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Re: your first link-you conveniently left out that some of that $12.7 mil is going to the former owner of the property. That kind of revenue doesn`t come cheap. Broomfield has agreed to give Walmart and the land`s prior owner, Barber`s Poultry, up to $12.7 million over the next 15 years.
Link 3: You conveniently left out that the $12 mil is the potential cost, over 20 years: **The Fort Worth City Council is mulling over a proposal that would give Walmart up to $12 million in tax breaks for work related to the opening of a new superstore along Golden Triangle Boulevard.
The incentive would come over 20 years in exchange for the corporate giant completing part of Park Vista Boulevard near the new store's site.**
You seem to conveniently forget that these subsidies are a part of doing business, and that not only Walmart is getting them. Pennsylvania | Good Jobs First **Pennsylvania’s economic development “toolbox” contains some costly subsidy programs that need sharpening to achieve greater accountability, encourage the creation of good jobs and address problems such as suburban sprawl. Its major economic development programs are often used to recruit businesses from neighboring states. Keystone Research Center estimates that Pennsylvania’s state spending on subsidies for individual companies reached a high of $260 million in FY2006-2007; the annual total declined to $164 million in 2009-2010. . . . Pennsylvania has been known to aggressively pursue very large deals, such as the $400 million it provided to a Norwegian company in 1997 for the redevelopment of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (see below). To land a Westinghouse Electric nuclear engineering facility in 2006, the state even enacted a completely new subsidy program. Westinghouse also received an Opportunity Grant (see below).**
Plus much more.
It didn't all go to Walmart.
Target | Good Jobs First **Target has sought, and received, hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from states and local communities around the U.S. Many of these deals have involved the company’s distribution centers.**
Tax Dollars for Costco » Policy Blog » The Maryland Public Policy Institute **The forces of corporatism won another battle last week as the Montgomery County Council rejected a proposal to block the county from giving $4 million to a developer that is building a Costco in Wheaton. **
Costco, mind you (gasp!)
You guys (and others) are apparently not aware that business subsidies are given to many businesses, not just Walmart. For example, a local grocery (sort of Mom and Pop-ish) wanted to open a second store in our area. My suburban city was one of the possible locations. I went to a meeting about this and someone asked the CEO what criteria he would use to make a decision. He said "whoever gives us the most money". My city anted up: they sold their soul to get this store. Louisville extends $1 million in incentives to Alfalfa's to locate at vacant Safeway site - Boulder Daily Camera
** Elected leaders set the stage for the construction of an Alfalfa's Market grocery store on South Boulder Road with a unanimous vote Tuesday night to approve one of the most generous business incentive packages in the city's history.
Alfalfa's, which would locate a 22,000-square-foot store near the site of a long-abandoned Safeway at 707 E. South Boulder Road, would receive a full rebate of the sales tax revenues it generates in the first three years of operation -- capped at $800,000. The natural grocer would also get a 50 percent rebate of the use taxes and permit fees paid to the city.
According to Louisville Economic Development Director Aaron DeJong, the incentive package could amount to $1 million.**
Now I'd like to see a store there as much as the next person, but this was ridiculous.
Subsidies are fine for businesses that benefit the community. Wal Mart does not! It drives wages down and funnels money out of the community to the Waltons.
Re: your first link-you conveniently left out that some of that $12.7 mil is going to the former owner of the property. That kind of revenue doesn`t come cheap. Broomfield has agreed to give Walmart and the land`s prior owner, Barber`s Poultry, up to $12.7 million over the next 15 years.
Link 3: You conveniently left out that the $12 mil is the potential cost, over 20 years: **The Fort Worth City Council is mulling over a proposal that would give Walmart up to $12 million in tax breaks for work related to the opening of a new superstore along Golden Triangle Boulevard.
