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08/19/2005 08:04:21 PM · #26 |
We've finally made it to a free labor market in the USA. No more overpaying workers because they are in a union and can extort employers and ultimately drive up the cost of goods and services (not to mention killing quality and ingenuity).
Now the labor economy is moving to where it should be - rewarding skills, education, hard work, initiative, responsibility, dilligence, etc. Those that don't want to work at Wal Mart are free to seek other employment. Everywhere there is choice, the consumer has voted against unions with their wallet. The only union strong holds left are now in government where there is no consumer choice |
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08/19/2005 08:16:37 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by photodude:
We've finally made it to a free labor market in the USA. No more overpaying workers because they are in a union and can extort employers and ultimately drive up the cost of goods and services (not to mention killing quality and ingenuity).
Now the labor economy is moving to where it should be - rewarding skills, education, hard work, initiative, responsibility, dilligence, etc. Those that don't want to work at Wal Mart are free to seek other employment. Everywhere there is choice, the consumer has voted against unions with their wallet. The only union strong holds left are now in government where there is no consumer choice |
well-put.
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08/19/2005 10:37:50 PM · #28 |
The only workers getting rewarded these days are in India and china and working in sweatshop like conditions too. There are very few jobs in the USA, they're being moved overseas where companies don't have to pay salarys comensurate with a person's education/training/experience and the workers are abused and have very little choice. There are no laws in these countries against pollution and these countries take advantage of this. This is called corporate globalization, where companies rule over nation states. The only thing that consumers in the US have voted for is cheaper prices because the cost of living has become intolerable.
Originally posted by photodude:
Now the labor economy is moving to where it should be - rewarding skills, education, hard work, initiative, responsibility, dilligence, etc. Those that don't want to work at Wal Mart are free to seek other employment. Everywhere there is choice, the consumer has voted against unions with their wallet. The only union strong holds left are now in government where there is no consumer choice |
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08/19/2005 10:53:19 PM · #29 |
I was just thinking about this...
And now that I think, I don't necessarily agree with what you said, photodude...
"No more overpaying workers because they are in a union and can extort employers and ultimately drive up the cost of goods and services"
You're right -- the workers aren't getting paid what they used to...but the money is still there, I assure you of that. It's just instead of the workers getting the money (through pay, benefits, retirement plans, and so on), the company is now getting the money.
So this leads us further and further, and also helps illustrate the point...that the rich are, in fact, getting richer, and there is an ever-widening gap between middle class, and upper class society, and an ever-shrinking space between lower and middle class Americans.
The middle class is struggling, there is no doubt about it.
The jobs aren't here like they used to be. Now adays, rate of pay aside, you're lucky if you get considered 'full-time' and decent health benefits. It's a tough world that we're living in today....and that world is becomming tougher for everyone but the wealthiest 4% of us.
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08/19/2005 10:57:00 PM · #30 |
Originally posted by kpriest:
All I will say is that I go there occasionally and I always wish I had my camera - the place attracts some pretty strange people. Oh, did I say I go there? I mean a friend of mine. |
careful there, walmart hates people using photography or video equipment on their property. There was a thread posted here talking about it and I thought it was just a one time incident but a kid in our youth group had to stop taping us all in a walmart "no video taping in the store kid". What we gonna do...find out how you get such low prices?
I do think a lot of communities have been hurt and have been helped but WalMart being in their town...are they any worse than some of the other stores that do it? Hell I lived in a town that had one stop light at each end of town and 3 McDonalds...come on is that fatty crap really necessary. How many Starbucks you got surrounding your business? they all have their effects, good and bad.
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08/19/2005 11:09:51 PM · #31 |
I'd bet that the tax revenue generated by WM does not even come close to the amount of money that municipalities and states have to shell out for public assistance and health care for WM employees, who make low wages and receive little, if any, health care benefits.
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Another side of the argument is the amount of tax revenue that a single store can generate for the community, which is considerably much more than a “mom and pop store” can generate – even in the aggregate. This is accomplished even with the tax advantages offered by the community to Wal-Mart.
JV |
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08/20/2005 12:39:09 AM · #32 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
I'd bet that the tax revenue generated by WM does not even come close to the amount of money that municipalities and states have to shell out for public assistance and health care for WM employees, who make low wages and receive little, if any, health care benefits.
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Another side of the argument is the amount of tax revenue that a single store can generate for the community, which is considerably much more than a “mom and pop store” can generate – even in the aggregate. This is accomplished even with the tax advantages offered by the community to Wal-Mart.
JV |
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Actually, I would counter that argument with the fact the tax burden that you claim the Wal-Mart employees are to the community would exist with or without Wal-Mart's presence in the community.
