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Back in September the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six nearby residents filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County. They alleged that the country “supervisors failed to comply with the county’s comprehensive plan. The suit also claims the county’s zoning ordinance is invalid because it fails to comply with state laws requiring such ordinances to protect historic sites, and there were procedural defects in the approval process.”

Today, the court heard the first arguments of the case.

Here’s a quick excerpt from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s press release outlining their central arguments (it was emailed to me, so I don’t have a link):

“The County has an affirmative responsibility to protect those historic resources under Virginia law and under the County’s own Comprehensive Plan for development. Yet, the Board ignored the concerns, objections and offers of assistance from the Governor and the Speaker of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the National Park Service, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 250 Civil War experts, and others.

The Battle of the Wilderness, where 26,000 men were killed or wounded in May of 1864, may not be as well known as Gettysburg or Antietam, but it marked a milestone in the Civil War. It was the first time generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met in battle. The site of the proposed 140,000-square-foot Wal-Mart superstore, along with 100,000 square feet of additional big box commercial development, stands on unprotected land within the historic boundaries of this battlefield.  It is also immediately adjacent to the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, which was established by Congress in 1927. In a split vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a special use permit allowing the 240,000-square-foot project to proceed on August 25, 2009. This project poses a considerable risk of destruction and increased commercialization of a nationally significant and highly vulnerable historic site.”

We’ll certainly keep our eyes on the case. In the mean time, you can check out the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website here and read more about the case here.

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A new report by a professor at the Columbia School of Business examines how Walmart goes about expanding. In particular, it looks at Walmart’s response to the many protests that arise when it begins the process of building a new store. The report concludes that Walmart uses inexpensive “test balloons” to gauge public reaction to a new store and often decides not to build if protests arise. Of course the caveat is that the more profitable the potential store, the harder Walmart will fight against protests. But the bottom line seems to be that local activists can stop Walmart from coming to their town. This is fantastic news for anyone who wants a say in what businesses are in their community.

Here is some of the fascinating research the report uses to back up its claims:

“During the period starting from 1998 and ending in 2005, Wal-Mart
floated 1599 proposals to open new stores. Wal-Mart successfully opened 1040 stores. Protests arose on 563 occasions and in 65 percent of the cases where protests arose, Wal-Mart did not open a store…

35% of Wal-Mart’s new store proposals were met with a protest...Of the new store proposals that attracted no protests, Wal-Mart opened stores 83% of the time. When a proposal was met with protest, the rate of subsequent opening was only 35%.”

You can read an overview of the report here on the Columbia Business School’s blog, or the full report in PDF form here.

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Activists have placed a new hurdle between Walmart and its plan to desecrate the historic Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia. 

Yesterday, September 23rd, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six nearby residents filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County.  The suit challenges the August 2009 approval of Walmart’s proposal to plant a massive super center unacceptably close to the historic battlefield.

Walmart’s Wilderness proposal has drawn widespread condemnation from prominent historians, actors, politicians, activist groups, and concerned citizens.  However, Walmart is hardly shy about building stores where residents don’t want them. As Walmart Real Estate Manager Jeff Doss once noted, “If that were the case, we’d never build a store anywhere.”

This time, Walmart won’t be allowed to impose without a long, hard, and expensive fight.

We applaud the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Friends of Wilderness Battlefield for taking a stand against irresponsible development. 

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The battle is not over! Even though the Orange County Board of Supervisors has acquiesced to Wal-Mart’s proposal, there is still time for the retailer to select an alternate location that will not disrupt this historical site.

According to Jim Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Preservation Trust, those who have been at odds with project are trying to stay positive.

“The ball is now in Wal-mart’s court,” he said. “It’s in the corporation’s best interest to work with the preservation community to find an alternative site. ...We are optimistic that company officials will see the wisdom of moving somewhere else.”

Linda Wheeler, a Washington Post blogger, fills us in on the details.

Preservationists Say Wal-Mart Battle Not Over:

The Orange County Board of Supervisors in Virginia voted 4-1 early this morning to approve a special use permit that will allow Wal-Mart to build a super center close to the National Park Service’s Wilderness Battlefield. In a statement released today, the Civil War Preservation Trust said the vote was a “setback for preservationists” but added, “this battle is not over yet.”

