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Economics 101: Wal-Mart Hikes Minimum Wages, Prepares To Fire 1000
"Please remember, these people are our neighbors and friends. You have a skill that will be very much in need when this goes down. You are experts in the job market and you know what it takes to get hired. This is a time for us to step up and do what we can to help."
The quote above is from an internal memo sent to employees of Northwest Arkansas recruiting firm Cameron Smith & Associates and references an expected wave of layoffs at WalMart’s home office in Bentonville.
The memo was obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who spoke with Cameron Smith himself via e-mail.
"The last time Walmart had a large layoff (800 plus), we were unprepared and overwhelmed with phone calls, emails, resumes and walk-ins," Smith told the paper, referring to a series of cuts at WalMart in 2009. The next round of layoffs are just around the corner and could affect as many as 1,000 employees Smith contends, citing conversations with company insiders.
As those who follow the retailer closely are no doubt aware, context is key here.
Back in April, we asked why WalMart was mysteriously shuttering geographically distinct stores nationwide for "plumbing problems." The company, citing the need to repair persistent "clogs and leaks", closed five stores across the country almost simultaneously. The 2,500 affected employees were in some instances given almost no notice whatsoever.
After a few enterprising reporters determined that no plumbing permits had been filed in any of the locales where the shuttered stores were located, conspiracy theories sprung up, the most outlandish of which posited a link between the store closings and the Jade Helm 15 military drills which began earlier this month in Texas and six other states.
For our part, we argued that the store closures were more likely the result of two things: i) the need to cut costs, and ii) the desire to close a "problem" store in California that had for years served as a hotbed for union activism. For now, we won’t dive into the union issue, but for those interested, see here, here, and her.
As for cost cutting, consider the following, excerpted from "Why Is WalMart Mysteriously Shuttering Stores Nationwide For Plumbing Issues?":
Earlier this year, WalMart became one of several corporate heavyweights to lift wages for its meagerly compensated workers, around 500,000 of which are now set to receive at least $9/hour and $10/hour by Q1 2016 (that of course assumes they make it on $9 an hour for another 12 months and don’t seek out other employment by sheer necessity).
Meanwhile, the move by the country’s largest retailer to pay a few extra pennies to its (basically) minimum wage employees comes at a cost to the company’s suppliers because when you operate on the thinnest of margins in order to be the "low price leader," someone has to pay for those wage hikes and you can’t pass along the costs to customers because many of your low-income patrons are operating from the same tax bracket as your low-paid employees. As such, the supply chain is forced to lower their prices and of course they’re going to comply because well, you’re WalMart meaning you’re your vendors’ biggest account pretty much by default. The outcome is that "while WMT (or MCD or GAP or Target) boosts the living standards of its employees by the smallest of fractions, it cripples the cost and wage structure of the entire ecosystem of vendors that feed into it, and what takes place is a veritable avalanche effect where a few cent increase for the lowest paid megacorp employees results in a tidal wave of layoffs for said megacorp's vendors."
If that doesn’t turn out to be enough in the face of an economy which isn’t really recovering and in which low-income shoppers are constrained by lackluster (and by that we mean nonexistent) wage growth, some sacrifices may have to be made.
The first such sacrifice (apparently) were the 2,500 or so employees at the five locations with intractable plumbing problems, but clearly that was not enough which is why now, the company is moving to cut 1,000 higher paying jobs in Bentonville.
Of course WalMart can’t come out and say that a lackluster economy and nonexistent wage growth for 83% of the nation’s workforce has ironically served to make the company’s own minimum wage hikes untenable and therefore some heads in middle management have to roll, so instead the cuts will be blamed on bureaucratic inefficiencies. Here’s the Democrat-Gazette again:
Cutting through red tape and trimming bureaucracy has been among the goals of McMillon, who took over as CEO in February 2014. Wal-Mart employs more than 2 million worldwide and has more than 1.4 million employees in the U.S.
McMillon mentioned the size of the company's headquarters as a possible detriment to quicker action at the store level and told retail analysts during a June question-and-answer session that employees should remember "there are no cash registers in the office." During a store visit last year, McMillon said he encountered an electronics department manager who spent five hours on the phone with the home office to get assistance with a problem.
"We want people to make decisions and move with speed and not have the organization run in a way that causes it to slow down," McMillon said.
He again referred to the "dangers of a big company" during a June 11 retail conference in Springdale.
"As we've grown and time has gone on, we've created pockets of our business, situations where people don't want to share bad news. Lots of PowerPoints get built, lots of pre-meetings are held to socialize things so people aren't surprised during a meeting," McMillon said. "That is bureaucracy. That slows us down."
Got it. Too many people are working on PowerPoints and when someone making $10 an hour calls the home office, the hold time is too long. These are clear signs of an elephantine, Washington-esque bureaucracy, which must be done away with.
Or something.
Just don’t dare suggest that the cuts are the indirect or even direct result of the wage hikes that will cost the retailer around $1 billion this year, because that would mean that critics of the push to hike the pay floor are correct to assert that forcing employers to pay more will immediately result in equal and offsetting layoffs.
Only here they aren't necessarily "equal" at all.
That's in no way a commentary on the "worth" (in a philosophical sense of the word) of an hourly worker versus a salaried employee, but if layoffs in Arkansas do materialize as Cameron Smith predicts, it seems entirely fair to suggest that the pittance given to hundreds of thousands of low paid workers will ultimately come at the cost of 1,000 or so breadwinner positions. We'll leave it to readers to determine whether that is a net win for the economy.
On the bright side for anyone affected by the coming round of job cuts, at least you know that this time around, the staff at Cameron Smith & Associates is "much more prepared" to handle the sudden influx of 1,000 distraught former WalMart employees.
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What? Too many plumbing problems??
I don't see any problem with this.
Neither does Walmart. Politically, a win for the Democrats. After all, the only votes they will lose are the 1000 jobs lost and maybe a couple hundred sympathizers. Everyone else in the country who supported a minimum wage hike still thinks the idea is great. Just ask any democrat.
AWESOME!!!! The markets work!
Yep. An employer can only pay what a person is worth. Want a higher wage? Then increase your value! Many of these types of jobs should only be considered starter jobs - on the job training so that you can go on to become a more productive member of society.
Of course, the Marxists think they can legislate (at the point of a gun) the market. LOL. Good luck with that!
... "Of course WalMart can’t come out and say that a lackluster economy ... "
... Walmart's problem is "Made in China" ... renminbi (yuan) is heading up, profit margin is declining, they face wage protests so fire a thousand and increase wages for the remaining workers ... and of course, increase management's salaries and bonuses for solving the problem ...
With so many stores being "Converted" for .gov use, the need to keep sales associates on the payroll is absolutely non-essential.
More security guards, yes.
More merchandise stockers, not so much.
How about keep the 1000 and ceo makes 90 million instead of 120 million with all the games they are playing in wiping the monopoly board clean,,,,I would do a fine job as ceo with a one million salary
How about if people don't like it don't ever shop there, enabling the CEO to earn a salary that they disapprove of. Start your own company that sells cheap junk from China and be a leader by becoming the CEO who earns $15/hour.
"How about if people don't like it don't ever shop there,"
Because that takes sustained conviction. Liberals/socialists don't have any.
You English are slaves to your Wall St masters. They have about squeezed every last drop of your blood and now they will toss your remains out of their speeding airplane as they debark for Tel aviv.
Suckers.
