(10-28-2013 03:05 PM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 03:01 PM)EpicNiner Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 02:56 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 02:26 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 01:52 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I'd say Wal Mart is a great example. Here in Alabama they use subsidies for the poor as a great way to support their pay structure. They pay them just enough to continue to buy everything they need at Wal-Mart while letting the state chip in.

It's theft and nothing short of immoral.

Why is it theft and nothing short of immoral?

Allowing the state to essentially pay your workers is stealing from the state. Paying people who work for you so little that they must 'beg' for money from the state to survive is immoral.

This.

The same people who criticize people on welfare seem to have no problem with a corporation paying their workers less than a livable salary and suggesting the workers sign up for handouts to make up the difference.

stocking shelves and operating a cash register don't deserve a livable wage. Sorry. Life is hard. Those people are paid what they're worth. So are you, me and everyone else.

What happens when you are on the other side of the equation and have no options? It's not so simple and that attitude has alienated millions of Americans from the Republican Party, which, believe it or not, was not founded on the ideals of greed and rampant abuse. Believe it or not, the party was founded on the idea that an honest day's work deserves an honest day's pay.

(10-28-2013 04:14 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  In Wal Mart's case it merely cuts down on their overhead.

We'd be better off having fewer Wal Mart employees who are underpaid and thus more well paid employees who could further the economy by having money in their pocket.

This has nothing to do with political ideology.

How is what Wal-Mart does different from what any other employer can do?

McDonalds offers a lower quality item than In&Out Burger and pays their employees less. They can do this because In&Out doesn't have a kids meal or a dollar menu.

The reason Wal Mart makes so much money is because they are huge. They are huge so they can negotiate more favorable terms for products than others and offer the lowest price while still making a profit. They are the quintessential company making a fraction of a cent on massive volume... and people buy from them because they have the cheapest prices.

(10-28-2013 04:18 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  What legal mechanism do you have to combat the issue?

As what they are doing isn't illegal, the answer would be to make it somehow illegal.... by passing a law.

Since most of us disagree that what they do is wrong/illegal, it is up to you to determine how to fix the problem you see.

(10-28-2013 04:33 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 04:14 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  In Wal Mart's case it merely cuts down on their overhead.

We'd be better off having fewer Wal Mart employees who are underpaid and thus more well paid employees who could further the economy by having money in their pocket.

This has nothing to do with political ideology.

How is what Wal-Mart does different from what any other employer can do?

McDonalds offers a lower quality item than In&Out Burger and pays their employees less. They can do this because In&Out doesn't have a kids meal or a dollar menu.

The reason Wal Mart makes so much money is because they are huge. They are huge so they can negotiate more favorable terms for products than others and offer the lowest price while still making a profit. They are the quintessential company making a fraction of a cent on massive volume... and people buy from them because they have the cheapest prices.

(10-28-2013 04:18 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  What legal mechanism do you have to combat the issue?

As what they are doing isn't illegal, the answer would be to make it somehow illegal.... by passing a law.

Since most of us disagree that what they do is wrong/illegal, it is up to you to determine how to fix the problem you see.

Skillful wording. Nobody does it on the scale they do.

Wal-Mart's business model is hardly relevant to the issue of how they use government handouts to the poor to subsidize their pay structure.

(10-28-2013 04:33 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  The reason Wal Mart makes so much money is because they are huge. They are huge so they can negotiate more favorable terms for products than others and offer the lowest price while still making a profit. They are the quintessential company making a fraction of a cent on massive volume... and people buy from them because they have the cheapest prices.

QFT.

Wal Mart simply tells you what you will charge for your product. Here is a link to an interesting article about lawnmowers and Wal Mart, and one company that didn't play the Wal Mart game.

(10-28-2013 04:14 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  This has nothing to do with political ideology.

But it does. Notice that most of the people that complain most about income inquality are the ones that most want to 'redistribute the wealth.'

(10-28-2013 04:45 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 04:14 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  This has nothing to do with political ideology.

But it does. Notice that most of the people that complain most about income inquality are the ones that most want to 'redistribute the wealth.'

and their vision of a wise redistribution of money, power, authority and rights always requires the correct person or group to be in charge.

Namely, themselves and other liberals.

(10-28-2013 04:40 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Skillful wording. Nobody does it on the scale they do.

Wal-Mart's business model is hardly relevant to the issue of how they use government handouts to the poor to subsidize their pay structure.

