Imagine youself in your nearest Wal-Mart store. See the shelves overflowing with goods. Now imagine that everything made in the Orient disappears from the shelves. How empty is your Wal-Mart? Here is a case of globalization that worries some folks. Americans hardly make anything the Wal-Mart sells. The CIA's National Intelligence Council has issued a report titled "MAPPING THE GLOBAL FUTURE" where they make the following prediction which I found in a San Gabriel Valley Tribune opinion page: "By 2020,' the CIA predicts, 'globalization could be equated in the popular mind with a rising Asia, replacing its current association with Americanization."Does this disturb me, here at the Feedlot, where the world must come to my town to sell me stuff? I don't know. I know I like cheap stuff. I don't like the idea that, should China disappear or get pissed at the USA, I won't be able to get any sneakers. I'm confused. Perhaps if Wal-Mart were to replace their signage with Chinese characters, or their little yellow smiley starts showing mongoloid features. I know Wal-Mart adds salt water (up to 12%) to their 'fresh meat' and then sells it to us by the pound. I really don't like this. I have a scarred up liver and salty stuff makes me swell up like a toad. I found out about the adulterated meat the hard way. I still buy cheap sneakers at Wal-Mart, but I don't trust them any more. I feel like I'm buying from crafty chinese merchants who would sell me salt water for meat when they think I'm not looking.
I don't trust our heartland meat-makers; e.g. growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides, etc. I can't say where Wal-Mart is headed, but I see an opportunity for entrepreneurs to export some distinctly American stuff to up and coming Chinese and Indian workers in the coming years, if not right now, and reclaim a little of that cash we've been stuffing into Wal-Mart registers. Sorry about the salt water pork, but thanks for a provocative article. dg
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