The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.

[Matt1970]

there are some that post some ridiculous shit the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore the garbage. You are on the edge of my ignore threshold for example.

buhwahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[BoberFett]

Originally Posted by Engineer
Another one added to "Ignore".



There are some that post some ridiculous shit the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore the garbage. You are on the edge of my ignore threshold for example.

LOL, this is just precious coming from you duhmcowen.

 

[shady28]

Walmart's unimpressive earnings are a prime example. They pay their "associates" peanuts, squeeze suppliers, well, their customers are squeezed too, so they don't have money to spend at Walmart.

I get really sick of clueless people constantly bashing Wal-Mart as if they should give raises to everyone. Do any of you have any idea what you're talking about at all? Do you have even a modicum of mathematical skill or ability to research for yourself what you are talking about?

These unskilled workers have NO pricing power for their wages. NONE.

Wal-Mart sold 469 Billion in merchandise in 2013, employs 2,200,000+ FULL TIME associates, across over 11000 stores. Profit? Just under 17 billion, about 3.6% return on that 469 billion.

Let's put this in perspective.

Apple sold 171 Billion in 2013, and made 37 billion in profit - more than 2x wal-mart's profit on about 1/3 of the sales. 21.6% return.

IBM sold 104 Billion in 2013, and made 16.6 Billion in profit. ie, for 1/5th the sales they made about the same profit as wal-mart. [ b]16% return.[/b]

How about Macys? They sold 11.1 Billion and made 1.3 billion. ie, about 12% return.

And people are constantly bashing wal-mart, as if they had a lot of money and should be paying their associates like engineers?

Really, please get a freakin clue.

There are only two things that can happen to raise income from Wal-Mart workers - either prices go up substantially, or Wal-Mart goes broke.

Take a look at all the regular retailers like Target (5% margin) or Kohls (5%). Then you have JCP and Sears losing money hand over fist.

There is no ability to raise wages in these industries.

 

[shady28]

Are you saying all Hispanics are illegal farm workers?
Seems like the racist here is you.

Nice revisionism senseamp. That isn't what he said, he just poked holes in your liberal facade and pointed to the racism beneath it, so your response was to put words in his mouth. You are a true piece.

 

[Engineer]

I don't think those 2.1 million associates are full time.

 

[theeedude]

I get really sick of clueless people constantly bashing Wal-Mart as if they should give raises to everyone. Do any of you have any idea what you're talking about at all? Do you have even a modicum of mathematical skill or ability to research for yourself what you are talking about?

These unskilled workers have NO pricing power for their wages. NONE.

Wal-Mart sold 469 Billion in merchandise in 2013, employs 2,200,000+ FULL TIME associates, across over 11000 stores. Profit? Just under 17 billion, about 3.6% return on that 469 billion.

Let's put this in perspective.

Apple sold 171 Billion in 2013, and made 37 billion in profit - more than 2x wal-mart's profit on about 1/3 of the sales. 21.6% return.

IBM sold 104 Billion in 2013, and made 16.6 Billion in profit. ie, for 1/5th the sales they made about the same profit as wal-mart. [ b]16% return.[/b]

How about Macys? They sold 11.1 Billion and made 1.3 billion. ie, about 12% return.

And people are constantly bashing wal-mart, as if they had a lot of money and should be paying their associates like engineers?

Really, please get a freakin clue.

There are only two things that can happen to raise income from Wal-Mart workers - either prices go up substantially, or Wal-Mart goes broke.

Take a look at all the regular retailers like Target (5% margin) or Kohls (5%). Then you have JCP and Sears losing money hand over fist.

There is no ability to raise wages in these industries.

Not without a minimum wage increase that guarantees that all competitors raise their wages as well.

 

[BoberFett]

I get really sick of clueless people constantly bashing Wal-Mart as if they should give raises to everyone. Do any of you have any idea what you're talking about at all? Do you have even a modicum of mathematical skill or ability to research for yourself what you are talking about?

