Fake News and Walonomics

I didn't mean to apply the phrase "fake news" to Uncle Ken's assertion that there were no Walmarts in Chicago.  After reading Old Dog's reply, I figured that it was some kind of joke between the two of them, possibly that Uncle Ken didn't like Walmart so he chose to not recognize their existence.  I also didn't mean to apply the phrase to the You Tube links that Old Dog gave us, since I had not been able to view the videos myself.  I just meant that there is a lot of fake corona news floating around, so one should take anything one hears about corona with the proverbial grain of salt.  Although Trump may have coined the phrase "fake news", or at least introduced it to the contemporary world, I find it to be a catchy phrase that adequately describes the subject.  I know that Uncle Ken doesn't like Trump and, truth be known, I'm not crazy about him myself, but that doesn't mean we need to avoid using a term just because Trump uses it.

I seem to remember reading about a town in the UP, and another one in Texas, that was wrecked by Walmart.  They came in and put everybody else out of business, and then they pulled out, leaving desolation in their wake.  It has occurred to me that might be what our local Walmart is leading up to, but it's only speculation at this point.  There may be a perfectly legitimate reason for their recent behavior, but I don't know what it might be.

We used to have a K-Mart in this town before Walmart came in.  They certainly lost a lot of business to Walmart, but they hung on for a decade or more before they finally closed.  Then there was Glen's Market, now called Family Fare, right next door to Walmart.  Actually, it was the B&C before it was Glen's, and it was the closest thing to a Walmart before the coming of Walmart.  It was one stop shopping for anything you needed, from groceries to clothing to hardware to sporting goods.  After Glen's bought it, they reduced it to just groceries, possibly because they felt they couldn't compete with the new Walmart on all the other stuff.  Then Walmart expanded to include groceries, and the Glen's management advised their employees to start looking for other jobs.  Nevertheless, Glen's is still operating many years later, only now it's called Family Fare like I said.  At some point, a new Walgreens was built right across the street from Family Fare, which was still Glen's at the time.  I didn't think they would make it because Walmart and Glen's sold all of the same things that Walgreens sells, but they're still operating at least a  decade later.  It never ceases to amaze me how a little town like Cheboygan can support all the businesses that it does, since the population of the whole county has not substantially increased since the 1970s.

There is a theory that business begets business.  Northern cities are always looking to attract a big store, which they call an "anchor store" expecting that it will bring in even more businesses.  Remember all the car dealerships that used to be, and likely still are, on Western Avenue?  Then there were the gas stations, sometimes occupying all four corners of an intersection.  We don't see that in Cheboygan, but then we don't have nearly as many intersections as Chicago has.