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Wal-Mart: feeding at the public trough while underpaying workers, destroying Louisiana’s mom and pop businesses

February 24, 2016 by tomaswell

The past is prologue

                                    —William Shakespeare (The Tempest)

In 1936, Mississippi Gov. Hugh White successfully pushed through the state legislature his answer to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal so despised by southern states.

Mississippi could grow and prosper through his landmark “Balance Agriculture with Industry” program, according to Mississippi native Joseph B. Atkins, author of the little-known but important book Covering for the Bosses. The book is an examination of how newspapers in the South refused to give fair coverage to labor unions in their attempt to gain equitable working conditions for workers first in the textile mills and later the automobile industry.

https://books.google.com/books?id=o6AfWT79t2MC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=shadows+in+the+sunbelt+1986&source=bl&ots=7Wb_bKCn48&sig=FIjJetyw-Li-lCk0c3zN_muV3MA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL-Ob4k4_LAhWFPiYKHchPD50Q6AEIUDAJ#v=onepage&q=shadows%20in%20the%20sunbelt%201986&f=false

According to Atkins, White figured he could attract industry to Mississippi through the then-radical concept of offering attractive tax incentives and promises of low wages—and, of course, no unions.

The program, Atkins writes, eventually became a model for the entire South and today, Mississippi, in the latest rankings of the best states for business, can be found sitting firmly in….47th place among the 50 states, ranked ahead of only (in order) Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia. In fact, the South can lay claim to six of the bottom 10 spots in the national rankings. They also include Arkansas (42nd) and Alabama (45th). Tennessee was only slightly better at 38th. Virginia (10th) and North Carolina (15th) were the only southern state in the top 20. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/02/17/the-best-and-worst-states-for-business-2/

So what went wrong with White’s grand scheme for Mississippi? Simply put, the same thing that doomed Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee to the bottom one-fourth of the heap. They gave away their tax bases while at the same time condemning their citizens to lives of low wages and poor benefits. And Wal-Mart was first in line to fully exploit the plethora of incentives, be they the 10-year property tax exemptions, Enterprise Zone initiatives or some other inducement.

Wal-Mart, described by Wall Street Journal writer Bob Ortega in his book In Sam We Trust as “an amoral construct with one imperative: the profit motive.”

In October 2005, Atkins writes in Covering for the Bosses, that an internal Wal-Mart memo was leaked which revealed the true, impersonal attitude of the corporate office toward its 1.3 million American workers, 30 percent of whom are part-time workers.

In her memo to Wal-Mart executive vice president M. Susan Chambers complained of the costs of long-term workers. The company, she said, spent 55 percent more on them than on one-year workers even though “there is no difference in (the employee’s) productivity.” She said because Wal-Mart pays an associate “more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart….The least health, least productive associates are more satisfied with their benefits than other segments and are interested in longer careers with Wal-Mart,” she said.

In plain language, she was advocating throwing older workers to the curb in favor of newer, lower-salaried workers.

Yet Wal-Mart has shoved its way to the public trough, securing some $100 million in economic development subsidies from the state in 20 cities from Abbeville ($1.67 million) to Vidalia ($1.65 million), from Shreveport ($6.3 million) to New Orleans ($7 million), from Monroe ($3.9 million) to Sulphur ($1.8 million).

Nationally, estimated annual subsidies and tax breaks to Wal-Mart and the Walton family total $7.8 billion per year. This for six Walton heirs whose collective net worth of $148.8 billion is more than 49 million American families combined. http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart-on-Tax-Day-Americans-for-Tax-Fairness-1.pdf

A congressional report estimated that each Wal-Mart store in America generated an average of $421,000 in Medicaid, SNAP and public housing costs to taxpayers. That’s in addition to the estimated $1 billion taxpayers anted up in local and state government subsidies to have a Wal-Mart in their communities. Wal-Mart workers, who earn less than $10 an hour (about $18,000 per year), are offered a family health care plan with a $1,000 deductible costing $141 per month.

And remember that warm fuzzy “Made in USA” advertising campaign of Wal-Mart in which Wal-Mart in 2013 said it was starting a 10-year plan to increase spending on U.S. made products by $250 billion? Well fuggeboutit. It didn’t happen and last October, the company removed the “Made in the USA” logos from all product listings on its Web site after the Federal Trade Commission caught the company (gasp) lying. http://fortune.com/2015/10/20/walmart-made-in-the-usa/

Instead, much of its merchandise, clothing in particular, comes from third-world sweatshops where workers are paid pennies per hour in wages and children work up to 20 hours per day to make the clothing we purchase from Wal-Mart. https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-sweatshops

And here’s a real eye-opener.

