# News & Current Events > Economy & Markets >  Wal-Mart workers threaten Black Friday walk-out

## Badger Paul

Here is the story:

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## Acala

Bad time for unskilled labor to be demanding more pay.

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## kathy88

Here's what jumped out at me.




> On Monday, Chicago police dressed in riot gear arrested 17 peaceful protesters blocking the entrance to a warehouse operated by an outside contractor that supplies Walmart stores, in Elwood, Ill.

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## oyarde

If they cancel Black Friday , this would mean it would be safe for me to venture out for beer, I could live with that, lol.

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## opal

'Good for them!   I used to work in retail.  Black Friday is a 4 letter word!

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## Bohner

Walmart has a pretty simple business model: Keep costs low and keep profit margins low in order to keep prices low. 

What many people don't understand is that there are millions of people who depend on Wal-Mart because of their low prices. Increasing their labor costs (which would easily be in the tens of billions of dollars given the amount of people they employ) means they'll raise their prices to cover those cost. Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before.

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## John F Kennedy III

> If theycancel Black Friday , this would mean it would be safe for me to venture out for beer, I could livewith that, lol.


Oyarde!

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## cubical

> Walmart has a pretty simple business model: Keep costs low and keep profit margins low in order to keep prices low. 
> 
> What many people don't understand is that there are millions of people who depend on Wal-Mart because of their low prices. Increasing their labor costs (which would easily be in the tens of billions of dollars given the amount of people they employ) means they'll raise their prices to cover those cost. Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before.


People in this country can think critically like this. They can not put 2 and 2 together and only see the evil corporations taking advantage of its workers.

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## Working Poor

I heard Walmart micro chips every one of their items.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lEGDyw7ydA

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## thequietkid10

> Here is the story:


well I'm going to school part time, working full time, and I could use more money.

So these genius' can walk out, I'll work Black Friday, and over Christmas break, then I'll go back to school.

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## RabbitMan

Uh. Walmart's prices really aren't that cheap.  Maybe compared to places at the mall or boutique shops.  Kroger's big-box store in the Northwest, Fred Meyer, has roughly the same or even lower prices, with unions and decent playing jobs and good healthcare.

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## kylejack

> Walmart has a pretty simple business model: Keep costs low and keep profit margins low in order to keep prices low. 
> 
> What many people don't understand is that there are millions of people who depend on Wal-Mart because of their low prices. Increasing their labor costs (which would easily be in the tens of billions of dollars given the amount of people they employ) means they'll raise their prices to cover those cost. Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before.


Those workers' obligations are to themselves and their families, not the American public.

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## kpitcher

If the Supreme Court finds that the first sale doctrine doesn't hold for non-american goods you won't be able to buy much at Walmart that you'll be legally allowed to sell used.

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## Indy Vidual

96% of homeless dogs hope you buy them something at Walmart.

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## fr33

Let them eat cake.

A wal mart worker is possibly the easiest worker to replace.

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## Indy Vidual

> If the Supreme Court finds that the first sale doctrine doesn't hold for non-american goods you won't be able to buy much at Walmart that you'll be legally allowed to sell used.


What, no freedom @ garage sales?

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## kylejack

> Let them eat cake.
> 
> A wal mart worker is possibly the easiest worker to replace.


Not on Black Friday.

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## VoluntaryAmerican

> Not on Black Friday.


Easy way to fix it. Just give them holiday pay on black friday.

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## fr33

> Not on Black Friday.


From experience, the average wal mart employee is even dumber than the average wal mart shopper. It shouldn't be too difficult to learn about plans to walk out on Black Friday and have replacements.

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## LibertyRevolution

> Walmart has a pretty simple business model: Keep costs low and keep profit margins low in order to keep prices low. 
> 
> What many people don't understand is that there are millions of people who depend on Wal-Mart because of their low prices. Increasing their labor costs (which would easily be in the tens of billions of dollars given the amount of people they employ) means they'll raise their prices to cover those cost. Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before.


When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.
You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.

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## matt0611

> When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.
> You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
> I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.


No one working full time even at minimum wage should be getting food stamps and welfare. Cut out the cable tv, the iphones, the 50' flat screen, the PS3 etc

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## kylejack

> From experience, the average wal mart employee is even dumber than the average wal mart shopper. It shouldn't be too difficult to learn about plans to walk out on Black Friday and have replacements.


Hard to hire retail scabs at the start of the holiday season, though. They've all found jobs by then.

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## kylejack

> No one working full time even at minimum wage should be getting food stamps and welfare. Cut out the cable tv, the iphones, the 50' flat screen, the PS3 etc


I don't think minimum wage goes as far as you think it goes...

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## BamaAla

> Uh. Walmart's prices really aren't that cheap.  Maybe compared to places at the mall or boutique shops.  Kroger's big-box store in the Northwest, Fred Meyer, has roughly the same or even lower prices, with unions and decent playing jobs and good healthcare.


Walmart matches any advertised price or special and they do not require that you have the ad with you to get the price match.

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## Acala

> When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.
> You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
> I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.


If you don't want to pay to give away free stuff, stop giving away free stuff.  Your inability to do so is not Walmart's fault.

Walmart is not a social service agency.  Walmart is not a backstop for failed government programs.  Walmart is not a social safety net.  Walmart is a business.  They provide goods and services that people want at prices set by the marketplace.  That's it.  Labor is a resource like any other.  A business will buy labor at the lowest rate the market will allow just like it will buy electricity and shelving at the lowest rate the market will allow.  Expecting it to fix economic problems created by government by acting contrary to the forces of economics is like expecting your car mechanic to fix your ruptured appendix.

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## Bohner

> Those workers' obligations are to themselves and their families, not the American public.


I never said anything to the contrary. I was speaking from the perspective of the American public, not the worker. 




> When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.


Once again, higher costs = higher prices. Walmart operates on 3% profit margins. Even as much as a 50c raise for all its employees equates to billions in additional costs. Those additional costs will come at the expense of the middle/lower class consumer who depends on Wal-Mart whose expenses have gone up. 




> You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
> I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.


The high cost of medical insurance is a separate issue. Forcing employers to cover more people and more and more things is the reason why HC is so expensive to begin with.

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## NCGOPer_for_Paul

Are the workers being FORCED to work at Walmart?

I certainly understand the frustration of those working in the retail industry with the whole nonsense known as Black Friday.  However, nobody is forcing anyone to work in that kind of an enviornment.

As a consumer, any store that uses 4AM openings for "Door Buster Specials" goes further down on my list of places to shop.

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## papitosabe

> People in this country can think critically like this. They can not put 2 and 2 together and only see the evil corporations taking advantage of its workers.


I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.

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## Bohner

> I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  *Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.*


Agree with this part completely. The government imposing a 35% corporate tax and then giving deductions and loopholes to those they like is basically the government picking it's winners and losers and is crony capitalism at it's finest.

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## Acala

> I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.


Greed is not the problem, not that I advocate greed as a personal value.  Crony-capitalism IS a problem.  And as you point out, government regulations are typically drafted to favor the big companies at the expense of the small.  But Walmart is a small-time operator when it comes to crony-capitalism.  Walmart makes most of its money by operating an extremely efficient operation that allows it to sell goods at a competitive price - not by getting massive government contracts or subsidies.

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## papitosabe

> Greed is not the problem, not that I advocate greed as a personal value.  Crony-capitalism IS a problem.  And as you point out, government regulations are typically drafted to favor the big companies at the expense of the small.  But Walmart is a small-time operator when it comes to crony-capitalism.  Walmart makes most of its money by operating an extremely efficient operation that allows it to sell goods at a competitive price - not by getting massive government contracts or subsidies.


google Wal-Mart bribery, loopholes, corruption and see if you find anything.  When there are billions of dollars exchanged within the whole parameter of things, greed and corruption has its hand waiting for their share.  People are paid off under the table, laws are passed, favors are bartered, etc.  Not just blaming Wal-Mart.  But it is what it is.  Until we can remove high dollar lobbying/loopholes, etc, most don't have necessary funds to buy and take the red pill.

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## Seraphim

Working at minimum wage at full (or near full) time is more than enough to survive and live comfortably.

The people who argue/live otherwise lack discipline or financial sense. Not the taxpayers problem.




> I don't think minimum wage goes as far as you think it goes...

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## Acala

> google Wal-Mart bribery, loopholes, corruption and see if you find anything.  When there are billions of dollars exchanged within the whole parameter of things, greed and corruption has its hand waiting for their share.  People are paid off under the table, laws are passed, favors are bartered, etc.  Not just blaming Wal-Mart.  But it is what it is.  Until we can remove high dollar lobbying/loopholes, etc, most don't have necessary funds to buy and take the red pill.


Walmart is getting very little of my tax money in contracts and is getting very little in the way of government subsidy, to my knowledge.  They ARE getting an unfair advantage from regulatory schemes.  My only point is that compared to the Oil companies, drug companies, military contractors, unions, etc., they are not big crony capitalists.  If you specifics, I will listen.

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## CT4Liberty

> Working at minimum wage at full (or near full) time is more than enough to survive and live comfortably.
> 
> The people who argue/live otherwise lack discipline or financial sense. Not the taxpayers problem.


I would imagine it would depend a bit on where you live... I have always done very well for myself, so maybe my compass is skewed a bit.  But from a sheer math point of view:

Federal Min. Wage = $7.25
Hours in a full work week = 40
Weeks in a year = 52

7.25*40*52 = $15,080 / year. Take out payroll tax and weekly youre probably seeing about $250 dollars... thats roughly my weekly grocery bill and we dont get much beyond fruits, veggies, milk, whatever meats were having that week and stuff to make my son his school lunch.

That doesnt factor in rent and utilities.

Again, I've been very blessed and fortunate in my work life - but I couldnt even fathom living on 250/week by myself, nevermind with my wife and 2 sons.  I made more than that at 16 waiting tables...

...not to say anything about what Walmart should or shouldnt pay their employees, if they cant live on that, dont work there...but I think its a bit of a misnomer to assume someone will live comfortably on minimum wage.

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## LibertyRevolution

> I would imagine it would depend a bit on where you live... I have always done very well for myself, so maybe my compass is skewed a bit.  But from a sheer math point of view:
> 
> Federal Min. Wage = $7.25
> Hours in a full work week = 40
> Weeks in a year = 52
> 
> 7.25*40*52 = $15,080 / year. Take out payroll tax and weekly youre probably seeing about $250 dollars... thats roughly my weekly grocery bill and we dont get much beyond fruits, veggies, milk, whatever meats were having that week and stuff to make my son his school lunch.
> 
> That doesnt factor in rent and utilities.
> ...


That is what I was getting at. 
If your take home pay is $1000 a month, and a 1 bedroom in the slums cost $600/mo, you are forcing your employees onto state aid..
Trust me, it sucks. I went from making $800-$1100 a week to $238 on unemployment..
I am trying to get by a month on what I used to make in a week, it aint happening.. I been through 5k in savings over the last year..

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## emazur

> Uh. Walmart's prices really aren't that cheap.  Maybe compared to places at the mall or boutique shops.  Kroger's big-box store in the Northwest, Fred Meyer, has roughly the same or even lower prices, with unions and decent playing jobs and good healthcare.


Fred Meyer is mostly for groceries though that depends on the store. The one nearest me where I used to live used to be a full store with an electronics section and some furniture but they remodeled and focused 90% on food. But none of the Fred Meyers I'd been to had anywhere near the size and amount of non-food stuff that Wal-Mart has (and Fred Meyers has more groceries selection compared to even a Super Wal-Mart)

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## TomtheTinker

> People in this country can think critically like this. They can not put 2 and 2 together and only see the evil corporations taking advantage of its workers.


      Nothing wrong with the employees negotiating for better pay/benefits...if they get locked out and replaced in the process thats the risk they took.

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## angelatc

> I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.


I think liberals have a problem with corporate greed.  Sure, the loopholes should be eliminated, but unfettered profit is the soul of capitalism. 

Unfettered greed = talking point, based on using force to punish success.

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## torchbearer

self-check out for everyone!

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## roho76

> Uh. Walmart's prices really aren't that cheap.  Maybe compared to places at the mall or boutique shops.  Kroger's big-box store in the Northwest, Fred Meyer, has roughly the same or even lower prices, with unions and decent playing jobs and good healthcare.


Bingo. $#@! WalMart. I go to Meijer.

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## angelatc

> That is what I was getting at. 
> If your take home pay is $1000 a month, and a 1 bedroom in the slums cost $600/mo, you are forcing your employees onto state aid..
> Trust me, it sucks. I went from making $800-$1100 a week to $238 on unemployment..
> I am trying to get by a month on what I used to make in a week, it aint happening.. I been through 5k in savings over the last year..


Oh well. It's apparently a job that a monkey could do.  Either get two jobs, or go back to school and make yourself more valuable to your employer.  You get paid exactly what you're worth in the current market and position, and nobody owes you a single penny more.

And guess what - after 30 years in the workforce, my husband and I are both unemployed, and have been for over a year.  He's gone from making 6 figures to making nothing.  We've gone through a lot more of our retirement than you've gone through savings, and we have a lot less time to replace it, since we're in our 50's. I'd love to have a job at WalMart, partly because I know if I got my foot in the door I'd work my way up in no time. I've done it before, and I can do it again.

