Smoke And Mirrors

Whatever happened to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY in this country? If the average sales clerk at Wal-Mart earns $8.50 an hour, that comes to $17,000 per year for a 40-hour avg. week-or $2,000 above the federally mandated poverty line for a family of three. It seems either someone was very bad at math or, more likely, fudging the numbers to fit their statement. Either way, let me get back to my original point about personal responsibility.

If you are working full-time at Wal-Mart, and married, fine. If your spouse isn’t working you should think seriously about having a child. You need two incomes today to keep up with the basic necessities of life (which used to be luxuries). You are irresponsible if you have children while one parent is employed, and that in retail. If you cannot properly support your children you should not have them. Use your employee discount to pick up some condoms, use your health insurance to get your wife on the pill, use the rhythm method if you can keep track of the days. Whatever you do, do not have children. How do you expect to take care of a child? Do you think Wal-Mart has an obligation to increase one’s wages simply because they pop out children? Should Wal-Mart be like the government and reward you with more money each time you have a child?

I don’t mean to be insensitive or uncaring here. I hope that people make rational decisions and have children if they can properly care for them and educate them. If you are such a parent, God bless you. But if you are living in a hovel, eating Oodles and Noodles for dinner and taking the bus to work, you probably should not be having children. We owe it to children, born and not yet conceived, to give them the best life we can. You will not be able to do that earning $8.50 an hour for a family of three and it is not Wal-Mart’s responsibility to make sure you can support your family. Wal-Mart pays you a wage in return for work. They are not a welfare state; they are a company.

Nick, please for the love of God tell me you’ve had a vasectomy.

Della-have you had your tubes tied?

Keep it up Nick.  You know you are winning when they start whining.

Keep at it guys. Spend as much time on this blog as you can. Please. I beg you. It’ll keep you out of the gene pool.

Della,

Could you please stay with the argument and lose the personal insults. Even when Larry disagrees with me, he is not as crude or as childish as you. (And he disagrees with me a great deal).

You would do well to lay out an argument that counters mine. For example, explain to me why poor people have a right to have children (which they do) and why we have an obligation to pay for their children (which we most certainly do not).

Make your point, please.

Nope.

Tweedle Dick, and Tweedle Dork at it again---there is no argument here!

Della: Nick is your worst nightmare: he is informed on the issues, he votes, and he is generating offspring.

The average number of hours worked by a Wal-Mart employee is less than 40, which is how they came back to $14,000 per annum.  The Watch group has a bit more statistics than you Nick.

Most of these working adults have a second job and work at Wal-Mart just to get by in life, either for money or healthcare or both.  Obviously Nick is more favored in life and hasn’t grown up in rural America or in poverty regions. 

If Nick has his way about child-rearing, the American population would actually have negative growth and cause the largest recession in history.  There is a very large percentage of the American population either below, at, or slightly just above the poverty level.  Stopping them from having kids would be detrimental to the U.S. economy.  Think it through Nick.

Wal-Mart grew it’s employee base due to hiring of ‘semi-retired’ persons and other disadvantaged people so that they could keep costs low.  But the PR spin was that they are a great company and welcome all applicants.  Whatever happened to EOE?  Wal-Mart hired those people with a promise, “Stick with us and we’ll make you better in life”.  Looks to me like they are reneging on that promise.

This could go on and on, but the point is Wal-Mart does have a responsibility to its employees and to the general public.  Keeping people at poverty is not the American dream.  But telling them to work for you and work their way up the ladder is, so they need to fulfill their promise to the employees.

Just my 2 cents worth.  Don’t have time to write everything I want.

ND,

Della is one of those people who pulls the Democratic lever everytime (assuming she votes). There is a name for people like that..............sheep. People who allow themselves to be led to the slaughter. People who blindly follow any party are people who don’t mind being slaves. If a Democrat came to their door and said “I’m going to raise your taxes to 95% of your gross income, sell your first born for oil, have forced intercourse with you whenever I like and execute your elderly parents” people like Della would still be wearing their campaign buttons and pulling the lever for that guy.

Some people just cannot think for themselves.

Sheep going blindly to the slaughter.

You are correct. People like Della are frightened by people like you and me. I don’t tow the PC line, I think for myself and I am well read and well informed. I do vote and I will produce children (with my wonderful lady who thinks as I do)!  Intelligent, well informed people aren’t buying what the Dems are selling. I prefer to vote Libertarian but I’m often forced to vote Republican because the Democrat is generally worse. I do vote for the candidate and his position on the issues, not the party.

