RJ, previously I pointed out that if Walmart was not around there would simply be another employer one that would likely pay better. The anti-Walmart link above claims that Walmart actually reduced retail jobs and reduces the amount paid. It makes sense that jobs would be reduced given one large outlet versus many retail outlets (economies of scale). It also makes sense that if Walmart were not around then there would be other employers that would snap up the retail dollars going to Walmart and that these retailers would not be as "efficient" as far as making sure that labor costs were low. Anyway, please explain why if Walmart was not around there were would be a net loss of jobs. Your position implies that people at Walmart are unemployable and the only possible jobs they could possibly get is at Walmart.
As to DF's questions and Brad, it seems pretty simple that Walmart creates more people on food stamps because it pays it's workers less than other retailers. Less Walmart, less people that qualify for food stamps. I wonder how many people qualify for food stamps at Costco? Certainly with regard to very large employers like Walmart I don't think they should be paying adults wages that don't allow them enough to live on.

Freeman2,
Are you saying we should close all Walmart stores? Surely that helps... We have covered this before. If you don't like Walmart or it's practices, go to Costco. I do. Some people need "low prices". Are you sure you want to change that?

Danivon,
I think you misunderstand me. I have NO attitude. Everyone has choices. you do, I do, everyone does. It is juvenile to think otherwise. To point out that everyone has choices, and these choices affect our lives is not judgmental. It is reality.

No, Brad, we can't close Walmart; however, we can require them to pay higher wages. By the way, my user name is Freeman2 only because there was difficulty in accessing my original user name Freeman. In other words, my user name is intended to be the same as my real name. So feel free to use my real name (I feel like a clone when I am addressed as Freeman2)

No worries on the name. I go with the user name until specified otherwise. Another user does not want his name used, so I am careful.

If we mandate that Walmart pays higher than current minimum wage, then we should not be surprised that the price of items is raised.

Our entire lives are not simply governed by our choices. It is judgemental to suggest that people are in a bad situation simply because they made bad choices - chiefly the ones that wise dudes like you don't make (or even have to make).

School vouchers, you've got to go back to the root failures in a society and start there.

so, we should require Walmart to pay more than say "Bob's" since WalMart is bigger than Bobs?
If you are simply saying the minimum wage should be raised, then we have fewer jobs handed out, fewer teens employed, even further reduction of full time employees, further reduction of benefits, etc. I live in New York State, an expensive place to live! Few employers pay minimum wage, WalMart is above minimum, the McDonalds across the street from WalMart pays even more than WalMart does, Dish washers at another restaurant pays minimum wage and they hire seemingly nothing but part time teenagers ...supply and demand seems to be working to me.

danivon wrote:Our entire lives are not simply governed by our choices. It is judgemental to suggest that people are in a bad situation simply because they made bad choices - chiefly the ones that wise dudes like you don't make (or even have to make).

Sarcasm accepted. Thanks, I am sure that helps the discussion. I do not suggest they are in a bad situation simply because they make bad choices. Bad situation are sometimes thrust upon us. That is why the widow/orphan point was conceded. I do suggest/infer/ and downright claim that the bad choices do not help, and there is some culpability via results for the bad choices that they make.

Certainly you can agree that bad choices can result in bad situations, right?

and we have a system to help bail out those in a bad way, but when we "reward" bad choices and build a whole portion of society who learn to scam the system in order to live without working, have we helped ourselves in the end? Have we helped those people either?

bbauska wrote:Rudewalrus,
I do not advocate ANY abortion. I only say the choice is there for abortion, selective or otherwise; and that people always have choices. Since many people are pro-choice, they are responsible for the choices they make. There is always the option of adoption also.

bbauska-

Your comments make me wonder if you are remarkably callous and uncaring, don't have kids and don't know what you are talking about, or simply haven't thought the point through in terms of real people's lives. I'll assume the later.

People want kids; sometimes they get more than they bargained for (multiples are usually NOT a choice). The result is often inconvenient, challenging, and almost always more costly. But you do what you have to do. For people on the low end of the income scale, that might mean accepting support.

Sure, I don't doubt that there are probably some people out there who game the system or behave irresponsibly. Perhaps the system has a perverse incentive built in. I don't think, however, that there are a whole lot of people out there who are having extra kids, knowing all that bringing up a child entails, just so that they may qualify for a better welfare check.

Perhaps I should be called pro-choice/pro-responsibility. They need to go hand in hand.

Taking care of your kids, even if it entails accepting public assistance does not make a person irresponsible. You would have to show me a lot more about behavior that was irresponsible before I will accept that. e.g. Did the person/couple have sex without birth control? Were other income opportunities knowingly passed up? And giving up your child for adoption is a pretty serious step. It would take quite a bit before I'd be willing to condemn someone for making the 'choice' to keep their child.

bbauska

Certainly you can agree that bad choices can result in bad situations, right?