We aren't exactly thrilled with the situation, but neither of us are hanging around blaming some random corporation for our problems, and pretending the world or the government owes us a living.

Minimum wage isn't supposed to provide a comfortable living for a family of 4.    If you can't live on it, get a roommate, or 3.

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## thequietkid10

> I would imagine it would depend a bit on where you live... I have always done very well for myself, so maybe my compass is skewed a bit.  But from a sheer math point of view:
> 
> Federal Min. Wage = $7.25
> Hours in a full work week = 40
> Weeks in a year = 52
> 
> 7.25*40*52 = $15,080 / year. Take out payroll tax and weekly youre probably seeing about $250 dollars... thats roughly my weekly grocery bill and we dont get much beyond fruits, veggies, milk, whatever meats were having that week and stuff to make my son his school lunch.
> 
> That doesnt factor in rent and utilities.
> ...


Are you sure you didn't mean 250 a month?  Because if you are paying 250 a week on groceries, and your crying poverty, your doing something wrong.  I'm not even sure how you can do that, unless your shopping at a local chain in a small town on the outskirts of society.

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## MelissaWV

> Are you sure you didn't mean 250 a month?  Because if you are paying 250 a week on groceries, and your crying poverty, your doing something wrong.  I'm not even sure how you can do that, unless your shopping at a local chain in a small town on the outskirts of society.


Family of four, including school lunches?

That's not out of line, though it's certainly not what people who are really trying to stretch a dollar spend.

Incidentally, I'm wondering about the math as well.  $1256.67/mo is purely minimum wage, though most jobs do not pay min wage anymore so this whole argument is kind of funny.  Let's estimate that you pay 1/3 of your income to rent.  Your rent would come to $418.89/month.  Depending on where you are, that may or may not be even remotely realistic.  We will assume you either take public transportation or own a used vehicle of some sort, so you do not have a car payment.  $1256.67-418.89 =  $837.78.  Divide that by four (most min wage jobs pay weekly).  $209.45.

Now, we have a weekly income of a little over $200.  You're going to need some of that towards electricity and communication.  You will need to find a way to live off of $100/week, let's say, for food.  No, that is not impossible.  In fact, I feel I'm being a bit generous with that.  This is not an impossible task, depending on where you live.  It is a matter of figuring things out.

Oh and there are two big huge massive hold-up-wait-a-minute things wrong with CT4Liberty's math and logic.  First off, the estimate is based on one minimum wage worker working one job to support a family of four.  Is mom in a coma?  Is there family that can help out, or neighbors?  The second issue is the taking away of taxes from the estimated income.  Do you really think that someone making $15k and supporting a family of four pays out a whole lot in taxes?

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## Zippyjuan

> I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.


WalMart is the big target since they have the reputation of having the lowest paid workers and offer the least benefits combined with being owned by the richest people in America with four of them making the Top Ten Richest People in the US.  http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/   while at the same time extorting subsidies from local governments ("we will open a store in your area if you give us X, Y, Z"). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-nor..._b_443649.html



> *Wal-Mart Billionaire Wants $8 Million Subsidy*
> 
> Missouri is the "show me the money" state -- where using public funds to bail out billionaires is considered good business. 
> 
> An entrepreneur who married into Sam Walton's extended family, and is listed high up on the Forbes Wealthiest Americans list, *is asking Missouri taxpayers to help him build a bigger Wal-Mart.* 
> 
> Enos Stanley Kroenke married into a fortune when he wed Ann Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton's brother "Bud." But Kroenke, already a successful businessman before his marriage, now apparently needs millions in public welfare to carry out his latest development plans. 
> 
> Owner of the Denver Nuggets basketball team, and hockey's Colorado Avalanche, Kroene is part owner of the St. Louis Rams and the English soccer team Arsenal. His development firm, THF Realty (the acronym stands for "To Have Fun") has asked for a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) deal to build a Wal-Mart supercenter in the tiny community of Bridgeton, Missouri.


Costco is able to compete will with WalMart and they pay their employees up to three times as much as WalMart plus offering them benefits (personally know people who work there). 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money...nts/55450634/1



> The 52-year-old makes *$11.60 an hour as a front-of-the-store manager* at a Louisiana Walmart and says she struggles to pay for basic necessities, let alone her $600-a-month rent.
> 
> "I'm giving it all I got, I like what I do, and yet I'm struggling so bad. This is not what it was when I started," says Sparks, who began working for America's No. 1 employer and discount store seven years ago.





> Higher bar for benefits
> 
> Fluctuating hours also make it difficult to qualify — and pay — for health care coverage, workers complain.
> 
> Full-time employees are eligible for benefits six months after being hired, while part-time employees must wait a year and average 30 hours weekly, Walmart says. That's up from an average 24 hours a week for part-time employees hired before Feb. 1, 2012. There's no minimum for part-timers hired before Jan. 15, 2011. 
> 
> Walmart says it changed its health care plan to more closely conform to the new federal health care law.
> 
> Greg Fletcher, an electronics sales associate at the Duarte, Calif., store, works 24 to 32 hours a week and says he's getting the "high end" of available hours. *His wife also works at Walmart but lacks enough hours to earn benefits. Together they made $25,000 last year. Fletcher says Walmart's benefits would cost up to a third of his paycheck to cover his family.*
> ...

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## Zippyjuan

More numbers:
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-employees-pay




> Walmart employs an astounding 2.1 million people.  In the United States alone, the company employs 1.4 million people.  *This is a staggering 1% of the U.S.'s 140 million working population.
> *
> Walmart, in other words, matters. Its payrolls, and its pay, move the needle.





> The average Walmart "associate," Wake Up Walmart reports, makes $11.75 an hour. That's $20,744 per year. Those wages are slightly below the national average for retail employees, which is $12.04 an hour. They also produce annual earnings that, in a one-earner household, are below the $22,000 poverty line.
> 
> On the other hand, these wages are far above minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. They also aren't THAT FAR below the national retail average (only 2.5% below). In a two-earner household, moreover, these wages would produce a household income of $40,000+, which, in some areas of the country, is comfortably middle-class.  Walmart offers benefits to some of its employees, as well as store discounts and profit-sharing plans.


(the $20,000 a year figure assumes that they are full time and many WalMart employees are not full time). I have seen figures which suggest about one third are part time (not that unusual for retail though).

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## Mr. Perfidy

haha some of you are some cold motherfuckers

have ye forgotten?!




*angelatc* 



> Oh well. It's apparently a job that a monkey could do.


There are a few exceptions- some real brightness and insight is necessary for some professions, but for the most part computers think and plan and record for us, so a monkey can do anything.  The smugness of the outer party functionary privileged-connection bureaucrcy class in its mystical faith in the mysterious and specialist secret language professions makes me want to strap on a red arm band and burn down gated communities.  Just about anyone of average intellect upward can be trained to do just about anything rather quickly.  In environments of scarcity and times of war though, it as as orwell says, and people in their depression-economics besieged cities cling ever-more-ferociously to their precious pound of horse flesh.  And what carrion-feeders and hoarders are hungrier and more hateful than mothers?!





> Either get two jobs, or go back to school and make yourself more valuable to your employer.


do you imagine that people just assume for themselves the role of subordinated to the capricious and dehumanizing valuations of another individual who, typically by consequence of caste-entrenched birth, controls an exponential share of resources?  Do you imagine that to crow and to hiss thus is good for a person, or for the people around them?  




> You get paid exactly what you're worth in the current market and position, and nobody owes you a single penny more.


lol




> And guess what - after 30 years in the workforce, my husband and I are both unemployed, and have been for over a year. He's gone from making 6 figures to making nothing. We've gone through a lot more of our retirement than you've gone through savings, and we have a lot less time to replace it, since we're in our 50's. I'd love to have a job at WalMart, partly because I know if I got my foot in the door I'd work my way up in no time. I've done it before, and I can do it again.
> 
> We aren't exactly thrilled with the situation, but neither of us are hanging around blaming some random corporation for our problems, and pretending the world or the government owes us a living.


isn't that the same thing as saying, "I do not owe myself a living," since the corporations and government are in fact initiating aggression against you and extorting you for funds and labor in order to secure access to things on your own living space, like water and being outside?  




> Minimum wage isn't supposed to provide a comfortable living for a family of 4. If you can't live on it, get a roommate, or 3.


do you like to make "my vagina doesn't work" faces?  Like are you going out of your way to sound like a soulless and cold anti-human monster?  20th century counter-revolutionary lame.  It hurts the cause of Liberty when people who are hurting from attacks in every direction, and when seeking to understand the nature of this assault, they hear such derision.  Also it sounds show-off pretender petty-nobility peasant upstart bourgeioussie'ish and this offends the sensibilities of the intellectually-aligned.


*MelissaWV*



> family of four, including school lunches?
> 
> That's not out of line, though it's certainly not what people who are really trying to stretch a dollar spend.
> 
> Incidentally, I'm wondering about the math as well. $1256.67/mo is purely minimum wage, though most jobs do not pay min wage anymore


actually most do or hover just around it, at least where we live.  I think what you meant to say was, "most jobs don't offer full-time anymore," because that is where the math is wrong; it's actually very hard to find an employer who is offering even 36+ hours a week, and harder to find an employer when you tell them that you have another job.  




> so this whole argument is kind of funny. Let's estimate that you pay 1/3 of your income to rent. Your rent would come to $418.89/month.


lol

that's like a mexican rental special (as in, 2 wage-earners sharing an average low-income area one-bedroom unit).

Couples too, but that necessarily subordinates the notion of couplehood to the economic demands of an ownership-class, and degrades the properties of human relationships.  The couplehood structure-lease-agreement-economic-dependence emergence among the working poor is an interesting trend to observe in its infancy, now that marriage has collapsed and out-of-wedlock chidbirth is actually an advantage in terms of earning potential.  




> Depending on where you are, that may or may not be even remotely realistic. We will assume you either take public transportation or own a used vehicle of some sort, so you do not have a car payment. $1256.67-418.89 = $837.78. Divide that by four (most min wage jobs pay weekly). $209.45.
> 
> Now, we have a weekly income of a little over $200. You're going to need some of that towards electricity and communication.


If I were to track and plot the annual average expenditures as a result of arbitrarily imposed-state fines, it might end up being $40 a month, but the truth is that they come in little spurts through the year, and rupture your budget with one extortion-demand.  

Also you are assuming that you don't get sick, have any family doing anything important ever, never have car-trouble, get arrested, or maybe-want to rest, so that is by itself _ludicrous_ and _dehumanizing_ anne-coulter harpy squawking, because there are days where you are unable to earn a wage.  And what if you care about a person? There is no room for an ice cream cone in that budget.  

also people who are not poor do not seem to understand that what is a minor inconvenience for even the middle-class is like a eviction-threatening prison system to poor folk.  Every company and business, from the tiniest $#@!ty family operation to the international oligolopolies knows that they can just harass and threaten and extort you for free, with an X% return.  You have no resources to resist and there are a lot of people that take advantage of that.




> You will need to find a way to live off of $100/week, let's say, for food. No, that is not impossible


haha milk's like $8 if you want to drink it like a human being.  

.


> In fact, I feel I'm being a bit generous with that.


I would bet my left nut that no one has called you generous ever lol




> This is not an impossible task, depending on where you live. It is a matter of figuring things out.


that's true.  That's why I think the poor are winning; we grow up stealing and learning how to rapidly trade and maximize values, whereas the outer party collaborator classes tether success to obedience and subordination technocratically-structured conformity.

Real math about minimum wage:

36 hours x 7.25 = $261

on my paychecks, which are in the same tax-bracket as minimum-wage earners, I pay about 1/6th of it to imposed taxes, and that is with an Exemption claim to federal income, so, the most sizable chunk of the taxes are missing from my deductions.  So that leaves about

$217 x 4 = $ 868 / month

You can't rent a place in this county for less than $700 a month- there are a few condemned-looking little-haiti kinda shanty-micro villages where you might luck out at $650, but of the 20 or so villages around the one where I live, the average is around $800 for a one bedroom.

So 868-800 a month = $68 / month

 / 4 = $17 a week for food, gas, car-insurance, communications.

----------


## angelatc

Economics doesn't have a heart.  It's math.




> do you imagine that people just assume for themselves the role of subordinated to the capricious and dehumanizing valuations of another individual who, typically by consequence of caste-entrenched birth, controls an exponential share of resources? Do you imagine that to crow and to hiss thus is good for a person, or for the people around them?


Uh, yeah, ok.  That made me laugh, so I wanted to make sure everybody else saw it.  No need for me to address it again.

----------


## kylejack

> Are the workers being FORCED to work at Walmart?
> 
> I certainly understand the frustration of those working in the retail industry with the whole nonsense known as Black Friday.  However, nobody is forcing anyone to work in that kind of an enviornment.
> 
> As a consumer, any store that uses 4AM openings for "Door Buster Specials" goes further down on my list of places to shop.


What's the problem? The workers are exercising their right in the market.

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> Here's what jumped out at me.


Blocking the way isn't "peaceful" at all, you can't block someone's way unless the owner of the property wants it done.




