6 ms·

You’re not subsidizing Walmart. You’ve decided that workers should enjoy some standard of living but are unwilling to shoulder the costs of providing it (e.g. t

by cltby 6y ago

You’re not subsidizing Walmart. You’ve decided that workers should enjoy some standard of living but are unwilling to shoulder the costs of providing it (e.g. through taxes). Instead, you’ve kicked those costs to Walmart. Walmart is subsidizing you.

stetrain 6y ago
Walmart isn't going to run at a loss. They'll raise prices appropriately, or decide that expanding the same exact store into every small town in America is no longer a profitable growth strategy.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Amazon did exactly this recently. The costs of the new digital services tax were immediately passed on to suppliers. Amazon won't be paying a cent of it. Of course legislation could - and should - go after Amazon in other ways. But it makes the point that you don't want lawyers trying to define corporate taxation policy, because too few lawyers have the first clue how to define policy with no loopholes and real teeth.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    What is to be gained by reducing Amazon's profits? Less stuff able to be bought online?
    - stetrain 6y ago
      Increase competition by allowing local businesses without megacorp productivity leverage to compete on price.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  That sounds ideal.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    This is actually what I'm asking for. Raise peoples' wages, make it illegal to offer health insurance as a benefit, and provide a single-payer option for everyone. Make sure there's a universal basic income rather than something means-tested. Or, barring that, raise the minimum wage so most people who are working don't need the safety net. Means-testing causes huge bureaucracies in the US. The rules around the means-testing make it very difficult for the social programs to actually provide anything in a reasonable amount of time. Or if they do they have byzantine requirements like you have to make X number of job-seeking contacts during the week, you have to interview, and you have to take classes from people who haven't searched for a job outside of the public sector in 20 years. Or for food stamps you're limited to only a few sections of the store.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      Why illegal?
      - stetrain 6y ago
        It would force insurance companies to compete on healthcare plans for everyone, and give employees the ability to choose their plan. Right now employers get a discount for pooling their employees together for insurance, and as an employee you either take that discounted plan (which your employer pays part of) or go out on your own which is almost always significantly more expensive. Getting rid of the bundling and pooling would actually make the insurance market competitive and give people a choice. It would also mean that having good health care is no longer something your employer holds over you, increasing your ability to change jobs, walk out of a bad employment situation, or go out on your own as a freelancer/contractor. Getting rid of the employer health insurance advantage this way, or via a more radical single-payer system, would actually boost self-employment and very-small business, who currently have disadvantages in getting or providing these benefits.
        jschwartzi 6y ago
        As an example my fiancé and I decided that we could support both of us on my income. So she quit her job. And then we had a very long difficult time figuring out that it would cost a lot of money for her to have a baby on my insurance because the out of pocket maximum would just about wipe out my savings. But her old insurance has a maximum that’s about 10% of what mine would be in the same situation. So we’re paying almost twice as much per month for COBRA continuation. Whereas if I could take the 400 a month my employer spends on my behalf I could get insurance that’s just about as good as she’s getting. In the US insurance system your employer gets to decide what it costs for you to get medical care. The ACA cemented all the worst parts of the insurance system and made it illegal for me to choose my own insurance if I want to work for a larger company.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > They'll raise prices appropriately, or decide that expanding the same exact store into every small town in America is no longer a profitable growth strategy. Or redesign those stores to not depend on as much human labour.
  - stetrain 6y ago
    Sure, and there's a secondary point where if the need for labor no longer makes wages the primary mechanism by which a corporation pays its way in society, we may need to compensate with other forms of tax or cost of doing business. I don't directly begrudge a company or CEO their profits and paycheck, but if corporate profits are at all time highs while investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc. are inadequate, that points to an imbalance that isn't being solved by the labor market.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Good. Less wasted human time.
    - geodel 6y ago
      And more wasted humans. Wait, but all the labor in the world can become machine learning experts and earn $500K pa by working for Google while circle-jerking here on how tech companies are evil.
jschwartzi 6y ago
So what you're saying, if I'm understanding you correctly, is that instead of me exchanging money for goods and services from specific companies or exercising my freedom of choice, it's much better for me to be making up the hidden costs of chronically underpaid workers for businesses that I don't like. And somehow Walmart is subsidizing me because I'm exercising my freedom of choice. As opposed to about 5% of my paycheck going to subsidize companies like Walmart who choose not to pay a living wage. So why not just remove all the money from the economy? I personally find Walmart's business model of chronically underpaying people then making them dependent on a huge bureaucracy to make up the living wage pretty repugnant. Whereas paying them an extra $6.00/hr means they no longer have to spend time waiting in line and on the phone during their off hours. They don't have to look specifically for landlords who accept section 8 vouchers. The living wage removes a huge amount of hidden labor involved in living off of minimum wage and that's what you're missing here.
- cltby 6y ago
  In the absence of legislation, Walmart would pay their workers some wage $x. You have decided that, as a matter of decency, they should actually pay $z > $x. However, you and like-minded voters have only compelled Walmart to pay some intermediate sum $y. Now, you're upset about the residual $z-$y coming out of your pocket. But you might instead be grateful that Walmart is kicking in $y-$x to support your extravagant political demands. That's the subsidy. > it's much better for me to be making up the hidden costs of chronically underpaid workers Those workers are only underpaid according to your notions of fairness. You think _Walmart_ should be tasked with implementing _your_ moral vision at _their_ expense. I think _you_ should be tasked with implementing _your_ moral vision at _your_ expense.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Voting provides us the opportunity to set the ground rules for living in a society. If they can thrive in a market with lower taxes or fewer rules let them.
  - SantalBlush 6y ago
    It doesn’t suddenly become about moral vision and fairness only when it’s something progressives want. The notions of private property and free markets are about moral vision and fairness. They are enforced with the threat of violence, and they benefit members of society unequally. Some people like to pretend that they’re natural, that they’re a given, and that challenging any component of them is imposing one’s own morality on some God-given system. That is false. No economic system is more or less about morality and fairness than any other. You believe in letting the capital retain more of the earnings than the labor because you think that is moral. It has nothing to do with some supposed position of neutrality.
michaelmrose 6y ago
In the grand scheme of things society needs things like bridges, electricity, water, roads as necessary prerequisite for Walmart to have shoppers and therefore an income. In the same fashion society needs people that make enough money to meet their basic needs like food and medicine so that they may spend their additional funds on higher margin items that actually keep Walmart afloat. Businesses and the wealthy people that own them are vastly the beneficiaries of such policies as maintain a healthy functional society in the same way as they benefit from roads but for any given business if they can shirk their share they can keep the difference so they are incentivized to forget. It is strange that you consider paying their share a gift rather than a due. It seems worshiping economics is a barrier to understanding it.
- cltby 6y ago
  For many people, economic history appears to begin with the New Deal, when FDR willed the middle class into existence with a chicken in every pot. A moment's thought should convince you that commerce antedates redistribution, wage floors, etc. Prosperity doesn't require a collectivist thumb on the scales.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Can you point out the capitalist paradise where prosperity for the many doesn't require such a thumb on the scale? It certainly isn't the US where in fact said thumb is presently pressed firmly on that scale via social security, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, tanif, section 8 and so forth.
    - cltby 6y ago
      You are right to point out that such places don't exist. But it's worth remembering that the US was wealthy (and increasingly so) long before Keynes dressed up playground fairness as an academic discipline. Rich societies enable the existence of big government, not the other way around.
      - 6y ago

