Stop being a business. Stop making so much money. Think of the children you are hurting. The working family is suffering damnit. WAKE UP WALL MART
Yes - Wall Mart is the one who needs to be woken up.
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People should be free to choose what is best for themselves as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. I created this blog to discuss issues I have with big government, liberal media,and to talk about my support for capitalism and the Iraq War.
12 comments:
Man, this is a private, consumer-advocacy group trying to convince people to act against a business with god prices but bad social policies. This is exactly your argument for why heavy government regulation of the free market isn't neccessary (because consumers will band against unethical corporations). I can't imagine why you would be dissing these people, unless you were blindly pro-business underneath your more nuanced libertarian rhetoric.
What a crappy argument. Because you support a system the permits open discourse you are not allowed to discuss with those that engage in such discourse.
HUH!?!??!?!?!?!?
Reminds me of your equally lame arugment regarding democarcy. Since i embrace democarcy Im not allowed to argue against the majority position. Apparenly true belief in democarcy means remaining silent when one disagrees withe majority. Advocaters do not support democarcy.
Some might argue that one can embrace democarcy while at the same time critize the majority's position on any given topic. One might argue that this is the very essence of democarcy -freedom to express your minority opinion in the hopes of changing enough opinions to form a majority.
Same can be said about open discourse. One that supports open discourse should also be allowed to engage in open discourse. It makes no sense that those who support open discourse must remain silent during that discourse. Whats the point of supporting dicourse when it restricts your right to engage in that discourse. In fact one might argue that the only reason for open discourse is that they can engage in that discourse.
As a side note, Libertarian rhetoric is heavily pro-business. Or I should say Lbertarians heavily support free markets which inevitably becomes a pro-business argument. To illustate this more clearly your last clause could find analog to this clause:'unless you were blindly pro-helping people underneath your more nuanced liberal rhetoric'.
I can say good for you private consumer group - and at the same time call them retards.
diatribe-
I totally agree, you can support the system these people represent while disagreeing with the points they make. The only problem is you DON'T disagree with the points they make, you make fun of them for trying to force Wal-Mart to be socially responsible, because Wal-Mart is a BUSINESS and the only concern of a business is to make MONEY. I hope you can understand why it feels to me reading your original post that you're denigrating the entire idea of consumer groups trying to force a social conscience onto businesses, rather than disagreeing with the particular message and cliams of this one group.
Sophist-
You have exactly stated my position as though it were something I disagreed with. I have ALWAYS made VERY EXPLICIT in my majority argument that the responsible role of an individual who disagrees with the majority is to try to convince as many people as possible to agree with them, rather than trying to circumvent the majority by getting laws passed through lobbying or other means when the majority still disagrees with those laws. This further supports my point that your 'objections' to my positions almost always come from you ignoring parts of my arguments and then acting later like I said something different because that's what you were expecting to hear.
Mosly you do the ignorning of your own arguments. Particularly when others show they are wrong, but you arerelunctant to publicly concede the error.
Did you even address the actual argument, to which the democracy argument was used primarily in the service of making my counter argument more clear?
Who ignores whose arguments?
Yes, I adressed your larger argument about open discourse in my response to Diatribe, where I point out that I'm not objecting to him entering in discourse with these people, I'm objecting to him (from my reading at least) dismissing these people without adressing their points at all- in effect, REFUSIG to enter into discourse with them. I guess I didn't explicitly state that as a rebuttal to your point, but I thought it was pretty easy to catch.
Ok let me get specific about the point. This groups and you it appears believe wall mart needs a lesson on social responsbilities. Are you telling me that the head honchos are sitting up in their board room going - How can we screw over our employees today. I cannot think of any successful businesses that try are screw their emplyoees and in turn dick over the consumer. Wall Mart keeps their prices cheap becuase there is a population out there that needs that. Paying starting wasges over minumum wage is not an insult to their employees. It is an entry level position for those looking for part time work. I do not care if that is a high school kid or a mom of three. They both get the starting wage in the beginning and if the mom wants to make more she can show how good of an employee she is and get bonuses and work her way up the ladder. The high school kid will move on to college and be replaced by another high school kid. You cannot force a business to pay certain amount of money becuase you believe that is the right thing to do. You make it seem that these private groups care about people and Wall Mart does not becuase they wont pay more money. If I owned wall mart i would not pay this 13 hour to a starting employee and I care a shit loud about people. I am a guidance counselor for christ sake. I undersand economics/the market. It does not work that way. But it is fun to think you are the good guy fighting evil doesnt it.
Starting wages ($8 hour)
By the way I worked 8 years at Target and I went from 4.65 an hour to $8.75 an hour. Damn near double. And I did not want to move up to full time and get more responsbility becuase I was in school. Moms of three can work full time and attain more responsibility (if they choose to)= more money.
This topic really invigorates me beucase I keep hearing how are people supposed to live off this wage. They are not! There not supposed to be able to live comfortably on an entry level job.
I keep hearing how Wall Mart should be socially responsbile. What about the mother of three. Why are we not holding her responsible for having those three kids she now has to feed. She could not have said NO to unprotected sex. She could have said yes to an abortion (not making a statement). She choose to have these kids and Wall Mart should be responsible for her. WTF.
I think your last argument is your strongest. Why should Walmart, but really anyone that now has to pay higher prices because of forced pay wages, have to assume responsibility for someone that makes bad decisions.
Anyone can live on 8 dollars an hour. It wont be glamorous living but it can be done. One can not support 3 chilren on 8 dollars an hour. Thats why you dont have children when you are only making 8 dollars an hour. Duh, i might add.
