You know Charley; I don't have anymore valid thoughts than you do. I only have my own suspicions about how things work and what I observe. I mean why are there working poor? If they are working they shouldn't be poor. Maybe struggling but poor? Would there be a place for the struggling to buy necessaries at prices they could afford? I think so. When they need something someone will provide it. Where does Wal-Mart come in? Well before we liquidated the manufacturing base in this country we didn't need Wal-Mart, so what; we can't have a company that makes a profit that equals the GNP of a third world country offer the workers health and wage benefits that are supportive? Are people buying this cheap stuff and actually saving anything? I find that the cheap stuff is more costly in the long run myself. If there was no WM then the working poor would find that out also. The benefit part; the community absorbs the refusal of WM to provide adequate wage by using tax revenue to make up the shortfall. So maybe those working poor might have more in their community to help support them if WM wasn't absorbing all that public monies. The effect of box stores is to lull the community into a false sense of safety that implodes when the bill comes in for health shortfall/education tax revenue shortfall; higher cost of people delaying medical treatment until it becomes acute and costly. What do you think about all this?