Walmart pays higher wages on average than other major retailers. They don't "cut corners" I'm not even sure what you mean by that. Most people employed by wal-mart are not the sole providers for their families, so why should walmart pay a wage that will support a family to a workforce that is primarily single, young persons? You seem to think that just because someone works for a company for long time they should make a wage that can support a family. That is unfair. Unionized companies pay low, low wages to new employees, and unreasonably high wages to people who have been with the company for a long time, regardless of their productivity. In my opinion, if you want to make more, you should provide more value to the company.
"Again, Walmart's profits run into 10 or 11 figures."
Walmart's profits have nothing to do with paying low wages and everything to do with operating their business efficiently. I can not emphasize to you enough the fact that they pay higher than average wages in the retail industry. There is nothing wrong with operating at a profit, it simply means that they provide a better value to their employees, their customers, and their suppliers than other businesses in the industry, and have money left over because of it. This is a very good thing, it means that they are being more productive than their competiters. This is to be encouraged. Ultimately, other retailers will need to learn to operate as efficiently as walmart or risk being put out of business by them. You and people like you play right into the hands of other major retailers (who have the same labor practices and buy from the same suppliers) by beliving that war mart is evil simply because they are profitable. It is people like you who allow other retailers to operate complacently, charging overly high prices and providing inferior service.
"But how many people are shareholders or corporate employees?"
Many people.
"Also, wouldn't employees and shareholders know that corporate taxes affect them?"
No, most corporate employees I talk to do not realize that corporations usually pay 40% of their profits in taxes. Most people calling for the oil companies profits to be taken do not seem realize it would mean higher gasoline prices.
"Is there any tax that you would consider fair?"
Well, some are more fair than others. For example, when you pay income, or sales tax you are notified of the amount you are paying. Property tax is a little more unfair, because renters can not know how much of the property tax is passed on to them, nor are they aware of the the amount their landlord pays in property taxes on their unit. Corporate taxes are the worst, the people paying them get no breakdown of the cost and they can't possibly know how much they are individually paying. Not only that, but corporate taxes are an unreliable source of government funds, since they pay zero in unprofitable years.
I'd have to say that sales taxes are the most fair, since they tax your usage of consumable goods directly, and you are notified of the amount each time you pay. Income taxes are less fair, because they usually have a complicated system of exemptions, which afford certain people special exception.
You don't understand the problem. A single male working at wal-mart would never be eligible for welfare or medicare. But a single parent with children would be eligible. So the question is this: should an employer be required to pay a wage that would support the maximum number of dependents a person could possibly have (10, 15, 30 dependents, it can be quite a lot)? Or does it make sense for wal-mart to pay a wage that people will work for and let social services sort it out for people who, for whatever reason, need more money?
As far as you question about what I, the taxpayer, wants: I can assure that I will still pay for it no matter what. If we force wal-mart to pay more, wal-mart will raise their prices and and other retailers will raise their prices as well. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather the government just take my money, than have them take my money and cripple the economy at the same time!!!
That's because it's irrelevant. Then again so is your most recent comment.
"The economic incidence of corporate taxes fall mainly on shareholders and corporate employees"
Okay, so that doesn't really contradict my assertion, does it? I work for a corporation, so do many, many people. I have a 401K plan that invests in corporations, as do many people, so that makes me a shareholder. These taxes really do affect the general population.
Companies will raise prices to increase profitability. That's the main reason companies raise their prices. If profits are taxed more, companies will raise prices more to compensate. So the taxes are passed on to customers as well.
Corporate taxes are simply a way of hiding taxes from the paying public. Do you think the corporations cares that it's paying taxes? Corporations don't have feelings any they can't vote. They just raise their prices, lower their wages and pay fewer dividends to shareholders. Worse still, since corporate taxes tax profits rather than revenues, they punish companies for being successful. The more profitable your company is, the more it will have to pay.
We need to abolish corporate profit taxes immediately, they are unjust and unfair.
I'm not sure what you mean about the cowboy myth. There is very real documentation of the bandits that roamed the Western U.S. in the 19th century: witness accounts, wanted posters, photographs, legal documents, you name it. Locals really would put together a possy and hunt them down when they became too much of a problem. So I don't know what you're referring to as a myth. There are fictions stories and movies, but no one is ascribing any kind of historical accuracy to them.
