text:
Walmart asks employees to feed each other
This is an astonishingly bald-faced admission of the rotten labor practices that sustain the existence of mega-conglomerates in our country:
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The storage containers are attractively displayed at the Walmart on Atlantic Boulevard in Canton. The bins are lined up in alternating colors of purple and orange. Some sit on tables covered with golden yellow tablecloths. Others peer out from under the tables.
This isn't a merchandise display. It's a food drive - not for the community, but for needy workers.
"Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner," read signs affixed to the tablecloths.
The food drive tables are tucked away in an employees-only area. They are another element in the backdrop of the public debate about salaries for cashiers, stock clerks and other low-wage positions at Walmart, as workers in Cincinnati and Dayton are scheduled to go on strike Monday.
Is the food drive proof the retailer pays so little that many employees can't afford Thanksgiving dinner?
Norma Mills of Canton, who lives near the store, saw the photo circulating showing the food drive bins, and felt both "outrage" and "anger."
"Then I went through the emotion of compassion for the employees, working for the largest food chain in America, making low wages, and who can't afford to provide their families with a good Thanksgiving holiday," said Mills, an organizer with Stand Up for Ohio, which is active in foreclosure issues in Canton. "That Walmart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers -- to me, it is a moral outrage."
Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said the food drive is proof that employees care about each other.
"It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he said. "Maybe their spouse lost a job.
"This is part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships," he said.
Lundberg said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. However, the effort could be considered in line with what happens company-wide. The Associates in Critical Need Trust is funded by Walmart employee contributions that can be given through payroll deduction. He said employees can receive grants up to $1,500 to address hardships they may encounter, including homelessness, serious medical illnesses and major repairs to primary vehicles. Since 2001, grants totaling $80 million have been made.
But an employee at the Canton store wasn't feeling that Walmart was looking out for her when she went to her locker more than two weeks ago and discovered the food drive containers. To her, the gesture was proof the company acknowledged many of its employees were struggling, but also proof it was not willing to substantively address their plight.
The employee said she didn't want to use her name for fear of being fired. In a dozen years working at the company, she had never seen a food drive for employees, which she described as "demoralizing" and "kind of depressing". The employee took photos of the bins, and sent them to the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart, the group of associates holding the strikes in Cincinnati and Dayton.
Vanessa Ferreira, an OUR Walmart organizer, said she "flipped out" when she first saw the photos taken by the Canton worker.
"Why would a company do that?" she said. "The company needs to stand up and give them their 40 hours and a living wage, so they don't have to worry about whether they can afford Thanksgiving."
The strikes against Walmart, which have been staged in the last several weeks across the country, including at stores in California, Florida and Illinois, are focusing on three issues: ensuring that no associate makes less than $25,000 a year, offering employees more full-time work and "ending illegal retaliation" against employees who speak out against pay and working conditions.
The first strike occurred last Black Friday at Walmart stores throughout the country. Though most associates remained on the job, many credit the event with being the public launch of the low-wage workers' movement. Efforts to raise the minimum wage would follow, including a bill pending before Congress to raise the federal hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. (The minimum wage in Ohio is $7.85.) In the time since, fast-food workers also have staged strikes, demanding the minimum wage be raised.
link to the full article on cleveland.com
Shades of Dickens.
A second relevant tidbit: a recent Oct 2013 joint study by UC Berkeley and UI Champaign-Urbana found that: *More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.
*The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year.
*At an average of $3.9 billion per year, spending on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) accounts for more than half of these costs.
*Due to low earnings, fast-food workers' families also receive an annual average of $1.04 billion in food stamp benefits and $1.91 billion in Earned Income Tax Credit payments.
*People working in fast-food jobs are more likely to live in or near poverty. One in five families with a member holding a fast-food job has an income below the poverty line, and 43 percent have an income two times the federal poverty level or less.
*Even full-time hours are not enough to compensate for low wages. The families of more than half of the fast-food workers employed 40 or more hours per week are enrolled in public assistance programs.
Study: FAST FOOD, POVERTY WAGES: THE PUBLIC COST OF LOW-WAGE JOBS IN THE FAST-FOOD INDUSTRY
I'm not happy about subsidizing Walmart's lousy business practices with my tax dollars. You?
I think it was Brush (?) that pointed out not long ago that most of the new jobs being created are $10 or less ... there are people with higher educations working them. Look at the age of employees at many of these stores/fast food joints and it is no longer "teens" and "college students" working there, but many of our middle agers and/or seniors.
No I am not happy subsidizing any corporations business practices, and it isn't just Walmart we are subsidizing. Seems to me the corporate personhood's lack "personal responsibility".
ALL of our reps, whether state or federal, are representing not "we the people" ... but the corporate personhoods. "Hoods" as in gangsters?
This specific food drive in Canton, OH is employee driven, not WalMart excecutive driven.
It's a blessing to see that their fellow employees are willing to share with those who may have suffered financial difficulty this year.
Of course it's easy to bash WalMart and miss the opportunity to praise those who give to those in need.
Whether it's at WalMart, Staples, OfficeMax, Speedway, Applebees, IBM, Boeing, etc., people do fall on hard times. Thank GOD others look after them.
I think this is a fine idea that is being used to pursue a political agenda - I actually support that political agenda, but I don't support spinning the facts to fit one's view - one of the reason's that I get so frustrated on this site - I know we all do it to some extent but this is supposed to be a forum for adults and as such we should try hard to look at both sides of every issue.
At my husband's small office people often share food and coupons and even books - this is no different in my eyes.
I saw an article this morning about trying to raise minimum wage for "big box" stores like WalMart in Wash, DC to $12.50/hour. WalMart said if it passed they would choose not to build 3 out of 6 stores in that area. Hmmm, fewer WalMarts ... something to consider.
Instead of feeding those in need, you can always bash their stuff!
Uncontent to just destroy homeless people's items, Brower is also on a mission to wake those he finds sleeping and tell them to sleep somewhere else. "If someone is sleeping at night on the bus stop, I don't do anything, but if they are sleeping during the day, I'll walk up and say, 'Get your ass moving,'" he said.
Here is a link that might be useful: Mr. Sledgehammer
I was debating a related topic with friends yesterday. One of them had brought up that old chestnut about how some soul-destroyingly crappy job is better than nothing. The specific context was asian children being compelled to work in some factory by their parents, matchstick-making or some horsecrap, and how some journalist researched it carefully and found that indeed those kids with the jobs were better off (such as, not starving) than those without.
I brought up the comparison of Wal-hell jobs in blighted rural regions in this country - is it better, long term, than no job?
The thing is, both questions are a case of the binary thinking that afflicts modern mentality. The right question is, why does a tiny elite get to control so much resource that large numbers of people are reduced to facing this BS choice? Make matchsticks, or starve. Work at wal-mart, or target, or McBurger, and not actually have enough money to buy the garbage that passes as acceptable on this continent, or join the ranks of the fully and completely unemployed and disenfranchised.
Why are there not other options? Why is there an absence of fully functioning communities in some regions of this continent? Large pieces of missing knowledge and abilities?
Capitalism did not make our world. The machine did. This is the result.
The employees should be commended for their efforts to help out fellow employees in need. There is no question about that...at least there shouldn't be.
However, to do so at the front of the store and asking customers to donate to benefit store employees is very bad PR for the Walmart.
The manager, like the manager of the store that was looted in LA, has not represented their employer well and I expect will be hearing about this....and it won't be an "attaboy"
Last week a report on the news stated that on average each Walmart employee was supported directly by the tax payer to the tune of almost 6K in wage subsidies and food stamps . Given that Walmart is the countries largest employer that is a lot of tax payer money spent subsidizing corporate profits.It also reported that the average Walmart costs the tax payer almost 1M dollars a year.
Now if that ain't corporate welfare I don't know what is !
Note: Can"t recall whether the 6K was averaged over all store employees or just the vast majority on minimum wage.
In other countries - as well as the farms I used to manage, we'd cull out the too-small, blemished, expired, produce/fish etc, and then let the employees have a go at it before it was destroyed. Not much was ever destroyed.
Given the amount of food that some place like Walmart must throw out in a day: torn packaging, hitting the 'best before' date, etc, you'd think somebody could use it.
Chase the employees who published the pics on social media did not indicate this was an employee effort, neither did the media. Not sure who's idea it was.
David many stores, again not just Walmart, now have their rubbish bins behind tall locked gates to discourage (stop) people from picking through them.
The food network did an episode last year showing the "food waste" in our country ... like throwing away a chicken because "one wing was missing" and piles and piles of food left to rot on farms because stores want "unblemished" produce.
I go down to my local family-owned grocer every morning where they have a marked down produce rack ... good savings and one blemish can be cut from the fruit/vegetable and perfectly safe to eat. I have gotten a four pack of red peppers (for instance) for $1 because there is a couple of small spots (not perfect). I wash them, cut away the blemish and stock them in my freezer for winter. Same with fruit (apples, etal).
When I worked in manufacturing, every Thanksgiving they would give each employee (thousands of us) a turkey and on Christmas a ham. Guess businesses don't do this anymore?
Guess bonuses are out of the question for low wage workers eh?
I don't know what Walmart does behind the scenes on an ongoing basis, but I found the article linked below about its partnership with ConAgra to supply Second Harvest. The date of December 18 has no year. I wouldn't go so far as to sing praise of either Walmart or ConAgra and read this as "it's the least they can do".
I know our grocery stores always give usable culled products to Second Harvest, soup kitchens, kids' cafes, etc. and a local company donated refrigerated trucks to collect and distribute them.
