The Walton Family has as much wealth as lower 40% of Americans

Buffet just sits and watch money grow to a tune of over $100M a month. Surely he does not contribute anything to society.

 

He said he is going to give most of it away.

 

Hmm...

http://givingpledge.org/

 

It's not about rich or poor. It's about rightfully condemning those who did not earn what they reap; and those who refuse to contribute their share of the pie.

 

Does it bother you that a family, consisting of 4 people have nearly $100,000,000,000

 

As long as they don't have it buried in the ground it doesn't bother me. If they have it in a bank or in the market then it is good for the economy. If they have it tied up in jewelry and art and crap then it is kind of dead money.

 

How many millionaire's and billionaires did that family produce? How many hundreds of thousands do they employ. How many hundreds of millions of customers do they serve?

 

Wal Mart does not pay well. They limit hours so that they do not have to provide benefits. A number of Wal Mart employees are receiving state/federal benefits..


If you think it is so great, go work there.

 

That is all I needed to hear....

 

And yet he fights tooth and nail to not pay taxes that the IRS say that his company owes.

 

I mean at the end of the day this goes back to the thread on the estate tax - how you feel about it philosophically, etc.

I mean in reality, the same folks would be either complaining about this or defending this if the Waltons had $100B or $10B or $1B left over after estate taxes (b/c they'd still be better off than a massive % of the population), so I think of the Waltons as kind of a straw man (or family...).

 

I'm repping this post because this gets to the heart of the issue. I don't care that much how much money the Waltons have but I find it troubling that the gap between them and the rest of society is increasing. We aren't seeing a system where a rising tide lifts all boats but a situation where some boats are sinking as fast as others are rising.

 

They worked hard to be born to Sam Walton?

Also Russia these days is likely more capitalist than the US.

 

I mean what is the solution then?
Have a cap on wealth? that is never going to work.
You could tax more sure thats fine but that won't be directly putting money into peoples pockets.
I guess you could increase wages. But walmart and other large companies are so big that one change effects them so much. Think about the thousands upon thousands of employees they have in the US. For them to change the wages 2-5 dollars would effect them so much.

Like I said when a company is that large gains are incredibly large, but the flip side is that losses will also be big too.

I don't know there has to be a way but noone has thought of a way yet.

 

Greed, and envy. The two emotions that run the world.

 

There's a number of ways to do it. Here's one- Increase taxes on the wealthy. Use the money to support education, health care, infrastructure development.

Done.

 

Wrong. Even in Obama's pie-in-the-sky estimates, raising taxes on the "wealthy" only brings in about $80 billion/year. That means the deficit is $1,220 billion instead of $1,300 billion. That extra $80 will be consumed in two years by growth in Medicare and Social Security. Taxes on the rich doesn't move the needle.

You've gotta find your money someplace else.

 

Yep, let Walmart pay for their ticket to operate in a 1st world country which defends their infrastructure with police/firemen, their copyrights with strict laws, and their bank accounts. Let them pay their ticket to operate in a country that provides a steady stream of workers who are educated and provides quality roads to allow easy transportation of their goods.

 

Depends on how much you tax them.