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It's a perplexing thing, 70% or so of Americans derives their livelihood (directly or indirectly) from corporations. Yet, the very same Americans think that corporations owe nothing to anybody, themselves included, corporations' sole purpose & duty is to maximize their bottom line. That's the most self-mutilating set of belief one can come up with.
It's just too bad that tiny % of population (capitalists) own most of the means of production and appropriate all the added value and fruits of productivity growth. Capitalists treat wage labor as another commodity to buy at the cheapest price, to minimize the consumed quantity of labor, or to substitute labor with cheaper equivalents (machines, automation, or Chinese sweat shop workers, etc.). Maximization of profits requires elimination of "expensive" or even "living wage" labor. Not maximization of the profits is not an option, if it's not you, it's another guy who'll maximize his profits and kick you out of business sooner or later. By eliminating labor, capitalists eliminate their customer base at the same time. Thus - periodic crisises.
In the last 60 years or so this inherent contradiction was dealt with by flooding the system with "cheap" money each time capitalists were about to wipe out significant portion of their customer base. Excess labor squeezed out by essential industries due to productivity growth, mechanization, automation or outsourcing was employed either by government or by new start ups producing mostly non essential, whimsical, silly, fraudulent, wasteful or outright dangerous products and services. This would not be possible without the rise of Marketing (a tool to create new wants) and general dumbing down of populace. Destruction of social cohesion, world where one could expect help & "freebies" from neighbors, relatives and friends, hyper individualism if not isolation also contributed to job and GDP growth. Things people used to do for free became a business opportunity.
In the past 30 years or so owning class was lending "expropriated" wages back to labor in order to have the best of two worlds (for a while): to maximize profits and to maintain the customer base.Transforming labor into forever indebted to masters peons was a pleasant side effect. Unfortunately, all good things come to the end. Debt pyramids and Ponzi schemes tends to crumble. Luckily, we have "Marxist" Obama who does everything possible under the sun to re-inflate debt pyramid and to keep circus running for little bit longer. If Obama will succeed (unlikely) in re-inflating that means only one thing - the next bust would put the current one to shame.
The final point - Capitalism is in crisis, it's not recession it's crisis. Crisis of the "damaged" customer base is superimposed on debt pyramid, resource, energy, food, water, ecological, population crises. Old tricks no longer revive the patient.
Can the government save us? Would them taking over the whole thing be the real answer? I think I have read for about 60 years many things like this post from you that tried to tell people something that I just don't agree with. At least you called Obama by the adjective term I would use in talking about him. Look at the crowd he has at the White House advising him.
Walmart also employs about 2.1 million people. So this is about a 0.5% reduction... not too shabby given the state of the economy right now. And besides, the workers affected can opt to switch to the contracted company now doing the work. This is more a transfer of workers, rather than a permanent downsizing.
And for the record, since the start of the recession, Walmart has only laid off about 13,000, or 0.6% of its employees. Union heavy companies like GM have laid off about 25%, or about 55,000 of their original 250,000 employees since the start of the recession.
I have seen this whole pile of libs crying about WalMart and the article was about Sams Club employees. Do most of you know the difference between a Sams Club store and a WalMart store? It doesn't sound like that, at all, but maybe some of you do.
I guess mom and I go to Walmart stores because they are handy and in one town we go to they and their competitor, a Kroger store, must have people living in each other's stores since you can't buy many food items on special in one without being able to get that same item in the other. My favorite kind of bread is 1.68 at WalMart in that town and 2.28 at the Kroger store. Guess where I buy my bread.
well i hope it aint that wallmart bread. read the list of ingredients and i guarantee you will stop buying that junk and start smoking cigarettes as you will live longer
Can the government save us? Would them taking over the whole thing be the real answer? I think I have read for about 60 years many things like this post from you that tried to tell people something that I just don't agree with. At least you called Obama by the adjective term I would use in talking about him. Look at the crowd he has at the White House advising him.
Government is saving some just fine, just imagine tens of millions of government employee jobless, just imagine military industrial complex downsized to sane levels, just imagine no government licensure requirements and plummeting incomes of self-made, ruggedly individualistic professionals and so on.
