Ditto + every post you’ve ever made.
I’m also aware that some people find the truth inconvenient.
What I was saying was that even if you granted that WalMart was immoral, the premise of the line quoted in the OP was wrong. I was neither attacking or defending WalMart.
What you and a lot of people in this thread are saying seems to be based on a high school economics view of the market. If we are talking about individual stockholders, not the concept of stock, few are covered by the points made here. VCs definitely are - they are risking their money and directly funding a new venture. People who buy stock from an IPO are, since the money goes to the company. Everyone else - and that is 99% of those who will ever own stock in the company - have nothing to do with company growth.
Stockholders who own the stock for fractions of a second in high volume trading sure qualify as a moral force. In fact, beside pressure from analysts, most companies would toodle along just fine if their stocks were never traded.
Not to mention that unless you own big chunks of a company, you have basically zero say in how a company is run. A small shareholder complaining has less power than a single voter complaining, especially because elected officials have to leave office if they lose, unless directors.
The people making the decisions about screwing or rewarding workers usually have tiny stakes in a company. Though they no doubt claim they do it for the stockholders, that claim is about as valid as Fidel Castro claiming he followed the will of the voters.
Which means that that making or losing money from a stock is totally decoupled from whether workers get screwed or not. Which I suspect you agree with.
However the value of that $75 to someone making minimum wage is far higher than the value to someone making $100K a year. Losing some of it will have more impact too.
I was not the one who initially made the comparison. Costco is a place for upper middle class people to buy large quantities of stuff. It makes all of its profits via club memberships which are twice as high as Sams Club. Walmart and Sams Club are places for poor people to shop which means they are more price sensitive and Walmart has to watch its costs more.
Walmart employees need money and health care. Walmart provides wages and Medicaid provides health care. If Walmart did not exist its workers would still need health care and would still need Medicaid to provide it.
Think of a hypothetical, a poor person named Joe and two rich people one named Sam and one named Bob. Rich person Sam gives Joe a job and rich person Bob gives Joe nothing. Who is the moral one? Sam or Bob? Does it make a difference if Bob thinks the wages Sam pays Joe are too little?
There is no fallacy of the excluded middle at work. Walmart has to use the same capital markets as everyone else. To get capital they have to provide good returns. If they used all of their profits to give workers a very small wage increase then they would lose access to capital markets.
Forget about bankers, who actually work. As an investor I can say that I do not work for my gains. (I worked for the initial investment, of course.) Some months I make more than my daughter does in a year with no work than tearing open the envelope to look at the report.
What I’m doing is gambling. Sure, some gamblers work to improve their odds, but I pay people to do that for me. Is the guy who bets on what the tip line says any different from the guy who puts his money on a horse selected by chance - except in terms of return on investment?
When you work you can’t lose money. When you invest/gamble you can.
When you play poker in a casino some money gets skimmed off to pay the wages of the workers. That’s more job creation than buying and selling stock. We as investors are gamblers, let’s not pretend that we are paragons of virtue.
Sam’s Club-$45, Costco-$55. Doesn’t look like twice to me.
We’re both on disability and shop at Costco.
There is no profit margin that was inscribed in stone on Mt. Sinai. Other employers pay health care for their employees, Walmart expects us taxpayers to pick up the tab for them. If other companies can do it and remain viable, there is no reason Walmart can’t do the same. If they have to cut their profit margin slightly and/or raise prices slightly, then that’s the price of being a good corporate citizen.
Other employers give stock options, free cafeteria meals, free haircuts and massages. They have a different business model. They employ large amounts of low skilled people and have very low prices. This helps poor people find work and live better. I think helping the poor makes one a good citizen but perhaps I have different priorities than you.
So, you are in favor of higher taxes in order to subsidize WalMart. Then to be fair you must support subsidized healthcare for everyone. If WalMart can save money in this way, why not Target? Microsoft? Bank of America?
Why is Walmart so special that the rest of us have to subsidize them?
Why do you feel that this is an indication that ‘the rest of us have to subsidize them’? Wal-Mart isn’t obligated to pay more or offer more benefits than they do. We (the People) don’t HAVE to ‘subsidize’ them…we, as a society CHOOSE to provide a minimum level of subsistence and assistance to people who fall below a certain level. We don’t REQUIRE businesses to offer levels of compensation above that level…nor, do I personally think we should, though this is neither here nor there.
So, your (and other, presumably non-high school economics educated people who just know so much about all of this) assertion here is basically yet another bullshit appeal to emotion that can be answered with another question…‘why SHOULD Wal-Mart offer more compensation than market rates for unskilled labor?’. Appeal to emotion answer being ‘because it’s right’ or some variant of that.
None of which has fuck all to do with the question/rant asked in the OP, of course, but since this is a more interesting subject than the basic rant about how ‘shareholders’ don’t earn any money or do any work I guess we should travel down this pathway instead.
I think we all agree that the rant the OP quoted (and did not necessarily agree with) is bogus.
We’re not talking economics here, we’re talking consequences. First, given WalMart’s size it sets market rates.
Now, if WalMart’s position on health care for workers is “you don’t need it - tough” that would be one thing. But if they are giving information out about how to sign up for Medicaid they acknowledge the need for healthcare for their workers, they just don’t want to pay for it.
As for consequences, the strategy only works if most companies don’t use this strategy. If everyone did then taxes would go up so that WalMart customers would have even less money to spend, or medical costs would go up - ditto.
WalMart has already complained that its profits have been affected by their lower income customers having less money to spend. So we’re already seeing the effects to some extent.
Based on the articles comparing them to Costco, we’re also seeing that their underpaid workers don’t feel the need to hustle. Can hardly blame them.