Trust president Jim Lighthizer called on Wal-Mart to reconsider its decision to build within the footprint of the Wilderness Battlefield, near Fredericksburg, pointing to what he called, “nationwide anger generated by its proposal.”

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Great news out of Virginia regarding the proposed Wilderness Battlefield site. In a letter dated July 13th, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) and House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) sent a letter to the Orange County Board of Supervisors encouraging them to choose an alternative site for a new Wal-Mart.

This isn’t the first bipartisan effort we’ve seen to derail Wal-Mart’s plan to build at Wilderness. In January, Democratic and Republican congressmen from Texas and Vermont joined to tell Wal-Mart to find somewhere else to build. Hopefully Wal-Mart - and Orange County supervisors - get the message.

From CWPT:

Governor Kaine and Speaker Howell Urge Orange County to Move Walmart Superstore Away from Battlefield

In a bipartisan letter to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) and House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) jointly urged the county to reconsider plans to locate a Walmart supercenter on the Wilderness Battlefield. The letter, addressed to Orange County Board Chairman Lee Frame and dated July 13, 2009, emphasizes the Commonwealth’s commitment to historic preservation and the need to bring all interests together to resolve the controversy. The heart of the message states: “[W]e strongly encourage your Board to work closely with Wal-Mart to find an appropriate alternative site for the proposed retail center in the vicinity of the proposed site yet situated outside the boundaries of Wilderness Battlefield and out of the view of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.”

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It’s like deja vu all over again. Alderman Brookins is still pushing for another Wal-Mart store in Chicago. This time he is ratcheting up the pressure on his fellow city council members to support the South Side project.

His message is clear: build a Wal-Mart store and soon there will be hundreds of high paying jobs and Chicago will become a retailing utopia.

Unfortunately, most Wal-Mart jobs are low wage and part-time. On our speak out website, veteran employees—some who have worked for the company over 10 years—describe how Wal-Mart is using the recession to cut hours like never before. As in...let’s hire 500 people to inflate our job numbers to the press, while cutting everyone to 10 hours a week.

As we outlined in our urban campaign, Wal-Mart is just not a good fit for the city of Chicago. According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, “There is strong evidence that jobs created by Wal-Mart in metropolitan areas pay less and are less likely to offer benefits than those they replace.” In addition, analysis by Civic Economics concludes “For every $100 in consumer spending with a local firm, $68 remains in the Chicago economy...For every $100 in consumer spending with a chain firm, $43 remains in the Chicago economy.”

City leaders have done a good job so far of keeping another Wal-Mart out of Chicago. Now is not the time to give in to pressure from Wal-Mart lobbyists and Alderman Brookins.

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Originally posted at the Huffington Post, David Nassar writes that Wal-Mart in America’s big cities was a bad idea 5 years ago - and is still a bad idea today. That’s why Wal-Mart Watch activists in New York, Chicago and LA have sent over 25,000 letters to their city councils, and more than 1,500 state legislators around the country have been told by their constituents that new Wal-Mart plans should be called off until a worker safeguard like the Employee Free Choice Act is passed.

Wal-Mart in Chicago, New York and L.A. without EFCA? A bad idea

While most of America’s businesses are struggling through the recession, Wal-Mart and the Walton Family are raking in billions in profit. There’s nothing wrong with making money - but the rest of us are getting poorer as a result. Whether it is the low wages the Waltons pay, the taxes that the company expertly dodges or the subsidies Wal-Mart demands, the average American is helping the Walton family get richer every day.

That behavior has been a drag on Wal-Mart’s reputation and a primary reason why the company has had such a hard time entering high-income communities and first tier urban markets like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Now, however, it’s clear that Wal-Mart wants to use the cover of the recession and the promise of new jobs to enter the same communities that have rejected it in the past.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart hasn’t changed - only the economy has.

Given Wal-Mart’s low-margin, high-volume business model, it has always been dependent on rapid growth to stay alive. Over the past two decades, Wal-Mart’s growth plan has been simple: build as many supercenters in suburban and rural America as possible. But in the past few years, Wal-Mart has had to hit the brakes on its expansion after saturating most of the country and leaving itself few places to grow.

