Walmart...

[hadit]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

The shoe business is a tough racket, there are relatively few US shoe manufacturers, although they do exist.

My New Balance shoes were built in Indonesia, although I prefer my Ecco loafers which are made in the Tremendous Republic of Slovakia.

I have a pair of Danner boots. Made in USA. I got them like 3 years ago. $150. Same boots today are $200. I hope they are paying those who make these by hand more than minimum wage.

That's the difference between craftsmanship and mass production. Craftsmen DO get paid well and their products are expensive.

 

[pknopp]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

It costs money to maintain manufacturing infrastructure, money that is totally wasted if the goods cannot be sold. We were underpriced by foreign competition and never adjusted to that new reality, so we simply abandoned manufacturing certain goods here at home because we couldn't compete with the lower costs from foreign competitors. Tell you what, start a shoe manufacturing company here in the US, produce a $50 shoe, pay all American workers a "decent" wage and make a profit. Demonstrate it can be done, despite the experts that convinced American shoe manufacturers that they couldn't do it.

Nobody convinced anyone that it couldn't be done. It was shown that more profit could be made by using slave overseas wages.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Isnt this the progressive dream to put as many people on welfare as they can get?

people who work for a living shouldn't have to be on welfare to make ends meet. The minimum wage is designed to insure people make enough money to not need welfare if they work for a living they should earn a living.

Back in 1976 the minimum wage was $2.10 an hour and an ounce of gold was $400. Today an ounce of gold is almost $1,800 is that ounce of gold more valuable?

 

[occupied]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

 

[pknopp]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

No the capitalists did. You silly cons think we’re living in some kind of Adam Smith free market capitalism. We’re not.

If the consumer insisted on buying only products made in the USA, that's what we would see on the shelves. They don't, because they want a lower price than American made can give.

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

The shoe business is a tough racket, there are relatively few US shoe manufacturers, although they do exist.

My New Balance shoes were built in Indonesia, although I prefer my Ecco loafers which are made in the Tremendous Republic of Slovakia.

I have a pair of Danner boots. Made in USA. I got them like 3 years ago. $150. Same boots today are $200. I hope they are paying those who make these by hand more than minimum wage.

That's the difference between craftsmanship and mass production. Craftsmen DO get paid well and their products are expensive.

There were massed produced boots from overseas that cost as much.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

In a capitalist country, that has socialist programs, eventually that country runs out of other people's money, and then full on Communism happens, because no one will willingly work, while shit fuck progressive slaves sit on their lazy ass all day. That is when the government steps in and with the point of a gun, forces everyone to work for meager pay, while those prog elites dine in luxury. Always the same results, always....

 

[occupied]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

In a capitalist country, that has socialist programs, eventually that country runs out of other people's money, and then full on Communism happens, because no one will willingly work, while shit fuck progressive slaves sit on their lazy ass all day. That is when the government steps in and with the point of a gun, forces everyone to work for meager pay, while those prog elites dine in luxury. Always the same results, always....

View attachment 487286

Social and economic stability has a cost directly proportional to the gap between the haves and the havenots.

 

[hadit]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

It costs money to maintain manufacturing infrastructure, money that is totally wasted if the goods cannot be sold. We were underpriced by foreign competition and never adjusted to that new reality, so we simply abandoned manufacturing certain goods here at home because we couldn't compete with the lower costs from foreign competitors. Tell you what, start a shoe manufacturing company here in the US, produce a $50 shoe, pay all American workers a "decent" wage and make a profit. Demonstrate it can be done, despite the experts that convinced American shoe manufacturers that they couldn't do it.

Nobody convinced anyone that it couldn't be done. It was shown that more profit could be made by using slave overseas wages.

The bottom line is, they found a way to lower labor costs. Now you seem to want them to earn less and pay more. Who would do that?

