A Stitch in Haste

Apparently there is quite a fierce price war going on among U.K. supermarkets --

The battle began when Asda promised cuts from this weekend of £250m to some 10,000 items spanning food and general merchandise.

Tesco then announced price reductions worth £270m on more than 3,000 products, from next week.

Asda, incidentally, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart.

Weird -- in the U.K. when Wal-Mart cuts prices it's praised. When it does so in the U.S., it's damned. Especially by those who claim to champion the working poor. Go figure.

On the other hand:

[Tesco] Commercial director Richard Brasher said: "We want to make sure that our customers don't start their summer worrying about how to balance the budget and cutting the cost of their weekly shop is the best way we can help."

Now that's damnable. Companies are, and ought to be, out to make a buck, not to worry about customers' budgets or to pretend that they "care." To best way to "care" about customers is to compete, fiercely. Perhaps by keeping prices as low as possible, perhaps by offering a wider variety, perhaps by offering value-added services.

In any case, leave the warm fuzzy "it takes a village" platitudes out of it.