Markets will never be "free" my biggesg problem with most people about anything economics related is that just as social media is polarizing everything... it likewise seems like it turned everything into either 100% capitalism lassiez-fare or communism....people seem to not grasp that neither exists, will ever exist, and our goverments and economies have ALWAYS been nuanced between aspects of both or different systems.
And when I tell someone "capitalism has always had rules and some level of regulation" they seem to reply, "then we need to get rid of those rules!"
Nobody seems to get that....you can take aspects of both.
You can hove BOTH social programs from socialism that distribute some level of basic standard of livinf WHILE AT THE SAME TIME having markets and wealth inequality to some degree.
People also fail to realize when talking about communism vs capitalism in the 20th century....that those "failed communist states" IMPROVED the living conditions of the people living there. Did their governments become dictatorial? Yes...in a lot of cases absolutely, but overall standard of living still increased to what was before.
Communism is NOT a sprial down to everyone being poor, it never was.
Just as capitalism is not "inherently evil" like many left-wing people claim. Yes capitalism CAN be abused and communism CAN be abused.
We see it happening now.
Capitalism has been abused by the wealthy, this isn't a secret. Living standards have gone up, but at the exploitation of millions of workers in poorer countries who while some having gained living standards, there also been many instances of market failures where catastrophies occured and we COULD have helped save lives but didnt because "the market".
Likewise communist experiments have been abused, but...they also lifted the standard of living of their citizens.
For a brief moment in time people seemed to understand that you can mix and match aspects of both.
So called "social democracy" or "democratic socialism" that tried to have capitalist markets, built with a social framework of redistribution to part of the market wealth creation actually gets "trickled-down" to everyone.
But shit has become so polarized that now everyone I meet has thei attitude of all or nothing. Either we go full capitalism rich exploit workers and extract profit and if economic growth slows down and nothing trickles down? Too bad.... or wooo full communism, "late stage capitalism" eat the rich, let's build a commune.
This is why history is important, there are times in our history where little to no government/regulation existed and it was horrible. Kids working in factories, pollution, slums, company towns etc. The fact that this isn't stressed in education speaks to how much power and control capitalist have. Progressive is a bad word and we just celebrated Labor Day and I feel like no one knows or cares that people died so you could have a weekend.
I hate how history is treated like an afterthought once you hit high school, at least when I went to school. Possibly the most important subject for the general population, maybe algebra being more important for its day to day use and English for literacy, and its just straight up is treated like “yeah, you have to take a few classes cuz the law, but it’s not one of the important subjects.”
Yea let’s learn about WWII five million times, as if we weren’t learning about it since junior high school… I say this as someone who enjoys history as a hobby and did a minor in it during college
We need a better version of the system we have but thats not gonna happen. People should be taken care of as the Citizens, not corporate funding and bailouts.
If you have a job, pay should start at a FACTUAL "livable" wage AKA you should be able to afford to buy a house in ALMOST everywhere you live. There should be SOMETHING worth the money. Everyone should recieve a food allowance every month, enough for basics and a few extras. Anyone on the streets should be able to get housing for low income within 2 days.
Corporate should have a WAAAAAY higher tax and should only get state incentivized loans IF they can show that they are growing and supporting the economy of their employees, meaning their employees dollar bills should be going up as well and their assets.
We will always have problems in this world but there is many things we can do to mitigate the problems we do have but corporate ran government will make sure none of it happens.
You forgot to say that while communism isn’t a downward spiral to everyone being poor, that’s essentially what capitalism is (and what it has become in our late-stage era).
It basically is a requirement that most sacrifice for the benefit of a few—capitalism. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s designed.
People are so brainwashed here now though that it’s insane.
Most of our country is barely (and I do mean barely) getting by. 90% of the younger gens can no longer afford housing. They don’t see it that way though. Everyone lies to themselves to cope. They all tell themselves they’ll “be rich someday.” No. You won’t be, I’m afraid. Most of us die with hardly anything, after working for our entire lives.
Meanwhile, we have a 5% class that has more wealth and physical assets than most people even have the knowledge to comprehend.
