Today I had the opportunity to see a new WalMart television ad. A lot of small town types appeared to be thanking WalMart for fixing it's town's water problems so they could now have clean drinking water. At the end of the self complimenting ad, was the WalMart name and the statement Good Works!
In my opinion, this kind of ad tells more about what's wrong with America today than about a water clean up story. Here's how the average situation like this really occurs.
A corporation wants into a small town and through it's negotiation offers to fix the town's water situation in return for admittance into the town marketplace. Usually, small town businesses are pretty upset by the competition which often signs their death warrant.
However, the town sees the expensive water clean up and new employment opportunity as enough justification to allow the big chain in and the deal is consummated.
WalMart cleans the water and writes off the expense rather than paying the taxes - the money would have gone to taxes anyway, so what difference does it make to WalMart on an expense basis. None.
Then WalMart does the ad telling America what a good company it has been. Meanwhile, your Nation's tax dollars are missing the funds that paid for the water project. In other words, WalMart is taking credit for what you paid for. This may not actually be WalMart's case, but it often is the corporate way in America.
In my opinion, corporate marketing departments assume you the public are stupid enough to believe the charade. Unfortunately, their marketing people are usually right. You are stupid enough.
The best and most ethical thing to do would be for nobody to get a tax deduction for donating to anything. Theoretically, the Government gets more money and we can lower the income tax. People then have more money to give to whatever cause they wish without the write off and therefore everyone is really giving and not just trading one kind of tax for another.
WalMart would give to the town, not get a write-off and then keep their mouth shut about it.
If you are one of those people that says, "Then nobody would give anything!", then you too would see just how good America really is. Do we have to bribe people to give in America? If we do, then let's not call it charity or giving, because it's not. It's simply taking public money and applying it to your own selfish causes. Corporations are experts at this kind of marketing charade and of course their lobbies work hard to make sure they get the write off.
Michael P. Murphy 1/23/01
Author - The Greens
Watch for the upcoming novel - The Corporation
Send comments to the author: mmurphy@smallbusinessman.com
* errors: my spell checker thinks words like organization are spelled organization, so watch out for "s" and "z" replacements in all my articles. I try to check the checker, but????