Indeed, according to your point of view, it is Wal-Mart, the employer of the individuals, who has created the dependence on public assistance by its employees. I would ask: What were the employees doing BEFORE they went to work for Wal-Mart? According to you, they most certainly were NOT on public assistance. Then how does an employer create a situation where, prior to being employed by Wal-Mart, the employees did not require public assistance; however, after their hiring, they require public assistance?
Again, I am not a defender of Wal-Mart, although, admittedly, I appear as one. I can argue either side of it, I am just having fun. I just have a difficult time with the logic of the arguments of those who bash Wal-Mart.
JV
Message edited by author 2005-08-20 00:55:04. |
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08/20/2005 01:03:22 AM · #33 |
I think if you are going to bash Wal-mart for having low wages and little or no benefits, you need to start looking around and bashing a whole heck of a lot more companies and business also. It's my opinion that that seems to be the trend these days.
...although if you know of any places around these parts that pay well and have good benefits and are doing any hiring, feel free to let me know...I could use one :-)
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08/20/2005 01:12:10 AM · #34 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
There are very few jobs in the USA, . . . . |
Curious statement when I read this. (See Charts 1 and 2.)
JV
Message edited by author 2005-08-20 10:49:11. |
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08/20/2005 01:23:24 AM · #35 |
Regarding free market economy and labor unions - we are not quite there yet. My stepson went to work for Safeway and he is being forced to join the union and pay $200 in dues. Labor unions were originally started to counter some clearly bad practices in the early part of the 20th century and quickly became more corrupt and greedy than the companies they purport to protect their members from. My brother in law works for a large auto manufacturer - he is union - last time he came to visit he was openly bragging about having some sort of seniority that makes it nearly impossible to fire him and he has a pointless job that allows him to goof off 90% of the time - and he is a supervisor.
I'm not a WM defender per se, but I do believe in a free market and people have the choice of whether or not to work there. If they are the only jobs in town - move. Being forced to leave your hometown to find work has been part of human history forever.
Conversely, I watched a long documentary about WalMart and it seemed pretty fair in that it showed many sides of the complex issues. The one major concern I would have is the foreign trade - mostly with China and the economic imbalance between the 2 countries.
Basically I believe a company has a moral responsibility, but not necessarily a legal one. By the way, who was it that opened the floodgates of free trade with China? |
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08/21/2005 02:07:36 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by Kaizen:
I would ask: Then how does an employer create a situation where, prior to being employed by Wal-Mart, the employees did not require public assistance; however, after their hiring, they require public assistance?
JV |
Wal-Mart uses predatory pricing and their enormous wholesale advantage to sell non-American-made goods at prices far cheaper than local stores can compete against.
Emplyees who used to make decent wages and benefits working for local stores lose their good jobs, and nowe have to settle for lousy jobs with lousy benefits selling lousy products for WalMart.
That's how. :(
Plus, the community itself now has a heck of a lot less wealth. All its money is now in the coffers of WalMart (out of state and not recirculatying locally) or is in China paying the owners of sweatshops, as they make profits at the ultimate expense of more American jobs.
Then, you have an American community so poor that you get posts where WalMart is praised for having "such low prices" - because so many Americans are now so poor that we NEED to watch every penny.
That's the way WalMart and their political bretheren like us - poor. Poor people are happy to accept horribly low wages, are happy to reject unions - their only chance to rise up the economic ladder again, and poor people give up on the political sytem - they don't vote.
Big business loves poverty. |
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08/21/2005 02:13:26 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by Kaizen:
I would ask: Then how does an employer create a situation where, prior to being employed by Wal-Mart, the employees did not require public assistance; however, after their hiring, they require public assistance?
JV |
Plus, the community itself now has a heck of a lot less wealth. All its money is now in the coffers of WalMart (out of state and not recirculatying locally) or is in China paying the owners of sweatshops, as they make profits at the ultimate expense of more American jobs.
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If all of the money is in the coffers of Wal Mart, take advantage of the savings on the goods you buy and use them to buy shares of Wal Mart. It's a public company and its OWNERS are all over the world. Become an owner. |
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08/21/2005 02:17:16 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by photodude:
We've finally made it to a free labor market in the USA. |
I don't think there is such a thing as a "free market" system for ANYTHING in this country.
The last thing we have is "free" markets.
The system we have here is a Rigged Market System.
If you are a rich enough individual or corporation, the government is yours for the buying, and the laws are yours for the writing.
Yes - you and your company's lawyers can actually write the laws and Congress will pass them verbatim!! I can show you a thousand examples.
The idea of the "Free Market System" is a propaganda tool to make the elimination of needed governmental regulation of corruption seem like a high-minded philosophical ideal. Don't be taken in by it. |
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08/21/2005 02:27:39 PM · #39 |
Originally posted by photodude:
If all of the money is in the coffers of Wal Mart, take advantage of the savings on the goods you buy and use them to buy shares of Wal Mart. It's a public company and its OWNERS are all over the world. Become an owner. |
Why would I want to do that? I despise WalMart and all that it stands for - I don't want to give them money! :D
Besides, it would not do anything for their workers.
