Two replies.

1. To Drew again: You repeat some of the conventional wisdom about Walmart (low prices, etc) which are only partially true. The issues with Walmart are, unfair labor practices, unfair subsidies from local governments in terms of tax breaks and infrastructure improvements, low prices only when they need to be (that is there is a strong competitor in the region), substitution of lesser quality items to keep the price down compared to others, and excessive pressure on suppliers to keep prices low.

2. The last item was the main theme of my original essay. Walmart has become so strong that it causes suppliers to  commit economic suicide to meet their demands. The owners of the failed business, in effect, subsidize Walmart because it can then use a new supplier until the cycle is repeated. Walmart gets the benefits, the supplier's backers take the risk.

I tried to offer examples in other industries so that this would not turn into another Walmart bashing thread. Excessive buyer power has been around for a long time, but has now expanded to be a global phenomena and I think its impact is not fully realized. Even the EU is focused on monopoly power which is only half of the picture.

I'm not going to repeat all the references to my allegations about Walmart's misbehavior, a quick search will reveal all the sites devoted to this in detail. One can not praise Walmart as an exemplar of the free market model if it achieves it's success by breaking the rules.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape