Chronos also singled out WalMart as such as receiving subsidies, which is a case of "agree denotationally but not connotationally". If the government taxes everyone to provide police protection to everyone, you can equally say that "Wal-mart's protection costs are subsidized" and it would be just as vacuous.

To the extent that Chronos was singling Wal-mart out, he is in error for that reason. That was my point.

Furthermore, claiming that other shipping methods are crowded out implies that Wal-Mart's founders would have been helpless about handling that environment, which is wrong. (Again, it's technically correct, but misleading.) It's like the case of "oh, GM is a big company, but only got that way because of government contracts for tanks ..." -- as if GM would have just carried on making worthless tanks for a non-existent market if not for those government purchases!