<----1000 new conservative voters
<----1000 new democrat welfare recipients
I don't know about Wal-Mart exactly but the retail I worked at over a decade ago you had a Senior Manager who tells the Assistant Manager who tells a supervisor who tells you how to stock a shelf. If you ever played the game Telephone as a kid, you could imagine how that original order from the top worked out. Instead of the Senior Manager telling you directly how they wanted the shelf presented, they were busy in their office having personal conversations on the telephone. They felt employee issues were beneath them despite the company's open door policy stating otherwise.
Then when you get promoted to supervisor to make an extra $1 an hour or whatever the chickenshit raise was (remember it's just for the experience you wish you wouldn't have anyways), you don't do any actual physical productive work to get the task done. Instead, you played as an intermediary between lazy salaried managers who spend 50 to 60 hours a week physically in the building but performed 10 hours of of actual work a week, and between the entry level workers who actually where the rubber meets the road and made a few cents above minimum wage. The management has these unrealistic demands and you have to convey their expectations to minimum wage employees who couldn't give two hoots because you're not paying them anything.
Retail management is an oxymoron.
If a retailer wants to be successful they should trim all of this fat. They should invest in giving entry level workers better training, and as a result of their higher value... a higher wage. Instead of a useless chain of command, just have the entry level workers deal with the management directly. Then again I digress, because automation should replace all of these workers very soon anyways, so this is simply rearranging chairs on the Titanic. Many retailers who used the over managed model are out of business anyway.
Big Box is so 1990s and early 2000s anyways. It's all about eCommerce on mobile apps nowadays.
Moral of the story to any younger readers out there, get out of retail as quickly as possible. It's a cute little stepping stone to be exposed to the working world, but it doesn't go any further than that. Get into finance or real estate as those are the only "industries" that pay anything anymore.
Unlike government however, free market enterprises have to meet a bottom line. You can afford only so much stupidity and waste. Bad operations actually go down and out of business. However, government will claim it needs more resources, infrastructure, modernization money and a hundred other things. It will never have any impulse to get rid of six, six-figure administrators for every teacher. Even the "grief counselors" will stay on payroll and retire at full pay in Florida.
You move up Min wage, Jobs get lost... pretty simple
Layoff / Closing List: http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
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That's about how I remember retail when I worked it in college. Lazy ass assistant managers, managed by even lazier store managers, managed by completely worthless and do nothing regional managers. But they always "put in lots of hours". Another thing I remember is that they paid the full-time/day shift workers more per hour than us part-time/night-weekend workers. This made no sense to me since the part-timers, who were mostly college students, were smarter, more productive, and had a better work ethic. We spent nights cleaning up what the lazy career retail workers neglected to do during the day. Oh and we were a hell of a lot less likely to steal than the day shift too. On that last point I'll let you figure out the racial make up of the day shift vs the night shift.
Fucking Swedes, right? What do I win?
Minimum wage laws cause eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil capitalists to contract their workforce to offset the increased cost per unit of labor with no corresponding increase in the value of said labor or earnings of the capitalist?
*Presses the Easy Button*
Minimum employment quotas!
[Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders PAC]
For the stupid friends of Bernie Sanders, you cannot control the results or consequences of rigging the market with artificial rules. If you could the USSR would be the economic powerhouse of all history.
The reason for the economically illiterate is that on the other side of this equation are products whose prices cannot necessarily change. The fact you pay the guy who says, "You want fries with that?" $8/hr with a $6 Happy Meal going out the door does not mean you can now pay the guy who still says "You want fries with that?" $15/hr and double the price of the Happy Meal. In fact, there is a thing called a Price-Demand curve. The more you charge for something the less of it people buy. This is the most ignored rule in all of socialist economics.
If the local hamburger place could in fact charge $12/Happy Meal they would be doing it already. The cannot so the do not. The government cannot control that side of the equation unless they do like Obamacare and order everyone in the country to buy Happy Meals at $12.
The leftist is a supremely arrogant and ignorant little cuss. He/she has no appreciation or understanding of the infinite complexity of an economy. A free economy is every bit as beautiful, amazing and intricate as a rain forest, which is the best analogy. It is adapting every single second of every single day to billions of inputs...always, never off, and done freely.
Leftist fall to Hayek's "fatal conceit" thinking they can actually improve on it. They cannot. What they can do is poison one part of the forest to benefit another.
In a fair world, all the people who are out there protesting for the new minimum wage would be the exact people laid off. It is good to connect the consequences of stupid decisions to the people who make them.
Your wasting your breath trying to explain supply and demand, or anything that requires logic to a liberal.
They are Galacticly illogical and everything is about their feelings.
But they are better than you and I, because they care.
I could see this at age 15 or 16. We were not raised with politics. All I ever heard was my longshoremen grandfather saying " vote Dem, no matter what " . You could run Daffy Fucking Duck, and he'd vote for him. I just knew one day, I was conservative, and could not understand how you could be opposed, unless you where stupid, mentally retarded or lazy.
I was right.
And on the flip side, Goldman, JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank Americal Merril Lynch, Deutche Bank, UBS, HSBC, et al, all seem to ignore the artificial rules, laws & regulations with a wink and nod from the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, FedRes, FCA, PRA, BoE, BaFin, ECB, etc., to achieve their rigging of the markets, to their benefit and everyone else's detriment.
With rules and regulations, the banksters and 0.01% win and everyone else loses, and without rules and regulations, the results are the same. Please tell me more about your "free market".
None of those agencies can rig the markets without the participation of the government.
If you want to assert there are no free markets, I will categorically agree. However, the problem is not freedom, it is control.
You have no history to say that freedom is the problem and bad things are only prevented by government rules. Fraud has always been against the law as a matter of property rights versus theft. Ponzi's are against the law and they still exist.
When the relationship is voluntary then you have to freely convince people to place their investments with you, including businesses and professional investors. Government enables the fraud with bailouts and also "stimulus". The Fed and all central banks exist to manipulate markets and the SEC exists to control them. This is fraudulent in and of itself as we lose the ability to even guess what prices and value truly are in the market. Fraud is institutionalized in government, not prevented. You can also buy favors from government much the same as the Mafia.
~"Walmart's problem is "Made in China""~
And conversely, China's problem is in Walmart. America shipped its manufacturing to China, essentially killing the backbone of America's economic might. China wasn't the first stop, as Japan and South Korea were the predecessors. But China was the "Last Big Stop" on that job-exporting train.
And now Americans no longer have the income to support Walmart. America is broke and broken, and Walmart has to share its fate. The question to ask yourself is "Who in 2016 can turn this around?"
That's a great question, because asking yourself the question, "Can this be turned around?" is too dark, too gloomy and too pessimistic, even for ZH.
America is just too expensive. An assembly line worker at a Chinese auto manufacturer (BYD, DongFeng, GM Snanghai, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai) makes about $4.75 US dollars an hour. This is a good job with good working conditions, job security, health insurance, pension, etc. The pay allows the worker to have an equivalent of an American upper blue collar lifestyle. He owns a home, has all the consumer goods and toys you would expect, and has money left over for substantial savings. He is not spending his $4.75 in America.
What does it take to buy this lifestyle in America? Over $30 and hour?
All those wars of aggression and deficit spending for decades have come home to roost. It's over for manufacturing in America.
But they aren't wars of aggression to the averager Murican. They are just aggressive spreading of American exceptionalism.
That's about the biggest load of bullshit anyone ever posted.
Use your fucking brain. How, in any country, can those things be provided. At $4.75 an hour.
Magic.
If it's true, China is Shang- ri-la, and we should go study them and see how they work so deft a miracle.
$4.75/hr China vs $10.75/hr USA:
Why does your house think it is worth $300k, why do your property taxes require some ridiculous figure a month? And Medicare, and taxes? and no savings or pension to back you up?