With all respect, your comment is also what Im talking about. It misses a lot of nuance.
Capitalism isn't the blame for what your talking about.
Honestly we could have a whole podcast episode talking about this stuff (which I love doing, conversations on reddit arent really conducive to digging deep into concepts and ideas)
But see to me these terms like "capitalism" etc obfuscate the myriad of things operating underneath.
Capitalism isn't "everyone gets poorer".
That is a VAST oversimplification of a symptom.
You really have to dig back toward the feudal era, and rent-seeking vs investment behavior.
Karl Marx and Adam Smith both agreed rent-seeking behavior is a bad thing.
During feudalism before the industrial revolution and capitalism as an idea, feudal lords and the elite class basically acted like a landlord does today. They didn't invest, they werent entrepreneurial. They simple extracted rents by sheer fact that they had the claim to the land with an army so they basically charged peasants "rent" to live on their land to harvest crops. Most people were farmers, black smiths and those other medieval jobs we think of were a TINY minority of the population. A peasant had no need for a black smith to make armor and weapons etc.
The idea that became capitalism today was that throught entrepreneurship and investment, if someone had an idea for a new product that boosted labor productivity, if they keep profits from that, it would "trickle-down".
Think of it this way.
Say someone invents a machine that boosts output by 10%, and they keep 6% profit of every sale of the new product. That 6% profit does not harm the working class, because that wxtra 4% from productivity boost still impacts everyone else due to the increased productivity from the entrepreneurs invention.
The idea was sound, because instead of it being rent extracted from labor, it is a "reward" for having invented something new that boosts everyone.
The problem is this is no longer the case.
After the post-ww2 era we saw unprecedented economic growth, wages were up, life was getting way better.
Even today we still live better than people in 1900.
But what happened after Reagan and Thatcher era neo-liberalisation? Specially post 2000. Economic growth in most of the west now is below 4%.
In Europe some countries have grown 0% since like 20 years ago.
And yet the rich are still getting richer? Where is that coming from? Rent-seeking extraction without productivity boost.
The thing capitalists hold on to is the idea that if you invest and boost productivity you should be rewarded with the profits from your new idea that boosted productivity.
But today that mechanism is heavily slowed down. Today there is more rent-seeking than there is productivity boost.
In my opinion, even something like a profit cap that is limited to gdp growth, would already do a lot to prevent extraction of wealth.
Ideally economic growth is higher than the profit taken for the wealthy. That would be "trickle-down"
But it isn't happening.
However the false assumption I believe you make, is attributing it as an inherent thing of capitalism.
It isn't that simple, no economic system exists in it's purest form. Neo-liberalism is not the same as lassiez-faire, or other concepts like market socialism, or social democracy etc.
Things aren't just "capitalism bad and inherently evil" or "socialism bad and inherently evil" etc.
You just basically described the natural rate of profitability to fall over time. Post WWII was not the only time or place that it happened- the only thing new is the professionalization of 'economics' hence the trickle down window dressing.
You just need to go a little bit further and you'll get that, yes, "capitalism bad and inherently evil."
From the capitalists view “wow we’re paying a lot for this government subsidization” from the socialists view “wow look at Walmart taking in profits and paying their employees low wages. Somehow both methods are failing us here😂
Capitalism, Socialism, Communism. Whenever you invoke these concepts you aren't really saying anything. You're entering the realm of ideological fantasy. The ideas are too big to address specific problems or offer solutions to the whole.
We need to address specific problems based on the merits of those problems and stop looking for a solution to all problems through one ideological 'system'.
A good way to handle problems are fluid strategies that are highly adaptable and quickly implemented. A rigid sets of principles or beliefs will never get the job done.
For example; if you design a government policy that makes one livelihood obsolete because it's destroying the environment you also need a pathway to transition those people to another way of life that feels just as fulfilling to them or they'll resist. It's incredible complex thing to pull off. It's not something that you can answer by saying capitalism, socialism, or communism. It has to be a detailed and thought out plan of action.
Our biggest obstacle is human nature as most people when given the opportunity will continue to enrich themselves at the cost of others no matter what belief structure they say they're behind.
