Aufweidersehen!
LZ

jps wrote:

In article ,
says...

You're so full of **** you're not even worth responding to. Look at my
post above and apply it to your weakass arguments.

What the hell do you do for the Aussie economy other than bitch at
American left wingers?

Not a damn thing I suspect. Are you on Aussie welfare or retired from
some government job?

Leaching off your family then?

Good, does that mean this discussion is over?

Only if:

Every person is entitled to compensation for honest labor. If we can't
agree on
that basic premise, there is no hope for any additional discussion.



In that case, there's no purpose in hollering into a void.

Free market spin? "Every person is entitled to compensation for honest labor-
unless we can figure a way to screw them out of compensation, (in which case
they are free to go work elsewhere, if they can)."

jps wrote:

In article , says...

I think that is sufficient proof that the claim was accurate.
LZ


Thanks LZ.

Mr. Jonathan Ball should probably look into Swiss history a little more.

It's pretty clear they're a mercantile lot living under the
misperception of neutrality.

The Jewish people are just one of many who've been stolen from and then
stiff armed by Swiss banking laws. There are folks around the globe
who've been screwed by creeps, thugs and the like whose ill-gotten gains
are "protected" by the Swiss banking system.

It's a pretty country hiding some of the ugliest secrets in the world.

jps


Ball probably is very young, very smug, inexperienced in the reality of
the world and likely believes the holocaust was a myth.

He's best ignored.

--
Email sent to is never read.

Doug Kanter wrote:

Tangential to this (sort of): A large number of Russians fled Stalin's
terror during WWII. If I recall from my reading, the largest number of them
ended up in Northern Italy, somehow under the auspices of the U.S. and the
British. At the end of the war, we sent them back. I don't recall the
reason, but it was one of those things that makes you say "WTF????" Some
sort of handy political settlement with our "ally", Josef Stalin.

No saints anywhere.

Sweden also ended up with quite a few. Their version of "neutrality"
was not much different than Switzerland's. The Swedes got rich off the
war The Russian POWs and DPs that were in Sweden all ended up in
Siberia. Stalin felt that anyone exposed to outside influences was not
going to be content with his version of the USSR.
LZ

Where do you get the information that Wal-Mart does not make health
Insurance available to its employees?

According to a news article in last week's paper- that insurance costs $250 a
month
(which is a heck of a lot of you're grossing
$1200 and taking home $950)- and carries a $3000 deductible.

If so, must be underwritten by Middle Finger Life and Casualty

25% of your take home pay for health insurance, and 25% of your annual income
for deductible. Nice.

Amen!

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
Our jobs are going overseas because
our politicians have no interest in fighting corporations from sending
jobs overseas.



Our jobs are going overseas faster than they would have partially because
WALMART is so super aggressive in their buying. When they want to carry
toasters, for example, they invite all the major manufacturers of toasters
down
to Arkansas and pit them against one another. During the last cost cutting
cycle, everybody who wanted to sell anyhing to WALMART *had* to go to
China for
labor or lose out.

WALMART doesn't tell a mfg that they *must* build in China- only that if
they
can't meet or beat the price of those who do they are, effectively, out of
business starting next month.

What will the next sacrifice be? Quality?
Or, when WALMART can no longer increase profits by forcing suppliers to
cheaper
sources of labor, will WALMART raise prices? Will we soon be paying as
much as
we used to pay for a US built, item but buying stuff from China instead?

WALMART's vision for America is a place where a $9 an hour job, with no
benefits, is a *great* opportunity. They envision a country where obedient
workers volunteer
to work off the clock every week, and where all will shop a the "company
store."

In Walmart's world, there is no middle class. Unless $9 an hour, with a
few
extra hours thrown in unpaid every week, is going to be the new "middle
class."

In Walmart's World, there are some opportunities for better income. If
you're
willing to work 50-51 weeks a year, 12-18 hours a day, 6-7 days a week,
you can
eventually rise to "store manager" and approach 6-figures a year. :-(

One of the great hypocrisies of the WalMart culture is the great emphasis
on
quality "family" experiences. How many of the managers working 80 hours a
week
or more have any quality time left to spend with the family? How many of
the
people earing $9 an hour get to go home after work, rather than to the
second,part time job they need to pay basic living expenses?

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 14:01:55 GMT, Fred Ziffel wrote:
We don't make much of anything anymore, and we are
becoming poorer because of it.

Not true. The value of our total manufacturing output is higher today
than it has ever been. Our productivity is the highest in the world, and
our manufacturing output is greater than that of any other nation in
the world.

