Dozens of community banks, banking associations and unions have denounced the retailer's move to form Wal-Mart Bank as the public comment period at the FDIC closed on Friday.
All of this simply underscores what we have said before: There is no retail category that is safe from the rapacity of the Walmonster's juggernaut. In NYC this rapaciousness is a direct threat to the city neighborhoods. The retail diversity that enlivens our local communities will have the life sucked out of them by the box store invasion. The local pharmacy, the gas station, the grocer, the jeweler, the clothing store and now the neighborhood bank branch, will experience the same devastation as the Texas shoreline after Hurricane Rita: nothing will be left and the life of the city, along with most of its retail profits, will be cheerily exported back to scenic Bentonville.
