Robert Reich

Walmart announced hundreds of layoffs yesterday.

But remember that the company has been hiking prices and raking in big profits.

Its share prices hit a record high in March.

The Walton family's net worth reached $267 billion this year.

Textbook corporate greed.

May 15, 2024 at 2:29pmWeb
Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceMay 15, 2024
@rbreich it’s so frustrating. You cannot find anyone in big stores selling expensive appliances with any product knowledge. The make it hard to buy from them in so many ways.
Show threadToadman628May 15, 2024
@rbreich Greed is good for the Waltons.
Show threadpodkaynelivesMay 15, 2024

@rbreich Reminds me of the book Nickel and Dimed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed

Nickel and Dimed - Wikipedia

Show threadBarbara MonacoMay 15, 2024
@podkaynelives This is a great book. Ehrenreich had it figured out 25 years ago. Very little has changed for the better since then.
Show threadpodkaynelivesMay 15, 2024
@Barbramon1 I know, it's really shocking how little has changed.
Show threadVessOnSecurityMay 15, 2024

@rbreich If you hike the minimum wage, you force companies to fire workers, automate them, and to hike prices.

If you print/borrow billions to fund foreign wars and intervene in the oil market, this leads to rising prices and other signs of inflation. Have you adjusted these $267 bil for inflation? Not for the bogus CPI but for the real inflation the average man feels?

Textbook socialists - always count other people's money and fuck up the economy by intervening incompetently in it.

Show threaddontonyMay 15, 2024
@bontchev @rbreich textbook capitalists, deregulate the free market and the oligarch billionaires will suddenly realize that they need to do the ethical right thing and not let their workers starve.
Show threadVessOnSecurityMay 16, 2024
@dontony @rbreich In a free market, it's a free exchange, benefitting both parties. Nobody forces the capitalist to pay a certain wage, and nobody forces the worker to accept that wage. If the wage seems too low to the worker, he's free to go working for somebody else. If all do that, the capitalist is out of workers and goes bankrupt - or has to offer better wages.
Show threadCindyMay 15, 2024
@rbreich
And ONE cashier on duty, depending upon the time of day!
Show threadReboot RobotnikMay 15, 2024
@rbreich I'd be inclined to say "There's a special place in Hell" et al, but they're still digging out that tenth circle
Show threadBarbara MonacoMay 15, 2024
@rbreich During the pandemic I started to buy cat food at Walmart. I am no fan of the place, but it was the only store that reliably had the food I needed.
This year we lost 2 supermarkets in my neighborhood, so I am back to Walmart. I don't buy pet supplies online for environmental reasons, so I feel stuck.
Show threadBronMason For Kamala 2024May 15, 2024

@rbreich

🤕🤢🤮

Show threadMaggieMay 15, 2024
@rbreich They also just closed 51 clinics, probably mostly rural or serving poor/older people, because they weren't making a profit. This strands so many people. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3087606/#!po=0.806452
Toward a Model of Social Influence that Explains Minority Student Integration into the Scientific Community

Students from several ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in the sciences, such that minority students more frequently drop out of the scientific career path than non-minority students. Viewed from a perspective of social influence, this pattern ...

PubMed Central (PMC)
Show threadNicole ParsonsMay 15, 2024

@rbreich

The profits Walmart made was used to:

1. Fund an anti-democracy movement
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/corporate-america-republican-minority-rule-1234959739/

2. Buy corrupt Supreme Court justices
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow

3. Thwart unions
https://www.reuters.com/business/walmart-engaged-illegal-union-busting-california-store-us-agency-says-2024-01-25/

4. Destroy small town retailers
https://www.investopedia.com/walmart-q1-fy-2025-earnings-preview-8646573

5. Avoid covid mitigation measures as 1.2 million Americans died of covid
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/21/ftc-report-grocery-chains-gouge/73059901007/

6. Buy public office for Republicans
https://www.propublica.org/article/raga-gop-jan6-amazon-walmart-comcast-contributions

7. Thwart health care access
https://qz.com/walmart-layoffs-corporate-employees-memo-1851478567

Blame These Companies for the GOP’s Minority Rule

Big brands finance the right-wing political group that wrecked our democracy through gerrymandering.

Rolling Stone
Show threadKelly Wheaton 🦫💧🐸 🌻🌹May 20, 2024
@Npars01 @rbreich I don't shop at Walmart.
Show threadBc Clarity Carlton-MartinMay 20, 2024
@Npars01 @rbreich My town is attached at the hip to Bentonville
Show threadThrawntheChissMay 15, 2024
@rbreich CNN hard at work dancing to the tune of its corporate benefactors. Shameful!
Show threaddecapitaeMay 15, 2024
@rbreich Oh but they do so much for the communities they infest, I mean infect, I mean invest in.
Show threadMichele Feltman StriderMay 15, 2024
@rbreich Remember when they loudly touted their "Made in America" products while silently killing every small-town mom-and-pop business, then did a 180 and started importing everything from China? Good times, great folks.
Show threadCassandraVertMay 16, 2024
@rbreich
You sound like you're saying Wal Mart owes people jobs, and I don't think you believe that. Wal Mart is free to lay people off. What we want is:
Higher corporate taxes at the high end
Higher personal taxes at the high end
Wealth tax on people who are too rich
Limit stock buybacks
UBI