The incentive would come over 20 years in exchange for the corporate giant completing part of Park Vista Boulevard near the new store's site.**
You seem to conveniently forget that these subsidies are a part of doing business, and that not only Walmart is getting them. Pennsylvania | Good Jobs First **Pennsylvania’s economic development “toolbox” contains some costly subsidy programs that need sharpening to achieve greater accountability, encourage the creation of good jobs and address problems such as suburban sprawl. Its major economic development programs are often used to recruit businesses from neighboring states. Keystone Research Center estimates that Pennsylvania’s state spending on subsidies for individual companies reached a high of $260 million in FY2006-2007; the annual total declined to $164 million in 2009-2010. . . . Pennsylvania has been known to aggressively pursue very large deals, such as the $400 million it provided to a Norwegian company in 1997 for the redevelopment of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (see below). To land a Westinghouse Electric nuclear engineering facility in 2006, the state even enacted a completely new subsidy program. Westinghouse also received an Opportunity Grant (see below).**
Plus much more.
It didn't all go to Walmart.
Target | Good Jobs First **Target has sought, and received, hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from states and local communities around the U.S. Many of these deals have involved the company’s distribution centers.**
Tax Dollars for Costco » Policy Blog » The Maryland Public Policy Institute **The forces of corporatism won another battle last week as the Montgomery County Council rejected a proposal to block the county from giving $4 million to a developer that is building a Costco in Wheaton. **
Costco, mind you (gasp!)
Actually I mentioned the land being paid off, secondly I provided links so that you can see for yourself due to my lack of time to actually re-type the article, thirdly I have an issue with all discount retail big box stores, not just Wal-Mart, but the OP topic is about Wal-Mart so I'm using them as an example. Sears would be on my list as well since you keep bringing them up as your basis to argue why you like Wal-Mart so much...
Subsidies are fine for businesses that benefit the community. Wal Mart does not! It drives wages down and funnels money out of the community to the Waltons.
The old "that's different"! If I ever need a PR firm I'm hiring Costco's!
Quote:
Originally Posted by WiseManOnceSaid
Actually I mentioned the land being paid off, secondly I provided links so that you can see for yourself due to my lack of time to actually re-type the article, thirdly I have an issue with all discount retail big box stores, not just Wal-Mart, but the OP topic is about Wal-Mart so I'm using them as an example. Sears would be on my list as well since you keep bringing them up as your basis to argue why you like Wal-Mart so much...
I don't like Walmart so much! I do shop there, among other places. Sears has a long history of supposedly being the ruination of Main Street small-town America.
Some people say walmart underpays their employees and doesn't give them enough benefits.
Is walmart really supposed to be a career type job?
When I rarely go into a walmart store to see what i haven't been missing I don't see a lot of work being done. The workers in walmart stores don't seem to be working all that hard for the most part. It seems as long as they do what they are told they have a job. Productivity is not a priority. So are they really under paid for what they do?
1. The problem with Wal-Mart isn't that it underpays its employees. The Wal-Mart in my area used to pay $2/hour above the minimum wage, which is more than most other retailers paid their cashiers. The problem is that employees aren't guaranteed full-time work. They hire on for full-time positions, but when the company's stock value dips, management cuts the weekly hours of workers. So there's no stability, workers can't rely on a steady level of income. So, many quit, then the store needs to try to hire other workers, and problems arise. There's a bit of a revolving door for those entry-level positions. Constant hiring and quitting.
2. The company tells applicants to its jobs that it's a career-type job, if they want it to be. It leads people to believe that's what those jobs are, and that cashiers can move up, if they want. The company also pretends to offer benefits, but the benefits package is poor.
3. Department managers have no training, so they do a poor job of supervising their employees, and provide no instruction on how to do the job, or what's expected of them. It's a poorly-run company, but a lot of US retailers are like that, for some reason. Managers don't have an education background in business. The higher-level managers often only have the training the store offers, but no formal business management education.
On line, eh? Online retailers usually collect no state sales taxes, except in the state where they are located, thus depriving states and municipalities of needed revenue.
Do you mean avoiding paying taxes, like Wal-Mart does?
Do you mean avoiding paying taxes, like Wal-Mart does?
Do you volunteer to pay more taxes than you need to? I don't. I don't do anything illegal, but I sure try to minimize my tax burden.
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I have found a couple of links about the impact of Walmart on small towns. They also discuss the historical impact of other chains from years past, e.g. Sears, Penney's, Wards, and A&P grocers.
It is incredibly naive to think, as someone said upthread, that this problem of downtown America started in the 1980s with Walmart.
