• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

How easy is it to eat healthy on food stamps?

PhDeac said:
Yet they need the government's help to make sure that their employees can afford to work at Wal-mart and that their customers can afford to shop there.
Click to expand...

If their customers couldn't afford to shop there, would they be the biggest retailer in human history? It seems they're doing okay in that regard. They're also the biggest employer in America that uses its own money, and they don't have a $16 trillion dollar IOU. There's a lot wrong with America, and Walmart is far from perfect, but what they do, they do exceptionally well.

Is that true of, say, the public schools?
 
So you believe that people who shop at Wal-mart using food stamps "can" afford to shop there.

That seems to go against everything you post.

Wal-mart's business model is based on government subsidizing their workers and customers and holding onto the profits.

If taxpayers pay for food stamps, and Wal-mart customers use food stamps to buy food at Wal-mart, the money goes from taxpayers to Wal-mart, yet you consider that Wal-mart's "own money".
 
Last edited:
PhDeac said:
So people who shop at Wal-mart using food stamps can afford to shop there. That seems to go against everything you post.
Click to expand...

People who use food stamps can shop anywhere they are accepted. They choose to use them at Walmart b/c Walmart is effective. That's an act of choice on their part, an empowering act I wholeheartedly support. Walmart earns their business through good performance, and choice is the marketplace (and while we're at it, in public schools) is empowering.
 
jhmd2000 said:
People who use food stamps can shop anywhere they are accepted. They choose to use them at Walmart b/c Walmart is effective. That's an act of choice on their part, an empowering act I wholeheartedly support. Walmart earns their business through good performance, and choice is the marketplace (and while we're at it, in public schools) is empowering.
Click to expand...

Just quoting this to note the exact point in which you introduced a straw man into this discussion.
 
Ph-it makes my brain hurt any time you try to post about business.
 
Imagine how I feel when you lads talk about education.

Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong, Karma.
 
There is absolutely no justification for the House Republicans did today. To say it's anything other than callous disregard and un-Christian to least among us is to rationalize and lie.

The people who voted for this are a special kind of bad human beings. To try to make millions of people go hungry for a cheap political act is sub-human.
 
That Walmart link makes a very good point. If they pay more, their employees will be able to afford to buy more from their stores (it's actually sort of a corollary to Reaganomics). Henry Ford famously said he would pay his employees enough to own a Ford. Think they sold a lot of cars because of that?
 
Reaganomics was exactly the opposite of what you said. Its most basic tenet is that if the rich make more they'll let those below them make more. This has been definitively proven to be a hoax as the rich have gotten much, much richer and the middle/lower classes have stagnated and fallen farther behind.

Reaganomics was basically the 20th century's version of feudalism.
 
wfumike02 said:
That Walmart link makes a very good point. If they pay more, their employees will be able to afford to buy more from their stores (it's actually sort of a corollary to Reaganomics). Henry Ford famously said he would pay his employees enough to own a Ford. Think they sold a lot of cars because of that?
Click to expand...

Yep. Now taxpayers make sure Walmart employees can afford Walmart.
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. Now taxpayers make sure Walmart employees can afford Walmart.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why they don't pay everyone 100k a year! Just think how much stuff they'd be able to buy from Walmart then!!!!
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. Now taxpayers make sure Walmart employees can afford Walmart.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why they don't pay everyone 100k a year! Just think how much stuff they'd be able to buy from Walmart then!!!!
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
WalMart using taxpayers to supplement the low wages they pay- to the tune of $2.66 billion per year. While WalMart makes billions in profit.
http://www.winningwordsproject.com/walmart_is_the_largest_food_stamp_recipient_in_the_country
Click to expand...

PhDeac said:
Yet they need the government's help to make sure that their employees can afford to work at Wal-mart and that their customers can afford to shop there.
Click to expand...

That's cute framing and all, but what WalMart does is pay their employees enough to keep them there, and to meet federal minimum wage laws. The federal government then decides that those employees need more benefits and provides those employees with it.

To say that WalMart is gaming the system is a reach and a half.
 
Nice straw man. You may want to read my post again.
 
Would minimum wage be enough to keep Wal-mart employees there without a social safety net?

And "Wal-mart pays minimum wage" is not an acceptable response.
 
Okay then get rid of the social safety net and let WalMart fill the void. Because I'm sure they'd have a hard time finding people to work there at $7.15/hour. Especially with the 25% of our population that is unemployed.
 
PhDeac said:
Wal-mart's business model is based on government subsidizing their workers and customers and holding onto the profits.
Click to expand...

BillBrasky said:
Okay then get rid of the social safety net and let WalMart fill the void. Because I'm sure they'd have a hard time finding people to work there at $7.15/hour. Especially with the 25% of our population that is unemployed.
Click to expand...

The first quote is an attractive notion. I used to believe this myself but have come to see that it doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny. Especially in the case of Wal Mart which, whether you like Wal Mart or not, does more to provide low income people with affordable food and clothing than any other private business in the country. So it's hard to claim they are gouging their customers and reaping profits from government subsidies - that charge can fairly be leveled against most of the healthcare industry, but I don't think it sticks with Wal Mart.

In the case of Wal Mart's employees, I have come to believe that we are shooting ourselves in the foot with minimum wage laws. Quite simply there are some people and some jobs that are not worth 7.15 an hour. So, is it better to have a job at 5.00 an hour, or have no job at all because you have no skills that a business will pay you 7.15 an hour to use? This is why there are no longer guys checking your oil and washing your windshield at gas stations, doormen, elevator attendants, etc., and this is why all your shirts are made in Bangladesh and your dishwasher is made by robots. When you make businesses pay their workers more than they're worth, they get rid of the workers. Worse, investment is driven into sectors that don't rely on low-wage workers - think finance - and those sectors start to eat our economy. What we are doing is discriminating against job-creating businesses in favor of non-job creating businesses, like the vampire squids who nearly destroyed our economy in 2007.

Doesn't mean I particularly like Wal Mart or that I think a person should be expected to support a family on a minimum wage job. I think it is the job of society as a whole to support low-wage workers with a fair social safety net funded by a progressive tax code, where the people who are getting the most benefit out of our economy pay substantially more to take care of the people at the bottom - in other words, don't just tax the hell out of the Walton family, tax the hell out of them AND the guys making billions in carried interest off exotic derivative swaps.
 
Your premise about minimum doesn't hold water. Companies like WalMart would not hire one more person if the minimum wage was lower. What would happen is the companies would make tons more money and would enlarge the roles of people on welfare, food stamps and Medicaid.

What you are also neglecting is everyone's wage above them would come tumbling down. If a person started at minimum wage and worked their way up to $11/hour by being there for five years, that $11/hour would drop dramatically as well. Our economy would come to a grinding halt.

Tens of millions of people would not be able to afford housing, food and others goods and services. If there was no minimum wage, we'd have the same type of shanty towns that third world countries have.

If you want us to become Bangladesh or a 21st century feudal nation. eliminate the minimum wage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top