I may go out and buy some CostCo stock though - I dig them - they are the anti WalMart!
They show that you can offer great products at great prices and STILL pay your employees excellent wages and excellent benefits.
WalMart is the problem with America, IMO.
Think about it - What would Jimmy Stewart's character from "It's a Wonderful Life" had said about WalMart coming to town and paying Ebenezer Scrooge wages and not buying supplies locally? |
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08/21/2005 02:35:07 PM · #40 |
| Wal Mart pays its workers what the free market says they will work for. If a worker there wants to make more, they can get another job or move up. |
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08/21/2005 02:48:18 PM · #41 |
So much discussion here, much of it somewhat misinformed, fo the "free market system" prompts me to post the following essay. Let me state right at the outset that it is written by a hidebound conservative. Nevertheless it's a lucid overview of what "free market" really means in economic terms and the factors that impact the performance of the free market.
I myself am way over on the liberal side of the scale, politically, compared to this guy.
***************
The Economic Way of Thinking, Part 3
The Free Market System
Ronald Nash
Prior segments of this eight-part series explained the nature of economics, especially the way in which scarcity forces us to rank our options and make choices. They also discussed the importance of recognizing that all economic value is subjective. A necessary third step in becoming economically literate includes understanding what "the market system" is and how it operates.
Different Kinds of Markets
One reason some people have trouble grasping the meaning of the word "market" is because the word is used to refer to trading in different kinds of commodities as well as to trading that goes on at increasingly general levels. For example, a mother can tell her son to run over to the market and buy six ears of corn. The owner of that store can tell one of his employees to go downtown and buy twelve dozen ears of corn from the market; in this second case, the market is a single seller (or group of sellers) who wholesales to merchants. The wholesaler may then ask someone to check how corn is doing that day on the futures market. For a single commodity like corn, there are a number of different markets.
Markets differ of course in more ways than size and general level. We speak of different markets for different kinds of things. There are stock markets and bond markets. There is the new car market and the used car market. There are markets in which collectibles like coins, stamps, paintings, and even comic books are traded.
The word "market" in this essay does not refer to any of the specific markets already mentioned, although it does include them. Specific markets are places where two or more people exchange goods and services. The market that I'll be discussing is the set of procedures or arrangements that prevail throughout a society which allows voluntary exchanges. In one sense, the market is the framework of customs and rules within which specific voluntary exchanges in specific markets take place. Instead of talking simply about "the market," we could refer instead to the market system.
The Market System
What economists call "the market" is not a specific place or thing. Neither is it simply the collection of particular markets in which goods and services are exchanged. Rather, it is a spontaneous and impersonal order of arrangements that serves as the framework within which individual human beings make economic choices.
One example of a spontaneous and impersonal order is an urban traffic pattern. As a city develops and grows over a long period of time, certain traffic patterns evolve. Anyone getting into a car in preparation for a drive across town must make numerous choices in response to such things as one-way streets, traffic lights, stop signs, and speed limits. Such traffic patterns are impersonal because they apply to everyone; they were not designed just for college graduates or white people or Presbyterians. The traffic order is also spontaneous in the sense that it evolved more as a result of trial and error than as the end product of a 50-year plan. People learned that traffic flowed more safely and smoothly, for example, with a traffic light at one intersection and a stop sign at another.
While the traffic pattern lays down rules, people still have a considerable degree of freedom as to how and where they will drive. The traffic pattern does not force anyone to drive down only one street, for example. This example of an urban traffic pattern illustrates how a spontaneous and impersonal set of arrangements can help produce order, prevent chaos and harm, and still allow for a considerable degree of individual freedom.
What we call the market functions in much the same way. It lays down rules that provide a framework for economic exchanges. Among other things, those rules say that people should not be coerced into making economic exchanges. Such exchanges should be free from force, fraud, and theft. People should honor their contracts.
Economist Ludwig von Mises once referred to the dynamic character of the market by describing it as a process. The market is not static; it is in a constant state of change. How could it be otherwise since behind the actions of people in the market lie the innumerable and constantly changing value judgments of that countless number of economic agents?
No human invented the market process. It is an impersonal social institution in which individual people make economic choices in accord with their personal value scales. The market simply provides the institutional order or the framework of rules within which these choices are made.
The Market and Social Order
One of the more remarkable features of the market is the way it produces order where we might well expect to find chaos. One way to see the emergence of such order is to reflect on the extraordinary way in which the most ordinary wants of people in a free society are satisfied. The reader can do this by making a list of all the goods and services he wants and finds obtainable over a period of several days. My own list would begin with orange juice from Florida, coffee from Brazil, and toast made from wheat grown in Kansas, milled into flour in Illinois, and baked into bread in Tennessee. My list would also include shoelaces, a razor blade, toothpaste, shampoo, clothes, gas for my car, and the paper on which I am writing these words. For each of us, the list would be very long and complicated.
