Not picking on you, but it reminded me of when earlier people were talking about profits and corporations. Walmart's profit margin is 3.5%.
Whatever dude. I never said their profit margins were through the roof. I do wonder though how much of that margin factors into the 100 billion+ the Waltons have. Everyone needs to make a living but holy shit that is a lot of money they're hoarding. Regardless that doesn't change my point. Good companies can do better than minimum or slightly above minimum wage. Wal-Mart is everywhere but if this is the best they can do they aren't a good company in my mind. The fact that others in the industry can sort of drives that point home.
But what is their CEO compensation package? What is the value that they pay higher up executives? How much did they donate to campaigns? How much did they invest in building more stores? My point is in closely held businesses it does not always make sense to show a profit. You don't necessarily want to show a loss, but the idea - if you don't have stockholders that can remove you - is to show very little profit and a lot of expense for tax reasons. So saying they only have a 3.5% profit margin (though how much does this translate into dollars? Millions? Hundreds of Millions?) doesn't tell the story of a company's financial health and viability.
Happy reading http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Wal-Mart_(WMT)/Filing/10-K/2015/F122808842 The top 3 earners in the family don't really receive a salary thats that big compared to their ownership. They receive controlling interest dividends. (About 3 Billion split between them for FY15)
3.5% profit margin translates into a fuckton of money. $15 billion. If I had any point, it's that that's not a great margin, and the shareholders and board of directors might get upset if that number went down to pay some workers more.
I don't have the time to look at everything in Juice's link, but I'm just saying that base salary figures for positions like that are basically meaningless. Hell, I make 170% of my base and I'm pretty low on the food chain. This is interesting. I'm not sure if that guy's math is right, but more in an hour than your employees make an a year? That's nuts. Granted he should be paid more, substantially more, but that's fucking ludicrous. This too is a bit telling and fairly well researched from what I can tell: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...-now/just-how-wealthy-wal-mart-walton-family/
I don't think it's fucking ludicrous. The guy is the CEO of a company with $400 billion in revenue and $15 billion in profits.
According to the math in that article he's making roughly 2500x what the employees are. If you don't think that is over the top I really don't know what to tell you. I guess you think it's quite reasonable that one fucking family (6 people, not some giant family tree) has as much as 42% of Americans combined as well. If some dictator owned 98% of a nation's wealth would that be ok too? Where should it stop?
A dictator steals money from the people. The people of America and other countries paid Walmart this money voluntarily. I think voluntary transactions are reasonable.
It is not the dollar amount that concerns me, it is how they got to that amount. They could have 10x that amount for all I care. Pay your workers, pay your goddamn taxes, bonus your execs all you want. This isn't a new idea, but corporations (and banks and energy corps) have done a very fine job convincing everyone they're under attack from evil government regulations when in fact they have effectively bought the legislative body and are rolling back measures for a fair working culture and a clean environment (see: Wisconsin and Kansas). They are ALL making RECORD profits. If Walmart had to cough up X amount a year more to improve the quality of life for their workers like the rest of the modern world, don't think for a second these people will close up shop. I will not be upset about an over-extended company making 15 billion in profits. You want to be that big? Play fair.
If it wasn't the Waltons it would in all likelihood just be someone else. Take 6 people owning 'only' what 25% of Americans own if easing the figures for an alternate scenario makes it better. Somebody is going to be that absurdly rich, so it's only voluntary in the sense that it's going to one person or another. The dollar amount happens to bother me, but also what Charles Johnson is saying. Wal-mart didn't play fair to get the money they have. Also, due to the fact that whether or not they carry your brand determines whether a lot of other companies survive allows them to get away with shit other companies could only dream of. For example, they slap suppliers with a 10k fine for a labeling error on a product(as in just a few labels, not a month's production), even if the error is completely irrelevant. I can promise you it doesn't cost Wal-mart anywhere near 10k on average, but they do it because they can.