Still, America’s big cities remain largely untapped by the company. Millions of Americans live relatively Wal-Mart-free existences in the metropolitan areas of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, D.C. and Philadelphia, among others. Now that Wal-Mart sees a moment of weakness, it is poised and ready to strike.

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It’s not often to read in the business press these days that Wal-Mart is having trouble growing. But Dow Jones reports today that Wal-Mart’s plan to conquer the grocery market has hit a roadblock.

Not only has Wal-Mart decided to put the brakes on its “marketside” experiment (as well as desperately rebranding it), but its “ambitious” relaunch of the Great Value brand has been delayed. The company was intending rerelease thousands of its in-house label products, and give them significantly increased shelf space - in order to better cater to cash-strapped customers. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been able to make that happen.

There are a couple points we might add.

That’s not the only reason Wal-Mart is having trouble growing its grocery share. Despite the recession and desperate local politicians, communities are still saying no to Wal-Mart. Over the past two years we’ve seen record breaking numbers of Wal-Mart projects fail. In the past two weeks the Wal-Mart Watch community has sent over 25,000 letters to the city council members of New York, Chicago and LA - urging them to stand to Wal-Mart. The bottom line is that Wal-Mart hasn’t done much to make it more palatable to the communities that have opposed it.

And along the same lines, it seems that a wholesale focus on cheaper, in-house products isn’t compatible with Wal-Mart’s push to retain higher income shoppers and move into higher income neighborhoods. On one hand, Wal-Mart is spending millions to make shoppers feel more comfortable with its produce and meat, and on the other hand its making a rush for the bottom with cheaper, Wal-Mart brand groceries.

As always, Wal-Mart wants to be all things to all people. It’s doubtful that it will work.

Wal-Mart Sees Delays In Its Plan To Become Bigger Grocer [Dow Jones via Wall Street Journal]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., long a retail titan, is finding that being a grocery titan is a bit bumpier.

The retailer, which has been sailing through the recession - relatively speaking - on the appeal of its low-cost offerings, has fallen behind on the re-launch of its private-label Great Value brand and has put the brakes on any expansion for its small grocery stores.

The ambitious Great Value launch, which involves several thousand items, “has met with some delay,” Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.

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Much is made of Wal-Mart’s presence in China - from the fact that many of its products are sourced there to the realization that the growing power remains a prime target for Wal-Mart’s expansion.

Harold Meyerson, in his Washington Post column marking the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, poses that it has been American capitalism - chiefly the Wal-Marts of the world - that has spurred the growth of China into a rising superpower:

The transfer of manufacturing from the United States to China—driven by the rise of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart that have been able to enforce a regime of low wages all along their global supply chains—has diminished our middle class and expanded theirs.

In fact, Meyerson points out it was American businesses and their representative groups (here’s looking at you, U.S. Chamber of Commerce) that opposed legislation in China aimed at strengthening worker rights. The goal was to improve working conditions and arrest the practice of withholding wages and forcing employees into working insanely long hours, but American business interests succeeded in pushing amendments to “make it more acceptable to foreign firms” - a fancy way of saying weakening the effect the bill would actually have on workers and the businesses that depend on keeping costs down. No wonder they’re such close buddies nowadays.

You can read the whole column, but Meyerson unleashes his most venomous critique in his closing:

Wal-Mart, which used to lock its night-shift stock clerks and janitors inside a number of its stores until the morning managers arrived, prefers production in Guangdong to manufacturing in the Midwest. Indeed, the director of purchasing for Wal-Mart is based in China.

As historian Nelson Lichtenstein and others have documented, Wal-Mart inspires in its managers an almost fanatical allegiance to the company’s cause. In Wal-Mart world, the provincialism (if not “idiocy") of rural life is fused with a brilliance in the art of low-cost, low-wage logistics to create a company that is both authoritarian in its inner workings and a friend of authoritarian regimes abroad. The butchers of Beijing could not have found any more compatible capitalists.

