Simple Wal-Mart economics
This is a follow-up to my two recent posts about states creating laws forcing large private companies to spend an arbitrary amount of money on healthcare. The entire idea is based on the extremely faulty premise that politcians know how to run businesses better than businesses. Before I even begin let me state this simple fact:
Wal-Mart is a private business that people CHOOSE to spend money at where workers CHOOSE to work.
Steven Hanke wrote an interesting article about how this law will HURT low-income workers.
Basically, the law will force Wal-Mart to reconsider its plans to build a distribution center in the poorest area of Maryland, Somerset County, that would have provided 800 jobs. So, 800 people that do not have jobs will continue to not have jobs because of this law that is aimed at "helping" low-income workers.
What does this mean for Somerset's local economy?
(from the article)
"The center's 800 employees would have created an additional 282 jobs among "upstream" suppliers and "downstream" retailers and service establishments; all told, the center would have boosted county employment by 14% and private-sector employment by 20%.
Total annual employee compensation in Somerset would have risen by $46.5 million, or 19%.
Annual output (or "gross county product") would have risen by $128.3 million, or 19%.
State and local tax receipts would have increased by $19.2 million annually; this would include $8.5 million in property taxes, $5.6 million in sales taxes, and $1.4 million in personal income taxes. "
And those numbers do not even take into consideration all of the businesses that could have profited from the building of the enormous center! Contractors, builders, lumber, elcictricians, plumbers, land surveyors, window installers, etc etc etc.
And what happens when a business moves in providing a spike in the economy? Other businesses do business there, property values increase, jobs are created....and the cycle repeats and repeats..
That is until big government steps in to get a chunk of the action!
posted by DOBBER at 9:44 PM
10 Comments:
Workers CHOOSE to work at Mal-Wart? LOL
I often ask young people what they want to be when they grow up and they invariably reply, "When I grow up I hope to have one of those low paying, no benefit, dead end jobs at Mal-Wart." It's become so popular that it's now passed out doctor, lawyer, and indian chief among future workers according to a recent survey.
The interesting article you cited is posted on the CATO Institute web site. I can't waste my time reading articles from lying bastards like that. I've seen that group spin their lies for decades. It's one of the older "right wing stink tanks." Just a lot of lies.
And as far a jobs, let's take a look at all the good jobs that Mal-Wart has destroyed while helping to secure the future of the fascist Chinese government. Mal-Wart - a great American company with great American values - greed trumps freedom.
Now here's a link worth following -
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/
7:15 PM
sorry for the broken link
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/
7:23 PM
Anonymous, do you have a name?
I cited the Cato Institute in my post. You called them "lying bastards". Two points on that. First of all, if you can send me any definitive evidence that they have ever published a lie, send it to me and I'll gladly discredit my post and also blog about that! Second, calling someon a bad name, or making a claim like that is not going to get you very far when arguing, especially if you have no data to back it up. I could reply to your comment by saying "anonymous is wrong because she is a stinkerhead." but, if i dont have proof that your cranium is expuding un-odorous smells, then i would look stupid.
so kids dont want to grow up to be wal-mart workers? what's your point? I bet none of those kids surveryed said they want to grow up to be bloggers...but that's what i've grown up to be.
Why did you put "right wing stink tanks" in quotes??!?!?! I've never heard that term before.
Can you send me informatin on Wal-Mart destroying jobs? I've never read about Wal-Mart destroying jobs or paying taxes to the Chinese government.
Whenever I hear people complaining about Wal-Mart destroying jobs, I wonder what these people would be complaining about had they been born a long time ago. For example, would they have believed that Freezer companies were destroying the Ice Deliveryman job? Would they have lambasted the innovative freezer inventor and called for big government intervention?
My post was about a simple principle. Freedom. Recently the governments of a few states have created legislation forcing a private company to change the way it chooses to do business. This flies in the face of the philosophy of freedom (aka market capitalism).
My question to you, anonymous, is what should be done? It's great when people complain, that's how we form opinions. What's better is when you offer a solution. Mine is, allow Wal-Mart to pay its customers whatever it seems fit. If they like it, they'll work there. If people think it's unreasonable, they won't shop there.
9:30 PM
one more thing,
ill watch the pbs show as soon as i get back home and have broadband internet
9:32 PM
Do you seriously think there is amy connection between capitalism and freedom?
I know that is part of the American propaganda myth, but simply look at history and you'll see the truth.
Capitalism has thrived under under democratic governments but it has also thrived under all sorts of totalitarian regimes from monarchs to nazis. Today capitalism is doing just fine under the Chinese. Capitalism does not equal freedom. The companies that supplied nazi germany did fine then and are doing just fine now.
Meanwhile our wonderful Capitalist companies such as MicroSoft, Sun, Google, etc. are helping the chines further enslave their country by selling them the technology that will enable the chinese government to spy on and supress the human rights of their people. Capitalism has no interest in spreading freedom, only increasing profit.
Currently the Iranians, hardly an example of a free society, are instituting the "chinese model" which is CAPITALISM without freedom. Will you be extolling the virtues of market capitalism in in the new FREE IRAN?
A society can be free and have socialism or captialism.
A society can be enslaved and have socialism or capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system, not a political one.
As far as malwart destroying jobs, it's happening in every rural community they move into. View the recent movie "Walmart, the High Cost of Low Prices."
Quite often Malwart will move into a community with a store at the north end of town and one at the south end of town. Once they drive all the business IN town out of business, they close one of the stores. Thre are empty malwarts all over this country opened just for the purpose of destroying copetition.
