Wal-Mart

I have already written an article on this in class, but i feel that it is of great importance, so I am writing it again in the hopes that it will reach more than just a few people. I am writing about Wal-Mart, and the effect it has on the American economy and society.
As we all know, Wal-Mart is the large and powerful retailer, dedicated to bringing to us our everyday (and not-so-everyday) needs at low, low prices. In fact, one of Wal-Marts trademark icons is the yellow smiley-face Robin Hood, slashing prices to lower and lower numbers in an effort to save the poor and downtrodden a few extra coins.
Here's something to consider about Wal-Mart. The company is so powerful that it saved thousands of trees from being cut down by deciding to get rid of the boxes that deoderant used to be packed in. Yes, deoderant used to come in tiny, cardboard boxes, but ever since Wal-Mart decided not to use the boxes, thousands of trees have not been cut down, and the American consumers have been able to save millions of dollars because of it. Sit back and think for a moment, it costs money to hire people to cut down the tree's, ship them to factories to be remade into the boxes, design them, and have them shipped to the retailer. By eliminating these steps, the consumer has saved about five to ten cents each time they purchase deoderant. Sure, this doesn't sound like a whole lot, but when you take other factors into account (for instance, there are about two hundred million adults in the United States, almost all of whom buy deoderant, that's about $10 million dollars they save altogether (and this is assuming that we only save five cents per box). That's $10 million that the consumer economy gets to keep. And this happens recurrently, people replace deoderant once a year, and for those who sweat a lot, twice a year so that's even more money we're saving.
But don't go running to your car thinking that Wal-Mart always does good. Because for all the hype about it's low prices, Wal-Mart is steadily decreasing the amount of jobs in the United States. I'm going to ask you again to sit back and think. Wal-Mart is totally dedicated to giving us low prices, and the number one way to bring down prices while still turning a profit is to decrease the quality, meaning less reliable products, meaning that we have to go out of our houses to buy the same coffee maker because the last three broke. Also, with the restrictions and quality standards that must be met in today's society, there's only so low you can go for quality. meaning that eventually, more and more jobs are going to be moves outside of the US, to places like, say China, where they have little to no quality control. This will lead to not only a decrease in jobs, but also more dangerous products. Do you remember hearing about how Chinese products can sometimes be poisonous, or incredibly unreliable? Well, imagine those products being distributed by the most powerful retailer in America.