In light of this situation, we shall examine a recent article denouncing the retail giant and demonstrate that the statements contained within it amount to lies, distortions, and absurdities that are part and parcel of the liberal paradigm. Here is the link to the article in question:
http://bluenationreview.com/walmart-cuts-healthcare-workers-starts-new-health-insurance-business/
"Companies who employ tons of people who don’t want to pay for health insurance are pitching a big baby fit."
Right out of the gate we encounter puerile, ad-hominem rhetoric typical of Leftist propaganda, and we can immediately guess that the succeeding text is probably not worth taking seriously.
"Before it was Hobby Lobby who wants you to run your sex life by your boss before you get your groove on, and this week it’s the nation’s largest private employer."
This is a bald-faced lie, although you have to give the author minor props for the poor attempt at guilt by association. Hobby Lobby did not require that its employees receive supervisory approval before committing sex acts. Hobby Lobby did not even prohibit its employees from using contraception, as has been implied elsewhere. Hobby Lobby simply took exception to being forced by government decree (a.k.a "extortion" or "threat of violence") to pay for its employees' contraception (and even then, only a few forms of contraception). It did not wish to participate in this particular wealth-redistribution scheme, because it violated the religious principles of those who owned the company, although, of course, Hobby Lobby could have contested the mandate on other, equally legitimate grounds. Contrary to liberal hysterics, not wishing to have one's property rights violated and money confiscated so that the proceeds of said seizure can be reallocated as welfare to those who did not earn them and to whom they do not belong does not constitute "greed," "invasion of privacy," "dictation of one's sex life," "intrusion into one's affairs," "misogyny," a "war on women," nor any number of other bizzaro-world Leftist characterizations. Why is it always considered selfish to keep one's property or one's earnings, but it is never considered selfish to feel entitled to the property or earnings of others? You don't see the average "progressive" volunteering to give part of his or her paycheck to cover the cost of another person's contraception, do you? And you can bet that, if that same progressive were suddenly approached by the government and told that he or she would have to contribute a portion of income toward paying for someone else's ANYTHING, else armed men would come and throw them in a cage, they would be none too happy about it.
"The workers then all said they wanted health care. Shocker, right? But Walmart figured out that costs more money than they want to pay.
Ultimately, the amount of profits that Walmart makes is irrelevant. Profits are not "guaranteed," as many Leftists implicitly seem to think. They are not spontaneously generated; they are not conjured from thin air through magic; they are not God-given; they are not "bestowed" upon the rich by other rich people or "the system"; they are not forcibly extracted from the general populace (as are taxes, on the other hand). Profits are earned by adjusting the structure of production according to consumer preferences and the constant flux in market data, by utilizing resources in a way that is efficient rather than wasteful and in a way that supplies demand. No one is compelled to patronize any business; each person does so because he freely chooses to, because he considers himself better off having exchanged his money for a good offered at a certain price by that establishment. Profits do not of their own agency line the pockets of corporations; they arrive there because consumers clamor for their products and willingly relinquish dollars for them. Indeed, what seem like obscene profits one year can easily turn into huge losses the next if a company fails to provide what consumers want.
"The workers then all said they wanted health care. Shocker, right? But Walmart figured out that costs more money than they want to pay.
Their solution? Walmart is rolling back health insurance for all of it’s part time staff."
First of all, employer-provided health insurance only exists because of Depression-era laws that made it illegal for companies to pay their workers above a certain amount, also known as a "wage ceiling" (a type of "price controls"). That's right: the government thought that employees were being paid too much, so it forced businesses to pay their workers less money (in a vain attempt to thwart government-created inflation) but allowed them to make up the difference with health insurance while giving the businesses tax incentives to do so. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore the matter further, but let it suffice to say that this artificial system distorts markets and increases the costs of health care.
That being said, health insurance is a fringe benefit that businesses offer above and beyond a wage in order to attract workers--in fact, in order to compete with other businesses so as to lure workers away from them; it is not a "civil right," and it is as contingent, negotiable, and revocable as any other term or condition within any voluntary employment agreement between employer and employee. Not only that, but most companies don't even offer their part-time workers health insurance, so kudos to Walmart for ever having done so. And if you're wondering why Walmart is suddenly eliminating this benefit, you need only know one word: Obamacare. Despite the President's emphatic promises to the contrary, that legislation is driving up costs for companies (not to mention everyone else), necessitating many of them to discontinue offering health insurance or face dramatically reduced profits or even business closure.
"Here is how Walmart profits compare with it’s other competitors:
First of all, employer-provided health insurance only exists because of Depression-era laws that made it illegal for companies to pay their workers above a certain amount, also known as a "wage ceiling" (a type of "price controls"). That's right: the government thought that employees were being paid too much, so it forced businesses to pay their workers less money (in a vain attempt to thwart government-created inflation) but allowed them to make up the difference with health insurance while giving the businesses tax incentives to do so. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore the matter further, but let it suffice to say that this artificial system distorts markets and increases the costs of health care.