Of course it is relevant and my choice of words wasn't careful. McDonald's does the same thing. Most Dollar-Store/Discount type companies.... most companies who rely on relatively unskilled labor... cleaning companies, lawn companies, dry cleaners etc etc... do the same thing. On the scale of Wal-Mart? No. Of course, Wal-Mart IS the largest employer in the world, so maybe THAT has something to do with it? They often have different business models as most are franchises or independent operators.

Wal-Mart truck drivers are conspicuously well paid vis a vis their peers.

Your complaint is that they pay people too little. Okay. What do you propose to do about that and what do you think Wal-Mart will do in response? They could pay people more, but that would mean they would have to raise prices... which wouldn't just negatively affect their employees but ALL low wage earners who take advantage of their business model and size.

Wal Mart has been an all-purpose bogeyman for usual coalition of class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types (i.e. enlightened, pro-discrimination liberals) for a long time.

And it won't change any time soon.

(10-28-2013 05:04 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  Wal Mart has been an all-purpose bogeyman for usual coalition of class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types (i.e. enlightened, pro-discrimination liberals) for a long time.

And it won't change any time soon.

That's because WalMart has the deepest pockets.

(10-28-2013 04:25 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I'm of the belief that any person that works 40+ hours per week deserves to be afforded a salary that is nothing short of gainful employment. I find employers who hire multiple people as part-time employees to do the same work in order to avoid payment for another individual immoral. The end result is a race to the bottom, market or not.

The result is what we have now. We have hordes of working poor that do not have options and who are desperate. Cold shouldered rebuffs and ideological fantasies don't put food on the table for millions of Americans, or provide health insurance. The result is the desperate working poor, the 49% Romney talked about.

How can anybody be shocked to see these people vote in droves for the other guy? It's only going to get worse as long as we have a c'est la vie attitude.

It starts with the things we buy and the companies we do business with. Rewarding theft of a grand scale from the country as a whole, depression of wages to artificially low levels, and out right greed needs to stop.

So how about we don't require employers to offer benefits only to "full time" workers?

Just because they voted in droves for "the other guy" doesn't mean that "the other guy" intends to solve the problem. It merely means that the poor are already conditioned to listen to the left. On the whole, many of them would rather be given a fish than learn how to fish.

How is it greed to consistently offer the lowest cost items available in the area? Sure, those 50 WalMart employees might be somewhat paying the price, but the benefit is shared across the tens of thousands of customers for that Wal-Mart. How is the guy who runs 3 men movers and charges $15 per man hour but only pays $10, keeping $15 himself (and $25 if he is one of the men) or the McDonald's franchisee who does functionally the same thing any less greedy than the Wal-Mart exec who earns 2 cents on jeans rather than the 4 cents that Target makes on the same item but sells twice as many because he is 2 cents cheaper?

Greed is also what makes them the cheapest, because they make NOTHING off of having higher prices.

(10-28-2013 04:40 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Wal-Mart's business model is hardly relevant to the issue of how they use government handouts to the poor to subsidize their pay structure.

So what would you want them to do? Pay $16 an hour instead of $8? And if doing that means laying off half their people, is that good too?

We have far too many people running around trying to correct perceived injustices without bothering to look at what things look like from the other side. Wal-Mart may pay people the minimum wage because they are despicable human beings, or they may people the minimum wage simply because what those people do isn't worth more than the minimum wage.

Take someone whose skills are worth no more than $8/hour. Assume that person needs $16/hour to live in the style that you think he/she should be able to live. How much should Wal-Mart pay him/her? If it's more than $8/hour, then is it okay for Wal-Mart to lay a bunch of such people off to make the economics work? Is that good for the economy? For society? If Wal-Mart can replace cashiers with check-yourself-out kiosks at a cost equivalent to $9/hour, is it appropriate for Wal-Mart to install kiosks and fire a bunch of people? If not, then how is Wal-Mart supposed to make the economics work?

What would you propose to do about this allegedly "obscene" situation? How would you expect Wal-Mart to respond to that action if we took it? Would the Wal-Mart employees be better off or worse off with that action?

It's kind of like a baseball manager contemplating a pitching change. I have a left-handed pitcher and the opponents have a right-handed batter coming up in a key situation. I would rather my right-handed pitcher face this right-handed batter. But if I change to a right-handed pitcher, they have a left-handed batter on the bench to pinch it with. So, would I rather my left-handed pitcher pitch to their right-handed batter, or my right-handed pitcher pitch to their left-handed batter? You want to change to your right-handed pitcher, but if so do you really expect Wal-Mart to keep the right-handed batter in the game?