Your $10.75/hr has to support a whole lot more government and a whole lot more military and a whole lot more debt.
$4.75/hr is probably a whole lot happier place to be than here.
This is not true. The price comparison is made at the company level, not at the individual employee level.
In fact, wage level is also a battle inside a company between the different level of employees.
In big companies, there usually is a lot of bureaucratic work done at high level that is in fact uncecessary, nevertheless, people and consultants doing those jobs are well paid.
A company can get rotten by its wage structure at high level also.
But i agree, that a minimum wage is a way to get over the market law, and thus is dangerous for the conomy.
This is not true. The price comparison is made at the company level, not at the individual employee level.
In fact, wage level is also a battle inside a company between the different level of employees.
In big companies, there usually is a lot of bureaucratic work done at high level that is in fact uncecessary, nevertheless, people and consultants doing those jobs are well paid.
A company can get rotten by its wage structure at high level also.
But i agree, that a minimum wage is a way to get over the market law, and thus is dangerous for the conomy.
...and the 1000 that lost their jobs are now the property of the USGovernment.
so the democrats didnt lose a single thing.....and built dependence in the process.
Yep, I think they had the same problem during Roman times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF2RYhNhBdw
The sad thing is, higher paying jobs are threatened as well. My job has gone from manual DNA/ RNA extraction and analysis to primarily mechanized. These instruments run around 250-500k to purchase which replaces 5 microbiologists. Fortunately though the throughput has dramatically increased, they breakdown quite often. You'd think that would require greater skill levels from us to work on them but the companies have decided it's more lucrative to sell expensive service contracts so only a company field engineer can touch them.
Most of us have faced the fact we must eventually either manage lower skilled people to load the instruments, work for the vendors or retire. The only comfort is I will no longer be paying 50% of my wage in state and Federal income taxes when I no longer have a job.
Miffed
So true Miffed. Just look at the automated Sedasys system that threatens the careers of anesthesiologists everywhere. The average annual salary for these technicians is around $300k.
Does anyone think these advances in automation will trickle down to the health care consumer in the form of lower prices?
Yep, even with the highest level of automation (costs passed on to customer) and reduction of human labor ("savings" passed on to management), there will only ever be inflation in an exponential currency base in the centralized paradigm.
I hope you get to retire before seeing the day where you are replaced by a machine, Miffed.
Medicine is a different economic animal than consumer markets. First, the government controls or actually owns most of the economic inputs.
Second, you have to go to an "expert" who will tell you that you need some therapies you do not understand. Not doing those things can have severe consequences. So, you cannot make a normal consumer price-value choice.
Third, most everything is third party payers. So, the person both ordering the therapies and the person getting the therapies are not directly tied to the cost of it.
If we could get the actual economic costs of healthcare connected to individuals more directly we would have more rational pricing. That flows to what everyone gets paid on one side of the equation and what everyone spends on the other.
One last point is that government is absolutely positively the worst entity to make these choices. They are not connected to the consequences of the choices. They cannot make value judgments. This is why both the VA medical system and government schools generally suck. It is also why government pays below costs for some things and then has a billion dollar fighter jet when it is the only market.
You are correct. I find it ironic that HMOs trying to save costs have imposed diagnostic trees to eliminate errors, streamline care, reduce costs and increase objectivity in the medical field. I have seen many cases where the opposite occured. The complexity of the human body and diseases states cannot be compared to rebuilding a car engine.
As a consumer, when you are told the next step in your care is the removal of your spleen, few question the need for it though it may be the next step in a diagnostic tree. I remember 10 years ago mr miffed returned home with a prescription for Lipitor because his cholesterol was too high. I said fuck no, let's explore why it is high and not resort to a patch. His cholesterol is now normal and he has not taken a drug for ten years unnecessarily. Unfortunately few challenge authority in the medical field and resources for alternative therapies must be explored by the individual and are not sanctioned by the medical field.
My whole field is FUBAR.
Miffed
I just kept my gallbladder (and spleen!) after three recommendations to remove it. The symptoms were really nonspecific and no stones showed on ultrasound and I happen to know a bit about gallbladder function including alternatives to surgery.
I finally had to pay over 50% of a gallbladder funtion test (Called a HIDA scan) which showed my gallbladder actually functioned at the 99th percentile. I can still now eat a steak and do quite nicely and I take zero meds not to mention avodiing the always underplayed risks of surgical complications. In the end I am pretty sure I payed as much to keep my gallbladder as take it out.
I do respect the templates and I understand where they originate and their usefulness. However, any doctor worth his/her pay knows that they are not treating a population. They are treating Miffed or FreedomGuy and being right or wrong is generally either a zero or 100% proposition.
I actually know cardiovascular medicines quite well. You actually did the exact right thing. Most doctors shortcut the process because most people will not do the nonmedical stuff required to get cholesterol down. It is usually difficult and requires long term discipline but it pays off if you can do it. It is the same with diabetes, blood pressure and a host of other things.
The one thing to remember about insurers/HMO's and those who pay the costs is that the ultimate goal and model is to take in an insurance premium and actually not pay for any care. No one else in the system has that dynamic.
Wow, I guess my example was close to home! I had a friend who was struggling with her platelet levels. All kinds of therapies were done to no effect. When her platelet reached 10 per microliter ( anything under 50 could cause you to bleed into your brain) they said the next step was to remove her spleen. She took her own money and went to a naturopath. He discovered she has a severe gluten sensitivity. When she gave up wheat her platelets returned to normal levels. The hematologist that originally wanted to her to have the splenectomy was thankful she did what she did. A spleen is a vital organ. I've had several patients die from septicemia with out one.
One must be diligent with ones own health. It does pay off. Hats off to you and your decision. It heartens me to hear of so many here who don't blindly bow to medical advice and seek alternative therapies. Many in my own field don't do this.
Miffed;-)
I like the hematologist in your story. Humility is a virtue on many levels, especially medical and scientific. In the end it is about people getting better and not ego.
The human body is amazing if not infinitely complex. I have gone to some immunology research lectures and I never fail to be amazed at the evolving biochemistry that is being sort of deciphered.
I believe alternate therapies have a place. I would like to see many of them researched statistically rather than just testimonials or assertions but they can and do work sometimes so dramatically as in the case of your friend that you have to say there is some validity.
Until we go total leftist-statist we still have a say in our own healthcare. Sometimes the physicians and their templates are wrong but I never think they are purposely wrong. Sometimes, we, the patients are wrong, as well...but sometimes we are not.
@Miffed,
(I apologize for the long comment)
I am a long time lurker and recent member; I simply have very little to write about yet I enjoy the funny and many times the intelligent comments made on this website.
After your last comment I wanted to write about my experience with the current medical profession.
About 20 years ago or more, I started having what I termed 'blue afternoons' where I would go into a near stupor state between 2pm-4pm everyday. It was all I could do to stay awake and coffee became my fifth food group. Where were other symptoms; restless, sleepless nights, constant bad breath (not just from coffee), dry skin, pain in my gall bladder region, and snowstorms of dandruff. You get the picture there was a host of warning signs including the loss of clear thinking as the first casualty of my well-being.
Seeking medical help for some time, I wound up one afternoon, barely able to keep my eyes open, in an endocrinologist’s office where the good doctor informed me I had an under active thyroid. He was/is a good endocrinologist with the best of intentions. What followed was series of prescriptions of varying types and dosages. This went on for months into years with him fiddling with the different medications trying to ‘hit’ that ‘sweet’ spot. He never managed to make it quite right; all this experimentation while his future former patient was being jerked around bio-chemically with the associated moody/happy behavior. I learned you don’t randomly mess around with your hormones.