And think on this as well. Those "slave wages" that are paid overseas are often the ONLY wages that are available in the area, which is why there is no shortage of workers willing to take the jobs. I know it's harsh, but the American way of thinking about work and labor is very different from what is experienced around the world, where even children are expected to contribute to the family's budget. They haven't become wealthy enough to worry about things like OSHA protections, child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, overtime, all those things we've managed to adopt because we could afford to.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago that the majority of Americans grew up on the family farm and started working as soon as they were physically able to carry things around, or worked the family store every hour they weren't in school or asleep. We have the luxury of labor law and protections because we don't have to literally work sun up to sun down every day just to survive.

 

[Tax Man]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

It is wallys world, what do you expect? Care or concern for humans?

 

[gipper]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

No the capitalists did. You silly cons think we’re living in some kind of Adam Smith free market capitalism. We’re not.

If the consumer insisted on buying only products made in the USA, that's what we would see on the shelves. They don't, because they want a lower price than American made can give.

You missed the point as you often do. Stop going off on tangents. Stick to the topic. Please.

 

[gipper]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

Exactly. When I was a little boy in the early 1960s, it was difficult to buy a product not made in America. Today it’s now the exact opposite.

Hmmm, early 60's. What ended 15 years prior to 1960? What could possibly have caused the world's major manufacturers problems setting up wholesale manufacturing? Notice that 15 years later the rest of the world was catching up and some easily surpassed American manufacturing.

Again missed the point. You’re impossible.

 

[Winston]

When I was growing up, there were elevator operators in all the high-rise office buildings in Downtown Pittsburgh. When you drove into a "gas" station, someone came out and cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and tire pressure, and collected the money, all without charge and certainly with no expectation of getting a tip. When you went into a retail store, there was a clerk on duty who helped you find and select your purchase.

Crappy jobs all, and all gone now.

When the cost of any commodity goes up (human effort being a commodity), the users of that commodity look for ways to use less of it, or stop using it altogether.

Human nature.

If a $15/hr minimum wage is good, then why be niggardly about it? Why not $25? $50?

You can't buy a house on $15/hr, or put a kid through college.

Tell that to a person working a MW job and see what they say. Paying $15 per hour could make a big difference in their lives, but you don’t care about your fellow Americans. Fuck them. Right?

When I was a teen working as a Pump Man for Exxon, sure I would have loved to have the corporation pay me $15 / hour instead of the $1.60 they were ponying up. It would have made a big difference in my life as a teen.

But it just wasn't viable for XOM.

Those same Gas Stations went self serve when min wage was $2.00 an hour

They do it because the technology is there

And because someone in a back office ran the numbers and convinced the executives that the self serve pumps would pay for themselves within a reasonable amount of time. They would not have automated if the self serve pumps were more expensive.

Actually, the self-service gas pump kind of worked like this. A local gas station fired their pump guy, you know, the one that came out, pumped the gas, washed your windshield and checked your wipers, and then took your money while you sat in the car. Then people had to get out of the car and go inside and pay. But now the owner of this particular gas station could charge a little bit less for his gas. All the other gas stations in town still did it the old fashioned way. But, since everyone is so damn cheap that a couple of cents on the gallon of gas was going to save them so much money, well hell, they didn't even mind getting out of the car. Soon, all those other gas stations fired their pump guy too.

Now, to the self-checkout at Walmart. People don't mind the self-checkout because lots of them, well don't "check-out" everything. Walmart might save a little money on labor, and they are so damn averse from paying labor. But, their shrink goes through the roof in some locations, and it goes up in every location. The OP claimed the "host" was watching 20 registers. I doubt that, six is about the max. But if she was, I can guarantee more merchandise walked out the door than any savings that store was getting from a decline in labor cost.

 

[Winston]

Yesterday I stopped into a Walmart in Wooster, Ohio to pick up a cheap gym bag. I actually found a pretty nice one, not exactly "cheap", but not outlandish. I figured I'd scored and headed to the front of the store.

When I got there, I was shocked to see that not a single check-out lane had an actual cashier. Every single lane was self-serve. Every. Single. One.