> I heard Walmart micro chips every one of their items.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lEGDyw7ydA


I've seen some of his other videos & he seems like a good person but too much of a conspiracy-theorist 

They are just tags, you can get rid of'em if you want, plus, you are free to not buy from them if that's how much you dislike it, they aren't using coercion against anyone.

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> Those workers' obligations are to themselves and their families, not the American public.


And similarly, Walmart's obligations are to its owners/investors! Because without them, may be Walmart wouldn't be there......... not to mention, all those people employed by them wouldn't have a job or have one paying even lower than that (lowered demand & increased supply of labor), not to mention all those who buy there & enhance their lives would have a somewhat lower living-standard!




> When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.
> You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
> I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.


Walmart isn't a charity, & as I've said, if it isn't kept profitable & benefit its owners/investors then it wouldn't even exist & its workers would be unemployed or working for even less & all its customers would have a lower living-standard.

Walmart aren't obligated to ensure low taxes to you, if you don't like taxes then blame the government, not Walmart; it's the government that's committing coercion against you by stealing your money, not Walmart.

----------


## MelissaWV

I don't want your left nut.  I can't think of anyone that would.

I have lived on less, and the point of my saying "most jobs do not pay minimum wage" still stands.  We are discussing the Federal Minimum Wage.  A variety of states have minimum wages above that.  Perhaps you might also consider the definition of "most," which would imply a majority.  




> Some 28% of workers are expected to hold low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same percentage as in 2010, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute.
> 
> The study defines low-paying jobs as those with wages at or below what full-time workers must earn to live above the poverty level for a family of four. In 2011, this was $23,005, or $11.06 an hour.


Note that the low-paying job line is considerably higher than our hypothetical minimum wage worker.

Milk is $8 where you live.  This brings up two interesting points.  The first is that --- did you know this? --- milk is not necessary to live.  If you are spending $8 per week on milk in a single-earner household where the only earner is making minimum wage, it is one of the first areas where you might consider cutting back.  This entire scenario is based on the idea of a family of four trying to do the right thing and spend less.  And yes, $100/week is rather generous.  I spend a little more than that buying fresh food and toiletries for a family of three right now, and I am not even trying to be desperately frugal.  I have been at "desperately frugal" before, and fed myself and my husband for $25/week.  I have also had a $1/day budget for food before, though; that was when things were rather ugly and I was homeless.




> You can't rent a place in this county for less than $700 a month


That one had me laughing so long that I had to come back to this thread.  I don't know how many times I said "it depends on where you live."

I rented an entire house for not much more than that, and it was not a shack or anything close to it.  If you want to rent a shack here, you can do so for a little over $300/month.  If you'd like an apartment on a bus route, you might even double that and have a decent place with fresh paint and an attentive landlord.  In NY, you can rent half of a cardboard box.

Of course, you still haven't addressed my question as to why the other parent in this scenario isn't working, and why there isn't a second job involved.  You also seem to be clinging to the idea that people are "trapped" in minimum wage jobs.  It's often untrue.  Gimme-gimme handouts, though, make it astoundingly easy to stay in a certain income bracket rather than go through the growing pains and investment to get yourself out of poverty.  And why bother?  So that you can pay taxes to support the same group you used to be a part of?  It's a raw deal to some people.  

But yet I find myself wondering who the hell raised folks to not be the least ashamed when they stick their hands out for their EBT card (I could not stand it after just the first time; it was stupid and I decided I'd rather scrounge and borrow, only to pay back later with interest).

You can talk out of your posterior a bit more, and you're likely going to, but I am never going to buy the idea that legacy poverty is because of minimum wage jobs and people should get some sort of special consideration so they can raise two kids on min wage by nabbing some of my money from me by force.


^ boohoo.  Renting a floor of this house is so beneath me.


^ I only get HALF of the building I see in this photo?  That's an outrage!  And I see a few yellow blades of grass on that lawn!


^ And this three-bedroom... it's got STAIRS.  How can I be expected to deal with such squalor?  


^Hideous!  Insulting!


^Disgusting!  How am I expected to live like that?

All of those apartments/homes are in different states from one another.  All of them are $700/month. 

So it would seem that maybe, just maybe, if you aspire to nothing more than a minimum wage position... you're living in the wrong place.

Or you could ask for private charity/assistance, as I mentioned previously but you were busily not paying attention to because you were trying to think of something witty to say involving vaginas, and become more upwardly mobile.  But since you're acting like a friggin' jackass, no, you're not likely to get much money that way, are you?

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> I think its the corporate greed that bothers people.. You have so many making millions of dollars.  Companies cut benefits then pay out huge bonuses to their round table.  Then they swap deals w/govt to create regulations making it harder for small businesses to compete.  When companies get loopholes and such, is when I think its just too much, and not capitalism.


What about workers' greed? Pretty much everybody is greedy & want as much as they can rake in, so do Walmart, & nothing wrong with that so long as you don't use violence, steal, defraud or use coercion against others in any other way.

Why do you think companies pay their managers, CEOs & such huge bonuses & what not? Do you think people pay others just because they have too much money lying around???? NO, it's because those people are offering skills that most people don't have, that's why they get paid more, & if they don't then somebody else will hire them.

People get paid according to how valuable their skill/labor is & how much it is in supply; that's how market indicates supply & demand of not only goods/services but also labor. Those goods/services/labor that are in short supply in relation to its demand end up costing more, which encourages production of more such goods/services/laborers & thereby meet the higher demand for it. Markets continuously project supply & demand of things through prices & profits.

I'd request you to please read this free book, at least the chapter _"How The Price System Works"_, to understand how & why prices, profits & incomes are formed through the market-process - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf




> Agree with this part completely. The government imposing a 35% corporate tax and then giving deductions and loopholes to those they like is basically the government picking it's winners and losers and is crony capitalism at it's finest.


But does that money belong to government? NO, it belongs to Walmart, they have earned it by selling things to people & serving them, not by stealing or coercing against others, like the government does. So if they can bribe a little chunk of it so that government would ROB them LESS then I say more power to them, more power to anyone that is doing it! Afterall, what is government going to do with that money? Kill more people overseas & at home? Buy weapons? Hire more TSA people? Give it away as foreign aid to dictators in poor countries?
On the other hand, if it remained with Walmart, as it should since they earned it, may be they'll save it & thereby purchasing-power is conserved within the economy (compared to if it's spent) or they may re-invest it somewhere, creating more jobs & goods & services; may be neither will occur but the point stands that government shouldn't be able to rob Walmart or anyone else!
The less money government is able to rake in, the better! Starve the beast!

----------


## Bohner

> But does that money belong to government? NO, it belongs to Walmart, they have earned it by selling things to people & serving them, not by stealing or coercing against others, like the government does. So if they can bribe a little chunk of it so that government would ROB them LESS then I say more power to them, more power to anyone that is doing it! Afterall, what is government going to do with that money? Kill more people overseas & at home? Buy weapons? Hire more TSA people? Give it away as foreign aid to dictators in poor countries?
> On the other hand, if it remained with Walmart, as it should since they earned it, may be they'll save it & thereby purchasing-power is conserved within the economy (compared to if it's spent) or they may re-invest it somewhere, creating more jobs & goods & services; may be neither will occur but the point stands that government shouldn't be able to rob Walmart or anyone else!
> The less money government is able to rake in, the better! Starve the beast!


My post wasn't necessarily directed at Wal-Mart, more the system in general. You seem to believe it's a good thing that private corporations are able to lobby congress in order to gain an unfair advantage over the competition in the form of "getting their money back." As far as I'm concerned, that's crony capitalism. 

A 35% corporate tax rate is absolutely retarded. Canada for example has a corporate tax rate of 15%!!!

So instead of giving the money back to the companies who can afford to lobby congress, while raping everyone else with a 35% corporate tax. How about reducing the corporate tax and closing the loopholes/eliminating subsidies so everyone is on a level playing field?

----------


## kylejack

> Working at minimum wage at full (or near full) time is more than enough to survive and live comfortably.
> 
> The people who argue/live otherwise lack discipline or financial sense. Not the taxpayers problem.


Survive, yes. Buy 50 inch flatscreens, not really.

----------


## kylejack

> And similarly, Walmart's obligations are to its owners/investors! Because without them, may be Walmart wouldn't be there......... not to mention, all those people employed by them wouldn't have a job or have one paying even lower than that (lowered demand & increased supply of labor), not to mention all those who buy there & enhance their lives would have a somewhat lower living-standard!


I haven't argued otherwise. The workers are exercising their right to strike for better working conditions.

----------


## MelissaWV

> I haven't argued otherwise. The workers are exercising their right to strike for better working conditions.


And fundamentally I agree with this.  The part I disagree with --- and we all know it is coming --- is that WalMart will be painted as the Grinch when they don't hire back people who walked off the job.

----------


## CaptainAmerica

I would love to see every big box retail employee threaten a walk out. This garbage has gone on too far and now they open stores the evening of Thanksgiving...forcing many families to celebrate on a completely different day because of greed and monopolies knowing that people have been funneled into working on their local plantations for pennies because all small businesses have been destroyed.

----------


## jdmyprez_deo_vindice

> I would bet my left nut that no one has called you generous ever lol


Actually you would be dead wrong. Melissa is extremely generous and the liberty movement as a whole has seen amazing triumphs as a direct result of her generosity. When we were organizing to send people to events such as CPAC and VVS (many of our people were either poor or low earning college students who could not do it alone), Melissa was among the first to step up to the plate and donate so that people could get across country. She is personally responsible for many (including myself) casting their vote for liberty candidates and getting in front of the media. She not only paid for tickets, paid for air travel, rental cars, etc but she also ponied up the resources so people could eat and have a place to stay while they were out there doing their best. She never once asked for recognition. She never once asked to be paid back. She never once thought it bought her favor. She never once held it above a single person's head and knowing Melissa as I do, I am willing to bet just saying this is embarassing her. Just because someone believes it is possible to survive and perhaps even thrive earning minimum wage does not make them uncharitable or cold hearted. It simply makes them realistic. You do not know her story or any of our stories for that matter so please quit making wild assumptions. You know, some of us speak with such authority on subjects such as this because we know first hand about how you can survive whatever life throws at you.

----------


## oyarde

> I would love to see every big box retail employee threaten a walk out. This garbage has gone on too far and now they open stores the evening of Thanksgiving...forcing many families to celebrate on a completely different day because of greed and monopolies knowing that people have been funneled into working on their local plantations for pennies because all small businesses have been destroyed.


  , Not me , I will enjoy my turkey and family with no shopping.Four day weekend, Whoo Hooo , time to give thanks  !!

----------


## MelissaWV

> , Not me , I will enjoy my turkey and family with no shopping.Four day weekend, Whoo Hooo , time to give thanks  !!


And if people do this (which if I recall correctly, I think they did last year?), then the stores won't bother with opening on actual Thanksgiving.

----------


## BenIsForRon

> Walmart has a pretty simple business model: Keep costs low and keep profit margins low in order to keep prices low. 
> 
> What many people don't understand is that there are millions of people who depend on Wal-Mart because of their low prices. Increasing their labor costs (which would easily be in the tens of billions of dollars given the amount of people they employ) means they'll raise their prices to cover those cost. Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before.


Lowest common denominator is not something we should strive for as a country. The reason everything at walmart is so cheap is because it was made by Chinese slave labor.

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## phill4paul

> , Not me , I will enjoy my turkey and family with no shopping.Four day weekend, Whoo Hooo , time to give thanks  !!


  Which brings me to post my first comment. I could not care less if the workers do walk out. It's their choice. I will not be participating anyway.

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## oyarde

> And if people do this (which if I recall correctly, I think they did last year?), then the stores won't bother with opening on actual Thanksgiving.


 I would feel better for people if they did this , there are plenty of days a year to blow money

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## Paul Or Nothing II

> haha some of you are some cold motherfuckers


You're damn right about that, many of us truly are cold-hearted motherfuckers but that's only because there are too many damn commie bastards & thieves like you out there who are running the world into the ground with your stupid commie BS of "fair pay" & what not, just as many commie-countries were until at least some started allowing the markets & natural income-inequality to occur more freely.




> It hurts the cause of Liberty when people who are hurting from attacks in every direction, and when seeking to understand the nature of this assault, they hear such derision.


I highly doubt that a commie like you is even capable of understanding what liberty means or how & why it leads to capitalism!

Liberty & capitalism means everyone is allowed to make their choices without using coercion against others & then whatever you end up with is the only thing that you "deserve", you aren't allowed to steal from others just because they ended up with more!

Capitalism means that one should make oneself useful to others so that others would VOLUNTARILY pay them for their services, you are free to bargain but no commie stealing & coercion allowed!

A commie thinks about how unfair it is that others have more than him & thinks about how government should rob others & give it to him.
A libertarian thinks about how he can make himself more useful to others so that others would be VOLUNTARILY pay him more.

And what's so funny is that the commie scum that bitch about "low pay" & support socialist big government in the hope that the government will steal from others & give it to them, they are the first ones in line to get slaughtered in the commie slaughterhouse.

If nobody is willing to pay you more than X then accept it, that's what you "deserve" because that's how much value your skill/labor adds to the productive processes in the markets; if you were worth more then people would be willing to pay you more just like how they pay more to CEOs & what not!

