Subconscious Takeover
Apparently I've just been completely out of it.
Last night, I was driving back to Columbia. I ran out of Puppy Chow for Apollo in the morning, and it was late, and he was whining, and I knew he was hungry. I stop at Walmart to get some kibble for the pup. I go in, grab the bag, a coke, and go through the line. On my way out of the store, without even thinking about what i was doing, as if maybe I thought the floor was pavement or something, I spat inside Walmart. I'm not sure why. It took me a while, like a minute, to even realize that I did it. Yes, I hate that place. Yes, I would burn them all to the ground if I thought it would do any good. But being by myself with a bag of dog grub and cola, there would be no reason to just spit. I guess I was just tired, but it was weird.
Welcome to my out-of-body life.
7 comments:
Oh bite me. Mom and pop stores are doing fine. Anyone with a simple understanding of macroeconomics knows that corporations like Walmart are essential to the success of any national developed economy. Because of the principle of economies of scale, larger corporations are able to provide goods at a far more affordable price. If corpprations didnt exist, the price burden would be entirely borne by the lower class income bracket. Bite. Me.
If you want, I can go back and pull out all the statistics regarding the ridiculous exploitation of the mid-lower class that companies like Walmart take advantage of. What? You need a job? Well, come work for Wally World! You need insurance. Eff you! You need enough money to feed your family? Eff them too!
You've actually got to apply your macroeconomics to real-life situations and the long term before you take a stand like that from some book you read in a class, pal.
Toni, confirmed: on the list.
Did you address my point? No.
I'd love for you to go back and pull statistics. I enjoy actual debate. I'm curious to know how what kind of ridiculous exploitation of the lower-middle class you have in a statistic form.
In the meantime, do you know what the principle of economies of scale is? Larger companies have higher output, meaning a more diluted fixed cost and a lower average total cost per good. Thus, places like Wal-Mart can provide essential goods, like bread or clothing, at a significantly cheaper price than can mom-and-pop stores. If you're poor, and you can save tons of money on groceries, clothes, toys, pharmaceuticals and others (all while making one stop, also saving time and money on gas), you're going to go to Wal-Mart. How is that not a real life application?
It's economics, Ryan. It doesn't apply to ideals. If it wasn't Wal-Mart, it would be somebody else.
It's easy to ride your Capitalistic high horse, describing what many American (and, really, many western) economists believe to be in the best interest of their own economies.
The reality is, of course, that Walmart, and not ONLY Walmart (as you so garishly try to point out that I ignorantly just hate big business), hurts American wages in the long run.
Studies at UC Berkeley have shown a continuous decline in the wages of all retail employees in given areas as a result of Walmart's infiltration. Read the results here: http://repositories.cdlib.org/iir/iirwps/iirwps-126-05/. The drop is 4.7 billion dollars. Are you kidding me? Ok, so yeah, provide us with cheap crap. Then pay people a staggeringly lower-than-average wage and get them to buy the cheap crap. It's going to essentially cost them the same, value-wise.
In addition, in an internal memo of their own, Walmart acknowledges that nearly HALF of the children of their associates (MANY of whom are full-time), have no insurance and/or are living on Medicaid
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/26walmart.pdf
Are we seriously going to keep going?
Ok, then. Take also, for instance, the following states and numbers of who are on medicaid:
Alabama: 3864 Children of Walmart employees in 2005(decaturdaily.com)
Arizona: 2700 walmart employees in 2005(azstarnet.com)
Arkansas: 3971 walmart workers on some form of public assistance in 2005 (nwanews.com)
Florida: 12,300 Walmart workers and dependants on medicaid in 2005 (sptimes.com)
God, I'm done. You can google and find hundreds mroe statistics like this. Bottom line, it's costing taxpayers to employ these people instead of the employer, like it should.
Sure, you can say all you want that hey, at least these people are employed, that Walmart brought employment to areas. But them there's the killer end, which is that wages EVENTUALLY go down anyway because of it, so by hiring these thousands of people to work for them, they are giving them jobs and then basically crippling their future.
I don't know how to explain this to someone who apparently has an older version of the dictionary and doesn't know what people today call "exploitation." Basically, Dr. Economist, you've got a bunch of people causing EVERYONE to pay taxes to them, that Walmart should be paying. It's asinine. Not only is it exploiting the employees, but it's exploiting the general population.
I am well aware of what it takes for an economy to function. I am also the kind of person who cares about people enough to see when broadening the economy for the sake of wealth for the nation on the whole is really just a way for a few rich people to make more money at the expense of you and me, sir.
And you can take that to the bank.
I had resolved to just let you win. Your mind's not going to be changed. So whatever, you think you're right, I don't care anymore. I figure I'll give it one last go.
Studies at NYU have shown that the $4.7 billion number you cite is crushed in comparison to the $50 billion low-income consumers save on food alone at Wal-Mart annually and the $263 billion saved on all products annually. That's a savings of $2,329 per American household annually. You take out upper-middle-to-higher class Americans- studies show that they shop at Costco or Target- and that number gets higher.
The retail sector in the entire United States employs around 15 million people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If 10 million retail sector workers work in Wal-Mart areas and are affected by the $4.7 billion drop in wages you cite, then the loss is roughly $470 yearly in wages. My guess is that more than 10 million retail sector workers live in Wal-Mart areas, making the losses even less significant, but we'll go with 10 million. If they buy their goods at Wal-Mart as opposed to other grocery stores, then they can save well over $470 yearly, not only offsetting the "staggeringly lower-than-average wage", but even going above that to save money on necessary products.
I'm ok with taxes paying for people's health care. It happens all over the country. It's not too hard to qualify for government health care. I worked with a guy who made at least $15/hour, worked 40 hrs/week usually plus overtime and still qualified for and received at least some government assistance on his health plan. If you have a problem with that, blame the entitlements system, not the Wal-Mart employees who take advantage of what is offered to them by the government. Me? I'm ok with it. We're headed that direction anyway. Aren't you a communist? That should be how you want it...
You said-
"I don't know how to explain this to someone who apparently has an older version of the dictionary and doesn't know what people today call 'exploitation.' Basically, Dr. Economist, you've got a bunch of people causing EVERYONE to pay taxes to them, that Walmart should be paying. It's asinine. Not only is it exploiting the employees, but it's exploiting the general population."
Now you're just trying to patronize me. No one is paying taxes to Wal-Mart. Sure, executives are saving money by giving their employees a choice of an expensive, out-of-paycheck health plan or a government plan that's better and free to them. Besides, if you add up the total cost of medicaid/other health assistance for qualifying Wal-Mart employees as reported by the website that you gathered your state-by-state numbers from, triple it because their data omits some states, it comes out to way less than $5 per American worker in taxes. For us it's more like 50 cents, because you and I pay a much smaller proportion of the tax revenue than do wealthy people.
I'm done with this.
To be fair, you were most patronizing yourself to begin with.
Bite me? Come on.
Anyway, I think it's funny that you're all about the fact that I am this immutable object of one-road thinking while you are completely static in your own view. It's a bit hypocritical on your part.
That said, perhaps I haven't expressed my concerns well enough. I'm not (or wasn't, although I eventually came across as doing such) arguing that the existence of Walmart is totally bad for the economy. Clearly, economically, it is. I don't just hate Walmart because I would like to hate corporate things. That is not the case.
Anyway, I was never resolved to try to convince you, because, having been around you, this is pretty impossible, as it is with me.
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