Sadly, as 2013 comes to a close, the long standing war between The Left and Basic Math sees no sign of abating anytime soon. In mid-December, Peter Schiff dared publish this video. Since then, the “caring, loving” folks on the Left have had some interesting things to say to Schiff.
Schiff was too kind calling Wal-Mart workers “entry level labor”, what he really meant was {unemployable Liberal leftovers).
Wal-Mart is western societies other welfare program for those that can bother to get up in the morning. The Left is just pissed because that’s them, and they can’t milk it for more.
Wal-Mart is providing entry level jobs and other companies are failing to provide the next level of employment. Could it be the declining education system has failed to prepare these people for better jobs?
The Wal-Mart so called debate is really one of the continuing efforts of over compensated Union “professionals” in both their political class and bureaucratic class to maintain their elite functions and benefits. This plays well with the other vested interests in the debate.
Not so much the Union’s administrative and entity owned properties. These are frequently managed within market realities.
The realities Wal-Mart’s, not overly compensated Executive Group, understand, is they are also facing the urban bias towards “outside of my large city” populations. This thinking cannot change with the vested interests controlling the media monologue.
My not so humble opinion is Detroit is more of bell weather for all large municipalities in North America, rather than just the isolated instance of loss of a manufacturing supported industry. Large population centers require a significant underclass to function as European and Asian large population centers have shown for centuries.
Large underclass populations require the special services needed to maintain this population in the form of security for the established entitled and employment for the entry level entitled in bureaucratic employment. The opposition to Wal-Mart is founded in this fearful opposition. Cheers;
That’s the thing isn’t it?
In practice, in our personal lives, we are all free market capitalists. As I am wont to observe, to little effect, Michael Moore, HIMSELF, is a capitalist role model. I hear he hires non union labour for his films.
No one voluntarily pays more for a good or service unless there’s additional value attached.
For basic household brand name amenities it’s hard to tack on additional value to support a higher price.
This is especially so with the general disposability of most of the consumer stuff we buy.
And so many people with little education, no trade and very little skills that can be used to earn and honest living, think Wally-World is beneath them. I’d work there in a heart beat if I was without work.
I support higher wages and yes, I’ll pay more to give them. But no. I will not give some dude in a parking lot money just because he says he’s going to give it to Walmart employees as charity. That’s just plain stupid.
Incidentally, Walmart’s low, low prices are costing taxpayers money.
http://www.ilsr.org/new-study-finds-walmarts-miserly-wages-cost-taxpayers/
Bottom line: The division between what executives earn compared to workers is insane. It’s gone from twenty times the amount in the 1950’s (what you guys like to call “the good old days”) to over two hundred times now. How is it that you guys don’t see a problem with this?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/ceo-pay-1-795-to-1-multiple-of-workers-skirts-law-as-sec-delays.html
Not overly compensated, eh?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/walmart-wages-to-ceo-annual-salary_n_3140618.html
The average Walmart employee would have to work 785 years to make the amount the CEO earns in one year. 785 years.
John wrote —
Really? So tell us: would you pay $3.97 for a 4 litre bag of milk at WalMart? Or would you pay $5.27 for the same 4 litre bag at Zehrs (part of the Loblaw Companies empire) to support the unionized workers there?
In my local stores, I find that there’s actually a difference between the minimum wage Wal-Mart workers and the unionized Zehrs workers.
The Wal-Mart workers are seasonal: when the post-secondary school year begins, most of them disappear as they go off to school. During the school year, most of the staff are kids from the local high school. The only “perennials” are the older post-other-career retirees. My local Wal-Mart sees a lot of staff turnover as most of these people are training themselves for something better. I’ve asked about a dozen of them (all young women) over the years what they are taking at school. The responses have ranged from construction trades to hard sciences. Interestingly, one one was taking a dead-end “studies” degree.
Meanwhile, over at Zehrs where the staff are unionized and make quite a bit more than minimum wage, the young girls who were working there when I moved here 17 years ago are now the 30-plus-year-old-women still working there. I cannot imaging working low-level retail — dragging the same products over the same scanner — for 17 years. I’ve asked a few of them what they are taking at school (giving them the benefit of the doubt that they might be students of some sort): every single one of them dropped out of high school and never pursued anything further. When asked why they did this, the responses have ranged from “I heard the pay here was good” to “I had a kid when I was 14”.