I was thinking this morning that I despise people who claim diversity is necessary in this world. I don’t know where that thought came from. But I do despise them. You hear it all the time, sheep running around saying “We need to have diversity” and “diversity is important on college campuses and in the workplace”. My question is WHY? What is so important about making sure that a college with 2,000 students is diverse? Shouldn’t diversity happen naturally? Shouldn’t a workforce or a student body be made up of the most qualified, the most gifted? How is it in anyone’s interest to be thrown into a group with other people simply on the basis or skin color or ethnic background? Why can’t a college have the 2,000 most qualified students? Why can’t a workplace have the most intelligent, hardworking people it can get? Why do somewhat intelligent people feel the need to talk about “diversity” in glowing terms? I am not against diversity, provided the diversity means the most qualified people are in the room. If 80% of employees are black, and they are the most qualified, I could care less. I just want to be around people who can help make me smarter or richer. I could care less about anything else.

This last rant had nothing to do with the topic. Indulge me.

Nick really needs to get a clue.  I really hope you do not have any real authority in life as it doesn’t appear that you know how to wield power and responsibility.

I have a BA, an MBA, was a CPA for 5 years and am now a CFO.  Employees make the company go round, and people make the world go round.  Simple as that.

Nick, I’ve never come across someone like yourself and hope I never do.  If you’re so educated, how can you have such a ridiculous look on life?  You’re not neo-nazi or anything are you?

And sheep are a great thing.

Nick, well said, but I think the issue in America is not one of diversity in terms of race.  It’s more an issue of helping people of “diverse” socioeconomic backgrounds.

Keep it up Nick.  You know you are making points when they start to get personal.  No good arguments, so attack the messenger.

Very disturbing. 

There’s an old addage that goes “never fight with an idiot, they only take you down to their level”. 

So given that...I bid you all adieu and gutten nicht

P.S. - not one of Nick’s arguments had a shred of fact or sustenance.  If you’re going to spout off, at least have some knowledge to support yourself.  I almost wonder if David is actually Nick.

Ken,

If you can find ONE incorrect fact in any of my posts, and you can provide evidence to back up your assertion, I will gladly admit I was wrong. I am not one to hide from mistakes. I do provide facts. If you go back and read any of my posts, you may not like what you see but you cannot doubt to accuracy of my information. It is legitimate and it is easy to find. I don’t come on this site to call people names, rather, I am here to try to shed some light on why the UFCW funds this site, and point out their mistakes. I am trying to make the UFCW a better citizen!

Ken, I will be happy to provide you with facts to back up my claims in support of the free market in general and Wal-Mart in particular. I constantly provide statistics and facts and consulting studies and business quotes. I am answered with names and insults. People do not want to hear the truth. They live in their own little worlds; apparently they think Ike is still President and Sputnik is their worst nightmare. In reality, we live in a time of rising global economic output and the a changing global marketplace. People may not like that but they certainly have to deal with it.

My presence here is a rude reminder to all that everything will NOT be alright if they just wait a little longer. I am trying to wake people up to the dangers of big government, unions, ignorance and blind support. I am trying to encourage people to think for themselves, get informed, learn basic history, economics and politics, support the free market and take responsibility for their own lives.

If I sound like I have a God complex, I apologize. I feel more like a Prophet.

Perhaps I should change my name?

I am curious to know if your sign off, in Deutsch, has any hidden meaning? You mention neo-nazis, show intolerance of opposing ideas and say good night in German. Hmmmm.........................

I am really surprised by all this “take personal responsibility” crap, how do you do that in a system where your options are limited by monolithic corporations that practically write the law (check out how much WMT has contributed to the Delay Defense Fund). The individual has absolutely no power, post-election that is. It is pretty ironic that most of these “personal responsibility” right winger hyprocites work for these monstrosities and have no ability to discren the facts that they are being manipulated on all ends, media, religion, etc. I have seen this in person and it scares me, I see echoes of Nazism (Goebels, etc.) in the current administration and Wal-Mart both. Wal-Mart does not tolerate dissent either.

I personally feel that Lee Scott and a host of other executives need to be fired for mediocre performance, the only answers to Wall-Street’s ceaseless demands for growth is to “cut costs” and “add more stores”. Wal-Mart is building a house of cards that will collapse without doubt, unless the affect drastic change.

While living in Bentonville, AR for practically all my life. I have seen numerous small businesses be rail-roaded by Wal-Mart and personally know several people who WMT would not make “permanent” giving ludicrous reasons. There is absolutely NO NEED for corporate welfare. Why do I have to finance Wal-Mart’s expansion plans with taxpayer dollars by subsidizing their employees with Medicare/SSI, etc. From its inception, WMT has been run as a cult. WMT’s excuses that they are bringing down prices sound hollow just like Bush’s “Clean Water Act” and “No Child Left Behind”, this administration and past ones eviserating the Union movements just fit well with Wal-Mart’s agenda.

