[Peace] Is Wal-Mart Good for America? on WILL-TV Wednesday night

[Kranich, Kimberlie]

All,
Two good episdoes of "Frontline" on WILL-TV tonight and tomorrow.  Tape them
if you're going to be at the Media Conference.
Kimberlie
The New Asylums, 9pm, Tuesday, May 10 on WILL-TV
There are nearly half a million mentally ill people serving time in
America's prisons and jails. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the
unexpected and ill-equipped gatekeepers of this burgeoning population, they
raise a troubling new concern: are jails and prisons America's new asylums?
With exclusive and unprecedented access to prison therapy sessions, mental
health treatment meetings, crisis wards, and prison disciplinary tribunals,
FRONTLINE goes deep inside Ohio's state prison system to present a searing
exploration of the complex and growing topic of mental health behind bars
and a moving portrait of the individuals at the center of this issue.
Is Wal-Mart Good for America?, 9pm, Wednesday, May 11 on WILL-TV
In Circleville, Ohio, population 13,000, the local RCA
television-manufacturing plant was once a source of good jobs with good pay
and benefits. But in late 2003, RCA's owner, Thomson Consumer Electronics,
lost a sizeable portion of its production orders and six months later shut
the plant down, throwing 1,000 people out of work.
Thomson's jobs have moved to China, where cheap labor manufactures what the
American consumer desires -- from clothing to electronics -- and can buy at
"everyday low prices" at the local Wal-Mart. 
FRONTLINE explores the relationship between U.S. job losses and the American
consumer's insatiable desire for bargains in "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?"
Through interviews <../interviews/> with retail executives, product
manufacturers, economists, and trade experts, correspondent Hedrick Smith
examines the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way of doing business and
asks whether a single retail giant has changed the American economy. 
"Wal-Mart's power and influence are awesome," Smith says. "By figuring out
how to exploit two powerful forces <../secrets/> that converged in the 1990s
-- the rise of information technology and the explosion of the global
economy -- Wal-Mart has dramatically changed the balance of power
<../secrets/shots.html> in the world of business. Retailers are now more
powerful than manufacturers, and they are forcing the decision to move
production offshore." 
"Wal-Mart has reversed a hundred-year history that had the retailer
dependent on the manufacturer," explains Nelson Lichtenstein
<../interviews/lichtenstein.html>, a professor at the University of
California Santa Barbara. "Now the retailer is the center, the power, and
the manufacturer becomes the serf, the vassal, the underling who has to do
the bidding of the retailer. That's a new thing." 
To understand the secret of Wal-Mart's success, Smith travels from the
company's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to their global procurement
center in Shenzhen, China, where several hundred employees work to keep the
company's import pipeline running smoothly. Of Wal-Mart's 6,000 global
suppliers, experts estimate that as many as 80 percent are based in China.
"Wal-Mart has a very close relationship with China," says Duke University
Professor Gary Gereffi <../interviews/gereffi.html>. "China is the largest
exporter to the U.S. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories.
Wal-Mart is the leading retailer in the U.S. economy in virtually all
consumer goods categories. Wal-Mart and China are a joint venture." 
When trade agreements were signed between the U.S. and China in the 1990s,
bringing China into the World Trade Organization, American political and
business leaders embraced the idea <../china/trade.html>. China's 1.2
billion people were viewed as an enormous untapped market for American-made
goods. The reality, experts say, is the opposite. China's exports to the
U.S. have skyrocketed.
At a salary of only 50 cents an hour or $100 a month, Chinese labor is an
unbeatable bargain for international business. And the Chinese government is
doing everything it can to be sure the country's infrastructure supports the
export business. Ten years ago Shenzhen's main port did not exist. Today
it's on the verge of becoming the third busiest port in the world. 
Wal-Mart estimates it imports $15 billion of Chinese goods every year and
concedes that the figure could be higher -- some estimates range as high as
$20 or $30 billion. Company executives are quick to point out they have
always scoured the globe for low cost suppliers to benefit the American
consumer.
"We do depend on products from around the globe to draw our consumers into
the stores," says Ray Bracy <../interviews/bracy.html>, Wal-Mart's vice
president for federal and international public affairs. "We feel they need
to have the best product, the best value, at the best price we can achieve."
Some experts contend Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices" are causing a clash
<../transform/isgood.html> between the interests of Americans as workers and
the desires of Americans as consumers. 
"If people were only consumers, buying things at lower prices would be just
good. But people also are workers who need to earn a decent standard of
living," says economist Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute. "The
dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-Mart and other places are also
undercutting the ability of many, many workers to earn decent wages and
benefits and have a stable life." 
Economist Brink Lindsey <../interviews/lindsey.html> of the Cato Institute
sees it another way. "I think Wal-Mart is good for America," he says.
"Wal-Mart is doing what the American economy is all about, which is
producing things consumers want to buy ... offering consumers a wide range
of goods at rock-bottom prices. It is meeting the market test."
This is little consolation to the unemployed workers back in Circleville,
Ohio. Steve Ratcliff, a long-time worker at the Thomson plant puts it
simply: "If you want these low prices, then you go buy your products from
Wal-Mart. But what does that actually do for this country? It's putting
people out of work. And it's lowering our standard of living. That's the
bottom line." 
Ironically, for Ratcliff and his former colleagues, there are new jobs
coming to town. In a patch of farmland right next to the vacant Thomson
plant, Wal-Mart has broken ground on one of its new Supercenters. But the
Wal-Mart jobs will represent a steep cut in pay from the $15 to $16 an hour
workers made at Thomson, and a far cry from the pension, health care, and
job security benefits that have long been the norm in manufacturing. 
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