The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--And How It's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman, a review from Powells.com by Gerry Donaghy.
"In The Wal-Mart Effect, Charles Fishman does a commendable job of connecting the various strands (or tentacles if you're not an aficionado of the company) of a corporate ecosystem that affects suppliers, customers, employees, even people who never set foot in a Wal-Mart. The ultimate thesis is that there is a high cost to the low prices that Wal-Mart offers. Some of these costs are high profile, like the sweatshops that created a scandal when it was reported that they were manufacturing Kathie Lee Gifford's signature line of clothing. Some are not so obvious; if you saw what it takes to drive the price of salmon down to below five dollars a pound, you probably wouldn't eat it anymore. Or, how in any county where a Wal-Mart opens, the poverty rate increases (or, more to the point, poverty doesn't decrease as much) as local business are shuttered, unable to compete with this retail leviathan." Read the entire Powells.com review.