wow, how incredibly altruistic.
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Catering to a lot of people with no US citizenship, or that's my observation from where I sit..
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at least its cheap but alot of illegals are leaving the US now.
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Catering to a lot of people with no US citizenship, or that's my observation from where I sit..
I work with several people who are not US citizens. what is the problem?
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This is probably the most puzzling thread I've seen in quite awhile. The negative comments are interesting, to say the least.
Criticized... mockingly... for being "altruistic". They lowered the price of a particular service that appeals to lower-income people. That's a bad thing? Please, point me to Nordstrom's similar program.
It's servicing illegal immigrants... as if they are the only people who will need or use this service. Are there no poor people who are US citizens? Would they not benefit from this, also? Should we spite our own poorer citizens just so we can put the illegals in their place?
I'm surprised I haven't seen any criticism that their only motivation is to make money "off the backs" of poor people... when poorer people need stuff too, and somebody has to serve them. That's what business does, provide products and services in exchange for a fee. Duh!
Then, of course, there's the "Happy Face Factor"... the fact that it's Wal-Mart. Spare me. If Target were doing this, they'd probably be applauded.
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If WalMart cared about people why do they have such high costs for medical insurance for their employees and point them to Medi-Cal when they cannot afford it on their very low wages. If they want to HELP they need to stop milking the system. Give me a break. I HATE HATE HATE WalMarts BS.
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You'd rather they would have kept their prices for this particular service higher so low income people would have even less to live on?
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I'm no WalMart fan, but I can't find any fault in them for this one. A $3 check cashing fee is a lot cheaper than check cashing places or even banks where the check is drawn but the employee doesn't have an account. There are a whole lot more people in this country besides illegal immigrants who don't have bank accounts.
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You'd rather they would have kept their prices for this particular service higher so low income people would have even less to live on?
so cutting profits one millionth of a percent is not an option???? or losing the corporate jets?
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And this has any relation to the topic whatsoever?
I'm not a huge W-M fan, but $9 to load a pre-paid card? That's crazy and needed to be lowered. I'm with UL on this one.
There are millions of businesses that either do not offer health insurance for their employees or who do not pay any or much of the employee's portion. Wal-mart is certainly not alone or unique in not paying for health insurance of unskilled labor.
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I thought $3 for such a prepaid card is a better deal than some of the ones I see on sale at the check out line in walgreens. I don't advocate prepaid cards, but for those who need them this seems like a better option.
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What Wal Mart is doing here is an unqualified good thing that will help out a lot of people who need that type of service. Nothing to criticize. They're not doing it out of altruism or for eleemosynary motives (there's one for you, heh. Look it up). They're doing it because Wal Mart is organized such that providing a good deal like that expands their business and helps them make more money. That's the way business is supposed to work, Adam Smith saw that 230 years ago.
I've never much understood the point of criticizing a business (other than your own employer of course) for not providing better pay and benefits. Workers work there voluntarily, they're not slaves. If they're not content with the compensation, they're free to go work elsewhere. I've lived in Wal Mart country most of my life, and I've never yet seen a town in which Wal Mart is the only employer -- that's not even the case in Bentonville, Arkansas.
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You'd rather they would have kept their prices for this particular service higher so low income people would have even less to live on?so cutting profits one millionth of a percent is not an option???? or losing the corporate jets?
I read Bree's comment as being that she'd rather W-M not have reduced prices for this program (as the original article stated) so that she could continue to hate them without reservation or qualification. My question/comment addressed that, not anything about medical insurance, and one really has nothing to do with the other.
I could have been more clear in my response, I'll grant that.
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+1
They must be getting something out of it or they wouldn't be offering it. Just like they fared quite well when some shoppers cutting back spending at upper-scale stores switched to Walmart, they may be hoping to get more customers to sign up for related money products by discounting one or two. Plus it's good publicity.
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I can't help it if I hate WalMart and everything they do.
Is it better to sell 10 $9 cards or 100 $3 cards? They could care less about the people - they care about the bottom line.
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What company care about the bottom line?
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AIG LOL
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If it costs Wal-Mart $4 to get the card, then its much better to sell 10 $9 cards.
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Those are actual Greedot cards. So, you still have to give you tax id number or SS number to them. Some people us those prepaid cards because there is no way of garnishing them. Not because they can not do, it just not set up that way.
I dont have a greendot card. To many fees.
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Uhm, yes, you can.
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They hate walmart for not providing enough benefits so that large numbers of walmart employees need governmental assistance. One of the older bailouts. (If you don't pay your employees enough, we'll help --Uncle Sugar)
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+1.
I think we can all agree that businesses really do nothing out of the "goodness of their hearts."
W-M is simply offering a service they think will make some money for them, and offering it at a lower price than many of the alternatives.
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They hate walmart for not providing enough benefits so that large numbers of walmart employees need governmental assistance. One of the older bailouts. (If you don't pay your employees enough, we'll help --Uncle Sugar)
Inasmuch as that may ever be the case (and no doubt that's very exaggerated), obviously those people would need even more government assistance without their Wal-Mart jobs, wouldn't they? And before you argue that the uneducated, unskilled workers to whom that situation applies would all be happily making $80,000 a year in a Wal-Mart-free world, that scenario would bear even more cost to consumers than a bit of marginal government assistance to those who need it from Wal-Mart.
The problem is not Wal Mart, it's that there are people who remain unskilled and uneducated and so they're economic activity is not worth more to society than $9 an hour; and that the government's first response to that is to dole out money and benefits.