... Wal-Mart workers do make a lot less money than Wal-Mart's owners. And? What's your point John? This is true for lots of American companies that have stockholders.
Posted on 11/15/2005 9:37:23 PM PST by goldstategop
Is Wal-Mart a problem?
The Food and Commercial Workers Union hired Paul Blank, who was political director for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, to lead a campaign to convince people not to shop at Wal-Mart until Wal-Mart pays workers more. "The average associate at Wal-Mart makes $8.23 an hour," Blank told me. "That's not a job that can support a family."
Wal-Mart said its average pay is higher than that, but Wal-Mart workers do make a lot less money than Wal-Mart's owners.
"They have taken the values, the morals, the ethics, fairness that are the fabric of our society and put them aside and . . . put their profits before their people," said Blank.
That's foolish economics, and not very good morality. He is as wrong as the tycoon Michael Douglas played in the movie "Wall Street," who said: "It's a zero-sum game. Somebody wins. Somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred."
That's a myth. Businesses create wealth.
Take the simplest example. I buy a quart of milk. I hand the storekeeper money; she gives me the milk. We both benefit, because she wanted the money more than the milk, and I wanted the milk more than the money. This is why often both of us say "thank you." Because it's voluntary, business is win/win. A transaction won't happen unless both parties benefit. Each party ends up better off than he was before. And when you have millions of successful transactions, you end up very well off -- like the owners of Wal-Mart.
Their becoming rich doesn't mean there's less for the rest of us. Sam Walton's innovations created thousands of new jobs and allowed millions of Americans to save money.
In earlier eras, John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt were depicted as evil. But the condemnation rarely came from consumers. It was competing businessmen who complained. And newspapers lapped it up, calling them "robber barons."
Vanderbilt got rich by making travel and shipping cheaper. Lots of people liked that.
No one was forced to buy the oil on which Rockefeller got rich. He had to persuade people by offering it to them for less. He offered it so cheaply that poorer people, who used to go to bed when it got dark, could now afford fuel for their lanterns.
These are "robber barons"?
"You could not find a more inaccurate term for these men than 'robber barons,'" said philosopher David Kelley. "They weren't barons. All of them started penniless. And they weren't robbers, because they didn't take it from anyone else."
Wal-Mart's critics act as if economic competition were a "zero-sum game" -- if one person gets richer, someone else must be getting poorer. If Wal-Mart's owners profit, we lose. But the reality is exactly what our ordinary language tells us: We make money. We produce wealth.
Wal-Mart created wealth. It started with just one discount store. Then, its owner, Sam Walton, invented new ways to streamline the supply chain, so he was able to sell things for less and still make a profit. By keeping prices low, Wal-Mart effectively gives everyone who shops there a raise, its own employees included.
Not all Wal-Mart workers support families. Some are retired. Others are part-timers, students or people looking for a second income.
"None of them was drafted. None of them was forced to work at Wal-Mart," said Brink Lindsey, a senior scholar at the Cato Institute. "That means that if they're working there, presumably, that was the best job they could get."
Before Sha-ron Reese was hired at Wal-Mart she was on welfare. She'd lost custody of her kids and was homeless, living in her car. California store manager W.C. Morrison took a risk and hired her. "She had no references," he told us. "She had no work experience."
In her own words, she was "raw." But Morrison took a chance on her. That changed her life.
Today, Reese has two people working for her. She's got her own apartment. She's regained custody of two of her kids.
And she's a Wal-Mart customer. "Everything, just about, that's in my house," she said, "Wal-Mart sells."
Libertarian --- Free Market ping
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Mutually beneficial voluntary transactions.
Attention Wal-Mart bashers....attention Wal-Mart bashers...
You can usually bet when the RATS are focusing hate on someone or some group , that the object of their daily 15 minutes of hate is actually one of the good guys.
Thanks to the rats this guy will be shopping there. Never shopped there before, but if the rats and the unions want to "take them on" I'll boost their profit margin, so long as they don't "take out the Christmas" message. Merry Christmas everyone.
Great piece. ping.