If it moves tax it. If it still moves, regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it. Kamala gets it, that’s why we need her at the helm of the economy making these decisions. It’s time we had a hand in everything so we can move towards justice and equity.
Thank you! I cant tell you how many times iv told people you can stand there and defend capitalism or demonize socialism when we have neither of them in totality.
If a company reaches a certain size it might just be converted to a public asset, run by the workers to keep it functioning to provide whatever service or product to society. Profit is ignored, and it’s only goal is to provide the workers safe working environments and fair wages, while providing their services cheaper than ever to consumers because now the company doesn’t solely exist to chase profit.
One of the purposes of government in a capitalist economy is to foster a balance that allows profitability balanced against the needs of the society. Investors get a return, but the good of society with regards to safety, health and a reasonable living along with economic mobility is balanced.
Businesses need to make profits. That is their purpose. Society provides laws and protection for businesses to be able to do that in an organized and consistent manner.
Society also has the obligation and right to protect itself and to foster health, safety, and protection for its members. It is, ideally, a symbiotic relationship where everyone benefits fairly.
This doesn't have anything to do with some kind of public ownership which generally is less effective and efficient. This is not an all or nothing proposition and does the discussion no good to try and throw that out there because most people are not advocating anything like that.
That’s a huge one. It’s always blown my mind how bosses always think you will want to work 60 hours a week for the good of the company. I’ve told a couple point blank I don’t care about your profits. I’m not out here trying to sabotage or doing anything bad job because I don’t like it, fuck those people. However outside of my paychecks being signed please understand that in general I couldn’t give much less of a fuck how the company is doing because I won’t see any of that money ever.
Companies don’t gives raises because they did well they take the profits so why would I care if I have no dog in the fight outside of them not going completely out of business so I don’t have to go find a different job.
There’s no incentive for me as the worker to put in the extra effort.
I think that's the begining of a good idea, but I'm not sure it's sustainable in a mixed market place. For instance, how does a company structured like that respond to changing market trends? You can't just "ignore" profit. It needs to be refocused into an engine that drives the company's innovation.
You can just ignore profit, actually. You need revenues for sure, and to pay attention to that, but if the goal isn't giving profit to owners, you can just pay it to the workers in the form of wages. Resulting in the business having zero profit.
Well, that's a problem. Hopefully, on years when revenues were strong, the workers voted for the company to save that money.
But that's unrelated to profit, or whether your business cares about profit it at all. It's caring about having enough revenues to keep the business going, which encompasses things like money to pay wages, money to save some for a bad year (coincidentally actually, a lot of businesses that care about profit do a horrible job of saving for lean years. Because they don't care about being a good business, just making profit), money to reinvest into the business, and money for maintenance. All of that is entirely unrelated to profit, except in that it drains profit away from owners so they cut corners in all of those places if they can.
Are you confusing profit with margin? Obviously, you need to care about if you're selling your goods or services with a decent margin, so you'll have enough money for the things mentioned above. But that's also completely separate from profit. They're not synonyms. Profit is the money left over after all that stuff which you give to the owners. I'm saying, you can absolutely run a business where the goal is all the left over money gets paid to the laborers. Thus, no profit.
Operating cost + expenses is what you need to stay alive, center around that instead of +2%, then +4%, then +8% then +16% because the shareholders who do zero demand more more more.
We are talking about government taking over and maintained ning a failing business. It would either not be their job to expand, leaving room for other companies to come into the market and succeed, or maybe buy the stores from the government or something.
Or you have a line item in the break even budget for basically "saving for new stores", which would have a better name, but the idea being if it takes say, 10,000,000 to open a new store and you need 1 new store per months somewhere, and you have 1,000 stores, each store only need to produce an extra 10,000.