Years ago, my then 16 year old daughter made $6.25 an hour as a cashier for Walmart. As long as her grades were good, we allowed her to work as many hours as she was offered. She wasn't getting rich, obviously, but she had her own money to do with as she pleased.

When I asked the self-serve "attendant" about it, she told me that they went to an all self-serve model after the minimum wage became the latest perceived panacea for the left. There were about 20 checkout lanes. There's only one person overseeing the self-checkout lanes.

That means that 19 people who could've had cashier jobs have been replaced by technology.

That's very good news for Walmart, and very shitty news for the 19 people who could've had those jobs...

Walmart has a low prices tradition that boils down to whether consumers want
to shop for sandwich bread for 88 cents per loaf or $3.29 someplace else. They never forgot the single mom who barely gets by on whatever the deadbeat dad hatefully and unwillingly gives up so he can party with others.

I have stock in Walmart just because they are good to people. Period.

Not really buying the good to people bit. Abusive is more on target. I know a girl, team lead, grocery. She is responsible for nine departments with a yearly volume in excess of 15 million dollars. She makes forty grand a year. Margin on that 15 million is at least half a million. Probably more because there are some perishable departments in the mix. She makes forty grand, the Walmart family makes a cool quarter million. On just her area of responsibility. Yeah, abusive and extortive.

 

[TNHarley]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

If socialism exists, it isnt capitalist.

 

[occupied]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

If socialism exists, it isnt capitalist.

Lol at your infantile views on economics. I remember when I thought there were hard lines between things. Simpler times.

 

[hadit]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

No the capitalists did. You silly cons think we’re living in some kind of Adam Smith free market capitalism. We’re not.

If the consumer insisted on buying only products made in the USA, that's what we would see on the shelves. They don't, because they want a lower price than American made can give.

You missed the point as you often do. Stop going off on tangents. Stick to the topic. Please.

Since the topic is Wal-Mart and how they are cutting costs, talking about higher prices for American made products IS on-topic. If you don't like talking about it, why did you start?

 

[hadit]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

Exactly. When I was a little boy in the early 1960s, it was difficult to buy a product not made in America. Today it’s now the exact opposite.

Hmmm, early 60's. What ended 15 years prior to 1960? What could possibly have caused the world's major manufacturers problems setting up wholesale manufacturing? Notice that 15 years later the rest of the world was catching up and some easily surpassed American manufacturing.

Again missed the point. You’re impossible.

You wax nostalgic about how you could only buy American made products in the early 1960's. I educated you on one really big reason why that was the case.

 

[hadit]

When I was growing up, there were elevator operators in all the high-rise office buildings in Downtown Pittsburgh. When you drove into a "gas" station, someone came out and cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and tire pressure, and collected the money, all without charge and certainly with no expectation of getting a tip. When you went into a retail store, there was a clerk on duty who helped you find and select your purchase.

Crappy jobs all, and all gone now.

When the cost of any commodity goes up (human effort being a commodity), the users of that commodity look for ways to use less of it, or stop using it altogether.

Human nature.

If a $15/hr minimum wage is good, then why be niggardly about it? Why not $25? $50?

You can't buy a house on $15/hr, or put a kid through college.

Tell that to a person working a MW job and see what they say. Paying $15 per hour could make a big difference in their lives, but you don’t care about your fellow Americans. Fuck them. Right?

When I was a teen working as a Pump Man for Exxon, sure I would have loved to have the corporation pay me $15 / hour instead of the $1.60 they were ponying up. It would have made a big difference in my life as a teen.

But it just wasn't viable for XOM.

Those same Gas Stations went self serve when min wage was $2.00 an hour

They do it because the technology is there

And because someone in a back office ran the numbers and convinced the executives that the self serve pumps would pay for themselves within a reasonable amount of time. They would not have automated if the self serve pumps were more expensive.