More info and similar commentary on wal-mart:
'Wal-Mart, Aiding America's Poor'
http://www.neoperspectives.com/wal-mart.htm
Also, this Ayn Rand quote goes along with this theme of 'voluntary' exchanges:
I am rich and proud of every penny I own. I made my money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with — the voluntary consent of those who employed me when I started, the voluntary consent of those who work for me now, the voluntary consent of those who buy my product. I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it and do it well. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people — the fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbours and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability — I refuse to apologize for my success — I refuse to apologize for my money.
- Ayn Rand
UFCW was my union when I worked for Rite-Aid. They pay $6 an hour to start. Why are they only picking on Wal-Mart? I worked in the Pharmacy and made more but UFCW never fought for any wages. They have been working without a contract now for over a year and haven't gotten any raises. I'm glad I'm out of there and out of that union.
Does this have anything to do with this?http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/white_trash_christmas_2004
Ask yourself - would we have won the cold war had big box stores been selling billions of dollars of 'Made in Russia' products in the 1970s?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
| Find: "Popular understanding of economics is at least two centuries behind economists' understanding of the economy." HERE And: "Wealth is not a fixed quantity and one person's success does not come at the expense of others ... Economists have understood [that] for over two centuries, but moralists have not caught up." HERE "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men together in a society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." |
"Wealth, when you get right down to it, is not the cause of poverty." -- Mitchell B. Pearlstein, paraphrasing George Gilder"Ultimately it is only wealth that can reduce poverty." -- Thomas Sowell
"If we want the whole world to be rich, we need to start loving wealth. In the difference between poverty and plenty, the problem is the poverty and not the difference. Wealth is good. ... wealth is not a world-wide round-robin of purse snatching, and ... the thing that makes you rich doesn't make me poor. ... Without Productivity, there wouldn't be any economics, or any economic thinking, good or bad, or any pizza, or anything else. We would sit around and stare at rocks, and maybe later have some for dinner. ... Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is expandable. In fact, productivity is fabulously expandable."-- P.J. O'Rourke in Eat the Rich
|
"of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to poor. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current production is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of increasing production." --Robert Lucas |
Another claim in the case against Wal-Mart is that its mere existence in a town completely destroys all the small business (liberals refer to them as "the poor old Ma' and Pa's shop" or whatever). They say once Wal-Mart comes in, Ma and Pa are out of commission, and no more small businesses exist in the town.
Yet I live in a fairly small town, and I can say that we have a Wal-Mart Supercenter, as well as a downtown area jam packed with countless flourishing small businesses.
And who said it was supposed to? Did Mr. Blank ever think that some moron that can only earn $8.23 an hour shouldn't have a family to support? There are a gazillion jobs that don't pay what it takes to support a family. So what?
No one told those idiots to goof off in high school, get pregnant or get someone pregnant and not have an abortion (they are legal you know - note to all the left wing whiners), not learn a skill, not bother to find out how to earn more, etc.
Oh, I forgot. Somewhere in the Constitution these people read that every American has a right to a job that pays more than they are worth so they can earn a "living wage" regardless of how they live. Do drugs? Drink too much? Stupid? No problem! You should have a right to force someone else that worked harder than you in life to give you a job with all kinds of benefits because that's the "American way"! Give me a break.
Well said .
A month or two ago we had a post on a Wal-Mart that was being picketed -- I think it was in Colorado. It was hot as hell and the pickets, who were kids the union hired for minimum (!) wage and no benefits, were baking in the sun.
Meanwhile, the "exploited" workers in Wal-Mart were getting more money, and benefits, to work inside where it was air-conditioned.
That kind of tells us where the US labour movement's head is at, and why it hasn't been able to organise anyone but the Jobsworths of government for ages.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
... Wal-Mart workers do make a lot less money than Wal-Mart's owners. And? What's your point John? This is true for lots of American companies that have stockholders.
Where was it ever mandated that a person who has a job must make enough to support an entire family?
Libs bitching about Wal-Mart is proof that they're commies in disguise. The funny thing is, once the revolution happens the first ones to get purged are the intellectuals so they promote their own demise. Morons.
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