If you lined up 1,000 economists, politicians and activists and asked them whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) success during the current economic downturn was good for the country, you would get 1,000 different answers. The issue surrounding the world's largest retailer are that murky.

Wal-Mart's business model is about as basic as it gets -- -buy low and sell high (but still lower than many of its competitors). Founder Sam Walton was famous for demanding the "Wal-Mart discount" from suppliers eager to do business with the retailing behmoth. Their profit margins were not his problem. After flirting briefly and disastrously with attracting wealthier consumers, Chief Executive H. Lee Scott decided to get back to what the company knows best -- selling stuff cheaper than anyone else. That strategy has paid off.

The company is the only member of the Dow Jones industrial average whose shares have risen this year, according to Bloomberg News. The results it reported today would be the envy of most companies struggling in the faltering economy. Net income rose 9.8% to $3.14 billion, or 80 cents per share. Revenue soared 7.5% to $97.6 billion. The results handily beat Wall Street expectations.

One of Sam Walton's relatives is joining the Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) board, so there is, of course, speculation that he may one day get the top job. Of course, he probably does not have one iota of qualification to do anything at the world's largest retailer.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Gregory B. Penner, who was nominated to the board in April, is the 38-year-old son-in-law of Wal-Mart Chairman S. Robson Walton, himself a son of company founder Sam Walton." That is not entirely true. He was the CFO of the company's Japan operation which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Penner's parents are sex therapists. An excellent background for running a massive chain of big stores.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

With the recent death of Helen Walton, the family announced that a "significant portion" of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stock in her estate would go to charity and be sold over a period of several years. Ms. Walton owned about 8.1% of the company's shares and their divestiture could cause a significant increase in the company's float -- the number of freely trading shares.

According to a statement released by Wal-Mart on behalf of the family, "While Helen Walton's disposition of her Wal-Mart interest will not require sales of a substantial number of Wal-Mart shares for the next several years, it is expected that Wal-Mart shares will be disposed of over time to fund charitable programs."

Members of the Walton family currently control about 40% of the company's stock, effectively limiting the control of outside investors in the management of the company. However, unlike the situation at the New York Times, the company has not been run in a way that has drawn the scrutiny of its major investors.

But here's my question: Over the years as the Walton family's share of the company declines with deaths and sales, could Wal-Mart's stagnant share price cause investors to seek strategic alternatives? Could Wal-Mart become the largest private equity buyout in history? Just a thought.

According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Wal-Mart Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) latest innovation is to treat its employees just the same as its inventory. For too long, many of Wal-Mart's employees have had regular work schedules. Wal-Mart excels at stocking each store with the items that customers want to buy and shunning the rest; and it's finally dawned on management that Wal-Mart can apply this same just-in-time approach to putting employees in its stores.

Using a computer system similiar to one from Kronos, Inc. (NASDAQ: KRON), Wal-Mart will be able to schedule employees to maintain a constant ratio of employees to customers. (KRON's system tracks individual store sales, transactions, units sold, and customer traffic in 15-minute increments over seven weeks, and compares data to the prior year's, before scheduling workers.) Workers will need to be on call so they can arrive in the store in case they're needed. And more importantly for Wal-Mart's profits, workers who previously had regular shifts will have variable ones instead -- this should reduce Wal-Mart's labor costs.

I'm not a big Wal-Mart shopper but every time I've been in one of their stores, I've found the employees to be surly and unhelpful. And I would imagine that this new system will make Wal-Mart employees even more angry -- an emotion they'll share with customers. As I noted in Value Leadership, Sam Walton believed that if you treat employees well, they'll do the same for customers.

Treating Wal-Mart employees like just-in-time inventory must be making Walton turn over in his grave.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, and a Professor of Management at Babson College. He has no financial interest in Kronos or Wal-Mart.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. If you wouldn't mind seeing the Waltons lose all their money, be sure to cast your vote.

The patriarch of the Walton family, the wealthiest family in the world, is Sam Walton, founder of retail giants Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Sam's Club. Forbes called him the richest man in the world from 1985 to 1988, and Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people of the twentieth century. Papa Walton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 from President George H.W. Bush. When Sam died in April of 1992, his eldest son, Rob, succeeded him as chairman of the board. Sam's widow and other children, John, Jim, and Alice, all own shares in the company, and members of the family held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005. It has been suggested that if Sam were still alive today, his wealth would be nearly double that of Bill Gates, fellow nominee in this category.

John Walton, a Green Beret, saw action in the Vietnam War and was awarded the Silver Star. He sat on the Wal-Mart board until he died in a plane crash in 2005, at which time he was worth an estimated $18 billion, tied with his brother Jim as the eleventh richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Helen Walton, Sam's widow, and her daughter Alice each have an estimated net worth of around $18 billion. Jim Walton's estimated net worth is around $15 billion. The daughters of Sam's partner and brother, Bud Walton, also hold shares in the company and are billionaires as well.