Not to say that Walmart treats its employees well, but you people are missing something here.
First why should Wal-Mart do anything beyond what is required by law? Minimum wage is minimum wage. The government set that rate and Walmart pays its employees over that wage. They do not have to give insurance to their associates, yet they do. Most states are "At Will" states which means you can be fired for any reason aside from sex, age or race. If you don't like what Walmart offers then there is a McDonald's on almost every corner. Or even a Starbucks.
As for manufacturing, while Walmart is BRUTAL on it's vendors, they also have one of the strictest social compliance programs in the world. They've also instituted a packaging reduction program that looks to reduce packaging waste and increase the amount of recycled material used.
It is not totally the fault of Walmart that everything is made China. They buy from Vendors, vendors moved manufacturing to China in order to be competitive. Everything could have stayed in the USA but with the increasing wages and government policies US manufacturers could not compete(At the same time restrictions on imports from Asia were loosened) Now if you wanted to make a plastic piece in the USA it would cost 4-6 times more than in China, generally speaking. Recently I have found some US manufacturers that can injection mold components at a reasonable cost, but due to the havoc wreaked by everything moving to China I lack the infrastructure to be able to do things like Paint Decoration (Again something so strictly regulated that it would be near impossible to do in the US).
As we continue to see the USD falter against the RMB and as the price of oil continues to increase we may reach a point of balance where manufacturing in the US could come back, but it would most likely be automated and would not result in near the number of jobs it had in the past. Of course at the same time, due to those same changes in Oil prices and the USD against the RMB we'll be seeing some pretty big price increases on product. Hang on to your pocket books everybody it's gonna be a rough ride.
On another note Sam Walton was a total skin flint, but he did it across the board. The guy didn't even get heat in his office until he was near death. Only then it was done because the engineer put it in with out him knowing. They feared him catching a pneumonia. He complained when he found out. No one could drive fancy cars, because if Sam saw them he'd figure he was paying them too much. After he died all kinds of sports cars popped up in the Walmart parking lot.

The way Wal-Mart treats their employees it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is real.

Don't buy anything at Wal-Mart, unless you endorse their working conditions and you'd like to see your area's commercial core turned into a ghetto.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Why don't some enterprising socialists get together and start a company based on Wolff's premises? That would go a long way toward proving his business model works.
Would people shop at a Walmart-type store where every worker was paid a "living wage" and got full medical and other benefits, but the prices were 30% higher than at the actual Wal-mart?


in regards to your first question:
they have my friend.worker owned companies are on the rise and not only have they become highly productive they have also become highly profitable without losing benefits nor living wages.

i am not going to respond to your second point because it is just a vapid regurgitation of corporatist propaganda and ignores the fact that the american corporate charter needs to be revised due to its venal and destructive nature.

i could site many examples that your analogy is retarded but i feel it more prudent to have you do your own leg-work.
dont believe the hype brother but rather look into who is feeding you that hype.

Why don't some enterprising socialists get together and start a company based on Wolff's premises? That would go a long way toward proving his business model works.

Would people shop at a Walmart-type store where every worker was paid a "living wage" and got full medical and other benefits, but the prices were 30% higher than at the actual Wal-mart?

They never explain how giving the ultra rich even more tax breaks will create jobs. It hasn't yet... The rich have never been richer, corporate profits are up to record levels, still none of them are creating jobs. The income of the rich and corporate profits have outpaced inflation, middle class income has barely kept up or fallen below depending on how one defines middle income, and the poor's purchasing power has tanked. Yet somehow the right says the rich need more tax breaks and everything will turn around? Why would it? How is increasing their personal income going to create more jobs? Because they'll suddenly feel more generous than they have so far? It's like those people who say cutting minimum wage will create jobs... really? You think if you pay people $2 an hour that the local McDonald's will go from having 40 people to having 80 or a 120 people? You think think that the local Wal-mart will go from having 400 people to 800 or 1200? No, they'll say they are doing fine at 40 and 400 and just cut costs and increase profits, there will be no net gain of jobs, just more money for the rich. Same with cutting taxes, if they wanted to create jobs, they would have by now, and the fact they are not just proves that most of the rich are morally bankrupt and care only about their short term gains. Sadly too many people blame the poor and seem to think that the rich are being persecuted by the government and if we just ended that persecution and persecuted the poor instead this country would turn around, not once stopping to think that if the rich paid living wages and hired more people rather than keeping the wealth to themselves there would be very few poor...

I'm not worried because I used my "Active Shooting Event Deterrent" spray that I bought at Wal-Mart, and it's worked so far.

