Behold!! The cancerous growth of Wal Mart!!!

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Me too!

So...why do you guys seem to go to bat to defend the wealthy? Do you think they became that way by being nice? On balance, do you think they care about you?

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

Except, of course, Wal Mart makes a point of never making anyone full time if they can avoid it so they don't have to give them benefits.

Not exactly sure but I bet no one is pointing a gun a people and saying " You go to work for Wal-Mart, or else". Still a free country.... for now.

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

So...why do you guys seem to go to bat to defend the wealthy? Do you think they became that way by being nice? On balance, do you think they care about you?

Why should I care "who they care about", they ain't my daddy. I defend anyone who is successful with honest work and smart thinking. That's the American Way (in case everyone already forgot).

[Buddahaid]

I can stay out of the Mall-Wart easily as there isn't one in my county. Anyway, I try to buy from the locally owned stores and find that gets harder as the years pass and they close down as the Home Depots move in. In fact Home Depot bought out a local hardware chain, remodeled the stores, and then closed them in the space of about 1-2 years. Gee, thanks Home Depot!

That said, I would rather work for Wal-Mart than flip burgers any day.

[Ducimus]

I wish I had a tumor that netted me $14 billion annually

That's great if your an executive, or board member. Go go gadget suspender man.

and directly provided over 2 million jobs.

Yeah, i wonder how many people Wallmart put out of work in one way or another. If there is one thing we aren't very short of is dead end McJobs in a world of the steady decline of the middle class.




I stopped reading there. Not gonna read a 2 page essay on why we should be thankful for the results of Sam Walton's scumbag progeny.

[tater]

Ducimus, if walmart didn't do it, the net would have, frankly.

The market is the market. I don't shop walmart, but what was the alternative, BANNING walmart?

Mom and pop needed to evolve or lose. Those that have weathered walmart—least here in NM—seem to be doing well. They picked a sub market, and deliver better products and service since they cannot hope to compete on mass produced stuff (and crap) with price point.

Price is all that matters for MANY consumers, but there are enough that want quality that mom and pop can survive, IMO, and long as their goal isn't to fight walmart's fight.

IMO the stores done in by walmart were selling the same crap that walmart sells, only for a lot more money. Why is it better for consumers to pay more for CRAP?

Worse to me (since I don't shop walmart) was what REI did to all the local hiking/outdoor eqp stores. REI is OK, but they don't offer as much higher end stuff. We had 3-4 in ABQ, now only REI. There are 2 stores still in Santa Fe, and they have REI now, so we'll see how long they last.

[Platapus]

This is where I put on my capitalist hat.

As a capitalist, I want the best quality for the lowest price.

If a US company can't compete, too bad, so sad. As a capitalist, I am not going to pay more for less quality simply because it is "made in America".

Buying a product with less quality and more expensive simply because it is an American company smacks of socialism.

Sounds kinda harsh don't it. Well the next time someone is talking about how great capitalism is, remember that it was capitalism that shut down the American industries because we could get better stuff cheaper from overseas.

This is why I am a moderate capitalist. Extremism in capitalism is not good for my country.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Not exactly sure but I bet no one is pointing a gun a people and saying " You go to work for Wal-Mart, or else". Still a free country.... for now.

Only valid if you jhave alternative and better jobs in needed quantities. Do you think people work in such jobs for fun? for some time, I worked amongst such people, and I therefore tell you that those working there did so becasue they had no other choice. There are not as many jobs anymore, and so many must take what they can get, even if it is miserable by working conditions and/or wages. the freedom you are claiming only exists where there is a sufficient diversity of jobs, and only low or no pressure by family realities in the background.

[CaptainHaplo]

the extreme we have is the one-euro-job. That are unemployed people who do not get a job, get social wellfare (do not consider that to be much money - it has been massively reduced in recent years) and are allowed to work a certain number of hours in jobs where they get only one Euro per hour. This is paradise for entrepreneurs: you have a pool of employees that will worfik for you, and their wages almost completely get payed by the state/the community. You must not even pay taxes and healthcare for them!

So that is the fault of the entrepreneur? Seems to me that it is - being a social welfare program - its the fault of the government that created and supervises to program. Is it a benefit for the entrepreneur? Sure - but is it his or her fault that such a program exists? No. Put the blame where it lays - the government.

the freedom you are claiming only exists where there is a sufficient diversity of jobs, and only low or no pressure by family realities in the background.

