that's for sure. It's about the rape of poor countries and the exporting of jobs so that a few profit immensely.

This is not capitalism; this is facism.

I will take the statement of my 80 year old father as a dark reminder of who we have become as consumers:

"Don't blame Wal-Mart. Blame the American people. Wal-Mart could not continue without our consent. We are as complicit in the undoping of our communities as Wal-Mart. Quit shopping there, for anything. Just stop."

We are victims of our own greed.

I'm happy to see the attitude of this article toward corporations: acknowledging that they can be and are a force for great destruction, but also a force that can be harnessed for good as an agent of reform.

I'm so tired of progressives who bitch that the presence of corporations in the coalition that supports the Democratic party shows that Democrats are no different from Republicans (Hello Nader voters). That attitude is informed by mindless anti-corporatism. I expect a Democratic candidate to express progressive values by confronting the powers that be (like corporations), but also to harness them when they can to serve the greater good.