Finally in the year 2000, having left the medical doctors behind, I chanced upon a literal life-saver. I walked into an herb shop where there was a visiting naturopath that performed live field analysis on blood samples as part of his diagnostic routine. He listened to my story and asked to take a blood sample for a ‘live look’ on his monitor attached to his microscope. I was stunned as he dialed to the magnification required for viewing yeast; my blood was a shit-storm of spiky white balls! Now did I know what I was really looking at, no I did not. The next magnification chilled me to the bone, he said ‘Let’s see if there are any other parasites’, what I saw next I knew was NOT right, snakes, snakes, and snakes. ‘These are the parasites in your blood, the yeast and parasites have broken through your intestinal cell walls into your blood stream, they have gone systemic. Their waste and carcasses are clogging up your liver, shutting down your kidneys and thyroid.’ I was in a daze not knowing what to say or believe. He continued, ‘From the looks of this sample you have had this condition for years.’
He recommended I take GSE, Grapefruit Seed Extract, and Caprylic Acid with a probiotic on the ‘opposite side’ of the day; cheap, inexpensive, and highly effective. 90 DAYS LATER I EXPERIENCED A FULL NIGHT’S SLEEP!! After nearly 2 decades of chronic fatigue, getting sick and depressed on a regular basis I woke up that morning without that heavy headed feeling. All this time has passed and I still vividly remember that morning. Later the naturopath showed my blood again to me, I didn’t see any snowstorms nor snakes this time and my hemoglobin was fat and round not flat like pancakes and sticking together. I learned I was starving my body of oxygen at a cellular level. I didn’t need to see the ‘live look’ I was rested, alert, and happy. This man saved my life.
It has been 15 years since this doctor’s diagnosis; it was as if a light was turned on. I use the Oriental approach to my health now and have not been sick for years. I take no poisonous vaccines like ‘yearly flu shots’ nor take allopathic drugs of any kind. I use my treadmill like a man many, many years younger. I still take GSE and a probiotic as part of my health maintenance routine.
I hope this helps someone who may be in a similar situation. In my humble opinion, Oriental medicine is the true medical profession based on thousands of years of respect for human life not profit. If you have the time look up what Mr. Paul Pitchford writes in his book Healing with Whole Foods on what really causes heart attacks.
BTW, one not so trivial fact, BPA acts like estrogen in the human body signaling the body to go into ‘fat storage mode’. This is devastating for men who can become overweight and cannot seem to lose that extra poundage no matter what they do. BPA is in everything even in the receipts bare-handed to you nearly everyday.
Good story, BlueSkies and several lessons. I am surprised your physicians did not catch those things in your blood. However, you cannot find what you do not look for. Did the naturopath clean his slide? It seems hard to believe you had so much junk in your blood undetected.
In any case, there is some validity to Eastern medicine. I say that as one who works in a branch of Western medicine. Before I go farther I wll say that neither one is evil while the other is "good". Both have validity and it is demonstrable.
Eastern medicine comes from a different tradition. In fact, it uses tradition and observations over time. What works or appears to work is repeated over time. Western methods use controlled studies and rigorous statistical analysis.
Here is a good example I know a bit about. In ancient Eastern traditions bear bile was used to relieve the symptoms of gallstones. It turns out they were right but only knew part of the truth. Animals have a natural bile acid called ursodeoxycholic acid. It is their predominate bile acid. In humans we have chenodeoxycholic acid and ursodiol is a tertiary bile acid, but we do have it. They are all natural and in us they help with dissolving fats and cholestrol.
However, in humans we are prone to forming gallstones because of a rich diet and our bile acid makeup. It is virtually nonexistant in animals.
There are two types of gallstones in humans, those composed primarily of cholesterol (about 85%) and those composed of bilirubinate. Using the natural bile acid, ursodiol you can slowly dissolve cholesterol stones and even mixed stones if they have a cholestrol matrix. It is virtually the exact same process as dissolving hard candy (like a jawbreaker) in water. The cholesterol stone/s dissolves into the bile acid and is eliminate through your intestines. It takes time, though. Smaller stones or sludge dissolve more quickly (surface area to volume ratios). It is all natural, easy on your system and has a good chance of success. Symptom relief often occurs long before the stones are fully dissolved.You can eat a whole bowl of ursodiol and all that will happen is probably some diarrhea.
If you have an acute blockage or your stones are the hard rocky bilirubinate type (which can indidcate other problems) then surgery is your best option. A blockage is a severe acute problem much like appendicitis and has to be resolved immediately. But if you passed a stone or do not have a blockage you at least have options. However, if you ask a surgeon about this you may get the evil eye or a negative reaction or something dismissive like, "Well, the gallstones will come back or they will get stuck in your ducts as you shrink them." Neither of these things are true statistically last I checked. Also, many might have a temporary cause like gall stones in pregnancy.
The blending of eastern and western in this example is that we do not have to kill bears. You can get ursodiol from cattle and process, concentrate and sterilize it. Western medicine does the rigorous testing to know how many milligrams, how many times a day and for how long to do it. In the East it is trial and error and tradition. Scientific rigor mixed with tradition can offer excellent results.
I have a friend who is dead and the proximate cause was a gall bladder surgery while he was being treated for cancer. He never recovered from the surgery in his weakened chemotherapy state. He had two bad choices. Stop chemo for awhile (he had aggressive cancer) and get the surgery or continue chemo and live with the stones and possible acute blockage (although I think they never actually located stones on ultrasound). He never really got offered the bile acid situation from what I can tell even though I told him about it. He got the surgery and never really recovered according to his family. Now, one cannot know the result of the path not taken, but my guess is he would not have done any worse (barring a blockage) and he had a good chance to do better and even continue the chemo.
In the end, you own yourself and you have to make choices. Just avoid the pseudo-religious fervor of "natural" remedies (I have seen them go very wrong, too) and balance the sometimes nearly autocratic orders your doctors may give you. Modern doctors may be more participative and partner with you. You can look at the upside and downside of any recommendations. Very often the downsides to "natural" therapies are low and reversible. You can stop the grapefruit extract if it bothers you or does not work. It might be the same with a med. Surgeries are a one way, usually irreversible path.
Great story! This one caught my eye.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/31/mrsa-superb...
Coming up with more antibiotics is an expensive losing game. Especially when money is made now in chronic conditions. We humans have come full circle and the microbes laugh at our arrogance.
I try to look at every thing with a critical eye. A touch of cynicism has kept me out of trouble. There are good therapies in eastern and western medicine. It is sad they won't come together.
Miffed;-)
One of the best natural antibiotics is oil of oregano.
One of the best natural anti-inflammatories is turmeric.
Eat a tablespoon of honey each day.
And a shot of unfiltered apple cider vinegar.
And some yogurt or kefir,
Take your vitamins, minerals and trace elements daily.
Do aerobic and weight training exercise, either at work, or at "play."
Your physical body will thank you with "long life."
Totally agree! I make a smoothie every morning with coconut water, raw protein powder, he Shou Wu, astragalus, Camu camu, and raw local honey. I met a friend recently I hadn't seen in 7 years. My goodness H! You seem to be getting younger! I extract my own Shizandra berries and Celastrus. I've used oil of oregano and cilantro. Turmeric is wonderful for the prostate!
God has given us all we need for a happy healthy life. We just need to embrace it. This crappy food today is the creation of Man not God. But I have been labeled a Wiccan for my stance on nutrition by several Christians. Most disturbing.
Miffed
Make sure you differentiate between Christians and "christians."
