I always wonder where the complaints of low-pay at Wal-Mart come from. Maybe there's places in the nation where they don't pay their employees well, but here in North Texas a Wal-Mart employee will make almost
double what the same employee makes at a grocery store, and a good 25-50% more than the same employee would make at a department store and they'll certainly be offered far better benefits. I won't say that holds true everywhere, but it does here.
I can't say I've heard too much ruckus about McDonald's moving into towns, shutting down all the Mom-and-Pop greasy spoon cafes, and paying their employees minimum wage and providing no benefits whatsoever.
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Wal Mart has a history of coming into a town, demanding tax abatements, free utility extensions, etc.
So does every other freaking company in the world. This practice was around long before they came around and will be around long after they're gone. When Boeing wanted a new HQ and couldn't decide between Dallas and Chicago, what was the deciding factor? Tax breaks. You just hear about it more now because Wal-Mart is so big.
Counties don't have to offer them breaks if they don't want to. Not giving them is probably not a smart thing to do, but they don't have to. Denton Couty here in Texas did that -- Wal-Mart built a SuperCenter right across the county line. Only then did Denton allow them to build inside the County so they could get some tax money. Because of various cities and counties doing this I can now get to 3 Wal-Mart SuperCenters and 2 Super Targets within 5 minutes.
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If the city management refuses, Wal Mart goes on a binge of deceit, informing citizens that the city they live in is trying to block its citizens from shopping at Wal Mart.
Can't say I see how that is "deceit". If the city management is refusing Wal-Mart is well within their rights to campaign the community to raise support. It's not the job of the city management to do what it think is "right" but rather do the will of the people, else they won't be re-elected. If the people want a Wal-Mart 2 miles away rather than 20 miles away then that's what they demand.
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Wal Mart is going to destroy this country.
People in general are doing a good enough job of that without any help from Wal-Mart -- or any corporation for that matter. 
