I've never felt comfortable trashing Wal-Mart, since I rarely shop there. With inflation on the rise, people in the lower income brackets might actually need Wal-Mart's low, low prices to keep afloat. Anyways, I found this pro Wal-Mart piece ("In Wal-Mart We Trust") interesting (I made some editorial snips so you get the gist of the article a bit faster):

Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area. His words were not especially exalted, but they ought to be mounted and framed on the wall of every chain retailer:

"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing."

. . .

Wal-Mart trucks pre-loaded with emergency supplies at regional depots were among the first on the scene wherever refugees were being gathered by officialdom. Their main challenge, in many cases, was running a gauntlet of FEMA officials who didn't want to let them through. As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: "If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."

. . .

And it's [Wal-Mart] not alone: As Horwitz points out, other big-box companies such as Home Depot and Lowe's set aside the short-term balance sheet when Katrina hit and acted to save homes and lives, handing out millions of dollars' worth of inventory for free.

. . .

Scholars have taught us that it is really nothing more than a terminological error to label governments "public" and corporations "private" when it is the latter that often have the strongest incentives to respond to social needs. A company that alienates a community will soon be forced to retreat from it, but the government is always there. Companies must, to survive, create economic value one way or another; government employees can increase their budgets and their personal power by destroying or wasting wealth, and most may do little else.

Something to chew on, while our government lumbers larger in size (something I don't see changing regardless of how you elect; Hillary seems like the best bet if you want a shot at reducing the government size).