The Mother Teresa of Global Retail

The Mother Teresa of Global Retail

Want to see pure altruism in action? Go to Washington, D.C. — not to the federal government’s marble buildings, but to the real city, where ordinary folks live. There you’ll find a business organization that wants nothing more than to serve the people,...
Walmart Sinks to a New Low

Walmart Sinks to a New Low

In the 14th century, the renowned Italian poet Dante detailed a horrendous descent through nine layers of eternal damnation that he had charted, with the bottom floor reserved for the most wretched of sinners. In recognition of today’s realities, Satan has added...
Shortcut to Nowhere

Shortcut to Nowhere

It seemed that Joseph Holman, a 51-year-old redhead from Brooklyn, had climbed into the middle class the old-fashioned way: by the sweat of his brow. Two decades ago, Holman moved to California and settled down in Hayward, a working class city about 10 miles south of...
50 Years of Gutting America’s Middle Class

50 Years of Gutting America’s Middle Class

Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, 50 years ago this month. Sprawled along a major thoroughfare outside the city’s downtown, that inaugural store embodied many of the hallmarks that have since come to define the Walmart way of doing...
Walmart’s Unsurprising Bribes

Walmart’s Unsurprising Bribes

I’ve never been a great fan of Walmart. I like little towns, towns where Main Street is lined with small shops and stores — drugstores, hardware stores, a café where you can get breakfast or lunch, maybe a clothing store or two — that kind of little...