Police
Most of the “riots” people have complained about in the past 5 years have been directly caused by police existing in the way that it does. I can’t deny that police serve as a deterrent for some people regarding some things, but I don’t think I’d live much differently. I’d probably shoplift from big box stores occasionally, but not out of greed. It’s about taking money, not making money. If everybody stole a can of food from Walmart every day to give to the hungry, there would be no more hungry and Walmart would still make billions.
That’s absurd. 250 million weekly visitors stealing a $1 item per visit would amount to $13B per year in losses, approximately equal to Walmart’s annual net income. They would love to raise prices to compensate (2% should do it) but then they would lose the equivalent in sales to competitors like Amazon that don’t face as much risk from theft losses.
False. Walmart makes about $600 BILLION per year.
Idk where you found the $13B figure, since that’s less than the amount they made OVER the previous year’s earnings.
I know what you’re thinking: “but that’s revenue, not profit!” Okay sure, and let’s not even address what qualifies as a “loss” for a massive business like Walmart because I don’t even need to get into that to make my point. Still, they profited nearly $150B in 2022, source is the same link but lower on the page.
Walmart makes over $250k per employee, and nearly 15k of those employees are on food stamps, which means that our tax dollars are being used to subsidize their exploited labor force to make them 12-figure profits.
So yeah, I think we’re kinda sorta morally obligated to steal from them in order to feed the hungry that they are responsible for making hungry in the first fucking place.
Railroading. Not the next day, but probs pretty quick. There’s a reason Biden nipped the railroad strike in the bud, and my theory as to why he’s trying to build up the “pro-union” image again before the election - he really screwed labor in that move.
Maybe you missed the part where he went back and fulfilled that promise to get the railroad workers sick days.
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/06/sick-days-biden-administration-gets-it
I actually did miss that, thank you for replying. I had been working for a passenger rail company at the time, but ended up leaving my job a little after the big event and didn’t keep up on the news.
That being said, I still think the union could have gotten a much better deal had they been permitted to strike. They were originally asking for 15 paid days (note: I think they would’ve settled lower, but higher than 4). While the deal that was negotiated does help people, it is a far cry from what’s needed. I worked at the best of the railroads (in terms of contract), and that was too much for me. I was on call 6 days a week and worked all 6 of those days for several months straight. I got sick a lot more often in my year on that job than ever before and it’s becuse I didn’t have rest. But again, that was the best contract in the RR, freight workers (at the time at least) were on call for up to 2 weeks at a time, sometimes being called in more than once a day.
I haven’t looked at the new contracts that freight workers are getting now, but I know that 4 days sick leave (7 if you convert your personal days), is not enough, even if they got contracts as good as we had at my company. The railroads use and abuse their employees, and employees should’ve gotten a lot more than they did. A strike would have ground things to a halt, but that’s literally the point. That’s the only card we have as workers and Biden took that away at a pivotal moment.
So I personally still think it was a shit deal, and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m glad that workers are getting more now than they were, but they could have gotten more had they not been kneecapped.
I agree with your sentiment and am frustrated at why Dems in general have such a hard time siding with labor and the more progressive wing of the party.
He got them a few and far far less than they asked for.
But he did go the extra mile. Credit where due. Tfg would have thrown towels at them.