Most of us lack the ability to make or provide most of the goods and services we want. How then do we persuade others to do all these nice things for us? When I go to a grocery store, the things I want are there. This is just as true of the drugstore, the gas station, and the department store. When I need a plumber or electrician or dentist or auto mechanic, someone is there ready to satisfy my want. Do people supply all these nice things because their primary goal in life is to make me happy? I think not. People do all these wonderful things for me because of their prospect of receiving something in return, usually money. And where do I get the money I use to pay all these people? I receive it from still other people who pay me for performing some service or providing some good for them. Reflecting about the market in this way helps us better understand the extent to which we depend upon other people. All of us need other people to supply the goods and services we have come to depend on. But we also need people who will pay us for the goods and services that we can supply, thus providing the money we require to pay those who supply our wants.
The Market System and Human Specialization
In more primitive times, people were often forced to provide for all or almost all of their wants through their own effort. And so the same individual might have to make his own clothes, grow his own food, build his own house, and so on. A market economy permits people to specialize in those things they do best. Some people are better at plumbing than they are at teaching philosophy. Some are better auto mechanics than preachers. This specialization enables most of us to do a better job with our time and effort. But this specialization also increases our dependence on others.
Supply and Demand
While it sometimes happens that the supply of some good may be too great or too small, these occasional glitches in the system are short-lived. It is worth pondering why, in a free market system, goods and services are usually available in a supply sufficient to take care of people's wants. We all have heard about people in socialist societies being forced to stand in line for hours to secure small quantities of bread or meat. We also have heard about incredible distribution blunders in socialist societies where all the garbage cans end up in one city and the tops to the cans end up in another. How do we explain the much greater efficiency and order that we find in a free market system? Did anyone plan it this way? Is there some unknown central planner over-seeing the entire process of production and distribution whose omniscient and benevolent planning results in almost everything being available when we want it? Since this is not the case, what accounts for the incredible order we find in a free market system that lacks any centralized coordination?
The answer, of course, is that all of this order is the product of the impersonal mechanism we call the market. When things go wrong, the impersonal mechanism soon produces results that remedy the problem. The language of this last sentence should not be taken literally, as though the market itself acted. What happens in a market system is that individual people alter their choices in response to changing incentives. For example, imagine that a commodity like gasoline is suddenly in short supply. If people continued to demand gasoline in the same quantities as before the shortage, prices would rise; perhaps they would rise dramatically. As the rising price of gasoline affects the way consumers evaluated the cost, the quantity demanded would begin to slacken. But the rising price of gas would also serve as an incentive for new suppliers to enter the market. The combination of reduced quantity demanded and increased quantity supplied would serve to remedy the temporary shortage.
The Informational Function of the Market
The market supplies important information via changes in the relative prices of goods. When the price of some good rises, the market is telling buyers and sellers that the good is less readily available relative to the quantity people wanted at its old price. A decrease in price communicates information that the good is less scarce, relative to demand. Increases or decreases in price can result from a number of factors including changes in people's tastes, the discovery of new supplies, or the availability of new information. The reason people enter into market exchanges is to improve their respective situations. When rising prices raise people's perception of the cost of some option above a certain point, those who value that option less will begin to consider other alternatives.
Producers of goods and services receive information from the market by also paying attention to profits and losses. Losses tell a business person that something is wrong and that he had better stop and re-evaluate things. Profits and losses give people incentives to act in ways that turn out to benefit society. Wise entrepreneurs will divert resources away from less profitable goods and services towards goods and services that more people want. A market system makes people accountable for their economic activities. When individuals and businesses act in ways that waste resources, they will be penalized by lower wages or profits (or perhaps by even larger losses). One of the major problems with an economic system that concentrates decisions in a group of central planners is that accountability too easily gets lost in the system. But in a decentralized market system, market prices serve to reward people who work efficiently, who plan prudently, who provide goods that others earnestly want, and who act in other economically wise ways.
Summary
I have not been discussing some specific market or collection of markets but the market system, the institutional framework within which individual voluntary economic exchanges can take place. This market system is spontaneous in the sense that no human invented it. It is impersonal in the sense that it is supposed not to discriminate for or against specific individuals. Like an urban traffic pattern, it ensures that countless numbers of individual drivers, all seeking their own goals, will reach their destinations in an orderly way. Without any help from any group of central planners, the impersonal market system does a remarkable job of supplying the countless wants of countless numbers of people. It does this by supplying information about people's everchanging wants and preferences through changes in prices. As buyers and sellers act in ways that they believe will maximize their own benefits and minimize their own costs, extraordinary consequences appear. Goods and services that people want are supplied in ways that many believe possible only when someone with complete and perfect knowledge is issuing orders. But as the collapse of socialism in the past decade reveals, societies that adopt a centralized economy inevitably fall far short of the efficiency of those that follow a decentralized market approach.