So, yes, by all means, let’s make soul- and potential-killing menial labour so attractive that it keeps people chained to a price scanner all their lives. The Left’s argument for making entry-level jobs permanent life-time positions has to be one of the cruellest applications of their evil policies.
So you think the left is “evil” for thinking that people should be paid a decent wage for perform menial labour? And that we need to punish people for not aspiring to do more with their lives than stock shelves? That is messed up. The notion that “everybody has the opportunity to be a millionaire” is why the USA is a chump-ocracy. It pretends that all of those millionaires don’t need lots of people doing the actual labour to make their ideas work.
Lots of work in this country is mindless, repetitive labour, but it needs to be done regardless. I’m not saying they should be paid the same as somebody who has learned a trade, or developed a skill, but paying them an extra few bucks doesn’t exactly “reward” their lack of ambition.
Once again… 50 years ago… those people working menial labour jobs earned on average, 1/20th the amount of the company owner. Today it’s 1/200th. And in the case of Walmart it’s less than 1/1000th. This is insane. The fact of the matter is that it would be possible to increase Walmart employee wages without destroying A’merica.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/12/wal-mart-pay-raise/
(And I don’t even buy at Zehrs. I buy mostly from a co-op where people make really good wages with benefits and almost all of the money stays right in our community.)
John is right. The only way to make sure we get an even distribution of pies in the society is to ensure bakers make less pie. If bakers produce more and more pies, then they will have a higher proportion of the pie in society. This is obviously wrong. Where a baker 50 years ago would have 20 pies for sale each morning, now they can produce over 100 pies a day. Since my house only buys one pie a day, I should be outraged that the baker has so much pie compared to me. Why, even if I bake 3 pies myself, my portion of the total number of pies Iis still less regardless of whether I have more physical pie at the house.
We must ensure that less wealth is created in society so that there will be less disparity. Right, John?
John, how many hours did a menial labourer have to work for an ipad in 1965? How long do they have to work for one now?
Most of the products we expect today weren’t available then. Strawberries in February? Dream on. Even at lower “wages” today, we are far richer than our ancestors.
Yes, the left is evil for wanting to use the power of the state to compel those who work and strive to subsidize those who chose to freeload.
I’ve done my share of menial labour. In the course of my first job, I peeled and chipped 54 tons of potatoes for a fish and chip joint. I was paid 50 cents per 75 pound bag, plus a dollar amount that I forget now to clean up the potato room (really a closet with running water) afterwards. There was also a $10 payment for staying after hours Friday nights to clean the shop. I tracked my hours and pay to ensure I made, hourly, more than minimum wage. I did: when minimum wage was $4.35, I made over $5 per hour. I also learned that, unless I owned the restaurant, I did not want to do this for the rest of my life.
I’ve done my share of menial retail: I worked the night shift at a gas station. Was still above minimum wage, but also learned that unless I owned the station, I did not want to do this for the rest of my life.
I worked at a factory driving a forklift. Great fun, but again: unless I owned the place, I did not want to spend my time there.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these jobs, and I do not denigrate anyone who works in this way. My problem is with people who refuse to work towards anything better. My problem is with people who believe they are entitled to more but who will not work towards more. And do not give me the B.S. about a lack of opportunity — the smartest people I know finished school at various levels well below their potential, but have used opportunities ranging from self-education to good old fashioned risk taking and hard work to build amazing careers. My problem is with people who have chosen not to work, and the professional socialists who would reward them for it.
And John, you shoot down your own “not saying they should be paid the same as somebody who has learned a trade, or developed a skill” argument by constantly comparing the unskilled position of a cashier and bagger with the CEO (or whatever the title is) of a multinational corporation. Do you honestly think the skills and responsibilities of the two positions are the same? If you consider the simple accountability between the two positions — the cashier is responsible for a $500 float in the till while the CEO is responsible for $422,000,000,000 in revenue, that 1:1000 discrepancy in their pay scales starts to look inadequate: the CEO should make far more than he does.
