Are These the Jobs New Jersey Needs?

Your 100% right Tabbycat (4.00 / 1)

As the President of the Hazlet Business Owners Association, we've been watching the possibility of a Walmart moving into the Bayshore area for several months now.

We met with the new foodtown in the area recently who had serious concerns about a Walmart coming into the area. A new Walmart would destroy hundreds of small businesses in the Bayshore and would eliminate thousands of good paying jobs leading to vacant store buildings in shopping centers throughout the area.

I was listening to 101.5 when Gov. Christie said this - I was stunned. He wants to create 700 minimum-wage non-advancement opportunity jobs? Thats his idea of creating more jobs? He actually wants to create incentives for more Walmarts to be built? That would result in jobs lost and a lower quality of living for everyone in the area.

If this Governor Christie's method of creating new jobs, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding on how to grow the economy and it is completely out of touch with both Democratic and Republican principles on supporting small businesses.

Small businesses in my area are already mobilizing and organizing against this possibility.  

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by: vingopal @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 20:03:38 PM UTC

I don't want to live in Arkansas! (4.00 / 3)

Christie'a agenda must be blocked by the legislature. He's running a race to the bottom

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by: Winston Smith @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 20:55:59 PM UTC

These Are NOT Jobs We Need! (4.00 / 2)

Christie is like a bull in a china shop; wreaking havoc, determined to overthrow the status quo simply to show he's the "new sheriff in town".

As a Republican, he's committed to business/corporate needs first.  Instead of raising the corporate tax rate a slight bit, he guts educational and mass transit budgets.

He's as big a dick as Bush.  We are in for a hell of a 4 year ride unless the Dems form a solid block against him NOW!

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by: parnell44 @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 21:55:55 PM UTC

Who the hell does he think he is? (0.00 / 0)

Who is he to promise tax cuts? He's not the Legislature and doesn't speak for it! He's already done his best to alienate every Democrat in the Legislature.

As an attorney, he'd better read up on the separation of powers.  These corporate heads would be fools to listen to him, as would any NJ citizen.  He's shown himself to be beneath contempt in less than a month as a governor.

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by: parnell44 @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 22:06:38 PM UTC

This Is The Rebublican Agenda.......Jon Corzine... (0.00 / 0)

....had to have known and understood this.    

Republicans lie when they claim to be for the middle class.   It's a big fat ugly LIE!!!!

Republicans consistently oppose minimum wage laws and increases.  And don't even think about trying to go for any kind of living wage laws under this bum.

Corzine already blew his shot at being an aggressive progressive and it cost him his job.   Let's see if the Democratic majorities in the assembly and the senate are going to continue to assume the submissive posture with their faces in the  dung and their butts up in the air for our new Boss Man to administer "Bipartisan Discipline".

How may times does NJ have to get raped by Republican governors before we learn the lesson that what is needed is aggressive progressive governance?

The irony is that Wal Mart trains their workers on how to apply for welfare and charity care to survive the peon wages they are paid.  

I wonder how Christie would like his family struggling to survive in a crappy apartment making a low wage and relying on charity care, food stamps and welfare even with a full time "breadwinner" being employed by   the largest retail company in the world?

My sense is thatChristie and his family....and his very good friends (some of which he loans lots of money to) live very high off the hog....and some even get jobs with his administration even after they've been forced to resign in disgrace from the DOJ lest they cost him an election.

Well the election is over now.....so bend over New Jersey......elections have consequences.

Meanwhile, the remaining Democrats are doing all they can to protect their own sweetheart deals and clientele from the looming cuts and hard times....and the people, the ordinary working people and the poor will pay through the nose for the election of this creature.

The quality of life here will go down under Christie for everyone but the rich.   And he'll blame it all on Jon Corzine and then he'll ask for four more years.   That's the script for the suckers.

Thanks to Tabbycat for bringing a fresh pair of eyes to the scene.    This has been going on for scores of years...but people still don't see it.  

Imagine if Jon Corzine had brought in a Barbara Ehrenreich to campaign fro him along with a legislative initiative to protect NJ workers from abusive corporate rapaciousness.........imagine if half a million poor and working class New Jerseyans were actually registered and voting last November.

Imagine!

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by: Nick Lento @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 22:35:14 PM UTC

Mom and Pop (0.00 / 0)

I won't defend Walmart's employment practices however, speaking from my own experience, it would be a mistake to assume or romanticize that mom and pop businesses, especially the ones that have been in business a long time and complain the most about Walmart, don't ripoff their customers and exploit and/or mistreat their workers.

I'll cite one of countless examples over the years I've encountered in my own experience.  Some years ago when I needed to fill a prescription I went to my local, mom and pop pharmacist to have it filled.  When I asked him for help with my insurance paperwork so I could be reimbursed he told me he couldn't be bothered and I would have to pay full price, which I did because I needed my medication.  But I never forgot the arrogance and condescending tone he used with me.

Later on, when I needed a refill, I shopped around and went to a nearby Walmart.  Not only was my prescription available at half the price but the pharmacist was very friendly and accommodating with regards to helping me out with my insurance form.