Obviously, economically-illiterate commies can't grasp basic economics of how the markets indicate supply & demand through prices & profits (wage is price of labor) so here's a Ron-Paul-recommended free book for you, the chapter "How The Price System Works" describes the market-process & how all prices (including wages) are formed in the market - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

----------


## Bohner

> Lowest common denominator is not something we should strive for as a country. *The reason everything at walmart is so cheap is because it was made by Chinese slave labor.*


Yes... Because Walmart is the only business in retail that sells goods that were made in China .

----------


## kylejack

> And fundamentally I agree with this.  The part I disagree with --- and we all know it is coming --- is that WalMart will be painted as the Grinch when they don't hire back people who walked off the job.


We'll see about that during a busy holiday season.

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> My post wasn't necessarily directed at Wal-Mart, more the system in general. You seem to believe it's a good thing that private corporations are able to lobby congress in order to gain an unfair advantage over the competition in the form of "getting their money back." As far as I'm concerned, that's crony capitalism. 
> 
> A 35% corporate tax rate is absolutely retarded. Canada for example has a corporate tax rate of 15%!!!
> 
> So instead of giving the money back to the companies who can afford to lobby congress, while raping everyone else with a 35% corporate tax. How about reducing the corporate tax and closing the loopholes/eliminating subsidies so everyone is on a level playing field?


Do you believe that some people should be able to rob others while not everyone is allowed to rob others? How is robbing anyone justified? How is that equal rights? If we have equal rights & robbing & coercing others is considered bad then people in government also shouldn't be able to rob anyone!

Now, I understand that we can't get rid of all taxes tomorrow but I'm definitely not going to cry about it if somebody was able to negotiate with the mafia so that mafia would rob them less; others that can't negotiate with the mafia, well, bad luck!

Let's say there's a robbery in your & your neighbor's houses. Let's say $20000 worth of stuff was stolen from your house while $10000 worth of stuff was stolen from your neighbor's house, now, are you going to sad about the fact that the robber was able to rob less from your neighbor?????

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> I haven't argued otherwise. The workers are exercising their right to strike for better working conditions.


And who in this thread has said they can't strike?




> Nothing wrong with the employees negotiating for better pay/benefits...if they get locked out and replaced in the process thats the risk they took.

----------


## Bohner

> Do you believe that some people should be able to rob others while not everyone is allowed to rob others? How is robbing anyone justified? How is that equal rights? If we have equal rights & robbing & coercing others is considered bad then people in government also shouldn't be able to rob anyone!
> 
> Now, I understand that we can't get rid of all taxes tomorrow but I'm definitely not going to cry about it if somebody was able to negotiate with the mafia so that mafia would rob them less; others that can't negotiate with the mafia, well, bad luck!
> 
> Let's say there's a robbery in your & your neighbor's houses. Let's say $20000 worth of stuff was stolen from your house while $10000 worth of stuff was stolen from your neighbor's house, now, are you going to sad about the fact that the robber was able to rob less from your neighbor?????



The fact of the matter is that the people who lobby government for tax breaks and subsides probably have no interest in seeing the corporate tax go down. If I can pay the mafia to not rob my business, do you think I'm going to lift a finger to stop the mafia from robbing my competitors? Hell, I would be more inclined to pay the Mafia to rob my competitors even MORE!!! Yet this is exactly what's happening. The people who get theirs from the government have no interest in seeing the corporate tax drop since it takes money away from their competitors. The rich use the government to give themselves unfair advantages in the free market, and screw over the little guy at the same time.

One of the major principles of Libertarianism is that it's not the job of the government to pick winners and losers. Yet this seems to be exactly what you're advocating by defending these special tax loopholes and government subsidies.

----------


## CaptainAmerica

> You're damn right about that, many of us truly are cold-hearted motherfuckers but that's only because there are too many damn commie bastards & thieves like you out there who are running the world into the ground with your stupid commie BS of "fair pay" & what not, just as many commie-countries were until at least some started allowing the markets & natural income-inequality to occur more freely.
> 
> 
> 
> I highly doubt that a commie like you is even capable of understanding what liberty means or how & why it leads to capitalism!
> 
> Liberty & capitalism means everyone is allowed to make their choices without using coercion against others & then whatever you end up with is the only thing that you "deserve", you aren't allowed to steal from others just because they ended up with more!
> 
> Capitalism means that one should make oneself useful to others so that others would VOLUNTARILY pay them for their services, you are free to bargain but no commie stealing & coercion allowed!
> ...


 As long as the "strike" is not using laws and government to intervene its perfectly legitimate for people to negotiate and organize to negotiate with a business ,like I said as long as they aren't using laws and government to bind another persons right to make decisions/negotiate.Bringing attention to bad work ethics,and policies that hurt people are perfectly legitimate reasons to strike.

----------


## kylejack

> And who in this thread has said they can't strike?


Well, you're telling them to just accept it, for example. But strikes have a long history of successfully raising wages and working conditions of laborers.

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> I would love to see every big box retail employee threaten a walk out. This garbage has gone on too far and now they open stores the evening of Thanksgiving...forcing many families to celebrate on a completely different day because of greed and monopolies knowing that people have been funneled into working on their local plantations for pennies because all small businesses have been destroyed.


They aren't forcing anyone to work for them? Workers are free to seek other employment with better pay & better conditions but nobody seems to want to pay them any hire, which means that's the amount of value they are adding to the market. Now, if they were a doctor, engineer or manager, they would be paid more, right? Why? Because those services are more scarce compared to the demand for them. Did you hear that? You know why gold & silver commands more value & continues to appreciate forever, right? Why? It's scarcity, right?

Please read this great free book to understand the fundamentals of Austrian Economics, especially the chapter, "How the Price System Works" to understand how & why prices & profits (wage is price of labor) are determined through market-process to indicate supply & demand of things (including demand for labor) - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> Lowest common denominator is not something we should strive for as a country. The reason everything at walmart is so cheap is because it was made by Chinese slave labor.


Yes, let's raise minimum wage to $100/hr that will make us rich, how about $1000/hr? Will it? NO, it will just mean that those whose labor/skill isn't worth that much won't get hired, unemployment will skyrocket so much that Great-Depression-unemployment will seem tiny! Production will plummet like never before, which will make prices to skyrocket due to lower supply of goods/services & living-standards of the whole country in general will plummet.
Wages & prices are two sides of the same coin, raise one & the other goes up subsequently & raising prices does NOT increase prosperity.

Firstly, I love how socialists use words like "slave labor" & "slave wage", etc I mean it's funny because slaves usually neither get wages nor are they free to leave one job & choose another one & despite the fact that Chinese workers are paid wages AND they are free to choose their jobs or not work at all, yet, they are somehow "slaves" 

Now, let's see,
what happens if Walmart doesn't higher them - they'll either be unemployed & starve or they'll get a job that pays even less,
what happens if Walmart pays them more - they will be able to hire less people meaning more unemployed people & of course, the prices of their products will be higher & their customers' living-standards will go down,
what if Walmart pays them more without raising prices - profits plummet & owners/investors aren't happy & sooner or later the company might be shut down because it's not very profitable & then all its employees would be either unemployed or would have to do something that pays even less, of course, their customers' living-standards will go down as they'd no more be able to buy their products cheaply.

Prices & profits are NOT arbitrarily determined by "evil capitalists", there's an underlying process at work in the markets, which seeks to maximize production at all times, which helps increase living-standards within a society & world as a whole; here's a free book that deals with how the markets work, chapter "How the Price System Works" is especially enlighting - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

----------


## CaptainAmerica

> They aren't forcing anyone to work for them? Workers are free to seek other employment with better pay & better conditions but nobody seems to want to pay them any hire, which means that's the amount of value they are adding to the market. Now, if they were a doctor, engineer or manager, they would be paid more, right? Why? Because those services are more scarce compared to the demand for them. Did you hear that? You know why gold & silver commands more value & continues to appreciate forever, right? Why? It's scarcity, right?
> 
> Please read this great free book to understand the fundamentals of Austrian Economics, especially the chapter, "How the Price System Works" to understand how & why prices & profits (wage is price of labor) are determined through market-process to indicate supply & demand of things (including demand for labor) - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf


They have a right as free individuals to peacefully assemble and voice an opinion that may effect the market in order to negotiate with their employer, but I do not support the use of government intervention in the situation. Im not advocating "unions" using laws to bind a business, but rather using their voices to bring attention to something that bothers them as employees, and if they get fired that is something that I can't be against because I understand that they do have a choice to work there or not work there, but my point is that they have a right to do this.I think its good to challenge an employers ethics as long as it is understood that you don't have to work there,its just saying "hey mr.employer please re-evaluate your ethics,if you dont Im fine with walking away,but if you would like to listen and change policies it is appreciated".

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> The fact of the matter is that the people who lobby government for tax breaks and subsides probably have no interest in seeing the corporate tax go down. If I can pay the mafia to not rob my business, do you think I'm going to lift a finger to stop the mafia from robbing my competitors? Hell, I would be more inclined to pay the Mafia to rob my competitors even MORE!!! Yet this is exactly what's happening. The people who get theirs from the government have no interest in seeing the corporate tax drop since it takes money away from their competitors. The rich use the government to give themselves unfair advantages in the free market, and screw over the little guy at the same time.
> 
> One of the major principles of Libertarianism is that it's not the job of the government to pick winners and losers. Yet this seems to be exactly what you're advocating by defending these special tax loopholes and government subsidies.


Nope, the primary principle of libertarianism is that you are free to pursue your own self-interest so long as you don't use coercion against others, so when a business bribes government employees so that government would rob them less then they are simply following their self-interest without coercing others. Others must look out for their own self-interest, you are in no way obligated to help secure their self-interests.

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## CaptainAmerica

What many of you are not aware of currently is that big box retail stores are given incentives to use crony "capitalism" in many ways unseen such as tax credits by hiring 100s of employees all at once when they only have hours to provide 5 or 6 of those 100 employees with a few shifts per week meanwhile collecting a lot of tax credit money. It is not only unethical, it is corrupt corporatism.I will always consider "tax credits" as a sort of trojan horse/back door form of socialism and redistribution of wealth.

----------


## angelatc

> I would love to see every big box retail employee threaten a walk out. This garbage has gone on too far and now they open stores the evening of Thanksgiving...forcing many families to celebrate on a completely different day because of greed and monopolies knowing that people have been funneled into working on their local plantations for pennies because all small businesses have been destroyed.


ROTFL - because those small Mom & Pop shops were known for their high wages and lucrative benefit plans.  ROTFL!  Only city liberals buy into the myth of the Mom & Pop store.  My first job was in a Mom & Pop hardware store.  I made minimum wage, the cashier who had been there for 5 years made minimum wage, and the guys that worked the floor made minimum wage.  When they made one guy a manager, they balked when he asked for an extra $1.00 an hour. (This was in the early 80's).  We had no health insurance, no paid vacations, no overtime, and no retirement.  

We also survived the opening of two big box stores (Menards and the now defunct Central Hardware) because while our prices were higher, we carried parts that were specialized to the homes in the area.  

The only plantation people are being funneled into belongs to Uncle Sam.

----------


## MelissaWV

> ROTFL - because those small Mom & Pop shops were known for their high wages and lucrative benefit plans.  ROTFL!  Only city liberals buy into the myth of the Mom & Pop store.  My first job was in a Mom & Pop hardware store.  I made minimum wage, the cashier who had been there for 5 years made minimum wage, and the guys that worked the floor made minimum wage.  When they made one guy a manager, they balked when he asked for an extra $1.00 an hour. (This was in the early 80's).  We had no health insurance, no paid vacations, no overtime, and no retirement.  
> 
> We also survived the opening of two big box stores (Menards and the now defunct Central Hardware) because while our prices were higher, we carried parts that were specialized to the homes in the area.  
> 
> The only plantation people are being funneled into belongs to Uncle Sam.


This.  A quick gander at state minimum wage laws might open a few eyes, too.  Small businesses are usually given a lower minimum wage to have to use.

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> Well, you're telling them to just accept it, for example. But strikes have a long history of successfully raising wages and working conditions of laborers.


Not without explicit or implicit, governmental or private, threat of violence & coercion of some sort!

And I'm not "telling" anyone to do anything, I'm just laying out the facts about what determines prices (including wages) in the market & they are not going to be altered a great deal in the short-run without exerting coercion.




> They have a right as free individuals to peacefully assemble and voice an opinion that may effect the market in order to negotiate with their employer, but I do not support the use of government intervention in the situation. Im not advocating "unions" using laws to bind a business, but rather using their voices to bring attention to something that bothers them as employees, and if they get fired that is something that I can't be against because I understand that they do have a choice to work there or not work there, but my point is that they have a right to do this.I think its good to challenge an employers ethics as long as it is understood that you don't have to work there,its just saying "hey mr.employer please re-evaluate your ethics,if you dont Im fine with walking away,but if you would like to listen and change policies it is appreciated".


Where have I said they can't bargain? I never have.

But fact is that any such bargaining isn't going to amount to anything & business will simply hire other workers & without picketing, many of the workers mayn't even participate. If such bargaining were any useful then we wouldn't see coercive "minimum wage laws" which only cause more unemployment, or the picketing, violence & what not that goes on during such bargaining process.

