Wal-Mart and Compensation,
I made the following post over at the oregonhousedemocrats blog in response to representative Buckley. I thought I might post it here just in case I get the same treatment as Screwtape.
Representative Buckley,
Like Beelzebub, I applaud your desire for hard working employees to earn a decent life.
However, I would urge you to look at the situation from a business owners perspective. I have a very simple belief as well; that is, an individual should be compensated according to the skills, abilities, and value he/she brings to the company. In economic terms this would be described by a wage roughly consistent with the employees marginal product of labor. Having worked as a union member associate at Fred Meyer while in college, I don't believe the typical Fred Meyer or Wal-Mart associate position to be particularly "hard work".
There is a very simple reason that Wal-Mart employs millions of individuals in this country. Millions of individuals in this country are willing to accept the wage they offer for the work they are asked to perform. Another economic term, Rational Expectations, would suggest that if the level/difficulty/"hardness" of work exceeds the compensation the employee is willing to accept, the employee would choose to seek employment elsewhere.
A situation that exemplifies this concept is the Agricultural industry in the United States. The common misconception is that farm work is "too hard" for American workers who will not accept those types of jobs. This of course, is rubbish. The real situation is that American workers are not willing to accept the compensation farmers are willing and able to pay. This disconnect, or failure of the labor market is what creates the need for immigration in certain areas of our country. That is, finding workers who are willing to accept a given level of compensation for a particular job. This is not the case for Wal-Mart. Employees are not forced to work there and consumers are not forced to shop there.
Consider this example, if farmers were forced to pay a wage of say, $15 per hour, many "hard working" Americans would likely flock to the fields. Of course in this scenario the farmers would all be forced out of business, or even better, it would drive the price of domestic produce through the roof, thus placing an adverse burden on millions of consumers around the country.
Forcing Wal-Mart or any other retailer to establish artificially high compensation levels will only hurt consumers. Moreover, as Screwtape had previously argued on this blog (his posts were subsequently removed by the blog administrator) anybody would be hard pressed to find this "devastation" of downtown areas in Oregon (think Newberg, Astoria, Bend, etc.) where Wal-Mart operates and has operated for many years.
I made the following post over at the oregonhousedemocrats blog in response to representative Buckley. I thought I might post it here just in case I get the same treatment as Screwtape.
Representative Buckley,
Like Beelzebub, I applaud your desire for hard working employees to earn a decent life.
However, I would urge you to look at the situation from a business owners perspective. I have a very simple belief as well; that is, an individual should be compensated according to the skills, abilities, and value he/she brings to the company. In economic terms this would be described by a wage roughly consistent with the employees marginal product of labor. Having worked as a union member associate at Fred Meyer while in college, I don't believe the typical Fred Meyer or Wal-Mart associate position to be particularly "hard work".
There is a very simple reason that Wal-Mart employs millions of individuals in this country. Millions of individuals in this country are willing to accept the wage they offer for the work they are asked to perform. Another economic term, Rational Expectations, would suggest that if the level/difficulty/"hardness" of work exceeds the compensation the employee is willing to accept, the employee would choose to seek employment elsewhere.
A situation that exemplifies this concept is the Agricultural industry in the United States. The common misconception is that farm work is "too hard" for American workers who will not accept those types of jobs. This of course, is rubbish. The real situation is that American workers are not willing to accept the compensation farmers are willing and able to pay. This disconnect, or failure of the labor market is what creates the need for immigration in certain areas of our country. That is, finding workers who are willing to accept a given level of compensation for a particular job. This is not the case for Wal-Mart. Employees are not forced to work there and consumers are not forced to shop there.
Consider this example, if farmers were forced to pay a wage of say, $15 per hour, many "hard working" Americans would likely flock to the fields. Of course in this scenario the farmers would all be forced out of business, or even better, it would drive the price of domestic produce through the roof, thus placing an adverse burden on millions of consumers around the country.
Forcing Wal-Mart or any other retailer to establish artificially high compensation levels will only hurt consumers. Moreover, as Screwtape had previously argued on this blog (his posts were subsequently removed by the blog administrator) anybody would be hard pressed to find this "devastation" of downtown areas in Oregon (think Newberg, Astoria, Bend, etc.) where Wal-Mart operates and has operated for many years.
posted by wormwood at 2:53 PM
2 Comments:
Nicely argued. The post was still up and responded to on Sunday night. I was going to pile on, and then just thought I'd let it lie. Buckley will never change is opinion, but at least now the other side has been well represented. I still liked Screwtape's sarcasm.
Why let it die.. as an Oregon House representative, we could have fun with semantics "Colbert" style and push him in a difficult position publicly.
That would be easy and he's taken the risk of openly venturing on that blog. He's fair game.
Pajama Revolucion!
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