John – You must really choke on the excessive compensation for guys like Matt Damon and James Cameron. Must be millions to one in comparison to the poor chumps that watch their movies and they don’t actually contribute anything new to the economy. Really all they do is pretend to be someone else or tell some story – why do we allow them to make so much compared to the masses?
Walmart Supervisors and Managers are a better comparison to owners of 50 years ago given the current size of companies. The pay ratio is not 1000 to 1 and they actually add value to the economy.
John, a book recommendation: Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.
As a liberal, you probably speak often of the “common good”.
If so, please read and learn that all government interventions such as minimum wages help certain groups at the expense of others to such an extent that the losses outrun the gains.
I too support higher wages, but higher REAL wages through greater productivity unleashed from a reduction of government meddling in the economy that pander to special interest groups.
Please read and learn that unionism doesn’t help workers. It helps some workers and the expense of most workers.
Finally, John, why be chintzy: why not have done with it and legislate a minimum wage of $50 an hour? Wouldn’t that be three times as good!?
Yeah! Let’s hope that the Obamites raise the minimum wage to $50.00 per hour. After all, don’t the workers
deserve it? I imagine that if the US minimum wage were $50.00 per hour that would really please the –
Chinese. It would probably be good for Canadian business as well, though severe downturns in
the US economy are not good for Canada on the whole.
Oh H*ll let’s demand a minimum wage of $100.00 per hour!
Yes it is a pity that rich company owners make so much money. They should all be taxed at the 75% rate, or
even, as Barack Obama Sr. once suggested, at the 100% rate. Let’s do a thorough job on them!
The average Walmart employee would have to work 785 years to make the amount the CEO earns in one year. 785 years.
I see the politics of envy is alive and well. I guess John misses the fact that nobody is forced to work at Walmart, unlike unionized jobs where the union is forced membership.
Don’t forget recycling. We pay a fee not only for a return, but ecological tax. Than are hit again by the garbage collecting companies.
Most of the returns are picked up by the homeless. I view this as just another welfare program that we pay for. For the poverty industry. As these people rake in 6 figure salaries.
Its all a scam paid by you & me to keep lefty’s in money.While the real poor are left enough by bottle’s to stay instantiate. Reminds me of the Native free bees that never sem to get past Indian chiefs.
Nope. Let’s not create less wealth. Let’s not have a $50 minimum wage. Let’s just stick to reality here folks.
I means compensation should be roughly relative to what it was 50 years ago. This is not communism now any more than it was then. It simply harkens back to a time that you guys actually believe was the golden age. The funny thing is that you guys seem to want things to go back to the golden age of feudalism.
Having worked lots of labor jobs in my youth, I’d like to think I could do them again but am glad I moved on. When I planted trees, we were paid 1.8 cents/tree. For that 1.8 cents, one would take 3 steps forward, whack a mattock into the ground, plant the tree at the right level and keep on going as fast as possible to try to beat the 2000 trees/day quota I’d set for myself. I can’t imagine what I would feel like now if I had to bend over that many times in a day while carrying 40 lb of seedlings strapped to my belt. At the time the money was quite good as beer cost 20 cents a glass in Alberta and $20 would pay for a good drunk for the tree planting crew after work.
Have also worked unloading freight, cleaning warehouses, setting up rides at local fairs, timber cruising, slogging through swamps in the NWT collecting plants and soil samples, computer operator, bouncer and then managed to get jobs spending my summers in labs. The money I used to make at these jobs was miniscule by todays standards, but then some things were a lot cheaper. I look at the cost of beer as my yardstick and, when I was in undergraduate university, we used to sell beer for $0.25/bottle (and make a profit). Right now the price of a bottle of beer at a liquor store is over $2 or an 800% increase. OTOH, to buy an 8080 chip in the 1970’s would set one back $100-200 whereas today one can get far more compuational capabiity in a $50 cell phone. If someone told me I could get an Android tablet for $170 back in 1975, I’d come up the money somehow given the incredible computational capability that device has – faster than the university mainframe and with much more RAM.
