The Walmart Conundrum...

[Atman]

They can easily...EASILY...afford to pay their employees a living wage. They can increase wages two-fold and still make a massive profit.

The profit isn't really effected by employee wages. It is all still PROFIT. The important number is investor dividends. It is tax credits.

If Walmart gives a big wage increase, it will show up on the balance books and investors will notice at the next shareholders meeting. So they CAN'T increase wages if it means the "bottom line" will go down and the shareholders will be upset.

They have plenty of money. No one will starve, no one will lose their Lear Jet, no one will have to down-size to a 200' yacht...they'll all do just fine. But if they don't return the promised number on Wall Street, they suffer.

SUFFER. Poor bastards. Smaller yacht, time-share Lear Jet. The only focus is on making sure investors get a positive return.

This is why Capitalism is a lost cause.

[unblock]

1. henry ford paid his workers enough so they could afford to buy his cars

the waltons pay their workers so little so they can't afford to shop anywhere else.

[brer cat]

2. And they need food stamps...

not even paid enough to shop at walmart. Disgraceful.

[Bandit]

3. "The profit isn't really effected by employee wages."

I can tell you have never run a business. Wages are the greatest expense in most businesses. They have a tremendous effect upon Profits. That being said Walmart (the Family) can easily raise their labor costs and still be in the top 1% of wealth in America. They have more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime or even their great grandchildren's lifetime..

[Atman]

4. I guess that was kind of my point...

When do you reach the point where you have so much money that any dream you have -- a weekend in Fiji, or a ski trip to Zurich or taking a jet to see a show in London - when does it stop? When do you say, Okay, maybe i should contribute a little bit back, and not just by creating a fake charity which pays my wife $3mil a year?

How much is too much?

The righties want to say what we're all just to pull ourselves up from our bootstraps...These fuckers have never worn boots, and if the did they'd have people who'd pull up the boots for them!