What I find kind of interesting about this is that Walmart shoppers skew low income. Walmart’s wages are correspondingly low, then the employees go on public assistance, which is, as Republicans love to remind us, largely paid for by the wealthy.
So rather than the poor paying more for Walmart products, the wealthy subsidize the low prices via taxation, then fight to defend the status quo.
Note: While I think this is rather amusing, I also think it’s a really silly way to run a railroad and far from an ideal situation even if it does result in the wealthy paying more so that the poor pay less.
So, the debate: Who actually benefits more from this system? Are the wealthy benefiting more despite paying more? Are the poor benefiting more despite earning less? Is it a wash?
The rich suffer: in all possible scenarios in all possible worlds it’s always the rich who suffer.
They seem to mention it a lot.
The least sacrificial scenario would be if the poor just gave all their spare money to the rich after solely paying for all the taxes. But even then the rich would suffer just sitting down and worrying about awful people coming and trying to take some of their totally deserved.
wealth.
T’is a hard life.
Well, as more and more people are impoverished, it stands to reason that the tax system must become more progressive, as there are fewer and fewer people with sufficient income to pay taxes.
It’s bizarre to see this as Walmart making the tax system more progressive, though. It’s a bit like arguing that the bubonic plague greatly reduced the death rate from cancer.
This reminds me of the arguments put forward by the cigarette industry in an attempt to reduce the penalties in the big lawsuit. They argued that the plaintiff only presented the costs of smoking-related deaths, and not the the benefits. Among the benefits was lower costs to society of housing and medical care for the elderly, because of course the dead don’t need housing or medical care. Smoking reduced the scope of the emerging crisis of an aging population, and was therefor a benefit to society.
They sure do. And many of them rail against taxes. But the Walmartization of America system is one in which they are paying more in order to keep prices down at a store they don’t shop at. As if they are saying “Woe! Woe! We suffer so much! My god, how dare you suggest ways we could suffer less. Woe! Woe!”
I mean sure, we have a number of these in the system, like health care costs, where the middle class and up are actually screwing themselves over. But in the case of Walmart, it’s actually backwards from the normal way. In health care, the wealthy think “Gotta keep taxes low” even if it really means costs go up. But in the Walmart case it seems to be “Gotta keep costs down” even if it really means taxes go up.
I don’t know that it makes sense to talk about raw numbers rather than percents. Is Company A “better” than Walmart if it has few employees on assistance even if it has a larger percentage on assistance? And as long as Walmart is paying above the minumum wage, what’s the issue? The market sets the prices of the wage, with the state setting the minimum. What is the point of having a minimum wage if there is a problem when companies comply with it?
As far as who benefits most, that would be next to impossible to determine. Do “the wealthy” shop much at Walmart? Do they shop at other places which have to keep their prices lower due to competition from Walmart? Perhaps there could be a graduate thesis in there somewhere, but until someone does the hard research to determine what is what, I’d say we’re all just guessing.
It’s more than just paying taxes. It’s also about power and control. Add all three together (taxes, power and control) and you have the cost of doing business. If that means the “wealthy” pay for this “welfare” through more taxes, it’s offset by the greatly diminished capacity for Walmart employees to challenge the greater power structure of society (and thus extract considerably more “welfare” from the “wealthy”).
In other words, keep’em ignorant, barefoot and pregnant. They won’t know what they are missing.
Presumably these employees aren’t working such low-paying jobs because they prefer them; they’re doing so because there aren’t any better jobs available to them. So if their choice isn’t Walmart job vs. better job but rather Walmart job vs. no job, then the ones who are on public assistance with Walmart would presumably be on public assistance without Walmart. Indeed, more might be. So it’s not really accurate to say that Walmart is driving up the cost of government.
What if Walmart’s low-low prices* drive better paying competitors out of the market and are only attainable via the existence of the taxpayer subsidizing the labor costs?
*I’ve seen arguments before that Walmart’s prices aren’t particularly low.
I really don’t understand this. They are paying at or above minimum wage, right? Is there some principle that says that certain jobs must be paid above minimum wage? If so, why?
At any event, I know you’ve put forth this assertion before, so if you want to prove it, please do so. Just throwing it out there as you did, without anything to back it up, is meaningless in this forum.
But that’s really not the salient point. What you really have a problem with is the minimum wage. Your unstated assumption is that no one who is working should have to rely on public assistance. So, just tell us what the minimum wage has to be to accomplish that. And then tell us what that will do to the unemployment rate.
Well damn, John, since you really know what I’m thinking, you can just go ahead and write it out. It’s so nice having you around to tell me what I really mean.
Oh, please. If you don’t think this is a problem., the what is the point of this thread?
You said “While I think this is rather amusing, I also think it’s a really silly way to run a railroad”. If I got it wrong, why don’t you tell me what you meant. What makes it a silly way to run a railroad.
So, the debate: Who actually benefits more from this system? Are the wealthy benefiting more despite paying more? Are the poor benefiting more despite earning less? Is it a wash?
I answered that in my first post: “As far as who benefits most, that would be next to impossible to determine. Do “the wealthy” shop much at Walmart? Do they shop at other places which have to keep their prices lower due to competition from Walmart? Perhaps there could be a graduate thesis in there somewhere, but until someone does the hard research to determine what is what, I’d say we’re all just guessing.” Emphasis added.
Now, why is the current situation “a really silly way to run a railroad”. If you can’t or won’t explain that, then maybe it would be best to withdraw that statement.