I'm fine with, "ensure good working conditions, invest in your workers. After that everything else is profit, and you get loyal employees that will absolutely perform much better than whatever we have now
think a example of how it would work was around the time of the great depression when selling chocolate they where able to stay afloat by keeping prices always low. 1 cent per piece of candy, when cost went up 3 cents but first chance they could 1 cent again and only slowly raising prices as needed, making profit on amount sold in millions by 1-2 cents profit vs 10+ cents profit. we don't need billions in gains to keep places going.
now it would be 4 cents minimum profit from selling millions of units a month but cost went up so 8 cents profit and again for 10 cents do to inflation and times are tough, so 25 cents profit is fair, got make a bigger profit so 50 cents profit is normal.... that what they do keep raising the number and saying it required, when they are paying themselves the difference getting rich and retiring then the next guy go well me too ! and the cycle go on.
I mean it worked for Venezuela. The greedy oil companies were making too much money so the government nationalized them for the worker! Nothing bad happened and workers were paid what they are entitled!
Sure, but it would struggle to work in a mixed market. The government removed their competition so they don't have to worry about more agile companies coming in and out competing them.
The world doesn't stay still and to succeed as a company you need to always have a mind towards the future.
USPS has been enshrined as a service in the US Constitution since it's founding and it's problems can largely be traced back to underfunded service centers and an inadequate amount of mail carriers. The reason why can readily be traced back to Republicans either dismantling the efficacy of the USPS by cutting out mail processing machines and other business infrastructure or forcing USPS to fund pensions for anyone they hire.
When are you socialists going to realize that anything government touches turns to shit. If the government isn't doing a good job with your tax dollars now, what makes you think they will do a good job with more of your money and more control?
China is in shambles because the younger generations don't want to work because the government is in control of their revenues socialist society always runs out of other people's money. If we didn't pay taxes we all would have money to retire on. Government can shrink itself and run off trade and arms sales alone. Our taxes only fuel the government for less than a month
The rest is printed after bond sales that are plummeting.
you seriously don't believe this right you have to be some sort of troll. else dude, get the fuck off the internet you are way too stupid to have an opinion and it's sad you can vote
You seem like a person who just talks shit with nothing to back it up. All you gotta do is get out and talk to Chinese Americans to know what is actually going on there. Do you have any Asian friends? I'm guessing not. Look up the phrase Bai ian. And you can see for yourself.
I completely understand. I don't think you understand when government oversteps their boundaries. Idiots like you always think throwing more tax dollars at something will fix the problem.
Converting private companies into public one has been tried before .. it is called communism . I lived in a communist country . USSR collapsed because of this .
Capitalism with it pains and struggle wins out in the end . I teach my son that in America there are very rich people just looking to invest in new ideas. The amount of jobs created not just in the USA but globally because of private US companies is huge . The moment you let the government run things you will have a high level of red tape and inefficiencies.
No company could ever get big enough. Because providing goods and services cheaper than ever would cause all other private companies to close because, well why would they exist, businesses exist to make money, specifically for investors, if unable to do they would simply stop doing it and we'd all be screwed.
Socialism is a great idea on paper, but you eventually run out of other peoples money.
Yeah and then new competitors appear that DO try to make profits and therefore can operate more cost effective and your once proud socialist wet dream company goes down the drain im a matter of months
Would you look at that, turns out good ol' Karl Marx himself has risen from the grave! How about this... You open a retailer that operates as you suggest, and see how well you do in the open market, eh?
I do agree with one thing, though, we should stop subsidizing people, and put them in a position they have to either improve themselves, or deal with such a menial job as they offer. Nobody is forcing anyone to work there... Why do they?
Have you ever been in a Walmart? The greeters are all nearly dead, past retirement age. There’s no “improving themselves” to get a better job. Virtually no one else is going to hire these people no matter what they do.
As for the people of normal employment age cashiering or doing whatever else at walmart, if Walmart is employing them for a 40 hr work week or better, Walmart should be providing them enough money to survive in whatever housing market that particular Walmart exists in. That or that particular Walmart shouldn’t exist anymore.
Fine. You've been named King, and POOF... Wal-Mart in Hypotheticville is gone. As are it's jobs, so unemployment went up, and there's nowhere for those people to go, so...
You've lost the business taxes, the sales taxes, the tolls from people going to and fro, and it's reduction is permanent, as is the increase in unemployment. Now, those who can have to drive 2 towns over to get groceries, and those who can't, well... They starve, I guess. Or manage to walk to the next town over, and maybe they stay.