Here is a link that might be useful: Giving - it's not just for holidays anymore
In many places, it's actually illegal to collect discarded items from dumpsters, regardless how perfectly acceptable or usable they might be. Once an item is thrown into the dumpster, it is "owned" by the garbage collection company that owns the dumpster. It is now their "legal property", and some companies will actually prosecute persons who try to remove or salvage items.
Dumpsters for large stores have greatly changed over the years, too... what once were large, open containers are now sometimes the type that hydraulically crush the refuse to make room for more, and are therefore enclosed and kept locked behind fencing.
I think it's admirable to help the employees in the way addressed in the OP... but shouldn't they be making enough in pay so that they don't have to be subsidized through public assistance or through the help of their fellow employees in the first place?
How awful... to work a full time job and not earn enough to make a decent life for one's family. Something is greatly wrong with the picture of life in America today... as opposed to just a few decades ago... and though we all know what the causes and problems are, part of our government and our own citizenry fight against improving anything for all citizens...
Again, this was not done in public and it was not done to supplement wages.
If you read the facts, it was done by fellow associates at the Canton, OH store to help those associates who have endured difficult circumstances this year.
1. A spouse has lost a job.
2. Unexpected health issues that even under ACA's $12,700 out of pocket would be hard to recover from.
3. The associates did not ask permission from WalMart. It was done as an act of personal kindness and compassion.
Forget how much you hate the corporate world, and focus on the small, generous acts done by the associates. Imagine that. People who earn less giving to others. Wow!
I think this is a fine idea that is being used to pursue a political agenda - I actually support that political agenda, but I don't support spinning the facts to fit one's view - one of the reason's that I get so frustrated on this site - I know we all do it to some extent but this is supposed to be a forum for adults and as such we should try hard to look at both sides of every issue.
Hi Lotti,
I'm not sure I have an agenda, per se, other than to decry the human instrumentalization practiced by the modern corporation. The politics are actually what I'm trying to figure out by posting this thread.
At my husband's small office people often share food and coupons and even books - this is no different in my eyes.
But I'm willing to bet that at your husband's small office, 52% of the employees aren't paid so poorly that they're also on welfare just to be able to feed their children, right?
Perhaps I'm trying to place where I stand on charity in our modern society. Thinking out loud here. Despite having been raised in a Christian tradition of "good works", and not being opposed at all to donating work product or hours to my community, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the notion of charity as the essential cog it has become in the modern economy -- and it would become even stronger if the Republicans were to hold more sway. The additional moral evaluation that gets heaped on as a determining factor in charitable distribution makes me extremely uncomfortable. I'm uneasy with the judgements passed daily by some folks on this board when they feel their tax money is being used for charitable recipients of whom they don't personally approve. I suppose I'd still rather see the government in charge of the distribution, answering to the dictates of 'fairness' rather than 'righteousness'. No matter how flawed that system is.
So in that same vein, I simply don't understand why it's OK for Walmart or McBurger to pay their workers so poorly that they must rely on either public or collegial charity for subsistence. I think it's horribly demoralizing for the workers themselves, and imagine that this contributes greatly to our culture of instant material gratification. If nobody values my labor for its own worth, I'm more likely to begin placing value on the stuff I can get via that labor.
"So in that same vein, I simply don't understand why it's OK for Walmart or McBurger to pay their workers so poorly that they must rely on either public or collegial charity for subsistence."
I don't believe that I have said here or at any other time or in any other place that such is OK. I am a firm supporter of a fair wage for a day's work and believe that such should be based on the innate worth of the human who performs the job as well as the so-called value of the job. All work is honorable and should be reimbursed in such a way that the worker who performs it well can live without fear of imminent disaster in his financial world.
And while nobody at my husband's office is paid as badly as people in the service industry are by and large - the same attitude that I see in much of American management exists there - which is very frustrating to observe as a former manager myself.
On the other hand, this story was spun to make Walmart look bad. I don't think we need to do much spinning in that regard as the facts pretty much support the fact that this employer is not doing all that it should for its employees. However I have a sister-in-law who works there and LOVES her job and the company so for some people it is obviously doing something right.
I just think that when we start to argue things in the light of our personal politics and or view points - and I a very opinionated person myself - we need to be sure that the story we are telling is factual and not spun -
This is no different when it comes from liberals or conservatives. Or Republicans or Democrats. Or simply concerned citizens - which I would hope that we all are.
I retired from a fed employee job 8 years ago and my husband has always been a fed employee ( retired military, now approaching 20 in his second career with the govt in an entirely different career now)and truthfully, I had never heard of contributions being collected for fellow employees for the purposes of providing food for the holidays during any of my employment years.
We certainly had financial collections for the needy, especially during the holidays, but never for those already employed. I have never known anyone who had jobs who had this circumstance happen at work, either, unless something terrible had happened. It goes to highlight to me how drastically the type of employment, the pay grade of employees and the type of hours typically available have changed over the last, say, fifteen or twenty years for the the bottom quarter of working Americans. It really is appalling, imo. What has happened to this country?
Thank goodness that the so poorly paid, mostly part time Walmart workers are so generous of both heart and wallet that they would be willing to offer from what they have so little of already to those fellow workers who have even less. They put a lot of the more fortunate to shame.
I know that some will disagree but to me, this is a heartbreaking picture of what so many hard working Americans face.
I have no more than slightly more than a year and a half of college - jr. College at that, back when jr colleges ( at least in my area) were quite unfairly sneered at as a "less than" type of education, but when my husband was finally stationed in an area where I could find employment and finally help with my little family's finances, it was really astoundingly easy for me to test and be hired in a civil service job which, despite all the upheavals of military reassignments, I was fortunate enough to maintain (through a series of astounding luck) along the way until I was able to retire with benefits.
Though Ive always been aware of my great fortune in maintaining a civil service job despite repeated moves, I become all the more aware of the simple luck as a female of being born at the slender period of time when it was possible for me to build a little job from scratch and over the years, gain a pension from it.
It really does seem to me to be, from the 60' s through at least the mid to late 70's, a golden time filled with opportunity for so many Americans, when it was possible for a person to hustle jobs and work their way through college, often with no outstanding educational loans to pay off along the way. Or, educational loans ( dont forget the grants of the time!) so ridiculously cheap that paying them off was simply of no real hardship.
Dumpy apartments were dirt cheap. Kids could live outside of the family home and work their way through college because rents for dumps were dirt cheap and splitting the rent with several others, plus easily locating jobs around school hours made it all possible. It took careful planning and hard work but it was certainly possible - it's how a whole generation of kids who had to finance it by themselves got their higher education.
For so long people could work for a company, perhaps two, their entire working lives, although certainly that had begun to change before my husband retired from his military career.
In high school, the mother of an acquaintance of mine supported her two kids by waiting tables six days a week. True, they lived in a tiny but decent rental, drove an older car and wore cheaper clothing, but they always had enough food and always the basics needed, provided from her employment, without any additional income until the kids were old enough to work easily found full time summer jobs and after school jobs for a couple of hours each afternoon.. Both worked their way through college, one through graduate school.
Supporting a family of three people from such a job hasnt been possible for decades, perhaps that didnt even last through the end of the 70's. It was difficult enough then.
Now, even the university educated people are having a difficult time finding jobs which can support them in some reasonable way at their entry level salary because the cost of living, even on the bare bones cheap, is so high.
Im grateful that I was born when I was. It was simply great luck for most of us in this forum that we were born into a time of such- really-easily attained reasonable goals and opportunities in order for the opportunity to achieve at least a reasonably comfortable middle class life through a bit of luck and planning - which lasted for most of us until the great misfortune of a major health crises or absconded pension ruined it - though Im sure some will not agree.
I agree with all you said, mylab. These are different times indeed. What was possible then for many now seems possible for fewer. I'm sure it has much to do with opportunities and availability of cheaper goods like housing and food. I'm sure some of it also has to do with personal responsibility and wasteful expenditures. But overall, I think it is a change in the way opportunities are available to people - that single decent paying job is few and far between and working at WalMart, McDonalds and similar low paying service jobs just can't be a primary source of income.
You're right - as nice as it is for the employees to do this for each other, I have never seen this done before. It says a lot.
It's not just dumb luck that we were better off than today's young families, though... it's fairly easy to see what has been happening all along that has slowly changed things and widened the chasm between the few at the top of the food chain... and the rest of us. It's simple greed and gluttony.
The Walmarts and McBurgers of the world have figured out how to skim more and put in less. It's as simple as that.
I read and re-read the articles on this and according to Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. There is absolutely no mention that "employees" are heading this drive. Please show me where it says that, not by the employees themselves that is for sure.
Like you, ohiomom, I've read several articles several times and I still come away with this not being spearheaded by the Canton employees. Spokesperson Lundburg only seemed to go as far as saying it's nice for fellow employees to help each other to get through "unexpected" rough patches.
Being in want with the holidays approaching makes the want all the more acute... just not for the executives with their bonus stock options and fat Christmas checks.
I have been avoiding this thread; and like, OM, I have reread the original source materials. And I have been thinking back on Walmart's reported decision to reduce hours of available work so as to reduce the company's workers eligible for Fed. mandated health insurance. I am beginning to see a pattern of maximizing government support for the company's labor practices. It is all good, of course, because falling sales can be offset by reducing labor costs thus protecting profits.
"I have been thinking back on Walmart's reported decision to reduce hours of available work so as to reduce the company's workers eligible for Fed. mandated health insurance."
...and off they will go to the exchanges and get a tax subsidy.
All employees of Walmart in Canada have full health care coverage , exactly the same coverage regardless whether you are the manager of the sore or the greeter.