I don’t see how that makes any difference, because the attitude is the same from both sides. Wal-Mart wants health care for their employees, but doesn’t want to pay for it. Instead, they want the taxpayer to pay for it. The other side also wants health care for Wal-Mart employees, but doesn’t want to pay for it. Instead, they want Wal-Mart to pay for it.
If Wal-Mart customers are disproportionately poor, they would be affected much less by higher taxes - the poor don’t pay very much in taxes. And if the government is paying for their health care, then again, tax increases (to pay for the higher costs) won’t affect them, since they don’t pay much in taxes.
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Voyager]
We’re not talking economics here, we’re talking consequences. First, given WalMart’s size it sets market rates.
[/QUOTE]
No, it doesn’t set the market rates. First off, the bottom of the rate is set by legislature, since there are minimum wage laws in effect. That sets the low end of the bar. I’ll concede that Wal-Mart has a non-zero effect and influence, especially locally, to rates (and benefits) above the bar, but saying they set the rate is just ridiculous, no matter how big they are.
We’ve had this discussion in the past, and I still disagree with you and others on this. Could be my merely ‘high school’ economics level of course. But Wal-Mart isn’t obliged to offer health care (yet) by law, and so this is a market issue…can Wal-Mart attract the workers at the levels they need to be a viable business? I’d go out on a limb and guess the answer is ‘yes’, since they don’t seem to be having major issues filling positions at their various stores. When/if that changes then they will have to change. When/if We, The People™ MAKE them do it, well, then that will change. Claiming that, despite neither of those having happened (yet), that Wal-Mart is somehow obliged to do it anyway is, well, an appeal to emotion.
As for Wal-Mart giving out information on how their employees can sign up for Medicaid (or welfare or any other program), that’s an HR thing. As I have said in the past, OUR freaking HR department gives out information like that, and I don’t work for Wal-Mart. I see that as a feature, not a bug that Wal-Mart does this. Obviously, YMMV since this isn’t the first time it’s been discussed and argued about.
Again, disagree. It only ‘works’ because Wal-Mart is able to attract sufficient people with sufficient skills to make their business model work, including the aspects of it that impact customer service and critical employee retention. If it didn’t work, then Wal-Mart would have to change in order to meet it’s staffing requirements.
Businesses pay what the market rate is for the labor they need based on their own models, including both direct and indirect compensation, and constrained by the laws and regulations in force both locally and Federally… They ALL do that. Not every business has the exact same model as Wal-Mart, which is the reason they don’t all offer medical as a benefit. Basically, if you can attract the level of personnel you require without offering medical then, unless you are forced to do so why would you? Conversely, if you need to attract a certain level of personnel and you can’t do so without medical then you need to offer medical or you won’t get what you need. THAT’S the reason why not everyone does it the way Wal-Mart does, and why Wal-Mart does things the way they do.
Saying we have to ‘subsidize’ Wal-Mart’s business model is disingenuous (for you…for others I know they really believe this, they FEEL it, and they don’t really know better).
A quick google search seems to show graphs of continuously upward growth both in gross profits, net profits and things like numbers of stores, projected to continue an upward trend for the foreseeable future. Not to say that Wal-Mart hasn’t been whining about this stuff, but I’d need to see some hard figures to convince me that this is true. Do you have any cite showing that Wal-Mart is suffering profits wise because people are presumably too poor to shop there due to the wages Wal-Mart (and others) are paying?
As discussed in other threads on this, Costco and Wal-Mart have different business models that emphasize different aspects and employee retention policies. Or, to put it another way, if Costco’s model is superior then they will eventually force Wal-Mart into doing things there way or Wal-Mart will lose out on market share while Costco will win…but I’m not seeing that trend, since they compete in different market segments and have different focuses for things like employment. If you have some indication that Costco is beating up on Wal-Mart and that their employment model is providing them with such an advantage as to start cutting into Wal-Mart’s market share then I’m all ears. I don’t particularly like Wal-Mart, nor do I shop there except in dire emergencies, so I’d be happy if someone with a different/better employment model came along and showed that they could compete with and edge out someone paying minimum wage with no benefits by paying hire wages with more benefits, but my non-economics take is that without the government dictating by fiat new regulations and such it’s not going to happen in an apples to apples comparison…which Wal-Mart vs Costco isn’t.
Oh yes, the magical invisible hand of the free market will correct all that needs correction. Some major employers want to have their employees on Medicaid, some actually care about their employees. The free market sees all and corrects all and if it doesn’t fix it, it doesn’t need fixing.
Well, seems better than the ‘despite the fact that there is no law or regulation, let’s blame Wal-Mart for operating their business model in a perfectly legal manner by trying to play the “subsidized” emotional card, because we all know Liberals will lap that shit up’ gambit. 
Because, ah, that’s right…we don’t HAVE a fully free market society or economic model, and I wasn’t actually advocating we should. But, throwing out the ‘magical invisible hand of the free market’ strawman is bound to win you points in the bonus round, right?
I certainly owned and bought stock when I was making seven-whatever an hour. Also bought my own health insurance and maxed out the ol’ IRA.
Were you at the time bringing up children and trying to stay one step ahead of the landlord?
There is no law requiring you to return a fifty dollar bill that you see someone drop and walk away unknowing. You’re perfectly within your rights to keep it for yourself rather than catch up to them and return it. Of course, being on solid legal ground doesn’t make you less of an asshole.
Walmart chooses to let taxpayers pay for their employees’ health care. They choose to browbeat suppliers into rock bottom prices for their products. They choose to pay their employees inadequate wages. Still legal, but still an asshole move.
In other words, the invisible hand of the free market will solve everything. Not a strawman.