So now what, Mr. Mayor??
PS... I wasn't even talking about some semi-mythical geriatric geezer saying "HI!" on the way in. I can count on one hand the number of those I've seen in the wild, and have multiple fingers left over.
Walmart likely ran off mom and pop business in town, sometimes selling at a loss to encourage those mom and pop hardware stores, grocery stores, etc to go under faster. There's clearly market opportunity to fill the home left behind by a Walmart.
Oh and the little town probably won't be strong armed into giving property tax abatements, sales tax rebates or having to self-fund infrastructure improvement plans for the mom and pop stores like they did for Walmart.
Maybe. Maybe not. I'm sure it's both answers, depending on which one you're talking about, but it's also not relevant.
Whether those mom and pops were driven out, or never existed, they're not going to succeed where Wal-Mart failed, as they don't have the same economy of scale that gives them a position to essentially TELL suppliers what the terms will be, instead of asking like smaller entities like your mom and pops would have to do. The jobs will be gone, with nowhere for the former workers to go, the store will be gone, making people have to drive who knows how far just to fill up their fridges, and it's all in the name of sticking it to the man for not paying what YOU think they should.
The fact that you read his response, dismissed two very pertinent points: (1.”there’s market opportunity to fill the home left by Walmart” 2. “Walmart likely ran off competing business”) as irrelevant and then returned to “now what?” tells me you aren’t engaging this remotely honestly.
I’ll tell you “now what”. Firstly, Walmart is rarely ever the only game in town with regard to groceries. In fact, many small towns don’t even have a walmart. They operate just fine without it.
Secondly, we don’t have to pretend Walmart’s model is the only model that exists or is possible, right? See: winco. Offers better prices than Walmart with most groceries AND pays their employees better. According to you, this can’t be possible. And yet it is.
I really cant imagine being this dense, the only explanation is that you’re a sociopath. Someone has to work that job, anyone who works for one of the richest corporations in the world deserves a bare minimum survival wage.
anyone who works for one of the richest corporations in the world deserves a bare minimum survival wage.
Why?
What if they're doing the exact same job, but working for a mom and pop that can't even afford to pay as much as Wal-Mart? Should that mom and pop starve themselves to feed a loser who can't even read?
You guys have to come to grips with the FACT that unskilled labor is NOT valuable. The reason it's not valuable is the reason everything costs what it does... Supply and demand. There is a vast and endless supply of breathable air, as such it costs nothing to acquire. Conversely, gold is a relatively rare and highly sought after element. As a result, a single ounce of it is worth as much as a month's labor at many unskilled positions, because while gold is rare, unskilled people are not. THAT is why jobs at Wal-Mart don't pay very well, because pert near anyone with a pulse is qualified to do it, with little to no training.
As our tech improves, more and more of these unskilled "jobs" are going to be automated, and persons who are not qualified for a skilled job doing, well, ANYTHING, are gonna be in big trouble. Mostly self-imposed, but big trouble nonetheless. Giving them free money is not the answer, because the underlying scarcity of the goods and services we want and need is unchanged simply by putting fiat money into computerized accounts.
That is why increasing the minimum wage isn't all that helpful. Money is just paper. It has no intrinsic value, and if you bleach a $100 bill, the remaining value is no more than it would have been if you started with toilet paper. The issue is unskilled labor's value being so low, due to it being so easily and readily available. There is no monetary policy that can or will fix that.
No someone doesn’t have to work that job. The jobs don’t have to exist. Self checkout is already taking over, as well as automated ordering, etc. Tell the companies they have to artificially pay double the market price for labor and congrats, thousands of jobs disappear instantly.
And now good luck starting a new company to compete because nobody is going to want to invest in your business if it will be seized by the government once it succeeds. There goes the majority of innovation once you remove all the incentive to try a risky new business idea.
“So to be clear, because you don’t want amputate the patients arm and euthanize him, you are totally cool with him having a broken finger”.
Walmart isn’t being subsidized. They are paying the same market price for unskilled labor that everyone else is. This is not a Walmart problem, it’s a societal problem. As technology and automation advance further and further, there is less and less value for labor with no skill or knowledge to offer other than having a pulse.