Necessary Conditions for Any Free Market
No free market can exist without several necessary conditions. They include an enforced right to own and to exchange property, an enforcement of contracts, and laws that forbid the use of force, fraud, and theft. Government has several important roles to play in all this. It must set up a stable system of rules within which exchanges can take place. Both the market system and the people who trade in the market need protection from the kinds of actions that hinder or prevent free exchange. This requires the existence of a government. But there are also necessary limits to the role of government in the economy. When government exceeds its legitimate role as the maker and enforcer of rules, it can do enormous harm to the economy and can be the source of much injustice.
source: www.libertyhaven.com
****************
Robt.
Message edited by author 2005-08-21 14:52:42.
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08/21/2005 03:28:10 PM · #42 |
Originally posted by photodude:
Wal Mart pays its workers what the free market says they will work for. If a worker there wants to make more, they can get another job or move up. |
Yeah, right. The folks who work at WalMart are freely mobile players in a "free" market who have all options open to them and the luxury of refusing any job they want?
If they don't like bread, let them eat cake, eh? :(
WalMart pays its workers what a rigged marketplace allows them to get away with, and a morally bankrupt ruling class applauds without noblesse oblige.
Message edited by author 2005-08-21 15:31:15. |
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08/21/2005 04:06:05 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Big business loves poverty. |
I disagree. The poverty of Wal-Mart's customer base - its primary source of revenue - does not benefit Wal-Mart.
At their most fundamental level, businesses exist to make a profit for their owners, both big businesses as well as small businesses. In order for a profit to occur, its revenue must exceed its liabilities.
As for the employees of Wal-Mart, they are not indentured servants. It is an at-will contractual relationship between the employee and Wal-Mart. Therefore, an employee is free to leave Wal-Mart's payroll at anytime and Wal-Mart can let go of an employee as well.
The manual worker is going through a fundamental shift. This has happened before: 1. hunter-gatherer to agricultural farmer; 2. agricultural farmer to manufacturer; 3. manufacturer to knowledge-based information employee. These changes required the person to obtain a new skill set. The hunter had to learn to farm or lose his job, by choice. The farmer had to learn to work in a manufacturing setting or lose his job, by choice. The manufacturer had to learn to adapt to the knowledge-based information age or lose his job, by choice.
The reality is that much of our loses in industrial age jobs have less to do with government policy and free trade agreements than they do with the dramatic shift in our economy to a knowledge worker age.
I will defer to the others on free-market economy topic.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Wal-Mart uses predatory pricing and their enormous wholesale advantage to sell non-American-made goods at prices far cheaper than local stores can compete against.
Emplyees who used to make decent wages and benefits working for local stores lose their good jobs, and nowe have to settle for lousy jobs with lousy benefits selling lousy products for WalMart. |
First, the "predatory pricing" is the reason that you can, hypothetically, purchase a can of green beans at Wal-Mart for $0.39 versus paying $1.39 at a locally-owned store. A gain of $1.00 for you to invest in Costco (please do, I am a shareholder).
Second, you presume that there were ample jobs with the local businesses for the current Wal-Mart employees prior to Wal-Mart's entry into the community. And, that these jobs paid "decent wages and benefits" to their employees. A presumption I am not willing to share.
Finally, you presume that an employee and a customer of Wal-Mart "settles" for the paid position and the products purchased. That is not, and should not be, a concern of Wal-Mart's. That is a choice of an individual. No one is forced to work for Wal-Mart or shop there. People choose to do so. If it is the only place to work, and you don't want to work there, then move. (Just like a farmer moved from the rural community to the urban community to work during the industrial age.) If you don't want to shop there, then don't.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Yes - you and your company's lawyers can actually write the laws and Congress will pass them verbatim!! I can show you a thousand examples. |
Just show me one hundred. That will be sufficient.
JV
Of course, all of this is from someone who does not shop at Wal-Mart, by choice, or work for Wal-Mart, by choice. I do, however, carry a Sam's Club card in my wallet. It was a benefit from my employer.
Message edited by author 2005-08-21 16:39:54. |
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08/21/2005 05:23:53 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by kpriest:
By the way, who was it that opened the floodgates of free trade with China? |
Nixon. :P |
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08/22/2005 10:43:48 AM · #45 |
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Big business loves poverty. |
I disagree. The poverty of Wal-Mart's customer base - its primary source of revenue - does not benefit Wal-Mart. |
Doesn't seem to hurt it yet, either, does it? Guess there is still room to drop wages further. But my point was big business loves poverty because it gives them a cheap labor force with no options but to accept work for less and less money.
