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you guys are both missing the actual point in my opinion. Yes you are 100 % right if it's a competitive market, it isn't though. Walmart exercises its considera

you guys are both missing the actual point in my opinion. Yes you are 100 % right if it's a competitive market, it isn't though. Walmart exercises its considerable market power to push wages, benefits, etc. down. They are wrong to argue for more government intervention with minimum wage increases, etc. though. That just opens a pathway for corruption of government. Instead, the correct solution is break up walmart.

sokoloff 2y ago
Are you arguing that Walmart has some kind of outsized power in their capacity as an employer with only 1.6M employees (full and part time) in the US?
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  of course they do, especially in the communities mentioned in the original article, where they employ a substantial amount of the low skilled labor. You can't look at their employee count in the context of the USA, employment, especially low skilled employment, is very local and sticky.
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    Breaking up Walmart is a possible answer to the US-wide influence, but wouldn’t address the local employment market. Walmart Local Town would still be the big employer in some towns. (And, to the extent that Walmart Local Town is providing better jobs than the next best alternative for town employees, they should be lauded rather than vilified, IMO.)
    - snapplebobapple 2y ago
      That is incorrect because the us wide nature is what gives it the firepower to ensure no other employers emerge via agressive price competition anywhere they do emerge until the new competitor fails. Walmart local town would have staying profitable at that location as a constraint on competition. Also breaking them up is the correct antitrust mechanism not because of what walmart is doing but because the corruptibility of humanity makes regulatory action almost always fail in the long run. The government can't be trusted to regulate them to a better position for more than a very finite amoubt of time so it is better to not grow the government regulatory arm and instead break the company up to solve the issue.

sokoloff 2y ago

Are you arguing that Walmart has some kind of outsized power in their capacity as an employer with only 1.6M employees (full and part time) in the US?

snapplebobapple 2y ago
of course they do, especially in the communities mentioned in the original article, where they employ a substantial amount of the low skilled labor. You can't look at their employee count in the context of the USA, employment, especially low skilled employment, is very local and sticky.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  Breaking up Walmart is a possible answer to the US-wide influence, but wouldn’t address the local employment market. Walmart Local Town would still be the big employer in some towns. (And, to the extent that Walmart Local Town is providing better jobs than the next best alternative for town employees, they should be lauded rather than vilified, IMO.)
  - snapplebobapple 2y ago
    That is incorrect because the us wide nature is what gives it the firepower to ensure no other employers emerge via agressive price competition anywhere they do emerge until the new competitor fails. Walmart local town would have staying profitable at that location as a constraint on competition. Also breaking them up is the correct antitrust mechanism not because of what walmart is doing but because the corruptibility of humanity makes regulatory action almost always fail in the long run. The government can't be trusted to regulate them to a better position for more than a very finite amoubt of time so it is better to not grow the government regulatory arm and instead break the company up to solve the issue.