There are many in the US who believe there shouldn't be a minimum wage at all. You see, a minimum wage is a prohibition on low-value labour, and forces people into joblessness for no good reason. If a mentally handicapped person could make $2.00/hour picking up garbage, why not let them? Of course, you'll say "why not pay them a living wage". Well, because it's simply not worth it. But if they are willing to work for spending money while their family or the government puts them up, why not let them?
That's nothing, I'm writing this on a 7 year old power mac G4, and my laptop is a 5 year old iBook G3. I'd like to upgrade, but I can't justify buying an new computer when my current one works perfectly well. Hopefully Apple will stop supporting PPC soon.
Are you three times more productive than you were when you were hired?
That is the problem with unions, they place a lot of value on how long you've been with the company, and no value on anything else. That means that new employees get screwed with unreasonably low wages and people who tough it out make money on the backs of the newer workers. It is inherently unfair.
"Which is to say, fewer people are employed for the same amount of merchandise sold."
Which is to day: fewer man hours worked to do the same amount of work. Operating more efficiently is one of the ways we can actually increase our resources. There's nothing wrong with that.
"Regarding your second point, I highly doubt that higher wages in the unskilled-service sector will cause noticeable labour competition in the medical field."
No, if more people are working in sales, there are fewer people to work in other fields, even medicine. There's no reason to manipulate the market this way.
"I argue thusly so that they are less competitive against stores that don't promote suburbanization, stores that provide useful service with the goods they sell, stores that operate at a level to interact with local producers (thus contributing to a sustainable local economy), and stores that are small enough that their employees don't have to unionize in order to stand up for their rights."
Well, wal-mart is what it is. It does a good job filling the role it fills, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are markets where it doesn't compete, and I doubt they are interested in those markets, nor do they have an adverse effect on them.
I'm not sure if you know what it is like to work for a small business. You do have to stand up for your rights, because every penny you make comes out of the owners pocket. Moreover, you are much likely to have bad management at a small business, since there is no one to replace bad managers. I have worked for wal-mart, and I can say that it is the best managed company I've ever worked for. They really make you feel like your part of something bigger, and that you are important to the team. Other corporations I've worked for have been worse, but none have come close to being as bad as the small business I work for now.
I won't argue that it'd be nice it it were easier to get by. The problem is that people make the claim that wal-mart replaces high paying jobs with lower paying jobs, and that simply isn't true. The opposite is true.
Furthermore, people make the claim that if wal-mart paid more, people would have more resources. That is untrue. We, as a nation, have finite resourced and simply raising the price of labour will not increase the supply of medical care, food, land, luxury items, or anything else. In fact, requiring that laborers be paid more would increase the supply of laborers, and would reduce the work force available in other fields. I know that it's counter intuitive, but raising the minimum wage will reduce access to health care, not increase it.
If you want people to have better access to health care, you need to increase the supply of health care. This could be achieved by removing the 4-year degree requirement for GPs, allowing nurses to perform routine tests and procedures, and removing the admission caps at medical schools.
I have never seen this occur. I've only ever seen wal-mart replace other companies which also to not pay health insurance. One nitpick: walmart does offer discounted health insurance to all its employees (even part-time employees), and most local retailers do not (especially the mom and pop operations).
I went to college in a small town (Moscow ID). I don't recall seeing any local shops go out of business because of walmart. I do recall that walmart was a lot cheaper than the local places, so being a poor student I'd always shop there. The local businesses tended to sell higher quality goods, so people with more money shopped there.
So walmart gives jobs to people on welfare, how is that bad? Would it be better if they only gave jobs to people who weren't eligible for welfare, like migrant workers without families perhaps? I don't see what is wrong here. Walmart is paying people the market rate for work, and entitlement programs are distributing funds as directed by law. What's the problem?
So wal-mart shouldn't provide information to people about PUBLIC services that are available to everyone? I suppose next you're going to tell me that wal-mart shouldn't suggest that people take the bus to work because public transportation is funded by taxpayer money. If you don't want people to use public services, you should shut down the public services, not try to keep them secret. What's wrong with you?
Then why don't you explain why we should try to shut down or otherwise impede the worlds largest retailer. Is it because they give jobs to people you'd rather see on welfare, or because they sell food and clothes to people you'd rather see do without?
I'd say that they represent most of the elitist hippy fucktards I've argued this issue with pretty well. But if you think you can put up a better argument for stomping all over my basic liberties and excluding people from the labor market, be my guest.