The former follow Jesus Christ; the latter Constantine.
Western "medicine" is the best at trauma treatment, nothing more.
Natural, holistic medicine, and genetic inheritance is the most probable determinant of our healthy lifespan.
But what matters most is not this 70-100 years, but the real life that comes afterwards.
Infinty vs. 100 years.
Think about it.
Interesting article. He got some minor points mixed up like MRSA and staph aureus. However, the point remains.
Resistance is an odd animal. In most countries of the world you can get antiobiotics without a prescription. Theoretically, they should show huge resistance as most people will not take them properly even with pharmacy guidance. Yet, they really do not show anything worse than the USA.
We get some nasty nosocomial infections from the hospitals. If you are a bug and can dodge, weave and overcome hospital sterilization than you are a bad-ass little bug.
The first and last line of resistance for anything is our own bodies. Frankly, we have an amazingly complex immune system that can potentially adapt to most anything that does not directly kill it. Certain foods or preparations might boost things. The other thing that boosts the immune system is the very thing we avoid, exposure. Pediatricians now tell parents to let their kids get dirty, get outside and in the course of getting bitten, stund, scratched and in the weeds you develop resistance and your body reacts properly...at least for most.
Like your other posts, I am going more paleo myself. Makes sense to me that basic meat and vegetables are what we are primarily programmed to eat. While I do not freak out at preservatives or even GMO (which gets misinterpreted) anything new or that the body is unused to can cause a problem.
Before you get too harsh on Monsanto or Dow or anyone else understand that for almost all of history up until modern times, food spoilage and sanitation have been huge problems. Canning, refridgerration and yes, preservatives helped to all but eliminate that problem. Now, the problem is more the opposite. We can transport food rather quickly and store it rather well at home. It is also hard to test the various chemicals used in or on our foods, too. They are not tested like medications and frankly they probably should be.
I think the internet is a good thing in that it puts a whole lot of information and competing ideas out there. With some judgment we can come up with solutions that work for us as individuals. You might be gluten sensitive, gluten intolerant, have celiac disease while I do not. Your food solutions will be different from mine.
Back to resistance, though. I do not know what the answer is but in the short run there had always better be one more antibiotic ready to go. Since you cannot sell them (due to high generic use) they will be stratospherically expensive if needed. But then penicillan when it first came out costs over a week's pay per dose, at first until Pfizer learned to mass produce it around 1944.
A lot of research is now focusing on enteric flora as the reason for much that ails us today. Considering we carry 9 trillion microbial passengers vs our 1 trillion cells there is merit they play a role in our health. Different populations are found in healthy vs sick, fat vs thin, even mentally ill vs well. This, as well as epigenetics are still being explored but I find it interesting that standard genetics and Kochs postulates are being questioned as definitive explanations to disease today.
Resistance is simply displayed due to selective pressures. Removing them and resistance reverts to susceptible. We have seen this happen even locally in our antibiograms. When you wipe out microbes in an environment, effectively sterilizing it, it can be recolonized by undesirables. Colonic " beneficial" bacteria have advantages by being simply placeholders. They have developed quite elaborate methods to do this. Funny thing is they have applied this to plastics. Biofilms on catheters are a massive problem now in central line infections. This is simply microbial evolution but it is causing lots of human deaths. Massive amount of antibiotics given are not effective because they cannot get though the biofilm.
I will not touch GMO because of the ability of bacteria to genetically asexually share information even with unrelated biotypes. This is a personal enteric experiment I will not participate. The research is being gathered now to an uncertain end. That we are seeing an explosion of IBS
and autism cases that are using protocols like the GAPS diet to help the condition has caught my attention. I read a scholarly paper about a study with 40 people diagnosed with fibromyalgia on a strict wheat free diet for several months. Many went into fully remission. They noted at the end of the study when the participants returned to their normal eating habits, their symptoms returned, prompting many to return to the original diet. The researchers were hoping for more studies.
I think wheat is fine for some people. But my husband has MG and notices a dramatic increase in symptoms if he partakes. Most distressing to him because he loves bread and baking. Blue bird grain farms is a good source for ancient varieties that may not have the antigenic properties found in modern wheat.
I have always enjoyed your posts. It is good to see some quality stay on ZH.
Miffed;-)
Thanks for your comment. I have found many people are suffering from leaky gut problems and our wheat today is poison. Then Monsanto's poison Roundup is sprayed on it. So much research has been done on this and on many estrogen mimicking chemicals found in our environment today. Even estrogen itself which is given to cattle to make them gain weight. I was in Colorado on a beef farm. I asked the farmer why there were steers kept separate by his house. " Those are mine for my friends and family. I won't give them that crap in the fields." Quite eye opening.
I pretty much stick to Paleo and eat mostly raw. We love cooking for ourselves. A few glasses of wine, hiking and yoga for stress relief. Oh, plenty of sex too! I have more energy than I had 20 years ago when I used coffee as a crutch too. Remember, the most common complaint naturopaths hear when they find gluten sensitivity is lack of energy.
Be well!
Miffed;-)
The good news is that free-range, grass-fed, no steroid beef is getting more popular. It sells for more because of demand. These things will change as the market changes and also as research improves.
Feed lots are nasty places you can smell long before you see them.
Go paleo.
FreedomGuy, Spot-on! (Medicine is a different economic animal than consumer markets).
May I add, that our wonderful congresscritters placed a For Rent sign above their asses, and the H.C. conglomerates damn sure "ponied up".
It's an industry that has bought a full pass on the Sherman Act.
Just think of the disability opportunities that you may have. Most English that I see at the furniture store pull up into the handicap parking spot and come into the store looking for opportunities to sue us for not being in compliance with the ADA.
Ha, ha suckers. We smelled you coming!
http://amishoutlaws.com/amish_steppin805.jpg
When we lived in Amish country, there was a job board at the local farm supply store where you could post work for the Amish. I needed a fence built and the local contractors were quoting 3-4X the cost of materials for the entire project. That seemed pretty high so I posted the work on the Amish board and within a week, we had an agreement. All I had to do was rent a hole-driller and they would do the rest.
The day of the job, I had to go and drive them to my place because it was too taxing on their horse & buggy. First, there were four of them instead of the two I expected, and they only brought a small bag of tools and their lunch pails, and nothing else -- no shovels, saws, etc. It turns out they are well versed in using power tools even though they don't possess any, so it was a good thing that I had some. And the reason for four of them is because only two work at a time. When they get tired, the other two take over, and back and forth throughout the day. In the end, they did a good job but the cost savings over the contractor was barely 10%, not counting the driving and wear and tear on my tools. Since I'm supplying the ride, the tools and the supplies, maybe next time I'll just pick up a few workers in front of the Home Depot.
--Want a higher wage? Then increase your value! --
...or just 'get in with the right bunch of fellows... takin' care of business'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJprEyXMrIk
Idiot logic, the Waltons are worth more than a $100 billion; that's income stolen from wage earners. So you tell me where the money goes asswipe. Want a higher wage, you need bargaining power because the market NEVER works.
typical marxist. the waltons never forced anyone to work for them, or forcibly took anything from them. work there or don't work there. your choice.
.gov on the other hand takes a cut right off the top before you see a penny, and if you complain, its a gun in your face.
the worse the waltons do is a pink slip and maybe no reference.
i know which one i consider theft.
Yes they did, its called government assistance. Low cost loans do have a cost, that cost is not paid by those who take out the loan but by those who must suffer the inflation from it.
They also when public this also is forced labor when central banks can print it the means to by shares a zero cost to them.