(10-27-2013 09:57 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:52 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:43 PM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  Life's not fair son.
No amount of government will make it so.

Quit worrying about what everyone else makes.
Work hard. Work smart. Make your own happiness.

Of course life isn't fair. The point is that this is a case where a little bit of awareness could spur social change rather than government imposed "fairness".

I'm really not grasping what the social change is?

Reducing the massive (and increasing) gap between rich members of society and everyone else without turning to socialism.

"Social change" is a lib code word for "wealth redistribution"

(10-28-2013 04:29 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 03:05 PM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 03:01 PM)EpicNiner Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 02:56 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 02:26 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Why is it theft and nothing short of immoral?

Allowing the state to essentially pay your workers is stealing from the state. Paying people who work for you so little that they must 'beg' for money from the state to survive is immoral.

This.

The same people who criticize people on welfare seem to have no problem with a corporation paying their workers less than a livable salary and suggesting the workers sign up for handouts to make up the difference.

stocking shelves and operating a cash register don't deserve a livable wage. Sorry. Life is hard. Those people are paid what they're worth. So are you, me and everyone else.

What happens when you are on the other side of the equation and have no options? It's not so simple and that attitude has alienated millions of Americans from the Republican Party, which, believe it or not, was not founded on the ideals of greed and rampant abuse. Believe it or not, the party was founded on the idea that an honest day's work deserves an honest day's pay.

Lol. What party was ever founded on, or has ever ascribed to, the ideals of greed and rampant abuse? Give me a break.

You would prefer many of these folks had no job? Develop no skills? Hell, there was a time in this country that these entry level jobs were SO bad, paid SO little and were worked SO hard that anyone with any sense, ability and decent (not good or excellent, but decent) work ethic would find a way to get OUT of these jobs. I know, I've worked for 2.85 an hour and held all the shittty positions one could imagine. Guess what? It was inspirational. As in inspired me to get the f@#$ out and work to do something better.

Now? we want to settle in and make these shittty positions a freaking career! Really? Is this what we, as a society, wish to aspire to? Or even better, we want to reward those that don't work AT ALL, with a "liveable wage". Wow. That is going to serve them well.

What those on the left that want to "help", or "provide", for otherwise able bodied people that which they refuse to provide for themselves and their families, don't realize is that what they are doing is tantamount to sentencing them to a life of state sponsored slavery.

what happens if/when the money finally dries up and these people still have no skills, never worked anything more than an entry level job and have nowhere else to turn?

My guess is they will find someone else to blame, once again. Wal Mart and Mcdonalds are the current boogie-men, who's next?

Care for and provide for those that aren't able to care for themselves? Of course. We're the most generous and compassionate Country in the entire existence of mankind.

Care for and provide for those that should be doing it themselves? That's not only not compassionate, it's a downright disservice.

(10-28-2013 07:13 PM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:57 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:52 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:43 PM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  Life's not fair son.
No amount of government will make it so.

Quit worrying about what everyone else makes.
Work hard. Work smart. Make your own happiness.

Of course life isn't fair. The point is that this is a case where a little bit of awareness could spur social change rather than government imposed "fairness".

I'm really not grasping what the social change is?

Reducing the massive (and increasing) gap between rich members of society and everyone else without turning to socialism.

"Social change" is a lib code word for "wealth redistribution"

(10-27-2013 11:04 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  The gap is obscene, especially when you compare it to where it was 50 years ago; there is no excuse or reason for it.

No one makes in salary what someone else isn't willing to pay them. Maybe your problem should be more with the givers than the receivers.

For me I don't care what someone else makes...if they can get it good for them.

(10-28-2013 07:36 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 09:43 PM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  Life's not fair son.
No amount of government will make it so.

Quit worrying about what everyone else makes.
Work hard. Work smart. Make your own happiness.

Of course life isn't fair. The point is that this is a case where a little bit of awareness could spur social change rather than government imposed "fairness".

Social change? Like the Bolsheviks?

exactly like the Bolsheviks.

(10-27-2013 11:04 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  The gap is obscene, especially when you compare it to where it was 50 years ago; there is no excuse or reason for it.