Beijing’s Favorite Capitalists [Washington Post]

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WAL-MART NOT GIVING UP ON CHICAGO
    

• Wal-Mart Not Giving Up on South Side [Chicago Public Radio]
  Chicago got its first Wal-Mart store, on the city’s West Side, just three years ago. Unions and grassroots activists fought the controversial big box coming within city limits.
  

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Last week was supposed to be Wal-Mart’s grand entrance into India. The company’s joint venture with Bharti Enterprises was raring to open its wholesale store in Punjab—that is, until inter-communal and religious violence among Sikhs, who form a majority of the province’s population, temporarily shut down commercial activity.

To be clear - Wal-Mart had nothing to do with this particular episode. Reuters and other sources say that the violence was sparked by an attack on a Sikh temple far away in Vienna, Austria.

But the incident should remind us all that India is unlike places, such as the U.S., with more established channels of dissent. In Wal-Mart site fights across America, local battles against Wal-Mart have primarily taken place through petitions and city council hearings, but in India it could well happen on the streets. Wal-Mart already has enough inevitable opponents in India, including the country’s estimated 12 million shopkeepers whose livelihoods could be threatened by the foreign retailer.

As we’ve discussed before, there has already been significant resistance to Wal-Mart in India. In 2007, shopkeepers and farmers took to the streets and turned Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India” slogan (which originally urged British imperial commerce to stop crushing India’s native industries) into “Quit Retail”, showing their opposition to foreign retail like Wal-Mart.

Articles in Time, Business Week, as well as the important work of India FDI Watch have documented the growing unrest Indian small business owners and farmers are manifesting. Dharmendra Kumar, director of India FDI Watch, puts it this way:

“This is a do-or-die battle for us. Either they [the foreign retailers] go or the small traders and farmers perish” [Forbes, 10/10/07]

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PRESIDENT OBAMA REAFFIRMS SUPPORT FOR EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE

• Obama on his support of the Employee Free Choice Act [New Mexico Independent (N.M.)]
  President Obama said today at his town hall in Rio Rancho that he’d like to see the Employee Free Choice Act pass, but that compromise might need to happen on the details of the bill if it’s to pass the U.S. Senate.
  

• Live from Rio Rancho, it's President Obama [USA Today]
  A man asks about the "employee free choice act," which would help more unions form. Obama praises the contribution of unions to society, and worries about the decline in union membership. But he cites objections to the "free choice" act, including the fact that it does not assure secret balloting for formation of a union. Notes there aren't enough votes in the Senate to get the act passed, but says there may be room for compromise.
  

• Obama Says Union Bill Lacks Sufficient Senate Support [Wall Street Journal Blogs]
  Not surprisingly, unions praised the president’s remarks. “What a difference having a pro-working family president makes,” said Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern. “For hard-working families who suffered for eight long years under George Bush’s extreme antiworker policies, President Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s leadership on behalf of the middle class is a breath of long-needed fresh air.”
  

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We’re going to take an ever-so-short break from Wal-Mart and the labor fight to return to the “roots” of the grassroots organizing against the retailer - namely objections to the company’s expansion. To the right is the view from inside a mammoth Wal-Mart Distribution Center. It is big...REAL big. In fact, just a couple months ago, Al Norman laid out exactly HOW big a new Distribution Center in Merced, CA, would be:

This enormous project will consume 270 acres on the southeast side of Merced, a community of roughly 70,000 people. The Distribution Center will pave over 100 acres of prime farmland, to create a 1,200,000 s.f. building—the equivalent of six supercenters under one roof, or 24 football fields. The pavement and parking lot for the facility is 4,353,000 s.f. There is room at the site for 300 parking spaces for tractor-trailers.

Did we mention it’s big? Well what this picture doesn’t illustrate are the environmental concerns of a distribution center beyond simple size - the 24 hours of light affecting local wildlife (and people), the millions of tons of particulates spewed into the air by hundreds of trucks and thousands of cars traveling to and from daily.

As the DC has moved forward, most notably with the release of the City’s draft Environmental Impact Report, opposition has risen as well - see the Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team. This week, letters have continued to flow in to local papers opposing the development. These are just a handful of our favorite examples:

Letter: China says ‘thank you’ [Merced Sun-Star]

China says “Thank you, Merced.”

