how about those WalMart heirs?

[JuliefromOhio]

The six human beings who are heir to the Walmart fortune have as much wealth as the bottom 40% of all Americans combined. That’s six people on one side of the scale and approximately 125,600,000 on the other.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/17/534591/walmart-heirs-wealth-combined/

 

[marvin martian]

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett each have more wealth than any of the Waltons as individuals, but somehow I suspect that doesn't bother you at all...

 

[OldGaffer]

Do their employees have health care, or do they have to collect welfare and food stamps to survive?



There is a difference between ethical, well paying corporations that value their employees and douchebag greed infested corporations that [Unwelcome language removed] over their employees with every breath.
but you would not know that, would you?

 

[wookie-leeks]

Do their employees have health care, or do they have to collect welfare and food stamps to survive?

Many of the employees were already on them.

 

[OldGaffer]

Many of the employees were already on them.

And getting a full time managers job at Wal-Mart paid so shitty they still qualified? Do you like your tax dollars subsidizing the [Unwelcome language removed] Waltons? Because that is what is happening. Are you smart enough to see that?

 

[PhilFish]

You mean...like Apple? Or whatever asian sweatshack the computer you're typing on was pieced together in. Those kinds of companies?

 

[wookie-leeks]

And getting a full time managers job at Wal-Mart paid so shitty they still qualified? Do you like your tax dollars subsidizing the [Unwelcome language removed] Waltons? Because that is what is happening. Are you smart enough to see that?

Oh so you are blaming Wal Mart because their employees are generationally recieving food stamps???????

 

[wookie-leeks]

I'd much rather the Walton's game some cracks in the system than Obama hand his Solyndra pals a half a billion dollars to prop up a company that couldn't survive Obama's first term.

 

[fairsheet]

I suppose the most obvious difference between Buffet/Gates, and Waltons, is that they recognize the pretty godamned obvious. The fact of their children being their children, doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on their ability to run their companies. In fact, it doesn't really matter how smart, well-educated, and familiar they are with these bidnesses. The odds are remote, that they'd be the best candidates to lead these companies into the future. And of course...I'll betcha that they realize that an always-filthy-rich kid, doesn't have quite the motivation that they had, or that someone from outside the family might have!

So, Buffet/Gates DO recognize that like it or not, money IS power. There's no way in hell either of these guys could come even close to spending all their dough. So, why don't they just give most of it away? Well...they DO give a bunch away, but they hang on to way more than they absolutely need because again, "money is power". And in the case of Buffet/Gates, I like to look at it as the "power to do good" and I imagine they do to.

So anyway...as to estates, both have quite publically limited their familial heirs to but a tiny fraction of their wealth. I don't know what the number is but hey...$100 Million is a tiny fraction of THEIR wealth! And in doing so, they're passing on comfort and opportunity, but now power. If their kids want power, they need to earn it for themselves.

So.....the Walton heirs? What does THEIR inherited wealth represent and how are THEY exercising the power inherent in it?

 

[JuliefromOhio]

Oh so you are blaming Wal Mart because their employees are generationally recieving food stamps???????

no one "generationally receives food stamps" if they earn an income that makes them ineligible to receive food stamps.

WalMart pay is so shitty that you and I as taxpayers have to subsidize them.

why would you want to subsidize the uber-wealthy, are you crazy in the head or something?

 

[OldGaffer]

no one "generationally receives food stamps" if they earn an income that makes them ineligible to receive food stamps.

WalMart pay is so shitty that you and I as taxpayers have to subsidize them.

why would you want to subsidize the uber-wealthy, are you crazy in the head or something?

I don't think he understand this, at all.

 

[OldGaffer]

You mean...like Apple? Or whatever asian sweatshack the computer you're typing on was pieced together in. Those kinds of companies?

Apple sucks big time.

 

[Craig]

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett each have more wealth than any of the Waltons as individuals, but somehow I suspect that doesn't bother you at all...

Bill Gates makes millionaires. I know a few of his human products.

 

[GordonGecko]

"The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”------Theodore Roosevelt

 

[fairsheet]

Bill Gates makes millionaires. I know a few of his human products.

On that tangent, if Bill Gates were to attend a packed-house Mariners game at Safeco Field, the average income of EVERYone there, would be over $1 Million.

 

[Craig]

On that tangent, if Bill Gates were to attend a packed-house Mariners game at Safeco Field, the average income of EVERYone there, would be over $1 Million.

Amazing.

I tried like hell to get on when I temped for them. I was in the customer service group when they went to pay for technical support. The Bellevue buildings, by what was then Larry's. I loved Larry's.

I became friends with one of the training staff. She worked for MS 10 years. By the time she left her stock was worth about 9 million. She owns a house in Kirkland and a house on Lake Sammamish.

 

[trapdoor]

As near as I can tell the heirs didn't create the company, and almost none of them are involved in its operations or policies. So what they are is the people who inherited money from Sam Walton, who took better care of his employees than his successors have done.

I suppose the top poster thinks that the Walton family et al. should be deprived of their inheritances in some quasi legal fashion (quasi-legal is, by the way, sarcasm). I'm not certain I see any reason for that to happen.

 

[Craig]

As near as I can tell the heirs didn't create the company, and almost none of them are involved in its operations or policies. So what they are is the people who inherited money from Sam Walton, who took better care of his employees than his successors have done.

I suppose the top poster thinks that the Walton family et al. should be deprived of their inheritances in some quasi legal fashion (quasi-legal is, by the way, sarcasm). I'm not certain I see any reason for that to happen.

de·prived

/diˈprīvd/
Adjective

1. Suffering a severe and damaging lack of basic material and cultural benefits.
2. (of a person) Suffering a lack of a specified benefit that is considered important.

 

[PhilFish]

Incidentally, a billion people world wide live on less than a $1 a day.

Does that make us all evil?


http://www.policymic.com/articles/2636/compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world-americans-are-all-the-1

 

[trapdoor]

de·prived

/diˈprīvd/
Adjective

1. Suffering a severe and damaging lack of basic material and cultural benefits.
2. (of a person) Suffering a lack of a specified benefit that is considered important.

And the Walton heirs are legally entitled to their inheritance, and actions to remove it from them would be a form of legal deprivation.

Let's assume we're going to do it. How much of their inheritance should be removed? To whom should it be given (or should it just go into the coffers of either the state of Arkansas or the United States General Fund)? And under what legally valid reason could any of it be taken from them?