In Ontario, Walmart pays a sizable payroll tax that goes towards our universal, single payer, health care system. .......and they are still making money hand over fist.
Personally I prefer a model that has the corporation contributing financially to the healthcare of their employees than a model that has the tax payer doing it.
For cheap shots, this takes the cake. Walmart didn't ask employees to feed each other, and anyone who read the OP as we must assume the OP did, knows no such thing happened.
The false subject line is misleading and impugns Walmart with an accusation the article actually debunks.
If one wants to expose Walmart as "evil," I suggest starting with something that actually happened. Activists tried to manufacture evidence of evil, and in the process revealed only their own lack of integrity. When you have genuine grievances, you don't have to make stuff up.
Many people are dissing Walmart over this food drive, but when people raise funds to support our troops or veterans it seems that everyone thinks that is just a great heart warming idea. How about if the government pays those who put themselves in harm's way properly and gives them the equipment they need while in service and the mental and physical care that they need during and after service?
"Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said the food drive is proof that employees care about each other.
"It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he said. "Maybe their spouse lost a job.
"This is part of the company's culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships," he said.
Lundberg said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. However, the effort could be considered in line with what happens company-wide. The Associates in Critical Need Trust is funded by Walmart employee contributions that can be given through payroll deduction. He said employees can receive grants up to $1,500 to address hardships they may encounter, including homelessness, serious medical illnesses and major repairs to primary vehicles. Since 2001, grants totaling $80 million have been made."
That sounds like a good thing.
"It is for associates who have had some hardships come up," he said. "Maybe their spouse lost a job."
And in a single store, just how many hardship cases are there?? Facts are facts, and Walmart does NOT pay a living wage, so that it can 'maximize its profits'. If this truly happened, as it must have since a Walmart spokesman commented on the photo, then it is a very sad day indeed. And that so many people think nothing of employees being asked to subsidize extremely wealthy stockholders and executives, is that much sadder. It seems the Walmart emplyees are far, far more generous than their employers. And the shame is, so many see no shame in that.
What an excellent post, Mylab!! You have hit the nail on the head explaining why conservatives hang onto the very passe and now false idea that anyone can pull himself up by his bootstraps, if he only gives it a good try. As I've harped on about before, these people, especially the tp-ers, still think it's possible to go back to those halcyon days when all was right with the (their) world. I have political conversations with my 81-year-old neighbor who bears this out. Though he has all his marbles, I don't think he realizes how different the world is today since he's "got more money than he knows what to do with"--things worked out fine for him. He worked for a utility company and received a good pension and his wife worked as a bank teller. I believe bank tellers make minimum wage now, as well.
"and his wife worked as a bank teller. I believe bank tellers make minimum wage now, as well."
Bank tellers have never made much money, compounded with the fact that they were expected to dress up for work, which they probably couldn't afford to do. This brief article from 1990 tells the story of the salary back then:
Pay Study Shows Bank Tellers at Bottom
December 6, 1990 : KATHY KRISTOF, TIMES STAFF WRITER
If the tellers at your local bank seem a little surly these days, they've got reason. They are among the worst-paid hourly workers in Los Angeles, according to a survey by Towers Perrin Forster & Crosby. Bank tellers earn about $16,200 annually, according to the 90-company survey. That's $900 less than the annual take-home pay for mail clerks. It's $1,700 less than what the average custodian earns each year."
However, a lot of people didn't have more than 1 car/household, if that, no cell phone, cable TV, ipad, etc., nor did they buy objects they couldn't afford via credit cards like they do now so often.
a lot of people didn't have more than 1 car/household
Maybe in other cities with decent public transportation. However your example is Los Angeles, and mass public transportation was limited. Light rail at that time was one line, from Long Beach to Union Station, north of downtown. Two-car families were the norm for the middle class since I can remember.
People were maxing out credit cards in the 1990s.
Hear, hear, Terriks. Charity as practiced so hypocritically these days in our country can literally make me feel sick. Here in my extremely conservative county in the South, begging for and giving charity, always hopelessly inadequate to supplying ongoing need or fixing problems, is glorified. The issue of raising minimum wages is typically only addressed as part of a complaint about what the Democrats are up to.
I had to consciously pleasantize my expression a few weeks ago when a group started chatting about how through their church they had purchased a new house, new car, new furniture, new toys, and personally installed landscaping (it was a gardening group), for a young mother who was battling cancer. I didn't ask how this one woman was chosen from so many in trouble for this orgy of beneficence, or why. I know from experience that they wouldn't have an acceptable answer.
Or all the happy fundraising one year (but not the next) to send helmets and other hopefully correctly chosen combat gear (mother knows best?) to a handful of our soldiers in the Middle East. (Gad!!)
The fact is, a large portion of this country has been trained to disapprove anything that starts with "the Democrats want," which always precedes any mention of ways to address our problems on a greater than one-on-one scale. This is a knee-jerk reaction so strong after 30 years of practice that it often overrides any chance of common sense, or even common decency, breaking through.
They rationalize opposing government action by traditionally generous personal giving to those they know or feel are like them, and always (I'm not always silent) insist that they are doing their part and that people in other towns just have to do theirs, compartmentalizing behind iron doors the fact that many people right here in our charming but low-education rural county are still, and always, in trouble. Bring that bubble-poking reality up, and you're no longer a fellow gardener enjoying lunch with friends, but a Democrat. So I stop while we can all still enjoy pricking out seedlings together, or whatever.
Right now, of course, there's a special hum over seeing that at least some of our children of underpaid parents have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, 1 of over 1000 meals growing children need each year.
This post was edited by rosie on Sun, Nov 24, 13 at 7:28
The spokesman's response would be consistent with this being a publicity stunt and subsequent damage control, so I won't rule that notion out. Someone knew just who to send these photos to, and fairly quickly (the bins look empty to me?).
Playing down complaints of low wages and impending strikes and instead, focusing on caring employees and the company's culture to rally around those in need...sounds like a good spin on an embarrassing situation to me.
We had many employees that applied for jobs at a new Walmart Supercenter.
The pay is about industry standard for the region, however Walmart has more flexible scheduling, easier work, closer proximity to their home areas etc, things that are more important than hourly rates to many.
Many work 2 or 3 part-time jobs, or 1 full time and 1 or 2 part time jobs, so flexible scheduling is a must.
All that were hired were hired as temps for 180 days.
This was only back in August and most have already quit.
Excellent post, Rosie... thank you.
You bring up the point of charity, which may at one time have almost been enough to fill in a few gaps... decades ago... but society has changed greatly since that time... and the gaps are so huge and wide now, that charity will never be enough... and especially not when it hinges on the attitude of who might actually "deserve" it versus those who can't possibly be "deserving" by way of personal ideals and prejudices.
Luckily, the friends I hang out with are mostly liberal to moderate, and we can discuss political issues without having to grin and grit teeth, and bear it. :-) I give you a lot of credit for smiling and remaining quiet in the face of such differing ideals or views. I just can't remain silent when I know in my heart and mind that something is just plain wrong.
We, as a society, have been sold a bill of goods... this thread would mesh nicely with Marshallz's thread on how we've been conditioned to live a certain way and strive for certain goals... and by design, we've stumbled onto a playing field that grows less level as time passes, and is not sustainable in the long run.
"Imagine being so shaky about who and what you are that you actually identify with and defend Walmart's labour practices."
Let's imagine inhabiting a world so distorted and hopless that news others have landed jobs with caring coworkers leaves the perpetually aggrieved inhabitants clucking "Ain't it awful?"
Now let's imagine a world where people see an entry level job and steady pay check as a positive, a first step toward something better. One can, or course, be a "bitter clinger" to the notion that government can make everyone "equal" in the workplace if one continues to complain.
Or one can want a "living wage" bad enough to get off the computer, and go out and acquire the experience, skills and education to be worth it.
You have got to be kidding, Nika. We live in an economic world where most of the new jobs are "entry level with entry-level pay" for the uneducated and educated. These issues impact adults, often middle-aged adults, not just kids coming out of school.
If we were to create an equality of income in the world, (you're not just thinking of your own selfish self, are you?), I suspect, (without going out to find the numbers), that every single one of you would end up worse off.
The buck stops with you, though, doesn't it?
It's a sad commentary on life in 21st Century America.
Most of the employees in the Walmart I shopped at yesterday were well above "fresh out of high school" age. They were mostly middle aged and older, some much older. For many of them, this is probably a second or third job. Most of the people who work in my building have second and third jobs, many at Walmart. And they are all much older than their own high school children. They are working to support these children.
For others, it's their one and only job, and they desperately need it, so they won't be called "takers" by people, like those on this forum.
Kids look down on jobs at Walmart, they want something with a bit more class. Until reality hits them.
Same here, mom. I made a trip to Walmart yesterday - and "fresh out of high school" doesn't much apply. No youngsters working as checkers, in the deli, bakery dept., pharmacy, sewing-fabric-notions, product sampler people. Younger people in electronics and maybe one among the three or four in the Subway. Even the cart wranglers seemed to have a few years on them.
I don't know these people; could be their nest eggs saw some evaporation or 60-65 is just too young to stay unengaged in some way. More power to them; they're friendly, reliable, good at what they do.
Ran across this article from the LATimes about older workers remaining in the workforce. Perhaps in some fields(not necessarily Walmart) one could argue they're denying younger people a chance to get their foot in the door by staying on.
Here is a link that might be useful: Staying on the job
Lundberg said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. However, the effort could be considered in line with what happens company-wide. The Associates in Critical Need Trust is funded by Walmart employee contributions that can be given through payroll deduction. He said employees can receive grants up to $1,500 to address hardships they may encounter, including homelessness, serious medical illnesses and major repairs to primary vehicles. Since 2001, grants totaling $80 million have been made."