Labor needs commodites, these commodites suffer inflation when you no longer need commodites to enter into a game built by and for commodites.
Businesses dont operate in a vaccume they effect and are effected by fraud, decite and murder.
Those Waltons stole and implemented forced labor to get that money which they then wrongfully enriched those who helped them do it. Ever hear selling at a loss untill your compitition goes bankrupt, then you have a monopoly on that town or area.
This is not allowed in international business but seems fine for local towns. Its not your fault you dont think, you were trained not to.
Richest Americans:
#9 Christy Walton $36.3 Billion
#10 Jim Walton $35.8 billion
It does not seem outrageous to suggest that these two Waltons, who did nothing to earn this money except being born a Walton, share a billion or so with the people busting their ass to make them rich - but this is ZH, and that is communist/Markist/Nazi/Socialist whatever talk.
Greed is good, and all that.
Have any of you name-calling asshats ever been poor? I mean really fucking poor, and working (maybe more than one job) minimum wage jobs where you were treated like disposable dirty diapers?
I have, and it sucks. The insane level of Walton wealth up against the $9 wage of their entry level people is disparity rampant. Fuck the Waltons, and fuck Walmart - I don't shop there, which is easy - the closest one is 70+ miles away.
You are a moron, fly. First, most of that value is in stock. It is not cash. What is in cash did not come from theft from workers. Theft from workers comes in the form of taxes which are taken by force and actually visible on your paycheck. Their wealth comes from the fact that their parking lots are full of voluntary shoppers who want to shop there. You might go over to Sears and notice that their parking lot is sparse. They used to be number one.
You assertion means wages never rise. That is demonstrably untrue. Wage always rise over time for a host of reasons, mainly increased output per hour, government currency inflation and when labor has a net demand or shortage (skill specific).
I have been through both the upside and downside of labor demand.
Walmart is the similar to the Federal Government.
They set up shop in an area
Put all the less efficient mom and pop stores out of business
Overall employment diminishes so wages go down.
They suck all the profits out of the area, whereas mom and pop live there and spend their money there.
People earn less so property values go down.
In the end , the residents are completely dependant on Walmart to supply them with both income and the food and items they need because they can't afford to shop anywhere else.
Meanwhile , their wages are so low that most of their employees qualify for public assistance, which means you and I have to subsidize Walmart's labor cost so that they may can undercut the businesses that pay a living wage.
Walmart is a Ghetto Machine
Fuck Walmart
Not true at all. Walmart sets up shop in a smaller town and mom and pops may go out of business if they cannot compete. However, mom and pop always own the business. If you worked there you cannot advance. The operation is too small and does not throw off enough revenue or opportunities. You go to the big city regularly to get the stuff you need.
Walmat comes in and they have a whole range of management, corporate opportunities and everything from shelf stockers to fork lift operators to 27 cashiers. You do not necessarily need to drive to the big city to get what you need or a better price. You save money, time and wear and tear on the old Suburban.
I have family that worked at Walmart and you don't know anything about it.
Mom and pop are highly overrated and Pop, Jr. who is a self centered idiot is always going to be the next manager-owner, not you.
You dipshit, Have you even read your Adam Smith, All profits are generated by paying employees much less than they are worth.
I offer you a job @ $9h and you accept, that's a functioning market
I offer you a job @ $8h and you reject, that's a functioning market
The government mandates $15h, that is not a market.
But the market is skewed against the worker because he has to eat or die. So he may not freely want to take the $9h job but has to because the successful company has bankrupted all the companies paying $10h, Is that a functioning market or is that a market that has fucked the worker and enriched the owner?
"But the market is skewed against the worker because he has to eat or die"
If a choice is made to stay home and sit on the couch one would not "starve to death" so why would a guy working starve to death and please stop with the hyperbole, no one has starved to death for lack of charity or government handout.
The public teachers union have more to do with lack of marketable skills than walmart has to do with low wage jobs.
The company has to sell or die and many many die. Ever see a restaurant, hair place or local consignment store go under?
The bottom line is that all business is a cooperative venture without the use of force. A job is put out on the market at a price. Willing workers take it, some do not. If the company cannot find workers at that price they must pay more. If they want better workers they pay still more.
If someone does not like the pay they do not take the work. Most anyone has multiple options including the cool new option in modern societies...public assistance.
Your world is a fiction and you do not understand the basic forces.
Government is force and it immediately and forever destroys the market forces which balance things out. This is why fighters cost a billion dollars a copy and teachers are underpaid.
@Freedomguy
I agree that the Goverment destroys market forces.
Since our goverment gives subsidies to the poor, people can take that piece of shit Walmart job, then have you and I subsidize their income via a federal handout.
So in the end you may get that tee shirt cheaper at Walmart but you're paying higher Taxes.
Either the minimum wage needs to go up or the poverty level for assistance needs to go down.
That would be Marx, surplus value of labor, dumb ass.
FORWARD SOVIET!
Forward, comrades! Let us march to our happy government organized future. Let us see which part of the anthill we have been assigned to and do our collectivist tasks!
In at least a couple of those closed stores, the low paid but opiate addicted employees were robbing them blind. Solution was to close down and rid themselves of the entire infected work force.
Theft and vandalism by employees has always been a problem. Why care about a faceless and far away monstrosity of a company which makes untold billions per year while you get a small wage for keeping the beast alive? Might as well have some fun and go out to the inventory in trailers and just break shit.
Gosh, you just described the unofficial job description of an Apple Store genius bar attendant.
iPhone baseball!
Wal-mart would probably like to maintain the status quo, but popular opinion is turning against them due to a concerted media blitz, which plays up working poor
Wal-mart employees collecting gov. benefits, which are in turn spent at Wal-mart. so ipso-facto Wal-mart is receiving gov. benefits. Now me personally, I subscribe more
to the philosophy of Henry Ford, who I paraphrase as saying:
I want to pay my employees just enough to survive, and ensure that they can never buy one of the cars they help manufacture.
Henry Ford said exactly the opposite.
Yes, it's always great to pay employees as little as possible. Why do you think Unions came into being.
Oh my bad. I'm not facetious.
"The $5-a-day rate was about half pay and half bonus. The bonus came with character requirements and was enforced by the Socialization Organization. This was a committee that would visit the employees’ homes to ensure that they were doing things the “American way.” They were supposed to avoid social ills such as gambling and drinking. They were to learn English, and many (primarily the recent immigrants) had to attendclasses to become “Americanized.” Women were not eligible for the bonus unless they were single and supporting the family. Also, men were not eligible if their wives worked outside the home."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fo...
Love to see that go down today.... the libtard brainwashed sheeple would be up in arms. Having immigrants learn the language and culture of the country they are moving too and be upstanding moral citizens? Where do you think this is, the rest of the world? NEVER
OK, I've been convinced. Wages should be cut, and people should become so desperately poor that they begin roaming the perimeters of gated communities
in hopes of a scrap to eat, or stray pet, or small child. We need as a nation to take inequality to the extremes so as to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Fortunately for us, we can all hop on our private jets, and depart to our Swiss chalet to ride out the storm. Hell we don't want to prep for nothing. Bring it!!
Do you understand what mal-investment is?
That's all the shitty businesses that cannot afford to pay more that are still in business when they should not be.
And that forces legitimately good businesses to have to cut their prices to compete, forcing then to also pay their employees less because they have to compete with a competitor that is being subsidized by their own profits.
Eliminate the causes of mal-investment and behold the miracle of free markets and capitalism.
For only then will the economic pie expand accordingly.