Thank you for building the Wal-Mart distribution center in your town.

Yes, the creation of a few hundred jobs in Merced employed thousands of us to manufacture the cheap stuff you buy at Wal-Mart.

And as your fair city basks in the 24 hours of daylight from the towers of stadium lighting and the comforting hum (visible and audible for miles) of idling trucks, grinding gears, the occasional tooth rattling slam of a load hitting the 100 acres of asphalt, and as your school- children breathe the poison belched from 900 trucks a day, China says thanks and keep supporting the People’s Republic of China by shopping at Wal-Mart.

MICHAEL J. LEONARD
Merced

Check out more after the jump.

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Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins is bracing for “a floor fight” on an amended redevelopment agreement he introduced Wednesday, which would open the door for Wal-Mart to build its second Chicago store. Last year, a similar request to build a supercenter was rejected by the planning and development commissioner, a fate Brookins hopes to make moot this year. The Chicago Sun-Times has the skinny:

Last year, then-Planning and Development Commissioner Arnold Randall rejected a request for administrative approval to build a 150,000 square-foot Wal-Mart supercenter on the site of the old Ryerson Steel plant at 83rd and Stewart. The developer responded by putting the property up for sale. Brookins’ proposal would strip the commissioner of the power to veto stores over 100,000 square feet.

So, Alderman Brookins is looking to get around commissioner approval by making it ultimately unnecessary - if the planning and development commissioner can’t veto a project, why run a development proposal by the administration in the first place? And Brookins’ reasoning for introducing the measure?

“I’m doing it because I can’t get any other movement any way else.”

Makes sense. In reality, there appears to be much more going on in the Windy City than a simple controversy over a new Wal-Mart supercenter. Chicago is bidding for the 2016 Olympics, and Mayor Daley and his administration seem to want to avoid tackling divisive issues this calendar year while the International Olympic Committee reviews the city’s bid.

“The timing is pretty bad. We’re trying to keep some peace with the unions. We’ve got an October deadline with the [International] Olympic Committee. I don’t think we want to show any problems here with the city and our workforce,” said Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), the mayor’s unofficial Council floor leader.

Regardless, earlier today Mayor Daley intimated that Alderman Brookins doesn’t have much of a chance for his proposal to go through anyway.

“This is not gonna fly. You know that. They don’t have enough votes,” Daley said.

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We can’t say we didn’t see this one coming: Wal-Mart’s designs on Russia have been surfacing for months. Signals include the establishment of an office in Moscow and joining the Russian Association of Retail Companies. Now, though, the retailer has taken a concrete step into the country by aiming to purchase a controlling stake in OOO Lenta, a major Russian food retailer. The move carries many parallels to Wal-Mart’s recent acquisition of Chile’s D&S. These include:

a) Wal-Mart’s attempts to buy large stakes in companies off wealthy private individuals. In the case of Chile, Wal-Mart acquired its D&S share from Felipe and Nicholas Ibañez Scott, two brothers that had held a controlling stake. In Russia, Wal-Mart is trying to buy OOO Lenta founder Oleg Zherebtsov’s 35 percent share.

b) Intense secrecy surrounding purchase negotiations.

c) A focus on the grocery sector (D&S owned a few different leading Chilean supermarket brands). Are we seeing a pattern emerging here?

Wal-Mart Renews Talks On Buying Russia’s Lenta, Kommersant Says [Bloomberg News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has renewed talks on buying a controlling stake in Russian food retailer OOO Lenta, Kommersant reported, citing unidentified minority shareholders.

Wal-Mart is seeking to buy 51 percent of St. Petersburg- based Lenta, the Russian newspaper said. That includes acquiring founder Oleg Zherebtsov’s 35 percent stake; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s 11 percent stake and 6 percent from another minority shareholder, Kommersant said.

All of the parties declined to comment, according to the newspaper.

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Will Wal-Mart succeed in its Latin American invasion?

