Eerie parallel between how the French government treats Amazon's lower prices and the public sentiment of how Wal-Mart should be treated in this country. Thanks for the link.
Let me expand on washpark's point. This is much more than a cute story. It is part of an important battle - that between the consumer and unions or industry interests. The United States is premier in the world in protecting the interests of the consumer. The laws and the culture reward the activities which the consumer chooses and punishes those which have other objectives. The consumer is not nearly as powerful in other countries and in many he is very weak. We still have some anti-consumer activities. There are things like licensing for beauticians which are designed to protect the beauticians from amateur competitors. This sort of thing is cast as a consumer protection but it's not. In spite of the union rhetoric Wal-Mart and Amazon.com are pretty free to kick the *** of higher cost providers. Toyota and Hyundai can come here and pound GM and Ford. Other countries protect their industries, not their consumers.
How Walmart is treated here? You mean bands of consumer/citizens uniting to keep a Walmart out of their community? What's wrong with that? Isn't a majority rule kind of thing? Poor, persecuted Walmart.
