Kerby Anderson

Walmart has introduced digital shelf labels into many of their stores and plans to expand that technology to all its locations. They are doing this for ease and efficiency, but I also think it says something about our future economy.

The pilot program began at its Grapevine, Texas supercenter. By the end of this year 2,300 locations will have this technology. Without paper labels, Walmart store associates will have time to perform other functions rather than running up and down the aisles swapping out paper tags by hand. This will also allow the store to keep shelf prices more accurate and manage price changes.

It’s that second point that relates back to my commentary yesterday. The US government is insolvent. Every year the government expenses exceed federal revenue. The only way to cover the difference is to print more money.

Larry Lepard’s book, The Big Print, provides an overview of economic history and examines the issues stemming from loose monetary policies and federal intervention. He takes you on a guided tour of the history of money, classical economics, Keynesian economics, and the origin of the Federal Reserve. He predicts that we are about to unleash the Big Print in order to pay for government obligations.

We are already printing additional dollars every year. But that printing will soon increase. When it does, the Big Print will give us significant price inflation. Prices will be changing on a regular basis. The solution will be digital shelf labels so that grocery store employees won’t have to spend all their time running up and down the aisles changing prices every day.

I think Walmart sees what is coming and is getting ready for daily price changes in their stores.