In her book Cheap, author Ellen Ruppel Shell reveals a dirty little secret most consumers are unaware of: name-brand clothing sold at Wal-Mart aren’t quite what consumers think they are. “Discounting dilutes brands, making it less certain that they are a mark of quality,” Shell writes. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/books/review/Shapiro-t.html?_r=0

Hundreds of brands “slice and dice their offerings for various markets, selling different products in different types of stores for different prices under the same brand,” she said. “Chains such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Home Depot have items manufactured ‘to their specifications,’ meaning that the brand name is almost devoid of meaning.”

That means a television with a model number available only at Wal-Mart is not really a Sony or a Samsung, for example, but a Wal-Mart television.

“Brands have become an end in themselves,” she writes. “…It is not the brand alone that entices discount shoppers; it is the high value we link to the brand versus the low price we pay that is so seductive.”

In recent years, Louisiana taxpayers have subsidized the construction of Wal-Mart stores in two affluent suburbs to the tune of a $700,000 tax credit. A tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction of a tax liability meaning a $1 tax credit reduces one’s taxes by a full dollar. Bear in mind, these subsidies were Enterprise Zone projects. The Enterprise Zone program is designed specifically to lure business and industry into areas of high unemployment in order to help economically depressed areas. Instead, one of these stores were built in St. Tammany, one of the most affluent communities in the state.

Likewise, $330,000 in Enterprise Zone tax credits were awarded in 2013 to Lakeview Regional Medical Center in St. Tammany Parish for an upgrade to its facilities which created a grand total of five new jobs.

As far back as 2012, then-Secretary of the Department of Economic Development Stephen Moret said the Enterprise Zone program no longer fulfilled its purpose. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/louisiana_economic_development_1.html

A Legislative Auditor’s report agreed, saying that 75 percent of new jobs, 68 percent of new businesses and 60 percent of capital investments were made outside the EZs. http://app1.lla.state.la.us/PublicReports.nsf/92629A33AAE8C55F862579EB0072ACEB/$FILE/00029DFA.pdf

That’s because unlike other states, Louisiana’s Enterprise Zone program allows the generous five-year tax breaks for retail establishments, businesses whose salaries traditionally are at the low end of the pay scale. Those include, besides Wal-Mart, chain stores like Walgreens and Raising Cane’s chicken outlets.

“Most of the projects are larger companies investing in relative affluent areas in Louisiana today,” Moret said in something of an understatement. He said that fact alone underscored the importance of making changes to the program.

Were changes made? No. In fact, in 2013, the year after his comments, the state awarded EZ tax credits totaling $19.6 million for projects that produced 4,857 new jobs which in turn generated about $10 million in state income taxes, or a net loss of more than $9 million to the state.

Meanwhile, Atkins quotes author Bill Quinn as saying Wal-Mart “has done more to stomp out Middle-class America than all other discount houses put together.”

Yet, the official policy of Louisiana has been to continue to give generous tax breaks to a company that underpays its employees, deceives customers into thinking they are “buying American” when in reality, they are propping up third-world sweatshops whose workers churn out second line brand names under slave-like working conditions.

Posted in Auditor, Business, Corruption, Economy, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, Incentives, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Revenue, Taxes | 6 Comments »

Bobby Jindal’s parade of lies and distortions about state’s wonderful business climate exposed in yet another survey

February 23, 2016 by tomaswell

After eight years of Bobby Jindal’s whiz-kid ALEC-backed policies of awarding tax incentives, exemptions, and inducements to the business and industry lobby and his constant boasting to Iowans and to Fox News of his smashing successes, Louisiana remains mired as the second-worst state in the nation for business.

So says the latest report of 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion company headquartered in Delaware which publishes more than 30 articles per days on economics, health, and politics.

For its most recent survey, 24/7 compiled 47 measures into eight separate categories to determine the business climate for each state: business costs, cost of living, economy, infrastructure, labor and human capital, quality of life, regulation, and technology and innovation.

The U.S. has seen 71 consecutive months of private sector job growth through January, the report noted. Despite the consistent improvement, which dates back to February 2009 (the month after Jindal was first sworn in as governor), the recovery has been uneven and some states have experienced substantially less growth than others.

One of those is Louisiana, where the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 1.5 percent was 21st lowest in the nation and average wages and salaries of $46,136 was 24th lowest.

Both of those ratings put the state at about the middle of the pack but other indicators showed a much bleaker picture. But only one other state, Maine, has experienced an annualized GDP decline over the past five years.

The 434 patents issued to residents in 2014 was 14th lowest in the nation. The projected working-age population growth through the year 2020 of minus 3.2 percent was seventh lowest and the 22.9 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees was fifth lowest.

A decreasing working-age population, combined with the relatively low educational attainment means trouble for employers to fill positions with qualified job candidates. That could explain the high number of tax incentives to industries with low-paying, unskilled workers such as chicken plants and Wal Marts.

