[Bob Seger]

K-Mart is SOOO expensive. However, with that said, the K-Mart in Russell Springs does VERY well. I don't get it. Columbia (at most 20 minute drive) just opened a Wall-Mart SuperCenter. I worry a little that SuperCenters are popping up everywhere while Sears, KMart, and some Lowes are closing everywhere.

I read a Yahoo! story a couple of years ago that told that the CFO of WalMart came right out and said that it was going for the throat of these stores like KMart, etc... because they wanted to drive out competition so they could raise prices. I have never heard a CEO/CFO publicly say something like that, but this one did.

Obviously that bothers me a little bit but at the same time, we are in a tough economy. While I would like to spend $50-$70 more to buy the same things at KMart to keep prices eventually lower (doesn't make sense to say it, but it made sense in my head), it is simply ignorant economics for someone in my tax-bracket/basement.

I dont know that WalMart will emphasize SuperCenters for right now. What you will see is a smaller concept of the SuperCenter which WalMart calls Neighborhood Markets. Dollar General has been the one store that has successfully attacked and taken market share away from WalMart. The more rural the store, the more successful the Dollar General store has been. The new Neighborhood Market concept is a scaled down version of the SuperCenter that will carry a reduced number of items that will go directly back at the Dollar General stores. I think WalMart expantion will be with this type of store in the smaller rural markets where the DG's are thriving. KMart on the other hand just simply does not have the financial resources to use the same pricing tactics as WalMart to run someone else out of business. Trust me when the KMart (or whatever the competitor it may be) is gone you will then see current KMart pricing in WalMart stores. WalMarts are only cheap where they have to be.


While it may be a surprise that a CEO, CFO or whomever it may be of WalMart may come out publicly with a statement like you read, it has always been in reality the true directiveness of WalMart to use whatever preditory means it takes to eliminate competition, and then to raise prices once that objective has been completed. WalMart in reality is the true Evil Giant of this country.