Slow down a sec diatribe. When did I EVER say I agree with these guys? I just think that their efforts deserve a detailed response, which you've finally provided, and which sounds pretty good.
I agree that these people don't seem to have a good grasp of market forces, and a lot of their arguments are pretty laughable. But on the other hand, while Wal-Mart obviously doesn't sit around trying to screw their employees, they also don't sit around all day trying to think of ways to help the community and our society. That's not an accusation- that isn't, and shouldn't be, their job. However, it is, and should be, the jo of advocacy groups like this one to think about those things, and to try to bring about positive economic change through the social mechanisms available to them. Whether or not this particular group is doing a good job of that or not is anotehr question- I agree, their over-the-top, simplistic rhetoric is probably doing more harm than good. Nonetheless, I do want someone out there doing what they're doing, I just wish they were doing a better job of it.
One response I would make to your specific arguments is that Wal-Mart actually hires many elderly people who end up taking these 'entry-level' jobs at teh ends of their careers simply because no one else will hire the elderly. One of the arguments I've heard is that this actually REMOVES entry-level jobs for high-school kids and single moms, since Wal-Mart shuts out local businesses that would ussually hire these entry-level employees, but then hires the elderly instead. I don't have the statistics neccessary to make that strong claim, but it's this type of consideration that needs to be closely examined before blindly decalaring that all businesses=good for everyone.
There's an infinite number of ways for any economy to function, and while a free market is definitely the best overall system for shaping that, there's no reason to think that the free amrket always in all cases everywhere delivers the absolute best possible solution for everyone. So I don't have a problem listening to arguments for change on a specific, case-by-case basis.
As for your last point about the mother of three, I'm not sure how you're trying to work welfare into this argument, since these people want better pay for ALL workers regardless of situaiton, but I'll play along anyway.
First of all, obviously, the idea is not that we should all have to pay for someone else's mistakes, but that there are people in need, period, and we should help them.
Second of all, even under your own logic, those 3 kids didn't make any bad choices; why hould THEY have to suffer for someone else's mistakes if the rest of us don't?
Third, and most importantly to me, is that every time we argue about something like this, you always, always go to an anecdotal argument, and that will always, always fail with me. She has 3 kids to support on $8 an hour? Sounds like she made bad decisions? Maybe her husband made $50,000 a year while she stayed at home caring for the kids, but he was killed in a boating accident 3 years ago and now she's left with 3 kids and no skills. Where were her bad decisions there?
You try to paint a picture in which everyone who needs help is foolish, short-sighted scum, undeserving of our sympathy or support. But I simply don't buy it. Human life is order of magnitude more complex and beautiful than that, and there are a thousand life paths to every destination.
I'm sure most of the people on wellfare have made mistakes somewhere in their lives. Who cares. I've made shitloads of mistakes in my life; my fall was 100% cushioned by a well-off family and some natural abilities. If you want to tell me you've never made a mistake in your entire life, and that your friends and family and the circumstances to which you were born never helped you get to where you are today in any way, then I call you a liar. But as long as we're all humans, I can empathize with just about anyone; and as long as you're not hurting anybody else, I do feel a duty to help you, just as I have been helped every day of my life.
I actually disagree with your statement about Wall Mart not helping the community. Why wouldnt Wall Mart want to give back to the community. They want those customers and employees from the area. You go to wall mart and their are programs that give money back to local school in the community. They also help sponsore local events in the area.
So they do try and help the community.
About the elerly people argument - those people are given jobs like saying hello at the door. Having old people on the register or customer service does not happen much becuase people do not want to wait all day in line. Hence that goes to the younger and more energetic of the bunch.
And lastly about your people in need argument - and we need to help them. Sounds a lot like white guilt. Sorry I do not have any of that. I was not raised with parents who had a shit load of money and hence never had to work a day in their life. Every thing I got I earned. I worked for where I am today. No one gave me anything. All that I had (car, clothes, gas, insurance - I had to work to get. Hell at one time during college I had 4 jobs (target, Radio, TV, Mad Science). So I do not feel people should just be helped. If you choose with your own money to help - then that is great- but people can begin to rely on that instead of relying on themselves. So that can be a slippery slope. Now my parents did give me things for my b-day and Christmas - i do not want to make it seem like I was not given anything. But my parents did instill in me that if I wanted something I had to get in myself. There is never a day where I do not thank them for that!
Now - what is more likely a dad dying in a boat accident or a mom and dad divorcing/seperating/dad just left/or was never there and now the mom is home on her own? By the way with an 8 hour job - these kids are not going to live the life of luxury - but there not starving to death either. There will have to be sacrifices until mom can work her way up the system. Everything should not be easy for people. If mistaks are made it is going to be tough and should be tough to get back on track. This way they can be more cautious next time and will not need to rely on others.
This whole mistake argument at the end - of course I have made mistakes - i have learned from them - and i try not to repeat them- i was in three car accidents when I was sixteen- I had to pay to fix my car that I bought - guess what i did -SLOWED DOWN. I realized the money i used to spend on myself for going out with friend or video games at the time wnet to my car and that sucked. Hence I stopped doing that shit that was hurting me.
Lastly what dollar total will be enough - lets say they start at $13 but people begin to rely on that heavily and then they say we need more to live on - 13 is just not feeding and clothing my kids well enough - each one of my kids wants an i pod ore they wont be cool at school - my kid needs a car to get around - he should not have to take the bus - he gets made fun of - oh gas prices are too high so I need more money like 20 or 30 an hour. When will it be enough.
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