Walmart Means Low Morals

Dte, I would have enjoyed the full roleplay episode--perhaps you can introduce a game system with that theme--Lawyers and Losers or something, rolling little twenty-sided skulls to see who wins the case...

@Remus--sounds like Olberman and others did their jobs as journalists and Wal-Mart bowed to public pressure in this case. I find it even cooler that they're amending their health insurance policies, but then, I haven't read exactly how yet.


And inside your lucid exposition of business models a very valid point is lurking also, Prime J, which is that the clientele of Wal-Mart benefits from their No More Mr. Nice Guy philosophy. (Civilization in Oklahoma is not sufficiently advanced to attract Costco so I remain uninformed about them.) If Wal-Mart were less focused on being the king shark and thus did not have brutally low pricing, it actually might be a hardship for those who can't afford to purchase comparably shoddy products at higher prices elsewhere.

Let me pose a question which is now hypothetical: To those defending Wal-Mart's lack of choice, what would have happened next in this scenario with Debbie Shank's health care and how would it be economically superior to Wal-Mart not claiming her settlement?

That is, who would now foot the bill for her around the clock medical costs had the trust been absorbed by WM? Obviously, her family til they were driven to bankruptcy, but then wouldn't this throw her on the mercy of the government? Wouldn't she then become another financial burden on the tax base?

So basically, you guys are defending the right of private, for-profit corporations to push the boundaries of their legal responsibilities into the public arena. Or that's how I'm seeing it with my particular bias on the subject.

and if that doesn't get dte's blood pressure into the danger zone, I don't know what will.

No, they just have higher prices!

Here's one thing that is really sad about the case that started this thread.

Walmart sued for the $470k it had paid for her bills. That would have taken, if awarded, every penny plus some of the $417k she received.

However, she was awarded $1MM. The lawyer fees ended up at $587k!

And people wonder why no one likes lawyers.

I really don't see an issue here. I became disabled suddenly last August. I am receiving payments through disability insurance I thankfully purchased through work. When, and IF, Social Secuirty takes over, I am required to reimburse the disability insurance from the Social security payments. I am not entitled to be paid double for some of the months. If Wal marts insurance hadnt paid the bills for her, or if she had no insurance to begin with, she would be paying them now with her settlement anyway. They knew about having to pay back the money beforehand, like I do, so I don't see what the problem is here. If anything, it sounds like she needed a better lawyer in her settlement. I would not have settled for 700k if I require serious life long health care.

magerette said:

That is, who would now foot the bill for her around the clock medical costs had the trust been absorbed by WM? Obviously, her family til they were driven to bankruptcy, but then wouldn't this throw her on the mercy of the government? Wouldn't she then become another financial burden on the tax base?

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Either that, or dead.

So basically, you guys are defending the right of private, for-profit corporations to push the boundaries of their legal responsibilities into the public arena. Or that's how I'm seeing it with my particular bias on the subject.

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I would expect private, for-profit corporations to do anything they can, within the law, to maximize their profits.

It's unrealistic to expect corporations to behave morally from the goodness of their hearts. They may behave morally because they feel it helps the bottom line, through goodwill, better motivated (i.e., more productive) employees, and what not. But if those things don't fit their business model and the rules of the market don't give them incentives to behave morally, then they won't behave morally, and it's either naive or populist to expect them to.

The point is that we, in our capacity as citizens, can set up the law in such a way that it encourages moral behavior and discourages immoral behavior -- from corporations as well as individuals. That's what the political process is for.

Ah, but does one vote at the ballot box or at the cash register? I would say the latter is more effective since it cuts out the middle man in the transaction.

I agree, I've always been a believer in voting with your feet!!

Yes democracy is overrated, the rich should have a much greater say in determining the course of our societies.

Warning: Opinion manufactured in brain that also manufactures sarcasm.

V7 said:

Yes democracy is overrated, the rich should have a much greater say in determining the course of our societies.

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Hey I'm starting to like this guy.

dteowner said:

Ah, but does one vote at the ballot box or at the cash register? I would say the latter is more effective since it cuts out the middle man in the transaction.

