> We know that from observing evidence such as how much the government pays out in welfare to Wal-Mart employees.

That's a weird metric. If tomorrow Wal-Mart laid off all employees and replaced them with robots, they would surely be worse off, but by your metric Wal-Mart would look less evil?

> Customers continue shopping there because human beings are typically incapable of accepting a short-term loss (higher price) for a long-term gain (product lasts more than three uses).

Groceries typically only last one use.