A more serious problem is dealt with by the Frontline piece - manufacturing jobs.
I didn't say anywhere that "walmart is paying taxes to the chinese" so no need to respond to that one.
People don't work at malwarts because they like the work or like the pay. They work there because t
they have no choice.
OK, "stinktanks" is a PUN. Right-wing think-tanks were set up in the 60s and 70s to give legitamacy to the lies that the right-wing propaganda machine pushes.
You know, lies like:
capitalism equal freedom
As far as them being bastards, well I have to admit it, I never married the associate editor's mother or the executive editor's mother or the ....
I have plenty of solutions but it's getting late. Good night!
But one last quote -
From the movie Network (1976):
"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused"
1:15 AM
A simple search on Google - "CATO institute lies"
will turn up plenty of examples of CATO lies!
let's hope this link works!
CATO has been lying for so many years (decades) on so many issues that I automatically discount any info from them. They have lied on issues including:
smoking
social security
global warming
tax policy
In fact, I believe that is is CATO that, after years of denying that global warming even existed, has finally given in to the scientific evidence.
So what's their argument now?
Global warming is GOOD for the economy - shopping and shipping!
More people will go out shopping and the shipping lanes will be opened in northern Canada (finally the long sought Northwest Passage!)
If it's not CATO it's another one of those right-wing "stink-tanks" but I'll get back to you on that one.
And yes I have a name or a least some stolen song lyrics to prove it:
"Like the pine trees linin’ the windin’ road
I’ve got a name, I’ve got a name
Like the singin’ bird and the croakin’ toad
I’ve got a name, I’ve got a name
And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But I’m livin’ the dream that he kept hid
Movin’ me down the highway
Rollin’ me down the highway
Movin’ ahead so life won’t pass me by." - J. Croce
9:49 AM
Let me make one more try at that link. Obviouslly, for me, HTML stands for "Hard To Master Language."
My fingers are crossed
(if it doesnn't work,just copy and paste -
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/cato.html)
And please consider one final thought on the CATO Institute -
It's like Deep Throat said to Woodstein (the one played by Robert Redford) -
"Follow the money."
When CATO issues a report downplaying the dangers of smoking, who paid for the study? The tobacco industry.
When CATO issue a report debunking global warming, who paid for the study? The oil industry.
Yada, yada ...
Follow the money. CATO is a bought-and-paid-for corporate front. Those bastards.
Respectfully,
stinkerhead
5:03 PM
Well Travis, now it's two on one.
In this thread -
First, I've cited the Frontline show, no response.
I've cited the movie "WM - the High Cost of Low Prices", no response.
I've debunked the CATO Institute. I do apologize for calling them bastards. The proper word is WHORES.
I've cited China and Nazi Germany as examples of totalitarian capitalism and also, please read carefully, I wrote that Iran is "instituting the Chinese model". Look up instituting and you will see that one of the meanings is "beginning".
Here I'll make it easy -
http://dict.die.net/instituting/
I didn't say they had the chinese model, I said they were beginning it. Or more correctly, and here I do admit a slip of the keyboard, I should have said "they are considering instituting the chinese model."
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=22638&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
I know it's more convenient to change the subject or pick out one little detail and attack it rather than the overall truth of the argument. Freepers are especilly good at that.
So now you cite one source and want a response.
As for your source - Middle East Times through Freeperville, I will read it = as soon as my favorite Al Jazeera show is over. LOL
Nice talkin' to ya
3:14 PM
Stinkerhead, I read the first link from the ACHS rebutting CATO's article about the federal government lying on how many people die of cancer each year. i have no opinion on this issue. neither article won the argument in my book...besides it was a lot of science talk and jargon about sound scientific practices on reporting statistics...little old me could barely follow.
CATO was simply throwing out some criticism to the numbers reported. the real issue, in my brain, is the fact that we pay for healthcare for sick people who do not follow healthy lifestyles. why should i pay for healthcare for a person that chose to smoke cigarettes their whole life and now has cancer? i wouldnt expect stinkerhead to pay for me! its called social responsibility, which Americans are SORELY lacking these days!
i will watch that wal mart movie though soon...like i said i been travelling, but i only have a few days left up here in ohio and should have broadband internet soon in florida where i bought a new house. so, check back here in a week or two and we can chat some more. in the meantime, im going to enjoy my new house purchased by little old me, a peasant in the grand scheme of things! im also going to enjoy purchasing an internet connection from a willing provider, under the basic principles of capitalism (freedom) that we enjoy here in america. o yeah, before i forget, are you an american citizen? curious...
later
10:03 PM
Not just an "American citizen", but (still in spite of this current administration) a proud American citizen.
Of course, I would also be just as happy being described as -
Proud World Citizen
or
Proud Human
But I've seen nothing you, Dobber or Friend Travis have written that refutes my basic premise that capitalism DOES NOT equal freedom (except a certain degree of economic freedom). The ghosts of Tiananmen Square are laughing (or crying)!
Two hundred years ago capitalism was at work here in America and across the sea in England -
here under democracy,
there under the tyranny derived from the "divine rights" of kings.
Isn't our newest, best friend in the Middle East, UAE, engaing in captialism? But where is the freedom? The examples are legion.
And a final question, please, on the subject of personal responsibility.
Four mountain climbers get stuck on the side of the mountain and need rescue.
What's your solution?
10:57 PM
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