These unskilled workers have NO pricing power for their wages. NONE.

Wal-Mart sold 469 Billion in merchandise in 2013, employs 2,200,000+ FULL TIME associates, across over 11000 stores. Profit? Just under 17 billion, about 3.6% return on that 469 billion.

Let's put this in perspective.

Apple sold 171 Billion in 2013, and made 37 billion in profit - more than 2x wal-mart's profit on about 1/3 of the sales. 21.6% return.

IBM sold 104 Billion in 2013, and made 16.6 Billion in profit. ie, for 1/5th the sales they made about the same profit as wal-mart. [ b]16% return.[/b]

How about Macys? They sold 11.1 Billion and made 1.3 billion. ie, about 12% return.

And people are constantly bashing wal-mart, as if they had a lot of money and should be paying their associates like engineers?

Really, please get a freakin clue.

There are only two things that can happen to raise income from Wal-Mart workers - either prices go up substantially, or Wal-Mart goes broke.

Take a look at all the regular retailers like Target (5% margin) or Kohls (5%). Then you have JCP and Sears losing money hand over fist.

There is no ability to raise wages in these industries.

Democrats love to crow about facts and science and math being on their side, but they routinely ignore it when it's convenient to maintain their outrage.

If your numbers are correct, then WalMart profited about $8,000 per employee. A Democrat would say those employees are being taken advantage of and not being given their share of the profits.

On the other hand, Apple and it's $37B in profit was earned on the backs of around 80,000 employees (according to Wikipedia) for a profit of $462,500 per employee.

Which company is taking advantage of it's employees?

 

[Fox5]

I'm getting the sense you've never experienced life in a truly 3rd world country, otherwise you wouldn't be making the ridiculous comparison of our poor or middle class to them. Even if you’re stuck in the bottom 5% of the US income distribution your standard of living is about equal to that of the top 5% of Indians.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ive-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/

Or to put it another way, our bottom 10% enjoy a better standard of living than the top 10% in Italy. Oh noes, Italy is a 3rd world nation now!

Err...just going by the fine print here but "Based on income or education" is not evidence of standard of living.
The standard of living in America is expensive, you can live just as well in other countries for cheaper. The education statistic seems completely irrelevant to the standard of living too, and how are they equating income vs education to quality of life?

America could be in for a hurt though. Manufacturing jobs are tough, and we haven't exactly raised generations used to back breaking labor. Even most of those willing would probably burn out by the time they're 30.
You can't go back and reeducate the populace either. Even if we reformed education, the results would take a decade or so to bare fruit.

There's no way around the hurt now, but the long term future of America can still be saved.

Not without a minimum wage increase that guarantees that all competitors raise their wages as well.

Online sales are already devastating retail, raising wages would only make that worse. The more mundane tasks will only continue to be automated, leaving less and less work for the unskilled. A socialistic future with make 'busywork' programs for the poor is probably the eventually future of every nation. Most people will do work not because it provides actual value, but because that's how you get your government mandated rations. Maybe we'll at least get an art renaissance out of it...

 

[Engineer]

Democrats love to crow about facts and science and math being on their side, but they routinely ignore it when it's convenient to maintain their outrage.

If your numbers are correct, then WalMart profited about $8,000 per employee. A Democrat would say those employees are being taken advantage of and not being given their share of the profits.

On the other hand, Apple and it's $37B in profit was earned on the backs of around 80,000 employees (according to Wikipedia) for a profit of $462,500 per employee.

Which company is taking advantage of it's employees?

It's not about what WalMart pays the employees, it's the fact that WalMart and McDonalds jobs are replacing good paying, wealth building jobs. We're importing our way to prosperity...or at least prosperity for a select class.

 

[Doppel]

<snip>

Yeah it's basically quite depressing. But like you said we were warned, and an individual is utterly powerless except to look out for themselves/family here. The nation as a whole is very, very slow at learning. Government is still absolutely and unequivocally in the back pocket of big business and lobbyists. Until that changes, stats like in your first post will keep coming up and keep getting worse.