Why is it "obscene"? Your saying so doesn't make it obscene, so what about it is obscene? What would it take to be "not obscene"?

What change would you propose to make? What reaction would you expect? Who would be better and who would be worse off after you made that change and the reasonably expectable reaction occurred?

(10-28-2013 10:23 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 10:19 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 08:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  The greater point is that at a point pay for a leader is no longer proportional to their value in the mechanism that is the company.

To add to some frustration, the market rate is set by the very same people getting paid; its an interesting, if not unjust, system.

Why does it matter? The average American doesn't care. I would agree there is a huge disparity but they're in a position that commands more value. People often confuse hard work with value. Now, that being said they're likely not all worth what they're being paid but for people to argue that wealth needs to be spread around makes my blood boil. How about people make themselves more valuable of a commodity in the labor force as opposed to demanding more for their undesirable or less valuable skill set.

Positive Rep me and I'll vote for Obama in 2016

The issue isn't wether or not they command more value but how much more.

I make more than my secretary because I have more responsibility. I also make more because I'm the one with the skill set.

The issue is different with corporate officer pay. Sure, they have more responsibility. However, are they the heart and soul of the company as a lawyer is in a practice or a doctor or a business owner? I'd say they are a cog in a machine to a greater degree and as such don't actually command a salary several thousand times higher than their secretary.

well then work your a$$ off to be one of the corporate officers then. you have the same opportunity, know?

(10-28-2013 01:16 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 12:25 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 12:18 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 12:14 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 11:59 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Saying CEOs are overpaid when they make thousands of times more than other workers in their companies is not the same thing as being a socialist or a communist.

Would it anger you to know that particular CEOs make millions while their corporations use public welfare systems to supplement their pay structures? To break that down, the CEO gets paid millions to rip off and abuse the use of your tax dollars. Does that colour this conversation a little differently?

Indeed. You are still most certainly welcome to say whatever you would like.

Anger me? Uhhhh, no. Except perhaps at the legislative buffoons that would allow such a structure or an Executive branch either incapable or unwilling to prosecute in the instances of such easily identifiable fraud and abuse...

Jon Corzine, I'm looking at YOU!

Prosecute? You'd have to break a law.

Underpaying people and having the government subsidize their dinner table will make a man millions.

That's greed. That's what massive CEO pay rewards.

Is "rip off" not akin to breaking a law in your book? It is in mine, least it was.

Who's underpaid? Go find another job elsewhere, people been doing that since the creation of man.

Greed is good. Keeps a person young and hungry. Kinda like starvation on the other end I guess. I'd prefer greed.

At least he'll spend that money. You know, spread the wealth the old fashioned way- buy a yacht.

That doesn't solve the problem. If every Wal Mart employee quit and went looking for a job, 5% of them would find a job, and it would likely be just as sh!tty. Wal Mart doesn't care if they should treat employees better, they're all replaceable.

There job would be $hitty because they didn't bother to get and education or learn a trade that qualified them to do any job that isn't 4hitty. It's their own fault!

When you have no skills or minimal skills you are 100% replaceable. That's why it's important to gain skills and eduction that makes you necessary and sought after.

(10-28-2013 07:25 PM)mptnstr@44 Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 10:23 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 10:19 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-28-2013 08:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  The greater point is that at a point pay for a leader is no longer proportional to their value in the mechanism that is the company.

To add to some frustration, the market rate is set by the very same people getting paid; its an interesting, if not unjust, system.

Why does it matter? The average American doesn't care. I would agree there is a huge disparity but they're in a position that commands more value. People often confuse hard work with value. Now, that being said they're likely not all worth what they're being paid but for people to argue that wealth needs to be spread around makes my blood boil. How about people make themselves more valuable of a commodity in the labor force as opposed to demanding more for their undesirable or less valuable skill set.

Positive Rep me and I'll vote for Obama in 2016

The issue isn't wether or not they command more value but how much more.

I make more than my secretary because I have more responsibility. I also make more because I'm the one with the skill set.

The issue is different with corporate officer pay. Sure, they have more responsibility. However, are they the heart and soul of the company as a lawyer is in a practice or a doctor or a business owner? I'd say they are a cog in a machine to a greater degree and as such don't actually command a salary several thousand times higher than their secretary.

well then work your a$$ off to be one of the corporate officers then. you have the same opportunity, know?

Same opportunity if you're competing against people of the same SES.