Drezner reports a breathless NYT story about how WalMart has funded right-wing think tanks.
In plain English, the Walton Foundation gave AEI an average of $33,000 a year, PRI $35,000 a year, and a whopping $3,667 a year to Heritage.
Besides the fact that the story reveals no link between the donations and think tank outputs, besides the fact that these groups would be ideologically predisposed to support Wal-Mart anyway (just as EPI would support the union position), it's worth stressing that in the think tank world, these are nothing amounts. These sums of money buy a B.A.-level RA and some cockatil shrimp at a reception. After reading the article, I'm not amazed that Wal-Mart is giving money to these think tanks -- I'm amazed they'e giving so little.
As we all know, WalMart is all about low prices. It's because they do comprehensive supply and demand planning, and they squeeze suppliers to the breaking point. They've already done the math, and have figured out how cheaply these vendors can be locked into the collossal WalMart embrace!
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