Actually, the self-service gas pump kind of worked like this. A local gas station fired their pump guy, you know, the one that came out, pumped the gas, washed your windshield and checked your wipers, and then took your money while you sat in the car. Then people had to get out of the car and go inside and pay. But now the owner of this particular gas station could charge a little bit less for his gas. All the other gas stations in town still did it the old fashioned way. But, since everyone is so damn cheap that a couple of cents on the gallon of gas was going to save them so much money, well hell, they didn't even mind getting out of the car. Soon, all those other gas stations fired their pump guy too.

Now, to the self-checkout at Walmart. People don't mind the self-checkout because lots of them, well don't "check-out" everything. Walmart might save a little money on labor, and they are so damn averse from paying labor. But, their shrink goes through the roof in some locations, and it goes up in every location. The OP claimed the "host" was watching 20 registers. I doubt that, six is about the max. But if she was, I can guarantee more merchandise walked out the door than any savings that store was getting from a decline in labor cost.

Automation reduced labor costs. ECON 101. When a business can reduce costs, it can gain competitive advantage by lowering prices or can increase profits. Naturally, all its competitors will follow suit. It's inevitable.

 

[TNHarley]

If Walmart is having a hard time it's not because of wages its because they are losing their market supremacy to Amazon. Both are looking to to make human workers a thing of the past. Every job that can be mechanized eventually will be because it's even cheaper than slave labor. Flesh and blood cannot compete with that.

Oh, I don't see Walmart having a hard time at all. The store was packed. The parking lot of my local store in Florida is always packed. Our store in Florida has increased the number of self-serve lanes after Florida voters approved a $15 minimum wage.

Simply put, the skill level of the job is not worthy of $15 an hour. So, in response, Walmart will invest in these self-serve aisles which will pay for themselves in pretty short order...

Yes we need to make sure all the profits flow up to the Walton family, who enjoy their many mansions, private jets, and exotic vacations.

Why do you insist a company has to pay more to get something done than they need to? Would you insist they pay an army of people to mop the floors on hands and knees when they don't need to?

Because workers deserve a good wage. Why do you like living in the richest nation in the world but where millions of workers get paid poorly, while the ultra rich make enormous sums of cash?

I like living here because I can still, with the right combination of factors, rise above where I started from, or choose to trade financial success for other things. IOW, freedom is good. The reality is, technology is rapidly rendering low wage manual laborers superfluous.

Now, forcing businesses to pay artificially high wages for jobs that are not worth that much is simple welfare, and if society believes everyone should be paid more than what they produce, it should be up to society to levy taxes, collect them and write the checks. Don't turn business into welfare distribution centers.

Minimum wage is low enough in many places that people can still get food stamps. That is a direct government subsidy for paying people chickenfeed.

Its a subsidy for having more children than you can afford. Basically, getting free food for being a dumbass.

Bitch. bitch, bitch. Even raising one or two kids isn't getting any cheaper while wages stay so flat that the government has to eventually try to do something about it. If we had real non-mandated wage growth we would not being having this conversation.

Wages wouldnt need to raise nearly as much if the corrupt government stayed out of the economy.
You federal supremacists reward the govt with more power for fucking it up in the first place.
You people are goddamn retarded.
And i wasnt bitching. I was correcting your ignorant post. There is a difference.

Sounds like you need a Midol. Never forget that government intervention in the economy arises from the failures of capitalism to meet the needs of society. In our case it's more accurate to say that the government absorbs the failures of capitalism in order to keep the economy stable.

utter bullshit.

In a capitalist country even socialism serves someone's bottom line. You've never even considered this angle have you?

If socialism exists, it isnt capitalist.

Lol at your infantile views on economics. I remember when I thought there were hard lines between things. Simpler times.

yeah. Fuck what terminology ACTUALLY represents

 

[pknopp]

Because workers deserve a good wage.

They "deserve" it? Why?

You might look at Western Europe. Their workers are unionized, have HC, and job security. Oh but we can’t have that in the US. The rich deserve all the profits.

Would you like to respond again, or are you satisfied with failing to answer the question?

