Often times, when speaking to people in the real world about Walmart, I liken the spread of this retail giant, to the spread of a Cancer. I tell them that we here in America, and indeed, the world now, are like smokers.

Smokers, of which I am one, know that smoking cigarettes causes cancer in the human body, but they just don’t care. They crave and need the nicotine, the addictive drug in the cigarette. So it is with people and Walmart.

We crave the addictive nature of bottom-line prices and the convenience of being able to shop for everything in one place….one stop shopping, they use to call it. We are, on some level, acutely aware that by blindly pledging our shopping efforts to one store we are condemning all the other businesses in our town to a slow death as the cancer grows, but we just don’t care.

During the late seventies, Sam Walton embarked upon a single-minded quest to expand his small chain of stores out from Arkansas. His targets were small and medium sized towns and very quickly the cancer began to spread.

There was a study done by an economist done in the eighties that showed that within three years of a Walmart opening in a small town, at least sixty percent of that town’s existing businesses closed their doors. Yet still we welcomed them into our towns.

During the nineties Walmart stock rose an amazing 1,173% and the course for Walton and his Walmart stores were set.

Of course, during the late seventies and through the eighties, towns and cities ignored the warnings of a few experts and they went out and actively sought a Walmart for their communities. Having a Walmart, or even better, a Walmart Super Center in your town was seen as the ultimate in Urban success by mayors and town councils.

Today, nearing the close of the first decade of the 21^st. Century, we now know the ultimate cost of allowing a Walmart into our towns, but now it is just too late. The cancer is too deeply rooted and the “nicotine” of cheap goods and convenience of shopping is too strong a habit to break. Today, in spite of having to watch once prosperous downtown areas turn into ghost towns, we still welcome Walmart into our midst.

Why do I say it is too late? Well if you happen to live in a small town or mid-sized city, look around you, If your Walmart were to close tomorrow, what would be left to fill in the vacuum? Remember, most of the small businesses are long gone now.

This fact is not lost on Walmart executives, believe me. They are well aware of the hard fact that after one of their stores has been in business for five years, they have that town over a barrel, which is why, for the first five years Walmart has been known to run a store at a loss in order to drive competition out of business.

They know that whatever price they charge will be paid. They also know that if they decide to close the doors on that particular store, the town would most likely fold. They have even been known to threaten this move in order to get what they want such as added tax breaks on land and price cuts on utilities.

So you see, within just a few years, the cancer of Walmart can be deeply rooted within the body of a small town. So deeply rooted in fact that removing it would cause the death of the town.

It is the same with America. It has taken thirty years but now the cancer has spread from sea to shining sea. But Walmart is not content with just monopolizing business in America, over the past fifteen years or so they have branched out to South America, Europe, and China.

Soon the cancer will cover the world. Then what do we do?