What I found in my laboring days is that the easiest way to get hired on for a while when one went to one of the centers where one showed up at 07:00 and people would come in looking for workers is to look ready for work. The majority of guys there were surprisingly slow moving for their age but my goal was to get my pay raised and so I’d bust my ass the first day and then ask the guy who hired me, who had usually run out of work for me to do before the end of the day, if he’d double my wage if I worked as hard for a few more days. Usually they’d say yes unless they just had a small job that I had done in a few hours. I’ve been asked at jobs by union workers to stop working so fast as it was making them look bad. At the time it just felt good physically to be going all out and I often wonder how long I would have lasted if I’d scrapped my university plans and moved on to a logging job which paid much better money than planting trees.
For those who haven’t been to the US much, food is about 1/2 the price it is in Canada. That’s before you add in the 2 for 1 deals that seem to be very frequent. One can get a 6pack of no-name beer for $2 at a Dollar Store. People grumble a lot about how much higher food prices there are now but one can live on minimum wage in the US — as long as one doesn’t mind living in a small town. Walmart offers a 3 month supply of common drugs for $10 for 3 months. In Canada, the cheapest of these drugs would set you back $40-50 (including the $10+ dispensing fee). There appear to be a lot of self-employed people in the US who work various odd jobs and don’t mind putting in 16 hour days.
Inflation from the 1970’s is a very warped measure. The inflation rate for beer prices is 800-1000% but the deflation of computer hardware prices is in the -1000000% range. What has also happened is that there are far fewer manufacturing jobs as they’ve all been forced to move overseas as a result of statist regulations. In 1971 I could earn a full years tuition by working for 3 months planting trees and have a fair chunk left over. Now, I admit that it’s not possible to earn ones university tuition in a summer; that is until the education bubble bursts as the cost of a useless undergraduate degree is obscene. If I was 18 years old now, I’ve probably be working in a camp in N. Alberta and saving money for a few years to pay for my university education.
I’m curious why the overpaid state employees aren’t chipping in to pay Walmart workers more? Their wages are obscene in comparison and, on the whole, their existence is the cause of the collapsing US economy. It would be nice if Walmart decided to implement a 15% tax on all statist workers as they have already stolen the money from the taxpayers and this is just a way to get back some of that stolen wealth.
John >
I worked part time at 13 years of age at restaurant = $3.40 Hour.
I worked part time at 15 years of age at various restaurants = $3.60 Hour.
I worked summers at 16 & 17 years of age on Oilfield rigs &10.40 Hour.
I worked industrial cleaning, including suicides at 18 years of age +/- $1,600 month.
I worked oilfield service companies 19 years of age +/- $2,000.00 month.
I worked oilfield service companies to 25 years of age +/- $3000.00 month.
I worked oilfield service companies to 30 years of age +/- $5000.00 month.
I worked oilfield service companies to 35 years of age +/- 200,000.00 year.
I worked oilfield service companies to 40 years of age +/- 250,000.00 year.
I worked oilfield service companies to 45 years of age +/- 300,000.00 year.
I bought my own oilfield service company and made +++++++. STFU!
Welcome to life AH.
John, the very people hurt by Wal-mart, ect are the very people who can’t afford to let high turnover/low skill jobs jump to fifteen dollars an hour. Low-income families can’t pay an increase in items that shouldn’t cost the earth.
My first job was dishwasher in 1957 …. 65 cents an hour. I had many other similar jobs along with working as musician. By age 35 I had had enough of poverty and low pay, so I went and got some machinist skills and I was never unemployed again, although, I decided to combine some other skills and started a very small service business that just allowed me to retire comfortably … On my own dime.
I am a product of a time when it was admirable to want to be intelligent, smart, hard working and with a positive attitude …. willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. That is called ambition. Couple that with some integrity and persistence and I guarantee you will improve your lot in life no matter who you are. Those are the values of the 50s. and they were better than the values of today.
Elites ruling the peasants is a liberal thing … like socialism … can anyone connect those dots? That is feudalism … John cannot, but how about the rest of you.
Oh ya … in 1957 I was 14 years old. Parents had no money …. so ….. ya woiiked!