 

[Zorba]

I said if you get buses full of rednecks to get out on the fields at 5am and pick vegetables till 5pm, I am fine with that too. But as things stand right now, we need illegals working those fields so Americans can eat healthy.

Growing up my cousins had summer jobs working the harvest in Oklahoma, those jobs are gone. Two of my uncles paid for college mowing laws. Now the illegals work the fields, and the lawn mowing is either done by illegals or adults that have made it a career since the good paying jobs are gone.

If you pay Americans a fair wage they will do any shitty job in the world. Illegals are a huge problem in over saturating the job market, making it easier for the few good jobs lefts to deflate their pay/benefits.

 

[theeedude]

Growing up my cousins had summer jobs working the harvest in Oklahoma, those jobs are gone. Two of my uncles paid for college mowing laws. Now the illegals work the fields, and the lawn mowing is either done by illegals or adults that have made it a career since the good paying jobs are gone.

If you pay Americans a fair wage they will do any shitty job in the world. Illegals are a huge problem in over saturating the job market, making it easier for the few good jobs lefts to deflate their pay/benefits.

The farmers aren't going to pay those higher wages, they'll switch to less labor intensive produce and we'd need to import the rest.

 

[IGBT]

as the reality of the parasite obama care sinks it's teeth into the economy Americans will be spending discretionary income on high med.deductibles and premiums.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/watch-workers-faces-realize-obamacare/

 

[Zorba]

The farmers aren't going to pay those higher wages, they'll switch to less labor intensive produce and we'd need to import the rest.

Farmers used to pay enough to get Americans...

But I guess you also completely agree with outsourcing all of our factory jobs too? How about Wal-Marts low wages? I mean if you paid those people a fair wage, Wally would just install more self check lanes.

Forget farmers, how about construction. You used to be able to make a good living working construction, and could get started as a laborer. Now in many parts of the country, most of the laborers are illegals. But I guess that has zero impact on the middle class.

Republicans have convinced conservatives to support businesses via feeling sorry for the "job creators," while democrats have convinced liberals to support businesses via feeling sorry for illegal immigration. At then of the day, they are both ways of screwing the middle class to support the rich.

 

[BoberFett]

Farmers used to pay enough to get Americans...

But I guess you also completely agree with outsourcing all of our factory jobs too? How about Wal-Marts low wages? I mean if you paid those people a fair wage, Wally would just install more self check lanes.

Forget farmers, how about construction. You used to be able to make a good living working construction, and could get started as a laborer. Now in many parts of the country, most of the laborers are illegals. But I guess that has zero impact on the middle class.

Republicans have convinced conservatives to support businesses via feeling sorry for the "job creators," while democrats have convinced liberals to support businesses via feeling sorry for illegal immigration. At then of the day, they are both ways of screwing the middle class to support the rich.

Yup, but both teams think their side is righteous while the other is evil. They're both full of shit.

 

[Zaap]

Republicans have convinced conservatives to support businesses via feeling sorry for the "job creators," while democrats have convinced liberals to support businesses via feeling sorry for illegal immigration. At then of the day, they are both ways of screwing the middle class to support the rich.

Not entirely true- most conservatives don't support businesses using illegal labor and recognize the obvious: that it undermines the entire wage system. It hands employers on a silver platter a way of turning what used to be good jobs into "jobs Americans won't do" because most citizens won't work for peanuts, but you can exploit someone here illegally to work for much much less.

Dummies on the left insist this is good because businesses just do it to give everyone a bargain price on their goods- which is also laughable. They just pocket the savings in labor as profit. (It's always fascinated me by the way that leftists are completely cynical when it comes to business motives in every other way, but when it comes to flooding the country with illegal labor, suddenly they shift to the most ridiculous belief in businesses as humanitarians just trying to help the poor, poor downtrodden illegals and give everyone cheap lettuce- not exploit the hell of out people and pocket every damn dime of the profit and sell what they sell for as much as they can get away with in any case.)

