Walmart is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

It helps the people liberals (pretends to) care about.




https://www.city-journal.org/html/profit-anti-poverty-15120.html

"...Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government."

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

KLATTU said:

It helps the people liberals (pretends to) care about.




https://www.city-journal.org/html/profit-anti-poverty-15120.html

"...Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government."

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WalMart does what government programs claim to do but never achieve... make lives better and more cost effective.

Government programs never meet financial forecasts... ever... (they're laughably bad and wrong), they always demand more tax payer money, these failures are never cut or killed, and they seem to grow and grow and grow with no end in sight.

These programs are usually a ploy for Demokrats to buy votes, and use as a wedge for class warfare. Demokrats are never about lifting people up, but keeping them hooked on the government teet. They're a disgusting lot.

Of course, just watch the Leftist morons come out and try to disparage WalMart for making the cost of living cheaper... letting them have more money in their pockets.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

KLATTU said:

It helps the people liberals (pretends to) care about.


https://www.city-journal.org/html/profit-anti-poverty-15120.html

"...Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government."

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Another factoid from a 2003 article:

USATODAY.com - Wal-Mart's influence grows

Walmart alone accounted for as much as 25% of the U.S. productivity gains from 1995-99, says consultant McKinsey ..

There are plenty of anecdotes of Walmart merchandise buyers telling suppliers to lower their costs by buying from China "or else they would find someone who did". Another argument can be made that most of the productivity gains the article talks about are due to lower cost imports from China.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

KLATTU said:

It helps the people liberals (pretends to) care about.




https://www.city-journal.org/html/profit-anti-poverty-15120.html

"...Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government."

Click to expand...

So I am willing to entertain this notion, but have questions.

So undoubtedly Walmart drives down prices, but it does so at the cost of paying it's workforce very poorly and sourcing the vast majority of its products from non-US producers.

So I will accept the idea that Wal-Mart has brought down the cost of various consumer goods and household basics, but in order to call it a successful anti-poverty program it would have to have relieved a greater amount of poverty than it created, and when you factor in the low wages of the people it employs, the sheer number of people it employs, the undercutting of competing business leading to closings, and the domestic job loss from sourcing their products from abroad (walmart is by no means the only company guilty of this, but they do have their share of the blame), then you have to ask are they, as a net calculation, helping or hurting?

Now I personally do not have the information to make that judgment, but I have seen a plethora of very informed studies saying they cause massive harm as a whole, I also recognize that Wal Mart is a perennial favorite thing to bash, but certainly in my own anecdotal experience wal-mart certainly employes a lot of people, who due to the low wages can only afford to shop at walmart, and still need government assistance anyway, making walmart almost akin to the "company store" model from a darker time.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

So I am willing to entertain this notion, but have questions.

So undoubtedly Walmart drives down prices, but it does so at the cost of paying it's workforce very poorly and sourcing the vast majority of its products from non-US producers.

So I will accept the idea that Wal-Mart has brought down the cost of various consumer goods and household basics, but in order to call it a successful anti-poverty program it would have to have relieved a greater amount of poverty than it created, and when you factor in the low wages of the people it employs, the sheer number of people it employs, the undercutting of competing business leading to closings, and the domestic job loss from sourcing their products from abroad (walmart is by no means the only company guilty of this, but they do have their share of the blame), then you have to ask are they, as a net calculation, helping or hurting?

Now I personally do not have the information to make that judgment, but I have seen a plethora of very informed studies saying they cause massive harm as a whole, I also recognize that Wal Mart is a perennial favorite thing to bash, but certainly in my own anecdotal experience wal-mart certainly employes a lot of people, who due to the low wages can only afford to shop at walmart, and still need government assistance anyway, making walmart almost akin to the "company store" model from a darker time.

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The number of jobs lost to foreign competition pales when compared to the number of jobs lost due to technology/automation. The mission of a business is not to employ as many as possible at the highest wages possible. It is still a net economic benefit to supplement low pay for those in need via the "safety net" rather than to require paying everyone more.

Walmart gets a price break (volume discount) on domestic, as well as foreign products, because it buys them in such huge quantities - much like other outlets that offer "free" shipping on orders over $X. Obviously the shipping is not "free" - it is simply a discount for those making larger purchases at one time.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

Can't find a manufacturing job in the US that pays the bills ?

Don't worry, Malwart will save you by bringing in cheap goods made with slave labor from overseas !