If mal-investment isn't going to disappear over night, then in the meantime at least mal-invest into something that might possibly prime the pump of the virtuoes cycle
and increase velocity in trade. If wage increases cause the "shitty businesses" to go down then that would validate your point.
Priming the pump is why we are in the mess in the first place. Prining the pump brought future denand into today's activities. Only there was nothing to replace that demand in the future.
Businesses will be failing- fear not.
Did Walmart mal-invest to the point of being in danger of disappearance? No. Their competition is in worse shape. You dont have to outrun the bear.
Good point, analogous to the arms race between the US and the USSR.
One only has to see the underperforming stores at Wal-mart to know that they should not have invested in those stores....
And when the fortune turns, they actually do need to shutter them.
That's how you save what you can from malinvestments.
Excellent point, and I agree fully. My point is that mal-investment is going to happen anyway, or so it seems for the time being. SO, if it is,
then how about some infrastructure projects? Energy grid, water, sewer, bridges, roads etc.. Create some jobs, decent paying jobs--trickle
up economics. If you know you are going to binge on cocaine, then call over a couple girlfriends and have a big time.
Don't sit around, alone,hogging it all up. That may be a bad analogy.
(For the record I DO NOT endorse drug use, but if you're gonna--do it right)
Infrastructure projects? You mean like Jerry Brown's $100B bullet train to nowhere? That kind of infrastructure?
Not familiar with that particular project, but all projects don't have to be boondoggles, hell, if we're gonna build shit in MENA--why the
hell can we not build stuff here!?! We've got some shit falling apart. I don't giva a shit if it's public or private funding--just put some
people to WORK. Put down the EBT card, dust off your work boots and get your ass out there or you don't eat!!
How many people do you employ in your business? 10, 50, 100?
3, and you?
0
Hiring employees and having them on a payroll became obsolete after Obamacare passed. I farm out all work to independent contractors who have LLCs or some type of liability protection.
In case you're wondering, I work in finance and real estate. I'm sure you all understand I like to keep my professional life seperate from my Fight Club life.
The rub of that is, the US economy is overbalanced towards consumption. To achieve external balance, the US will have to cut some of its consumption down; not a lot, about 5% from where it is, but (and this is most important) it must channel the money not spent consuming on infrastructure.
bingo!
But won't it work just as well to impoverish eveybody, force them into reducing their consumption via reducing their income, and then channel all of that "reduced consumption" money to the largest banks in the world so they can leverage it 40 to 1 and buy stocks or speculate in derivatives?
or channel it to infrastructure projects, thus creating NEW jobs, which should stimulate the economy, and replace the forgone consumption.
Invest in the nation with the proceeds of delayed gratification.
It would work, at the cost of political stability within the US itself. I assume you were joking, but part of the reason income inequality has gotten so bad in the US is precisely because impoverishing everyone is a valid answer to the problem.
Gotcha! Yeah that will and has been working.
"Infrastructure" as in a code word for bullshit malinvestment-on-a-national-scale Krugman's wet dreams make-work ditch digging idiocy which promotes consumption in at least three different ways?
Which kind of infrastructure project does not promote consumption, ignoring the glaringly obvious problem of the enormous consumption required just to accomplish the project itself?
The only kind I can think of is the truly insane and caricatural Keynesian shovel ready mega-project such as a pyramid (which, in fact, promotes tourism and its accouterments, which is a consumption industry par excellence).
All other types of infrastructure projects are investments made with the goal of earning back more than the cost ... by charging, in some way, for the benefit to commerce provided by the new infrastructure.
There is no social and, it goes without saying, absolutely no political, will to undertake any truly remotely beneficial infrastructure projects because doing so would require admitting and accepting that the good times are over and the future is less. The people want malls and highways, not organic farms, reforestation, biosphere remediation, car-free communities, livable cities, or anything else that isn't pure disgusting consumptive waste.
Infrastructure as in a code word for "things which will allow for greater consumption in the medium-to-long term." Electric grid upgrades, bridges (both repairs and new builds entirely,) road and levee maintenance, internet access (both wired and wireless) as well as maintaining the country's rail infrastructure. These are things which are ever-present in essentially every state and almost universally requires some looking at.
Infrastructure (or more broadly, investment) has one purpose: to expand consumption at a later date, which the US needs now because it's bumping up against the limits of the most recent wave of national infrastructure, and thus needs refurbishment.
I'm not expressly sure why your idea of beneficial infrastructure are low-productivity farms and car-free communities, aside from the idea that you might be European and thus accustomed to such things. I'm also not sure why you'd list reforestation, given that the US has done exceptional work reforesting, having maintained an average net positive trend since the 2000s.
The main issue is that govenements tends to dictate a signe nation-wide all-people minimum wage.
In reality, the minimum wage acceptable depends highly on people and location.
In theory, the law of market would force the employer to find the correct minimum wage locally and for each type of employee to be able to recrut them.
The danger of minimum wage is to pay the same an average employee with no experienced and a good employee with experience.
The same wage in an expensive housing city location and a cheap rural location is also a nonsense.
Agreed.
The main issue is that govenements tends to dictate a signe nation-wide all-people minimum wage.
In reality, the minimum wage acceptable depends highly on people and location.
In theory, the law of market would force the employer to find the correct minimum wage locally and for each type of employee to be able to recrut them.
The danger of minimum wage is to pay the same an average employee with no experienced and a good employee with experience.
The same wage in an expensive housing city location and a cheap rural location is also a nonsense.
Agreed, again.
Yep, up vote on that comment. The ridiculous idea that everyone should be in such desperate poverty that they live in tents, is somehow wonderful working capitalism, needs to die.
Henry Ford was a great American and he knew whch people were trying to destroy America. Hint: its still the same people 100 years later!
Ford wanted to pay his employees enough to keep them from leaving and going elsewhere with their skills...
With Wal-mart's profit margin down to 3%, they have painted themselves into a corner.
Raise wages and you consume that three per cent if sales stay the same.
Leave wages where they are, service sucks, and sales drop, driving that 3% to 2%.
Or you choose a third path.
Each store has it's own level of profitability. Close every store below three per cent profitabilty. Your overall profitability % rises. Focus on the most profitable stores and grow them.
Size matters.
But size AND profitability matters most.
Agreed.
"...Each store has it's own level of profitability. Close every store below three per cent profitabilty. Your overall profitability % rises..."
And if your overall profitability % rises, the company makes more money...
Behold the awesomeness of the American educational system.
Long Brawndo.
eelectrolites is does a body good.
Not sure, I think that Ford was really interested in paying his employees enough so that they could afford to buy the products that Ford made. Walmart cares not about anyone or anything except the people who own Walmart. Also doesn't seem like Ford actually cared about his employees, he was just a good businessman. What has Walmarts business model been for decades: use muscle to force your suppluers to fire Americans, close American manufacturing operations, and move then to the far East and Mexico, so that you can sell similar products lower than the competition can. Eventually, none of your employees can afford to buy even the cheap, knock off garbage you sell. Walmart's bottom line is funded in part by taxpayers (those who are left with jobs), since many of the Walmart employees are eligible for welfare and food stamps.
Sounds like a lousy business model, if you ask me. Its a race to the bottom.
Business owners never care about employees, but they do care about their "contacts" and other business relationships.
Once employees understand this concept, we will have a world of fewer employees, and more entrepreneurs.
The IRS tax code screws over employees, but rewards employers. If more people knew this, they would stop being employees.
I want to thank Robert Kiyosaki to opening my eyes to this concept way back when. I got out of the employee mindset and into a business person mindset. I don't go into business to babysit employees, I got into business to make money and be successful. I don't even have employees, I only farm out tasks needed done to independent contractors. Those said independent contractors are themselves entrepreneurs. It becomes a symbiotic relationship of LLCs dealing with other LLCs.
