Bernie: "Today the Walton family of Walmart own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America."

[Brain357]

I don't see how anyone can justify this.
Bernie Sanders says Walmart heirs own more wealth than bottom 40 percent of Americans

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, tweeted a startling statistic to his followers on July 22, 2012: "Today the Walton family of Walmart own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America."

Sanders speaks and writes frequently about wealth distribution in the U.S., a hot-button issue among liberals and a rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

The Waltons, of course, are members of the proverbial 1 percent. But are they really sitting on that much wealth? We decided to check it out.

First, what is wealth?

In economics, wealth is commonly measured in terms of net worth, and it’s defined as the value of assets minus liabilities. For someone in the middle class, that could encompass the value of their 401(k) or other retirement accounts, bank savings and personal assets such as jewelry or cars, minus what they owe on a home mortgage, credit cards and a car note.

It does not include income -- what people earn in wages. For that reason, someone who earns a good salary but has little savings and owes a lot of money on their house would have a negative net worth.

In fact, because so many Americans invest in real estate to buy a home, middle-class wealth has been one of the biggest casualties of the housing-driven recession.

From 2007 to 2010, typical families lost 39 percent of their wealth, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, done every three years. In 2007, the median family net worth was $126,400. In 2010, it was $77,300, according to the survey.

Where the Waltons fit in

Six members of the Walton family appear on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. Christy Walton, widow of the late John Walton, leads the clan at No. 6 with a net worth of $25.3 billion as of March 2012. She is also the richest woman in the world for the seventh year in a row, according to Forbes. Here are the other five:

No. 9: Jim Walton, $23.7 billion
No. 10: Alice Walton, $23.3 billion
No. 11: S. Robson Walton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1 billion
No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke, $3.9 billion
No. 139: Nancy Walton Laurie, $3.4 billion

It's theirs and they earned it. More power to them.

While it is theirs certainly, the earned part is questionable. Everyone is born.

What's questionable is why you leftists have latched onto the word "earned", and think you can demand that people prove to you that they "deserve" their own property through meeting some arbitrary definition of "earned".

They built and maintained a relationship with their father, such that he chose to give them his property. YOU, on the other hand, didn't even do that much. So I think we can safely say the Walton children did more to "earn" what they have than YOU did. Or the government did. Or anyone who doesn't actually own the money did.

No actually I do far more than the Waltons, none of them even have a position with the company. They don't work at all. I work quite a lot.

 

[BluesLegend]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

How dare you blame the lead in their ass pot smoking worker who calls in sick every other week.

 

[Brain357]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

 

[BluesLegend]

The way to teach people they don't need government is to put them on the government tit?

How are you going to force a corporation to pay more than it can and still make a profit?

No, the plan is obviously to get them off welfare, pay attention.

Again professor, you give them tax breaks in return for providing for their employees. What makes you think they can't afford it? They can afford to continually give CEOs huge pay increases, and now they would have tax savings to pay for the increases.

For one thing, if they raise their wage costs, they reduce their profit, and they automatically pay lower taxes as a result. Your plan would have to provide a substantially better incentive in taxes than the cost of the additional wages, and you couldn't do that even if you dropped corporate taxes to zero. For another, if most companies paid out their entire profit additional wages, it wouldn't have an appreciable effect on wages. Third, reducing company profits means reducing economic growth because profits are the fuel for growth.

So then companies now don't pay much in taxes you are saying?

It's a small fraction of what they pay in wages.

Let the waltons be, envy really makes America an ugly place...

By paying so little their workers are on welfare, the government grows. I think that is a bad thing. You must love big government.

The government grows because libturds and all the people who get a check from the government (is there a distinction?) want it to grow.

And those people get a check from the gov because their employer hoses them. Either the gov or the employers need to provide for them. If you want small gov the only answer is the employer. This isn't so hard to understand.

No, they get a check from the government because they do a job that doesn't command a better paycheck. Blaming others for not paying you huge amounts to do a job a middle-schooler could manage is just part and parcel of why one doesn't have a better life.

Neither the government nor their employer "needs to provide for them", nor does anyone else.. THEY need to stop thinking like children, and provide for themselves. THAT is the only answer, and it isn't hard to understand, unless you're a lazy parasite.

Really? Cause in the example of Walmart the workers are making the waltons billions a year. Sounds pretty valuable to me.

Without corporations the workers would be fighting in the streets over food scraps. Workers are free to grow a pair and start their own corporations, have at it.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Really? Our middle class has been disappearing for many years, just as government spending has skyrocketed. The only way to teach people they don't need government is to give them the means to support themselves. All you are doing is supporting poor pay, and government dependence.

The way to teach people they don't need government is to put them on the government tit?

How are you going to force a corporation to pay more than it can and still make a profit?

No, the plan is obviously to get them off welfare, pay attention.

Again professor, you give them tax breaks in return for providing for their employees. What makes you think they can't afford it? They can afford to continually give CEOs huge pay increases, and now they would have tax savings to pay for the increases.