Ok - so its fault of big business that someone can't go pick there dream job and have it handed to them? Its the fault of business that the employee could not keep their pants on or skirt down and now has a bunch of kids to support? The business is creating jobs - granted not the best - but with the regulations some want - it would create none. So whats better - a crappy job or none at all? As for the "family obligations" - the term says it all - its the obligation of the family - not of the business - to provide for them. The business didn't make em, they don't have the responsibility to support them.

Government needs to lay out baseline regulation and then get out of the way. Businesses need to conform to those regulations - and decide if they wish to foster additional community goodwill by going beyond them. People need to start taking responsibility for thier own actions instead of expecting government - or business - to provide for them out of some "moralistic duty".

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

So that is the fault of the entrepreneur? Seems to me that it is - being a social welfare program - its the fault of the government that created and supervises to program. Is it a benefit for the entrepreneur? Sure - but is it his or her fault that such a program exists? No. Put the blame where it lays - the government.

Fact is that economic and job structures get created by the economy by masively influencing political decision making ( to a much wider degree than voters ever can hope to accieve in our corrupot Mafia-scoieties we call europe today). these economic structures base on these one-euro-jobs being available. "Jobs" get created only by depending on employers beign available who will cost the company only one Euro. Scrapping such a damaging job system then will be objected because the business structures starting to depend on these low wage workers being available claim to be no more "competitive" if they suddenly would be demanded to employ people that get payed with regular, responsible wages.

Low wages are a crime that leads far beyond the individual fate. They are a crime against society and a crime against the state, damaging both for the company's interest.

The pattern was implemented by the government to encourage and legalise options for unemployed people to seek even bad jobs, hoping they would get regular contracts there sooner or later once they got a foot into the door and showed to work reliably, and so enabling them to leave social wellfare payments and live by their hand's work again. We now know that it does not work that way. that people find entrance into new regular working contracts by accepting to work for one Euro for some months, is not the rule, but a rare exception from the rule. The companies take the free offer for free working forces, fire their regular staff, create a higher number of low-wage-jobs and 1-Euro-jobs, and get their workload done and the txpayer financing the wages and the jobbing people earning to little to live too much to die. the get the same or even more work done, but pay much lesser wages, and sometimes almost none, externalsiing these costs and letting the taxpayer come up for it. that is the taxpayer that desperately tries to find a reasonably payed job and more and more often cannot find such a job (Neal'S big freedom utopia) and so has to work underpayed or even for the symbolic payment of a slave salery.

working for a piece of sh!t, btw, also is criplling to a man'S self-assessment and dignity. I tell you that people get seriously sick from it, for sure. This is also something that statstics show very clearly. First comes the psychological fall, and than the phyysical consequence of that. I have done some badly payed, unpleasant jobs in my life. I needed the money and for the time being did not find better jobs. nobody tells me utopic nonsens about freedom of choice here. I am happy that now i have the luck and the freedom to have left this time behind. I say I had luck. Many have not.

Implementing these new job schemes was both naive thinking by some politics and corrupted thinkling by other poltics with close ties to economic lobby groups, and it resulted in intentional massive abuse by employers with crushing damage for society.

Ok - so its fault of big business that someone can't go pick there dream job and have it handed to them? Its the fault of business that the employee could not keep their pants on or skirt down and now has a bunch of kids to support? The business is creating jobs - granted not the best - but with the regulations some want - it would create none. So whats better - a crappy job or none at all? As for the "family obligations" - the term says it all - its the obligation of the family - not of the business - to provide for them. The business didn't make em, they don't have the responsibility to support them.

I refuse to answer anymore to extreme black-white painting schemes. If you need to give such statements claiming extreme examples that are ignoring the rule, then I take from that that the other guy has run out of arfguments and can continue only by falling back to presenting right this: extremes.

And I am very very tired of this.

Government needs to lay out baseline regulation and then get out of the way.

whenever this gets noted, you or Lance or people of your opinion camp immediately cry wolf for that even the most minimal regulation alreayd is far too much regulation. Also, you guys constantly ignore thzat politics gets massively lobbied, interferred and manipulated by big business to serve it's interests at the cost of the community, and to form legislation decisions that serves not communal but company interests. You claim the corruption of politics, but you are totally ignorrant of the corrptuoin of economics and how they made politics going corrupt.

