What pisses me off the most is when Tea Party type folks scream about paying for food stamps, when they themselves are benefiting from suppressed prices at Walmart. You believe in personal accountability? THEN PAY WHAT IT COSTS FOR YOU TO GET YOUR GOODS.

You'll pay either in taxes (for food stamps) or at the register. Personal accountability demands that you pay at the register. Added benefit?

Dignity for the worker.

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Pffft. Give them that much money, and they'd just blow it all on crack, booze... or food or decent clothing or something.

Sounds like the beginning or re-birth of the "truck system" to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system

I know if Walmart raises it's prices on KD by $0.01...

I'll still be shopping at this local mom+pop mini market I go to because their customer service is excellent.

Once I forgot my wallet before stopping by for some milk an a Mars bar, and Tony said to just pay the next time I was in. I'm a customer for life. Walmart can infinitely afford to be that cool, but doesn't... and the guy that probably can't afford it... is? No contest.

That being said... I'm pretty sure HE gets some of his stuff from Walmart... but it's mostly tourist crap.

Fitting, your political system already operates that way.

Burn

Stories like yours and a thousand others similar is the very reason why Walmart sucks ballzack in their myriad of new and improved ways.

Why blame Walmart? Why should I hire you at $13/hr knowing that the government would subsidize that wage by 4 bucks?

I would just hire you at $8 bucks and let you get assistance if you needed it.


Its the governments fault.
The government should just stop giving assistance if you have a job.

Then Walmart employees could not afford to work at the low wages.
This would force Walmart to raise its wages to compete for workers.
and the Mac and cheese would 2 cents. Same result and we each shopper pays for the increase.

Wait...don't you blame people on welfare for being 'takers'? Then why not corporations...they're people too, right? This is like people who make $500K+ per year also taking welfare and food stamps, it's irrefutably immoral and should be illegal.
This behavior keeps me out of Walmart, I've never shopped there.

I see it like this....either you can support people with public assistance through the government (which most would agree is less than perfect in it's administration of said assistance) or you can support systems/businesses that support their employees enough that public assistance is not needed for them.
The former costs us in tax dollars, the latter in product costs...either way we pay, but the former costs more for less.
The former aids the 'job creators' by giving them massive public aid by proxy (allowing them to skim off their employees wages because the fed will take care of them) and incentivizes taking advantage of the indigent and defenseless, the latter incentivizes moral behavior by 'job creators' and removes a middle man (the fed) from the equation (always a good thing).
If more people would 'vote' with their pocketbook, they would get the results they want more often.

Rich and poor lechers are the same. Cut assistance for all. All able body individuals should find sort form of work. Individual with needs or are unable then sure let the government provide a proper level of assistance.

I don't blame rich and poor taking advantage of the system. if the government wants to give me $500 month for some bogus partial disability then yea sign me up. If they cut then cheese from flowing then that's ok too because I'm just milking the system.
Same for corporations, for the most part they are not breaking the law, just taking advantage of the system

Just remember for every dollar the government gives a poor person then a company needs to offer more to the job offer.

Why labor in the fields when I can collect government cheese and let some illegal do it.

Well, that's a better stance to take than most right wing people take, I'll applaud that. I would suggest that cutting assistance for all people would leave many in desperate situations, and desperate people have a tendency to ignore the law and societal norms, raising crime rates (and so costing more money). Desperate corporations have less of a track record getting away with that (although some still do).
I thought most right wing people blamed the poor for 'taking advantage' of the system, but corporations are seen as being smart to accept funding. I feel it's misinformation that makes them believe that most people availing themselves of the assistance are 'taking advantage of the system', and most corporations are simply properly following the law/rules to get any advantage possible, as they should. I can't understand the disconnect.
I blame anyone/anything 'taking advantage of the system', which does not mean anyone making use of it, only those gaming the system for advantage. My opinion is that more corporations fall into that category than individuals, or at least they get more out of the system.
Why labor in the fields instead of being a leach that requires illegal help? I think you answer your own question (perhaps you forgot the sarcasm button?). If field labor was paid appropriately they would need no government cheese or illegals to get it done. That would solve 2 issues for the right, I can't understand the resistance.
I think we actually agree that the system is set up to incentivize immoral behavior in an effort to create a safety net. (Perhaps we only disagree with the levels of immorality between people and corporations on this topic.) I think rational people could easily fix that problem without erasing the safety net with just a few reasonable requirements to qualify for assistance...too bad reasonable people are so few and far between.

Personally I feel that they system should be that you get 10 years of pension time. Use it for retirement or a year when you are 30 having a kid, which would leave you 9. Or some other issue like loosing your job.
But this off time should be roughly equal to you current pay. Retirement should be looked at a little differently because you are looking at a lifespan of work. But if you are 20 and want to go to school for 2 years and you quit your minimum wage job then you get subsidized 2 years at minimum wage.

You will look at entitlements a lot differently and also will look at how others squander theirs and run out early.

I don't care if you are 20 and suck 5years of minimum wage to buy dope, drink and other stupid stuff. When your 10 years are burned through then you are cut off.

Never underestimate the value of tough love.

Conversely, you would greatly consider when you retire. If I burned up 3 years of entitlements and only have 7 left then I'd better keep on working into the 70's.

Granted this is a grand pie in the sky idea but I do think it is some what workable.
And yes there should be a cap of say $100k.

To address you point about general Right leaning ideas:
Us on the Right don't hate poor people. We just don't want to continually hand out a free lunch. We do want all to have the same opportunity in life, a level playing field.

