Why Should Taxpayers Subsidize Starvation Wages

[PorkChopSandwiches]

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT) “WHY SHOULD TAXPAYERS SUBSIDIZE STARVATION WAGES?”


During a Congressional panel discussion on Thursday, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont blasted the Walton family for what he sees as their tax-subsidized fortune. He contends that they maintain their status as some of the wealthiest people in the world by paying poverty wages to their 1.4 Million US employees. He states the taxpayers are left paying for the rest for the workers and their families with taxpayer subsidized Medicaid, food stamps, housing, and other government benefits.

Sanders was calling into question whether its morally or ethically right for a massively wealthy and profitable company to have such high rates of full times employees on government assistance. He says the discussion about income inequality inside the Beltway are divorced from reality, and that the lobbyists and representatives for these large corporations are getting rich off fighting for corporations that hoard the earnings of the labor for just the executives and board of directors, as well as shareholders. Sanders said in the 1950’s the average working class wage was (today’s equivalent of) $37/hour.

He said today the average wage is $8.80, with the net result of exploding rates of poverty and workers needing help just to pay their bills and raise their children.

Sanders said there are more people living in poverty today than in the history of the US. This is likely due to big boxes stores and mega-corporations running the small mom & pops stores out of business, the ones that populated every neighborhood into the 1970’s, where wealth stayed in the town. Now with mega-corporations, the labor is extracted from a town the benefits don’t go right back reinvested into the neighborhood, they get moved out to the shareholders that are in other parts of the country, or other parts of the world. Sanders nearly edges into the idea that shareholders at the mega-corporations that exploit workers are similar to a modernized slave owner. The shareholder and executives of the corporation own the labor whereas the laborer just barely subsists for their 40 hours per week.

Sanders goes on to say between 2009 and 2012, 95% of all new income generated went to the 1%. He also says the top 1% owns 38% of the nation’s wealth.

The bottom 60% of people own 2.3% of the entire nation’s wealth. He asks the panel if this makes moral or economic sense. He asks is it okay that one family (The Waltons) own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the American people. He also says the Walton family is the wealthiest family in America, and yet they are the biggest recipient of welfare in the US due to the taxpayer covering the gap on their employees needs. The Walton’s are reportedly worth $100 Billion. They are the largest employer in America.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFnT4AbJLrw

[DemonGeminiX]

Sam wouldn't stand for it.

[-(

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Interesting argument

[FBD]

While I dont think that wal mart or any other large corporation should be the recipient of any federal assistance or tax break (local tax breaks included, because they use that as leverage to get in somewhere)...

The waltons did it by being shrewd businessmen.

Now stack that up against the shrewd lobbying that created the federal reserve act, and you see financial rape on a scale that makes the waltons look like panhandlers.

Where exactly is the problem again??? Wal Mart may be *an* evil empire, but they are not the biggest by any stretch of the imagination, nor are they in such an insidious position as the banks that make up the federal reserve.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

While I dont think that wal mart or any other large corporation should be the recipient of any federal assistance or tax break (local tax breaks included, because they use that as leverage to get in somewhere)...

The waltons did it by being shrewd businessmen.

Now stack that up against the shrewd lobbying that created the federal reserve act, and you see financial rape on a scale that makes the waltons look like panhandlers.

Where exactly is the problem again??? Wal Mart may be *an* evil empire, but they are not the biggest by any stretch of the imagination, nor are they in such an insidious position as the banks that make up the federal reserve.

The argument being made is these uber rich companies are making that money by not paying the employees enough to live on, so to cover that gap the tax payers subsidize Wal-Mart in essence by giving these same employees food stamps, medicaid and government housing

[perrhaps]

I always looked forward to the ends of their shows when they all said "Good night" to each other.

[Muddy]

The argument being made is these uber rich companies are making that money by not paying the employees enough to live on, so to cover that gap the tax payers subsidize Wal-Mart in essence by giving these same employees food stamps, medicaid and government housing

Exactly..if want 5000 locations and 10 billion in profit a year then you pay your employees... Not ME. If you cant pay them then maybe you need to scale back..

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The argument being made is these uber rich companies are making that money by not paying the employees enough to live on, so to cover that gap the tax payers subsidize Wal-Mart in essence by giving these same employees food stamps, medicaid and government housing

Would it be preferable if these people being employed by Walmart were just 100% completely on the government dole instead? That's the other option.

[Loser]

Maybe poor people shouldn't fk themselves into poverty, like the ENTIRE african nation?

Time was, if you couldn't afford a kid, YOU DIDN'T FUCKING HAVE ONE!

But no, they pump out 10-12 future minimum wage earning, welfare recipients, and you blame the corporations for not paying enough...

Hipocracy at it's best. Blame the smart people :roll:

[FBD]

The argument being made is these uber rich companies are making that money by not paying the employees enough to live on, so to cover that gap the tax payers subsidize Wal-Mart in essence by giving these same employees food stamps, medicaid and government housing

That's an ass backwards argument...that's so ass backwards, right, this is bernie, I must have forgotten me head.

Remind me again where wal mart is responsible for the asset bubbles, stock market bubbles, artificial energy shortages and price manipulation, currency and precious metals manipulation, idiotic laws like ethanol that fuck with the commodity markets...???

