I've never read Fast Company; I think I assumed it was one of those magazines that had died in the dot-com bust. I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as a place to look for an article on some of the damage Wal-Mart does to this country. But there it is.

Wal-Mart is the biggest company, of any kind, in the world; among retailers, it's bigger than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. If you sell to Wal-Mart, you cut costs, and you keep them cut. You'll sell a product on which you don't make money, if it makes money for Wal-Mart -- and you'll keep selling that product, possibly undermining sales of more profitable products you make, otherwise Wal-Mart won't take any of your product line. Soon, maybe, your profits will disappear. Maybe you'll close down U.S. factories and move manufacturing to China.

It's ugly. Read the article.