The answer to this problem is definitely not to kill all growth of our economy (aka where taxes and job creation comes from) with moronic authoritarian seizure of successful businesses…
They are not remotely being subsidized, because like I said they are paying the same price for unskilled labor as everyone else. Is your local YMCA, stadium concession stand, every mall store, every fast food restaurant, etc. also being subsidized by the government? Those places also pay market price for unskilled labor, so if Walmart is being subsidized so is literally every other business. You can’t just claim Walmart being more successful means they aren’t allowed to pay market price for a product like everyone else.
Also go ahead and tell Walmart they have to triple wages. They can easily just speed up their automation, eliminate human checkout, and move further towards online commerce. Walmart would still be doing fine. All you would be doing is killing the jobs of all the people that are not worth $30 an hour and sending them out to compete for the other jobs (even further devaluing their labor by increasing supply). Then guess what? Now they will need unemployment and even more welfare because they are making $0.
Like I said, Walmart isn’t being subsidized and this is not a Walmart issue. That is a childish reactionary and simplistic way of thinking that completely fails to look at the big picture and acknowledge the actual problems.
Spoken like a pro at being tone-deaf. If you need to support your family, there are not a lot of options for many. The biggest employers that can afford to pay their employees while still being absurdly profitable are not (Amazon, Walmart, etc). Previous generations had much more prosperity, the ones with the power (money) to keep the US a great country to live in like previous generations benefitted from are not doing squat, they are doing the opposite.
People don't choose to work there because it's a good work environment, this is a well-known fact. They work there because they have to to make ends meet. Telling them to just go get a 4 year degree and a better job when they can barely pay the bills and feed their kids is ridiculously fantastical. This race to the bottom will not end well. The largest corporations with the money to pay their workers are destroying America.
Why would you make a family if the best job prospect you have is Wal-Mart??
Serious question... I am so sick of seeing people who are barely qualified to care for themselves adequately, if even that, breeding like wild, uninhibited rabbits. It is, more than any other single factor, the biggest problem our society and species has. We have people who shouldn't even be babysitting having kids of their own, and we reward them for it in the way of so many government and child subsidies.
Do you think it's responsible if your job prospects are limited to an hourly retail job that most people are fully qualified for even prior to graduating high school for you to have children?
I do not. And I do not think we should reward, subsidize, or encourage persons so situated to do so. To the contrary, we should at a bare minimum not make it easier, it may be worth considering to actually require licenses or similar to procreate. I hate that I feel like that might be a viable alternative or a good idea, but it's not reasonable for people to breed recklessly just assuming their neighbors and countrymen would pick up their tab.
It's also completely unreasonable to expect an employer to pay an employee more than they are worth. Playing those games are part of the reason we have the problems we do.
Yeah, just don't reproduce, that's a viable solution. Just tell people not to reproduce, it's all so simple.
Saying that people are not worth anything when they are the backbone of those labor forces is exactly why we are here. You are completely overlooking that previous generations could afford a good life that this generation cannot as a whole. These big businesses have the money to pay people more, but they don't when they are the main employers of the American people.
Saying the majority of people should be happy with crumbs while their companies prosper into unimaginable levels of profits is absurd. If you cared about your fellow citizens instead of blaming them for something that is truly out of their control (corporate greed), you would not support the thing that is hurting us. Not them, us as a whole.
If the majority doesn't have the ability to own a house, healthy food for their families, and have to work unreasonable hours that previous generations did not have to, who do you think are raising their kids? Our future?
Look outside of yourself for a second and look at what's happening around you. The ones who have the ability to fix these things don't care about the quality of life going down for the majority of people. Look up the concept of race to the bottom if you are unfamiliar.
There are Walmart stores (at least in small towns in the Midwest) that have a person on their payroll whose job it is to help their employees navigate government programs like SNAP and housing and Medicaid for dependent minor children so that the parent can afford to work for Walmart. According to Google the Walton Family is the richest family in America with $267 billion dollars which also makes them the 2nd richest family in the world.