This is the opposite of Henry Ford's pholosophy - who paid his workers double what other companies paid - so that they could afford to purchase auto mobiles
Originally posted by Kaizen:
At their most fundamental level, businesses exist to make a profit for their owners, both big businesses as well as small businesses. |
Ahhh.... Here we have THE ISSUE. Why do businesses exist??
Because the founding fathers would give a VERY different reason for the existence of a corporation than you just gave.
And it would center around the PUBLIC GOOD, and the BENEFIT OF WORKERS and COMMUNITY.
And it would not be a simple calculus of profit/loss with the profit going to the "owners".
The founding fathers - and Americans for well over a hundred years - viewed big business VERY sceptically and were rightfully afraid of its capabilities for destructive social power.
Corporations - all of them - were completely public institutions then, with open books, their officials personally liable for any corporate malfeasance, and **corporations could only exist for a certain number of years before they were dissolved.**
So that they could not become too powerful. Too large. Too able to influence the government, ie lobbying
Originally posted by Kaizen:
As for the employees of Wal-Mart, they are not indentured servants. It is an at-will contractual relationship between the employee and Wal-Mart. |
Here we go again with the myth that WalMart workers and WalMart the Corporation are on an equal, level playing field!
Because in the mythical lands of the nonexistant "free-market system", a 100 billion dollar corporation and someone making $6.14 an hour for 32 hours a week have equal protection under the employment contract, right?
Just because a financially-strapped worker can commit economic suicide , and quit his underpaid job at WalMart anytime he wants, does NOT mean that WalMart is being perfectly ethical by paying him slave wages with no benefits.
And it does NOT mean that WalMart's behavior is the proper business behavior, or the way it has been done for years. It has NOT been done this way for years.
The way they treat the American worker is NOT the American way. At least, it was not the American way our parents knew, or their parents knew, or their parents... all the way back to 1776.
No, it is the way the Modern Republican Party ( and many Democrats, to their shame) talk about Corporate America only for the last thirty years. Wall street, not Main Street.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Wal-Mart uses predatory pricing and their enormous wholesale advantage to sell non-American-made goods at prices far cheaper than local stores can compete against.
Emplyees who used to make decent wages and benefits working for local stores lose their good jobs, and nowe have to settle for lousy jobs with lousy benefits selling lousy products for WalMart. |
Originally posted by Kaizen:
First, the "predatory pricing" is the reason that you can, hypothetically, purchase a can of green beans at Wal-Mart for $0.39 versus paying $1.39 at a locally-owned store. A gain of $1.00 for you to invest in Costco (please do, I am a shareholder). |
Better yet, donate the dollar it to a college fund for the store owner's daughter.;D
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Second, you presume that there were ample jobs with the local businesses for the current Wal-Mart employees prior to Wal-Mart's entry into the community. And, that these jobs paid "decent wages and benefits" to their employees. A presumption I am not willing to share. |
Well, I presumed that WalMart doesn't set up stores in the Mojave Desert. They set up stores where
1)there is profit to be made
2) There already ain't a WalMart
That means a town with a viable economy for them to plunder. That means local stoes, generally, and with better than WalMart wages and benefits, and money thet recirculates in the local economy
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Finally, you presume that an employee and a customer of Wal-Mart "settles" for the paid position and the products purchased. That is not, and should not be, a concern of Wal-Mart's. That is a choice of an individual. |
See, to me that is really twisted. Corporations have an obligation to do the public good, not just be heartless profit machines. I seem to be repeating myself.
Originally posted by Kaizen:
No one is forced to work for Wal-Mart or shop there. People choose to do so. If it is the only place to work, and you don't want to work there, then move. |
I love it when people who are investors in the stock market can give such astute advice to people who are in the kind of economic/educational circumstances that force them to work for The Most Heartless Corporation In The Civilized World.
Again, you say, if they don't like bread, let them eat cake? C'mon, let's change the menu. How about we give them a living wage? The Walton Family, sitting on $60gadzilliontrillion could likely afford to pay their employees what CostCo pays theirs?
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Yes - you and your company's lawyers can actually write the laws and Congress will pass them verbatim!! I can show you a thousand examples. |
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Just show me one hundred. That will be sufficient.
JV |
No time. Hey- here is an idea. perhaps you can show me one bill passed of some purport which was NOT influenced in industry's favor? ;D
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Of course, all of this is from someone who does not shop at Wal-Mart, by choice, or work for Wal-Mart, by choice. I do, however, carry a Sam's Club card in my wallet. It was a benefit from my employer. |
Shop at CostCo? Good stuff, and guilt-free.
