A bad week for Wal-mart

God I hate Wal-mart. So the best news of the week was all the bad news for the black death of retailing.
First: Because their customer base is the one really suffering under the Bush economy:

NEW YORK - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., struggling with higher gasoline prices and slippage in its leadership in the retail industry, reported lower-than-expected first-quarter earnings Thursday and offered a disappointing profit outlook.

Then the Bush administration added to their woes:

The Bush administration is re-imposing quotas on three categories of clothing imports from China, responding to complaints from domestic producers that a surge of Chinese imports was threatening thousands of U.S. jobs.


The administration action will impose limits on the amount of cotton trousers, cotton knit shirts and underwear that China can ship to this country. American retailers [aka Wal-mart] say that will drive up prices for U.S. consumers.

And finally Bill in DC sends us this little gem.
Wal-Mart To Apologize For Ad in Newspaper

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.

The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.

At least there was some good news last week.