2006 Projects?

I LOVE that! I'd like to knit an entire blanket of those squares. Maybe not in multicolor, but in maybe blue and white, or shades of blue and white. Beautiful.

I didn't take it as a personal attack. I'm sorry if my response made it seem that way. I only meant to clarify why it's there and what it means to me.

Elizabeth

That's a very cute sweater and a very cute kid. Do you remember what kind of cotton you used? I would love to knit with a cotton that can be tossed in the washing machine and not come out looking either 7 sizes bigger or 7 sizes smaller.

Lucille

I've never seen any ads telling me not to shop at Wal*Mart, either. And when I was doing web searches for this discussion I found just as many general anti-big box sites as I did those specifically targetted at Wal*Mart.

And McDonald's is not exactly the corporation I'd most want to be compared with for taking care of employees. Essentially, you're still saying "they're all doing it, so it's ok."

Elizabeth

Of course! Sheena, do you even know me at all? Most of everything I do is in service to others. Don't let my big mouth on rctn fool you. It's not the movie I'm crying about. It's the condition the idea in the film supports or not.

That's fine. I didn't try to convince you otherwise.

And I smell the roses.

Mission Falls 1824 cotton, which has unfortunately been discontinued. There's some, including seconds from Mission Falls, available on Ebay.

Elizabeth (figures, doesn't it?)

My point is that if you're going to boycott WalMart because they pay $6.50/hour and no medical insurance, you should boycott EVERY business that pays $6.50/hour and no medical insurance. Not say that we need to boycott WalMart for doing it but it's OK to shop somewhere else that treats its employees the exact same way because that business isn't named WalMart.

Just across the board, ask whether the place you're about to spend your money pays a living wage and provides medical insurance, and if they don't, walk away. No making excuses that it's OK for an LNS or locally-owned shop to get away with it, because they're not WalMart. Any more than it's OK for the LNS owner to stiff the landlord for the rent because she's not as rich as WalMart, or any more than it would be acceptable for me to walk into a store and demand they charge me 1/10 what they charge you because my income is 1/10 of yours.

I'm all for a level playing field, but that means level. Not arbitrarily drawing lines that say one company has to provide salary and benefits that its competitors don't.

If we're truly concerned about companies whose employees need to rely on Medicaid and food stamps, then let's go after every company with a large percentage of employees below the poverty level, and not just make an example of one. McD's, Target, KMart, migrant farm workers, motel maids, parking lot attendants ... *all* of them. As my retired Army wife friend is fond of pointing out, there are many military families who are on food stamps -- so why aren't you out there picketing the Department of Defense that they need to increase wages? The only reason those military families who are eligible for food stamps aren't applying for Medicaid is because they get a different taxpayer-funded health care system.

I agree with you on one point, we need a single-payer health system for all citizens, not tied to employment. But forcing WalMart to provide employer-paid health insurance isn't going to accomplish that goal; in fact, it simply does more to enforce the belief that health insurance should be tied to employment.

Some time ago, I saw the statistic, and Yes and No were the only answers given. Yes and No added up to 100%, which convinced me that there was no "No, But" answer available in that particular survey.

Sorry, can't recall where I saw the statistic, or even what the numbers were, only that I immediately thought of my friend who's fully insured, just not through WalMart, and therefore would've been a very misleading No. That said, I spend most of my day with CNN, so if you want to hunt it up, maybe it was on Lou Dobbs.

If I were to design such a survey, I'd not only include a "No, but I'm insured otherwise (thru spouse, college, other job)", but also collect statistics on what percentage of FULL-TIME employees eligible for benefits buy the insurance, not just skew it as 90 out of 100 employees(Footnote Deemed Unnecessary by Detractors: 85 of whom are part-time and therefore not eligible for benefits in the first place). And, while we're at it, how many of the part-timers are working part-time because they WANT to work part-time. There's a big difference between me working 15 hours a week because I'm a full-time student and the Bar Association limits F/T law students to 15 hours a week, and a high school dropout working part-time because that's the only job she was offered.

Then send the survey to all three major discount stores: Walmart, Target and KMart, so you can compare apples and apples, not apples and "what we think the other apples are like". As your own research today has shown, Target is in reality a lot more like WalMart than you thought it was.