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Quite, but the problem is that our interests as citizens are not always in alignment with our interests as consumers.

As a consumer, you'll want to get the best deal for whatever it is you want to buy.
As a citizen, you told me you'd like companies to start practicing the Henry Ford business model -- paying their employees enough to keep them consuming and the economy ticking.

IOW, with your consumer hat on, you'd want to shop at Wal-Mart, even though their business model depresses wages, drives industrial production overseas, and kills off small Main Street competitors -- even if, when wearing your citizen hat, you'd prefer that the wage level was higher, production stayed closer to home, and Main Street remained Main Street.

Most of the time the consumer hat wins. The reason is pretty simple, too -- consumer choice would only make any difference if enough consumers would decide to act according to their interests as citizens -- and there exists no mechanism to aggregate this consumer choice and see that "cheating" is kept to a low enough level that it's manageable.

Or, rather, the mechanism does exist -- and it's called the political process.

More to the point consumer action isn't very good at conveying information. You know why you stoped stoped shopping there but without further effort on your part, or considerable effort on Walmart's part they won't know if you're protesting them running over employees, giving Chinese factory workers a chance at a better life or selling games that might imply two consenting adults being *gasp* undressed in the same room... or maybe you just like their compeditor better. Then there's always the problem that every company in a market segment might run over employees, sell imported goods or promote lewd games.

A law gets the message over much more clearly.

So corps need joe public to teach them morality? I think not. Business people know exactly what shafting is.

V7 said:

A law gets the message over much more clearly.

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Indeed, because our laws always get passed as intended, with no loopholes, and without any unrelated issues tacked on, by a government that has nothing but the general good in their hearts and minds. *humming America the Beautiful*

dteowner said:

Indeed, because our laws always get passed as intended, with no loopholes, and without any unrelated issues tacked on, by a government that has nothing but the general good in their hearts and minds. *humming America the Beautiful*

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"Never let perfection be the enemy of the good enough."

Would you prefer anarchy or autocracy?

Again -- yes, the American polity is suffering from serious structural problems, and the current financial crisis may be the prelude to a major social-political-economic one. But whatever the solution to that coming crisis, it's going to be a political one. And I don't believe that a grade-A revolutionary crisis is a prerequisite for solving the structural problems -- it's been done before, y'know.

As often, PJ is a true well of wisdom.

Aw hell, don't inflate his ego... It's far more fun to label him a left wing crackpot.

I actually took some time to think about that question, PJ. Among your two choices, I'd definitely go with autocracy, although that sort of runs counter to my general "less government" mantra. The thing we seem to lack most is consistency. Many of the left wing, big government solutions that we've tossed around in dozens of threads could fix our fundamental problems (of course, my right wing, small government solutions are far better, but that's neither here nor there ) if, and only if, they were consistently applied over an extended period of time. Our back-n-forth political system, combined with an electorate with the patience and attention span of an ADHD goldfish makes it impossible to select a plan and stick with it for 20 years. Our structural flaws are deep enough that they can't be fixed in the typical 4-8 year window policies get. Combined with the need of the parties to show "change" by tearing down everything that was done previously, consistency is pretty much out the window.

dteowner said:

Aw hell, don't inflate his ego... It's far more fun to label him a left wing crackpot.

I actually took some time to think about that question, PJ. Among your two choices, I'd definitely go with autocracy, although that sort of runs counter to my general "less government" mantra. The thing we seem to lack most is consistency. Many of the left wing, big government solutions that we've tossed around in dozens of threads could fix our fundamental problems (of course, my right wing, small government solutions are far better, but that's neither here nor there ) if, and only if, they were consistently applied over an extended period of time. Our back-n-forth political system, combined with an electorate with the patience and attention span of an ADHD goldfish makes it impossible to select a plan and stick with it for 20 years. Our structural flaws are deep enough that they can't be fixed in the typical 4-8 year window policies get. Combined with the need of the parties to show "change" by tearing down everything that was done previously, consistency is pretty much out the window.

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The way I parse that is that you've identified one structural problem -- the short attention span of your political system.