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

So I am willing to entertain this notion, but have questions.

So undoubtedly Walmart drives down prices, but it does so at the cost of paying it's workforce very poorly and sourcing the vast majority of its products from non-US producers.

Click to expand...

Not intellectually honest to single out Walmart for this. Lowest-cost retail companies have always been low-paying and will always be low-paying because that is the essence of their business model and it's what their customers fiercely demand. Walmart was a successful competitor in this regard. You make it seem like they're committing a crime in order to succeed. If they hadn't, someone else would have, because customers fiercely demand lowest-cost alternatives when it comes to basic retail.

So I will accept the idea that Wal-Mart has brought down the cost of various consumer goods and household basics, but in order to call it a successful anti-poverty program it would have to have relieved a greater amount of poverty than it created, and when you factor in the low wages of the people it employs, the sheer number of people it employs, the undercutting of competing business leading to closings, and the domestic job loss from sourcing their products from abroad (walmart is by no means the only company guilty of this, but they do have their share of the blame), then you have to ask are they, as a net calculation, helping or hurting?

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Both. They're helping and hurting. So is everyone else. Theoretically, every penny you save helps because it makes you better off, but it makes someone else worse off because that penny saved is a penny not spent on their business.

Now I personally do not have the information to make that judgment, but I have seen a plethora of very informed studies saying they cause massive harm as a whole,

Click to expand...

You can set up a study to say anything you want. You just choose your metric and you can craft whatever subjective value judgment conclusion you want, because you get to choose the metric.

I also recognize that Wal Mart is a perennial favorite thing to bash, but certainly in my own anecdotal experience wal-mart certainly employes a lot of people, who due to the low wages can only afford to shop at walmart,

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This is super highly debatable, and I'd even go so far as to say it's flat out dishonest. In a few cases but not many cases, Walmart has de facto localized monopoly power, but otherwise people can find everything they carry at similar prices elsewhere. If they're too lazy to do so because they might as well just buy everything from their employer after their shift ends, well that makes sense because of convenience, but that's their choice and so it's not honest to arbitrarily claim they can "only afford to shop at" Walmart.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

zimmer said:

WalMart does what government programs claim to do but never achieve... make lives better and more cost effective.

Government programs never meet financial forecasts... ever... (they're laughably bad and wrong), they always demand more tax payer money, these failures are never cut or killed, and they seem to grow and grow and grow with no end in sight.

These programs are usually a ploy for Demokrats to buy votes, and use as a wedge for class warfare. Demokrats are never about lifting people up, but keeping them hooked on the government teet. They're a disgusting lot.

Of course, just watch the Leftist morons come out and try to disparage WalMart for making the cost of living cheaper... letting them have more money in their pockets.

Click to expand...

Democrats is spelled with a c, not a k.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

KLATTU said:

It helps the people liberals (pretends to) care about.




https://www.city-journal.org/html/profit-anti-poverty-15120.html

"...Walmart’s benefits are obvious to shoppers and to economists like Jason Furman, who served in the Clinton administration and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. In a paper, “Walmart: A Progressive Success Story,” Furman cited estimates that Walmart, by driving down prices, saved the typical American family more than $2,300 annually. That was about the same amount that a family on food stamps then received from the federal government."

Click to expand...

Why dont they just come out and say it. Buying goods from china is the only way most people in this country can afford stuff.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

I think we all need to realize are economy is in a much more fragile state then we think it is. We have evolved from exploiting people from slaves in our own country to importing goods from slave labor in other countries. Employing slave labor in illegal immigrants for odd and ends jobs mostly in construction and picking the fruit & vegetables we eat. Buying oil from other countries that destroy the enviroment and employee slave labor. So on a global scale were are hurting people in other countries and hurting the enviroment in other countries and contributing to harming the world all to prop our country and ourselves up and then can also claim the moral high ground that we dont do those harmful things in this country.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

So first I would like to say that I really thought I was couching my statement in reserved tones of earnest conversation, and you seemed to take a rather aggressive confrontational rather than deliberative track. Just, ya know, calibrate the tone if you would please.

Neomalthusian said:

Not intellectually honest to single out Walmart for this...

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So, for one, later in my reply I do take an aside to specifically note that Walmart is by no means the sole guilty party is that scenario. But they are obviously a guilty party. Obviously the problem of outsourced goods and the evisceration of US based production is a whole giant conversation, but WalMart is a cog in that machine, and to the same dimensions that they are a cog in that machine, those are the dimensions we must consider when trying to figure out if Walmart is a net help or hindrance to the institution of poverty.

