Kinja reply list

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JipperskunchHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:30am
The family (not the company) could give every single Wal-Mart employee, top to bottom, a $45,000 bonus and still have over a billion dollars, which is an absurd amount of money for a family to have.
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  More Ghosts Less StuffJipperskunch
  9/12/13 11:40am
  Why should they? What has a single Wal-Mart employee done to deserve a $45,000 bonus? You're "distributing the wealth" ideal is the only thing absurd, here.
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  JipperskunchMore Ghosts Less Stuff
  9/12/13 12:37pm
  The point was merely illustrative of the scale of wealth. I don't think every employee should get a $45,000 bonus, but I do think that they should get a decent living wage and not have their hours slashed to avoid health coverage. What has the family done to deserve $100 billion?
  
  Also, it's "your," not "you're."
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H0RN3T77Hamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:06am
Look, I wish I had a percentage of 1 point of what these guys have,with three kids I could make sure I could afford college and pay off the mortgage!

BUT

How is this their fault and not the fault of the greedy corrupt congress that allows the loopholes in the first place
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  km2014H0RN3T77
  9/12/13 11:08am
  Because you don't HAVE to hoard your riches. Many of the other richest people in the world are not doing this anymore. Gates/Buffet etc. They grew a conscience at some point.
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  GloriousPcMasterRaceH0RN3T77
  9/12/13 11:10am
  ever heard of personal responsibility?
  if something isn't TECHNICALLY illegal, but is morally wrong, and you do it... that's on you, not the lawmakers.
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LangostaHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:08am
Wouldn't you rather the money go into the charitable trust, rather than our idiot government?
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  cromartieLangosta
  9/12/13 11:24am
  The "idiot government" is only the "idiot government" because idiots elect it. That "idiot government" is elected by all of us, collectively. "Charitable trusts" are at the behest of considerably fewer people and subject to their whims.
  
  People too stupid to understand this concept and attempt to optimize and improve it, like you are the real idiots.
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  ObliteratiLangosta
  9/12/13 11:41am
  Considering how much money our idiot government spends subsidizing the Walton family and their lavish lifestyle?
  
  No.
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benjaminalloverHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 1:09pm
My colleague, a right-wing, capitalist, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps type, used to sell electronics to Walmart for a company that shall remain nameless. He HATES Walmart with the white-hot burning passion of a thousand stars. If you even mention Walmart, he will launch into a frothing diatribe about "those evil fucking bastards" for quite some time. Apparently, they force some manufacturers to sell to them at a loss, just because not being in Walmart can kill some types of products. They bankrupt some of these manufacturers for a couple of pennies.

Having interned in an industrial design studio which produced POS shelving and packaging, i heard about the "Walmart effect" from the CEO; "it's absurd meeting with these people. They just want it shittier and cheaper, and shittier and cheaper, until it's embarrassing to put our name on it, then they want it just a little more shitty and cheap."

Everything about the company, from the ways it subsidizes it's profits by relying on the state to provide assistance to its workers instead of paying them a living wage, to the way it bullies other organizations it does business with, to the way it leads the race to the bottom in terms of the quality of products and wages paid its sweatshop manufacturers, to these dishonest "charity" tax loopholes and trusts.... Everything Walmart is and does is evil.
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  realcentralasianbenjaminallover
  9/12/13 4:24pm
  you are absolutely right and your argument stops all those "but they earned it"-arguments floating around this thread. walmart steals from american society. that's why my home country in europe actually let in walmart, and then made doing business their way so hard that walmart left after a few years. now it's a walmart-free-country, and nobody feels the "loss".
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  benjaminalloverrealcentralasian
  9/12/13 5:17pm
  What country?
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h8seekingmissleHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:18am

Now i might be mistaken but that looks eerily familiar to Wal-Mart. for as much as you bash you this place i cant believe you would be caught dead in one. if im wrong i would love to know what store that it is.
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  Hamilton Nolanh8seekingmissle
  9/12/13 11:23am
  That is indeed in Wal-Mart, from a story I wrote in 2006:
  
  http://www.altweeklies.com/aan/the-heart-…
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  Johnny Chundersh8seekingmissle
  9/12/13 11:37am
  You have correctly identified the retail chain that picture was taken in. Your prize money is in the mail.
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Medea9Hamilton Nolan
9/12/13 2:47pm
This blog post is really fucking stupid. The Walton family foundation invests an incredible amount into the education & environment in ARKANSAS, where they're from, and which happens to be one of the poorer states in the nation (ranks 48/50 by income). They choose to invest in their own fucking state rather then spread the wealth. And good for them—if my state were one of the poorest in the nation (and I were a billionaire), I'd do the same.