When my girlfriend worked at wal-mart last year she made $8.50/hour, while the minimum wage was $5.15. Before that she worked for a small business downtown which paid her $5.50. Six years ago when I worked at wal-mart they paid me $7.50/hr. So yes, wal-mart does usually pay significantly better than other retail businesses.
I appreciate the sentiment, but buckshot will turn the monkey into blood splat, that kind of force is completely unnecessary. Bird shot should be more than adequate. Besides, one would assume that maiming or crippling the monkey would certainly be sufficient to stop it from going after your food. You don't want to use a larger weapon, because you don't want to kill someone accidentally.
The problem is that the human food is easily accessible, so monkeys will always try to come and steal it. It doesn't matter how many monkeys you move away, more will come because the food is available. The only solution it to secure your food against the wildlife. Throughout history, we humans have fenced our crops and livestock and killed or chased away the wild animals, its the only way to stop them.
So, how is letting monkeys steal our food mutually beneficial? How was killing all the wolves in Europe mutually beneficial? If you are competing for the same resources, you either get them or you don't. Just because there are mutually beneficial situations doesn't mean that animals don't kill each other, or that it would be bad for us to shoot unmanageable monkeys.
I was trying to say that intelligence is a very subjective concept. The OP seemed to take it for granted that humans are more intelligent than monkeys, without saying why he felt that way, or how that logically meant that we should not kill the little bastards.
"ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it."
I think you misunderstand the problem. In the US we have multiple branches of government. The laws are written by one branch, and enforced by another. Of course, every person in the government has their own political agenda. This means that when an agency is looking at enforcing a law, they don't ask "what did the writers of this law intend" instead they ask "how can this law be used to further my agenda". I am not being cynical, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with things working this way. Indeed, if enforcement agencies always set about enforcing the spirit of the law, it would give legislators far too much power.
I think you'll find that regulatory agencies' interpretation of the law makes a lot more sense when you consider the agencies' basic goals.
Slashdot Mirror
Walmart pays higher wages on average than other major retailers. They don't "cut corners" I'm not even sure what you mean by that. Most people employed by wal-mart are not the sole providers for their families, so why should walmart pay a wage that will support a family to a workforce that is primarily single, young persons? You seem to think that just because someone works for a company for long time they should make a wage that can support a family. That is unfair. Unionized companies pay low, low wages to new employees, and unreasonably high wages to people who have been with the company for a long time, regardless of their productivity. In my opinion, if you want to make more, you should provide more value to the company.
"Again, Walmart's profits run into 10 or 11 figures."
Walmart's profits have nothing to do with paying low wages and everything to do with operating their business efficiently. I can not emphasize to you enough the fact that they pay higher than average wages in the retail industry. There is nothing wrong with operating at a profit, it simply means that they provide a better value to their employees, their customers, and their suppliers than other businesses in the industry, and have money left over because of it. This is a very good thing, it means that they are being more productive than their competiters. This is to be encouraged. Ultimately, other retailers will need to learn to operate as efficiently as walmart or risk being put out of business by them. You and people like you play right into the hands of other major retailers (who have the same labor practices and buy from the same suppliers) by beliving that war mart is evil simply because they are profitable. It is people like you who allow other retailers to operate complacently, charging overly high prices and providing inferior service.
"But how many people are shareholders or corporate employees?"
Many people.
"Also, wouldn't employees and shareholders know that corporate taxes affect them?"
No, most corporate employees I talk to do not realize that corporations usually pay 40% of their profits in taxes. Most people calling for the oil companies profits to be taken do not seem realize it would mean higher gasoline prices.
"Is there any tax that you would consider fair?"
Well, some are more fair than others. For example, when you pay income, or sales tax you are notified of the amount you are paying. Property tax is a little more unfair, because renters can not know how much of the property tax is passed on to them, nor are they aware of the the amount their landlord pays in property taxes on their unit. Corporate taxes are the worst, the people paying them get no breakdown of the cost and they can't possibly know how much they are individually paying. Not only that, but corporate taxes are an unreliable source of government funds, since they pay zero in unprofitable years.
I'd have to say that sales taxes are the most fair, since they tax your usage of consumable goods directly, and you are notified of the amount each time you pay. Income taxes are less fair, because they usually have a complicated system of exemptions, which afford certain people special exception.
You don't understand the problem. A single male working at wal-mart would never be eligible for welfare or medicare. But a single parent with children would be eligible. So the question is this: should an employer be required to pay a wage that would support the maximum number of dependents a person could possibly have (10, 15, 30 dependents, it can be quite a lot)? Or does it make sense for wal-mart to pay a wage that people will work for and let social services sort it out for people who, for whatever reason, need more money?
