Monday, February 22, 2010

Another Solution to Obesity: More Wal-marts

More on my love affair with Wal-mart (theDailyBeast):

Surprising research suggests Wal-Mart can actually reduce obesity in low-income neighborhoods starved for affordable fresh food. [...]

Wal-Mart significantly lowers prices in the communities where it sets up shop, even for people who never shop at the store. On food alone, Hausman and Leibtag found that Wal-Mart delivers a 25 percent benefit to consumers, which has a disproportionately positive effect on the poor because they spend a larger percentage of their income on food.
Makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense are the people who cling to their Wal-mart hate - it's almost as if they love unions, hate efficiency, poor people and local communities or something.

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