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We're talking about NYC, not small town America. Wages in NYC are already being pulled down by small and medium scale businesses that hire undocumented workers, pay below minimum wage, no benefits and no social security. Supplanting them with WalMart that hires legal residents will only make the situation better, along with the tax revenue that it brings. How can that be bad?
Forest you don't even know what you are regurgitating (you are just repeating what you hear). Wal-mart just lost a huge lawsuit for discriminating against women. Wal-mart has been found to hire illegal workers. Wal-mart has been found NOT paying people overtime. Wal-mart has been found breaking anti-competitive laws. Need I continue?
Which is why I recommend you educate yourself before regurgitating whatever it is you hear. As soon as wal-mart plays fairly, they will be welcome in NYC like every other business. Then again, if they played fairly they would not be wal-mart.
You are just cherry picking the scratches with WMT. The key word is in your post. They were FOUND to have committed those offenses and these have been corrected when caught. In the case of the illegal workers, you did not mention (of course, you won't) that it was a contractor that hired them. Those workers have since been let go. Now how many times have small/medium sized shops been raided for hiring illegal workers.
In reality, we all know that it is extremely difficult for large businesses like WMT under the auditor's microscope to commit shennenigans. Not that they absolutely don't. They may do it because of negligence, or they may even try, but they will get caught.
Avoidance of overtime pay - sounds like just another day in any NY office except a government agency. US labor laws already give too much flexibility to all businesses to circumvent overtime. Still better than those shops that pay below minimum wage, pay no benefits and no social security regardless of whether you did overtime or not.
So why talk about playing fair with WMT and look the other way when it comes to shops that cheat on taxes and hiring and have no chance of getting caught? They are the ones doing more damage to the local economy. Doesn't make sense.
Please continue, but don't argue for argument's sake.
I DO NOT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS BUT I WOULD LOVE A WALMART IN NYC!! Seriously, it makes me laugh how so many city folk say they don't want it here but I guarantee you if it were to open somewhere in the city, those same people will be piling up there shopping for all their goods under one roof. Walmart isn't evil, I don't care about what the media or stupid books say. Wal-Mart is friggin awesome and there is WAY, WAY, WAY worst corporations to worry about other than Wal-Mart. I'm tired of New Yorkers acting as if they are too good for Wal-Mart.
Wow I never sensed that in people not wanting walmart in NYC, that NYer's think they're too good for walmart. ?
My friends who have walmart's near them said I was going to love it - literally said, "you're going to love Walmart" .
I was looking forward to it. I'd never been to one in my life. Well, here I am, and I don't like it. To me it's just kind of depressing. Hard to explain why I feel that way I guess. But it's definitely not thinking about it the way you put it.
At the end of the day if wal-mart were the savior that you allege, we would all be better off today. But we are not. Wal-mart is no the answer to NY's problems, anymore than target is, or any other retailer. If you believe bringing a low-wage employer who eliminates competitors is good and healthy for NYC, then we will have a difference of opinion. The end.
It doesn't have to be the answer to all of NY's problems. Being an answer to all of NY's problems was never the bar for allowing a business to operate in the city. If it were, then all those shops that hire illegals and cheat on taxes would never have been allowed to operate. WMT will bring improvements even if these are incremental only.
Other retailer-competitors like Pathmark, Wholefoods, Tarder Joe's and Associated will not close down because of WMT. Associated, Trader Joe's and Pathmark still operate in Queens despite the presence of BJs and COSTCO. The ones that will close down are the little shops who do the real damage to the local economy.
No, WalMart doesn't cheat on taxes. It avoids some taxes, which is pretty much allowed by the law. All individuals have the right to avoid taxes by taking deductions for various items. What is wrong is evading taxes by deliberately understating revenues, which is what many of those small shops do (in addition to chronically hiring undocumented workers). Can't you tell the difference? You do your own taxes, right?
WalMart pays low (and benefits too), but it cannot pay below the minimum wage without getting caught. That is better than shops who hire undocumenteds, pay them BELOW minimum wage, and no benefits at all. Common sense.
Yes, I live in FH, which is why I can see the effects that COSTCO, BJs and Target have had in the community. The kind of stores that closed down are the ones that won't be missed. You guys just want to whine about WalMart without using your heads.
No, WalMart doesn't cheat on taxes. It avoids some taxes, which is pretty much allowed by the law. All individuals have the right to avoid taxes by taking deductions for various items. What is wrong is evading taxes by deliberately understating revenues, which is what many of those small shops do (in addition to chronically hiring undocumented workers). Can't you tell the difference? You do your own taxes, right?
WalMart pays low (and benefits too), but it cannot pay below the minimum wage without getting caught. That is better than shops who hire undocumenteds, pay them BELOW minimum wage, and no benefits at all. Common sense.
Yes, I live in FH, which is why I can see the effects that COSTCO, BJs and Target have had in the community. The kind of stores that closed down are the ones that won't be missed. You guys just want to whine about WalMart without using your heads.
As for me, there is not much difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. The end result in both cases is that less taxes are paid.
Big corporations have a lot of resources to avoid paying taxes. Small businesses do not have these resources and so some of them evade taxes.
There is no difference to the end consumer.
There is a difference. There are limits to which corporations like WalMart (and ordinary people, you forgot to mention) can avoid taxes. Government sets these controls to ensure that sufficient revenues are collected. These are all transparent and tracked by auditors.
With tax evasion, you cannot control how much taxes are defrauded. Businesses and people who cheat on their taxes can misdeclare their revenues by as much as they can. They can declare one-tenth of their real sales and nobody catches them. Ordinary citizens lose more with tax evasion, in addition to lost jobs resulting from the hiring of undocumented workers and paying them below minimum lest we selectively forget.
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