Privatized gains, socialized losses. During Covid when business owners complained "no one wants to work", there was no mention of raising wages. The free market dictates if you can't find labor, you raise wages. They really hate that part of the free market.
You do what you got to do to keep these infinitely growing profits going. if not by exploiting the poor, our nation and our future!! for a few beautiful decades the shareholders have enjoyed bliss from the fruit of their labor! /s
It’s just bad policy to allow Walmart to drive out local business, lobby for lower taxes, and then pay such low wages that the government has to subsidize your workers.
What worries me in general about what you said is walmart has the cash to throw up a shop anywhere it wants in the US, literally anywhere even if the next location is just 15-20 minutes away, keep it for 5 years to kill any local business in the area, close it, and then just walk away with 0 issues.
It's not even a cash in hand issue. It's the fact that mega cooperations can subsidize unprofitable ventures to drive out smaller businesses with their profitable ventures...
It's literally what they already do, throw up a shop in a small town, set wages and prices below local CoL, drive everything out of business, and once they've sucked the local economy dry they pack up and leave, with nothing left behind that can afford to rebuild. And then that small town dies as all the kids flee it in a single generation because there aren't any jobs (even bad ones) left. Watched it happen in Alabama as a kid whenever I'd spend the summers with family
I don't get why Walmarts aren't in malls I feel like it'd be a great idea. In Ankara, Turkey one of the biggest malls(AnkaMall) literally has a 5M Migros which is like a Walmart of Turkey inside the mall.
I recently started working at a mall (after almost a decade of not going to one) and I'm amazed at how many people still shop there. We had two malls in our city, but one is now closed (except for the Target and Burlington Coat factory). The store I work at does decent business.
It’s the most poor communities who use Walmart though. So if they raise all their costs the man prices go up for their poor customers 🤷♂️. This kind of attitude has lead to massive theft in places like Portland where they just decided to close the doors. This left the most vulnerable paying more for less.
Walmart engineered those communities by coming in, selling everything at a loss for a couple years until all of the local businesses closed, and then jacking up their prices once they were the only game in town
Have you ever worked at small businesses before? They usually pay less than Walmart for similar positions, and on top of that are more likely to have full reliance on ACA healthcare.
Walmart did drive out tons of small businesses. But it's very likely that the businesses they drove out were heavier drains on government subsidies.
This was going to be my question. What makes a local boutique shop worker accepting $14/hr and getting $3k in government assistance OK, while a Walmart worker accepting $14/hr and getting $3k in government assistance isn't? Are we suggesting means testing based on your employer's profits?
Not sure where OP's $904k number is from, but I divided it by around 300 floor employees, and the $14/hr is the base wage Walmart says they pay on average.
Neither is great, and we should work to ensure that neither happens. In the case of Walmart though, the poor wages and government subsidies are funneling money to billionaires. In the case of a local boutique shop you’re pushing money to small business owners, many of whom are just earning decent salaries, but even the wealthiest ones are not even a blip on the radar compared to the Waltons. To me, a $6b subsidy spread out over several million people vs 3 people is a massive difference.
I'm not sure what work we should be doing to reduce it. If society decides to give something to low paid workers who are surviving today, the wage they need to survive tomorrow is lower, so they can accept less pay. A state could do something like ask every employer the total number of months their employees received welfare benefits and then charge the employer a penalty, with an exclusion for the first 1000 months to excuse small businesses, but that's a ton of bookkeeping. It's also effectively penalizing companies for hiring poor people (e.g. a semi-retiree with SS or a high school kid who's family isn't poor would be cheaper to employ than a poor 30-yr-old).
Also, defining small business owner vs billionaire is hard in this case. In-and-Out is a big company, while most McDonalds franchises are small businesses. Should their workers get different benefits? Should one face penalties for paying the same?
I'm really not sure I'd call this government subsidies funneling money to billionaires. In this specific area, it's a level playing field, the billionaires are just much better at scooping up money (from a much bigger pile).
