Posted on 05/26/2005 6:27:37 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Because of Wal-Mart's inadequate wages and benefits, Wal-Mart employees are eligible for $2.5 billion in Federal assistance, which comes from your tax dollars.
(Excerpt) Read more at wakeupwalmart.com ...
Wise words.
I've been scouring the net and finding a lot of interesting things about Wal Mart. Public opinion is divided as with everything else; I've written four politicians, called the local union (they might call me back, might not) but the lady directed me to an article in the WSJ which I don't know if I can find online or not. She didn't seem to know too much about why our local factories closed.
My little photo essay may have been more on target than I realized as I threw it together.
What I didn't show is that two of those business were clustered, and just across the street is the new, more modern replacement mall with a Home Depot and Starbuck's which we hadn't had before. And the ubiquitous Walgreen's in the prime spot on the corner.
For anyone open-minded enough, you can watch the PBS video online if you have high speed and windows media player (possibly also real player) here:
Watch the full program online - Is Wal*Mart Good for America?
Many have to do that, but it contributes to further breakdown and fragmentation of our already weakened family structure. Not everybody even in better-paying jobs can pay and take time off work to jet back and forth.
Some people love where they live, and if they want to stay, I guess they will have to make the sacrifice.
Or the way it was 60 years ago. Unless we bomb the manufacturing capabilities of the entire world to rubble, a high school drop out is never going to be able to buy a house and a new car every two years while the wife stays home with the 3 kids.
As cool as that may have been for their fathers, it's not going to happen for their kids.
So, you have any ideas to stop this fall you see coming?
ROFL!!!! I'm not laughing at you, my FRiend, I'm just laughing because I used to be that way - many years before I ever heard of Walmart!!!!
Unless I have a specific plan to go shopping for the day, wherever I go they're stuck with me as I am - and it doesn't matter if it's Walmart or a local mom & pop. I've been known to walk into the the local auto parts/supply place, which is also part hardware and appliance store drenched in sweat and semi-covered in mud - and chit chat with the owner. Chatting with the original owner hasn't happened in a while, because he is now the first every Secretary of Agriculture for Virginia (Bob Bloxom)
Except for some of the little local crafty-type shops, I have yet to find a store that doesn't sell stuff made in China.
That's what got me a bit bent out of shape yesterday or the day before with someone going on about Dollar Tree and Dollar General and the dollar stores in general....nearly everything they sell in those places is made in China - including the supposedly "patriotic" red/white/blue stuff. At least those items I purchase in Walmart are made here.
No, "paying above market value for labor" (above the subsistence level) is the MAIN way to PREVENT socialism.
Just to make sure that the point the freemarketeers want to hide is not being missed here. Ricardo - the economist who developed the theory of comparative advantage, he also presented the "iron law of wages," according to which wages tend to stabilize around the subsistence level.
Freetraders hide this point because they want to be in the rank of the owners who will be benefiting from the freemarket.
You've got to be kidding. Did you entertain the other questions I posed? Are you going to start doing your part to "prevent socialism" by buying the most expensive gasoline you can find and giving tips to Wal-Mart cashiers?
I mean, why wait for the govt. to mandate it. Start making everyone equal NOW! I'm guessing you make more than minimum wage, am I right? Go find a minimum wage earner and give them enough of your own money to make their life comfortable. Hell, spread it around to two or three people. Before you start shaking the pom-poms for artificial income equality, try it on for size yourself. If you like it, great, but don't mandate this crap for the rest of us.
If you aren't a "freetrader", whatever that is, and apparently you don't care for socialism, then what? Just what do you call an economic theory where an employer is forced to provide unskilled workers what ever income level will make them comfortable? Do you believe the "poverty line" is a meaningful, objective number?
Yes.
Our nation's founders did that on July 4, 1776.
"WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World."
Better yet - create them yourself!!!!! Oh my, what an amazing concept..........
Oh, my! You must be a whole lot prettier than I am. I would scare everybody out of the place if I went in like that. Either that, or anyone who knows me would start calling friends asking what in the world is wrong with Virginia. Hey, maybe I should do that, give them "Something to Talk About". ROFLOL!
That's correct, people are created equal, it is what they do with their lives that changes that equality. It says nothing about people remaining equal in all aspects of their lives. It says nothing about people remaining economically equal throughout their lives, nor was that thought even meant to be. Freedom allows people to improve their lives, and it is not the government's role to stop that to make everyone remain equal.
As they should be, IMO. The choice of going either way on that should be left to the owner first and then the community.
So, you have any ideas to stop this fall you see coming?
No. It's too large. The world is re-orienting itself in a post Cold War world. However, I do feel we need to invest heavily in education. Something similar to the GI Bill, which was one of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed. I don't think we would have "won" the Cold War without it.
My friend - I'm not really concerned if I am pretty or not........I'm too old too worry about it. My husband is happy with me and that is all that really matters :)
The idea of giving THEM "Something to talk about" got old with me more than 20 years ago, yet it seemed I did do it for another 20 years :).
I like my life now - no one knows me and everyone who knows me knows I clean up real good!!!!
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Absent is anything about that one way or the other. That equality changes is your interpretation by putting something in there that isn't there.
It says nothing about people remaining equal in all aspects of their lives. True. Rather shortsighted in some respects as those were days of slavery and indentured servants and later exploitation in the mills of New England and crowded cities of new immigrants seeking a better life which they could not have foreseen.
It says nothing about people remaining economically equal throughout their lives, nor was that thought even meant to be. Freedom allows people to improve their lives, and it is not the government's role to stop that to make everyone remain equal.
True, and there's the rub. Does that absolve us of our moral obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves and do what is within our power to ensure that they are paid a living wage and have timely access to affordable healthcare, the same we want for ourselves? Or is it better to expect the poor to go to substandard clinics who have waiting lists while the lucky insured go first class?
Does it give us carte blanche to trample on the downtrodden and poor and as long as we have above-subsistence employment and adequate medical coverage for ourselves and loved ones or in the name of profits?
"The Wall Street Journal led its Sept. 30 issue with a well-reported article about how the retailing giant controls health-care costs. "Wal-Mart makes new hourly workers wait six months to sign up for its benefits plan and doesn't cover retirees at all." It won't pay for flu shots, child vaccinations, or [contraception] (don't personally endorse employer-paid contraception), which many other firms cover. By keeping deductibles high, Wal-Mart manages to spend 30 percent less per employee on health care than its competitors. And because so many companies try to benchmark their costs to Wal-Mart, its penny-pinching ways could lead to a spiral of declining benefits for all retail workers."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089532/
I'll try to track down the article, but this thread may be dead by the time I get ahold of it. In any case, I can't post the entire article.
And in the interest of fairness, some retiree's probably don't need health care because they already have it or are on medicare and, for others, spouses provide their coverage, but there are some who fall through the cracks.
If it is true that policies are driving health costs up, it behooves us to take a closer look or we may get universal healthcare shoved down our throats whether we want it or not.
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