Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. {{nyse|WMT}}, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is the largest retailer and the largest company in the world based on revenue. For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2005, Wal-Mart reported net income of US $10.3 billion on US $285 billion of sales revenue (3.6% profit margin). If Wal-Mart were its own economy, it would rank 33rd in the world, with a GDP between those of Ukraine and Colombia. It is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. It holds an 8.9 percent retail store market share— $8.90 out of every $100 spent in U.S. retail stores is spent at Wal-Mart.

References and external links

Wal-Mart corporate web sites

• {{fnb|1}} Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Corporate Site
• {{fnb|2}} Wal-Mart Foundation
• {{fnb|3}} Wal-Mart Public Relations site
• {{fnb|6}} Wal-Mart public relations web page, section regarding Benefits (retreived May 25, 2005)

Articles & reports

• Reclaim Democracy huge collection of articles, studies and websites on Wal-Mart. The articles largely are critical of Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart supporters also are represented and the stories cover much of the best reporting and studies from multiple perspectives.
• Wal-Mart and RFID: A Case Study Wal-Mart's future plans to further reduce costs
• UC Berkeley report on the community impact of Wal-Mart's lower wages(pdf)
• Wal-Mart's China inventory to hit US$18b this year China Daily, November 29, 2004.
• BBC Three, Outrageous Fortunes, aired on 26 April 2004, about the workings of Wal-Mart.
• "Inside the Leviathan" by Simon Head for The New York Review of Books, December 16, 2004
• Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
• "The Wal-Mart You Don't Know", Fast Company, Issue 77, December 2003, Page 68
• "A distorted lens on Wal-Mart", Bruce Bartlett, Washington Times, November 22, 2004
• "Job Creation or Destruction? Labor-Market Effects of Wal-Mart Expansion", Emek Basker, Dept. of Economics, University of Missouri, 2002.
• Study of Peachcare
• Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, "Wal-Mart: High Prices for American Workers" (PDF file, February 16, 2004)
• {{fnb|7}}The World According to Sam. Gourmet. June, 2005

Documentaries

• Store Wars is a PBS special taking a close look at one community's battle over Wal-Mart.
• Frontline: Is Walmart Good for America? (PBS Frontline documentary on the impact of Walmart in the U.S. and China)
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is a documentary to be released in November 2005 by Robert Greenwald, the creator of Outfoxed.
• The Age of Wal-Mart was a 2004 documentary produced by CNBC. Featuring interviews with both Wal-Mart top brass and critics, it won a Pulitzer Prize for television excellence.

Books about Wal-Mart

• The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Wal-Mart's Everyday Low Prices Is Hurting America, by Anthony Bianco (2006)-ISBN 0385513569
• Data Warehousing: Using the Wal-Mart Model, by Paul Westerman (2000)-ISBN 155860684X
• How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America and the World: And What You Can Do about It (3rd edition), by Bill Quinn (2005)-ISBN 1580086683
• In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart, the World's Most Powerful Retailer, by Bob Ortega (1998)-ISBN 0812963776
• Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart, by Liza Featherstone (2004)-ISBN 0465023169
• Wal-Mart: A Field Guide to America's Largest Company and the World's Largest Employer, by Nelson Lichtenstein (2006)-ISBN 1595580212
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, by Disinformation Company (2005)-ISBN 1932857249
• The Wal-Mart Decade: How a New Generation of Leaders Turned Sam Walton's Legacy into the World's #1 Company, by Robert Slater (2003)-ISBN 1591840066
• The Wal-Mart Triumph: Inside the World's #1 Company, by Robert Slater (2004)-ISBN 1591840430
• The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company, by Don Soderquist (2005)-ISBN 0785261192
• What I Learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World, by Michael Bergdahl (2004)-ISBN 0471679984

Other Books and References

• Barbara Ehrenreich, ' (2001, ISBN 0805063889)
• Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2002 ISBN 0745318460)
• David Porter and Chester L. Mirsky, ' (2003 ISBN155369855X)
• {{note|doc_film}}A documentary film, Protocols of Zion (2005), connects the original document to a resurgence of anti-Semitism following the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.

Critics

• Sprawl Busters, site Al Norman, an activist who helps local "site fights" against big box stores
• Index of numerous studies on Wal-Mart's economic and social impacts from The American Independent Business Alliance.
• Wake-Up Wal-Mart website by the United Food and Commercial Workers
• Wal-Mart Watchlabor union-funded website
• Wal-Mart Wiki Though not strictly critical, this wiki is definitely weighted against Wal-Mart in its current state.
• Wal-Mart Free NYC A group fighting to keep New York City Wal-Mart free.
• The New Rules Project(critiques big box development, not limited to Wal-Mart)
• Walmart Alliance for Reform Now
• i-Walmart.com Not strictly critical, yet contains critic information

Blogs

• AlwaysLowPrices.net a blog run by Kevin Brancato
• Wal-Mart Space a blog run by Bobby Gerry which explores Wal-Mart's financial statements

Data

• Yahoo! - Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Company Profile
• WMT: Profile for WAL-MART STORES - Yahoo! Finance
• 2004-04-09 10-K