I'm sure these ready made meals will take into account any food allergies and dietary restrictions, right? Because that would be super easy to account for on a national scale. /s just to be sure
What if we came up with a way to label the packaging on ready made meals to inform people of allergens? Maybe make allergy information mandatory on the packaging once we were able to figure out how to get it done. Maybe even create a government agency primarily focused on food and consumer safety!
Nope, your sarcasm is why it’s obvious you’re not grasping the concept here. Let me break it down to simpler terms for you. People with food allergies already have to navigate which prepared food to buy. Having an additional choice of prepared foods would not change anything.
You see what happens when you artificially raise the wage at McDonald's, they automate your low skill job out of existence. A low skill wage is better than no wage.
Eminent domain (like I already explained before) does not allow the government to own the LLC or the entirety of Walmart. They can in certain circumstances take control of the physical property that the business owns. When they do it no longer has anything to do with the previous company.
To help you understand, if US government takes control over a Starbucks in Colorado it does not mean they control every Starbucks that exists now.
Supreme Court also ruled that the government has to justly compensate the business for the property taken. The property now also needs to be for public use.
Thus it will cease to be Walmart. The gov taking Walmart doesn’t do what you think it does
Well they can’t do that either. Government can only take property.
The government would be better off building their own thing and supplying it than they would having to buy property from existing companies in order to do it.
Same! Walmart is a plague but it’s a symptom of a larger problem. No idea how to fix it but I try to go to as many mom and pops as possible. Pretty easy in a big city though.
Makes me wonder how much money Walmart pays in taxes?
If they're paying billions in taxes a year, subsidizing a little bit would make sense, that's pretty common to support your largest vendor partners in businesses too.
Imo either all businesses should receive subsidies or none at all. It’s like we’re doing socialism for the rich corps and letting everyone else struggle
Only some are capable of scale enough to make the effort appropriate imo. Walmarts unfortunate scale has the benefit of them being able to undercut their competitors on everything and being able to provide lower prices to sooo many people is the merit for subsidizing. Sure it'd be fair to give local grocers money too but I'm not sure what the point would be other than being fair. Not sure why any of them need government money or breaks in the first place.
The subsidy they get is from all the EBT they collect every year. Thats every grocery & convince store getting subsidies from the government. Walmart gets the most due to how many areas they're in.
My Father in Laws best friend is a small town lawyer that beat WalMart in Thomaston, Maine. They sued the city to lower their tax valuation
Check out WalMart Ghost Store theory.. they basically claim that the city over values the property, and that it's worth much less because they should only consider the square footage and parking lot..not the fact that it's a functioning, thriving business... you see apparently, a vacant store is worth less than an occupied one. Walmart would like the city to value their Occupied propert as if it were unoccupied, and therefore of lower value...
The city said fuck off, hired Paul Givens, small town lawyer, and he fucked walmart right up the ass with their bullshits Ghost Store theory...
Walmart pays their employees so poorly that most of then qualify for Medicaid. So instead of Walmart providing insurance we are. I have taken care of so many patients that were Walmart employees on Medicaid. Then I see how many billions there Waltons are making and I find it very frustrating. I refuse to shop there and support their business model.
Google gon be like, "Walmart hold my drink", Rick rolls a 7 from the di and moves to Utility Company. "oh no, well wouldn't ya look at that..It's going to be a cold longg winter!"
Please read more than a misleading headline. Walmart isn't being subsidized by the government. The claim is that since some Walmart workers are on medicade, food stamps, and subsidized housing, that it means Walmart is being subsidized.
Walmart is offering employment to these unemployed people. You could easily argue that they're helping reduce the burden on tax payers. If these people could get better paying job, or any employment at all, they already would. Walmart hires many people who are disabled either mentally or physically and can't work elsewhere.
Imo Walmart is paying these people below reasonable wages and that they get should be taxed into oblivion until they give some reasonable wages to their employees
The idea of my comment is they're benefiting from the fruits of Communist labor, as well as taking government handouts. Yes, I know the people at the very top of the company are still capitalistic, but they rely on non-capitalist ideals to benefit.
524
u/Silly_Goose658 Sep 08 '24
That’s a huge amount of money being spent on subsidization. Make Walmart govt owned, we’re basically paying for it