That sounds like a good thing.
You think that Walmart, the country's largest employer, whose owners could probably buy this country, asks its mostly underpaid employees to contribute to a fund that will help out (to the maximum amount of $1,500) these employee's co-employees, most if not all of them, grossly underpaid? Why can't the company set up such a fund out of its profits as it would be chump change for the company?
I am amazed and shaking my head at how the meanness (meaning stinginess) of corporations is seen as a good thing by some.
Don't click on the link if you want to save your New York Times limited access.
Here's the gist of it as it relates to art:
"FOR many education advocates, the arts are a panacea: They supposedly increase test scores, generate social responsibility and turn around failing schools. Most of the supporting evidence, though, does little more than establish correlations between exposure to the arts and certain outcomes. Research that demonstrates a causal relationship has been virtually nonexistent.
A few years ago, however, we had a rare opportunity to explore such relationships when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Ark. Through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able to determine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes."
The essence of the study is that, because so many school classes wanted to come visit in the first year it opened, for free, they needed to have a lottery and randomly allow some kids to come for the class visits. Which gave the perfect opportunity to test for the effect of exposure of art to other good things.
The bottom line: Exposure to art is good for you.
That was in the news today, but what really caught my eye was the story of the museum itself.
"Crystal Bridges, which opened in November 2011, was founded by Alice Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. It is impressive, with 50,000 square feet of gallery space and an endowment of more than $800 million.
Thanks to a generous private gift, the museum has a program that allows school groups to visit at no cost to students or schools."
I went looking for more information on this nice gift to the poor kids in Arkansas, in particular, but to all of us who appreciate the value in art.
Like the Wikipedia article on the museum.
"It offers free public admission."
"Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, spearheaded the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges. "
"It employs approximately 160 people, and is within walking distance of downtown Bentonville.[3]
The museum has amassed $488 million in assets as of August 2008, an amount that will increase as more pieces are continually added to the museum's collection.[4] It is the first major art museum (over $200 million endowment) to open in the United States since 1974. Over $317 million of the project's cost has been donated by Alice Walton."
And then there is these observations on the opening of the museum in 2011 from Forbes, at the same time that Occupy was occurring:
"Crystal Bridges is the heiress's gift to the town where Wal-Mart first began as Walton's Five-and-Dime in the 1940s.
Yet despite this love letter, as it were, to her community and to America, there remain those so wedded to the whining of the so-called 99 percent that they remain blinded both to the philanthropy and to the significance of the project.
Never mind that the museum has brought art works by American giants from Benjamin West and Georgia O'Keefe to Mark di Suvero and Joan Mitchell to a region that has, until now, had little opportunity to view the glories of America's artistic heritage. Never mind that some of these purchases---costing tens of millions of dollars --- hang, not in private homes for the selfish enjoyment of the Walton family, but on public walls for the education and enrichment of the American people. Never mind that funds used to purchase these treasures (and preserve and build nature trails and parks) for the simple purpose of giving them to Americans could instead have easily been used for, say, bracelets and private planes and mansions. Never mind that Ms. Walton consciously chose to use local labor and --- for the most part --- local materials, or that through an additional $20 million gift, provided by the Wal-Mart Family Foundation, entrance to the museum will be free for the foreseeable future.
Never mind that there is no income reward in this for the Walton family --- only expense. Never mind that the museum will employ local workers and bring tourism (read: jobs and commerce) to the town.
All this, for the Occupy crowd, apparently means nothing. What matters to them is simply the fact that Ms Walton has the money to do any of this in the first place --- and this, evidently, is an emblem of pure evil."
There are plenty of opportunities to provide food for the families of troops who are or have been constantly deployed.
Imagine that. Not taking care of our troops. How embarrassing. More embarrassing than any Walmart moment.
All this, for the Occupy crowd, apparently means nothing. What matters to them is simply the fact that Ms Walton has the money to do any of this in the first place --- and this, evidently, is an emblem of pure evil."
Yea that's the problem.
Green--difficult colour.
"All this, for the Occupy crowd, apparently means nothing. What matters to them is simply the fact that Ms Walton has the money to do any of this in the first place --- and this, evidently, is an emblem of pure evil."
Well said. Very well said. It's so "not good enough," so imperfect, that it's apparently worthless to these folks.
2nd in the nation in poverty, tis a wonderful feel good feeling to know that the children who reside in Arkansas have pretty pictures to look at.
What a wonderful world it is ...
Here is a link that might be useful: let em' eat cake
Ohiomom: "let 'em eat cake"
...and be malnourished, as well as ignorant and poor and hopeless...or teach 'em HOW to make cake, and hopefully other things, that are better for you:
Hay's link: "A few years ago, however, we had a rare opportunity to explore such relationships when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, Ark. Through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able to determine that strong causal relationships do in fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes."
Oh, I get it... a few little humanitarian efforts completely wipe away the fact that the corporation is heavily subsidized, the employees are paid near poverty wages and need public assistance, and there are bins set up in a Canton, OH Walmart's employee area asking for donations so management level workers can donate foodstuffs to lower level workers... well, that certainly excuses the mass disparity.
Here is a link that might be useful: A Living Wage is a Winning Idea
I see a difference between having art education -- including art history and painting and drawing - in the curriculum for every grade, throughout the year, and a one-time visit (or once-a-year visit) to an art museum. Better yet, use the museum trips to augment art education in the classroom. The works of Stieglitz (and others) can be appreciated from a book or reproductions, and then seen in person.
Increase funding for arts education in K-12 if the arts make such a marked difference. (Include music as well.)
I can't find something unseemly in everything. Maybe it's true Alice does things because she can. Many people do. Being rich as Croeus doesn't require largesse. Hays' linked Forbes article begs the question...Is it that... "Americans as a whole don't find museums to be fundamental to their well-being?"
Yes, Walmart employees should be paid a living wage because it's the right thing to do. There's hope the day will come when people can enjoy both a decent standard of living AND art museums.
I couldn't care less how wealthy the Waltons are and I begrudge them none of it.
The thing I can't get my head around is how it is acceptable to Americans, especially fiscally conservative Americans , that a corporation as wealthy as Walmart has their corporate payroll expenses subsidized by the American taxpayer.
A fiscal policy that says taxpayers should pick up the tab for substandard wages for a corporation that is unbelievably profitable makes no sense to me.
The low wages paid at places like Walmart have an added bonus to Walmart....cause guess where those who get those Foodstamps shop ?
Funnily enough the very people who seem to be OK with this rail against those on foodstamps and corporate subsidized to the auto industry.
Sometimes think conservatives are schizophrenic.......
"Oh, I get it... a few little humanitarian efforts completely wipe away the fact that ..."
"...well, that certainly excuses the mass disparity."
You sound as though you are convinced that others think way; I doubt most others do. I said "most." Some probably do think that way. I'm looking for the good things that are right there along with the bad. See the Iran thread.
Glass half empty; glass half full.
Nobody here has posted anything to which the attitude you're sarcastically blasting above could be attributed. Or is this more "code?"
Maybe those kids will see art, think about who the artists were, ask questions about different parts of the world and something outside their own existence, and dream of doing something to care for themselves.
It's none of your business what Alice Walton does with her money.
If you think she should instead give it away--consider what the family DOES give away in charity, and that it provides jobs, and low cost food and needs and wants so that people can have more of what they need and want.
It's ever enough for you, is it?
Why don't you get off your computers then and have the initiative that Sam Walton did, make as much money mand take it to the kids in Arkansas and tell them you are saving them from Alice Walton's art and throw money at them instead.
You get more of what you subsidize.
Obama--the Food Stamp King and Part Time Job President.
could be their nest eggs saw some evaporation
These people don't have nest eggs, or IRA's or 401k's, or much of anything other than Social Security. We, in the middle class, are the only ones even modestly prepared for retirement.
Many, many people work in low wage jobs for companies that offer no benefits. And they work at these jobs for their entire lives. And they will work until they can't work any more, and then they'll die.
Sure, some people work into their 80's and 90's because they "want" to work, but they are the exception. Most people working in their 70's and 80's are working because they NEED to work to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.
These are decent, honorable people who have worked hard all their lives, generally doing the work most of us wouldn't do - the ditch diggers, nurses aides, domestic workers, maintenance workers, etc. They clean our offices and stores at night, on contract, with minimum wage.
Thanksgiving isn't much of a holiday for them.
Posted by chase z6 (My Page) on
Sun, Nov 24, 13 at 17:42
You sure do get more of what you subsidize......
Subsidize Walmart et als payroll and you get more people on foodstamps.....
Let them improve their lives where they can get a better job or work more than one job.
Or better yet, get a president that can get an economy rolling.
Chase, perhaps the day will come when someone says, "Terrence, this is stupid stuff" and takes a hard look at this corporate subsidizing.
For lack of a better word, I think it's awful a Walmart employee is compelled by circumstance to turn around and spend his or her food stamps right back in the store that makes those food stamps necessary.
Walmart is in the midst of its worst U.S. sales slump ever
and " has lost some of its swagger. Walmart finds its business being nibbled away by dollar stores, discount grocery chains and online merchants. The company also lost some of its once-unassailable hold on suppliers." (from a WSJ article which is, unfortunately, behind a pay wall)
Okay, how much do you pay a Walmart employee?
All of you that think Walmart should pay more, tell me exactly--per hour, how much should a check out clerk make, how much should a stocker make, how much does someone that works in the bakery make, and how much does a regular sales associate that works in the fabric or tire department make?
You tell me.
What happens to the low prices when you pay them more than they are worth to the company?