The Latin Business Chronicle looks at Wal-Mart’s plan to build stores in nine Central and South American stores this year, and cites Wal-Mart’s “success” in Mexico and Brazil. (Although it isn’t without controversy. In Mexico, Wal-Mart’s sales have risen but the retailer has also faced some notable setbacks: it can’t yet set up the controversial in-store banking services it wants to and its credit card interest rates are exorbitant. )

The Chronicle interviews different economists on the issue, and mainstream consensus is that 1) Wal-Mart will benefit from the recession and 2) success still depends on Wal-Mart’s ability to adapt to the cultural differences of each country. This is no small challenge, and Wal-Mart has failed in the past at this in countries like Germany and South Korea. For example, Chile has more wealth and a more differentiated grocery market than Honduras. Service has never been Wal-Mart’s strength and many Latin American consumers clearly value the personal attention their traditional retailers are good at providing. Additionally, Wal-Mart’s standard distribution networks, fairly efficient in the U.S., may prove unmanageable in a region as vast, mountainous and (in many places) still poorly developed as Latin America.

And most importantly, Wal-Mart’s success will depend on the willingness of Latin American governments and peoples to accept the Wal-Mart business model. Will the people of Latin America accept a foreign company moving in in a time of recession to knock local retailers out of business?

The full article article is republished below:

Last May, Michael Bergdahl, former director of human resources at Wal-Mart, told the First Global Forum on Customer Service in Santiago, Chile, “Our strategy of low prices has become a competitive advantage for us. So long as our competition focuses on how much they can get for their products, we focus on how little we can get for ours.” According to Bergdahl, this strategy generated revenues of about $13 billion in 2007, and in 2008, “we open a new store each day, and each week, 176 million customers buy from our stores.”

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Wal-Mart, meet Mr. Holland.

Yesterday in D.C., the opposition to Wal-Mart’s plan to build on the historic Wilderness Civil War Battlefield gathered strength. The primary group leading the fight - the Civil War Preservation Trust - brought Richard Dreyfuss to a news conference in D.C to release its “History Under Siege” report and rally the troops behind battlefield preservation. The report, which was covered by major news outlets like CNN, names the 10 most threatened Civil War battlefield. The first battlefield out of CWPT President James Lighthizer mentioned at the conference was the Wilderness, in Orange County, Virginia.

The number of voices who argue that Wal-Mart should find somewhere else to build are steadily increasing.  They argue that construction of a Wal-Mart on a road right outside the Battlefield’s gates, would forever destroy the peaceful and relatively un-developed character of the place.

Among those who have now joined the fight versus Wal-Mart are the Vermont Legislature, a Republican congressman from Texas, 253 of the nation’s leading historians and a steady stream of locals (who write in to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star nearly every day.)

For whatever reason, Wal-Mart hasn’t backed down to public pressure so far. But we do know that the company is ever-conscious about PR, and has got to be terrified of national headlines shouting its intent to desecrate a sacred piece of national history.

Here’s a hunch: if we keep the pressure on, we’re going to win this one.

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It’s official: Wal-Mart is trying to get back into Big Apple. Says the New York Post today:

The giant discount chain has shopped for space in Union Square and among the big-box stores along Sixth Avenue in Chelsea, The Post has learned.

Wal-Mart recently passed on a proposal by Related Companies for a two-level store of about 57,000 feet in Union Square where Virgin Megastores and Circuit City are closing, sources said.

The company’s real-estate scouts have also been roaming the area around 620 Sixth Ave., said the sources.

Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo said the Union Square sites “were never under consideration.” But he said the company is “still interested” in opening stores in New York, despite strong political and union opposition.

But it won’t be without a fight from local politicians, citizens, and as of Monday - Mayoral candidates. That’s when the Wal-Mart-hatin’ Reverend Billy just declared his candidacy for Mayor of NYC. From a Gothamist interview with the Rev:

Wal-Mart tries to come here—well it’s a good thing for New Yorkers because we’re waking up in a city that’s been asleep and soon we’ll all be awake and Bentonville will never know what hit it. We need Wal-Mart to keep the knives of our conscience sharp. Wal-Mart is a war-mongering company—we call them WAR-Mart, since for election after election they showered Bush with money. They were the biggest donor to Republicans through several election cycles. Their union-busting is famous, of course—the red phone in the middle of the store that workers are supposed to pick up and spy on any possible organizing. Come on, Wal-Mart in New York City? DEVIL GET THEE BEHIND ME! As Mayor, I will take that company to the LAKE OF HELLFIRE!

