Wal Marts Fema Actually Delivers - Road to the Middle Class

LIBERALS hate Wal-Mart. Well, they do. They hate Wal-Mart because it puts Main Street businesses out of business. They hate Wal-Mart because it’s non-union and it doesn’t offer first-dollar health insurance.

But Wal-Mart delivers Always Low Prices, Always. And that helps all people on low incomes. Funnily enough, Wal-Mart is doing fine in the current recession while Whole Foods is tanking.

And Wal-Mart is a good corporate citizen where it counts. Like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the Suburban Emergency Management Project reports.

You see Wal-Mart has an Emergency Operations Center at its Bentonville, AR headquarters. Whenever there’s a natural disaster Wal-Mart mobilizes to deliver. Part of Wal-Mart’s planning involves replenishing stores when there is a disaster alert. Wal-Mart has over eight Disaster Distribution Centers in its complement of over 100 distribution centers nationwide.

So when Hurricane Katrina struck, Wal-Mart was ready, even including an inspirational message from CEO Lee Scott to Wal-Mart associates.

This company will respond to the level of this disaster. A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that�€™s available to you at the time, and, above all, do the right thing.

As soon as possible Wal-Mart was trucking in supplies into the devastated area. Of course it wasn’t easy. The public sector, at all levels of government, was slow getting moving. Also, governments had contracts with private-sector companies other than Wal-Mart who weren’t able to mobilize as efficiently. Pretty soon Wal-Mart found itself supplying government agencies with which it didn’t have a contract. But Wal-Mart delivered.

�€�Phillip Capitano, mayor of the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, reported, �€�The only lifeline in Kenner was the Wal-Mart stores. We didn�€™t have looting on a mass scale because Wal-Mart showed up with food and water so our people could survive.�€� Similar reports of Wal-Mart�€™s prompt and effective involvement came from community leaders across the Gulf Coast.

There’s no doubt that Wal-Mart has an interest in good PR, in building public support for its brand. So Wal-Mart is only helping Wal-Mart when it helps out in a disaster.

But let nobody forget that CEO Scott set the tone from the top: “Above all, do the right thing.”

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

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Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

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[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

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Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

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Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

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What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

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James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

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I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

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