Message edited by author 2005-08-22 10:49:36. |
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08/22/2005 11:57:46 AM · #46 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Big business loves poverty. |
I disagree. The poverty of Wal-Mart's customer base - its primary source of revenue - does not benefit Wal-Mart. |
Doesn't seem to hurt it yet, either, does it? Guess there is still room to drop wages further. But my point was big business loves poverty because it gives them a cheap labor force with no options but to accept work for less and less money. |
You have failed to address the choice of the employee issue I have presented. People choose to work for lower wages. Wal-Mart made an offer, after the employee applied for the job, and the employee accepted the offer establishing an at-will contractual relationship.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Ahhh.... Here we have THE ISSUE. Why do businesses exist??
Because the founding fathers would give a VERY different reason for the existence of a corporation than you just gave.
And it would center around the PUBLIC GOOD, and the BENEFIT OF WORKERS and COMMUNITY.
And it would not be a simple calculus of profit/loss with the profit going to the "owners".
The founding fathers - and Americans for well over a hundred years - viewed big business VERY sceptically and were rightfully afraid of its capabilities for destructive social power.
Corporations - all of them - were completely public institutions then, with open books, their officials personally liable for any corporate malfeasance, and **corporations could only exist for a certain number of years before they were dissolved.**
So that they could not become too powerful. Too large. Too able to influence the government, ie lobbying |
Your argument that corporations should exist for the greater good fails. This is because it would also apply to the small businesses that you seek to defend. They also exist to profit. They are also organized as either a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a limited liability company or partnership, or a corporation. They are motivated, not because of some noble feat to serve the community, but rather to make a profit for their owners.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Here we go again with the myth that WalMart workers and WalMart the Corporation are on an equal, level playing field! |
Of course they are on an "equal playing field." Again, no one is forced to work for Wal-Mart. They choose to do so. Address the choice issue. You do not because you cannot. I suggest you read Viktor Frankl to learn about a human being's capacity to make a choice in the most inhumane of circumstances - which working for Wal-Mart is not one of them. He will enlighten you on an individual's ability to choose. He was a Jew held in a Nazi concentration camp. He was tortured and experimented on by the Nazi "doctors." He discovered that a human being, even when being probed, burnt, and tortured, has the ability to choose his reactions to any situation. This is the most intimate and sacred freedom that all human beings have. To say that someone, who is completely free to move around, has no choice but to work for Wal-Mart is sick.
Further, to say that we have poverty in America is inaccurate. We have poor people in America. Yes, we are the wealthiest nation in the world. But I suggest to you to travel outside of the United States. You do not have to go far. Go to Central America. There you can witness poverty. Our poor have tremendous wealth compared to the rest of the world's poor. Do they have enough? No, of course not. But to say that someone that has to work at Wal-Mart lives in poverty is ridiculous.
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Finally, you presume that an employee and a customer of Wal-Mart "settles" for the paid position and the products purchased. That is not, and should not be, a concern of Wal-Mart's. That is a choice of an individual. |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
See, to me that is really twisted. Corporations have an obligation to do the public good, not just be heartless profit machines. I seem to be repeating myself. |
Address the choice issue. Wal-Mart cannot operate without employees. Why do people choose to work there?
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
I love it when people who are investors in the stock market can give such astute advice to people who are in the kind of economic/educational circumstances that force them to work for The Most Heartless Corporation In The Civilized World. |
Do you love people that have been laid off three times in the past eight years? People who paid their way through college and graduate school - obtained a new skill set - and are now gainfully employed? That is what I had to do. I have experienced everything you and I have talked about. However, I did not complain. I chose to make certain that I could position myself to minimize the possibility that I would not be out of work for six month stretches like I had been in the past.
Yes, I invest in the stock market. So what? I am also a registered Independent. So what?
Do not presume that you can peg me down through my responses to your weak assertions. I am not a defender of corporate America and its actions. What I am is a person that is sick of the complaining. That is not to say that you are a complainer. What you and I have been engaged in is civil discourse. That is good. You see, you and I are probably on the same side of this debate. I am playing the devil's advocate.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Yes - you and your company's lawyers can actually write the laws and Congress will pass them verbatim!! I can show you a thousand examples. |
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Just show me one hundred. That will be sufficient.
JV |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
No time. Hey- here is an idea. perhaps you can show me one bill passed of some purport which was NOT influenced in industry's favor? ;D |
I called you on your assertion and you failed to back it up.
Here is mine: Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), 29 U.S.C. s651. Because Congress cannot pass laws for the general welfare of citizens, it is unconstitutional, only States can do that, it was passed in order to assist in the regulation of interstate commerce.
Originally posted by Kaizen:
Of course, all of this is from someone who does not shop at Wal-Mart, by choice, or work for Wal-Mart, by choice. I do, however, carry a Sam's Club card in my wallet. It was a benefit from my employer. |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Shop at CostCo? Good stuff, and guilt-free. |
Costco does not have a store in Oklahoma.
JV
P.S. If you really want to know where I stand on all of this one suggestion that I offer to you is to "Google" my DPC handle: "Kaizen." Do some research. There is a better way.