Second, if you think there are major differences between mega corporate & big government bureaucracy, you are mistaken.
The point is Capitalism is in systematic crisis, which is bad by itself. Looming planetary crises make it much worse. It doesn't really matter what capitalism we are talking about American styled corporate capitalism or Soviet styled state capitalism. Both have more in common than not. The point is that the old resuscitation tricks don't work. The point is that you can keep on repeating "Capitalism is holy, the most perfect, the most divine" to the unemployed masses for just that long.
I'm afraid it would take much deeper changes than "state vs oligarchical capitalism" to survive.
Sams is losing money, that is why they are closing stores and cutting jobs at the same time. Laying off is not the same as firing in my book anyway. This is an all out effort to stay afloat.. My how some can turn things around.
people are realizing that they arent selling for less anymore they cant. i get much better deals at safeway which is right across the street in the town i shop in.plus the quality is so much better. and thier union splain that
I will question that: it depends on what you are purchasing and where you live. I am a pretty careful shopper and yes, I do save, by shopping at Sams, but I also have to watch what I get and compare. Yes, some things are cheaper at the local market. This is true with Wal-Mart as well. AS for quality, I really prefer Sams for most things. But again, that is a personal opinion and preferance. We all have to decide for ourselves.
Unions have nothing to do with that. Just look at other companies with unions or not, and you will see the same thing. Look at Detroit for example. Did the union saved these people's jobs? Some are the Japanese companies in the US are doing fine and maintaing their non-union workforces. Ford too is doing fine, and is maintaining its unionized workforce.
Keep in mind that the military's civilian employees have their own unions. The same can be said of State employees around the US. But NY and CA as well as other States may have to layoff employees in the near future (if they haven't done so already). Civilian employees often work on contracts with the military, and lose their jobs all the time.
It appears that the unions have once againh wrecked an innocent big American corporation! OH!! I forgot- they don't have any union!
[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_wal_mart_sam_s_club;_ylt=AhrDN3DaiegRH6IIYOAJQa ZH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTNic2M5YzV2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMT I1L3VzX3dhbF9tYXJ0X3NhbV9zX2NsdWIEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBv cHVsYXIEY3BvcwM3BHBvcwM3BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3Rvcmllcw RzbGsDd2FsLW1hcnRjdXRz"]Wal-Mart cuts about 11,200 Sam's Club staffers - Yahoo! News[/URL]
As a prev. employee of WalMart, I wouldn't advise anyone to work for them, they cut your hours to 28-32 where you can be a 40 hr employee and rec. benefits. You have to fight tooth and nail to get your insurance to pay any claims, first you have to use all your sick time, then vacation time, then if you're still off work they might pay on the insurance claim. They don't pay very well, cut your hours where you can't get decent benefits. If Sam was still alive there would be clothing MADE BY AMERICANS, AND NOTHING FROM CHINA........HE WAS SO PROUD TO HAVE HIS MERCHANDISE MADE IN AMERICA MADE BY AMERICANS.
As a prev. employee of WalMart, I wouldn't advise anyone to work for them, they cut your hours to 28-32 where you can be a 40 hr employee and rec. benefits. You have to fight tooth and nail to get your insurance to pay any claims, first you have to use all your sick time, then vacation time, then if you're still off work they might pay on the insurance claim. They don't pay very well, cut your hours where you can't get decent benefits. If Sam was still alive there would be clothing MADE BY AMERICANS, AND NOTHING FROM CHINA........HE WAS SO PROUD TO HAVE HIS MERCHANDISE MADE IN AMERICA MADE BY AMERICANS.
Exactly. Sad but true. And the real reason that ANY company goes through the trouble to bring in contractors is that afterall it is said and done it saves the company money in many ways, they certainly don't have to rejigger people's hours to avoid paying them any benefits whatsoever,( makes those pesky lawsuits threats virtually disappear!) they are also protected legally in many ways since they can just easily dump contractors, (no harm no foul) and this type of stuff makes investors think (on paper) the company is functioning better than it actually is.(because on paper this stuff doesn't even show up)...
Hiring outside contractors is the loophole to end all loopholes.
Bottom line, it's the all mighty dollar worship.
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