ihmanky - 10/7/2024 11:26

There's also those that have a drive to succeed, that I have to wonder isn't behind some of it. I mean, there comes a point where some of these folks aquire so much wealth that they could live an extremely lavish life (almost beyond what most of us can fully realize), and their passive income still be exceeding their spending. I agree, some people live for counting the dollars, but I feel like the majority of those don't spend lavishly as that hurts the end goal. There are others, few in number, that do a lot of charitable giving, beyond the write off. Are they bettering the "community", or are they still an SOB for getting to that point to have that ability? Back to walmart, I have known a handful of people that worked for them, from cashiers to store managers, and I'd say 3 out of 4 have had nothing but praise regarding working there. Now that's just a couple of stores in the same area, so that definitely doesn't speak to all locations or even the majority of employees in those stores. I do know this, they employ a lot of people between those two stores, probably less than pre-covid with no longer being around the clock, but I think if both of those stores closed it would be a hit regarding jobs. If wal mart as a whole closed the doors at the end of the year, in my opinion Amazon just picks up that gap, and increases the number of robots to fill warehouse orders, and maybe a 10% increase in truck/van drivers.  I would venture a guess that less than 25% of the wal mart in-store workforce finds work, as in store retail has continued the trend of drying up over the last several years. People in my small local area (we don't have our own wal mart with a population of under 2,000 here) keep shouting support the mom & pop business that keep the world going, but in reality that's not a truth. The majority of mom & pop (around here anyway) provide zero jobs and very little tax revenue for the community. In reality, the majority of those little outfits are generating less taxable income than what they would if they worked public jobs in most cases. I can say this with confidence from owning a couple of those in the past between my wife and I. I definitely don't have the answers, just wondering if some folks think at all about the whole ripple effect of getting rid of big businesses, or maybe I'm the one standing extremely out in left field and just not intelligent enough to realize it.