That being said, health insurance is a fringe benefit that businesses offer above and beyond a wage in order to attract workers--in fact, in order to compete with other businesses so as to lure workers away from them; it is not a "civil right," and it is as contingent, negotiable, and revocable as any other term or condition within any voluntary employment agreement between employer and employee. Not only that, but most companies don't even offer their part-time workers health insurance, so kudos to Walmart for ever having done so. And if you're wondering why Walmart is suddenly eliminating this benefit, you need only know one word: Obamacare. Despite the President's emphatic promises to the contrary, that legislation is driving up costs for companies (not to mention everyone else), necessitating many of them to discontinue offering health insurance or face dramatically reduced profits or even business closure.
"Here is how Walmart profits compare with it’s other competitors:
"
This chart is extremely misleading, on more than one level. To begin with, this is by no means an exhaustive enumeration of Walmart's competitors, as the graphic does not include Target, Kohl's, Bed Bath and Beyond, CVS, Macy's, JCPenny, and the list goes on. In addition, the numbers shown are gross profit. According to Wikipedia, gross profit "is the difference between revenue and the cost of making a product or providing a service, before deducting overhead, payroll, taxation, and interest payments." Since gross profit does not account for all costs associated with conducting business, it is not necessarily a valid metric for comparison. Considering how big Walmart is, its costs must be astronomical, and a huge component cost for most businesses, by the way, is labor. Moreover, gross profit is proportional to the size of the business, and since, according to The Fortune 500, Walmart is the largest company in the world in terms of total revenue, then Walmart is virtually guaranteed to have gross profits that seem outlandishly big in juxtaposition with just about any other company. For example, in the 3rd quarter of 2013, Walmart's net sales totaled $114.9 billion, versus Amazon's $17.1 billion for the same three-month period, so of course its gross profits are going to be much higher, as shown in the graph. Also, it is not as if a company of Walmart's size is owned by one person, and all that profit (actually, "net profit") accrues to one individual, which often seems to be the underlying implication of providing certain statistics like gross profit. No, Walmart, like most corporations, has hundreds of thousands if not millions of shareholders among whom the profit is divided. Yet, even that does not necessarily capture the situation, since many companies reinvest much of their profits earned into business operations. Ultimately, the amount of profits that Walmart makes is irrelevant. Profits are not "guaranteed," as many Leftists implicitly seem to think. They are not spontaneously generated; they are not conjured from thin air through magic; they are not God-given; they are not "bestowed" upon the rich by other rich people or "the system"; they are not forcibly extracted from the general populace (as are taxes, on the other hand). Profits are earned by adjusting the structure of production according to consumer preferences and the constant flux in market data, by utilizing resources in a way that is efficient rather than wasteful and in a way that supplies demand. No one is compelled to patronize any business; each person does so because he freely chooses to, because he considers himself better off having exchanged his money for a good offered at a certain price by that establishment. Profits do not of their own agency line the pockets of corporations; they arrive there because consumers clamor for their products and willingly relinquish dollars for them. Indeed, what seem like obscene profits one year can easily turn into huge losses the next if a company fails to provide what consumers want.
"According to the Walmart Foundation website:
“In 2013, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation gave $1.3 billion in cash and in-kind contributions around the world, surpassing 2012’s total by more than $244 million.”
There are other companies that are doing this, Trader Joe’s, Target, Home Depot, and I’m sure there are more."
That's a ton of money, one which only increased year-over-year by a substantial sum in both relative and absolute terms, and yet the only point that the author of the article can make against Walmart's philanthropy is that other companies do it, too? Seriously? This pathetic fallacy is supposed to substitute for an actual argument? This is what we are supposed to consider a justifiable criticism of Walmart, a blight on their reputation, a shortcoming on their part, an assailable choice of theirs? Interestingly, I don't see a side-by-side comparison of donations made by Walmart vis-a-vis those made by these other companies: Is that possibly because Walmart's numbers would dwarf theirs, undermining the premise that Walmart is an "evil, greedy corporation"? It must be nice to be a liberal, because, apparently, you get to have it both ways.
"But here’s what makes Walmart disgusting: Walmart is now opening up an insurance company!
Let me make this clear: Walmart dropped health coverage and started this insurance company only because of a huge government intervention into the marketplace known as Obamacare, so blame the government if you're going to blame anybody. And why not start an insurance company? If many part-time Walmart employees decide to purchase health insurance from some company that provides it, why not obtain it from Walmart, if the coverage that it provides is competitive and fits their needs and they prefer it to other offerings? What's wrong with that, especially if Walmart's coverage may end up being more affordable than any other available option out there? And it's not as if Walmart is going to force them to do it; it is still their choice whether to buy from Walmart or someone else or no one at all. Faulting Walmart for starting an insurance company is like faulting anyone for starting an insurance company. Again, Walmart still provides health coverage for full-time employees, and relatively few companies provide health insurance for part-time workers, which Walmart was uniquely generous to do up until now.