In my opinion, that's a good call. However, it's also a wider issue -- the exact same thing is apparent in economic activity; the fabled "quarter economics" that drive the short-term clever but long-term dumb decision-making that contributed to the current financial crisis.

What I've been sayin' is that America won't fix itself until the electorate wakes up and demands more of its government than feel-good talk -- whether the talk is boo-yah patriotism or mantras about "change" is less important. Longer-term thinking is a part of it. That means a cultural shift.

The good news is that there's a fair chance that the current economic mess will remind people that there is life beyond the next quarter, and longer-term thinking will come back into vogue. That's a shift in cultural values. Since politics are, ultimately, cultural values turned into action, this will eventually get reflected there.

IOW, in the short term I share your pessimism -- things are certainly going to get worse before they get better. We diverge when looking at the medium to long term: I believe there is a real chance for fixing some of these structural problems and turning things around there, without having to go through the pain of a revolutionary dislocation -- even a mostly non-violent one, such as the collapse of the USSR.

Good government is possible. You've done it before; you can certainly do it again -- and by global standards, you're far from hopeless now. What you, dte, need is a bigger sense of perspective: you're only comparing America now to America as it was and, perhaps, an idealized America that never could be... and perhaps also some of its peers, and realizing that some of them are actually doing better than America. If you took a more global view, you'd see that there is a lot of machinery for change there -- some of it's a bit rusty from lack of use, but it's there. Should the stresses build up to near revolutionary level, that machinery will creak into action again, and the system will reform itself. Uh... I hope.

Eliaures said:

I'm sorry, but I don't believe that corporations HAVE to act without feeling.

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I disagree, because as a customer, I don't want to be treated by an emotionless machine, no matter whether it consists of human and other living beings or not.

If you have the luxury of patronizing companies that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, then go for it -- there are companies that make giving you that warm and fuzzy feeling a part of their business model (and charging extra for it, too). That doesn't mean they're acting any less rationally economically... and it doesn't mean that lots more people won't shop at Lidl simply because they can get their Bier und Wurst there for less. (I just bought some Bier und Wurst at a Lidl the other day -- not only do they great prices, they also have great Bier und Wurst, by Finnish standards anyway.)

If only Wal-Mart would carry Bier und Wurst, I might shop there.

Oh, Lidl has finally reached Scandinavia ? I knew it was spreading, but this fast ? ...

We have several Lidl shops here, too.

What I meant was that I prefer to be handled like a living human being, not as a cash-cow. I very clearly prefer the so-called "Aunt-Emma-Shops", which are so small you feel warm and cosy there and have a chat with everyone.

But unfortunately these shops have almost died out.

The reason for is is simply called "business", or rather "economic reasons". companies have a tendency to get bigger, swallow up smaller shops and get bigger - like crystals, by the way, as well - and try to generate more cash which is assumed to generate more profits.

And here is the things where it loses control: More profits what for ?

Of course for shareholders. But when the mass of shareholders consists of other companioes or of banks, then it's rather like a very well hidden & masked mega-company.

A bank is sdhareholder of a hige company. like Walmarkt, for example (dunno how it is in reality), and so the ban owns in a way this company - at least to a part.

What the bank will want is drive the company to generate even more profits - for the bank.

So, the bank gets even more profits - what do they wanna do with 'em ?

The usual answer is: "Invest them."

Well, yes, okay, but you can't invest *forever* Or, you can, but then you own (as a shareholder) all companies of the world, eventually. You just need a few hundred years for that.

And then ? Even more profits ? For what ? For the greed of the individuals holding the stock ? Money and more money and even more money ?

This is - thought consequently to the end - insane. In the end it will mean companies sucking the money from its customers - consequently thought to the end there ill be only two classes, then: The class of who own, and the one of who don't.

Of course there are taxes, but I assume that at one point such mega-constructs (-companies) generate so much power that they will be mightier than the government, than the law, and be able to bend or break laws at their will - like Microsoft, for example.
You just need enough mercenaries, for example. In South-Americva, there already are such companies !

In the end, capitalism is just this: I (as a manager or other head of a company) let people work for e and thus increase my income. It's a masked form of slavery, masked by taxes and wages.