The discussion about walmart is about choices.But not individual choices. Choices made by the state.
The first choice was to ensure that people can always receive medical care when emergency care is required. Since 83(?) that law has essentially socialized health care in the SU through the emergency wards....
Was that choice wrong? Society decided that turning away people from emergency health care because they couldn't pay was wrong...
The second choice was the decision to bring in a complicated system of food stamps in order to wipe out hunger in the US. Society decided that in a nation of plenty there shouldn't be hunger. Was that the wrong choice?
Another choice was making companies responsible fro providing health care benefits to their employees. But only full time employees. Ad ensuring that there was a minimum level of compensation for every hour worked...
My ;point in using the abundant information on how Walmart uses the system to keep its labour costs down - both by avoiding paying health benefits by keeping most staff part time, and by paying the minimum wage ... is to illustrate that the basic system is screwed up. Not that Walmart is doing anything illegal. It isn't. Or immoral. (arguable I suppose).
Food stamps are an expensive bureaucratic way of redistributing income in order to ensure people don't starve. And health care through emergency care is the stupidest way to provide that service.
Step back and realize that if society has decided that the working poor shouldn't starve or die at the door of the hospital then there have to be more efficient and effective ways of making those things a reality. The machinations that walMArt goes through to ensure they don't have to provide health benefits would be eliminated by Universal health insurance which has proven every where to be more cost effective than the US system.
Once the practice of eliminating average hours didn't pay off at WalMArt they'd probably have more full time employees who would make enough to avoid food stamps. Add to the an increase in the minimum wage, and you might end most of the subsidization of income for Wal AMrt employees (For thats what the food stamp program works out to for them) by American taxpayers.
That might indeed raise prices at WalMart a percent or two. But by eliminating the use of a federal bureaucracy like Food Stamps, you've lowered government spending and the need for taxation or borrowing to run that bureaucracy. (I'm not saying its eliminated, just used much less.)
There is no perfect solution.But, if you think WalMart is an example of a free enterprise, proudly operating within a market economy, you need to rethink. Its low wage and benefits bill could not be what it is without Food Stamps, State Paid health care, and minimum wages set arbitrarily low enough that they often require a tax payer subsidy through food stamps for the employees.
And that is about choices Bbauska. Only its not individual choices. Most of the people caught up in Walmarts revolving door of lousy employment don't have any great choices.

Rudewalrus,
I have 5 children. I ADOPTED the first one, and was started having biological children after being married 18 years. I do understand the importance of having children, and the heartbreak of NOT being able to have them. I also understand that our nation allows choice when it comes to having children. (I do not believe in the abortive practices) But since there are allowances for these "choices" in birth control, it is not beyond the realm of people making other callous choices of "selective" abortion. Hideous, isn't it? Think how the Chinese limit the population to one. Hideous, isn't it? It is control that needn't be there.

When it comes to government assistance, I know that as well. I was on assistance for a couple of years when my biological father left my family and my mom, 2 sisters and I were left without income, a home or anything. We got back on our feet in 2 years. There are situations that require assistance, some even long-term. Not many, though. I think people are much more resilient than you do, apparently.

The choice/responsibility paradigm I am writing about is one where people would start making better choices in their lives when there was little chance of government assistance. A good example of this is an eighteen year old woman having sex and getting pregnant. She can make the choices that would best be for her.

Marry the father (Have the child in her life, possibility of difficult marriage if having sex but not in loving relationship)
Keep the baby (have the child in her life, but have the strain of raising a child as a single mother)
Adoption (Child lives, but not in your life)
Abortion (Child is dead, pain of post-abortion stress syndrome)

My hope would be that people would make a responsible choice for not only them, but the baby as well.

RickyP,
My sister works at Walmart. I have said that before. I base my opinion on her input as a minimum wage employee that worked her way up. (Hmmm, noble idea)

To answer your questions...
Emergency rooms and government payment? I think you cannot turn a person away with EMERGENCY needs. You have stated that people come to the emergency room with the common cold, and it is more expensive than a private doctor. I would disagree with that. It costs nothing to turn a patient away with a cold.

Food stamps? I am all for the basic subsistence being given via a food distribution center. This minimizes an aspect of the fraud of the food stamp program. (selling cards and reporting them lost, no cards, no fraud)

Walmart could be an example of free enterprise if the government would get out of the business and worker's lives.

Example:
If the government did not give support to the worker, and Walmart was paying ONLY a certain amount that the employee could not agree to, would Walmart have any employees at all? Perhaps the lack of employees would be a difficulty for the business, no?

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Fast-Food-Retail-Workers-Walk-Out-In-Chicago-204462101.html

Here workers did what they thought was needed. If I was the manager of any of these stores, I would release these people from their contract. It would be my honor to give them the opportunity to find better paying "living wage".

bbauska
Example:

If the government did not give support to the worker, and Walmart was paying ONLY a certain amount that the employee could not agree to, would Walmart have any employees at all? Perhaps the lack of employees would be a difficulty for the business, no?

I'm sure that the employees would start to get hungry before Walmart had to make any adjustments ...
Somehow you think that the current reality, where there is high unemployment and people have little choice, doesn't exist. You must if you think that if you think employees wouldn't take the jobs at WalMart ... They are probably their only choices..So people take the Walmart jobs, reluctantly . But they do take them. Then they subscribe for food stamps. (And obviously they start looking for something else because the turnover is so high.... But Walmart maintains a constant work force, that often relies on food stamps to get by...

The only reason Walmart does not currently pay less in most regions is because of laws making them pay a minimum. They would pay less if there were no minimum.

The relationship between employers and potential employees is seldom a situation where the employee has the advantage. And when you have unemployment above 5% (About the best the US has historically in unemployment levels), especially when its as high as it is today ... the relationship is not one where employees have a good bargaining position. Especially where retail now accounts for 1 out of 8 jobs in the US. ... and Walmart dominates.

Any reading of employment practices during the industrial age, and the gilded age etc. will provide plenty of examples of what happens when businesses operate without restrictions and limitations. WalMart would exploit their work force even more, if there weren't legal limits...

The point is Bbauska, if you want to reduce the use of food stamps, make sure the minimum a full time employee can make at a place like WalMart, means he doesn't need the stamps.
That eliminates use of a government bureaucracy right there.