For one thing, if they raise their wage costs, they reduce their profit, and they automatically pay lower taxes as a result. Your plan would have to provide a substantially better incentive in taxes than the cost of the additional wages, and you couldn't do that even if you dropped corporate taxes to zero. For another, if most companies paid out their entire profit additional wages, it wouldn't have an appreciable effect on wages. Third, reducing company profits means reducing economic growth because profits are the fuel for growth.

You must be against the part where the government gets cut out and money goes direct from employer to employee. You think it is more efficient to funnel it through the government obviously.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

He thinks if you raise the MW nationally, the welfare limit won't be raised and people will get off welfare


Wishful thinking, like the welfare rate was never raised before. He don't understand no matter what the MW would be raised to they would still be poor and need welfare..

 

[Arianrhod]

So instead of teaching the bottom 40% how to earn that type of wealth...

The answer's self-evident: Have a wealthy grandfather leave you billions.

May we assume you're at least a millionaire?

We do not have two pennies to rub together. But that doesn't give us the authority to steal the Walton's wealth.


.

No one's asking you to steal anything. Like Ronald Reagan, we expect American corporations to pay their fair share. "Zero" - in the case of 20 American corporations - is not a "fair share."

Again, I'm amazed that the Rightists are so unwilling to demand that Apple, at least, pay some taxes.

Ahahahaha okay what's a "fair share"? And don't say 'more' like the left always does.

During Eisenhower's administration it was 90%, but I wouldn't go that far. How about what it was under Reagan?

Historical Rates

Of course, you'd also have to do something about offshoring and outsourcing.

 

[Rustic]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

If you don't like where you're working now because you're not getting paid enough. Work somewhere else??

 

[BluesLegend]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

 

[Brain357]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

If you don't like where you're working now because you're not getting paid enough. Work somewhere else??

If there were better options out there wages wouldn't be stagnant.

 

[BluesLegend]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

If you don't like where you're working now because you're not getting paid enough. Work somewhere else??

The fools need to pack up and get out of the liberal run blue state hell holes. Its hard to get ahead when you have Democratic party vampires sucking you dry to fund the Democratic party's public union cash cow.

 

[Brain357]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

 

[BluesLegend]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

 

[Brain357]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

Yes corporations sending jobs overseas and bringing in legal workers are certainly a problem. Keystone? Really? Have you seen the cost of oil?

 

[Arianrhod]

The fools need to pack up and get out of the liberal run blue state hell holes. Its hard to get ahead when you have Democratic party vampires sucking you dry to fund the Democratic party's public union cash cow.

The fools are those who believe the majority of Walmarts are in "blue" states.

 

[BluesLegend]

Work harder and be more responsible employee you will get paid more simple as that

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

Yes corporations sending jobs overseas and bringing in legal workers are certainly a problem. Keystone? Really? Have you seen the cost of oil?

Yes Keystone the unions were begging for those jobs and Obama and the liberals told them to piss off. Explain it, you can't.

 

[Arianrhod]

If there are lots of great jobs out there waiting to be filled why are wages stagnant?

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

Yes corporations sending jobs overseas and bringing in legal workers are certainly a problem. Keystone? Really? Have you seen the cost of oil?

Yes Keystone the unions were begging for those jobs and Obama and the liberals told them to piss off. Explain it, you can't.

But you people keep saying Walmart employees are lazy and have no skills. Why are you now claiming they'd have been able to work a pipeline?

 

[BluesLegend]

The fools need to pack up and get out of the liberal run blue state hell holes. Its hard to get ahead when you have Democratic party vampires sucking you dry to fund the Democratic party's public union cash cow.

The fools are those who believe the majority of Walmarts are in "blue" states.

My comment wasn't aimed at Walmart, idiot. /eyeroll

 

[BluesLegend]

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

Yes corporations sending jobs overseas and bringing in legal workers are certainly a problem. Keystone? Really? Have you seen the cost of oil?

Yes Keystone the unions were begging for those jobs and Obama and the liberals told them to piss off. Explain it, you can't.

But you people keep saying Walmart employees are lazy and have no skills. Why are you now claiming they'd have been able to work a pipeline?

Your stupidity is rapidly approaching migraine inducing seizure level.

 

[Rustic]

Oh I know this one, 12 million illegals pouring across our borders willing to work for slave wages?

One reason.

Thousands of new government regulations passed each year by Democrats? Crappy trade deals that send our jobs overseas? Obamatard's stubborn refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built which would create thousands of higher paying middle class jobs? Stop me when you have heard enough.

Yes corporations sending jobs overseas and bringing in legal workers are certainly a problem. Keystone? Really? Have you seen the cost of oil?

Yes Keystone the unions were begging for those jobs and Obama and the liberals told them to piss off. Explain it, you can't.

But you people keep saying Walmart employees are lazy and have no skills. Why are you now claiming they'd have been able to work a pipeline?

If they don't like their wage, work somewhere else.

 

[Arianrhod]

The fools need to pack up and get out of the liberal run blue state hell holes. Its hard to get ahead when you have Democratic party vampires sucking you dry to fund the Democratic party's public union cash cow.

The fools are those who believe the majority of Walmarts are in "blue" states.

My comment wasn't aimed at Walmart.

So it was just a meaningless talking point with no substance behind it...your side's special skill. So noted.