www.WrensJournal.blogspot.com

Rocky Mountain News: Business I have a bias against large discount stores because they put my father's wholesale company out of business as the mom & pop grocery stores disappeared 30 years ago, replaced by King Soopers and Safeway. Now these giant Wal-Mart stores are doing the same thing to Kings and Safeway. As consumers, we benefit from the lower prices. But clearly, we are becoming a nation of clerks, working for giant companies, rather than the nation of shop keepers we once were.

What's the solution? First, stop corporate welfare. Government at all levels should stop giving tax-breaks and other incentives. Second, level the playing field by stopping unfair price breaks in advertising, lease rates, and intrest payments except where they are justified by actual costs. Where there is true economy of scale, these breaks should not be needed. We need a Teddy Roosevelt trust-busting approach to the government-corporate connection, the cancer that is destroying America. Protests against individual Wal-Mart stores doesn't get to the true root of the problem.