Walmart's Walton Family: Richer Than You, Me & 49 Million Americans Put Together

This morning I heard something on Truthdig radio that should disturb everyone with a beating heart.  According to the Forbes 400 list of the world’s wealthiest individuals, 6 members of Walmart’s Walton family now hold as much wealth as the bottom 41.5% of all Americans, or 49 million families. This translates into a $102.7 billion pie split among a half-dozen Arkansawyers, or $17+ billion per head.  While in recent years, American families have seen a median drop in wealth of almost 39 percent (!), these wiley Waltons have bucked the trend by augmenting their own wealth by 22%.

Anyone in their right mind could reasonably draw the following conclusion: Here in America, those who exploit the most win. Those who create the most suffering for their fellow humans are the ones who are most lavishly rewarded, with the biggest bank accounts, the nicest homes, the finest vacations, the cushiest private jets, and the greatest legacies to leave their likely satanic spawn.

Thus, I have a few questions: Why are we not out in the streets, venting our outrage? Why is no one seemingly very upset about these figures? Why are the polite among us not organizing boycotts? Why aren’t the less polite hiring planes and firebombing Walmart roofs?

Is this a freakin’ JOKE? The wealth of 49 million families in the hands of 6 outrageously greedy people? Who is allowing this to continue unchecked and why do idiots still believe that capitalism should not be regulated?

People are dying of starvation and illness, and Walmart’s waddling swine are sitting on more money than anyone could possibly spend in 10 lifetimes. Certainly not sharing it with their workers, the bulk of whom are given food stamp applications in their employment packets. Certainly not sharing it with on projects to benefit the poor, who so willingly flock to their stores because they can’t afford to shop at those with higher prices. Certainly not in the ways that other billionaires, such as Bill & Melinda Gates, have sought to fund projects for the betterment of humanity. Of course not. If you eliminate poverty, you eliminate Mall Wart’s success. L’Estat suddenly doesn’t live at the blood bank anymore.

And the blood of the poor is splashed all over this money. The Evil Empire is famous for its low-paying, insecure jobs, lack of benefits, and dearth of respect for its workers. People take these jobs because desperate times have made them desperate to feed their families. In earlier times, this principle was known as “taking advantage of people” and was generally frowned on. But no. Wally’s overt greed in the million jobs they control has meant that parents can barely feed themselves and their children, kids go without medical care, and mom and dad are frequently not home because they’re working 2 or more jobs. When Walmart fails to offer proper health insurance, families must turn to public health assistance, which shifts the burden onto American taxpayers. In addition, local governments routinely hand Uncle Wally your dollars in tax breaks (totaling $1.2 billion in 2007; much higher now).

When you have more than 100 bill sitting in the bank, is it really so very onerous to pay your workers a living wage? In 2010, Walmart CEO Michael Duke earned roughly $16,827 per HOUR. The average Walmart employee, even working full-time, would come home with that per YEAR. How is that OK? Why has the state of Arkansas not passed a minimum wage bill that would prevent Walmart from exploiting its workers? Three guesses.

When someone does manage to wrench benjamins from the fists of these Arkansas dough boys, it’s mainly in the form of matching grants. Meaning that the nonprofits must do great amounts of fundraising as well, taking away from the time they can devote to helping others. And while I’m sure the Waltons are busily patting themselves on the back for attempting to widen educational opportunities for the low-income residents of their home state (whose poverty they continue to perpetuate), what would a school run by Cheapo Depot really look like? Teachers making 6 bucks an hour? No frills like desks and blackboards? A cafeteria serving factory-farmed, pesticide-, transfat- and sodium-laden food (which will ultimately fuel many future visits to the Walmart pharmacy)? The Mall Wart logo draped over everything? Civics classes in how the Republicans made America great? Teachers teaching whatever history the Waltons deem appropriate, whatever Creationist crap they decide to offer, with lots of economics classes on how to make a buck off the backs of the poor, how to put other families' businesses out of business, and how to tyrannize your vendors?

Maybe when you’re part of one of the richest families that’s ever lived, what you really owe the world is a little more than foisting your completely-out-of-touch ideas on their school systems. And maybe you owe the world a bit more than sitting around raising cutting horses, like Alice Walton.

As for the humble proletariat, what we need to do is put the fat cats at Waldemort on a massive diet. This involves a personal commitment not to feed the predators. There are plenty of other stores selling the wares that Wally does. It might just be worth a few extra cents to shop elsewhere and send the message to the exploitation machine that we know and care about their shameful actions, and we’re not going to let them get away with grossly increasing poverty in our lifetime.

As Frederick Douglass noted, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Let the riots begin.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/walmart_heirs_own_more_wealth_than_bottom_40_percent_of_americans_20120803/

(http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/knocking_on_bashar_al-assads_door_20120723/)