However corporations and government slice and dice the rules knowing that Americans have no clue of the intent of the Founders, or the Constitution. When the Right brings up the Constitution the Left points the finger and says that the Right wants to bring back slavery. No we don't. WE want all to have a level playing field. We don't hate Obama for being "black" we hate him for the policies and decisions that he puts forth. No more, no less.

Also the Right has no problems for a black man in a leadership role. But when we ( the Right) hold a man of color in high esteem ( Ben Carson) the Left cuts them down as an Uncle Tom and quickly dismiss any positive values that the man brings forth.

Finally there should be no sacred cows when it comes to cutting spending. Cut Military spending, Redo social security, entitlements. put everything on the table.
We are going broke point fingers at each other and not getting anything done.


Have a good day Newtboy

I'm all in favor of Walmart paying their employees more than they are, which is horsecrap...

BUT...

This video is a crap argument.

The statistics are riddled with problems.

Just off the top of my head the problems with it...

*They picked Ohio, which isn't indicative of what a living wage would be across the US. It's 16th in cost of living by state rank. That's a crap state to select.

*They picked a 68 cent box of macaroni to show the increase in prices. I completely agree the amount they determined by percentage isn't much, but still, pick a reasonable item to show. Better yet, just say if your average grocery bill is $100, it'll go up X amount.

*As many as 15% of Ohio Walmart employees isn't 15%. Just because you make something that would qualify for food stamps doesn't mean YOU qualify for food stamps. If you're a dependent on someone else is makes a lot of money, you don't qualify as an example. Get the actual amount of people who do if you're going to project numbers about how much food stamps go to Walmart employees.

*I completely am in favor of everyone who works a full work week should get a living wage. 30 hours isn't a full work week! 40 is. Yes, EVERY Walmart employee who works 40 hours a week should earn a living wage. I saw that and wanted to throw things because it completely undermines a good policy idea with crap like that. Nobody considers 30 hours a full work week.

With all that said, bobknight33's argument is horsecrap. Food stamp measures in this case come into play as a reaction to underpay by the employer. Walmart is not paying its employees $8 because they know their employees can get food stamps to make up the difference. They pay their employees $8/hr because they don't have to pay more than that either because of market forces or because gov't regulations don't force them to pay more. If they could, they'd pay $4/hr, food stamps or not.

To argue it's because of any other reason is an exercise of complete naiveté towards the benevolent job creators who are only trying to do good by society.

And to think workers would just not work for such a low wage would only occur if they had other opportunities that paid better. They already don't have those options as is. This would magically change because you took away food stamps?!

Without food stamps to make an unlivable wage a living wage, here's what would happen - Walmart employees would have to work other jobs in addition to their Walmart job with similar low skill requirements. This would increase the labor pool (same number of workers who work more hours = higher supply of workers), and that would drive the cost of labor down, so Walmart and other low skill employers could pay EVEN LESS!

bobknight33... what a brilliant solution for low wages for jobs! You just exacerbated the problem.

Crap video full of crap. And I've worked in the US myself, and lived most of my life in Canada(being Canadian).

Even up here in Canada, Walmart pays more than the min. wage. Hell it pays more than the average local store, or even larger stores, chain stores, or other bigbox retail stores for PT/FT in terms of wages.

Example in Ontario: Walmart starting wage: 13.25/hr(current min wage 10.25/hr), FT/PT, not counting benefits.
Gas station attendant: 10.55-12.08/hr
Large bigbox store sale clerk: 10.85/hr
L-BB Manager: 13.85-15.80/hr
Mom&pop specialized clerk: 10.85-12.10/hr
Fast food: 10.25-12.10/hr
Non-unionized janitors: 10.25-13/hr
Managers fast food: 13-15/hr
Regional Managers Fast food: 14.25-25.30/hr
Managers Walmart: 16.25-25/hr
Regional managers Walmart 18.80-27.80/hr

And...on top if that here, if you need a hand go to the damned food bank. And stop blowing your money on the latest gadets.

It's not a chicken/egg argument...

Big corps cut the costs and cap wages, then the government is forced to assist people so they don't starve or become homeless.

Why do you think wages have stagnated in the US while profits have soared?

But okay, I'll huff some glue and try to accept your world view. Government ends assistance. Instantly, Walmart loses a huge chunk of government income (they no longer profit off the items they sell to food stamp holders) and now they have to bump up wages by 4 bucks as well. Of course, why didn't we all see it before, Walmart would do these things out of the fucking goodness of their black cold dead hearts and accept a huge cut to their profit margins...

Hang on, the glue is wearing off... Yup, you're just a moron...

Not to mention that if we expect EVERY corporation to do this Walmart then losses it's welfare, which is as the video says 13 Billion a year, in addition to 4.8 Billion. So nearly 20 Billion. So really about 3.5% or such.

Keep on dismantling regulations, destroying unions. Collective bargaining power is a curseword that needs to stop, right? It hurts profit.

Walmart is doing this, because it can. Profit driven corporate logically sees all costs hurting the company. Less wages, more work hours equals better profit. That system does not have a word for caring about humans wellbeing. Keeping the workforce barely in working condition is the goal, giving them a cent too much is a travesty. If only they would work for free...

No one that worships free market as savior don't seem to understand that economy does not work on human level, on human logic and morality. It is working on totally different set of rules and it should be our responsibility to regulate that system to work for us. Now we work for it and on it's rules and a dollar from a dead mans back is equal to a dollar from a happy mans hand. Economy does not see the difference between fair and unfair. All it sees is numbers.