After Chicago rejected Wal-Mart Inc.'s proposal to open a store on the city's South Side, the retailer will open one Friday just outside city limits - leaving city officials shaking their heads at the prospect of hundreds of workers and countless shoppers flocking to this tiny suburb.
"It makes you go ballistic," said Alderman Howard Brookins, Jr., who pushed unsuccessfully for a Wal-Mart in his ward. "When you look at the revenue stream that we're losing and the property taxes and sales taxes there and you look at the opportunity, we're not going to stop these people from going to shop at Wal-Mart."
Brookins lamented the news from Wal-Mart that of the 25,000 applicants - a record number, according to the retailer - for about 350 jobs, all but 500 were Chicago residents. Further, he said he has no doubt that when the store opens, most shoppers will be Chicagoans, too.
I giggle as I picture Wal-Mart execs flipping the bird at the hack Chicago politicians across the street from the city. Whose interests are these idiots serving? 25,000 people wanted to work at Wal-Mart! And given the (non) ease of getting around the city one can only assume that is a small fraction of the number of people that would have applied city wide if distance wasn’t an issue.
Liberals often paint Wal-Mart as a rural business and its wage-slaves as stuck by circumstance. “There are no other jobs” they say, “you have to work at Wal-Mart or go hungry.” That argument just doesn’t hold up in the third largest city in the country. They just don’t understand that a reliable job at a respectable employer at a respectable wage is something that people want.
If any liberal happens to make their way here they will insult me for calling the above sentence, but I don’t feel bad because at 25,000 Chicagoans agree with me.
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