Why does someone "deserve" a good paying job?

Because it’s the American Way.

Yeah, not so much...

Very true. It’s the American Way to make sure workers are paid shit and the senior people get fabulously wealthy.

Nonsense.

Why do you believe an employer has a responsibility which is greater and more important than the health of his business?

I don’t. You’re confusing things.

A better question is, why do you want all the money flowing to the top?

The only way to stop that is to cut off the global economy. Labor costs money, and when you make that labor too expensive, the company finds alternatives. First there was outsourcing, just get cheaper workers to do the same job and if the consumer doesn't care about or can even tell that the quality is lower, they're happy because the poor can afford to shop. Now there's automation, and we see that everywhere. It won't be long before the unskilled and uneducated laborer will have a very difficult time finding work.

Here's the bottom line. You're going to have to demand higher prices from companies so they pay their workers more. Organize boycotts and go public saying cheap goods that the poor can afford to buy are a travesty and you insist on higher prices.

Yeah paying workers a good wage is just too difficult for Americans. Europeans can do it successfully because they are so much smarter. They don’t have legions of billionaires to support.

They also pay higher prices for things. That's all you have to do here, convince everyone that allowing the poor to afford goods and services is a bad thing and we all need to pay higher prices.

Let’s see? Do we want workers paid well to avoid a nation full of poor and lower class people, or do we want to pay a little more for the products we buy? Oh what terrible conundrum.

Prices at Walmart are significantly lower than we had in the past. A pair of Walmart jeans can be had for $11 bucks or so, less than what they cost at Sears in the 1980's

That's because those jeans are made in Vietnam now. People used to make a living wage making jeans here in the USA.

Yes, American capitalists outsourced American jobs for cheaper labor markets, with the full support of American politicians, and America is now full of poor people. Consequences!

What’s really weird is many Americans are perfectly happy about this.

There you go. The consumer drives all this, not the "capitalists" and not the "politicians", the consumer who wants to buy a TV for $200 that would cost him $450 if it was made by American unions. All you have to do now is convince everyone that it's in their best interest to pay more for stuff and leave the poor out of it.

There are no such options. I wandered around a shoe store while the wife shopped and I checked shoe after shoe after shoe. Not a single one made here. Most were made in Vietnam. Priced as high as $50 or more.

You will never convince me that we can not profitably make a $50 shoe here in the US and still pay people a decent wage profitably. The problem is Wall Street wants higher and higher profits every year or they crush you.

It costs money to maintain manufacturing infrastructure, money that is totally wasted if the goods cannot be sold. We were underpriced by foreign competition and never adjusted to that new reality, so we simply abandoned manufacturing certain goods here at home because we couldn't compete with the lower costs from foreign competitors. Tell you what, start a shoe manufacturing company here in the US, produce a $50 shoe, pay all American workers a "decent" wage and make a profit. Demonstrate it can be done, despite the experts that convinced American shoe manufacturers that they couldn't do it.

Nobody convinced anyone that it couldn't be done. It was shown that more profit could be made by using slave overseas wages.

The bottom line is, they found a way to lower labor costs. Now you seem to want them to earn less and pay more. Who would do that?

And think on this as well. Those "slave wages" that are paid overseas are often the ONLY wages that are available in the area, which is why there is no shortage of workers willing to take the jobs. I know it's harsh, but the American way of thinking about work and labor is very different from what is experienced around the world, where even children are expected to contribute to the family's budget. They haven't become wealthy enough to worry about things like OSHA protections, child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, overtime, all those things we've managed to adopt because we could afford to.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago that the majority of Americans grew up on the family farm and started working as soon as they were physically able to carry things around, or worked the family store every hour they weren't in school or asleep. We have the luxury of labor law and protections because we don't have to literally work sun up to sun down every day just to survive.

If you wish to work to pay for things like subsidized housing, food stamps, etc so that multi-million dollar corporations don't have to pay people enough to live on, so be it.