So yes, if Walmart hadn't done it someone else would have, and then we would be discussing that company instead of Walmart, but the fact remains that Walmart did do it, and you can't excuse the actual because of the might have beens.

Neomalthusian said:

customers fiercely demand lowest-cost alternatives when it comes to basic retail.

Click to expand...

This is not nearly as simple as you make it out to be. Do people demand low cost goods to save money to spend on other things, or do they demand low cost goods because they have no money and no other option? When it comes to basic staples like detergent and eggs and milk, sure, even middle class people would rather spend less than more cause and egg is an egg. But when it comes to things like clothes and appliances....well numerous studies show that if people do have discretionary money they would rather spend a bit more on things like that for the higher quality product and only dont when they can't. Essentially, if walmart was effective at addressing poverty they would slowly and inexorably dry up a significant portion of their own market, not expand it, and I dare say most profit driven entities are not eager to do that.

Neomalthusian said:

Both. They're helping and hurting.

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Yes, clearly, which is why I proposed that we should be considering if they are, on net, helping or hurting, and that question does have an answer. Are you and I here in this thread able to suss that answer out? Probably not, but that question does have an answer is cannot be "both".

Neomalthusian said:

Theoretically, every penny you save helps because it makes you better off, but it makes someone else worse off because that penny saved is a penny not spent on their business.

Click to expand...

Not really true. The value of currency is in constant flux and wealth is constantly created and lost. Wealth is not a fixed sum, me getting more does not necessarily mean someone else out there gets less. It is entirely possible for me to make more money and nobody else in the world have lost that same amount, and entirely possible for me to lose a huge sum, and nobody else to have gained it.

Neomalthusian said:

You can set up a study to say anything you want. You just choose your metric and you can craft whatever subjective value judgment conclusion you want, because you get to choose the metric.

Click to expand...

Right, which is why I am not deferring to any, I am approaching this conversation from what we here can observe and reason and know, rather than getting into a "who has the best study" dick measuring contest.

Neomalthusian said:

This is super highly debatable, and I'd even go so far as to say it's flat out dishonest. In a few cases but not many cases, Walmart has de facto localized monopoly power, but otherwise people can find everything they carry at similar prices elsewhere. If they're too lazy to do so because they might as well just buy everything from their employer after their shift ends, well that makes sense because of convenience, but that's their choice and so it's not honest to arbitrarily claim they can "only afford to shop at" Walmart.

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1- They get an employee discount, so shopping at walmart is actually cheaper for them than shopping at other stores in town with the same sticker prices.
2- Going somewhere else costs bus fare or has money, so the fact that they are already at walmart for work and so shop there is also a matter of not being able to afford to, literally, go somewhere else, not a matter of laziness.
3-These two factors combined with the extremely low wages of Walmart often result in a situation where there employees truly cannot afford to shop anywhere else.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

So I am willing to entertain this notion, but have questions.

So undoubtedly Walmart drives down prices, but it does so at the cost of paying it's workforce very poorly and sourcing the vast majority of its products from non-US producers.

So I will accept the idea that Wal-Mart has brought down the cost of various consumer goods and household basics, but in order to call it a successful anti-poverty program it would have to have relieved a greater amount of poverty than it created, and when you factor in the low wages of the people it employs, the sheer number of people it employs, the undercutting of competing business leading to closings, and the domestic job loss from sourcing their products from abroad (walmart is by no means the only company guilty of this, but they do have their share of the blame), then you have to ask are they, as a net calculation, helping or hurting?

Now I personally do not have the information to make that judgment, but I have seen a plethora of very informed studies saying they cause massive harm as a whole, I also recognize that Wal Mart is a perennial favorite thing to bash, but certainly in my own anecdotal experience wal-mart certainly employes a lot of people, who due to the low wages can only afford to shop at walmart, and still need government assistance anyway, making walmart almost akin to the "company store" model from a darker time.

Click to expand...

How does providing jobs create poverty??

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jdog21 said:

Why dont they just come out and say it. Buying goods from china is the only way most people in this country can afford stuff.

Click to expand...

and?....

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

So I am willing to entertain this notion, but have questions.