Oops, guess poor people won't be able to buy food and supplies at Walmart, then.
The best incentive for doing better is need--unfortunately the Democrats supplement people just enough where they won't do what is necessary to get out of that low paying job when they need a higher paying job. They may want but their daily needs are met, so they don't need a better job or to go to school or do better. Check's in the mail, food stamps help, I'll keep working at Walmart. It's easier to keep the status quo.
It's only human nature.
There's those decades of hope, supplemented with just enough "help" to get votes and get those people by.
poor things don't know they are the masters of their fate.
They think the Democrats are.
(Why won't my p capitalized today? I only got it to work once.
Now it will only type lower case p. Uh now the w is giving me problems)
This post was edited by demifloyd on Sun, Nov 24, 13 at 18:33
Keep in mind that "wealth" consists of factories, stores, land, and other such investments. These ultra wealthy people don't "consume" all that "wealth". And they certainly don't take it with them when they leave this good Earth.
If we take that "wealth" from the "wealthy" and give it to the "poor", do we not, in effect, destroy a factory or a store in order to create a consumption good?
Am I basically right?
What is the optimum amount of factories and stores we should have?
pnbrown, you can start.
Then I'd like to hear from Chase, then jodi, and then David.
We'll go from there.
I'm needing to buy some jeans.
That means I have to ride for 20 miles to get to the nearest cheap clothing store, a Walmart store. 20 miles, there, 20 miles back. That's $8 worth of gasoline.
If you decide we can do without this particular Walmart store then it'd be another 20 miles to get a cheap pair of jeans.
Should we tear down this store and give the remains to some poor people? How many stores do you think is the optimum number?
You going to employ the workers that will lose their job?
OK, forget about Jodi. No way she's going to be employing anybody. She consumes everything she makes. Right?
Maybe we don't really need anyone to save and build factories and stores?
Who needs these things anyhow?
So besides the silliness above ... this thread is about paying "working people" a living wage, not taking away the wealth from the wealthy and giving it to poor people.
I realize with so many "knock out the poor posts", it can be confusing, but this is about people who are not sitting behind a computer but going to work everyday to take care of their families.
These days, wealth in the US isn't invested so much in productive capacity such as factories, mines, stores, land etc. Its invested in paper - derivatives, credit default swaps, speculative futures contracts, and so on.
For example, we recently saw the Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan buying up the physical storage warehouses for aluminum, moving it from building to building, jacking up the price for the actual consumer.
Which, IMHO, isn't capitalism. Nor should it be encouraged by ridiculously low tax rates - 15% carried interest, 20% on capital gains re-selling the aluminum futures contracts.
While I have no problem with vast wealth per se, I do have a problem when people use that vast wealth to bribe the government against the interests of the vast majority of citizens. The Walmart heirs would certainly fall into that category, recently spending millions fighting, successfully, a minor increase in the minimum wage.
from Forbes Magazine: In fact, Wal-Mart's unwillingness to pay most of their workers a livable wage, while avoiding enough full-time employees to properly run a retail outlet, has led to the company placing dead last among department and discount stores in the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index - a position that should now be all too familiar to the nation's largest retailer given that Wal-Mart has either held or shared the bottom spot on the index for six years running.
For anyone who has not been following the Wal-Mart saga, sales have been sinking dramatically at the retailer as the company has turned to hiring mostly temporary workers (those who must reapply for a job every 180 days) to staff their stores while cutting full-time employees' hours down to part-time status in order to avoid providing workers with healthcare benefits.
The result?
Empty shelves, ridiculously long check-out lines, helpless customers wandering through the electronics section and general disorganization at Wal-Mart store locations.
IOW, their mismanagement of the company is increasingly difficult to hide.
But hey, its great they were able to donate some art work and take it off their income tax.
And if all y'all want to worship them as some sort of shining example of entrepreneurship, its a free country.
Oh, funnier still? To further save money they've fired a whole bunch of security staff, which has led to a sharp uptick in shoplifting. Smart management, I tell ya.
Here is a link that might be useful: link
"These days, wealth in the US isn't invested so much in productive capacity such as factories, mines, stores, land etc. Its invested in paper - derivatives, credit default swaps, speculative futures contracts, and so on."
That's so much nonsense. Naive Economics 101.
Ultimately these pieces of paper represent a share of something real.
If I own a stock option, a derivative, I own a part of a company, a part of a factory or a store.
Try again.
Our dear Keynes likes the equation, breaking down where what we produce goes.
Gross National Product equals Consumption plus Investment plus Government.
Ohio, should we add T?
Tooth Fairy?
(Ignoring Government for the moment; that's a whole 'nother thread.)
Silly me, again,
"speculative futures contracts" are not an "investment' in the sense we're using the word right now. We've been through this before.
It's essentially a "bet". All that it takes is good collateral to make sure you can follow through on the bet if you lose.
That collateral does represent something "real". An investment that you pledge if you lose. Nothing got diverted.
Try again.
"Well right now they are getting their "extra wages" from the American taxpayers."
Really, and if we increase the wages, the taxpayers will have to pay more taxes?
The taxes paid in this country come primarily from the wealthy anyhow, don't they?
People like that skinflint, Marshall.
No one wants to answer my very simple question?
Dave and Ohiomom don't seem to want to address it.
Just in case you missed it:
"If we take that "wealth" from the "wealthy" and give it to the "poor", do we not, in effect, destroy a factory or a store in order to create a consumption good?
Am I basically right?
What is the optimum amount of factories and stores we should have?
pnbrown, you can start.
Then I'd like to hear from Chase, then jodi, and then David.
We'll go from there.
It's none of your business what Alice Walton does with her money.
What is the business of USians is how much WalMart's profits are from taxpayers subsidizing WalMart employees.
I'll happily have my taxes help support employees of small business and small mom-and-pop enterprises. Corporate behemoth WalMart doesn't inspire the same enthusiasm.
I save a lot of money buying from Walmart.
I have no desire to subsidize an inefficient use of mom and pop's time sitting behind the counter all day.
I also invest the money I save in the stock market. Building more and more factories.
How about you answering the basic question, nancy?
Would you want me to drive another 40 miles to buy a pair of jeans? Supporting the rich oil companies and the rich Saudis all the way there and back?
hay, from your comments in the past I thought you bought your clothes at thrift shops.
Funny how your anecdotes shift depending on which tune you chose to polka to.
Lots of noisy fury, strutting and fretting on the dance floor, in the end signifying nothing, not even a tale told by an idiot.
"hay, from your comments in the past I thought you bought your clothes at thrift shops.
Funny how your anecdotes shift depending on which tune you chose to polka to."
Good try, Nancy.
Fact is, I buy 99% of my pants from stores like Walmart. I'd buy from the thrift store, but I find that it's just not worth my effort to try buying them there.
I do buy 99% of my long sleeve shirts from the thrift stores.
I'd say that about 50% of my tee's come from the thrifts, 50% from Walmart.
Good try, Nancy.
Now that we got that straightened out and Hay's credibility has been restored, you want to answer the question?
(Again, good try. You failed, but we'll give you credit for a good try.)
An employer should pay a minimum wage that precludes people requiring taxpayer funded foodstamps.
I an a capitalist, I have no issues with profits, making money is a good thing.
However it is totally inappropriate, in my mind , that the tax payer subsidize any business profits........and I am suprised that all of you who complain about taxes and fodstamps are perfectly OK with being taxed so that Walmart can make the profits it does.
However, if you folk are fine with having your tax dollars go to subsidizing Walmarts profits in the way of tax credits and footstamp for their employees then please stop bellyaching about your tax dollars going to foodstamps and bemoaning the fact that 50 %of the people don't pay taxes.
You are getting what you subsidize.
Speaking of low-down, dirty rotten tricks, where's Marshall?
"Most of the temps I have hired quit as well. But I hire temps with provisional status for only 2 weeks or a month, not a half a year."
Maybe you should pay them more?
I'm still curious.
"How much do you pay your lowest wage earner, Marshall?
You provide health insurance, 401-K's? Pensions?
Just curious."
"I have no issues with profits, making money is a good thing."
Of course you have issues with profits. Every statement from you on this topic says just that.
Canadian woman speaks with forked tongue.
You want me to drive 80 miles to buy a pair of jeans? Even the closest Goodwill is 40 miles away.
Pretty soon, at this rate, I'm going to need a government subsidy.
Nancy would love that, I'm sure. I'd like it in a little envelope, SWAK on the flap.
•Posted by nancy_in_venice_ca SS24 z10 CA (My Page) on Sun, Nov 24, 13 at 20:40
"hay, from your comments in the past I thought you bought your clothes at thrift shops.
Funny how your anecdotes shift depending on which tune you chose to polka to.
Lots of noisy fury, strutting and fretting on the dance floor, in the end signifying nothing, not even a tale told by an idiot."
Ah, but it's not "a tale told by an idiot," it's a tale told by Hay. Um, I'm sure you're not calling Hay an idiot. After all, that would most certainly be a personal insult (see Forum guidelines).
"shifted and chose" or "shift and choose". Take your pick.
"Ah, but it's not "a tale told by an idiot," it's a tale told by Hay. Um, I'm sure you're not calling Hay an idiot."
One last post before I do some real work around here.
Let Nancy have her fun.
I'll start worrying when Nancy starts agreeing with me.
Chase said, earlier in the discussion, "All employees of Walmart in Canada have full health care coverage , exactly the same coverage regardless whether you are the manager of the store or the greeter.
In Ontario, Walmart pays a sizable payroll tax that goes towards our universal, single payer, health care system. .......and they are still making money hand over fist.
