Senility Finally Strikes George McGovern. . .

"The chief executive of Wal-Mart earns $27 million a year, while the company's average worker takes home about $10 an hour. But let's assume that the chief executive got 27 cents instead of $27 million, and that Wal-Mart distributed the savings to its hourly workers. They would each receive a bonus of less than $20."

http://www.pennlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/11498748367790.xml?pennap&coll=1&thispage=2

:eyes:

:wtf: does this mean. Where in the world did he get these stupid numbers?

If you divide the $27 million in CEO pay he mentions by the $20.00 bonus, you get a total of
13.5 million HOURLY employees. Note that this does not include salaried employees.

This is dead wrong.

First of all the vast majority of WM hourly workers only make about $8.00 per hour. Next, they don't
have 13 million employees--They have about 1.3 million workers total in the US. And finally, their so-called low prices are costly to all of us

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/walmart.html

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/miller-report.html

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/press/20060526a.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cox04202004.html

http://campusprogress.org/features/279/ten-things-wal-mart-doesnt-want-you-to-know

Either McGovern's been smoking something or else "old-timer's disease " has finally set in.

He's my grandfather's age.

Give him a break.

$27,000,000.00 divided by 1,300,000 = 20.76923077

and Wal-Mart still sucks.

He obviously read that in some silly email and didn't run the numbers.

Besides, he's gotten quite comfortable, himself, on GOP tax cuts. He certainly doesn't want to rock the boat. He's got his own heirs to think about.

The problem is INCUMBENTS and your son of a bitch is just as bad as my son of a bitch and the sooner we get rid of them, the better.

(Yes, there are a few exceptions. Damned few.)

I still disagree with the statement, but the math is sound.

I, too, was appalled by many of the arguments in George McGovern's recent piece on how labor must stop expecting "more" in the LA Times and Milwaukee Journal. So appalled, in fact, that I sent him a personal message detailing how the most pressing economic problem is hardly working people expecting too much, but rather the wealth and power of the richest 1%.

However, I think it is only fair to look at McGovern's career-long record of support for labor and the poor and with his writings like The Essential America (a 2004 book where he forcefully denounces the war in Iraq and NAFTA-style "free trade", a major break from the standard pro-corporate babble emanating from leading Democrats).

This current commentary is entirely out of character with his basic philosophy and record. While McGovern's incorrect arguments need to be publicly refuted with letters to the editor and in the blogosphere, he remains progressive leader of deep integrity who was seemingly led astray. In my view, when our progressive leaders get off-track--as happens with Paul Wellstone, Jesse Jackson, and anyone else you care to name--the most appropriate response is one of dialog rather than denunciation.Roger Bybee, Milwaukee, Wis.

I stand corrected!