So undoubtedly Walmart drives down prices, but it does so at the cost of paying it's workforce very poorly and sourcing the vast majority of its products from non-US producers.

So I will accept the idea that Wal-Mart has brought down the cost of various consumer goods and household basics, but in order to call it a successful anti-poverty program it would have to have relieved a greater amount of poverty than it created, and when you factor in the low wages of the people it employs, the sheer number of people it employs, the undercutting of competing business leading to closings, and the domestic job loss from sourcing their products from abroad (walmart is by no means the only company guilty of this, but they do have their share of the blame), then you have to ask are they, as a net calculation, helping or hurting?

Now I personally do not have the information to make that judgment, but I have seen a plethora of very informed studies saying they cause massive harm as a whole, I also recognize that Wal Mart is a perennial favorite thing to bash, but certainly in my own anecdotal experience wal-mart certainly employes a lot of people, who due to the low wages can only afford to shop at walmart, and still need government assistance anyway, making walmart almost akin to the "company store" model from a darker time.

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I think it's a completely fair point. The Walmart business model has put other businesses out of business, so the net job gain or loss isn't as simple as calculating the number of people Walmart employs.

If it were the case that Walmart ruined a lot of small businesses and then hired all those people back at much lower wages that would undermine the argument that Walmart is an anti-poverty program. However, you don't need a study to figure out that isn't the case. And walmart isn't shanghai-ing people from good paying jobs to work there for 15 dollars an hour. Walmart typically offers employment to low skilled workers who othere wise would be not working.at all

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

faithful_servant said:

How does providing jobs create poverty??

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Walmart forces the American tax-payer to subsidize its labor cost by, only paying employees 9-10 dollars per hour. Because you can't get by on 9-10 dollars an hour, without overtime, Walmart employees must go on SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, which are all funded by the American tax-payer. If Walmart paid living wages, then the American tax payer would not have to subsidize their labor cost.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

Winston said:

Walmart forces the American tax-payer to subsidize its labor cost by, only paying employees 9-10 dollars per hour. Because you can't get by on 9-10 dollars an hour, without overtime, Walmart employees must go on SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, which are all funded by the American tax-payer. If Walmart paid living wages, then the American tax payer would not have to subsidize their labor cost.

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My wife makes about $17/hr. and gets 8 hours PTO for every 40 hours she works. Of course, she busts her ass and manages the best deli in the whole chain, so she's paid more than most, but that's because she busts her ass for it. If all of these SNAP. WIC, etc. recipients were to bust their asses as hard as she does, maybe they'd be making that kind of wage.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

faithful_servant said:

My wife makes about $17/hr. and gets 8 hours PTO for every 40 hours she works. Of course, she busts her ass and manages the best deli in the whole chain, so she's paid more than most, but that's because she busts her ass for it. If all of these SNAP. WIC, etc. recipients were to bust their asses as hard as she does, maybe they'd be making that kind of wage.

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Yeah, cashier's shouldn't expect to make 17/hour. But, they also shouldn't expect to work full time and not be able to afford to put food on the table for their families. Economics is a nuanced and complex science. If you work for Walmart in San Francisco, and they pay you 9 dollars an hour, you might as well quit your job and start begging on the street. But, if you make 9 dollars an hour in Arkansas, I'm sure that's doable, if not ideal. Definitely, can't raise a family on 9 dollars an hour. But, you won't starve. Your solution of "just make everyone work harder", is kind of idealist if you ask me. Tell a cashier who works 40 hours a week at a menial job that they just aren't working hard enough, to be able to afford the American dream, i.e., a house, home ownership, pride in their neighborhoods and their families. Try telling them, "You're just not working hard enough." I understand the argument that you're not supposed to cashier your entire lives, but, why not? Walmart has already wrecked local economies and destroyed small business and replaced General Motors as the largest employer in America, they need to step up to the plate, and at least pay a wage tied to CoL, in the area. Congratulations on your wife's success too. It sounds like she's a determined employee, who takes pride in her job.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

faithful_servant said:

How does providing jobs create poverty??

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That, my friend, has been a constant vexing puzzle since the end of the Feudal system. No educated person would deny that entire industries that functioned as poverty and dependence engines, grinding up lives and churning out profit, have existed, the question here is to what degree, if any at all, is walmart such an entity or may in fact be the opposite.