I'm off Gawker—-this post was super lazy.

http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/
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  Hamilton NolanMedea9
  9/12/13 3:28pm
  That link is in the article.
  
  NOW WHO'S LAZY?
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  AquasolMedea9
  9/12/13 5:05pm
  And yet Arkansas still has one of the shittiest and poorest education systems in the nation, doesn't it? So how much money is actually being invested and used?
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The Ghost of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ AKA BabyStepsHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:04am
When I read the headline I thought "What the fuck did John Boy do now!"
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  SequaciousliciousThe Ghost of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ AKA BabySteps
  9/12/13 11:08am
  Me too! I thought I was going to a read a backstory on how they actually ran a cock fight ring and brothel.
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  The Ghost of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ AKA BabyStepsSequaciouslicious
  9/12/13 11:09am
  Exactly!!!
  
  (maybe some moonshine too! you know. . . not trying to stereotype or anything but. . . )
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Beer, Titties and Left TurnsHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 12:08pm
I never understood the conservative mindset on the estate tax. If you're born poor you should be deprived of any government assistance so that you're forced to work hard and live the American dream. But if you happen to be born rich (even generations away from the original creator of the wealth), the government's going to bend of backwards to come up with loopholes so that you can inherit the maximum amount of your family's riches so that you never have to work a day in your life.
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  edubyaBeer, Titties and Left Turns
  9/12/13 2:28pm
  I look at it as a simple double taxation issue.
  
  Income taxes have already (or at least SHOULD HAVE already) been paid on that money.
  
  That's my sole reason for opposing the estate tax. On any amount, from $0.01 to $1Q.
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  Beer, Titties and Left Turnsedubya
  9/12/13 3:02pm
  I strongly disagree. It is absolutely not double taxation. The tax burden that should have already been paid as you call it was borne by the deceased. The tax burden of an estate tax is technically paid by the estate, but really the burden falls on the beneficiaries of the will or the intestate heirs because the money used to pay those taxes is money they're no longer seeing. And inheritances are not subject to federal income tax on your annual return, so there's no taxation.
  
  We also do have a gift tax in this country, where we tax gifts over a certain threshold. To me a gift and an inheritance are not distinguishable. I see no reason why both should not be taxed. And I also don't see why, if I bust my ass to make a million dollars, I pay taxes, but if my father dies tomorrow I inherit his whole estate tax free.
  
  And my original point is that it's ironic for republicans who are all about stopping lazy welfare queens from milking the system to be so openly supportive of lazy deadbeat rich kids who are just running out the clock until they can inherit their parents fortune.
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dvdoffHamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:13am
Could be worse. My brother works for a fruit named tech company. He's worth about 100 million. Of course 0ne of his duties is dealing with the Chinese workers who push out his crap for low wages. When suicides were rampant at one of the factories in China, they had safety netting installed to (supposedly) keep the workers from jumping from the roof. My mother hates it when I say the nets were installed so my brother can watch the workers bounce before they hit the pavement.
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  analogsounddvdoff
  9/12/13 11:35am
  Something tells me this story is "achoo.. BULLSHIT"
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  dvdoffanalogsound
  9/12/13 11:39am
  And why would you say that, pray tell?
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funny_lady123Hamilton Nolan
9/12/13 11:10am
This is why I do not shop at Walmart. Other reasons being: they support sweat shop labor, they treat their employees like crap, oh and lets not forget how they just tried to bully the DC government into not raising minimum pay for workers (which didn't work).
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  notfromvenusfunny_lady123
  9/12/13 11:36am
  To be fair, the DC government was/is raising the minimum wage only for big box chain stores and only in response to Walmart opening up in DC, after Walmart had already planned to move in. It's still their perogative to do so, and I think was a good move to protect DC workers and DC businesses, and Walmart was being a bully about it, but I don't think their complaints about it were entirely unfounded.
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  igloonorthfunny_lady123
  9/12/13 11:41am
  The DC mayor is about to veto that minimum wage provision.
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