Dollar General is one of the stocks a lot of the gloom'n'doom guys recommend you buy. They are, after all, ruthless. Whereas the Dollar General profiled in the article was looking for a $68k tax abatement, Walmarts typically ask for millions. Don't have millions? Have a Dollar General. Their business model isn't dissimilar to those Halloween stores you see popping up in the abandoned whatever-it-is-that-nobody-went-to-anymore. The leases they sign are short-term. They pay much less than the going rate but they do their own TI (if you force them). Five percent of their sales are food stamps. They're a parasitic organization. blackbootz told me to read Matthew Desmond's Evicted. It's fuckin' grim. Throughout, however, it makes the point that slums are lucrative if you're gangsta enough to adopt "bitch better have my money" as your personal mantra. Dollar General will let you wash those dirty dolla bills through your 401(k).