SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Walmart is boosting minimum pay across all of its stores and handing out bonuses. The CEO says that it's thanks to tax reform:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is boosting its starting hourly wage to $11 and delivering bonuses to employees, capitalizing on the U.S. tax overhaul to stay competitive in a tightening labor market.
The increase takes effect next month and will cost $300 million on top of wage hikes that were already planned, the world's largest retailer said Thursday. The one-time bonus of up to $1,000 is based on seniority and will amount to an additional $400 million. The company is also expanding its maternity and parental leave policy and adding an adoption benefit.
"Tax reform gives us the opportunity to be more competitive globally and to accelerate plans for the U.S.," Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said in the statement.
The move comes three years after Wal-Mart last announced it was raising wages, spending $1 billion in 2015 to lift starting hourly pay to $9 and then to $10 for most workers the following year. The increase cut into profit and was criticized by some longer-tenured employees as unfair to them. Since then, many states have enacted minimum wage laws, meaning that a "sizable group" of its 4,700 U.S. stores already pay $11 an hour, according to spokesman Kory Lundberg.
Walmart is expanding a "Scan & Go" program from 50 to 150 stores. "Scan & Go" would allow customers to use a smartphone app to scan items and then walk out of the store with them. Kroger is experimenting with a similar "Scan, Bag, Go" program. These are seen as a response to Amazon, which has been trialing delivery of fresh foods and same-day deliveries. Amazon revealed an "Amazon Go" concept brick-and-mortar store in 2016, with no cashiers in sight.
Maybe Walmart's big plan is to give better pay to a dwindling amount of employees.
CEO letter to employees. Also at CNBC and USA Today.
Related: Walmart Wants to Deliver Groceries Directly Into Your Fridge
Walmart to Deploy Shelf-Scanning Robots at 50 Stores
Walmart is Raising Prices Online to Increase in-Store Traffic
(Score: 5, Informative) by lentilla on Friday January 12 2018, @05:17AM (11 children)
I'll take your Broken Window and raise you a False Equivalence! :-) Digging ditches and filling them in serves no benefit to society. Government at least tries to do something useful. I can not disagree with you that it is often inefficient - what I was attempting to convey was that I don't consider it to be the greatest crime. Better that someone steals my TV to feed themselves than breaks into my house and smashes the TV for fun. That sort of thing.
Not quite. What happens is that people that are good at making and holding on to money get to take everybody else's wealth. And the more money you have, the more efficient this transfer of wealth becomes.
Capitalism is only a meritocracy within its own sphere. The are many measures of an individual's worth and money is only one part of the equation. If; for instance; society chose to uphold athleticism as its guiding principle, then all the strong men would have all the yachts and all the women.
Well, that's a tough one. It does rather depend if one subscribes to Objectivist thinking or not. A great many solid arguments have been placed for and against.
I think I see it this way: the more money one has, the easier it becomes to obtain more money. The first million is hard. The second is far easier, and so on. This is not objectively fair because one unit of productive work for a garbage collector results in less money earned than one unit of productive work by a billionaire investor. So that situation could certainly benefit from some readjustment. Continuing that example: the rich man still needs his garbage collected, and the garbage man could benefit from the fruits of the rich man's labour. We are all in this world together. Maybe when it comes down to it, I instinctively reject the conclusion that the billionaire investor is a million times better than the garbage man. So; yes; I do support taking some amount of money away from people who have more than they need and sharing with others - just like how the garbage man shares his efforts in garbage collection with the rich man.
Besides, if the wealth disparity becomes too great, the pitchforks come out, and everyone looses.
Why would I want to control someone else? Society's resources are common wealth - they aren't mine to snatch and grab. That's why we came up with government (for the people, by the people) and have tried to leave monarchies, dictatorships and oligarchies behind. They are not nice; well; unless you happen to be on the top of the heap. History tells us you end up with a very small amount of lords at the top of the heap, and the rest of the population is held in poverty. Worse, people in poverty do not generally have the space to self-actualise - so society ends up wasting all that potential - people that could be brilliant scientists mopping floors, that kind of thing.
I'm not suggesting we go all-out Robin Hood here. I am simply making a case for reasonable distribution of our common wealth to all citizens by way of the fundamental assumption that common wealth belongs to everybody, and in recognition of the fact that most people have something positive to offer to society that is best capitalised when they are given the opportunity to do so. It won't hurt the wealthy but a more equitable distribution of wealth certainly would improve the lives of the poor and would make for a collectively richer society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @06:12AM
As already explained, government is not inherently good at betting; having decentralized betting is better, and it's best to allow betting by people who prove themselves good at making bets.