But if you want a good easy presented and comprehensible example of how work can create, and in fact institutionalize, poverty, then I would recommend the book Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry. It is just one small example, but a very easily understood one.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

Winston said:

Yeah, cashier's shouldn't expect to make 17/hour. But, they also shouldn't expect to work full time and not be able to afford to put food on the table for their families. Economics is a nuanced and complex science. If you work for Walmart in San Francisco, and they pay you 9 dollars an hour, you might as well quit your job and start begging on the street. But, if you make 9 dollars an hour in Arkansas, I'm sure that's doable, if not ideal. Definitely, can't raise a family on 9 dollars an hour. But, you won't starve. Your solution of "just make everyone work harder", is kind of idealist if you ask me. Tell a cashier who works 40 hours a week at a menial job that they just aren't working hard enough, to be able to afford the American dream, i.e., a house, home ownership, pride in their neighborhoods and their families. Try telling them, "You're just not working hard enough." I understand the argument that you're not supposed to cashier your entire lives, but, why not? Walmart has already wrecked local economies and destroyed small business and replaced General Motors as the largest employer in America, they need to step up to the plate, and at least pay a wage tied to CoL, in the area. Congratulations on your wife's success too. It sounds like she's a determined employee, who takes pride in her job.

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We often make the mistake of putting the whole questing on the shoulders of the hourly wage. That's only half of it, the cost of living in the other half. $17 and hour is damn fine living in some places, and is starvation wages in other places. The real question is "what kind of lifestyle should I expect in return for my work" and most decent people agree that when you work for the largest employer in the world, one of the most profitable companies in modern history, is in obscene to make so little money you would be starving or homeless if the government didn't cut you an extra check.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

We often make the mistake of putting the whole questing on the shoulders of the hourly wage. That's only half of it, the cost of living in the other half. $17 and hour is damn fine living in some places, and is starvation wages in other places. The real question is "what kind of lifestyle should I expect in return for my work" and most decent people agree that when you work for the largest employer in the world, one of the most profitable companies in modern history, is in obscene to make so little money you would be starving or homeless if the government didn't cut you an extra check.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family

The Walton family is worth over 120 Billion dollars. Their kids, kids, kids, kids will want for nothing. After making their fortune off the American consumer, the least they can do, is pay the lowest of their employees, a livable wage, with some bennies.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

Winston said:

Walmart forces the American tax-payer to subsidize its labor cost by, only paying employees 9-10 dollars per hour. Because you can't get by on 9-10 dollars an hour, without overtime, Walmart employees must go on SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, which are all funded by the American tax-payer. If Walmart paid living wages, then the American tax payer would not have to subsidize their labor cost.

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This is the lw zombie meme that just won't die no matter illogical it is.

1) There are plenty of companies besides walmart that pay similar wages.If they all paid 'living wages' then a very large number of those people wouldn't have a job at all so there wage would be zero and the amount of gov't benefits they recieiveve would increase. The rational way to look at is that Walmert is saving the taxpayer a lot of money by hiring people.Only in liberal utopis, aka fantasy land do companies set their wages to eliminate the need for govt assistance.

2) No liberal should ever want the cost of Gov't services transferred to business. Besides the unemployment effect noted above. when the taxpayer pays these benfits, it is wealthy paying it since wealthy people pay almost tal the federal income taxes in this country.

3) IF walmart were forced to pay workers more, they'd probbaly lay people off or charge higher prices. Thus depriving low income people of that massive benefit

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

KLATTU said:

This is the lw zombie meme that just won't die no matter illogical it is.

1) There are plenty of companies besides walmart that pay similar wages.If they all paid 'living wages' then a very large number of those people wouldn't have a job at all so there wage would be zero and the amount of gov't benefits they recieiveve would increase. The rational way to look at is that Walmert is saving the taxpayer a lot of money by hiring people.Only in liberal utopis, aka fantasy land do companies set their wages to eliminate the need for govt assistance.

2) No liberal should ever want the cost of Gov't services transferred to business. Besides the unemployment effect noted above. when the taxpayer pays these benfits, it is wealthy paying it since wealthy people pay almost tal the federal income taxes in this country.

3) IF walmart were forced to pay workers more, they'd probbaly lay people off or charge higher prices. Thus depriving low income people of that massive benefit

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Those are garbage talking points directly out of the heritage foundation playbook. Walmart is worth billions and they wreck local economies by outcompeting small business on price by their sheer size. If they want to suck the blood out of the local economies they should do it on their dime, not the American tax payers.

