Daily News Channel
The harmless film Larry Crowne opens with the harmless Larry getting fired from his job at a Wal-Mart-like big-box store in the San Fernando Valley. Although the story quickly proceeds through familiar hallmarks of recent years — the fruitless job search, the necessary yard sales and looming foreclosure — this is not a recession story
No one better personified the vitality of the American Dream in the second half of the 20th century than Sam Walton. A scrappy, sharp-eyed bantam rooster of a boy, Walton grew up in the Depression dust bowl of Oklahoma and Missouri, where he showed early signs of powerful ambition: Eagle Scout at an improbably young age and quarterback of the Missouri state-champion high school football team.
Doctors are having a hard go of things. Squeezed by falling reimbursements, soaring malpractice insurance and punishing patient loads, they shouldn’t have much to fear from the likes of Wal-Mart.