Walmart stock will take care of itself. They might have a couple bad quarters, a year, but it will correct itself. This doesn't concern me or 309 million other Americans. Walmart the company is not going anywhere and has a license to print money. Walmart is worth more than entire countries. Also take into account the stock of companies tangentially related to Wallymart. Energy, shipping, products, consumer goods, even construction. Invest in those. Even if Walmart gets free reign, they only have so far to up at their current level. If they and their ilk keep screwing employees, that top will be found sooner rather than later when no one can afford to buy their goods.
U. S. House passes Confederate flag ban http://www.wtva.com/news/national/s...federate-flag-ban/Enb8qGejoEmh2gPXp6DGcA.cspx City Council unanimously approves removal of Nathan Bedford Forrest remains from municipal park http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story...l-of-confederate-statue-full-vote-later-today This is getting ridiculous.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/20..._at_new_york_stock_exchange.html#incart_river Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue
I think what gets me most is these two parts of the first article: What the hell? A Californian proposed a bill that only affect 2 states, 2000 miles away and has absolutely zero to do with his state.
Something to consider.... CEO salaries have jumped up a LOT over the past couple decades. I have read that the whole "keeping up with the Jones's" thing may partially be to blame for this because it is easy to find out how much CEOs make and you don't underpay CEOs. Companies keep shelling out more and more. And they can afford it, because they are making plenty in profits. Average salaries of middle class working shlubs has stayed about the same (adjusted to inflation), since about 1980. The US as well as a lot of the rest of the world is experiencing a lot of economic issues right now. If you pretend that all these issues don't tie together, you need to reevaluate some things. I am going to peace out of this thread again for a little while, but one last thing before I exit. Just because someone or some corporation is operating within the law doesn't mean what they are doing is right, ethical, fair, or okay, especially when many of these people and corporations are the ones with the financial means to get their way. It means we need to address some fucked up laws or loop holes on the books, or band together (unionize) to make sure our company isn't fucking us because they can, or go after the ones outright breaking the laws. Or address the ones who are avoiding the issue entirely, because they'd rather set up shop outside the country to operate as they please while making all their profits within this country. Just because something is happening doesn't mean you have to sit back and say "well, that's just how it is." And shrug. Sometimes I look around me and wonder what country I am even in.
There is a theme going on here that really concerns me. What is right. What wage is appropriate for someone to make. A CEO shouldn't make this, an associate at Wal-Mart shouldn't make this. Why don't we just abolish money so everyone is equal? Lets make it so no one's 40 hour work week is worth more or less than someone else's. That sounds fair to me. In fact, lets do away with corporations entirely. I claim they are immoral, so lets do away with immoral organizations. Lets let the government take over these companies so they can no longer abuse the working class and working poor. Sounds fair right? There are abuses in the system. CEO's lobbying lawmakers to decrease tax rates and allow loopholes to benefit themselves in their position should not happen. Companies creating ways to avoid taxes should not happen. These things should be fixed. Companies and CEO's etc, should be on the same level as the average person making 60K a year when it comes to taxes and ways to get around them. But lets stay away from saying whats fair for someone to make. Lets fix the tax code, lets close the loopholes and tax havens and let things play out from there. I will never say its fair for someone to make x amount and another person more or less for the same work. I'd rather let the labor market figure out wage rates than some persons intuition and conscience Focus: Working to ban confederate flags in confederate soldier cemeteries seems like a bit much. Granted we disagree with what they were fighting for, but the vast majority of the men who died were normal men of the time, no more or less moral than men fighting for the Union
400 fatal police shootings so far this year which is debatable because those statistics are voluntarily reported. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...22256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of the victims were black. But, Lawd Jaysis the Confederate flag is everywherrrreee.....What a huge crock of shit. Yes, I am a Southerner who acknowledges it as a symbol of hate, and it has no business on the statehouse. But, let's not pretend this is a central issue to racism in America or that attacking a bunch of statues, symbols and flags is going to make black lives safer, better or more equitable. Also, anyone else find it interesting that the Chinese stock market fucking tanked, and the NYSE shuts down due to "technical issues"? Anyone?
The Economist had an interesting story on this a couple of days ago: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/07/chinas-stockmarket-crash Basically, the government seems to be stepping in because it is panicking out of fear of looking weak.