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A review by topdragon
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--And Howit's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman
4.0
This was another of my son's "textbooks" that I decided to go ahead and read. Apparently, this is a pretty well-known book, infamous for exposing a lot of the "evil" aspects of Walmart. It does discuss a number of negative side effects associated with the company's perusal of the lowest prices, including labor violations, driving their own suppliers out of business, and the effects of new Walmarts going up in smaller towns and completely altering the state of local economies. But it also explores the positive aspects such as their decision to do away with boxes on containers of deodorant, which not only makes the product cheaper but also save amazing amounts of natural resources.
It reads easily and is easy to understand. Some parts were redundant, written in the typical journalistic way of providing the headline first followed by a few paragraphs of summary substance followed by detail after detail. The author is, indeed, a journalist, so I guess that's to be expected. My favorite parts were the first couple of chapters which describe just how absolutely humongous the Walmart Company really is and how much power they have. We all know it's huge but wow! that was an eye opener.
It reads easily and is easy to understand. Some parts were redundant, written in the typical journalistic way of providing the headline first followed by a few paragraphs of summary substance followed by detail after detail. The author is, indeed, a journalist, so I guess that's to be expected. My favorite parts were the first couple of chapters which describe just how absolutely humongous the Walmart Company really is and how much power they have. We all know it's huge but wow! that was an eye opener.