Posted on 09/05/2018 12:03:49 PM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
I have. I even used to work for AT&T. I’m just not that old. I was a kid when the Bells were broken up. I only know about it from history. I can’t think of another breakup in my lifetime.
If Amazon acquires another major company in a different field (like it did with Whole Foods) and in the same time Target goes out of business, I don’t know if Walmart is enough to keep this from happening. Maybe it is. Maybe they both get broken up.
Not sure what Sanders is up to, but there is truth to this.
In our area, everyone talks about what great workers the East African immigrants are. We can’t run our XXXX factory, restaurant or business without them, they all say.
Meanwhile, these immigrants and their families are receiving food stamps, welfare, medicaid, tutoring, tax assistance, etc. etc...
Gonna make Jeff’s hair fall out....
I didn’t say it was the best way to deal with the issue, but Amazon and Walmart abused the system to gut mom-and-pop businesses and main street.
I know for a fact Amazon is using illegal aliens for workers.
labor simply gets priced appropriately. In economic terms, it will get priced up to the marginal productivity of their labor. Welfare, mass immigration, medicaid, etc... all screw up this calculation. Maybe an apple in the supermarket should cost more than it does, while an automobile should cost less - I don't know, nor do our central planners.
Who says it’s their responsibility?
If we, as conservatives, truly believe in self responsibility, and do not believe that the government should not be providing these benefits using taxpayer provided taxes, then why is it ok to believe that it should be a requirement that the Employer provides these benefits?
Knowingly? Or because they used fake ID? If the former, then they should be made to pay.
Or let’s imagine this:
Amazon - I have a job available - but instead of paying $10 per hour with no benefits and having to pay $10 per hour in taxes I might as well offer the job for $20 per hour with no benefits so I get more applicants.
Poorly educated, ESL, minority applicant - I would have taken the job for $10, but I’ll gladly accept $20!
Well educated, native English speaking, white applicant - I would never consider this job for $10, but at $20, I’m interested.
So guess who gets the job now, thanks to Bernie and other leftists who constantly take away the one advantage that those with the least other advantages have - the willingness AND the ability to work for lower rates of pay.
And therein lies the problem - and the solution. Let the market seek its own level.
“Workers with full-time jobs should make a living wage.”
We can’t all live in on the French Rivera or in Beverly Hills or Westchester County. Or San Francisco or Seattle. Or in DC or metropolitan Boston.
Land has a scarcity value. It also has a commuting time value.
In the DC area it is easy to spend about 45 minutes commuting each way.
Imagine a well-educated person who makes $100,000/year in DC.
That 45 minutes is worth $37.50 one-way or $75 each work day.
To reduce the time wasted in commuting, that well-educated person might be willing to pay a $75/day housing cost premium. And he/she might be married to a like-minded person. Together they might be willing to pay $150/day not to commute long distance.
Close-in properties become very expensive.
That $150/day in close-in value is more than even a person earning $15/hour or $120/day can pay.
Single people eventually will get priced out of top metropolitan areas.
Even two people earning $15/hour will struggle.
As long as two(married couple) or three people (immigrant family) are willing to share a place to live, single people will get forced out of top areas, unless they have inherited wealth such as a paid-up house.
A place to live in a major league, name brand area is like a large diamond, only attainable by a small percentage of the population.
Trying to boost wages will only make it even more attractive to families with numerous working age people to come to the USA, legally, or illegally.
The future of top cities of the USA is a small elite and large numbers of large immigrant families.
A family of five working age Mexicans each making $12/hour can pay a large percentage of 5*$24,000/year ($120,000/year) in housing costs.
For this numerous working member family, to pay $3,400/month rent in San Francisco to earn $120,000/year is an incredibly good deal, well worth trying to illegally enter the USA.
That $12/hour is not only a living wage for the adults of that Mexican family, it is a great wage.
All Amazon & Walmart workers who can their hands und feets will be soon replaced by der robots, which do not require a health plan but use a factory tech support system for maintenance.
All workers in Amazon and Walmart should immediately be govt re-trained for robot support, maintenance and die troubleshootingrobotemgrippersnapperweltanschauing.
- Even a 3 grader in Stuttgart can figure this one out.
With a full-time $7.25/hour job, it would be impossible for a single 59-year white male like me to get any form of public assistance other than an Obamaphone or discounted bus pass here in Florida.
Public assistance is given to children, and their parent(s).
“Amazon is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a monopoly in my life time.”
Amazon is not even close to a monopoly.
It has plenty of retail competition.
I’ve bought I think only two things off Amazon, an electric toothbrush and a used book.
“Food stamps”
I think the max is about $194/month for one person.
They take 30% off for each dollar one earns, so at about $600/month SNAP “food stamp” benefits vanish for one person.
I think you’d likely be in the minority. I think most of what I buy online is from Amazon. If I can’t get it locally, Amazon is the first place I look.
Bull crap.
They do not have enough cash to make it all automated.
They would do it now if they could, they can’t. Their profit margins were so thin to non-existent for years and if Bezos said no profits for 3 years but when we are done we’ll have cut our work force in half the markets would reward him richly.
Will a company like Amazon be automated for the most part? 20-40 years from now very likely. Could they do it now? No way. Not without fleet ready self -driving vehicles, automated picking and fulfillment centers and certainly not from a customer service and retail development standpoint.
I may not be socialist in the respects that Bernie is associated with but it is not a free market or capitalism when large profitable companies are taking direct advantage of government programs like Medicare, SNAP, WIC and who knows what else to contribute to an employees overall survival abilities.
Spare me the entry level argument, we’re not talking about burger flipping jobs for teenagers.
If you’ve never seen the size and scope of an Amazon fulfillment center multiply the biggest Wal Mart Supercenter you’ve been in by 10 and the employees accordingly. Then know they’re all hourly, they aren’t bonus or profit sharing eligible, they don’t receive health care, aren’t unionized and aren’t paid for waiting in line 2+ hours a week waiting to be scanned that they’re not shoplifting.
Amazon purposely builds these places with depressed wages, double digit unemployment and rural areas for the express purposes of running a de facto company town.
If they could get away with it they are evil enough that they would pay these workers in script..
They have a clear responsibility not to knowingly abuse welfare in a way it’s not intended. Why is it special when Corporations abuse welfare programs but when individuals do it it’s scandalous?
The taxpayer isn’t supposed to make sure their quarterly projections look rosy. Until entitlements are abolished, I don’t want to have corporations dump their employees onto the dole because they’re too greedy to care and we’re the ones paying for it.
It would be funny if Donald decided to support Bernie’s bill.
Bernie is a wrong about most things. On this he is dead on correct. Why should taxpayers subsidize his employees? Point well taken.
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