Ah, heck, send it to all the Fortune 500 companies, so you can see that Citibank has a slew of people earning $7 an hour without health insurance, too. I think the results would surprise a lot of people like your friend who can't believe there are working poor.

Far more people are employed at Walmart than any other retailer or chain fast food joint in the world.

What province are you in? The government of Canada information site

doesn't say anything about collecting local tax, so I'm wondering if it is a special arrangement your provincial government has made with the feds. There isn't a sales tax in Alberta other than the GST so I know I have never been dinged for that. After thinking about it, there were a few times I could recollect not having to pay anything at all, and a few times I was surprised to be asked to pay out. I thought books were exempt, for example - some times I've had to pay. Sometimes not. I suspect it depends on what is written on the customs declaration by the sender. Dora

*Sigh* I wish I could say it was a real eye-opener, but all it did was confirm what I already knew. This is, unfortunately, another of those things where California is a harbinger for things the rest of the country will be experiencing in years to come.

On $18,000 a year, with rent taking nearly half my take-home pay, I was having a hard time making ends meet; I couldn't imagine how Eleanor did it on the same $18,000 with a child to support; or how anyone did it on minimum wage. Let's not even talk about the year that my before-tax income went up $50 a month, but my rent+bus+insurance went up $75. The only reason I had basic cable TV was because I had a side gig doing a newsletter that paid the cable bill. I had a magnet on my fridge reminding me "For this I went to college?" because I certainly didn't expect to be 30 years old and still debating whether I could afford a soda from a vending machine.

I think this may be one of the first times I have agreed with you., Vic. See, there are miracles! I know very well about the RV community. There are many working folk who leave after work on a trip. They drive late into the evening, and for safety's sake will overnight at a truckstop, or preferably a Walmart. All the people I know who do this go into the store to shop and get permission for overnighting. They do NOT put out slides, lower levelers that hurt the asphalt,never dump tanks and leave early the following day.

Jim and I have never done this, primarily because we are retired and do not choose to cover many hundred miles a day, and like to get to a comfy RV Park early, relax, cook dinner, etc. Then we like to spend days in that area and explore it.

Getting back to the subject, Walmart has always welcomed RVers, unless local ordinances decree otherwise!

Gillian

WalMart, Target, KMart, Shopko -- they all have them! I'm not sure if JCPenney, Sears, and the like carry them since I've never looked for them there. And Karen is right, they're really only about $7 a package or so!

Jinx

That's what I do, too!! I must have at least 20 pair in my drawer...

Jinx

I'm not saying it's OK. I'm saying "They're all doing it, but only Walmart seems to take the flak".

I'd like to see it change as much as you would. But targeting only WalMart (and not all the other companies whose employees qualify for Medicaid) isn't the solution. That tells Target and KMart that as long as they take care to not get as big as Walmart, it's OK to keep doing what they're doing.

I worked someplace, one of the employee benefit laws kicked in at 25 employees, so they would have worked the first 24 of us to death before they consented to hire #25. So, yeah, I have concerns that if the law is written that "all companies over 200 employees must provide health insurance", you're going to have Target and KMart (and Joe's Janitorial and Gary's Gardening) intentionally capping employment at 199 so they don't get hit with the financial penalty for hitting 200. And if that means telling their employees to work fasterfasterfaster till they drop, oh well, just don't hire that 200th employee.

Dianne

Karen C - California wrote: > Most Americans are one missed paycheck away from being

I don't know if it's "most", but it certainly is a sizeable chunk. Most American's aren't getting it, yet. It's being accomplished little bit by little bit.

Dianne

"Most" comes from Father Joe. I may be foolish to trust a priest, but from where my co-workers and I have been, despite good-paying jobs, it sounds believable.

As I said, I was earning $18,000, which was darn good money in 1986, and even with taking in typing and doing any other pick-up work I could get to build up the savings account, I was at most *two* paychecks from homelessness because the cost of living was so high compared to what I was earning.

1986, small one bedroom apartment, no amenities other than a shared laundry room -- no pool, no garden, no air conditioning, no garage, no gym -- one of the stairs to the second floor units had a large chunk missing, my fridge was 30 years old, carpet had been torn and glued back together, $400. And that was a bargain for that time and place. It was a dump, but it was what I could afford in an area where I felt safe living without a man.