Personally I prefer a model that has the corporation contributing financially to the healthcare of their employees than a model that has the tax payer doing it."
So, Canada's business model is working rather well, and their Walmarts still manage to pull down a hefty profit.
Chase also said, "An employer should pay a minimum wage that precludes people requiring taxpayer funded foodstamps.
I am a capitalist, I have no issues with profits, making money is a good thing.
However it is totally inappropriate, in my mind , that the tax payer subsidize any business profits........and I am suprised that all of you who complain about taxes and fodstamps are perfectly OK with being taxed so that Walmart can make the profits it does.
However, if you folk are fine with having your tax dollars go to subsidizing Walmarts profits in the way of tax credits and footstamp for their employees then please stop bellyaching about your tax dollars going to foodstamps and bemoaning the fact that 50 %of the people don't pay taxes."
Much like Chase, I can see how flawed this business model is... the one US Walmarts use.
The business model that underpays its employees and accepts government subsidization, and supposed fiscally conservative voters seem to approve of and support, though they are, in contradictory fashion, against subsidizing the public.
It's a business model that can only crash and burn eventually, being unsustainable in the long run.
"Walmart, the most successful retail operation in the US, failed to make even a dent in the largest and most vibrant European economy (Germany) after losing a billion dollars in the process of bungling their German market experiment with so much failure it is now the stuff of local urban legend.. Let's examine the reasons.
Cultural Hubris
"The problem was the company's business philosophy, which had always worked so well," wrote Frankfurt's Börsenzeitung in what pretty much amounted to an obituary. "It's people-centered ��" but that doesn't actually work when the people aren't American.
The company gave the job of masterminding Wal-Mart Germany to an American who didn't speak a word of German.
The Germans weren't fond of the Walmart practice of hiring old people to accost greet them at the door, nor were the German workers impressed with morning warm-up sessions ("Higher Profits Uber Alles! ��" Can I get an Amen there Fritz!!")
Economic Hubris
They have all kinds of laws over here against the kind of disruptive market "capitalism" that has decimated small towns across America, (and still threatens the world economy IMHO):
1. You can't sell below cost in the Eurozone countries just to run your competition our of business, even if you have a billion dollars to give it a go. Helps to level the playing field. Gives the small guys half a chance to compete with the bigger players.
2. You can't abuse the workforce with "falling wages" and expect the government to subsidize your slave-wage workforce with food stamps and healthcare just to make ONE corporation rich at the expense of the society at large. Something else the German workers were repulsed by? A ban on flirting in the workplace. Germans to Walmart: You Don't Own Us.
Playing by the same rules as everybody else proved FATAL for Walmart here in Germany. This Atlantic Times summed up Walmart's German problem nicely back in 2006,
One consequence was less competitive prices than those of their rivals.
I don't think the American business community learned much though. The same US based recap of the Walmart fiasco quoted above, also said this:
The third problem was bad press. The media reported that shoppers were turned off by Wal-Mart staff hired to greet them at the door and bag their groceries. This sort of thing was and still is unusual practice in Germany, so it was done away with.
Dam you media. If only you hadn't highlighted all of Mitt Romney's lies Walmart's practices, we would have Seal Team Six deployed alongside the IDF right now Walmart in Germany!
There is a full thirty five pages of Walmart Schadenfreude, (apparently written as a German business college research paper) at the end of the abstract reprinted here from linked English language PDF following.
Clearly dominating the US retail market, Wal-Mart expanded into Germany (and Europe) in late 1997. Wal-Mart's attempt to apply the company's proven US success formula in an unmodified manner to the German market, however, turned out to be nothing short of a fiasco. Upon closer inspection, the circumstances of the company's failure to establish itself in Germany give reason to believe that it pursued a fundamentally flawed internationalization strategy due to an incredible degree of ignorance of the specific features of the extremely competitive German retail market. Moreover, instead of attracting consumers with an innovative approach to retailing, as it has done in the USA, in Germany the company does not seem to be able to offer customers any compelling value proposition in comparison with its local competitors. Wal-Mart Germany's future looks bleak indeed."
Here is a link that might be useful: Why Walmart Failed in Germany
"Personally I prefer a model that has the corporation contributing financially to the healthcare of their employees than a model that has the tax payer doing it"
Before I get jumped on for saying this the context of my comments relates to taxpayer contribution to the corporate profits.
As well as corporations, Canadians pay taxes that contribute to their personal healthcare.
Let's just shut down all the corporations. And then some of you can start your own. Are you willing to scrimp and save and borrow from family and friends? To fail and pick yourself up and try again and again? Work 16 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week to get your company off the ground? I imagine those that rail against corporations the most would be the least likely. I'm not much of a Walmart shopper myself, but they do fill a need, as do most corporations. My sons first job was at Walmart. He worked in the layaway dept. He never came home overworked or complaining about his job. He didn't have to work at Walmart, but he applied, they gave him a job, and they paid him for doing it. His choice.
Poverty wage employers double-bill tax payers ... Walmart had 17 billion in profits last year and they cannot "afford" to pay a living wage? Walmart is not the only corporation benefiting from this.
Why is it a bad thing for wages to go up when everything from rents to food etal has gone up?
I must be missing something here ...
So what could be the solution?
The simplest solution is to raise the minimum wage. If full-time employees are living below the poverty level ��" especially those with children ��" its no surprise they are going to need public assistance.
And it's here that we start to have a problem with the thesis as it is. For the corporations are paying what they can get away with: yes, it really is true that rapacious capitalists will pay as little as they can for anything in order to maximise their profits. But the extension of this is that given the supply of that low skill labour in the US and the demand for that low skill labour then those companies are paying what that low skill labour is actually worth. This is definitional: in a market economy something is worth what someone will pay for it.
Here is a link that might be useful: link
JP Morgan Chase pays less than $12 per hour to a bank clerk.
They make billions and steal billions from the taxpayers.
Let's make JP Morgan Chase the target this year. How many of you bank there and support that monster?
Joe, do you own stock in JP Morgan?
Well, as I pointed out, Walmart is not the only corporation to benefit from this rigged system.
My understanding of living wage is that it should provide a minimum standard of living for basic needs.
So some of you are okay with taxpayers providing the basic needs for employees employed by poverty wage employers?
Then please stop with the multitude of lazy people receiving welfare benefits threads.
Can't have it both ways ...
Sorry om, we will just have to disagree. My son worked at Walmart until he found a job that paid more money. No one forced him to work at Walmart. I've worked at minimum wage when I was young. Either giving 100% and receiving raises, or moving on to a better paying job. It actually never occurred to me that it was my employers duty to offer to pay me more if that was his starting rate. I could either take the job at what he offered, or I could move on to something else.
"So some of you are okay with taxpayers providing the basic needs for employees employed by poverty wage employers?
Then please stop with the multitude of lazy people receiving welfare benefits threads.
Can't have it both ways ..."
How do you figure people working (presumably as many hours as they are able to) are lazy? Nobody else said that. And no, I don't have a problem giving them a hand; they are earning it by doing the best they can.
And when the folks are working (earning) some money, even if it's not enough for all their "basic needs," the rest of us are not providing everything; we're supplementing it. There is a huge difference.
This is definitional: in a market economy something is worth what someone will pay for it.
Another aspect in a market economy is that there is freely available choice - both for employers and employees - which means that your checker at Walmart can hop over to some grocery store for a much higher salary - which isn't at all the case. Walmart - as the largest private employer in the country, sets the national wage scale for mass-retailers. That isn't "free market" - its a monopoly.
For that matter, there is no such thing as a free market economy, and Walmart certainly isn't operating in one. They buy their stuff from China, where the currency is manipulated, the cost of living is next-to-nothing compared to here, and so on. They force competitors out of business by selling below cost, and I've mentioned several times how they continue to rent an empty shopping center here so that the competition can't move in. Free market my arse.
I wonder how many of their good 'sales associates' would be showing up for work if they couldn't subsidize their life with food stamps, housing vouchers, cell phones and medicaid? I wonder how many would show up if they had other choices?
From the article linked above, and below:
Of course, Wal-Mart's efforts to keep its workers from earning a decent living while achieving health care benefits has created some full-time work for some.
The company now hires people to work with its employees to help them sign up for Medicaid, the government program that makes healthcare available to Americans who neither get coverage at work or are able to afford it without public assistance.
I have to admit that I find it somewhat ironic that all the 'conservatives' are busy bashing the lazy layabouts who won't get off their tush and go work so they don't have to subsidize them with their taxes and food stamps, yet exalt outfits like Walmart as beacons of marvelous profitable capitalism, whose business model depends on paying people so little that the same conservatives have to subsidize their employees with their taxes and food stamps.
Here is a link that might be useful: link
Self sufficient adults with pride and abilities understand that mrskjun.
Unfortunately decades of democrats' policies have caused people to decide those attributes are outdated and not cool.
What's cool is using one's ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation to exempt ones's self from responsibility.
It is wearing thin
Our labor pool is much larger than the demand for skilled labor, leaving large numbers of skilled workers competing in the pool of low-skilled job applicants. There is a prejudice against highly educated people applying for low-skill service jobs, so called "over qualification" factor. Temp work is often less prone to turn away over qualified applicants.
Actually, I don't mind giving a little subsidy to someone who is trying to do better. It's the ones that won't take a job a Walmart because they would rather stay home and get the check in the mail every month and then whine because someone else has more than they do.
Here you go. A nice list of corporations that pay minimum wage. I know they just aren't going to get any more of your dollars.
And raise minimum wage to 15.00. Prices will rise to cover the added expense and they will still be minimum wage workers.