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The battle for the heart and soul of Mexico’s banking industry is reaching a fever pitch, with the Mexican government’s two chambers—the House of Representatives, and the Senate—fiercely divided over proposed changes to the country’s banking laws that would allow so-called “corresponsal banking”. The concept would literally mean that any of Mexico’s countless small corner stores or shops could offer limited banking services, such as check depositing, through partnership with larger banking entities.

In theory, any bank with sufficient size to set up “corresponsal” relationships with shops could participate, from microcredit institutions that targets loans to Mexico’s poor, to multinational giants. But one key provision in the bill will actually affect whether giants such as Wal-Mart can effectively do so: the provision says that banks must raise no more than 25% of their deposits from the “corresponsal” locations. This would mean Wal-Mart could not offer banking services in-store as such services would be counted as “corresponsal” (as opposed to “brick-and-mortar” banking) and would surely exceed 25%. Mexico’s House of Representatives wants financial regulators to have the ability to override this restriction for certain banks, and this would no doubt provoke a flurry of intense lobbying from Wal-Mart.

Although Mexico is Latin America’s second-largest economy, it lags far behind other countries in offering financial services to its population, especially to poorer consumers. So why is more convenient and lower-cost access to financial services a bad thing? Passing the new law without the 25% restriction would encourage Wal-Mart to aggressively pursue a stranglehold on the market as many lower-income consumers already shop there. The retailer, however, has proven that it does not have the consumer’s best interests at heart: the interest rate on its store-brand credit card is an exorbitant 69.6%, high even by Mexican standards.

Additionally, Mexico is a dangerous country where bank robberies are frequent; turning “every Wal-Mart cash register into a bank” would only make customers and cashiers more attractive targets. Though the law is a good idea, it is intended to encourage growth for Mexico’s burgeoning microcredit businesses and small shops: not retail giants.

The original story in the Financial Times is republished below:

Go to any corner shop in Mexico and the chances are there will be a cluster of people buying avocados, detergent, green tomatoes and nopales – cactus paddles best served fresh from the grill.

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According to USA Today, state governments struggling to find new ways to raise revenue are running into stiff opposition to one idea — the expansion of wine sales into grocery stores.

One such state is New York, where embattled Governor David Paterson’s proposed 2009-10 fiscal budget includes a provision to allow such expansion, a move that if approved he believes could yield $105 million in licensing and franchise fees from stores during the new fiscal year. New York currently is currently facing a rather daunting $14 billion budget gap.

“This legislation would provide greater choice and convenience for New Yorkers and provide an even greater market for New York wines,” said Matt Anderson, a spokesman for the state Budget Division.

Not everyone in the Empire State is happy with the provision, however. In fact, there is a relatively large coalition of small business owners and independent wine sellers opposing the change, basically calling it a gift to big box chains and grocery stores. The argument is that the proposal will not create any new jobs - in fact, all it will do is divert liquor-buying traffic from independently-owned shops and liquor stores to larger chains and big box stores like Wal-Mart. And while it could result in $105 million in licensing fees from the Wal-Marts of the world, it wouldn’t really increase the alcohol market as a whole - so while New York gets its money and Wal-Mart gets its booze, small business owners will see less costumers and eventually a good portion of them could see unemployment.

“This misguided plan would benefit big-box stores like Wal-Mart without creating even one new job, while imperiling Main Street businesses across the state and the thousands of jobs they provide,” said Jeff Saunders of the Retailers Alliance Foundation, a New York state retailers’ lobbying group that helped form the Last Store coalition. If the legislation passes, Saunders predicts roughly 1,000 liquor stores will close, costing 4,000 to 5,000 jobs.

Job loss means more people on unemployment and more people people on state health roles, and that equals more cost to New York taxpayers. Some might call this “thinning of the heard,” but the prospect of losing 4,000 jobs that will not be replaced seems questionable at best. Already this year a similar idea has been killed in Kentucky, and the proposal in New York and another in Tennessee both face stiff opposition.

Spirited debate over state wine laws [USA Today]

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