Sure, manufacturing is a smaller percentage of our GDP today than in
the past, but that's because the service sector has grown so much faster
than manufacturing. In other words, our GDP is much larger than in the
past, so while the value produced by the manufacturing sector has
increased, the value produced by the service sector has increased
much more, leaving manufacturing a smaller percentage of the total.

Manufacturing employment is down about 2 million from its peak in
the 1970s, but still higher than it was in 1950. Mainly, those jobs have
been lost to automation and increased productivity. In other words,
output per worker is larger than in the past. That's generally a good
thing, because it means a manufacturing worker today is worth more
than he was in 1950, and that means he can be paid more than in
1950 without being inflationary.

The median US worker income today is also higher than it has ever
been ($32,200), and with the present low rate of inflation, it represents
an absolute increase in buying power over wages of times past.

The one cloud on the horizon is our trade balance. To put it bluntly,
we buy a lot more from the rest of the world than we sell to the rest
of the world. We can only do that because we are so much richer
than the rest of the world. This won't become a problem for us
as long as our GDP continues to grow at a rate of 2 to 3 percent a
year (we've just had a 3rd quarter with an annualized growth rate of
8.2%, that isn't sustainable, but we're on track for 2 to 3 percent
growth for the year, which is where we need to be).

We have been sloughing off our low profit low productivity industries
(for example, textiles, basic steel, etc) to countries with lower absolute
cost structures. That's also generally a good thing, because it lowers
the costs of our businesses which depend on those things, and it frees
our capital and our workers to pursue higher value activities. This causes
displacements, which can be painful to those workers who aren't adaptable,
but it is necessary if we are to retain our comparative advantage vis the
rest of the world.

Our current unemployment is hovering around 6%. That's a couple of
percentage points above what economists consider full employment.
But because of demographics (baby boomers are nearing retirement)
that will rapidly change. In fact, without immigration, we'd be facing
severe labor shortages by 2023.

Gary

Doug Kanter wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...


A real store would've moved those women out of the line, and perhaps
even
called the police. Not WM, though. As far as they're concerned, their
customers' time is worthless.


You can't put the blame on that type of behavior squarely on the
shoulders of Wal-Mart exclusively. Many other department stores work in
the same way. Any time you have a store which attracts a clientele which
is not "bloomingdales" quality, you employ people at or near minimum
wage, and do not offer line managers any incentive to do any more than
babysit the employees, you will get this sort of situation. I've been in
similar situations (I always end up picking the worst line) in grocery
stores as well as department stores.

Dave



I have, too. In the "other" store I shop at, the cashier's blinking light
would've gone on and a manager or security person would've been there in 30
seconds. Not Wal Mart, though.

Again, it's probably a local thing, and not something endemic to the
Walmart business plan.



Something else interesting about the WM near me: You know how you hear a
gentle beep from some cash registers each time an item is dragged across the
scanner? At WM, they've connected that to the public address system at the
front. Unbelievably loud and annoying. WTF? This is supposed to make the
place sound interesting?

What? You've got to be kidding. That would drive me nuts if I had to
listen to that for hours on end....

Dave

Gould 0738 wrote:

What do you do with
people who don't have enough skills to command jobs that 'pay a living
wage'?

There are a few "don't do's".....

High on the list would be "don't threaten your powerless mini-wage employee
with termination if he or she is unwilling to go clock out and then return to
work for a few 'free' hours." WalMart has been fined and penalized in scores
of cases for this exact
practice.

On the clock work: Mini-wage but legal.
Off the clock work: Slavery. Outlawed 140 years ago.

Every person is entitled to compensation for honest labor. If we can't agree on
that basic premise, there is no hope for any additional discussion.

If you can cite cases of this practice being endorsed by Wal-Mart
corporate, then I am in complete agreement with you. A few isolated
cases may be nothing more than a few overzealous store managers bucking
for a promotion, by lowering overhead costs...

Dave

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
Where do you get the information that Wal-Mart does not make health
Insurance available to its employees?

According to a news article in last week's paper- that insurance costs
$250 a
month
(which is a heck of a lot of you're grossing
$1200 and taking home $950)- and carries a $3000 deductible.

If so, must be underwritten by Middle Finger Life and Casualty

25% of your take home pay for health insurance, and 25% of your annual
income
for deductible. Nice.

In all fairness, Chuck, the cost of buying your own Blue Choice policy here
(Rochester) is about $6-7k per year. I imagine it's not much different
elsewhere. Sounds like WM is splitting the cost with the employees. Plenty
of employers do that. My ex works for a non-profit which only picks up about
20% of the BC tab.