Monday, February 22, 2016

GREED FILE - Wal-Mart and Winnsboro, South Caroline

"What happens when Wal-Mart leaves small towns behind" by Christopher Booker, PBS NewsHour 2/20/2016

Lets see; first Wal-Mart opens almost killing any local business, then leaves town.  Typical 'we don't care' and 'money before people' big business.

Excerpt

Around 90 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Wal-Mart store, according to the company.  Residents of Winnsboro, South Carolina, however, are no longer part of that overwhelming majority.

In January, as part of a company-wide restructuring, Winnsboro's Wal-Mart became one of 154 stores that shuttered its doors across the country over the past year.  As with the rest of the closures, the town's employees were given two week's notice before the store closed for good, rapidly removing what had become a commercial and social center of the small, rural community for the past 18 years.

The debate over Wal-Mart is a heated one.  And while the effects of the store coming to town have been seen more frequently, less is known about an area's economic and social implications of when the big box giant pulls out.

What's clear in Winnsboro, though, is that Wal-Mart's exit could potentially transform the town as much as its arrival.

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