Hookbender — Aug 05, 2014[quote author=charger link=1404776484/125#128 date=1407195190][quote author=Hookbender link=1404776484/125#126 date=1407008868][quote author=BINGEWOOD link=1404776484/100#124 date=1407000121][quote author=Hookbender link=1404776484/100#122 date=1406998945]"Ahh, I see. The hero corp takes in all the little miscreants and down on their luck bums and out of the good of it's heart gives them a paycheck. It may not be any fancy "living wage" type amount or anything but do people who make "bad decisions" and don't get educated deserve more salary gifts? Look, what I'm getting at is that the corporation is super successful, but not the people who work there, they are failures. "
In no way, none, is it the fault of a successful corp that the people working there are failures. In no way is it justified to punish a successful corp for success by raising min wage.
Best yet, my man!!! Punish those failure workers!!! What's up with the "punishment" buzzword anyway? Sounds like something sadists would come up with... he h hehhh
Not raising the min wage isn't punishment for anyone. Raising the min wage isn't justified at the moment. If you did raise the min wage, it would hurt small business. Raising the min wage because of Walmarts business plan, which has been successful thus far, would only be punishment to small business for a small labor force at Walmart that are likely uneducated and not capable or trained to be able to do higher paying jobs. So, to help those folks, how about we train them and provide them a plan to work their way into higher paying jobs with the skills to be successful. That would be money well spent. Giving them a little more money to afford cigs and beer isn't gonna help the problem.
Small business made this country. And you want to destroy that because you don't like Walmart? Come on man. You can do better than that. Take your own advice and think about it.
"Small business made this country?" Really? You seem to spend all your time defending big ones. It seems to me they employ a lot more people, too. Don't get me wrong, I love the small business, but you can bet your ass as soon as the first american business was able to knock out its competitors and take over its customers and add a second location, it did. Big business has been around as long as America, and big business certainly built America. Saving big business makes a lot more sense than you seem to imply. For every GM, there are a thousand smaller businesses around it that supply parts and specialty equipment, 50,000 dealerships that provide living wage jobs. The average worker at GM made $30/hour... yet you make an argument that we should let that kind of business fail. Why? So we can have a lot more workers who are overqualified to stand at a cash register at Walmart?
There's no amount of job training that's going to help the low wage worker get to where they need to be to make a big move up when they're past 30 or so. If they don't already have skills in information technology, etc, they're fucked, and they're competing with kids who are 20 and grew up with smartphones and IT skills. It's easy to say this, because if you just look at the H1-B system, wherein we hire shitloads of very high-priced foreign workers to do jobs that Americans aren't qualified for, you can see the problem. Every year a certain number of H1-Bs are made available and every year technology companies burn through them in a heartbeat. We can't find American workers qualified to do at least a portion of the highly technical jobs out there, which is unfortunate. Which makes it imperative that we provide jobs for middle to lower class people that pay money they can live on. Or resign ourselves to increasing taxes on the wealthy and middle class to cover the salary gap between what lower wage workers are paid, and what it costs them to live. Or we become India, with streets full of beggars.
You keep saying we need to educate our workers so they can move up. What you ignore, and never answer, is that those jobs are still going to be there, and still need to be filled. They are always going to be the largest part of the workforce. Train some workers to do slightly higher paying jobs, and that just means walmart has more educated low-level workers. Those jobs will get filled because people need jobs, even if they are overqualified. Everybody can't work in high-paying jobs. A lot of people are going to have to work in the service industry. We could certainly give them some education, and then we'd have what, college-educated cashiers? Seems a little pointless to me. Just paying a higher bottom wage seems to make a lot more sense.
In your first paragraph, you define pretty much what Walmart has done. They found a way to limit it's competition and grow as a company. Exactly what your complaining about. And they do employ a lot more people, correct again, just not in the manner you want them to as far as pay goes. The reason I'd let GM fail, is because they continue to fail, over and over again. If it were my decision, I would have given GM's facilities to Tesla, for example, and let them work their magic. Require Tesla to train and employ GM's labor force for those jobs at Tesla first. Tesla is the kind of cutting edge lagit car company we need right now. just imagine what they could do with the proper funding and facilities.
Look. I'm not talking about these people suddenly making a six figure income. If they are making $10 bucks an hour and have nothing to show for their time, show them how they could make $30 to $50k a years plus, simply managing a grocery store. just an example. When I say educate these people, I don't mean simply signing them up so they can get their GED. I'm talking teaching them how to manage money, an invaluable tool, give them a plan on how they can work their way at least into a nice apt or just out of the projects. Show them how to plan. Life skills are very important and imo very needed for people who are down on their luck and can't see any way out of their situation. And the education part goes farther than just a high school diploma or college degree in a specific field, as you know. If people are willing to become educated, there is no reason they shouldn't be afforded that, imo, necessity. At any age. With all due respect, I think your opinion is based to much on the conditions in California. You don't have to be a computer wiz in Alabama or many other states to make a decent living. Thats my point.
Yeah, your going to have lower paying jobs. So, Walmart does have lower paying jobs. I don't see your beef with Walmart. You don't complain about any other big retail stores that do basically the same thing, only Walmart. That stands out to me in your argument more than anything.
Because there is a lot more wrong with Walmart than just the amount it pays its workers. However, I use Walmart as an example because 80% of their workers qualify for federal assistance. To me, that doesn't mean that Walmart is successful. It means that Walmart is one of the largest recipients of corporate welfare in the country. They aren't successful through smarts and business acumen. They are successful because they game the system, and rely on the taxpayers to enable them to hire 80% of their workforce without having to pay them a living wage. You seem to think that's fine. I don't.