----------


## oyarde

I miss my small local Hardware store , guy was ready to retire though and only had one daughter who was not interested.

----------


## kylejack

> Not without explicit or implicit, governmental or private, threat of violence & coercion of some sort!


False, there were plenty successful strikes before government got involved, indeed, sometimes agents of the government even intervened on the company's side.

These workers won't be entitled to any government protections on unions, because they are not members of a union. Walmart has made sure of that.

----------


## kylejack

> Where have I said they can't bargain? I never have.
> 
> But fact is that any such bargaining isn't going to amount to anything & business will simply hire other workers & without picketing, many of the workers mayn't even participate. If such bargaining were any useful then we wouldn't see coercive "minimum wage laws" which only cause more unemployment, or the picketing, violence & what not that goes on during such bargaining process.


We'll see about that. Pretty hard to hire for the holiday season after it has already started.

----------


## kylejack

> What many of you are not aware of currently is that big box retail stores are given incentives to use crony "capitalism" in many ways unseen such as tax credits by hiring 100s of employees all at once when they only have hours to provide 5 or 6 of those 100 employees with a few shifts per week meanwhile collecting a lot of tax credit money. It is not only unethical, it is corrupt corporatism.I will always consider "tax credits" as a sort of trojan horse/back door form of socialism and redistribution of wealth.


Yep. And this.




> April 12 (Reuters) - Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers - and are keeping the money with the states' approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.
> 
> The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers' paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1419582.html 

You pay the taxes and your company keeps them for itself! Nice deal for them!

----------


## CaptainAmerica

> Yep. And this.
> 
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1419582.html 
> 
> You pay the taxes and your company keeps them for itself! Nice deal for them!


 Macys is one of those companies,guaranteed they hired about 100 people last season at 1 store location and collected tax credits on it while not being required to provide hours(so why do they get rewarded for that in the first place).Taxes in america are setup to reward failure and big business

----------


## MelissaWV

> We'll see about that. Pretty hard to hire for the holiday season after it has already started.


I don't really think it is.  There are a lot of ex-retail people whose "better" jobs are no longer there.  It would not take a whole lot of retraining to get them on the sales floor, and there are a lot of applicants for these low skill jobs.  It would cause a hiccup, but WalMart could think up a way out of this if it really wanted.

----------


## kylejack

> I don't really think it is.  There are a lot of ex-retail people whose "better" jobs are no longer there.  It would not take a whole lot of retraining to get them on the sales floor, and there are a lot of applicants for these low skill jobs.  It would cause a hiccup, but WalMart could think up a way out of this if it really wanted.


Yeah, but every day your store is understaffed is a day you're losing money, especially if you don't even have enough people to open the doors. Black Friday is major.

----------


## MelissaWV

> Yeah, but every day your store is understaffed is a day you're losing money, especially if you don't even have enough people to open the doors. Black Friday is major.


Luckily these people gave over a month's notice of their plans?

Would be kind of hilarious if WalMart shifted to something like "cyber November!" and made most of its mega deals part of an online promotion, which they could link to random low price "winners" in stores.  The employees would not know until it was really too late to strike, and they'd be largely irrelevant.

----------


## oyarde

I dunno , something about " Wal Mart workers Unite " , just does not have a ring to it ...

----------


## CT4Liberty

> Are you sure you didn't mean 250 a month?  Because if you are paying 250 a week on groceries, and your crying poverty, your doing something wrong.  I'm not even sure how you can do that, unless your shopping at a local chain in a small town on the outskirts of society.


I'm not crying poverty at all, I think I mentioned that I have done very well and consider myself blessed. This week I went to Costco, bought 2 packages of pull ups and 2 packages of diapers for my two boys.  That alone was $140, granted thatll last me the month. I bought milk, eggs, steak and chicken for the month and that was another $100. Then today I went to stop and shop and bought fruits, veggies, yogurt, lunch meat, rice, bagels, bread, seltzer and some cereal bars my 3 year old likes. That was another $120.  So at best, Im at around $220/week for groceries and its not like I'm getting some crazy stuff.

I dont claim to be the most frugal, I dont spend my time clipping coupons, etc. But I do try to buy everything on sale and get anything I can in bulk from Costco. I am simply saying that the comment that someone can live comfortably on minimum wage does not strike me as accurate.  Can you survive? I'm sure you can, and people do.... but I doubt its something most, at least myself, would consider comfortable.

I also think Walmart has every right to set the wage they think is reasonable for their workers, whatever that may be, without the government interfering.  That doesnt mean that workers dont have the right to strike (and that may very well blow up in their face). It also doesnt mean that the public, like some in this thread, doesnt have the right to question it and not shop there if they dont like their business practices. 

That is the beauty of a free market, people are free to do what they please and it is their actions that regulate their behavior, not the nanny state.

----------


## CT4Liberty

> Family of four, including school lunches?
> 
> That's not out of line, though it's certainly not what people who are really trying to stretch a dollar spend.
> 
> Incidentally, I'm wondering about the math as well.  $1256.67/mo is purely minimum wage, though most jobs do not pay min wage anymore so this whole argument is kind of funny.  Let's estimate that you pay 1/3 of your income to rent.  Your rent would come to $418.89/month.  Depending on where you are, that may or may not be even remotely realistic.  We will assume you either take public transportation or own a used vehicle of some sort, so you do not have a car payment.  $1256.67-418.89 =  $837.78.  Divide that by four (most min wage jobs pay weekly).  $209.45.
> 
> Now, we have a weekly income of a little over $200.  You're going to need some of that towards electricity and communication.  You will need to find a way to live off of $100/week, let's say, for food.  No, that is not impossible.  In fact, I feel I'm being a bit generous with that.  This is not an impossible task, depending on where you live.  It is a matter of figuring things out.
> 
> Oh and there are two big huge massive hold-up-wait-a-minute things wrong with CT4Liberty's math and logic.  First off, the estimate is based on one minimum wage worker working one job to support a family of four.  Is mom in a coma?  Is there family that can help out, or neighbors?  The second issue is the taking away of taxes from the estimated income.  Do you really think that someone making $15k and supporting a family of four pays out a whole lot in taxes?


Not sure where my math went terribly wrong..

$7.25 per hour * 40 hours in a week = $290 gross. That would be someone making minimum wage, working "full time".  To keep your "1/3 income to rent theory" they would have to find a place for $97/week or $387/month.  I just dont see how thats possible, even as a single person. Do people make it happen? I'm sure they do... but it wouldnt be "comfortable" as some put it...that was the only thing my math was showing. 

Even if my math is off and its 418 instead of 387, its irrelevant, your numbers can be correct and its still not "comfortable" living.  As to other people helping out, maybe...who knows, everyones situation is different, if youre making 1160 or 1256 a month, I hope for their sake they have plenty of help.

----------


## MelissaWV

> Not sure where my math went terribly wrong..


Which is why I went to such pains to highlight it.




> First off, the estimate is based on one minimum wage worker working one job to support a family of four. Is mom in a coma? Is there family that can help out, or neighbors? The second issue is the taking away of taxes from the estimated income. Do you really think that someone making $15k and supporting a family of four pays out a whole lot in taxes?


Again, you were discussing a family of four with two parents and two children, but only including a single income.  You are also assuming quite a bit in taxes.  You, and every other person who's brought up the impossibility of finding a nice place at $300/month, have utterly ignored the multiple times I said it depends on where you live.  You have also ignored min wage laws and their variety between the states.

Lastly, I'm not sure why someone should expect to "live comfortably" (by the modern definition) on the barest minimum that they can possibly make, barring a service job and really bad attitude that causes them to make below the Federal minimum wage.  Those jobs are not meant to be the main bread and butter for a two-earner household where one is not working for whatever reason, and there are two children involved.



Those blue states are where the Federal minimum wage is what applies.

Nevada's is $8.25... Washington's is $9.04... 

It depends on where you live.

Not sure that can be clearer.  

As a single person, I can find a nice place around here with a roommate for $100/mo ... and in other places $100/mo would get me nothing.  Not even the cheapest, slummiest, nastiest place in the city.  There are cities where $100,000 will buy you a nice house with a yard and maybe even a little white picket fence.  There are others where $1,000,000 might get you most of that.  Maybe.

So this entire discussion is based off of you saying I cannot juggle five oranges, and me pointing out you are handing me pineapples.

----------


## MelissaWV

I think some perspective might help, too, since apparently "living comfortably" involves $8/week worth of milk and $150 in diapers.  Maybe I am just out of place/time.  I'm more than comfortable just having food each day, a roof over my head, transportation of some sort, companionship, and a little security to go along with it.  I had not realized that what I've always considered to be living richly was now the bare minimum that people should expect.

----------


## CT4Liberty

> Which is why I went to such pains to highlight it.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, you were discussing a family of four with two parents and two children, but only including a single income.  You are also assuming quite a bit in taxes.  You, and every other person who's brought up the impossibility of finding a nice place at $300/month, have utterly ignored the multiple times I said it depends on where you live.  You have also ignored min wage laws and their variety between the states.
> 
> Lastly, I'm not sure why someone should expect to "live comfortably" (by the modern definition) on the barest minimum that they can possibly make, barring a service job and really bad attitude that causes them to make below the Federal minimum wage.  Those jobs are not meant to be the main bread and butter for a two-earner household where one is not working for whatever reason, and there are two children involved.
> 
> 
> ...


My entire point was based off the comment before mine, that someone making minimum wage could live and live comfortably. I just fundamentally disagree with that, I guess.

Our dollar gets us less and less each day.  Again, I wont do the math for every states minimum wage, so I just based it off the federal min...which I clearly stated.

We can argue back and forth, the math is not wrong. Fed Min Wage is 7.25 * 40 hours, however if its 8.25 or 9.04 - it still does not change my stance that the person claiming a comfortable life is wrong.

I agree with you that nobody should expect to live comfortably on a min wage job...but that doesnt change compassion I may have for those less fortunate than myself.

I do not need the State to force charity or compassion on me and others... but that does not mean I shouldnt give it.

----------


## CT4Liberty

> I think some perspective might help, too, since apparently "living comfortably" involves $8/week worth of milk and $150 in diapers.  Maybe I am just out of place/time.  I'm more than comfortable just having food each day, a roof over my head, transportation of some sort, companionship, and a little security to go along with it.  I had not realized that what I've always considered to be living richly was now the bare minimum that people should expect.


Nobody should expect anything... I have 2 kids still in diapers, the alternative is to not change them everytime they go to the bathroom and let them sit in it, use some form of reusable diaper cloth thing. I dont have an option to not buy milk for my son and not take care of their bowel movements.  So while someone could live with maybe only changing the poop diapers, I chose not to and I wouldnt exactly call that decision one of living in excess.  And in order to do that, it cost me over $100/month in diapers.

I do not apologize for that.

----------


## MelissaWV

> Nobody should expect anything... I have 2 kids still in diapers, the alternative is to not change them everytime they go to the bathroom and let them sit in it, use some form of reusable diaper cloth thing. I dont have an option to not buy milk for my son and not take care of their bowel movements.  So while someone could live with maybe only changing the poop diapers, I chose not to and I wouldnt exactly call that decision one of living in excess.  And in order to do that, it cost me over $100/month in diapers.
> 
> I do not apologize for that.


Not asking you to, but wondering just how our uncomfortable ancestors survived.  Incidentally, there are some very awesome cloth diapers out there.

All of this is going way out of the scope of what I was originally discussing.  The person talking about milk was going through $8/week in milk and saying that was a necessity.  They were also scoffing at the idea of a decent place to live costing less than $700-$800/month.  We can go 'round and 'round on this, but the "it depends on where you live" statement still stands.  And regardless of where one lives, minimum wage isn't supposed to be where you stop, kick your feet up, collect benefits, and watch the world go by.  A lot of folks are doing just that, and get angry that they aren't making more.

No one has yet addressed why, in this hypothetical family, there is only one breadwinner.  It took two of them to make the hypothetical children.

----------


## angelatc

> Nobody should expect anything... I have 2 kids still in diapers, the alternative is to not change them everytime they go to the bathroom and let them sit in it, use some form of reusable diaper cloth thing. I dont have an option to not buy milk for my son and not take care of their bowel movements.  So while someone could live with maybe only changing the poop diapers, I chose not to and I wouldnt exactly call that decision one of living in excess.  And in order to do that, it cost me over $100/month in diapers.
> 
> I do not apologize for that.


Or you could scrap the pull-ups and finish potty training them.

----------


## kylejack

> I think some perspective might help, too, since apparently "living comfortably" involves $8/week worth of milk and $150 in diapers.  Maybe I am just out of place/time.  I'm more than comfortable just having food each day, a roof over my head, transportation of some sort, companionship, and a little security to go along with it.  I had not realized that what I've always considered to be living richly was now the bare minimum that people should expect.


Until you get sick.

----------


## MelissaWV

> Until you get sick.


No, including when I have been sick and injured.

I am just going to give up on this thread, since most of you seem infatuated with the notion that no one can  possibly live comfortably without a certain level of income (obviously way above minimum wage), regardless of geography or personal circumstance.  Nothing is going to change that, and I think it's part lack of personal experience, part how people are currently raised, and part definition of "comfortably."  I really hope the economy never REALLY collapses.  I shudder to think what some would do without convenience foods and if they ever had to make a chicken last three days.

