Wal-Mart giveth, and Wal-Mart taketh away

Wal-Mart is selling more and more incredibly cheap generic drugs, now including $9 a pop for generic tri-cyclic birth control pills. Their prices are cheaper than the prices I got through my old health insurance. (Haven't filled anything up on the new insurance yet.) At teh same time, they take a huge beating for the wages they pay their workers, and the alleged stinginess of their health care plans. But these two things are flip sides of the same coin: they can afford to provide cheap drugs in part because they have a flexible and inexpensive labor force.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2007/09/wal-mart-giveth-and-wal-mart-taketh-away/2017/