I mean, it's all blatantly obvious to anyone with any shred of common sense, but it's the conservative side pointing it out vs. the left's complete willing ignorance of it.

Conservatives don't feel sorry for the job creators- they simply don't mindlessly hate them the way the left does, or fail to acknowledge that it's individual private citizens and companies that create jobs, not blowhard politicians who've never really worked a day in their life.

Meanwhile, when it comes to business, finance and illegal immigration, the left is completely out to lunch.

 

[boomerang]

I get really sick of clueless people constantly bashing Wal-Mart as if they should give raises to everyone. Do any of you have any idea what you're talking about at all? Do you have even a modicum of mathematical skill or ability to research for yourself what you are talking about?

These unskilled workers have NO pricing power for their wages. NONE.

Wal-Mart sold 469 Billion in merchandise in 2013, employs 2,200,000+ FULL TIME associates, across over 11000 stores. Profit? Just under 17 billion, about 3.6% return on that 469 billion.

Let's put this in perspective.

Apple sold 171 Billion in 2013, and made 37 billion in profit - more than 2x wal-mart's profit on about 1/3 of the sales. 21.6% return.

IBM sold 104 Billion in 2013, and made 16.6 Billion in profit. ie, for 1/5th the sales they made about the same profit as wal-mart. [ b]16% return.[/b]

How about Macys? They sold 11.1 Billion and made 1.3 billion. ie, about 12% return.

And people are constantly bashing wal-mart, as if they had a lot of money and should be paying their associates like engineers?

Really, please get a freakin clue.

There are only two things that can happen to raise income from Wal-Mart workers - either prices go up substantially, or Wal-Mart goes broke.

Take a look at all the regular retailers like Target (5% margin) or Kohls (5%). Then you have JCP and Sears losing money hand over fist.

There is no ability to raise wages in these industries.

You could post this every hour on the hour for a year and it would never sink in to their brains. It's not what they were taught.

 

[Zorba]

Not entirely true- most conservatives don't support businesses using illegal labor and recognize the obvious: that it undermines the entire wage system. It hands employers on a silver platter a way of turning what used to be good jobs into "jobs Americans won't do" because most citizens won't work for peanuts, but you can exploit someone here illegally to work for much much less.

Dummies on the left insist this is good because businesses just do it to give everyone a bargain price on their goods- which is also laughable. They just pocket the savings in labor as profit. (It's always fascinated me by the way that leftists are completely cynical when it comes to business motives in every other way, but when it comes to flooding the country with illegal labor, suddenly they shift to the most ridiculous belief in businesses as humanitarians just trying to help the poor, poor downtrodden illegals and give everyone cheap lettuce- not exploit the hell of out people and pocket every damn dime of the profit and sell what they sell for as much as they can get away with in any case.)

I mean, it's all blatantly obvious to anyone with any shred of common sense, but it's the conservative side pointing it out vs. the left's complete willing ignorance of it.

Conservatives don't feel sorry for the job creators- they simply don't mindlessly hate them the way the left does, or fail to acknowledge that it's individual private citizens and companies that create jobs, not blowhard politicians who've never really worked a day in their life.

Meanwhile, when it comes to business, finance and illegal immigration, the left is completely out to lunch.

I agree most conservatives don't like illegal immigration, that wasn't my point. My point was Dems rail against business give-a-ways and exploration of the middle class, and then go and support illegals, which is nothing but a huge give-a-way to businesses at the middle class's expense.

Either way both parties have twisted people's emotions to support give-a-ways to the top at the expense of the of the bottom. They have just chosen different means to the same ends. If you want another example, just look at the arguments made by both parties for "free" trade agreements.

 

[theeedude]

Farmers used to pay enough to get Americans...

But I guess you also completely agree with outsourcing all of our factory jobs too? How about Wal-Marts low wages? I mean if you paid those people a fair wage, Wally would just install more self check lanes.