As far as you question about what I, the taxpayer, wants: I can assure that I will still pay for it no matter what. If we force wal-mart to pay more, wal-mart will raise their prices and and other retailers will raise their prices as well. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather the government just take my money, than have them take my money and cripple the economy at the same time!!!
"I usually don't correct grammar on Slashdot"
That's because it's irrelevant. Then again so is your most recent comment.
"The economic incidence of corporate taxes fall mainly on shareholders and corporate employees"
Okay, so that doesn't really contradict my assertion, does it? I work for a corporation, so do many, many people. I have a 401K plan that invests in corporations, as do many people, so that makes me a shareholder. These taxes really do affect the general population.
Companies will raise prices to increase profitability. That's the main reason companies raise their prices. If profits are taxed more, companies will raise prices more to compensate. So the taxes are passed on to customers as well.
"What properties can one ascribe to a corporation, as opposed to its employees/officers?"
That's the problem. You say that you're taxing the corporation, but you're really taxing the general population.
"To whom or what are corporate taxes unfair or unjust?"
They are unfair and unjust to the general population, who has a right to know how much they are paying in taxes.
Corporate taxes are simply a way of hiding taxes from the paying public. Do you think the corporations cares that it's paying taxes? Corporations don't have feelings any they can't vote. They just raise their prices, lower their wages and pay fewer dividends to shareholders. Worse still, since corporate taxes tax profits rather than revenues, they punish companies for being successful. The more profitable your company is, the more it will have to pay.
We need to abolish corporate profit taxes immediately, they are unjust and unfair.
"Cowboy myth"
I'm not sure what you mean about the cowboy myth. There is very real documentation of the bandits that roamed the Western U.S. in the 19th century: witness accounts, wanted posters, photographs, legal documents, you name it. Locals really would put together a possy and hunt them down when they became too much of a problem. So I don't know what you're referring to as a myth. There are fictions stories and movies, but no one is ascribing any kind of historical accuracy to them.
"The only reason for buying from iTunes I'm guessing is so you can download it to your system and watch it off line"
iTunes doesn't have commercials.
There are many in the US who believe there shouldn't be a minimum wage at all. You see, a minimum wage is a prohibition on low-value labour, and forces people into joblessness for no good reason. If a mentally handicapped person could make $2.00/hour picking up garbage, why not let them? Of course, you'll say "why not pay them a living wage". Well, because it's simply not worth it. But if they are willing to work for spending money while their family or the government puts them up, why not let them?
That's nothing, I'm writing this on a 7 year old power mac G4, and my laptop is a 5 year old iBook G3. I'd like to upgrade, but I can't justify buying an new computer when my current one works perfectly well. Hopefully Apple will stop supporting PPC soon.
Are you three times more productive than you were when you were hired?
That is the problem with unions, they place a lot of value on how long you've been with the company, and no value on anything else. That means that new employees get screwed with unreasonably low wages and people who tough it out make money on the backs of the newer workers. It is inherently unfair.
"Which is to say, fewer people are employed for the same amount of merchandise sold."
Which is to day: fewer man hours worked to do the same amount of work. Operating more efficiently is one of the ways we can actually increase our resources. There's nothing wrong with that.
"Regarding your second point, I highly doubt that higher wages in the unskilled-service sector will cause noticeable labour competition in the medical field."
No, if more people are working in sales, there are fewer people to work in other fields, even medicine. There's no reason to manipulate the market this way.
"I argue thusly so that they are less competitive against stores that don't promote suburbanization, stores that provide useful service with the goods they sell, stores that operate at a level to interact with local producers (thus contributing to a sustainable local economy), and stores that are small enough that their employees don't have to unionize in order to stand up for their rights."
Well, wal-mart is what it is. It does a good job filling the role it fills, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are markets where it doesn't compete, and I doubt they are interested in those markets, nor do they have an adverse effect on them.
I'm not sure if you know what it is like to work for a small business. You do have to stand up for your rights, because every penny you make comes out of the owners pocket. Moreover, you are much likely to have bad management at a small business, since there is no one to replace bad managers. I have worked for wal-mart, and I can say that it is the best managed company I've ever worked for. They really make you feel like your part of something bigger, and that you are important to the team. Other corporations I've worked for have been worse, but none have come close to being as bad as the small business I work for now.