Do you volunteer to pay more taxes than you need to? I don't. I don't do anything illegal, but I sure try to minimize my tax burden.
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I have found a couple of links about the impact of Walmart on small towns. They also discuss the historical impact of other chains from years past, e.g. Sears, Penney's, Wards, and A&P grocers.
It is incredibly naive to think, as someone said upthread, that this problem of downtown America started in the 1980s with Walmart.
1985 is a very important year in retailing. It's when we sold our souls, and decided to send TRILLIONS to a poverty stricken, Communist police state that uses children and adult slaves with no regulation or regard to human life, to make a buck. Sears certainly changed retailing, they evolved from a rural catalog company to more urban gathering points for sure. But they didn't have the global impact that Wal-Mart has had. Wal-Mart consumes everything it touches. It does so in the name of profit, without regard to who it squashes in the process. Wal-mart vs. Sears I would sum up this way. Sears paved the way for methods of big box retailing by transitioning us from a rural catalog company to more urban centers. Wal-mart destroyed a whole class of our society (the middle class). That's a huge difference between the two. Again, you can't blame Wal-Mart. If it hadn't been them, it would have been another corporation, they by law are designed to do such a thing. Blame lack or regulation, the ability to spend billions lobbying a cause, the actual corporate laws in place that require such plundering, etc. Until the laws change, this downward spiral into a poorer nation will continue, and I don't see them changing anytime soon with the amount of lobby dollars the big retailers can afford to throw at the issues.
Wal-Mart didn't cause the decline of Main Street USA. The enclosed Shopping Mall holds that honor. Main Street started declining in the 60's and 70's long before Wal-Mart exploded.
1. The problem with Wal-Mart isn't that it underpays its employees. The Wal-Mart in my area used to pay $2/hour above the minimum wage, which is more than most other retailers paid their cashiers. The problem is that employees aren't guaranteed full-time work. They hire on for full-time positions, but when the company's stock value dips, management cuts the weekly hours of workers. So there's no stability, workers can't rely on a steady level of income. So, many quit, then the store needs to try to hire other workers, and problems arise. There's a bit of a revolving door for those entry-level positions. Constant hiring and quitting.
2. The company tells applicants to its jobs that it's a career-type job, if they want it to be. It leads people to believe that's what those jobs are, and that cashiers can move up, if they want. The company also pretends to offer benefits, but the benefits package is poor.
3. Department managers have no training, so they do a poor job of supervising their employees, and provide no instruction on how to do the job, or what's expected of them. It's a poorly-run company, but a lot of US retailers are like that, for some reason. Managers don't have an education background in business. The higher-level managers often only have the training the store offers, but no formal business management education.
I work for Walmart and I think they start out too low on wages. However, the raises come regularly and if they stick it out it'll get better. I just got my 5th raise in 4 years. We have a lot of full timers and a lot of part timers. The part timers are mostly by choice, as I am. I'm 'old', I don't WANT to work 40 hours anymore and there are a lot just like me at my store. One reason for so many part time jobs isn't because they don't want to give them benefits, etc. but because they DO want to see as many people working as possible and no store needs 300-400 full time employees. My store alone is the biggest employer in the area. Then Home Depot. Part timers at Walmart have nearly as many bennies as full timers. In some cases it takes a bit longer to kick in but everybody who works for the company is eligible...IF they choose to take them.
Walmart CAN be a career type job. I see it at my store all the time. We have people who have gone from cashier, to CSM, to asst. dept. mgr. to dept. mgr. in four years. They can then go to zone mgr.. I think it depends on how much they want that type of career. I could be a mgr. by now if that's what I wanted. I am not interested. I've done my 'gig' in management over the years and now I just want to go do my job and go home.
You'd be amazed at the training Walmart actually gives their employees. We are constantly training, reviewing, renewing and being 'certified' for all types of things. Even us 'lowly cashiers'. Our managers have risen through the ranks over the years and I consider years of experience as good as book learning. Our last manager, who was with our store for over ten years, had a business degree. He has transferred to another store now with a big promotion and we have a new one. She has been with THIS store for 20 years and she's darn good. For some reason Walmart seems to usually bring new managers in rather than promote from within but this time they did and it was a good decision.
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