Nathan, I know you will get on this issue and stay on it. The battle to organize Wal-Mart and negotiate a decent health-benefits package for its employees will make the Molly Maguires look like the Teddy Bears' Picnic.

But for anyone reading this: If you shop at Wal-Mart, or condone shopping at Wal-Mart, you are part of the problem, like it or not.

Many people in this country literally have no choice but to shop at Wal-Mart. That's all there is in their communities. That's what Wal-Mart wants. When there are no alternatives, will prices stay low? Ha! When prices rise, will wages rise? Ha!

For those of us who do have a choice, the choice is clear: Boycott these bastards! Don't let your friends shop there. And tell the world why.

It starts now. Where does it start? Look in your mirror.

Perhaps you are looking at this incorrectly. Maybe Wal-Mart is just revealing its belief that all Americans should be covered by universal government managed health care. Then this problem of unfair competition doesn't arise. It seems a modest proposal to me.

Except that wal-mart doesn't believe in taxes and thus doesn't actually support an expansion of state or federal health care coverage. The passage Nathan quotes is pretty much baldly saying "your tax dollars barely compensate for our union busting and cost-cutting."

I knew that they paid poverty wages, but I really like your argument that they are stealing healthcare dollars from the government.

Here in Oregon, Wal-Mart has historically handed out information on the Oregon Health Plan during their employee orientation. The Oregon Health -- which is constantly under attack from the right in any case -- is a last-ditch, taxpayer-funded plan which provides very basic health services for the truly needy.

Nice people. Model employers. Don't you want a Wal-Mart near you?

You have a really bizarre way of looking at the world. There are a bunch of unskilled, unemployed people out there, leeching off those who earn money. Walmart gives some of these people jobs, thereby alleviating a portion of the burden these people put on us. And this constitutes "stealing" because they don't give these people even more money than they do?

Ah David- Wal-Mart is a charity, where all the work done by their employees doesn't enrich them?

Allowing companies to get subsidized health care, when their competitors do not, distorts the marketplace. It means that Wal-Mart wins out not because they are more efficient but because they dump costs on the public that competitors internalize.

Check out an Econ 101 book- look under the term "externalities."

I don't get what the big deal is. Doesn't Kmart and Target pay the same low wages, along with every other discount store? From what I've seen they all offer about the same health plan. And it is a good health plan. Better that what I have - and a lot cheaper. Every employer wants you to use your spouse's insurance. Some even offer you an extra $1000 a year or so to do that. Most non union companies do the same thing. Wal-Mart just happens to be the biggest.

I don't get what the big deal is. Doesn't Kmart and Target pay the same low wages, along with every other discount store? From what I've seen they all offer about the same health plan. And it is a good health plan. Better that what I have - and a lot cheaper. Every employer wants you to use your spouse's insurance. Some even offer you an extra $1000 a year or so to do that. Most non union companies do the same thing. Wal-Mart just happens to be the biggest.