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Are people outraged just to be outraged or are they outraged because they don't understand? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by soulifix@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I'm going to come to the conclusion that people are simply uneducated. Simply based on the responses I've already gotten.

Let me prop up a very common thing that people love to absolute hate - rich companies. Particularly, Wal-Mart. They say everything and anything to bash the company. While some of the things said is valid, like running small businesses out and maybe corporate doesn't have all of the answers and the Waltons are particularly greedy.

Yet when I decided to google Wal-Mart's operating expenses, we're talking hefty amounts to run all of the stores it has, plus it's operations overseas. It's still a lot and I felt a ting in the back of my mind that maybe there is a bit of a reasoning for why a company as big as Wal-Mart has to do things like cut down expenses or lower wages a little.

And people simply don't understand how that part of business works. They're not in the shoes of the people operating a big company and they don't understand how much and what it takes to run a giant franchise. They think it's as easy as being sat in a position and all of the money the company is withholding is all in some giant vault, that'd be withholding billions that they can distribute or something.

So is all of the hate that something like this gets a little exaggerated because people don't understand or is it justified?

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[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago

People definitely don't understand, but it might be people people like yourself.

a company as big as Wal-Mart has to do things like cut down expenses or lower wages a little.

Companies as big as Wal-Mart actually benefit from the economies of scale. Essentially, the larger an operation, the lower the expenses per item produced. Wal-Mart's operating costs are huge, except if you break it down per item produced. If you do that then their operation costs are far less than most businesses. That's why they've been able to push out small businesses. There's no reason for them to lower wages other than to be greedy.

They think it's as easy as being sat in a position and all of the money the company is withholding is all in some giant vault, that'd be withholding billions that they can distribute or something.

It literally is. Wal-Mart's own balance sheet shows they have $10.5 billion dollars cash on hand. That's literally $10.5 billion sitting in a vault. Companies do this because it's good for their stock price.

You're also skipping over the fact that the highest earners are shareholders, who don't even work for the company. CEO and executives make way too much money but at least they actually work (they don't work 1000 times harder than a minimum wage employee, but they do deserve some compensation). Shareholders sit at home and make millions from doing literally nothing, and companies cater to them instead of the labourers doing the actual work.

So yeah, the hate is justified. The downvotes are probably because you've inadvertently parroted the same talking points that executives use to defend their greed.

[-] DharmaCurious@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Adding onto this that Walmart and similarly large companies use what is effectively a planned economy (that rivals or exceeds the size of some actual nations). There is no need for the executives to be making these last minute decisions on stock placement or layoffs or any of the shit they supposedly do. If Walmart transitioned to be employee owned (not through stocks, but actually employee owned), it could maintain the same centralized planned economy nature (since it's almost entirely run through computers). It could benefit the workers directly, lift the economies of of the communities it existed within, and be an actual force for good in the world. All whole the actual products it sold would be much cheaper because they wouldn't be supported an ultrarich parasitical class.

But instead it benefits like 100 people, and the planet gets to burn in response. Yeah, no, it's not that we don't understand. It's that we do. These companies aren't just bad for their workers, they're bad for literally everybody.

this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023

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