Almost 20 percent of Louisiana’s population lives below the poverty line, a statistic Jindal refused to address during his entire eight years of running for president. Moreover, the state unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. Both figures are higher than the national rates.

So, if Louisiana was second worst for business, which state was worst? Well, this time it wasn’t Mississippi which traditionally holds down the anchor spot. In this case it was West Virginia with lower GDP growth, lower average salaries, lower percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree (actually the lowest), lower number of patents issued to residents and a lower projected working-age population growth than Louisiana.

The best state for business? That would be Utah. Where Louisiana and West Virginia each had a minus projected working-age population growth rate, Utah’s projected working-age population growth of 20.5 percent was second-highest. Despite the healthy projected population growth, Utah had an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, fourth lowest in the nation.

Just more evidence of how Jindal was perfectly willing to twist and distort numbers to fit his ambitious but hopeless agenda.

Does anyone still wonder whether he was simply clueless or callously committed to his own ambitions?

Posted in Business, Corruption, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, Governor's Office, Incentives, Jobs, Politicians | 20 Comments »

State police hire investigators with little or no experience at salaries higher than troopers with many years of experience

February 22, 2016 by tomaswell

Louisiana Voice has discovered some reasons the Louisiana Sheriffs support Colonel Mike Edmonson as LSP commander. LouisianaVoice found cases of hiring and promotion of sheriffs’ relatives.  LSP began hiring investigators after years during which LSP offered no Trooper academies to supplement the ranks because of budgetary cuts. Many were retired Troopers and most were highly qualified to do the same job as the Troopers they worked alongside.

We made identical public records requests of LSP and Louisiana Civil Service for a list of investigators and their salaries. LSP chose to play games because we asked only for “investigators” and did not specify “criminal investigators.” We received prompt records from Civil Service but we are still waiting for a response from LSP. Somehow, we’re beginning to get the feeling we’re being stonewalled by LSP.

Tommy Ambrose, Son in law of former Allen Parish Sheriff Hal Turner (Former LSA President)

Tommy Ambrose was hired as an investigator with LSP on July 29, 2013, at a salary of $40,518, about $5,000 more than a starting Trooper or the same salary as a Trooper with up to six years of experience. He resigned five months later, on Jan. 11, 2014. He was sent to the local regional law enforcement academy in Lake Charles because he was not a peace officer standard and training (POST) certified officer. According to sources, there is no other known instance of an investigator being hired who was not certified to be a police officer. According to other sources, there were applicants competing for the position with law enforcement certification and decades of experience. Public records showed Ambrose was being investigated but resigned before the investigation was complete. LSP denied our public records request for the investigation file. During his short tenure with LSP, sources say the best description was a history of inadequate performance, policy violations, and suspected criminal activity quickly overlooked after making a call to Colonel Edmonson’s cell phone. The situation got so bad Edmonson could not even justify it any longer and he resigned.

Tony Mancuso III, son of Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso (Former LSA President)

Mancuso was hired by LSP as an investigator (Not a Trooper) at an exorbitant salary. Tony Mancuso III was hired on June 23, 2014, at a salary of $61,100. He got his first raise three months later to $63,564.80. He was given another raise and a promotion 8 months later in 2015 to $68,016. We compared that salary with other LSP Troopers and LSP Investigators.

  • Mancuso was hired at a salary $22,587.76 higher than a new Trooper who completed the State Police Academy. Mancuso did not attend the state police academy. We cannot confirm if Mancuso was even qualified to apply to be a State Trooper.
  • Within three months at LSP, Mancuso was making more than a Trooper with over 20 years of experience and a Sergeant with 18 years of experience. A Trooper had to meet the qualifications, go through the state police academy, and serve 20 years to get the same salary as Mancuso walked in the door with.
  • After the Troopers received two massive pay increases, his salary went up as well. He currently makes $20,000 more than a starting Trooper. He currently makes as much as Trooper with 11 years of service although he has less than two years as an investigator with LSP.
  • Mancuso is paid $11,107.20 more than an Theodore Trunick, an investigator of the same rank in the same office even though Trunick has more experience at LSP and had extensive law enforcement experience prior to joining LSP. Mancuso was hired at $61,100. Trunick was hired at $43,076, nearly $18,000 less than Mancuso.
  • Mancuso is paid more than a long line of retired LSP Troopers, Lieutenants, Captains, and other law enforcement officers with decades of experience.
  • Mancuso was hired over another applicant, Mike Hebert. Hebert, a graduate of the FBI National Academy and who had more than 30 years of law enforcement experience than Mancuso, applied for the same position. Hebert was eventually hired and remains at a salary of $61,100 which is $6,916 less than Mancuso.
  • Mancuso is the fifth-highest paid LSP Criminal Investigator in the state. Let’s take a look at the top four.
    • Shelly Hopkins: $74,422: Retired LSP explosives expert with an estimated 40 years of experience.
    • Daryle Graham: $73,902, supervisor/ criminal investigator level 4 with 37 years of experience.
    • Cayce Grimes: $70,740, former police chief, FBI National Academy, decades of Experience
    • Hampton Guillory: $68,681, decades of experience

We tried to find someone comparable to Mancuso but we found no other investigator with so little experience. Most of the investigators are retired from law enforcement agencies with decades of experience but all of whom make less than Mancuso. Mancuso is in his late twenties with an unknown history of law enforcement experience or education.