If Walmart is the largest employer in America now. It is what GM was in the 50s. Did GM employees have to go on welfare to get by? Or, were they able to provide abundantly for their families?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

If you aim for a 9-10 dollar an hour job stocking shelves, then you can expect to live low rent.

If you want a living wage, then get off your lazy ass and go learn a trade or some other white collar specialty.

Only non motivated ******s whine about McDonald's workers & and Walmart workers needing to make the same money as a decent semi skilled & skilled worker.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

jimithyashford said:

So first I would like to say that I really thought I was couching my statement in reserved tones of earnest conversation, and you seemed to take a rather aggressive confrontational rather than deliberative track. Just, ya know, calibrate the tone if you would please.

So, for one, later in my reply I do take an aside to specifically note that Walmart is by no means the sole guilty party is that scenario. But they are obviously a guilty party. Obviously the problem of outsourced goods and the evisceration of US based production is a whole giant conversation, but WalMart is a cog in that machine, and to the same dimensions that they are a cog in that machine, those are the dimensions we must consider when trying to figure out if Walmart is a net help or hindrance to the institution of poverty.

So yes, if Walmart hadn't done it someone else would have, and then we would be discussing that company instead of Walmart, but the fact remains that Walmart did do it, and you can't excuse the actual because of the might have beens.

This is not nearly as simple as you make it out to be. Do people demand low cost goods to save money to spend on other things, or do they demand low cost goods because they have no money and no other option? When it comes to basic staples like detergent and eggs and milk, sure, even middle class people would rather spend less than more cause and egg is an egg. But when it comes to things like clothes and appliances....well numerous studies show that if people do have discretionary money they would rather spend a bit more on things like that for the higher quality product and only dont when they can't. Essentially, if walmart was effective at addressing poverty they would slowly and inexorably dry up a significant portion of their own market, not expand it, and I dare say most profit driven entities are not eager to do that.

Yes, clearly, which is why I proposed that we should be considering if they are, on net, helping or hurting, and that question does have an answer. Are you and I here in this thread able to suss that answer out? Probably not, but that question does have an answer is cannot be "both".

Not really true. The value of currency is in constant flux and wealth is constantly created and lost. Wealth is not a fixed sum, me getting more does not necessarily mean someone else out there gets less. It is entirely possible for me to make more money and nobody else in the world have lost that same amount, and entirely possible for me to lose a huge sum, and nobody else to have gained it.

Right, which is why I am not deferring to any, I am approaching this conversation from what we here can observe and reason and know, rather than getting into a "who has the best study" dick measuring contest.

1- They get an employee discount, so shopping at walmart is actually cheaper for them than shopping at other stores in town with the same sticker prices.
2- Going somewhere else costs bus fare or has money, so the fact that they are already at walmart for work and so shop there is also a matter of not being able to afford to, literally, go somewhere else, not a matter of laziness.
3-These two factors combined with the extremely low wages of Walmart often result in a situation where there employees truly cannot afford to shop anywhere else.

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Regarding my tone, you'll be okay. It's an internet political forum.

Regarding the idea that Walmart is "guilty," and that we should come to the subjective conclusion that Walmart in particular is either "a net positive" or "net negative" to the world, I disagree, and that's entirely subjective rhetoric anyway. Walmart is not the only place to find cheap retail goods. No one is "forced" to shop there. Walmart's own employees might have rational reasons to buy a lot of their stuff from Walmart, but that does not mean they're forced to do anything. Walmart undercuts less efficient business models and on one hand that's "bad" but on the other hand it's "good." Walmart pays lower wages than some other retailers, but pays more on average than other retailers. Walmart pays fairly low wages overall but employers more people per unit of sales than, say, a successful wholesale business like Costco. "Good," or "bad?" Pointless endeavor to come up with subjective overall judgments against particular companies.

Re: Walmat is is one of the most efficient anti-poverty programs in America

Winston said:

T
If Walmart is the largest employer in America now. It is what GM was in the 50s. Did GM employees have to go on welfare to get by? Or, were they able to provide abundantly for their families?

alk

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Bad example. Gm went down the tubes because they overpaid labor. A lot of that had to do with unions, which helped some but of course drove many wages to 0 ( as in lost jobs) .
Hey maybe we should force Walmart to overpay workers, so the stores shut down. That's teach those greedy SOB's huh?

Walmart jobs tend to be low