In defense of Rollback Smiley

The folks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis took a controversial step in the January edition of their newspaper, fedgazette: They said something nice about Wal-Mart.

The hometown Fed elbowed its way into the shouting match over the notoriously imperial retailer this month when it published the results of an 89-county survey in Minnesota's Ninth District.

"Wal-Mart is widely believed to destroy local firms and jobs and to have a damaging effect on wages," the report noted. "But fedgazette findings suggest the opposite: firm growth, employment and total earnings were somewhat stronger in Wal-Mart counties and, in some cases, even in the retail sector."

Nationally, however, the average Wal-Mart worker makes less than $14,000 a year and requires $2,000 annually in public subsidies for school lunches, health care, and housing. And that's nothing to smile about.