Here is a link that might be useful: link
"nd raise minimum wage to 15.00. Prices will rise to cover the added expense and they will still be minimum wage workers."
...but they won't get food stamps. Better they should get a salary than a tax payer subsidy that most conservatives would cut with great glee.
Forbes seems like an expert opinion to me; not saying they've got the last word, but they have more expertise than I do:
"One of the more annoying memes going around concerning the minimum wage is that average productivity has risen over the years so therefore the minimum wage should rise. It has a certain plausibility which is why so many repeat it but it is, unfortunately, wrong. It's also the source of the idea that if the minimum wage had increased in line with productivity then that minimum would now be $22 an hour or so.
The error though is to be mixing and matching the concept of average productivity with what should be the minimum wage. For there's no particular reason that the productivity of those earning the minimum wage has to rise at the same rate as average productivity. No reason at all.
It is true that average wages should rise in line with average productivity. For, what we all, on average, produce is what is available for us all, on average, to consume. What is produced must be what is consumed so therefore the two averages, production and consumption, must at least roughly match. Which they do of course.
And yes, average compensation has indeed been rising alongside average productivity. Wages haven't, this is true, but as we've all noted health care is becoming ever more expensive and most of us do get our health care as part of the compensation from our work. When you adjust for this, for falling household sizes and so on, we find that average compensation is indeed tracking average productivity quite well.
However, this really doesn't mean that the minimum wage should track average productivity. We might expect it to trak the productivity of minimum wage jobs though, that would be reasonable enough. And the AEI has the numbers for us:
" Since 1987, output per hour in all non-farm businesses has risen by around 71%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an annual rate of 2.19%. The Times' logic says wages in the fast food industry should have risen by a like amount. But BLS data show that productivity at self-serve restaurants has risen only by 0.45% annually since 1987, for total growth of 12%.
The simple fact is that if fast food restaurants increased wages by 71% over a period in which their own labor productivity rose by only 12%, they'd be out of business. Ask yourself: do shuttered businesses pay higher wages than firms that remain in business? If not, you might want to think twice about that $15 minimum wage.
That meme, that beause average productivity has risen therefore the minimum wage should go up, I'm afraid it's wrong. Just, simply, incorrect, at least for this universe that we currently inhabit."
Here is a link that might be useful: Minimum Wage Meme
It's the ones that won't take a job a Walmart because they would rather stay home and get the check in the mail every month and then whine because someone else has more than they do.
But we're not talking about them. We are talking about the ones working at Walmart and they are not making enough money to be independent of taxpayer subsidies.
I am not going to look up the details, but the reality of minimum wages paid today is to compare the buying power of those wages today with what they same wages purchased back when the minimum wages was established. They have no way kept up with the cost of living, a similar problem with pensions not tied to COLAs.
David52, I believe, has posted on this subject. As usual it is ignored by conservative posters as being irrelevant or even a spur to get workers to study hard and get better paying jobs.
Why, if they were paid $15 an hour, full time, they'd be paying state and if single, federal income taxes, moving them from the 'takers' to the 'makers' …..
OMG!!! OMG !!@! You mean, it could be just that easy? Pay people enough salary, and they'll start paying taxes?
We have 13 relatives that work for Walmart currently - every job from cashiers to inventory associates, to shift managers, to distribution center workers.
The ones that need the money the least - young single childless males/females make the most $15 to $22 per hour - plus work full-time.
The ones that need the money the most and the majority of the 13 Walmart workers (single females with multiple kids) only make between $9 and $11 per hour and only work part-time. Many of their co-workers are in the same position. These workers are all voluntary part-time workers.
Using the 2010 Self Sufficiency Standard for their regions, they'd have to make $25 to $35 per hour working full time and year round to support themselves and their dependents without numerous forms of assistance.
Since they only work part-time, they'd have to make one hell of a lot of money per hour to support themselves and their dependents without numerous welfare benefits and/or local/private support, family support etc.
"You have got to be kidding, Nika. We live in an economic world where most of the new jobs are "entry level with entry-level pay" for the uneducated and educated. These issues impact adults, often middle-aged adults, not just kids coming out of school."
Make up your mind, Marshall. You can't support politicians artificially enlarging the labor pool to serve corporate interests, if you want US workers to receive a larger pay check. Econ 101. Supply and demand.
If food stamps for Walmart workers is "corporate welfare," what do you call food stamps for illegal alien workers?
Imported workers are a gift politicians grant to corporations. Unfortunately, this gift comes at the expense of their own constituents.
Whether it sneaks in on foot, or is allowed in with H1B visas, an imported workforce suppresses wages for American workers.
"Now the watchdog group Judicial Watch has obtained Spanish-language fliers through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It announced Thursday that the "promotion of the food stamp program, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flier provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA."
The interesting thing about this flier is a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they don't need to declare their immigration status in order to get aid. Emphasized in bold and underlined, it reads, "You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.""
Here is a link that might be useful: link
"You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children."
Sounds like they are seeking aid for their children who ARE legal? Remember the anchor babies ...?
In that case, it is appropriate that the children qualify for SNAP benefits.
Thank you, Mylab... but it would appear that logic and reason are somehow missing in terms of the "national discussion" on this kind of corporate business model.
'Round and 'round the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel... a short, but succinct analogy of the "national Walmart monopoly/subsidization discussion".
It makes no logical sense, other than pure avarice and lost ethics, to try to maintain a corporation without maintaining its most important asset: it's employees.
It is completely hypocritical and contradictory to accept and support the current monopolized, subsidized business model of this, and other corporations like it.
Raising the minimum wage to more reflect actual cost of living would raise a goodly portion of the sinking ship the US economy has become... but that sounds too costly to those skimming deeply off the top, or to those blinded by the propaganda of fallacious economic policy.
Typically, not all the info is provided....only legal immigrants or citizens can qualify...and legal immigrants over the age of 18 must wait 5 years.
There is no requirement for a parent to divulge THEIR immigration stays when applying for SNAP for their LEGAL children........my bet is though that most would be to frightened to apply.
"If you are not eligible due to your immigration status, your legal immigrant or citizen children may qualify. Your SNAP worker should not ask you to provide immigration information about yourself when you apply for your legal immigrant or citizen children"
Here is a link that might be useful: Source
I think that esh has that right. The problem is that SNAP goes by household income. If the guardian(s) can't provide proof of income (presumably because they are here illegally, and don't have such documentation), the application shouldn't be processed. If no proof of their income is required, they are then being allowed to sidestep a requirement that legal residents have to endure.
I can't see why the legal resident children should not be considered beneficiaries of their guardian's income, whether the guardian(s) are here legally or not. I hope that sheds some light on the subject of illegal residents and SNAP.
According to this you have to provide income information. And while it says you don't have to provide your immigration status if applying for your children, it does NOT say you would be exempt from providing income information if applying for your children.
The worker will ask you to verify information such as your name, address, household income, and expenses.
So it seems clear that income information is required of everyone.
Here is a link that might be useful: Source
From the article "Myths about the Snap Program":
Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for SNAP. Additionally, there is already a strict waiting period for documented immigrants. Documented adult immigrants (those with a greencard) are subject to a five-year waiting period before they are eligible for SNAP.
Noncitizens make up a very small portion of SNAP participants �" only 4% of participants are noncitizens (documented immigrants or refugees).[xxxiv]
I'm late to this thread. Too busy cooking and baking.
Just wanted to say that this thread is so typical of HT. It's the same old, same old...
Here's how I see it:
Liberals are concerned about the working poor and want to see conditions improve (and I don't mean moving to other jobs; I mean being able to work at Walmart, for example, and be able to support (feed, clothe, house) your family).
Conservatives think that people that work in these jobs are losers and lazy and don't deserve more than they get.
Conservatives don't seem to understand (or at least won't admit) that they are paying for these people one way or another.
Liberals would prefer to pay a little more for products and not pay for food stamps.
Conservatives don't want to pay more for products and do not want to pay for food stamps (unless they personally approve of the person receiving them).
Someone (in this case, nik) makes the ridiculous claim that liberals think everyone is worth the same in the work force. No matter how many times you explain it, they just keep saying the same thing, ignoring the very obvious.
Nik always brings everything around to illegal immigrants.
MrsK misreads or misunderstands her own information.
And we're right where we were days, months, years ago on this topic.
Do I have that right?
And just to remind everyone - this post is not about illegal immigrants or people that aren't working. It is about people that ARE working and who are not making enough from their job at Walmart such that they need the help of their co-workers (who are kind enough to help them and that is great).


text:
WANTED: Part 2, Jupiter Farms Swap, Sept. 27
We've reached our limit so I am starting a new one.
Sunday, September 27, 9:30 am - til ?, Jupiter Farms, for directions please send me an e-mail to email@example.com, do not use the Garden Web link. So far I have only had 3 people request directions so if you sent a request to the Garden Web link and I have not responded, please resend to my e-mail address above.
We will start around 9:30 with our swapping, and will have lunch. I'm supplying some type of barbeque, pulled pork or burgers and chicken as well as all the paper goods, silverware, and soft drinks, tea, etc. Everyone should bring a side dish or dessert, please sign up for something if you have not already.
Make sure to visit the old listing to see some recent posts for plants available. I have 2 trades of White Butterfly Ginger that I just posted there but will repost here. This is very, very fragrant and a reliable bloomer, blooms most of the summer on succesive new stalks.
Cliff the blackberry lily is yours if you want it ( thanks Kristy)
Kathy , are you getting rid of the siam ruby ? I have one but I would love to put it is a second location.
As long as no one else wants it. I love it.
Cherie , I will bring the cole slaw that I took to the orchid picnic. Real easy to make. And a desert for Rita since she is my guest.