I won't argue that it'd be nice it it were easier to get by. The problem is that people make the claim that wal-mart replaces high paying jobs with lower paying jobs, and that simply isn't true. The opposite is true.
Furthermore, people make the claim that if wal-mart paid more, people would have more resources. That is untrue. We, as a nation, have finite resourced and simply raising the price of labour will not increase the supply of medical care, food, land, luxury items, or anything else. In fact, requiring that laborers be paid more would increase the supply of laborers, and would reduce the work force available in other fields. I know that it's counter intuitive, but raising the minimum wage will reduce access to health care, not increase it.
If you want people to have better access to health care, you need to increase the supply of health care. This could be achieved by removing the 4-year degree requirement for GPs, allowing nurses to perform routine tests and procedures, and removing the admission caps at medical schools.
I have never seen this occur. I've only ever seen wal-mart replace other companies which also to not pay health insurance. One nitpick: walmart does offer discounted health insurance to all its employees (even part-time employees), and most local retailers do not (especially the mom and pop operations).
I went to college in a small town (Moscow ID). I don't recall seeing any local shops go out of business because of walmart. I do recall that walmart was a lot cheaper than the local places, so being a poor student I'd always shop there. The local businesses tended to sell higher quality goods, so people with more money shopped there.
So walmart gives jobs to people on welfare, how is that bad? Would it be better if they only gave jobs to people who weren't eligible for welfare, like migrant workers without families perhaps? I don't see what is wrong here. Walmart is paying people the market rate for work, and entitlement programs are distributing funds as directed by law. What's the problem?
So wal-mart shouldn't provide information to people about PUBLIC services that are available to everyone? I suppose next you're going to tell me that wal-mart shouldn't suggest that people take the bus to work because public transportation is funded by taxpayer money. If you don't want people to use public services, you should shut down the public services, not try to keep them secret. What's wrong with you?
Then why don't you explain why we should try to shut down or otherwise impede the worlds largest retailer. Is it because they give jobs to people you'd rather see on welfare, or because they sell food and clothes to people you'd rather see do without?
I'd say that they represent most of the elitist hippy fucktards I've argued this issue with pretty well. But if you think you can put up a better argument for stomping all over my basic liberties and excluding people from the labor market, be my guest.
When my girlfriend worked at wal-mart last year she made $8.50/hour, while the minimum wage was $5.15. Before that she worked for a small business downtown which paid her $5.50. Six years ago when I worked at wal-mart they paid me $7.50/hr. So yes, wal-mart does usually pay significantly better than other retail businesses.
I appreciate the sentiment, but buckshot will turn the monkey into blood splat, that kind of force is completely unnecessary. Bird shot should be more than adequate. Besides, one would assume that maiming or crippling the monkey would certainly be sufficient to stop it from going after your food. You don't want to use a larger weapon, because you don't want to kill someone accidentally.
"relocating monkeys to a conservation zone"
The problem is that the human food is easily accessible, so monkeys will always try to come and steal it. It doesn't matter how many monkeys you move away, more will come because the food is available. The only solution it to secure your food against the wildlife. Throughout history, we humans have fenced our crops and livestock and killed or chased away the wild animals, its the only way to stop them.
So, you want to use buck shot to kill a little monkey? I suppose you must hunt deer with a rocket launcher.
So, how is letting monkeys steal our food mutually beneficial? How was killing all the wolves in Europe mutually beneficial? If you are competing for the same resources, you either get them or you don't. Just because there are mutually beneficial situations doesn't mean that animals don't kill each other, or that it would be bad for us to shoot unmanageable monkeys.
I was trying to say that intelligence is a very subjective concept. The OP seemed to take it for granted that humans are more intelligent than monkeys, without saying why he felt that way, or how that logically meant that we should not kill the little bastards.
"ITAR is the governing regulation, and the state department decides what ITAR means. And they are not logical about it."
I think you misunderstand the problem. In the US we have multiple branches of government. The laws are written by one branch, and enforced by another. Of course, every person in the government has their own political agenda. This means that when an agency is looking at enforcing a law, they don't ask "what did the writers of this law intend" instead they ask "how can this law be used to further my agenda". I am not being cynical, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with things working this way. Indeed, if enforcement agencies always set about enforcing the spirit of the law, it would give legislators far too much power.
I think you'll find that regulatory agencies' interpretation of the law makes a lot more sense when you consider the agencies' basic goals.