I realize Wal-mart, like any other chain discount store, benefits from economies of scale.  However, why should consumers be penalized with higher prices and poor service just to keep mom and pop in business?

http://christiegonewild.blogsp...

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by: ken bank @ Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 05:36:59 AM UTC

Problem is... (4.00 / 1)

You are arguing from specific examples to make a general argument.  This is a logical fallacy (name escapes me).  

The point is that I could argue back w/ many examples of the good service I have had in small stores w/ questions or help needed as opposes to the simple "find it and buy it" of the big boxes.

The larger argument presented here is what is needed for NJ?
And my point is, who is Christie to be offering tax cuts in the first place?

As for your experience w/ the pharmacist, you voted w/ your feet. Good; that's as you should.  If others do the same, then he won't be working there long.  The power of choice.  But if Walmart forces out choice (as they do) you lose the chance to vote with your feet.

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by: parnell44 @ Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 12:10:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Logical fallacies (0.00 / 0)

In common parlance the logical fallacy mentioned in the comment  is "cherry picking" in regard to the fact or facts cited to support the general argument. It is a frequently used rhetorical device, although a fundamentally dishonest one.  The more proper terminology is the fallacy of selected instances or the fallacy of selected observations.   I believe the  latin  reference might be the fallacy of per enumerationem simpliciter.

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by: jdalessandro @ Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 23:06:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

My experience is just the opposite! (0.00 / 0)

Both the local pharmacies near my home and business are extremely helpful. The pharmacist near my business will even question a prescription or dosage if it looks out of the ordinary. It's an extra "fail-safe" that I appreciate.

"Discrimination caused by ignorance and fear is a tax on human progress" - Barbra Casbar Siperstein

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by: Babs NJSD @ Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 20:36:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Walmart, jobs, & health care (0.00 / 0)

It's been well documented that Walmart's health insurance programs for employees are lousy, forcing many into charity care--and we all pay for that, one way or another.  

Now Christie wants to cut charity care funds by $12.6 million--and since there's a federal match, that means hospitals will lose more than $25 million in charity care funding--so we will all pay for that, too. Insurance premiums will go up for those with insurance, and small businesses will have to cut back on what they provide for their employees.  And of course more hospitals--primarily those serving urban areas--will be closed.

So more people will enroll in NJ's FamilyCare program, right?  Wrong, because Christie wants to ban adults from enrolling and bar legal immigrants too.

Oh and of course, Christie wants tax cuts for the rich.  No surprise there.  As for the rest of us, "let them eat cake."

Well, NJ Democratic leadership, what will it be?  Will you cave or will you develop some spine and prevent the new administration from Bushing NJ?

 

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."  (Teddy Roosevelt)

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by: DottieG @ Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 14:38:55 PM UTC

Lovely: (4.00 / 1)

"The story isn't part of the official Wal-Mart creation epic, but it tells us almost all we need to know about the company's approach to the interests of its employees and the laws of the nation. Around the time that the young Sam Walton opened his first stores, John Kennedy redeemed a presidential campaign promise by persuading Congress to extend the minimum wage to retail workers, who had until then not been covered by the law. Congress granted an exclusion, however, to small businesses with annual sales beneath $1 million -- a figure that in 1965 it lowered to $250,000.

http://tinyurl.com/kj4ecz

Walton was furious. The mechanization of agriculture had finally reached the backwaters of the Ozark Plateau, where he was opening one store after another. The men and women who had formerly worked on small farms suddenly found themselves redundant, and he could scoop them up for a song, as little as 50 cents an hour. Now the goddamn federal government was telling him he had to pay his workers the $1.15 hourly minimum. Walton's response was to divide up his stores into individual companies whose revenues didn't exceed the $250,000 threshold. Eventually, though, a federal court ruled that this was simply a scheme to avoid paying the minimum wage, and he was ordered to pay his workers the accumulated sums he owed them, plus a double-time penalty thrown in for good measure.

Wal-Mart cut the checks, but Walton also summoned the employees at a major cluster of his stores to a meeting. "I'll fire anyone who cashes the check," he told them."

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

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by: Jersey Shore John @ Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 20:43:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

These jobs are NOT the jobs we need, but (0.00 / 0)

let's give our Governor-General some credit for trying to attract more companies to increase their business in NJ.  He says that he and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno have begun making four telephone calls weekly to the heads of major businesses and industries based in and out of New Jersey.  His pitch is that he intends to cut the state regulations and taxes he believes are hurting large and small companies in the state - something which may or may not happen.

With a shrinking tax revenue base the state can either decrease its expenditures or make an effort to increase revenue by attracting more business. I prefer the latter.

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

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by: Bill Orr @ Wed Feb 17, 2010 at 00:35:39 AM UTC

I think (0.00 / 0)

no one is going to suddenly decide to move to NJ just because the Governor said he's going to try and change a few laws.  He would have to promise not to enforce some things to even make it on the radar.

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by: Thurman Hart @ Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 23:37:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]