Why do you think this job pattern I described has been implemented? Do you think it was by independant "socialist" thinking? It was not. It was announced after months and years of massive economic lobbying and attempts to lower wages and additional costs (social insurrances), arguing that Germany needs lower wages in order to regain competitiveness. the winners here are according companies. The loosers are the employees, and the state itself. Germany'S middle class is shrinking, massively, due to two factors: shrinking effective incomes of the normal population, and rising costs for health and social insurrance. At the same time, the group of top earners with top incomes has become smaller, but since the individuals in this club earn more and more, more and more financial power and thus: influence is accumulated in this shrinking group at the top. More and more wealth and power in few and fewer hands. The social low class on the other hand is exploding in size. This together means: the state's financial fundament gets eroded, important things like education, universities, and thus creating a new generation of qualified experts for the high qualification jobs Germany claims to need can no longer be "supplied" since financial funding is missing. privbate households earn less and lesser real income to comepnsate for the state falling out of the suplly shceme by using their own money for education, for example - the real income of german households in the middleclass is shrinking since longer time, and the middleclass itself is shrinking, too. A growing social underclass means additional follow-up costs for health care due to bad education, meaning worse health conditions by for example unhealthy food habits (a massive factor, don't laugh, with food-related health issues we talk about a cost facor in the range of high billions). It means growing costs for maintaining even the already massively reduced social security net - ten years ago, that sector and the interest payments for it consummed one third of Germany's budget, today, only ten years later, it already consumes more than the half of the fiscal budget, although spendings per individual have been massively cut. Stressing the budget even more by inviting undiscriminatory migration of uneducated social low class families who the statistics now prove beyond any doubt to cause much more costs for germany than they contribute to the communal income and prosperity, does not help, of course. Now add the shrining population, the growing mean age, the shrinking abi8lity of the indiovudual to save money for the high age with the social system collapsing due to failing financial support, add the demographic change and the chnage in social and cultural structures by islamic migration, and finally the spiral into which world economy itself is falling, inetnsifying competition beyond what is constructive and vitalising for all. We cannot afford to maintain our high tech industries, specilies, well-educatedf acadmeical people leave germany in groiwng numbers (brain drain), and the Asians are flooding the world market with cheap mass püroduction and an insustry with low wages with which no wetsenr nation can comeote without seeing the population committing suicide.

That's the recipe for national revolutions followed by big wars. We've been there, we go there again. Halleluja!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Only valid if you jhave alternative and better jobs in needed quantities. Do you think people work in such jobs for fun? for some time, I worked amongst such people, and I therefore tell you that those working there did so becasue they had no other choice. There are not as many jobs anymore, and so many must take what they can get, even if it is miserable by working conditions and/or wages. the freedom you are claiming only exists where there is a sufficient diversity of jobs, and only low or no pressure by family realities in the background.

"alternative and better jobs in needed quantities" is not Wal-Mart's problem.

[August]

It comes as a shock to many of my younger students when they realize all that time they spent screwing off in public school has severely limited their career opportunities as an adult.

[Onkel Neal]

And college! Somehow, texting in class instead of taking notes and listening to the lecture is not helpful in passing the exams.

I have several group projects coming due in a few days and guess who did 90% of the work?

[August]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I have several group projects coming due in a few days and guess who did 90% of the work?

The one who won't be stocking shelves at the local Walmart?

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

And college! Somehow, texting in class instead of taking notes and listening to the lecture is not helpful in passing the exams.

I have several group projects coming due in a few days and guess who did 90% of the work?

You know what's funny? Not "ha ha" funny, mind you, but when I was in high school, when I had a lab partner of a certain demographic, they expected me to do all the work because I was in another demographic.

I wonder where they are, today? They could only play a certain card so much.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

"alternative and better jobs in needed quantities" is not Wal-Mart's problem.

It's a problem with your reference to that holy and all-healing "freedom" of people to just pick a better job if they do not like the current one. The freedom to chose another job means not much if that other job is not available - because it got killed by splitting it into several low-wage- jobs, for example.

No company and no economy works and functions in a vacuum, disconnected from the social context that raised it, that funded it, built it and supported it. Total freedom of institutions or individuals only exist if said individuals or institutions exist all alone on a planet that they have all for themselves, with nobody else being there.

Or in other words, this often made demand for total freedom - often is just a foul excuse for total egoism.