----------


## fr33

I don't understand why such entitled feeling liberals are even here on Ron Paul forums.

----------


## kylejack

> No, including when I have been sick and injured.
> 
> I am just going to give up on this thread, since most of you seem infatuated with the notion that no one can  possibly live comfortably without a certain level of income (obviously way above minimum wage), regardless of geography or personal circumstance.  Nothing is going to change that, and I think it's part lack of personal experience, part how people are currently raised, and part definition of "comfortably."  I really hope the economy never REALLY collapses.  I shudder to think what some would do without convenience foods and if they ever had to make a chicken last three days.


No personal experience, eh. I used to make minimum wage, and it wasn't a living wage. 

Anyway, I don't think Walmart employees need your counseling on where to spend their money. They already deal with making these decisions every day. If they want to strike, more power to them. It's their lives.

----------


## oyarde

My oldest  Daughter used cloth diapers , bought them on Amazon.

----------


## kylejack

> I don't understand why such entitled feeling liberals are even here on Ron Paul forums.


I surely have no idea who you're talking about.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> You're damn right about that, many of us truly are cold-hearted motherfuckers but that's only because there are too many damn commie bastards & thieves like you out there who are running the world into the ground with your stupid commie BS of "fair pay" & what not, just as many commie-countries were until at least some started allowing the markets & natural income-inequality to occur more freely.


this is a very easy attitude to adopt with the protection of internet anonymity, but anyone who speaks with this tone to me about inequality of earning and income, I challenge to some kind of contest of their choosing, and can usually find someone "unqualified" who makes them look like an idiot.  

There is so much ego bull$#@! about economic questions, and people are so quick to assign the meagerest crumb of unearned privilege as proof that they are somehow more valuable people than other people.  This is such a stupid idea that is I believe incompatible absolutely with the Liberty movement, because it is usually uttered with a smugness that invites different legal treatment.  

For example, "I understand that some people _need_ help, BUT" (when discussing public assistance)






> I highly doubt that a commie like you is even capable of understanding what liberty means or how & why it leads to capitalism!


you really can't say that one leads to the other, because capitalism is the manifestation of liberty in the economic dimension. 

I am a capitalist- more than a lot of you people.  I will rob a coercion merchant to cover my expenses and fund birthday presents for the wife and drinks for the men.




> Liberty & capitalism means everyone is allowed to make their choices without using coercion against others


yeah but they are.  We don't have capitalism and we don't have liberty

therefore

wealth
is
illegitimate.


if you have wealth, it means that you are profiteering on a system of coercion.  There are degrees to which this is true- the amish for example are relatively less guilty of this than Hollywood, but, to accept a dollar is to profit by coercion.  So, understanding that, I just do not share the respect that the rest of these sleeping so-called revolutionaries have for companies and men of property.  Most of them inherited money that was earned in an environment that overtly used violence to suppress labor competition from blacks, from women, immigrants, etc- most corporations are abomination receptacles more filthy than the dirtiest street-walker, filling their coffers for generations on war profits and treason.  So, while I am a capitalist, there are almost no parcels of land or bunches of commodities that can be rightly called freely owned by anyone.




> & then whatever you end up with is the only thing that you "deserve", you aren't allowed to steal from others just because they ended up with more!


here's a problem with capitalism that I have- and by this I mean your idea of capitalism, as mine takes this into account.

It is a system for people, right?  So as a person, what about my humanity is subject to being ranked and appraised by forces removed from myself, that I do not ask to judge and value me?  

Your capitalism is a dog that licks the lash hand of its master and tells the other dogs about how great it tastes.  TImid bitch demoted illusory middle-class capitalism.  $#@! the middle-man, camden county son!




> Capitalism means that one should make oneself useful to others so that others would VOLUNTARILY pay them for their services,


I would be most useful, assuming I were bulletproof and could leap like Doomsday, smashing the Federal Reserve system and their executives and directors to blood-smeared rubble.  Good luck raising funds for that.  

See you keep forgetting that humans allocate capital as a consequence of human decisions, and in 9 out of 10 people? these decisions are cowardly, creeping, mean-spirited, spiteful and exploitative.  

In your idea of a free market, for example, all of the people with the existing economic privileve, won by coercion-collaberation, would just be freed from regulation to more effectively directly exploit their work populations.  





> A commie thinks about how unfair it is that others have more than him & thinks about how government should rob others & give it to him.


I lament thus to my wife sometimes:

I have met 3 or 4 men who are more intelligent than me in my life.  Similarly, almost all the men that I know, I could just dismantle with my bare hands if so moved.  So, as resource-reward is inherently, in natural conditions, a reflection of your genetic fitness and the intensity of your acquisitive will, yes, I think that I should have more than people are duller and weaker than myself.  This is a driving force in the psyche that leads to what you might call progress or the expanse of the market or whatever.  

So why is it wrong to look at the mediocre and see that they have wealth and security, and then know that you are exceptional, and do not?  I notice that a great amount of the better-off either inherited their money, or, simply moved from family connections, or fraternities, into more advantageous social positions.  Nothing about any of that behavior sounds any good to themselves in a human way, or the people around them in the present or the future.  But their cars are newer, so as dogs sniff at and lick the alpha dick that rapes them, you just assign to these symbolic trappings of status an innate superiority or worthiness.  




> A libertarian thinks about how he can make himself more useful to others so that others would be VOLUNTARILY pay him more.


so you're a communist unless you think about how to re-order your life according to what other people value?  That sounds ***** to me.  $#@! other people- what authority exists on earth that can claim that even though I am a human that lives and walks the earth, I have to pay to lay my head at night, or to draw water to drink from a river?  That's an insane notion and the reason why the people are suspicious of Libertarianism.  




> And what's so funny is that the commie scum that bitch about "low pay" & support socialist big government in the hope that the government will steal from others & give it to them, they are the first ones in line to get slaughtered in the commie slaughterhouse.


I prefer to lay the blame at the feet of the business-owner class whose dick is firmly inserted in the rhetorical mouth of the right wing, but in a capitalist system, this means that the burden is on the customer to allocate capital away from such businesses.  However, because we live in a coercion immersion where you need to scrape every nickel you can, there is not so much luxury for this choice.  And because people are dumb as $#@!in $#@!, a lot just don't notice or care.  And even among them who do, another problem is that people who have undergo some kind of cognitive break whereby they reassign themselves a superior identity, and so they don't really care either, and would rather see a suffering, frustrated person laboring for them- indeed a great many pay extra for exactly this.  




> If nobody is willing to pay you more than X then accept it, that's what you "deserve" because that's how much value your skill/labor adds to the productive processes in the markets;


our market doesn't produce anything, it consumes and indebts itself




> if you were worth more then people would be willing to pay you more just like how they pay more to CEOs & what not!


yeah what would the world be without the productive and valuable constribution of the CEO of Enron?  

you are sucha leather-daddy bitch-man dude...earning money =/= value




> Obviously, economically-illiterate commies can't grasp basic economics of how the markets indicate supply & demand through prices & profits (wage is price of labor) so here's a Ron-Paul-recommended free book for you, the chapter "How The Price System Works" describes the market-process & how all prices (including wages) are formed in the market - http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf


we don't live in a free market.  Ron Paul can come to Camden and I will school him in economics.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> No, including when I have been sick and injured.


what are you talking about?  If you are making minimum wage, that means that if you do not go to work, you do not get paid- therefore if you get sick, or injured, then you cannot work, which is pretty much the definition of sick and injured, and therefore earn _nothing._ 




> I am just going to give up on this thread, since most of you seem infatuated with the notion that no one can possibly live comfortably without a certain level of income (obviously way above minimum wage),


you keep laughing at the $7-800 rent price normal...that's not even for my county, it is the norm for all of south jersey.  "I found some place for $300..." yeah, sure, ok- some folks have grannies with attics for rent and parents that charge them a fee to stay in the basement, and that's more or less what they pay, but that is not at all what apartment communities charge.  Since you have carpal-tunnel from jerking off "free-market" rhetoric, you might understand that home-owners who wish to rent their properties use that average to determine how much they will charge for their own properties.  




> regardless of geography or personal circumstance.


this "geographical question" is also extremely insulting and small-minded, because I think that you are like, implying that us stupid poor people paying high rent should just move somewhere cheaper.

Like we just have a means to save $4000 for security deposits, credit-check fees, down-payments on mandatory services and transfer-fees, and that is not counting the cost of actually moving.  And if this area to which you wish to relocate is distant, that means getting there to actually see it and maybe look for work is very expensive and time-consuming.  Too time-consuming when you are earning an hourly-wage, because you cannot afford to miss work for more than a few days and still pay rent.




> Nothing is going to change that, and I think it's part lack of personal experience, part how people are currently raised, and part definition of "comfortably." I really hope the economy never REALLY collapses. I shudder to think what some would do without convenience foods and if they ever had to make a chicken last three days.


that's just so stupid and condescending that I am glad my survival resume includes pickling the limbs of entitled pretender-princess bitches

----------


## fr33

> I surely have no idea who you're talking about.


The people that think they are entitled to more money than their boss is willing to give them.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

I think the real tension is between people who hold their value to be something existential, and those who measure it by pats on the head or kicks to the ribs from scarier forces than themselves.

----------


## kylejack

> The people that think they are entitled to more money than their boss is willing to give them.


I guess you think bosses are entitled to more labor than their employees are willing to give them? The labor/employer relationship is an exchange, not charity. We all have the freedom to strike if we want. If Walmart thinks they can afford to fire them, I guess they will.

If not, they'll have to negotiate new terms.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> Blah blah blah. Open the windows.   _(in chemically contaminated meth-houses that people are duped into buying)_
> 
>     I have no patience for people with allergies. I think it goes hand in hand with being a drama queen. Slap some Killz on the walls and get over it already.


that's from that Angela poster who is another venomous and vile tampon aspiring to one day freeze snuggly in the second-coming of ayn rand's icy box, but, I only wanted to share it because it is so very clearly insane with sadism that she is a paid poster or a psycopath.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> I guess you think bosses are entitled to more labor than their employees are willing to give them?


the most common claim to this objection from the coercion-collaborator apologists is, "you should feel lucky to have a job."

----------


## angelatc

> I think the real tension is between people who hold their value to be something existential, and those who measure it by pats on the head or kicks to the ribs from scarier forces than themselves.


Wanna buy some Beanie Babies?  I hold their value to be existential, but I'd appreciate getting paid in dollars.  And please don't compare the prices of my Beanie Babies to those on eBay.  Mine are worth more because I am old and sick and I have kids.

----------


## angelatc

> that's from that Angela poster who is another venomous and vile tampon aspiring to one day freeze snuggly in the second-coming of ayn rand's icy box, but, I only wanted to share it because it is so very clearly insane with sadism that she is a paid poster or a psycopath.


Yea, by all means, attack the person and not the argument.  (Note that the comment you cited wasn't directed at a poster here, and also note that studies have indicated that allergies and asthma are indeed tied to mental problems.)

Liberal  - people who don't agree with me are mean - sob!!!

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

you are comparing a beanie baby to a human, (and inappropriately for the argument I made in a nonsensical and poorly connected way, mind you) so I think maybe both, paid-poster psycopath

----------


## angelatc

> I guess you think bosses are entitled to more labor than their employees are willing to give them? The labor/employer relationship is an exchange, not charity. We all have the freedom to strike if we want. If Walmart thinks they can afford to fire them, I guess they will.
> 
> If not, they'll have to negotiate new terms.


You know, I wonder how the angry crowd would react when the management told them that after waiting in line in the cold all night, they couldn't come in until the people wearing the WalMart shirts walking around with signs outside decided to come back to work?

----------


## kylejack

> You know, I wonder how the angry crowd would react when the management told them that after waiting in line in the cold all night, they couldn't come in until the people wearing the WalMart shirts walking around with signs outside decided to come back to work?


Since they have a history of trampling people to death, probably nothing good.

----------


## angelatc

> you are comparing a beanie baby to a human,


Labor is a market item, as are Beanie Babies.   Both are valued in terms of supply and demand.  Have you never taken an Econ class?

----------


## angelatc

> Since they have a history of trampling people to death, probably nothing good.


It has the potential to be popcorn worthy!

----------


## kylejack

> It has the potential to be popcorn worthy!


You think mob violence is funny? The initiation of force is immoral.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> Labor is a market item, as are Beanie Babies. Both are valued in terms of supply and demand. Have you never taken an Econ class?


well see it was the other cool-kid wanna-be-her-randness that equated the value of living as a human to what being alive earns, and whether this earning is deserving of this or that living condition. 

the whole thing comes from this very smug and ludicrously baseless assumption that in order to take things of sustenance to remain alive, someone has to get paid.  If you reject this self-evident madness, then your "free-market" (unleashing the pent-up and repressed withered dicks of the regionally-emasculated presently demoted and declining business-owner class) arguments stop sounding free.

----------


## angelatc

> You think mob violence is funny? The initiation of force is immoral.