Message edited by author 2005-08-22 13:35:16. |
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08/22/2005 12:02:27 PM · #47 |
Originally posted by pitsaman:
Originally posted by rex:
But they are cheap. Without Wal-Mart I would have to drive over 20 miles to the nearest grocery store. |
LOW PRICES AT WHAT COST? |
Indeed it’s pretty ugly that Walmart won't take better care of their employees considering how profitable the company is. Over 70% of the goods at Walmart are made in China at slave labor pay.
Some pretty F'd up statistics at that site:
-Wal-Mart fails to cover 60% of their workers with any health insurance
-70% of Wal-Mart merchandise is from China
-Wal-Mart costs federal taxpayers over $1.5 billion a year in welfare to their employees
-Wal-Mart tops the list of companies with employees and their dependents on public assistance in at least 11 states
-Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $4.1 million in Clean Water Act violations and $50 million to settle allegations of underpaying employees
For every low paying, no benefits job Walmart creates in its stores, many are lost in US manufacturing and smaller, non monopolistic stores. And the bonus goes to China and the millionaires on the Walmart board.
The US is loosing the ability to create its own products at home. Without constant overseas imports, we wouldn’t be able to make our own products. The US, the most technologically advanced country in the world can't even make a computer without importing parts from overseas.
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08/22/2005 12:32:47 PM · #48 |
When i saw the title for this i thought it was about the 400 USMarshals thare are being hired to 'guard' the airplanes in flight. I work with a woman whose husband (a current secret service agent) got hired as a marshal. She says they have been getting 1200+ applications a day for the past 30 days.
It pays $70,000 a year. if all goes well, all you do is ride arond in airplanes, in first class, all day.
He has to undergo 14 weeks of training - he needs to learn how to land the plane, just in case. I suppose that is why it is worth $70,000.
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08/22/2005 12:39:23 PM · #49 |
Walmart is no different then B&H, REI, Butterflyphoto or any other company that sells product on the internet for lower prices then normal retail stores. The only difference is Walmart does it in your neighborhood. A local kayak shop I shopped at went belly up because he could not compete with the internet (sold his store and opened a kayak school instead). A local chain of hiking gear shops I use to go to a lot (Popular Outdoor Outfitters) went belly up because they could not compete with the internet (closed all their stores except one). Adapt and survive, or go belly up.
Walmart is also no different then McDonalds, Taco Bell, Home Depot and Starbucks in that they all pretty much over ran most of the mom and pop equivalents by giving people what they want. People need to realize that businesses do not open up to benefit the community and redistribute wealth. Businesses exist for the sole purpose of making money. People want selection, convince and low prices along with an expected quality level (note, expected in that if you pay $5 for a stereo or $2 for a shirt you kind of expect it to be crap). Businesses that can’t do that will fail.
Blockbuster was worse then Walmart could ever imagine being. Blockbuster would intentionally open a store near a mom and pop video store and offer great specials and more selection so they would actually lose money until they drove mom and pop out of business. They would then buy the shattered store’s inventory at a discounted price and raise their prices to become profitable again with a much larger market share. At least Walmart does not come into town expecting to lose money for a few years to drive everyone else out of business. Walmart opens up and makes a profit from day one.
There is a mom & pop grocery store gas/station near my house. It’s 5-10 miles from any competition. They charge 10-15 cents more for a gallon of gas, and their groceries are marked up as well. They mark them up only because they can, and they rake in the profits while raping their neighbors. They are not an asset to the community and they are not their for our convenience. They make as much money as they can off us. I assure you the people that work there get paid the same and have the same benefits as a Walmart employee. I can’t wait until Walmart opens up and drives them out of business as I don’t like getting raped.
And as for Walmart employee’s, they have the same benefits and wages as McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell employees. Same as most gas station attendants, video store clerks and non union grocery store clerks. Probably the same as K-mart and Target, and probably the same as employees at the mom & pop store. These jobs do not take a lot of skill or education and they should not pay as much as an auto mechanic, machinist, engineer, or doctor. Expecting to make more then $8/hour and have full benefits at a job like Walmart is expecting far too much. If you want to make more then that you need to be able to offer something the next guy can’t, either a skill, knowledge or the ability to do physical work better then the next guy. If Walmart’s wages and benefits are too low, people would not work there. That’s how a free market works. The fact that 11,000 applied for 400 jobs actually tells me they are paying far too much at that location and could probably pay a lot less (simple economics – supply and demandâ€Â¦).
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08/22/2005 12:57:18 PM · #50 |
The free market that WM operates in uses sweatshops as the basis for their huge profits. Those workers work under horrid conditions, with no health insurance, no time to go to the bathroom, for hour upon hour upon hour.
As for the workers in this country attempting to get work at WM, I would say it's a sign that these are desperate times.
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