Forget farmers, how about construction. You used to be able to make a good living working construction, and could get started as a laborer. Now in many parts of the country, most of the laborers are illegals. But I guess that has zero impact on the middle class.

Republicans have convinced conservatives to support businesses via feeling sorry for the "job creators," while democrats have convinced liberals to support businesses via feeling sorry for illegal immigration. At then of the day, they are both ways of screwing the middle class to support the rich.

The difference is that Americans still want to do manufacturing jobs and work in stores. They don't want to be in the fields doing back breaking work all day. And with health care costs being what they are, it's probably going to cost them more over time than they will make. It's not about feeling sorry for illegal immigration. It's about taking care of Americans and make sure they get healthy fruits and vegetables to eat at prices they can afford.

 

[BoberFett]

The difference is that Americans still want to do manufacturing jobs and work in stores. They don't want to be in the fields doing back breaking work all day. And with health care costs being what they are, it's probably going to cost them more over time than they will make. It's not about feeling sorry for illegal immigration. It's about taking care of Americans and make sure they get healthy fruits and vegetables to eat at prices they can afford.

You're such a racist.

 

[Zaap]

I agree most conservatives don't like illegal immigration, that wasn't my point. My point was Dems rail against business give-a-ways and exploration of the middle class, and then go and support illegals, which is nothing but a huge give-a-way to businesses at the middle class's expense.

Either way both parties have twisted people's emotions to support give-a-ways to the top at the expense of the of the bottom. They have just chosen different means to the same ends. If you want another example, just look at the arguments made by both parties for "free" trade agreements.

I don't entirely disagree with you, just I think you're mixing the parties with conservatives. The Republican party doesn't represent conservatives, they're just trying to be Democrat-Lite, and they love big bloated govt as much as the Dems. Most conservatives don't agree with the R party on a lot of things.

Free trade? From what I witness (and believe myself) most conservative/libertarian minded people say something like this: " you were warned years ago this would happen, by Ross Perot and others. You didn't listen!"

From liberals I hear this: crickets chirping.

Or their usual drivel about hating the rich, the same spew they were shouting over the voices of those warning them about bogus free trade agreements 20 years ago.

 

[glenn1]

Another one added to "Ignore".

Yep, kinda how American workers like ignored their value proposition as an employee to those who hired them for years, presuming other countries workers would oblige them by remaining subsistence farmers forever.

The difference is that Americans still want to do manufacturing jobs and work in stores. They don't want to be in the fields doing back breaking work all day. And with health care costs being what they are, it's probably going to cost them more over time than they will make. It's not about feeling sorry for illegal immigration. It's about taking care of Americans and make sure they get healthy fruits and vegetables to eat at prices they can afford.

Sure they do, the only problem is they want to be paid more than the value of what the employer considers non-differentiated labor. If you can't produce value beyond what someone in Zimbabwe can, or your job can be automated away, then you shouldn't act surprised when the employer no longer requires your services.

 

[shady28]

The farmers aren't going to pay those higher wages, they'll switch to less labor intensive produce and we'd need to import the rest.

About the only thing you seem to be concerned with is retail jobs and maybe tecg. You don't care about manufacturing, farming, raw materials. Those jobs seem to be beneath you, and you're ok with them going elsewhere. Am I right?

You're all of what's wrong with America.

 

[1prophet]

The farmers aren't going to pay those higher wages, they'll switch to less labor intensive produce and we'd need to import the rest.

They will once you show you are willing to reach down in your pocket and stop being so cheap.

 

[Engineer]

About the only thing you seem to be concerned with is retail jobs and maybe tecg. You don't care about manufacturing, farming, raw materials. Those jobs seem to be beneath you, and you're ok with them going elsewhere. Am I right?

You're all of what's wrong with America.

There are several here that feel that way. You can see their position in this thread. No common sense and then whine about the amount of government spending that keeps these people and the economy from collapsing.