"So guess what? Now Walmart can profit off of the lowest paid employees choosing the Walmart plan on the Healthcare Exchange website."
As is par for the course, liberals vilify profit, because they are jealous of the success of entrepreneurs and capitalists and because they don't have the faintest understanding of what profit is or how vital it is for wealth creation and the proper functioning of an economy.
"There’s no silver lining to this story, and most news media today are talking about how it’s no big deal, it’s only maybe $20 more a month and the workers will likely get subsidies from the government if they are below a certain income level – which given Walmart’s low wages is most of them. So, once again, the taxpayers are paying for Walmart’s greed and once again Walmart has figured out a way to profit off of the backs of their own workers."
Thus concludes the author's salvo against Walmart. This article gives what I think is a good response. Nevertheless, even disregarding the arguably billions of dollars that Walmart saves the average consumer every year by keeping down prices for retail goods through their highly efficient business model, Walmart in fact pays quite a bit in taxes: for the year ending January 31, 2014, Walmart paid $8.105 billion, an effective tax rate of 32.87%. So, I don't know about you, but, to me, that doesn't sound like "the taxpayers are paying for Walmart's greed," but, in fact, the other way around. Welcome to the fascinating topsy-turvy Orwellian world of the contemporary Left, folks.
Some could criticize me by saying that claims from the article which I just refuted point-by-point are low-hanging fruit, but the fact of the matter is that virtually ALL liberal claims are easy pickings.
Liberal ideology: It is a tale. Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.
That's a ton of money, one which only increased year-over-year by a substantial sum in both relative and absolute terms, and yet the only point that the author of the article can make against Walmart's philanthropy is that other companies do it, too? Seriously? This pathetic fallacy is supposed to substitute for an actual argument? This is what we are supposed to consider a justifiable criticism of Walmart, a blight on their reputation, a shortcoming on their part, an assailable choice of theirs? Interestingly, I don't see a side-by-side comparison of donations made by Walmart vis-a-vis those made by these other companies: Is that possibly because Walmart's numbers would dwarf theirs, undermining the premise that Walmart is an "evil, greedy corporation"? It must be nice to be a liberal, because, apparently, you get to have it both ways.
"But here’s what makes Walmart disgusting: Walmart is now opening up an insurance company!
Let me make this clear: Walmart dropped health coverage and started this insurance company only because of a huge government intervention into the marketplace known as Obamacare, so blame the government if you're going to blame anybody. And why not start an insurance company? If many part-time Walmart employees decide to purchase health insurance from some company that provides it, why not obtain it from Walmart, if the coverage that it provides is competitive and fits their needs and they prefer it to other offerings? What's wrong with that, especially if Walmart's coverage may end up being more affordable than any other available option out there? And it's not as if Walmart is going to force them to do it; it is still their choice whether to buy from Walmart or someone else or no one at all. Faulting Walmart for starting an insurance company is like faulting anyone for starting an insurance company. Again, Walmart still provides health coverage for full-time employees, and relatively few companies provide health insurance for part-time workers, which Walmart was uniquely generous to do up until now.
"So guess what? Now Walmart can profit off of the lowest paid employees choosing the Walmart plan on the Healthcare Exchange website."
As is par for the course, liberals vilify profit, because they are jealous of the success of entrepreneurs and capitalists and because they don't have the faintest understanding of what profit is or how vital it is for wealth creation and the proper functioning of an economy.
"There’s no silver lining to this story, and most news media today are talking about how it’s no big deal, it’s only maybe $20 more a month and the workers will likely get subsidies from the government if they are below a certain income level – which given Walmart’s low wages is most of them. So, once again, the taxpayers are paying for Walmart’s greed and once again Walmart has figured out a way to profit off of the backs of their own workers."
Thus concludes the author's salvo against Walmart. This article gives what I think is a good response. Nevertheless, even disregarding the arguably billions of dollars that Walmart saves the average consumer every year by keeping down prices for retail goods through their highly efficient business model, Walmart in fact pays quite a bit in taxes: for the year ending January 31, 2014, Walmart paid $8.105 billion, an effective tax rate of 32.87%. So, I don't know about you, but, to me, that doesn't sound like "the taxpayers are paying for Walmart's greed," but, in fact, the other way around. Welcome to the fascinating topsy-turvy Orwellian world of the contemporary Left, folks.
Some could criticize me by saying that claims from the article which I just refuted point-by-point are low-hanging fruit, but the fact of the matter is that virtually ALL liberal claims are easy pickings.
Liberal ideology: It is a tale. Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.
