WAL-MART AND THE ‘POORING OF AMERICA’
I’m not sure where the phrase “Pooring of America” came from, but it’s perfect to explain Wal-Mart’s effect on working families. Seeking Alpha ponders why Wal-Mart and McDonald’s are doing so well right now.

What are McDonald’s and Wal-Mart Telling Us? [Seeking Alpha]

I am very intriqued by our top 2 choices for the “Pooring of America” trend - Walmart (WMT) and McDonalds (MCD) - what exactly are the charts above telling us?  If we are to enter a long drawn-out recession, which I have believed, these seem to be screaming buys here. The only question is credit - how does a lack of credit potentially hurt both. They are not expanding a ton, in the U.S. at least - perhaps with Wal-mart it’s financing of inventory, but I cannot wrap my mind around this behavior.

Wal-Mart gets downgraded while stock up in 2008 amid the turmoil [BloggingStocks]

Will Wal-Mart weather the storm? To a point, it already is. Sure, all retailers are expected to have a dismal holiday season this winter, but Wal-Mart will do better than the competition. It has more stores, more pricing leverage and more wherewithal to hold customers hostage with lower prices and inventory turns at a time when it’s needed most. Perhaps we’ll see WMT return to the $60/share level by Thanksgiving—if not sooner.

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One of the unique drawbacks of offering poor digital download services is that digital downloaders are, by definition, computer savvy and will not hesitate to lay the smack down about you on the internets. Case in point: Wal-Mart’s digital rights managed (DRM) music service. The retailer will be shutting down its servers sometime next week, leaving many who downloaded music from the site in the lurch. To say the least, Wal-Mart hasn’t won any fans in the process.

On the other hand, all of Wal-Mart’s other products fall apart eventually. We guess its digital downloads aren’t any different.

Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server, nuking your music collection—only people who pay for music risk losing it to DRM shenanigans [BoingBoing]

Hey suckers! Did you buy DRM music from Wal*Mart instead of downloading MP3s for free from the P2P networks? Well, they’re repaying your honesty by taking away your music. Unless you go through a bunch of hoops (that you may never find out about, if you’ve changed email addresses or if you’re not a very technical person), your music will no longer be playable after October 9th...Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

Walmart Shutting Down Music Store DRM Servers, Umpteenth Reminder to Not Buy DRM’d Content [Gizmodo]

Like Yahoo and MSN before them, Walmart is turning off its DRM servers on Oct. 9, effectively putting any DRM’d songs you bought from them into a cold stasis they’ll never wake up from, since they’ll become totally unmovable unless you circumvent the DRM.

Wal-Mart Pushes Customers Off DRM Fence [Wired Blog]

In other words, if you are going to spend money, please do not spend it at Wal-Mart’s music store, or any other whose backwards DRM policies may one day wipe out your money’s value by pulling the plug on its servers.