This company has succeed initially in the United States because their initial market was rural. They have not done so well in the big city because people seem to be better educated so hence they reject a retailer with predatory practices, low wages and inferior products. So it’s not surprising to me the European and Asia markets are turning away from this american style company with little regard for anything except the bottom line.

Europeans, and likely the Japanese, are much less concerned with quantity, and much more concerned with quality—particularly as it relates to the useful life of an item.  They are willing to pay more up front for an item if they have some assurance that it will last a long time.

That sort of flies in the face of WalMart’s marketing strategy of flinging a lot of crap onto the shelves and hoping Americans buy a lot of it because it’s cheap. And that’s a strategy that’s apparently not working elsewhere.

Europeans visiting this country for the first time invariably remark on what an amazing variety of goods and brands there are on the shelves of supermarkets and box stores, but then lament that, “it’s all junk.”

The day that U.S. consumers figure that out, too, is the day that the U.S. will start to improve its current account balance.

Maybe these are countries that care more about people than profits? And realize that if profits don’t benefit people, then what good are they?

This cult in the US of amassing wealth/property as sign of God’s (or evolution’s) favor is so absurd it’s pitiful. It’s not that wealth/property is not important, but once it becomes the end of human activity and not the means whereby we can achieve our creative potential ... then we are have gone bonkers.

All great religions teach us this ... it seems to be a lesson this so-called “Christian” nation has a hard time learning.