Any thing else?
Kristy, sorry for the delay, I was out of town. You really didn't buy plants for me that you are digging out of your garden did you? If so, let me know how much. Nora Grant is the exact one I'm looking for. Thanks so much.
Cherie, that is a beautiful ginger. What kind of light do you grow yours in?
All the food choices sound great.
That is a good question. I have it now planted in it's 3rd location and obviously was not providing enough light previously. It was in pretty heavy shade and has been creeping out into the sun more and more. The sun has also shifted and it now gets quite a bit of sun but is doing better than it ever has. I guess it finally showed me where it wanted to be planted!
The two pieces I have potted up for the swap came from spots that I had moved it from and obviously had left a little of it behind.
Ginny, that isn't the one I was thinking of. The one I was wondering about looks just like a regular spider plant with white edges, only it gets both taller and wider and instead of the babies coming out the side, it has grayish colored 'flowers' going straight up.
Darn I missed the Mounts sale. I didn't realize that it was last weekend, bummer. I really need more plants, ha ha.
Nancy - Is it the one wanna run faster suggested - Dianella tasmanica 'Variegata' - flax lily? If so, I have that too and can bring some.
Who wanted the salmon mussaenda? I'm trying to root a couple and so far they are looking good. I can't remember who was looking for one.
Beverly~ It was good seeing you too, I spent wayyyy too much money!
I reviewed your list again and noticed you have inkberry. I would love one if you still have one available. I am thinking I need to have everyone over to get cuttings. I will bring you the native mint, do you want any spiderwart?
Kat- Its the Snowberry that is in bloom. The Inkberry isn't in bloom yet.
Hey guys I've learned to upload photos
Here is a link that might be useful: Bev's Garden
I have a very small but well rooted plant called White Gloxinia , Sinningia tubiflora.
Would aybody be interested in giving this a try ?
I saw a hummer on the 7 th. I useally don`t see them till the first week in October.
Nice , but a little strange.
Ginny, it was me who was asking about the salmon musseanda. I would love a cutting if you have one.
I'm going to put together a list of what I'm bringing and whatever else I find / see lying around. I can bring fresh cuttings of kiss & tell hibiscus, snow queen & fire & ice hibiscus if anyone's interested. I have a couple of small rooted hoyas, ones a lacuonsa (sp) blooms throughout the year, wonderful vanilla - almondy scent (to me)...makes a nice house plant, also have loads of hoya australis cuttings (an aggressive grower), and a rooted green sport of Hoya KQ with peducles (currently has large pretty purple flower, little if any scent)
Anyone have a hedychium with orange or orangy-red flowers?
I have an abundance of magazines, Florida Gardening, Garden Gate, Birds and Blooms etc... I will bring them if anyone is interested in them.
WRF - I have your name on the mussaenda. I would like a cutting of kiss and tell hibiscus if you still have one.
I have hibiscus 'high voltage' if you or anyone wants cuttings. Does anyone want water lettuce for their pond or water garden? I'm having to clear some of mine out and I'll bring to swap if anyone wants, but will have to be cleaned out tomorrow if no one answers.
Cherie, if you have enough to spare I would love a piece of your hedychium ginger. I have a peach colored one, but can't find a picture and all my names got destroyed. I'll go see if it's blooming now.
I have plenty of it, may be able to dig up and pot tomorrow, if not definitely while you are here.
I would like some of your water lettuce, but not a whole lot, my "pond" is just a sunken tub so not much room.
Please bring the magazines. I am going to set up a table of "free garden stuff". I have some stuff to put out, extra nursery pots, seeds, etc. Everyone who has stuff they are not using and just want to get rid of can bring them to add to the table.
I'm also going to have some door prizes for a drawing.
Cherie, if you don't mind, my 88 year old neighbor, Iris would like to join us. She is alot of fun and enjoyed the swap in Vero at Tanya and Jim's. Iris would be happy to bring a case of bottled water or whatever else is needed, as she doesn't cook much these days. We will be traveling with Wanda.
Oh Cherie, that is beautiful! I would love a piece. Can I offer you a pink and a red Etlingera start? I had white too but I don't seem to be able to find it lol
Ginny, the kiss & tell is yours, I have plenty if anyone else is interested
I'm going to dig up and wash the heliconias and the gingers I'm bringing and bring them along in a bucket if that's ok with everyone. It will just be so much easier than trying to pot them up and deal with the dirt in the car.
Ms. Marion, I would love for Iris to join us. I really don't mind if she does not bring a thing, but if she is the type to insist, bottled water is great. My Gram may be here as well, they would probably hit it off. Not sure yet, Gram says "we'll see". I'll have some of Gram's Bread and Butter pickles and Apple Butter here if any one is interested.
Helen (wana run faster) I have plenty of the Hedychium, and would love a red Etlingera, no issues with not potting. I am going to do the same with the larger Heliconias. Both Gingers and Heliconias are perfectly fine with doing them that way, I have ordered just the rhizomes on the internet before and they have always been fine.
One of the door prizes is a 3 gallon pot of Ground Orchid, Spathoglottis, covered in blooms, I just picked up at a local nursery today. I'll post a picture later.
I want to add to my 'have' list: I cleaned off the deck this weekend and these need to find a nice home:
I have two rooted (and blooming) 16 Candles Floribunda Rose. this is my favorite of my over 50 roses, it is a gorgeous apricot, heavy bloomer.
I also have a rooted (and close to blooming) Mary Magdeline David Austin Rose and may be my second favorite rose, peachy-cream color and licorice scent, blooms her head off. Here is a bouquet I picked yesterday, Mary is the lighter colored one.
A rooted Renae, climber, pink, thornless. This is an old rose, pretty little sweetheart clusters, no fuss but blooms frequently and the vine mixes easily with other vines.
A native porterweed, coral, tall, 6'. I'll cut it back for transportation.
I can smell the roses from here.
I potted up the Nora grant. She was pissed. Let's see how she does.
I can bring black magic EE from my pond and maybe a snowflake or 2.
I also have day blooming jasmine coming up. (I don't remember planting it there)smell is not as strong as nite blooming and smells like white chocolate.
Hi Everone,
I have a few more things to list and a few requests lol
Cliff - I have 3 varities of Agave do you want them all
Butterfly - do you still have the Spiralis would love that
WRF - I have to stop looking at what you have keep finding more like the Hoya and if you have any more of the Etlingere those are beautiful please check my list below to see if you want anything
Surinam cherry
Mexican sage
Varigated Clerodendrom shooting star
Wild coffee
cutting of Joe Hayden begonia
I will also bring some other odds and ends
Almost forgot does anyone have any Caladiums or Lotus? also I can get a few cuttings of climbing Frangipani.
Would anyone like Costus spiciosus - white crepe ginger rhizomes? If anyone wants I'll dig and bring to the swap.
Katie - would love a cutting of the frangipani vine. Have been trying for 2 years to get that one. Would you like a rooted Strophanthus gratus - climbing oleander?
I still have a rooted varigated Costus speciosus up for grabs (one of my favorite plants). I have one more of the Orangy hedychium, two of the white butterfly ginger, and a lot of other stuff that no one asked for, they will just be up for grabs. It's easy for me, since it's at my house, won't have to take home anything that no one wants.
There are also going to be a few new people there that don't have much to trade, so if you have stuff that no one has asked for and you are debating about bringing, you may want to bring them along if you have room. I know of several people that are coming, who have not posted trade lists or arranged any swaps in advance.
Would be happy to have you but the swap is on SUNDAY, the 27th. Did you send an e-mail to my home address for directions: email@example.com.
You can have cuttings from my Plumeria Pudica unless someone has some already potted up.
Happy Friday 2 days to wait :)
katkin - Franginpani for you
Ginny - ditto above for you
Shelfreak - dare I repeat myself lol
Coffeemom - 5 ferns for you
Cherie - Varigated Clero. for you
Hi kevin - I have a Pudica for you what is the callyphylum tree goggled but nothing came up?
and please don't be offended by the little k's that key isn't working so I'am pasting it and only did a small k LOL
atie (oops)
Well, it's really not last minute, but I wanted to post in time for everyone to get a chance to see it:
Please watch for the SR 706/Indiantown Road exit, it can be a little confusing, for example if you are coming from the south on 95, the west bound exit for Indiantown Road says to "Okeechobee". If you are coming from the south on 95, it is the exit after Donald Ross Road. On the turnpike, it might say Jupiter/Indiantown or even Okeechobee/Indiantown.
Parking: I have a big circle drive, both gates will be open. You can pull through the circle drive and drop off plants before parking. I will have a wheelbarrow, boxes, a garden cart and we will You are welcome to park around the circle drive, just pull off on the right side, there are no sprinklers to worry about, just don't block the circle so others can pull through to drop off stuff. You can also park along the street.
Justin, from Hammock Tropical Garden will be joining us for lunch. It is the local nursery I suggested we can take a side trip to afterwards, for anyone who is interested. It is on the way back out of Jupiter Farms. He is a wealth of information on all kinds of tropical plants and specializes in shady plants.
Also forgot to mention, the swap is going to be around the pool, anyone who wants to can take a dip to cool off, so if you think you might, come prepared. I do have plenty of pool towels.
Try and label the plants you are swapping, I will have extra labels here if you don't get a chance to label them in advance.

subset: commoncrawl


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What is in Tetra Nitraban granules ?
albert_135(Sunset 2 or 3)October 8, 2011
I don't need information on aquarium care, I am curious about the chemistry.
I studied chemistry in college several decades ago but cannot for the life of me figure out what might be in Tetra Nitraban granules.
Do you have any ideas?