by cltby 6y ago

stetrain 6y ago

Walmart isn't going to run at a loss. They'll raise prices appropriately, or decide that expanding the same exact store into every small town in America is no longer a profitable growth strategy.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Amazon did exactly this recently. The costs of the new digital services tax were immediately passed on to suppliers. Amazon won't be paying a cent of it. Of course legislation could - and should - go after Amazon in other ways. But it makes the point that you don't want lawyers trying to define corporate taxation policy, because too few lawyers have the first clue how to define policy with no loopholes and real teeth.
- tathougies 6y ago
  What is to be gained by reducing Amazon's profits? Less stuff able to be bought online?
  - stetrain 6y ago
    Increase competition by allowing local businesses without megacorp productivity leverage to compete on price.
take_a_breath 6y ago
That sounds ideal.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  This is actually what I'm asking for. Raise peoples' wages, make it illegal to offer health insurance as a benefit, and provide a single-payer option for everyone. Make sure there's a universal basic income rather than something means-tested. Or, barring that, raise the minimum wage so most people who are working don't need the safety net. Means-testing causes huge bureaucracies in the US. The rules around the means-testing make it very difficult for the social programs to actually provide anything in a reasonable amount of time. Or if they do they have byzantine requirements like you have to make X number of job-seeking contacts during the week, you have to interview, and you have to take classes from people who haven't searched for a job outside of the public sector in 20 years. Or for food stamps you're limited to only a few sections of the store.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Why illegal?
    - stetrain 6y ago
      It would force insurance companies to compete on healthcare plans for everyone, and give employees the ability to choose their plan. Right now employers get a discount for pooling their employees together for insurance, and as an employee you either take that discounted plan (which your employer pays part of) or go out on your own which is almost always significantly more expensive. Getting rid of the bundling and pooling would actually make the insurance market competitive and give people a choice. It would also mean that having good health care is no longer something your employer holds over you, increasing your ability to change jobs, walk out of a bad employment situation, or go out on your own as a freelancer/contractor. Getting rid of the employer health insurance advantage this way, or via a more radical single-payer system, would actually boost self-employment and very-small business, who currently have disadvantages in getting or providing these benefits.
      - jschwartzi 6y ago
        As an example my fiancé and I decided that we could support both of us on my income. So she quit her job. And then we had a very long difficult time figuring out that it would cost a lot of money for her to have a baby on my insurance because the out of pocket maximum would just about wipe out my savings. But her old insurance has a maximum that’s about 10% of what mine would be in the same situation. So we’re paying almost twice as much per month for COBRA continuation. Whereas if I could take the 400 a month my employer spends on my behalf I could get insurance that’s just about as good as she’s getting. In the US insurance system your employer gets to decide what it costs for you to get medical care. The ACA cemented all the worst parts of the insurance system and made it illegal for me to choose my own insurance if I want to work for a larger company.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> They'll raise prices appropriately, or decide that expanding the same exact store into every small town in America is no longer a profitable growth strategy. Or redesign those stores to not depend on as much human labour.
- stetrain 6y ago
  Sure, and there's a secondary point where if the need for labor no longer makes wages the primary mechanism by which a corporation pays its way in society, we may need to compensate with other forms of tax or cost of doing business. I don't directly begrudge a company or CEO their profits and paycheck, but if corporate profits are at all time highs while investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc. are inadequate, that points to an imbalance that isn't being solved by the labor market.
- sukilot 6y ago
  Good. Less wasted human time.
  - geodel 6y ago
    And more wasted humans. Wait, but all the labor in the world can become machine learning experts and earn $500K pa by working for Google while circle-jerking here on how tech companies are evil.