Perhaps to you, but not to everybody.  But I don't want to see violence - I just want to see two crowds of people that I don't care about, who all want "more," screaming at each other about it on the day after we all gave thanks for everything we already have.

----------


## angelatc

> well see it was the other cool-kid wanna-be-her-randness that equated the value of living as a human to what being alive earns, and whether this earning is deserving of this or that living condition. 
> 
> the whole thing comes from this very smug and ludicrously baseless assumption that in order to take things of sustenance to remain alive, someone has to get paid.  If you reject this self-evident madness, then your "free-market" (unleashing the pent-up and repressed withered dicks of the regionally-emasculated presently demoted and declining business-owner class) arguments stop sounding free.


You don't believe in free markets?

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

specifically:

 (other mean woman ) 


> Either get two jobs, or go back to school and make yourself more valuable to your employer.


and so I asked,
do you imagine that people just assume for themselves the role of subordinated to the capricious and dehumanizing valuations of another individual who, typically by consequence of caste-entrenched birth, controls an exponential share of resources? Do you imagine that to crow and to hiss thus is good for a person, or for the people around them? 

raising this later degenerated and misunderstood argument about the value of one's labor.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> You don't believe in free markets?


to the contrary- I have been positing this entire thread properties of an actually free market.

None of them would include a human being needing to pay cash receipts for previous labor to be able to drink water where he lives for example.  I think that people should keep what they do with their work- no one made land though so big flaw and loophole in _your_ free market idea that invites coercive interests to consolidate themselves around the fact that most humans prefer not to live in war-zones where their people are subject to death at the hands of the robotic id.

----------


## angelatc

> specifically:
> 
>  (other mean woman ) 
> 
> and so I asked,
> do you imagine that people just assume for themselves the role of subordinated to the capricious and dehumanizing valuations of another individual who, typically by consequence of caste-entrenched birth, controls an exponential share of resources? Do you imagine that to crow and to hiss thus is good for a person, or for the people around them? 
> 
> raising this later degenerated and misunderstood argument about the value of one's labor.


Caste-entrenched birth?  That's just silly.  

There's nothing to misunderstand about the value of labor.  The more people that can do the thing that you do, the less your labor is worth.    Breathing isn't a legitimately marketable skill-set.

----------


## angelatc

> to the contrary- I have been positing this entire thread properties of an actually free market.
> 
> None of them would include a human being needing to pay cash receipts for previous labor to be able to drink water where he lives for example.  I think that people should keep what they do with their work- no one made land though so big flaw and loophole in _your_ free market idea that invites coercive interests to consolidate themselves around the fact that most humans prefer not to live in war-zones where their people are subject to death at the hands of the robotic id.


Are you autistic?

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> Caste-entrenched birth? That's just silly.
> 
> There's nothing to misunderstand about the value of labor. The more people that can do the thing that you do, the less your labor is worth. Breathing isn't a legitimately marketable skill-set



see I spoke to this already- this attitude comes from some very cowardly impulse to distract from the fact of the lack of skills and talent among the relatively wealthy; most of the work being done is mindless, idiot-proof, computer-model dictated obedience.  Just obedience.  

please dont spatter your monitor with, "But my husband blah blah technical skill" or "I blah blah special ability," because unless you are a part of a very, very tiny and elite minority, your living is just a consequence of having not gotten arrested or invited violent scorn while occupying a given place, be it a vocational school or a classroom or a whatever.  You can interchangeably replace just about any service-provider in the economy with minimal training.

and yet, the disparity of income and other priviliges is great.  This is because there is coercion in the market, and priviliged classes that profiteer with coercion or lobby to guide it against their competition and expenses.  The disparity is not because there is some divinely-inspired division of value of human beings.  That is obviously that silly lazy dwarf "ego" clinging to your stooped shoulders and shouting ever louder about the distinctions that decorate his bearer.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> Caste-entrenched birth? That's just silly.



see that's just silly to deny caste-structure.  Don't you read rothbard?  

Is the economy centrally planned secretly in tiny minority hands?

indeed

Does capital then necessarily flow in directions determined by the finance necromancer coercion scientists?

inevitably.

Do human beings consolidate their positions and cling to their privileges even as the conditions of others are diminished?

evidently.


therefore there is caste

----------


## kylejack

> Perhaps to you, but not to everybody.  But I don't want to see violence - I just want to see two crowds of people that I don't care about, who all want "more," screaming at each other about it on the day after we all gave thanks for everything we already have.


Well, your sick little fantasy isn't likely to happen, because striking doesn't necessarily mean picketing, and I doubt they'd want to picket at midnight anyway.

----------


## angelatc

> Well, your sick little fantasy isn't likely to happen, because striking doesn't necessarily mean picketing, and I doubt they'd want to picket at midnight anyway.


Well, they said they were going to walk out, so it didn't occur to me that they would just go home.

----------


## angelatc

> see I spoke to this already- this attitude comes from some very cowardly impulse to distract from the fact of the lack of skills and talent among the relatively wealthy; most of the work being done is mindless, idiot-proof, computer-model dictated obedience.  Just obedience.  
> 
> please dont spatter your monitor with, "But my husband blah blah technical skill" or "I blah blah special ability," because unless you are a part of a very, very tiny and elite minority, your living is just a consequence of having not gotten arrested or invited violent scorn while occupying a given place, be it a vocational school or a classroom or a whatever.  You can interchangeably replace just about any service-provider in the economy with minimal training.
> 
> and yet, the disparity of income and other priviliges is great.  This is because there is coercion in the market, and priviliged classes that profiteer with coercion or lobby to guide it against their competition and expenses.  The disparity is not because there is some divinely-inspired division of value of human beings.  That is obviously that silly lazy dwarf "ego" clinging to your stooped shoulders and shouting ever louder about the distinctions that decorate his bearer.


Are you autistic?

----------


## thequietkid10

> I'm not crying poverty at all, I think I mentioned that I have done very well and consider myself blessed. This week I went to Costco, bought 2 packages of pull ups and 2 packages of diapers for my two boys.  That alone was $140, granted thatll last me the month. I bought milk, eggs, steak and chicken for the month and that was another $100. Then today I went to stop and shop and bought fruits, veggies, yogurt, lunch meat, rice, bagels, bread, seltzer and some cereal bars my 3 year old likes. That was another $120.  So at best, Im at around $220/week for groceries and its not like I'm getting some crazy stuff.
> 
> I dont claim to be the most frugal, I dont spend my time clipping coupons, etc. But I do try to buy everything on sale and get anything I can in bulk from Costco. I am simply saying that the comment that someone can live comfortably on minimum wage does not strike me as accurate.  Can you survive? I'm sure you can, and people do.... but I doubt its something most, at least myself, would consider comfortable.
> 
> I also think Walmart has every right to set the wage they think is reasonable for their workers, whatever that may be, without the government interfering.  That doesnt mean that workers dont have the right to strike (and that may very well blow up in their face). It also doesnt mean that the public, like some in this thread, doesnt have the right to question it and not shop there if they dont like their business practices. 
> 
> That is the beauty of a free market, people are free to do what they please and it is their actions that regulate their behavior, not the nanny state.


I can see now factoring in Diapers for two kids how things might get crazy.  I remember (not THAT long ago) when Groceries started costing my parents over $100.00 a week  They decided to switch from the neighborhood Tops to Aldis in the next town over.  Immediate 30% drop in prices.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

> Are you autistic?


are you illiterate?  That is very plain english in a very plain argument.

----------


## oyarde

> I can see now factoring in Diapers for two kids how things might get crazy.  I remember (not THAT long ago) when Groceries started costing my parents over $100.00 a week  They decided to switch from the neighborhood Tops to Aldis in the next town over.  Immediate 30% drop in prices.


 I use that place too , this year have picked up some of these items there , chicken legs, smoked sausage , ham, creme of mushroom soup etc, all , very cheap

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## Mr. Perfidy

that's because it is feed and not food.

the health consequences related to having only that income to purchase food are a eugenic dimension of caste-structure, and turn eventually into a reason that many here will say merits your onerous medical payments and cancerous decay, while they enjoy privileged medical and nutritrional-access distinctions

----------


## Badger Paul

_"Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before."_

So by your logic everyone should be poor in order to keep inflation low.

Well, I think they tried that during the Depression. Didn't work out too well as I recall.

Walmart by its structure may not be conducive but I wouldn't oppose it if that's what 2/3rds of the workers really wanted, or some sort of worker's association. Obviously things must be desperate for this to be happening.

----------


## Badger Paul

_"- not by getting massive government contracts or subsidies. "_

Except when they want things from local governments like road improvement and tax abatements. I know a lot of small businesses which would love to get the goodies they get from small towns desperate to have Walmarts in their communities.

----------


## fr33

> I guess you think bosses are entitled to more labor than their employees are willing to give them?


Of course not. And this is not the case for Wal Mart. There is no shortage of workers. The current staff is easily replaceable.

----------


## Bohner

> _"Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before."_
> 
> So by your logic everyone should be poor in order to keep inflation low.


WTF? That wasn't what I was saying at all. 




> Well, I think they tried that during the Depression. Didn't work out too well as I recall.


They tried to make everyone poor in order to keep inflation low? I don't think that's what happened. 




> Walmart by its structure may not be conducive but I wouldn't oppose it if that's what 2/3rds of the workers really wanted, or some sort of worker's association. Obviously things must be desperate for this to be happening.


I'm sure 2/3rds of workers would want to get payed $100 an hour with full benefits. Sometimes it's not in the cards.

----------


## kylejack

> Of course not. And this is not the case for Wal Mart. There is no shortage of workers. The current staff is easily replaceable.


So what's the problem? What is "liberal" about striking again? Nothing. It's simple freedom of association (or disassociation, as the case may be).

----------


## fr33

> So what's the problem? What is "liberal" about striking again? Nothing. It's simple freedom of association (or disassociation, as the case may be).


Strike all you want. Don't complain about starvation or hard times. I happen to know that farm jobs aren't being filled. The average farmer tries his damnednest to hire illegal immigrants. Meanwhile most Americans' children are majoring in a "business degree" that will get them nothing.

----------


## kylejack

> Strike all you want. Don't complain about starvation or hard times. I happen to know that farm jobs aren't being filled. The average farmer tries his damnednest to hire illegal immigrants. Meanwhile most Americans' children are majoring in a "business degree" that will get them nothing.


Complaining is use of another freedom, freedom of speech. Deal with it, fascist.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

I think that the liberal slur (lol!) is because of my assertion that an individual's market function has much more to do with his random placement in a demographic web than anything related to ability or talent.  People have been paid to have children for more than 40 years, while information has become exponentially more penetrating and accessible, so, there is a great, teeming pool of talent and ability, and a job for every thousand of them.  So, the ones with the jobs: which are awarded through arbitrary nepotism, institutional-homosexual-brutality-clubs (fraternities and sororities), or partisan favoring among the more common coercion-employment qualifications: cling desperately to the notion that they are somehow uniquely virtuous and deserving above the multitude, and the trials of the people not in the club are not regarded as confrontations and twistings and abuse by scientific-coercion systems and scientifically-organized coercion-clubs, but as some kind of untouchability or original sin inquisitor dehumanizing dismissal; thus their value is affirmed, as regular, human values necessarily elude them, being so aligned as to consider the attainment of increased rank and privilege within coercion systems a legitimate motivation and center.

----------


## fr33

> Complaining is use of another freedom, freedom of speech. Deal with it, fascist.


I'm not a fascist. I'm not the one demanding more pay for sitting on my ass. You are.

----------


## kylejack

> I'm not a fascist. I'm not the one demanding more pay for sitting on my ass. You are.


You called me a liberal and then didn't want to answer any questions about what is liberal about a strike. You're the one licking the boot of the corporation. People choose who they labor for, and a strike is a legitimate market force.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy

I don't think that they are arguing that- they are trying to impress upon you with words the effect of a smug, half-grin that gives a hint of malice and credulous collective triumph in place of any functioning human empathy in order to gorge themselves on the woe of 4 billion exploited in yelling from their pensioned balcony about the value of a given position within their dominion and its implicit connection to their value as people.

----------


## Mr. Perfidy



----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> What many of you are not aware of currently is that big box retail stores are given incentives to use crony "capitalism" in many ways unseen such as tax credits by hiring 100s of employees all at once when they only have hours to provide 5 or 6 of those 100 employees with a few shifts per week meanwhile collecting a lot of tax credit money. It is not only unethical, it is corrupt corporatism.I will always consider "tax credits" as a sort of trojan horse/back door form of socialism and redistribution of wealth.


Ron Paul has been asked many times about "tax credits" & he always says that it's the people being allowed to keep more of their money & that he sees nothing wrong with government robbing less!

Government have no right to rob any person or business so there's nothing evil about tax credits.




> False, there were plenty successful strikes before government got involved, indeed, sometimes agents of the government even intervened on the company's side.
> 
> These workers won't be entitled to any government protections on unions, because they are not members of a union. Walmart has made sure of that.


May be in liberal dreams............as I've said, if non-coercive bargaining was so effective then there would be no minimum wage laws & unions wouldn't be giving away so much money in lobbying & government wouldn't be choking businesses to death with all kinds of regulations.