Brad Guidroz, Son of St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz

Mike Hebert competed for a promotion shortly before he retired. On the surface, he would have seemed the logical choice. He was passed over for Brad Guidroz. At the time of Guidroz’s promotion, he reportedly had six years’ experience with LSP. Hebert had a distinguished career with LSP to go along with his 30 years’ experience and FBI Academy credentials. Some speculated his being passed over in favor of Guidroz this was the reason for Hebert’s retirement. Hebert retired, expecting an immediate rehire position with LSP but those plans were thwarted with the hiring of Mancuso. Hebert was eventually rehired after two months—at a lower salary than Mancuso.

Most of these hires came about during a four-year stretch when LSP salaries were frozen which meant troopers with say, 20 years’ experience, were being paid at the rate of 16-year veterans.

If it walks like a duck

When you put all this together it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than Edmonson has used his authority to hire and promote in exchange for the political endorsement of the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association. We are not ignorant to the fact this type of stuff happens all the time and know there are more stories of political favors. We just never thought it would be so out in the open. This is another example of Edmonson putting his own interests ahead of the needs of the people of the state of Louisiana. Giving away positions for political favors can result in less qualified people protecting the citizens and their fellow officers.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, State Police | 6 Comments »

What am I going to do with all that money? Class action settlement check like winning lottery—except for money

February 22, 2016 by tomaswell

Well, my ship finally came in.

When I checked my mail today (Monday, Feb. 22), there it was. With unbridled joy and mounting anticipation, I ripped open the envelope and there it was: a settlement check.

$1.78.

It seems I was part of a class action litigation I didn’t even know about—a lawsuit against AT&T Mobility for an overcharge of something only vaguely explained as “taxes, fees or surcharges (internet taxes)” on internet access.

And it only took 92 attorneys to win that generous settlement reward on my behalf (no kidding, 92 attorneys).

The total settlement was $956 million.

The 92 lawyers get to split $926,466.69 in legal fees. They originally wanted $239 million on the basis of the aggregate $2.94 billion value of relief obtained (the $956 million plus nearly $2 billion “going-forward relief” in illegal taxes that won’t be collected in the future).

I get $1.78.

But hey, I should be grateful. One poor soul got only six cents—about one-eighth the cost of the stamp needed to mail the check.

92 attorneys for that?

Posted in Politics | 15 Comments »

Bobby Jindal: His Destiny and Obsession book publication set for mid- to late-March. Pre-order your signed copy now

February 19, 2016 by tomaswell

 

 

The galley proofs will go out any day now and after we have an opportunity to check for typos, errors, etc., it will go to the printer for publication. We now expect the book to be published in mid- to late-March.

As many of you are aware, Jindal has re-surfaced via his unsolicited endorsement of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for the Republican presidential nomination. He made his endorsement right after Rubio made a strong showing in the Iowa caucus. Immediately after Jindal’s endorsement, however, Rubio fell flat in the New Hampshire primary. Was Jindal’s endorsement the kiss of death for Rubio? Who knows?

But now South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, like Jindal, an Indian-American, has endorsed Rubio on the eve of tomorrow’s Republican primary in that state. Her endorsement is expected to mean much more to Rubio than that of a washed-up Louisiana ex-governor who plunged his state into financial ruin while pursuing his own lost dream of becoming leader of the free world.

While Jindal’s apparent trolling for a vice-presidential spot on the Republican ticket has been thwarted by Gov. Haley, he can still hope for a cabinet appointment–probably Health and Human Resources or Education. It’s not likely he will land either spot; Rubio, after all, must first get the nomination and then get himself elected–both long shots in themselves.

Meanwhile, you may still pre-order your signed copy of the book by clicking on the image of the book cover at right and placing your order with Cavalier House Books of Denham Springs. The bookstore is only two blocks from my home and John Cavalier will summon me to the store when he gets the books in for me to sign copies that have been ordered. At last count, the store had 54 orders and the list is growing and I want to express my humble appreciation to those who have already ordered copies and for your support of local businesses as opposed to online orders. I believe that is important just as I believe a governor should stay home and give his attention to the state’s fiscal problems instead of gallivanting all over the country in a hopeless attempt at seeking higher office.

 

Posted in Politics | 20 Comments »

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