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1. Hmmm. OK, if true, so WalMart has shifted some of their operating costs onto the “public”, as I suspect any reasonable capitalists would. Solyndra, GM, AIG anyone? But your post seems to intimate by it’s lack of comment that they should not because of… what? Economic reasons? Legal? Moral? I agree it is ridiculous and that people who patronize WalMart might want to be aware of what the employees are choosing to be paid. But, playing devils advocate, look at it this way:
   1. WalMart is a public company run for profit to the benefit of the owners, i.e. shareholders, only. It is not a social service agency;
   2. The crap the store sells is cheap, in part, because they keep their costs low. This is a benefit received or perceived by all who shop there. When I wanted to pay 40% less for a camping cooler for example, I went there to maximize my benefit;
   3. Those low prices are realized by shifting part of employee compensation onto the public – in your example via medicaid, food stamps, and likely social security payments to certain employees. Also do not forget that Walmart also by squeezes local governments out of tax revenues in “shotgun weddings” that get the stores built in the first place, further shifting costs onto local property-tax payers. These cost-externalizations are the fault and creations of governments, not of Walmart who simply is a willing and parasitic participant;
   4. It is certain that all Walmart employees are willing participants in their plight; it is likely that some are satisfied or happy with the same. That is, if the totality of their perceived needs were not being met by their employ at a dungeon like this, it is reasonable to expect that would not continue to show up.
   5. The more interesting question for me is not whether the evil capitalist takes advantage of the down trodden working poor (assuming that all WalMart workers are such -itself likely a fallacy) but why we have allowed the transfer of compensation of individuals (individual workers) and owners (individual shareholders) onto the public (individuals neither workers nor shareholders) in ways that create and facilitate the situation in the first place.
   Sadly in this whole freaking morass only WalMart and the employees are acting rationally IMO. BTW, I love your blog, please keep it up! Grey

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