Walmart Loyal Employee

I have known this person for several decades. For this blog I will call him Joe. Joe learned his trade in a college in Houston, Texas. He used to be a welder back in the late 70′s and 80′s. He developed some health problems with his eyes and the intense heat working in oilrigs. For medical reasons he decided to look for a new job. After that Joe switched between jobs a few times trying to find a new occupation. While in that process, Joe, the father of two sets of twins, found himself in the middle of a divorce. Joe at the time was not able to cope well with the situation. He suffered a heart attack and wondered around the country for a few years working odd jobs.

About ten years ago he moved to the Twin Cities looking for a change and to be close to relatives. He worked at a local casino and at the international airport. He then found a job at a Walmart store in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota.

Joe worked five days a week. His schedule changed now and then. Most of the time he worked over weekends. He would get up early in the morning to make sure he had enough time to get to work on time. He was never late.

A few weeks ago Walmart start cutting his hours and shifting his schedule. Given that Joe has been a loyal Walmart employee for several years, his current salary is somewhat higher than of new employees (or associates as they are called by Walmart). Joe is quite desperate at this time looking for a new job because with no more than twenty hours a week he is not able to pay his bills.

Most Naive Americans are aware of the economic condition in the US and around the world. What most Naive Americans do not understand is that American Royalty created the crisis. It just happens that the Walton family who is the largest shareholder of Walmart and Sam’s Club are part of such American aristocratic class.

Walmart lobbied for vendor companies to outsource in order to reduce their manufacturing costs while maintaining their profit margins selling at a discounted price to them. Walmart helped companies reduce their costs by moving manufacturing offshore. So who benefited from such approach? Well, consumers that shop at Sam’s Club and Walmart did. Who paid for the lower prices that made huge profits for Sam’s Club and Walmart? Most Naive Americans.

As manufacturing jobs fled the US at an accelerated pace, more and more Naive Americans lost their jobs and had to look for new lower paying jobs. The condition got so bad that Sam’s Club and Walmart lobbied for an increase on the minimum wage in the USA. Walmart did not care about what they were paying their employees but they reasoned that by increasing the minimum wage they would increase their revenue. Most people that shops Sam’s Club and in particular Walmart are lower income families.

Lately Joe experienced a couple personal issues. His mother passed away a few months ago. In the past month or so Joe’s hours at Walmart were reduced from five to three days. It appears that due to the additional stress (and to some extent his genetics) he developed a case of type II diabetes.

The question that all Naive Americans should ask our government is how the road construction and lately rapid trains will help Joe in any way shape or form? The answer is quite simple. Those projects that will cost the USA billions of Dollars will not help Joe and millions of other Naive Americans.

Last week, on the evening news on April 15, reports from protests in many cities around the US showed some Naive Americans protesting against taxes. The interesting this about such protest was the tea party theme. This is how the USA came to be by rebelling against the British. If things continue to go the way they have been, sooner than later we might have some type of massive protest in our country, which will have serious repercussions for all Naive Americans and the world.