I am not sure what the competitiors can do since we are so addicted to disposable shoes, pens, DVD players that we are willing to overlook how most of our fellow American can barely make it because WMT has forced practically most manufacturing to be moved to China and deals with several companies that are financing the biggest arms buildup in China’s history. By denigrating the US to a “has-been”, the administration and WMT have been traitors to the cause of the American Revolution. I bet if we had a WMT in Boston, we would not have had the Boston Tea Party, we could have sourced tea from Britain at ridiculously low prices, freedom ? it is overrated for the masses.

Interesting to see Mr. Scott calling for an increase in the minimum wage. I would think that you wouldn’t like that Nick.
Anyway to listen to some of this and other arguments in the past you seem to think we’d be better off jettisoning your bete noire--the unions at any cost up to and including turning the country into a third word nation or at least a second rate economic power. I’d rather not comment on your ideas about birth control which I find ridiculous. The way wages have stagnated in this country you are pretty much asking at least some people to abstain their entire lives or perform a kind of suicidal natural selection upon themselves.  It’s not going to happen. We haven’t even got to teenagers and those in their early 20’s--a whole huge marketplace panders to them and their sexuality. It’s become a huge part of our economy and is growing by leaps and bounds.  These problems are much bigger than your theorizing I’m afraid.

Many years ago, I worked for Wal-Mart in Albany, GA.  Now my Mom works there.  One thing I want to comment on is the myth about 40 hours a week.  In the entire time I worked for Wal-Mart and the entire time my Mom has worked there, there has never been any such thing as a 40 hour a week job.  Sure around the holidays (Halloween to New Year’s) they work you like a dog, giving you lots of “overtime”, but then come late January to early February, you are knocked down to barely 28 hours.  28 hours being their magic number that constitutes “full-time” employment.  Wal-Mart does not exist in the real world, never has.  People can not make a decent living and raise a family if they are never guaranteed a consistent work schedule, and therefore, a consistent paycheck.  Recently, my Mom was told that employees could not have closed hours, meaning they had to have all of their time available to be scheduled for work.  My Mom opened up her availability and has had nothing but the 2-11 shift ever since.  Other employees have commented that they have not changed their availability and they continue to get the 8-5 and 9-6 shifts.  When it comes to employment practices, Wal-Mart has no ethics.  They have all these commercials telling what a great company they are and how they help revitalize communities, but let’s be honest it’s just propaganda.  What they have is a bunch of people who have no other option, so they remain prisoners within the walls of this great and mighty “benefactor”.

Chuck is right about the way scheduling works. After the holiday season, no one at my store saw 40 hours for a few months. Sure, Valentine’s meant jewelry and foods picked up more hours and summer meant lawn & garden saw more, but every other time you saw 28-34 hours.

I was a part time employee but my department was seriously understaffed. My availability said I could work no more than 28 hours a week and no less than 20 yet I often worked anywhere from 8-40 hours a week. My hours said I couldn’t work before 3:30 on weekdays because I had class yet I often had to tell managers they had scheduled me during the day and needed to change things, at which point they told me I was responsible for finding a replacement or I would be written up. How’s that for a corporate policy?

Baaaaaaa...hahahaha.

Seriously, though. It’s nice to see new people on here offering fresher viewpoints, even if I don’t agree with them.

It’s not about personal responsibility when Wal-Mart’s unscrupulous business practices force people to earn a living through Wal-Mart’s unfair labor practices.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Wal-Mart didn’t work so hard to eliminate other jobs and force local economies to become entirely dependent on them. People would have a choice and could quit in favor of a better job. The problem is that there aren’t any.

Unfortunately Wal-Mart is within its legal rights to do this. It’s unfair and ethically wrong, but legally it’s fine and dandy. That’s what happens when you have pay to play politics.

So the only recourse people have is the almighty boycott. If Americans would say NO to everyday low prices and Wal-Mart’s UNAMERICAN practices the retail giant would have to change.

Sadly Wal-Mart exists because too many American’s are selfish and lazy.  Most of the people complaining about Wal-Mart will happily run to the smiley face when they need new underpants. You can’t prove your point if you had them your money.

What’s so funny? The fact that Wal-Mart’s scheduling people are horrible at their jobs?

How do we get a progressive agenda done today?

The answer appears in your wallet. I imagine each of you have studied the union movement. The union movement has brought us the 40 hour work week and the minimum wage. The union movement had focused on the individual employers to get these benefits.

Today corporations have taken over the Republican party and even write the legislation that hurts ordinary people.