Yes, money is only one aspect of Capitalism; any resource is capital, including for example your labor. Capitalism is merely the philosophy that every interaction (every allocation of capital) should be voluntary, where "voluntary" is defined by a contract in advance of interaction ("voluntary" does not necessarily mean "desirable").
Your mutually profitable interaction between the garbage man and the rich man is already handled by Capitalism; I have no idea what your point is; I have no idea why you think that justifies theft.
Nobody said anything about controlling other people; capitalism is a philosophy that implies resource ownership must be well defined, and I am speaking of that ownership. Your reading of my comment is incorrect.
People actually flourished under monarchies; it's one of the reasons fascism sprung from Marxism: The marxist prediction that a communist revolution would begin in an "advanced" capitalistic society such as Britain or Germany failed; such revolutions never occurred because the people in those countries were experiencing ever improving qualities of life. Instead, a revolution was unexpectedly (and embarrassingly) forced in one of the poorest, most backward, least capitalist parts of the world (Russia), and mainly because the Germans supported Lenin in a bid to get the Tzar off their backs, not because there was some uprising of the downtrodden proletariat.
Ancient Egypt, run by demi-god Kings, was the height of Civilization for thousands of years, and was able to maintain an incredible degree of stability; hitherto, it was probably the longest-running form of civilization in Human history.
Who decides what is reasonable? Capitalism says the market should decide; voluntary exchange should decide.
If you're skeptical, then I suggest your skepticism actually stems from governmental interference in the market, either through direct coercion, or through indirect means such as manipulation of money. A government, being founded on the principle of "do-as-I-say" imposition rather than "do-as-we-already-agreed" cooperation, is inherently anti-Capitalism, and thus distorts the market in distasteful ways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @06:22AM (9 children)
You ask...
...and I have to wonder if you are human. Maybe you lost your balls in a tragic accident. You may need a testosterone patch. Heck, even women want control. Little girls want control.
I would love the ability to control as many people as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @03:59PM
> I would love the ability to control as many people as possible.
And we have Bingo ... the AC sociopath outs themself!
(Score: 3, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 12 2018, @04:26PM (7 children)
You and people like you are the Renfields to the Draculas of the world. You're the slaves whose dream is slave ownership, not freedom. I don't know enough swears to give you what you deserve--that would require an oxyacetylene torch, so just imagine the entire planet with its middle fingers upraised.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 12 2018, @07:58PM (6 children)
Darlin, you need to spend a week doing backbreaking work for sixteen to twenty hours a day and getting beat bloody for not doing so fast enough or looking at the overseer wrong. That or you need to stop using the word slavery incorrectly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 12 2018, @08:46PM (5 children)
Don't be disingenuous, you ambulatory shitstain. Slavery of all kinds has existed throughout history. Some of it was far less awful than what you're describing, but it was still slavery. Of course, for you to know that would require you to read some history books, and God almighty forbid you actually learn something...
In short: your bullshit "Dear Muslima" attempt not only fails on factual grounds, it doesn't have anything to do with the point I was making either. Eat shit and die, then continue eating shit in Hell. Love ya ;)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 12 2018, @11:50PM (4 children)
Use the correct words instead of ones that appeal to people's feels if you don't want to be called out on your bullshit. Slavery is involuntary. The choices you make in life are not. One is someone else being evil, the other is you being fucking retarded and getting what you deserve.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:53AM (3 children)
Stop trying to deflect from the original point, asshole. You're putting up a smokescreen--at least I hope to fuck that's smoke and not high-pressure diarrhea, jeez.
There are times when someone's choices boil down to "X or die," and most people for some reason have an aversion to death. Hell, you could argue even the slaves you're talking about had a choice to rebel or not. Point still stands, and your petty, misaimed attacks do nothing to dent it. Who the fuck do you think you'e fooling?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:38AM (2 children)
Was there supposed to be a counterargument in there somewhere or did you just want to fling metaphorical monkey shit? I'm good either way but it's hard to tell with you sometimes what with you being incapable of presenting a decent argument.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:36PM
You don't read so good, do ya boy?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:28AM
Actually, she doesn't much like the metaphorical varieties of shit. They all lack texture and flavor.