I wouldn't mind the changes, but the fact that you can't go back to a Windows 7 style start bar menu on the Desktop is just odd... I am willing to have Metro the default and no real way to boot to Desktop, but Desktop should function they way people are used to it, give them an easy way back to Metro, but leave Desktop functional...

The big problem is most home consumers buy their PC from Best Buy, Wal-Mart or some retail box store like that, and those PCs will all be loaded with Windows 8, so it doesn't matter if Microsoft keep Windows 7 available for businesses and people doing custom builds, most consumers will be stuck with this mess for their desktops and laptops.

About the only thing they seem to be doing right on the desktop/laptop end is finally going with a semi-more-reasonable price structure for the upgrades. $40 per PC... still not as cheap as Apple's $20 upgrade every Mac you have, but a step in the right direction. Had they managed to get ReFS better integrated across the line (able to boot from it, able to use it in removable drives and in consumer level versions... the inability to boot from it and use it in removable drives is perhaps why it isn't in the consumer version) then that would be a thing they have going for it as well.

Metro looks great for touchscreens, although the lack of ability to set where you want to split side by side apps seems odd even for touchscreens.

Obama has released 12 years of tax records. Romney claims he is following precedent, but the only people to do only 2 years in recent history (dating back to Regan) is McCain and Palin, everyone else has done 5 to 20 years.

I agree Reid is probably speaking out of turn. However, Romney, beyond the lie of following precedent has also said that if he releases them Obama and others will use the stuff in there against him... which means there is something there to use against him, which while may be legal, would paint him in a bad light. He doesn't want to disclose because there is something he wants to hide. It may even be as simple as his church finding out he hasn't paid his full tithe as he says he has paid. In the end, this guy believes in giving big tax breaks to people who have refused to hire people because they want the life of luxury. The CEO of Wal-Mart takes $36 million a year, if he only took $1 million, imagine how many people could have jobs? But no, there was a choice at some point in the company's history that employing people or paying their existing employees living wages wasn't worth while and it was better spent on those on the top... one of the local 1%'rs fires over 1000 people over 3 years and keeps everyone else with no raises (almost all at minimum wage), then goes out and buys a jet and another mansion. This is the attitude of the rich. That they deserve privilege and if they have to ruin thousands of families to do it, then they will... and then they threaten that if we raise their taxes another 3% they will fire more people so that they can maintain their ultra high standard of living, and the Republican answer is "no, don't do that, we'll in fact lower your taxes, and punish those people you fired so you could have a jet, and punish those people who you refuse to pay a living wage so you could have that second mansion. We won't cut spending on the military, god forbid, we are only spending more than the next 19 countries combined, almost all of whom are our immediate allies... we should also cut education and science and NASA... look how expensive NASA is, it almost costs as much as it costs us to give our troops in Afghanistan alone A/C... I mean if we ended the wars that would free up almost all the deficit that Bush created and we blame on Obama, we could nearly have a balanced budget by just cutting that and increasing taxes a small 3% on the top 2%, and while we say deficits are bad now, we all know they aren't when they are for our stuff, just if it helps the people we are screwing over, then it's bad..."

EDIT: Again, I think Reid needs to back it off. Its nearly as bad as Trump's whole birther thing...

Systemic racism applies to different cultures in different ways, places, circumstances, and extents. To suggest that the same solutions apply to the racism that is leveled against all cultures, races,and minorities is simply a different kind of bigotry, but bigotry all the same.>> ^Velocity5:

>> ^Trancecoach:
It's a question of systemic racism and in equality

Surely that would apply to Latinos as well? If not, why not?

>> ^Trancecoach:

It's a question of systemic racism and in equality


Surely that would apply to Latinos as well? If not, why not?

Do you think Walmart, the corporation, really suffered at all from this? No, but I'll bet the people that work at that Walmart did, when they had to work extra to clean up that mess.

Also, how is this suddenly a political comparison to Citizen's United?

To summarize: GSAD.>> ^lantern53:

Walmart is a corporation, and we all know that corporations are not people, so really...who suffers?

>> ^Trancecoach:

racism is the cause, not the effect.>> ^EMPIRE:
so...many...huh......racial...stereotypes.... must..huh......resist... urge... to.... make....racist...... joke.



Hmm... but Latinos are subject to racism (even codified into law, such as in Arizona), have greater linguistic challenges as ESL speakers, and haven't yet closed the US gaps in academic performance, but you never see Latino flash mob robberies, and the average Latino crime rate is actually (contrary to stereotypes) almost as low as the mainstream US crime rate.

At some point it becomes useful to talk about cultural differences and personal accountability, and how we can help kids get out of self-destructive cultures and improve their lives.

In other news, Christy Walton bought another private island...


Edit: The Wal-Mart Family has more money than 48.8 Million Families combined. It's their America. We just live here.