Yahoo Finance reports that Peter Schiff, a frequent business news talking head, argues that Wal-Mart’s voluntary decision to raise the minimum wages of its workers to $9 an hour for starting employees and $10 an hour for other employees may be a bad thing.
From the article:
“‘They might pay higher wages, but they may pay them to fewer people,’ he added. ‘And it will be harder to get a job. So pretty soon, you might have to have a connection to get a job at Wal-Mart.’”
3 Questions That Arise From This Story
1. Will that connection be a happier person, just like the smiley faces used to brand Wal-Mart? We’re not experts in customer service, but suspect happier employees may improve sales at Wal-Mart. Hey, if a smiling person directed us to the section selling “Books Not Written By Peter Schiff,” we’d probably buy some reading material. Boom! Increased revenue!
2. Has Peter Schiff considered that Wal-Mart may be raising its prices because it is harder to attract and retain employees at Wal-Mart? It seems Peter Schiff is instead arguing that Wal-Mart should hire whoever walks in the door, even if someone wheels in Bernie from Weekend At Bernie’s.
3. How long will it take to disprove the claim that you might need a connection to get a job at Wal-Mart? We’re imagining this will be dis-proven daily, but if we start to see tens of thousands of people from the Walton family working as greeters, we will retract our comments. Unlike Mr. Schiff who never retracts his “the American economy is going to collapse” comments that he’s been making for the past many years, resulting in him getting it right prior to the financial crisis, and wrong ever since that ended.