We need to form our own ad hoc union and instead of going on a work strike we need to go on a purchasing strike. We need to target some of the major contributors of money to the Republican party as they pull the levers of power and they have the most to lose and they can get the pressure every day instead of the officeholders that only run every 2, 4 and 6 years.

We need to go on strike against Walmart, Wendy’s, Outback Steak House, Dominos Pizza, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Eckerd, CVS and Walgreens, GE and Exxon/Mobil.

We need to call these companies and thell them we have gone on strike against them until they get the RNC to hold a press conference announcing that they will accede to our demands of a TEN dollar an hour minimum wage, an unemployment insurance benefit that will last 1 year instead of 6 months, a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare of 80 percent coverage and no privatization of social security and increasing the social security payroll tax,removing the 88,000 dollar a year FICA taxable income limit, and vote by mail throughout the US with paper ballots and an independent civil service that registers people to vote and counts votes. We need this and more. You make the demands, you go on strike. You have the money and the Republican contributors either do as we want or they go broke under our purchasing strike.

Call to action. Stop the Republican Party.

http://tinyurl.com/8ghl8

http://tinyurl.com/b97vk

Where Republicans tread, innocent people end up dead.

....

Steve in Columbus

I think I’ve commented on this before but I’ll say it again as it applies to this thread. I have been to about 30 Wal-Marts. Whenever a new Wal-Mart opens, several new businesses spring up next door. In some cases these are existing businesses that moved to take advantage of Wal-Mart’s traffic. In most cases, however, they are entirely new businesses who have moved in to take advantage of Wal-Mart’s traffic. Wal-Mart has no interest in destroying a local economy. They thrive from a local economy.

The best examples I can use are the Super Wal-Marts in Belle Vernon, PA and Washington, PA and the soon-to-be Super Wal-Mart in St. Clairsville, OH. These stores went up and immediately the area was flooded with new businesses. We had new restaraunts and bank branches and shoe stores and pet stores and Starbucks. Generally, there is a Lowe’s nearby. All of these businesses opened AFTER Wal-Mart and often their opening was contingent on Wal-Mart’s opening. Wal-Mart knows it can’t attract every single retail dollar and it does not want to. It would cost more than it would bring in. Instead, they build in underserved areas, watch stores and businesses open around them and all the businesses thrive. If Wal-Mart were really the evil monster they are portrayed as, why would there be 20 or 25 new businesses opening up next door and doing very well?

I wish someone could answer that for me.

You see, a new plaza without a central anchor tenant is a waste of space. People come to shop Super Wal-Mart. Then they look around and decide to check out the other stores. I myself frequent many stores in the same plaza, including Quiznos, Panera, Starbucks, Petsmart, Rita’s, Giant Eagle, Applebees, Red Lobster, Blockbuster and more. All of these businesses benefit from my choice to shop at Wal-Mart. They get some of my disposable income.

How, then, can Wal-Mart be accused of squashing a local economy, when in many cases they CREATE a local economy?

People assume that if Wal-Mart’s sales grow 5%, then someone else’s sales declined 5%. That is assuming a zero-sum game. In reality, the pie grows ever larger and if the pie grows at 10% while Wal-Mart’s share grows at 7.5%, Wal-Mart is actually LOSING market share. If you compare Target and Wal-Mart sales growth over the last 3 years, you will see that Target is growing sales much faster. Is it taking business from Wal-Mart? Probably. But that is only a small slice of its’ increase.

That is economics in a nutshell.

Nick:

Thanks for the lesson in vodoo economics. You make a great point in citing the example of the retail plazas Wal-Mart seems to anchor but you’re not seeing the big picture impact. Wal-Mart is notorious for crushing smaller business and replacing self-sufficient local economies. The result is the elimination of fair trade and the monoploization of the job market.

Some of the other retailers you mentioned are not much better than Wal-Mart in the sense that they participate in the homogenization of our society. They replace solid local jobs with corporate mandates and low wages.

The story you’re not telling is the story of the American Dream. Independent store owners are run out of business by the powerful mega corporations who can happily sacrifice profits while they bleed opponents dry.  I’ve been the places you referred to and I’ll admit that those retail areas look pretty impressive but the communities nearby are not better for them.  In many cases the actual community is worse off.

Once they establish dominance in an area they reduce wages, cut hours and raise prices. They can get away with it because they have eliminated the competition for both jobs and goods.

This hasn’t happened in Columbus because Columbus is a big city and Wal-Mart can’t make up it’s own rules, but in other areas where they don’t have competition they don’t play fair. 

That’s corporate slavery, folks. Wal-mart has made it an art form.