Sigmund Freud described the father figure archetype, and we have grown up adults, some as old as their 50s and 60s even, who look at their boss at their job as a daddy figure who takes care of them. Employees need to stop this.
There is actually a leftist theory that companies can make things no one can afford. This is quite impossible apart from government. It is only possible with government as government uses the force of law and police and no economic inputs.
When you see a low wage country you also see very cheap goods. When you go to huge wage countries like Switzerland you see enormously expensive costs of living.
In a free economy all things are constantly rebalance and in a sense always balanced.
Here is a famous Ford quote.
"There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."
He paid his people well, like double the standard rate of the time to prevent turn over and because he argued the opposite of what you say. Whatever Marxist echo chamber you exist in to get your 'knowledge' from I suggest you break out of it.
I see now how important the "sarc" symbol is.
What we apparently need is a special font for sarcastic comments. Call it Sarc Sans Serif or something similar. Anyone out there good at creating fonts?
That is an excellent idea! Sarcasm derives its root word from Greek "to tear flesh", so maybe little sharp barbs at the end points of letters, making them
resemble fish hooks would fit the bill. Again, very good idea, and I'm not being sarcastic. q:B
The problem is that there are so many Socialists out there who actually think and say things like what you posted that it is hard to spot the sarcasm.
10-4, point taken.
Dang socialists agin! Junior, go fetch my shootin' iron!
Nut job is a correct name - what a dipshit. Paraphrase? How about warp 100%. How about mis-stating the truth?
Here are some actual quotes:
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
And another, quoted on ZH more than once:
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. And another:A business that makes nothing but money a poor business.Ford always felt it was important to pay his people enough to be able to afford to buy the automobile they were making. From WikiPedia:
Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism", designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers.[22]
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($120 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers.[23] A Cleveland, Ohio newspaper editorialized that the announcement "shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression."[24] The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.
And You, NutJob, made up a quote that is antithical to what Ford believed and practiced. What an asshole.
Or are you reacting to Ford's anti-semitisim, which was also well known.?
Hey dude, you and I may see more eye to eye than you may think, break out your dictionary and look up satire, facetious, and sarcasm,
then reread my post; and at that point if you still feel the same way then fah que because Imuhnutjahb. Oh, by the way, I gave you
the solitary up arrow (well at least as of this posting). Later.
Democrats will not lose any votes. Walmart is their whipping boy and will take the blame. Walmart takes it because they get serviced by the politicians in private.
...."chicks for free."
No, just ask anyone with a minimum wage job. And there are millions. Walmart is laying off some workers because the economy sucks. 1000 workers is less than 1% of their work force. They just timed it this way for the obvious political hay making. And most of you swallowed the bullshit.
The concept of understanding the outcomes & consequences of their bullshit polucies completely escape the understanding of the idiot progressive luberal democraps.... Fukn geniuses They are....
We've officially raised wages......one more thing.......you're fired.
You'll notice your increased wage included here in your final paycheck. You take care now.
I remember reading that the employee wage increases would require Walmart to mark up an item that cost $5.00 to $5.05.
I don't believe that would dent their sales.
I believe it's the economy, stupid
Hey man! Where is your compassion! The Walton family depends on that nickel to make ends meet! What the hell are those employees going to do with more money?
Libprog logic in action, the stupid; it burns....
You maybe right, now that I think about it, all the economic gains linked to increased productivity for the last 35 years have gone predominantly to the middle class,
which is growing by leaps and bounds. Luckily the middle class have been able to shelter their windfalls in higher energy, housing, health care and food costs.
The .001% are being trampled under the heel of the middle class. By the way my burning stupidity is derived from Libertarianism. I'm not a fan of minimum wages
in a free market, but in an era of lawyers, lobbyists, CPA's, rapacious campaign contributions, corporate hegemony over small business, etc. it's hard to argue the
markets are free. So you've gotta start somewhere.
There have been no economic gains in the last 35 years. There has only been currency debasement through debt. Subtract the debt, and GDP is negative virtually every single quarter since 1980.
You are probably right, maybe "financial gains" would be a more appropriate term. But, it does seem some have benefited more from the debt than others.
If you get your hands on the debt first and parlay that into hard assets, of which you hold title, then you've got a good "economy" for you,
especially if you can eschew proportional taxation, and shift that down the food chain. Leona Helmsley, nailed it, she just said it out loud--bad Leona bad.
Apart from Jesus Christ; none of this will matter at the end. All religions are false and the only true religion is not a set of man-made rules (all religions), but a relationship with the Creator based on love and forgiveness...you have heard it called Christianity. Most people's view of it is skewed by false religion under the guise of Christianity, such as Roman Catholicism as a large example.
I'm not a fan of minimum wages, in a free market, but in an era of lawyers, lobbyists, CPA's, rapacious campaign contributions, corporate hegemony over small business, etc. it's hard to argue the, markets are free. So you've gotta start somewhere.
In other words, more of the same stuff that's choking the system. Brilliant.
Who is John Galt?
Most of the shit that has been choking the system has not benefited the middle class; so if it's gonna be business as usual then
at least redirect funds from welfare, be it corporate or social, and build some shit, increase the minimum wage, DO SOMETHING
to get money in the hands of people that buy shit, rather than rat holeing it overseas. This isn't rocket surgery.
Link to "It's the economy stupid"
https://www.google.com/search?q=it%27s+the+economy+stupid&biw=1149&bih=8...
I actually do believe that Sam Walton is rolling in his grave due to what his company has become and how greedy his off-spring has become.
Raise a child in the way he should go and when is is old he will not depart from it. "the way he should go" is the way of godliness or holiness...we have not done that and embraced our own form of morality, which is immorality.
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Perhaps the Walton's did not get the memo.
Sacrifice a 1000 republicans to pascify 1,500,000 democrats.
Sounds about right.
Econ 201: If people don't make enough to buy shit, they ain't gonna buy shit, and when your economy depends on people buying shit, well now you're up shit creek.
Would you like to apply for a MasterCard or HELOC?
Americans just use credit.
"The average US household credit card debt stands at $15,863, counting only those households carrying debt. Based on an analysis of Federal Reserve statistics and other government data, the average household owes $7,400 on their cards; looking only atindebted households, the average outstanding balance rises to $15,863. Here are statistics, trends, studies and methodology behind the average U.S. household debt.
U.S. household consumer debt profile:
In total, American consumers owe:
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt...
Exactly, thats why they are doomed...the snake is eating its own tail so to speak.
.
Evil is dysfunctional.
"Evil is dysfunctional.", thus we are all evil beings. See God of Scripture knows exactly what we are. The good in man is the reflection of God and the evil in man is reflective of man's fallen nature..fallen nature..fallen nature.
That't no shit, and speaking of shit, this somehow all ties into the plumbing problems, how hard is it really?
If you're a plumber all you need to know is you get paid on Tuesday and shit runs downhill, it's not rocket science.
Quasi, there's more to it than that;
3) Every asshole you meet is a potential customer and,
4) Never, under any circumstances, bite your fingernails.
You must be from Rio de Janiero.
Bingo in a nutshell!!
Employee ROLLBACK!
The second worst supermarket of 68 surveyed in US is increasing its minimum wage by a few pennies - happy days are here again
Walmart ranks second worst in survey of supermarkets where Americans like to buy groceries... while Wegmans takes first placeWalmart Supercenter was ranked the second worst in Consumer Reports' annual supermarket survey
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025259/Walmart-ranks-second-wor...