jschwartzi 6y ago

So what you're saying, if I'm understanding you correctly, is that instead of me exchanging money for goods and services from specific companies or exercising my freedom of choice, it's much better for me to be making up the hidden costs of chronically underpaid workers for businesses that I don't like. And somehow Walmart is subsidizing me because I'm exercising my freedom of choice. As opposed to about 5% of my paycheck going to subsidize companies like Walmart who choose not to pay a living wage. So why not just remove all the money from the economy? I personally find Walmart's business model of chronically underpaying people then making them dependent on a huge bureaucracy to make up the living wage pretty repugnant. Whereas paying them an extra $6.00/hr means they no longer have to spend time waiting in line and on the phone during their off hours. They don't have to look specifically for landlords who accept section 8 vouchers. The living wage removes a huge amount of hidden labor involved in living off of minimum wage and that's what you're missing here.

cltby 6y ago
In the absence of legislation, Walmart would pay their workers some wage $x. You have decided that, as a matter of decency, they should actually pay $z > $x. However, you and like-minded voters have only compelled Walmart to pay some intermediate sum $y. Now, you're upset about the residual $z-$y coming out of your pocket. But you might instead be grateful that Walmart is kicking in $y-$x to support your extravagant political demands. That's the subsidy. > it's much better for me to be making up the hidden costs of chronically underpaid workers Those workers are only underpaid according to your notions of fairness. You think _Walmart_ should be tasked with implementing _your_ moral vision at _their_ expense. I think _you_ should be tasked with implementing _your_ moral vision at _your_ expense.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Voting provides us the opportunity to set the ground rules for living in a society. If they can thrive in a market with lower taxes or fewer rules let them.
- SantalBlush 6y ago
  It doesn’t suddenly become about moral vision and fairness only when it’s something progressives want. The notions of private property and free markets are about moral vision and fairness. They are enforced with the threat of violence, and they benefit members of society unequally. Some people like to pretend that they’re natural, that they’re a given, and that challenging any component of them is imposing one’s own morality on some God-given system. That is false. No economic system is more or less about morality and fairness than any other. You believe in letting the capital retain more of the earnings than the labor because you think that is moral. It has nothing to do with some supposed position of neutrality.

michaelmrose 6y ago

In the grand scheme of things society needs things like bridges, electricity, water, roads as necessary prerequisite for Walmart to have shoppers and therefore an income. In the same fashion society needs people that make enough money to meet their basic needs like food and medicine so that they may spend their additional funds on higher margin items that actually keep Walmart afloat. Businesses and the wealthy people that own them are vastly the beneficiaries of such policies as maintain a healthy functional society in the same way as they benefit from roads but for any given business if they can shirk their share they can keep the difference so they are incentivized to forget. It is strange that you consider paying their share a gift rather than a due. It seems worshiping economics is a barrier to understanding it.

cltby 6y ago
For many people, economic history appears to begin with the New Deal, when FDR willed the middle class into existence with a chicken in every pot. A moment's thought should convince you that commerce antedates redistribution, wage floors, etc. Prosperity doesn't require a collectivist thumb on the scales.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Can you point out the capitalist paradise where prosperity for the many doesn't require such a thumb on the scale? It certainly isn't the US where in fact said thumb is presently pressed firmly on that scale via social security, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, tanif, section 8 and so forth.
  - cltby 6y ago
    You are right to point out that such places don't exist. But it's worth remembering that the US was wealthy (and increasingly so) long before Keynes dressed up playground fairness as an academic discipline. Rich societies enable the existence of big government, not the other way around.
    - 6y ago