This week I went and rented two movies to watch that are associated with our topic. The two movies that I picked up were "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" and the Frontline feature "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" So far I have only been able to watch the Frontline documentary. The documentary spent almost all of its time focusing on two key points.

One of the key points was how businesses have struggled because of the enormous power that Wal-Mart has on the economy. The movie was packed with information that showed how Wal-Mart has been tearing businesses apart for many years. One of the best examples of this was with the RubberMaid company. It was one of the most admired companies just 15 years ago, but now does not exist mainly because of Wal-Mart. In the late 1990s, a rise in the cost of raw materials forced RubberMaid to raise the prices on their products. However, Wal-Mart would not allow RubberMaid to raise their prices if they wanted to sell their products in their stores. This led to huge losses for RubberMaid, and the company was eventually bought out in 1999.

Another topic that the documentary focused on was the importing of goods from China by Wal-Mart. It talks about how Wal-Mart has continuously been bringing in more and more imports each year, specifically from China. The movie stated that Wal-Mart imports 60-80% of their products each year. They are taking advantage of the low wages that they can pay in other countries. In the factories and plants in China they pay around fifty cents an hour. Because of Wal-Mart’s transition to imports, many jobs in the United States have been lost.

Over the weekend I am planning on watching the second documentary to get some more information that hopefully can be helpful in the paper or even the presentation.