Nonetheless, as I've said, there's nothing wrong with bargaining, it's a desirable market-process to optimize price-discovery in any market but dreams of significantly raising prices (wages in this case) without coercion is not something one will believe in if they realize that prices on the markets are the product of the market-process & they simply can't be altered significantly without coercion. In fact, that's why we are surrounded by coercion so much!




> I dunno , something about " Wal Mart workers Unite " , just does not have a ring to it ...


Commies never seem to go away, their unrelenting envy, stupidity & inability to grasp basic economics continues to astound me!




> I don't understand why such entitled feeling liberals are even here on Ron Paul forums.


Just stick around for a while & you'll find that there's no shortage of liberals here, it's just that they are somewhat of a watered-down version of the OWS but liberals nonetheless!

----------


## Paul Or Nothing II

> Ron Paul can come to Camden and I will school him in economics.


Well, I couldn't go through all the commie nonsense you'd posted but the sentence above is sufficient to prove that you are just another commie idiot incapable of grasping real economics.

If you think Ron Paul is such an idiot then may be you should be on BarackObamaForums or something like that, yes, that commie tsar will make all of your commie dreams come true, establish "economic equality" by force & give you all the "free stuff" you always wanted & everything else that commies dream of........

----------


## angelatc

> are you illiterate?  That is very plain english in a very plain argument.


It's English - that much I'll grant you.  But the way it's written reminds me of someone I know IRL, and he's autistic.

----------


## angelatc

> _"Meaning that the millions who depend on those low prices are now poorer than they were before."_
> 
> So by your logic everyone should be poor in order to keep inflation low.
> 
> Well, I think they tried that during the Depression. Didn't work out too well as I recall.
> 
> Walmart by its structure may not be conducive but I wouldn't oppose it if that's what 2/3rds of the workers really wanted, or some sort of worker's association. Obviously things must be desperate for this to be happening.


Not really.  WalMart is the biggest employer in the world, and union membership rates in the general population is shrinking.  They've been trying to get a foot in the door there for 20+ years.

In Texas, about 15 years ago, WalMart used to have meat cutters.  They started organizing, and WalMart told them that if they did, the meat cutter positions would be eliminated - all the meat would be bought processed.  They organized, and were promptly let go.

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

if you are employed with a company, and think you're getting paid less than what you should be getting paid - you have no one to blame but yourself.

the business' obligation is to itself. your obligation is to yourself. getting hired is a negotiation.

----------


## kylejack

> if you are employed with a company, and think you're getting paid less than what you should be getting paid - you have no one to blame but yourself.


Hence why they are organizing a strike. They're taking action to get better pay.

----------


## Nirvikalpa

Damn, everything I've been told about NJ is the truth: NJians are $#@!s.

----------


## PaulConventionWV

> 96% of homeless dogs hope you buy them something at Walmart.


That dog is too well-groomed to be homeless.  Also, why?

----------


## CT4Liberty

Wow - this thread took a real turn for the worse, apologize for any influence I may have had on that. No reason to make any of this personal... I dont necessarily agree with angelatc on a personal level, but shes correct when it comes to the governments role in all of this, which should be nothing...

If your employer is paying you less than what you need to survive and live a life you consider comfortable, you should either ask for more money, get another job or just move entirely to a place where you could live more comfortably.

That doesnt change my personal view on what I would consider a comfortable life or a livable wage.

----------


## kylejack

> If your employer is paying you less than what you need to survive and live a life you consider comfortable, you should either ask for more money, get another job or just move entirely to a place where you could live more comfortably.


Or: Strike.

Why are liberty-minded people so hostile to a strike?

----------


## PaulConventionWV

> When your pay your employees so little that full time workers qualify for state assistance, then I say you need to pay your workers more.
> You are breaking my back with these taxes I have to pay to give all your employees food stamps and medical insurance.
> I lose far more in state taxes than I will ever save shopping at walmart.


Most sales associates in retail make minimum wage.  Why is it different for Wal Mart?  Almost every sales associate qualifies for state assistance, so I would say this is more a sign of the degree to which our government is handing out "free" money than the degree to which Wal Mart or anyone else isn't paying their workers.  It may be a side effect of subsidation, but it's reall not the company's fault.

----------


## oyarde

> Damn, everything I've been told about NJ is the truth: NJians are $#@!s.


LOL , I only ever worked with one guy from Jersey , nice guy. I think he sounded like he was from Brooklyn though.That was thirty years ago.

----------


## PaulConventionWV

> If you don't want to pay to give away free stuff, stop giving away free stuff.  Your inability to do so is not Walmart's fault.
> 
> Walmart is not a social service agency.  Walmart is not a backstop for failed government programs.  Walmart is not a social safety net.  Walmart is a business.  They provide goods and services that people want at prices set by the marketplace.  That's it.  Labor is a resource like any other.  A business will buy labor at the lowest rate the market will allow just like it will buy electricity and shelving at the lowest rate the market will allow.  Expecting it to fix economic problems created by government by acting contrary to the forces of economics is like expecting your car mechanic to fix your ruptured appendix.


There is such a thing as corporate subsidies, so I wouldn't say Wal Mart's prices are necessarily "set by the marketplace".  To a degree, they are, but there are also confounding factors like government subsidies and cheap foreign labor that nobody else has access to.

----------


## kylejack

> Most sales associates in retail make minimum wage.


Source? I made more than that working at Macy's. I know Target pays more than minimum wage except in states where the state minimum wage is quite a bit higher than national. Target also offers an employee clinic and better health insurance.

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

> Hence why they are organizing a strike. They're taking action to get better pay.


If it gets to a point where you feel you need to strike against a company, you need to find a new employer immediately. This smacks of desperation (from an employers POV). "We aren't worth the amount we're asking for, but we're hoping if enough of us that aren't worth what we're asking for stop working, we'll strong arm you into paying us more than we're worth for our inconvenience to you."

I was recently in this position with my last employer. I had spent several years working my way up to a more technical and technical position. I finally got to where I wanted to be, but was still getting paid as if I was in a lower position. A month or two before raise time I flat out told my boss I was expecting to be paid $x/year at a minimum, and floated my resume around for offers. When raise time came, they offered me significantly less than what I told them I was expecting, so I immediately walked and went to another company that pays me much better (and in my opinion, is a more enjoyable workplace).

If you do good work and your employer can't see your value, even after you pitched to them why you are valuable - walk. It's a two way street. I just don't see the point in wanting to continue your employment at a place where the employees and employers feel the need to be openly hostile towards each other.

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

> There is such a thing as corporate subsidies, so I wouldn't say Wal Mart's prices are necessarily "set by the marketplace".  To a degree, they are, but there are also confounding factors like government subsidies and cheap foreign labor that nobody else has access to.


and to some degree, cheap domestic labor who's cost is passed off to the US taxpayer in the form of welfare and low income tax credits.

----------


## kylejack

Billions of tax dollars paid by employees to the government are diverted back to their employers. People are being bamboozled to pay taxes to their own employer. Walmart is a part of that fraud. Here's the spreadsheet of companies that are taking advantage. http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/d...ecipients.xlsx

----------


## kylejack

> If it gets to a point where you feel you need to strike against a company, you need to find a new employer immediately. This smacks of desperation (from an employers POV). "We aren't worth the amount we're asking for, but we're hoping if enough of us that aren't worth what we're asking for stop working, we'll strong arm you into paying us more than we're worth for our inconvenience to you."


Because why? Collective bargaining is a legitimate free market force. Me and my friends deciding to stop work is entirely our prerogative. Nobody can make us work a minute more than we want, so long as we're not on contract.

----------


## PaulConventionWV

> That is what I was getting at. 
> If your take home pay is $1000 a month, and a 1 bedroom in the slums cost $600/mo, you are forcing your employees onto state aid..
> Trust me, it sucks. I went from making $800-$1100 a week to $238 on unemployment..
> I am trying to get by a month on what I used to make in a week, it aint happening.. I been through 5k in savings over the last year..


You can rent places like that for $300/month.  You can also stay with your mom until you're 30 and be able to afford a modest house.  Not everyone is willing to do that, but it's definitely an attractive option if you don't like being beholden to a landlord and having to pay rent, which eats up a lot of your paycheck.

----------


## VBRonPaulFan

> Because why? Collective bargaining is a legitimate free market force. Me and my friends deciding to stop work is entirely our prerogative. Nobody can make us work a minute more than we want, so long as we're not on contract.


I was never much a fan of working in an openly hostile environment. It is a legitimate free market force, I just don't think it is the best one.

Nothing is a bigger '$#@! you' to a $#@!ty employer than taking your valuable time and skills to their competitor who is willing to pay you what you feel you're worth. I think that's a much bolder statement than 'give me more money or i'm going to inconvenience you until it's cheaper for you to throw me a bone to shut me up'.

----------


## oyarde

Newest polling suggests 40 % of Parents with Children start Holiday shipping early in Nov.

----------


## matt0611

> Hence why they are organizing a strike. They're taking action to get better pay.


That's fine. But they don't get to go whining to the government for help when Wal-mart fires them and hires new workers to take their place.

----------


## kylejack

> That's fine. But they don't get to go whining to the government for help when Wal-mart fires them and hires new workers to take their place.


Anyone can petition government for a redress of grievances. We still have freedom of speech in this country.

Since they aren't members of a union, they're not entitled to typical organized labor government protections...so chill.

----------


## thequietkid10

> that's because it is feed and not food.
> 
> the health consequences related to having only that income to purchase food are a eugenic dimension of caste-structure, and turn eventually into a reason that many here will say merits your onerous medical payments and cancerous decay, while they enjoy privileged medical and nutritrional-access distinctions


Yeah pretty much, what's your point?

First off you can get Milk, bread, fruits, vegetables, nuts, yogurt, and eggs at Aldi's and you can get processed junk at fancier upscale supermarkets.  I can testify first hand that the produce isn't as good, but it's certainly available. 

Second off, for your basic premise to be true, that Aldi's "Feed" is so much worse for you then other food that if causes people to remain stuck in their socio-economic status (presumable because they die earlier), you would have to have evidence that proves people who shop at Aldi's die earlier then those who shop in other places and that it is because of the food.

Third, even if you were right and people who shop at Aldi's eat less healthy food, so what?  It's not like anybody force them to shop at Aldi's for their entire life.  There are literally dozen's of decisions which influence where you shop for food, and your overall health  How thrifty are you?  How many children you have?  What type of job you decide to work in?  What is your level of education?  How many hours you decide to work?  What type of residents you live in?  What do you do with your spare time?  What type of food products do you buy?  What type of job does your spouse have?  Ect. Ect. ect.

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## matt0611

> Anyone can petition government for a redress of grievances. We still have freedom of speech in this country.
> 
> Since they aren't members of a union, they're not entitled to typical organized labor government protections...so chill.


Yeah, sure, they can say whatever they want. Just don't expect me and other taxpayers to step in to help them when Wal-mart terminates their employment and they're out of a job. 

People don't have a "right" to a job and your salary is subject to the supply and demand of the labor market. 

Just because people feel entitled to something doesn't mean they can put their hand in my pocket to get it.

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## kylejack

> Yeah, sure, they can say whatever they want. Just don't expect me and other taxpayers to step in to help them when Wal-mart terminates their employment and they're out of a job.


Why would they? As I said, they are not members of a union.

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## kylejack

> People don't have a "right" to a job and your salary is subject to the supply and demand of the labor market. 
> 
> Just because people feel entitled to something doesn't mean they can put their hand in my pocket to get it.


Keep flogging that straw man, guy. I'm a free marketeer and don't believe in government largesse. You should go argue with someone who does. This is a dispute between Walmart and its workers and the government has nothing to do with it.

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## matt0611

> Keep flogging that straw man, guy. I'm a free marketeer and don't believe in government largesse. You should go argue with someone who does. This is a dispute between Walmart and its workers and the government has nothing to do with it.


I'm not arguing with you, I'm just stating my opinion. I'm glad you agree, but not everyone does.

It is between Walmart and its employees for now, as it should be. I just hope it stays that way.

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## kylejack

> I'm not arguing with you, I'm just stating my opinion. I'm glad you agree, but not everyone does.
> 
> It is between Walmart and its employees for now, as it should be. I hope it stays that way.


As long as Walmart fires employees before they can get sufficient number of signatures to unionize, it will, and they've been very diligent about that.

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## Badger Paul

_"People don't have a "right" to a job and your salary is subject to the supply and demand of the labor market. "_

Including illegal labor, right?

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## Badger Paul

_"Meanwhile most Americans' children are majoring in a "business degree" that will get them nothing."_

Just imagine all the money parents could save by instead of sending their kids to college, sending them out to work in the field or the mines. Staggering.

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## noxagol

> _"People don't have a "right" to a job and your salary is subject to the supply and demand of the labor market. "_
> 
> Including illegal labor, right?


The only illegal labor is slavery.

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## angelatc

> The only illegal labor is slavery.


That's not true.  If you're trying to make some ideological, philosophical point I get it, but there are several classes of labor that are illegal.

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## Aratus

> If they cancel Black Friday , this would mean it would be safe for me to venture out for beer, I could live with that, lol.


we have the riot and arrests at the apple plant on mainland china and unionism sounding sorta vintage 1930s era inside wal~mart?

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