The Millennium Shrimp

Commenting on Wally-world’s recent endorsement of employee mandates in healthcare coverage, Professor Bainbridge points out the underlying fallacy (on both the left and the right) of assuming that Walmart is the paragon of laissez-faire Capitalism.

Wal-Mart is heavily dependent on government subsidies. Wal-Mart routinely gets sales and property tax abatements when it opens a new store, to cite but one example. According to a 2004 study (albeit one funded by a union) the subsidies can amount to as much as 12 million dollars per store. Additional de facto subsidies come when uninsured or under-insured Wal-Mart employees get health care at government expense. Supporting government-run health care looks like a sop to the politicians who control the subsidy tap.

Personally, I’ve always been rather apathetic when it comes to hating Wal-mart. Maybe it’s time for that to change.

[XKCD]

Obviously what we need is a version of firefox that runs on typewriters!

Speaking of typewriters and other forms of “obsolete” technology, my electric is still off. They’re now telling us that power will be restored sometime between “now and Sunday.” Fortunately, mom and dad have always been relatively well prepared for power outages. Dad still has the lamp that hung in his mother’s kitchen when he was growing up. (There are advantages to growing up Amish!) It has an old Victorian-period cast iron arm that’s supposed to be mounted on the wall. Lehman’s Hardware in Kidron has reproductions of them, but they’re rather expensive. I’m thinking I might keep this one and mount it in the dining room. I’m thinking I’m going to hit Lehman’s in the coming weeks and get enough to light the rest of the house.
It’s been an interesting experience, living by lamp light. This morning I was taking a shower when I noticed the lamp in the bathroom was burning very dim. It had run out of oil and was just burning the wick. Not good! So I hit Walmart on the way in to work. Amazingly they actually do sell lamp oil, and they had it in stock. The Ace Hardware in Ellet was completely out when I checked yesterday. Well, back to 1899!

From the Beeb

Flagler Productions, which worked for Wal-Mart for almost 30 years, has made its footage available to lawyers, unions and media organisations.

Evidently Flagler was a little upset when Wal-mart countered their $150 Million price with a measly $500,000 offer. Personally, I can’t wait for the You-tube videos of Walmart store managers in drag…