Not a single thing Wal mart has done has had an impact on any of that - all of the reasons why what used to be plenty for a "living wage" is now not even "subsistence wage." What the fk does that have to do with wal mart....they, like every other employer, has seen their cost rise just like everyone else because of the government and federal reserve screwing and tampering with the economy.

Wal Mart's profit margin is 3-3.5%. Not exactly killer. Lots of turnover. But if you look more deeply at the situation, you wind up finding that once again you can point the finger at the government for effectively suppressing the value of labor whie at the same time doing things that result in the rise of commodity prices, so most poor people wind up with nothing but getting by.


Elk also quotes Paul on wage comparisons between the U.S. and other industrialized nations:

Average factory compensation for a worker in the United is $32 dollars an hour. In Germany, the average factory worker makes $48 dollars an hour. Despite this, the United State has a $275 billion trade deficit, while Germany has balanced trade with China. How is it that when our labor costs are $16 an hour cheaper than Germany? It has everything to do with our trade policies, infrastructure policies, tax policies and investment in skills, and very little if anything to do with the cost of labor.

What the U.S. really needs is a concerted national manufacturing strategy to drive job creation and a thriving industrial sector.
- See more at: http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/wal-mart-and-other-misconceptions-about-labor-costs#sthash.3oU1JyI0.dpuf

But if you want to go after big businesses, companies like GE are the worst of the worst washing hands and patting backs with the government. But they dont employ minimum wage workers, so the worst of the worst are of no use in a socialist's argument like that. :roll:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Would it be preferable if these people being employed by Walmart were just 100% completely on the government dole instead? That's the other option.

True, you see McDonalds putting in order kiosks so they no longer have to pay cashiers.

[Muddy]

True, you see McDonalds putting in order kiosks so they no longer have to pay cashiers.

Which is totally fine.. But again.. If you want an employees don't expect the govt. to subsidize half their wages.

[perrhaps]

Does WalMart conscript their employees, Muddy?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Which is totally fine.. But again.. If you want an employees don't expect the govt. to subsidize half their wages.

And in the same respect, it's not Bernie Sanders' place, or any other politician for that matter, to decide how much money is "too much money" for someone to have.

[Lambchop]

I think one problem is that some of these large companies employ very aggressive tax avoidance schemes and in doing so, more money is funnelled out of circulation. As a result, the district government/council will experience a tax shortfall and problems will arise. For money to have a value there can only be a limited amount and if more than expected is funnelled into overseas accounts, there is less for society to use. You could argue that these companies generate money within the country but there are thousands of other companies who generate money without employing these schemes.

You could then say that these people are on minimum wage and if they can't survive, fuck them. I see this as a mentality that cannot be applied to modern society and is more fitting of something you would observe in the wild, i.e. survival of the fittest/natural selection. If this mentality was applicable, we would not have ambulances, hospitals, medical treatment and other services designed to interfere with natural selection. Additionally, it would be legal to kill and rape in line with what we observe in nature.

[FBD]

Who's fault is it if a politician bargains away some tax monies? A lot of what walmart has done was say look, just by virtue of our business being here, you will get x, y, z in various tax streams, now hey, we can get there here or the next town over, and their taxes are just a little bit lower than your town, see...

Watch the puck! What are the causal factors for minimum wage not being enough to get by on anymore? :)

[FBD]

:willie:

[Muddy]

Who's fault is it if a politician bargains away some tax monies? A lot of what walmart has done was say look, just by virtue of our business being here, you will get x, y, z in various tax streams, now hey, we can get there here or the next town over, and their taxes are just a little bit lower than your town, see...

Watch the puck! What are the causal factors for minimum wage not being enough to get by on anymore? :)


Who's fault is it if a politician bargains away some tax monies? A lot of what walmart has done was say look, just by virtue of our business being here, you will get x, y, z in various tax streams, now hey, we can get there here or the next town over, and their taxes are just a little bit lower than your town, see...

Watch the puck! What are the causal factors for minimum wage not being enough to get by on anymore? :)

Say it 3 times in the mirror and the Candyman will show up..

http://i.imgur.com/E1MmUou.jpg

[PorkChopSandwiches]

:lol:

[FBD]

:lol:

[Hal-9000]

but isn't Walmart behaving like any large bank or Oil company?

their yearly bottom line is in the billions because they pay peanut wages to the underlings on the bottom rung...


Up here our oil CEO'S and upper management make astronomical yearly wages and pensions...while they pay jughounds (geophone planters) dirt wages. The only way jughounds make a good check is because they work 16 hour days and are no where close to civilization to spend any of it...other than the local bars.

I may be way off here but if companies like Walmart upped their wages by a buck or so, maybe more people wouldn't have to apply for welfare...excluding the above-mentioned idiot parents who have 8 kids while working at Walmart...

[PorkChopSandwiches]

The issue isn't a dollar though, its doubling the wage essentially

[Hal-9000]

oh :oops:

[DemonGeminiX]

Is the real problem Walmart's size and a shift in expectation? They do employ the largest amount of people in the US, but if you turn the clock back 30-40 years, Walmart is not as widespread and nobody's seeing those type of jobs as jobs that you're supposed to be able to make an independent living off of.

My Mom worked for Kmart back in the 70s and early 80s, and it helped, but there's no way she would've been able to keep us without our father bringing in the majority of the dough.