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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,777,470 times
Reputation: 3587
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana
You know, I had an epiphany about this issue one day. I was talking to a friend who was saying the usual, that Wal Mart drove out the other downtown retailers, etc. I said that in the case of the Wal Mart in my area, there really was nothing left of downtown before Wal Mart ever moved in. It all of a sudden occurred to me that such was probably the case in many small towns.
My family came from a small town and I have less than romantic memories of the merchants there. They overcharged for everything, had dingy dimly lit stores and cheated my mother out of her S&H Green Stamps more than once. And if you didn't like it well you could just drive 20 miles to the next little town and pay the same thing. If you wanted decent prices for anything, you drove to Tulsa where real competition existed.
When I lived in rural Illinois, most people in the "country" went to Champaign-Urbana to buy most of their necessities. Even there, it was more expensive than in Chicago, much to many people's disbelief!
The cost of living is the same for everybody. Furthermore, can-stackers, maintenance people, and garbage collectors should be making more than just about everybody else.
Gee, I wish I would have known that before I got my Bachelor in CS. I had no idea that unskilled, uneducated laborers should be making more money than those with advanced degrees.
Gee, I wish I would have known that before I got my Bachelor in CS. I had no idea that unskilled, uneducated laborers should be making more money than those with advanced degrees.
That's the union mentality for ya.
Now you know. What makes you think that you deserve to make more money than somebody who keeps our streets clean? If garbage collectors didn't do their job, we'd all be up sh*t creek without a paddle. If you didn't do your job, or I didn't do my job, it wouldn't even be a blip on anybody's radar screen. So yeah, I'd say they deserve to make a good living.
We deserve more because we can get it, conservative economic theory teaches that talent chases money, thus higher union wages attract to best talent to union jobs.
As for extortion, since we're only 15% of the workforce where would that power come from? Nope, must be because we're smarter
Tommy's Laws of Labor Relations, Law 2----When businessmen band together in corporations and make more money it's good business and the American Dream, when workers band together in unions and make more money it's extortion and Communism.
Is this over your head?
Lots of great pro-union posts in here!!! But this one kinda nails it.
What's disturbing is how these mokes who slam unions are pretty happy to use the benefits unions have helped EVERYONE to get!!!
Total ignorance of the history of their own country can be the only explanation(leaving out stupidity because that would be rude).
When union wages go up non-union wages start to rise....when unions are attacked (like in the Reagan years), wages go down....and keep going down.
Funny story: where I work now is not union....on break a very anti-union repub was whining about something the company did and declared , "WE ought to say something...they'll never listen if just one person complains...maybe get a GROUP of people together so they'll listen to us, "
As Mr. Platt details, some of the mom-and-pop stores are their own worst enemy. I have every doubt that they employed more people for better wages.
You seem to have some fairy-tale image of mom-and-pop. What if they were vindictive, cheap, petty people to work for? Where is the recourse for the employee?
1) Wal-Mart definitely employs the minimum number of people (at least the minimum number of work-hours or $'s) needed to run any of their stores. How do I know this? It's common sense... it is through their exceptional supply chain practices and efficient cost controls that Wal-Mart ever became the number one retailer on the planet. They wouldn't be number one today if not for those things. Arguing that Wal-Mart is one of the world's largest employers today isn't the point. My point is that the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses which would exist today if not for Wal-Mart's squashing them out of existence the past 20+ years would likely have employed more people if not just for the fact that the HR/personnel economy of scale Wal-Mart enjoys at its mammoth properties isn't something they would have.
2) I never used the phrase mom-and-pop and I think it is you who has a fairy tale image of what Wal-Mart's real impact is on our world. Making broad sweeping statements of how the small and medium-sized businesses Wal-Mart drove out of business must have been managed is ignorant in light of how many we're talking about... we're talking about 1000s; not just one or two. On the other hand it is well documented how Wal-Mart is run today, how its employees are treated, and details investments made into the Wal-Mart store local economies (or lack thereof) are public as well... so we don't have to conjecture about those things.
Wal-Mart enjoys fantastic economy of scale, preferred treatment from Federal and state & local Government, and they are a massively funded public company which means they can leverage assets and $ no small or medium-sized business can compete against. Those things don't make Wal-Mart a "great company," I instead argue that it just makes them on the receiving end of a lot of momentum... momentum to take over the retail world with continued expansion and monopolization of their markets. At some point people will have to pull their heads out of their behinds and realize that Wal-Mart is just too big and detrimental to the local economies within which they sell their products.
1)At some point people will have to pull their heads out of their behinds and realize that Wal-Mart is just too big and detrimental to the local economies within which they sell their products.
This is what you'd have to think. But the American people have this love affair with Wal-Mart, and seem willing to let all the other businesses in town die so that it may live.
Walmart started the $4 prescription program where dirt cheap drugs were finally sold dirt cheap. Many who could not afford their presciptions previously, now can.
In some areas Walmart is severely denting payday loan/ check cashing places by doing it for a fraction of the cost. Poor people paying 3% to cash their paychecks is a bad idea. WM does it for like $3.
Gee, I wish I would have known that before I got my Bachelor in CS. I had no idea that unskilled, uneducated laborers should be making more money than those with advanced degrees.
That's the union mentality for ya.
Now you're saying that you're entitled? So you conservatives think it's fine when you're entitled but not when the other guy is?
Thanks for making your contempt for hard work and those who perform it so obvious, every word from your mouth helps expose conservative hypocrisy and conservative hostility towards blue collar workers.
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