That is just not enough to pay for food, rent and and still pay for things like car insurance

Six members of the Walton family own more wealth than the entire bottom 42% of Americans put together, that is 6 people have more than 150 million people put together. It is obscene that they make that wealth while denying full-time employm ent for their employees so they don't have to pay benefits, and paying them so little that it puts them beneath the federal poverty level. Republicans say that the rich make jobs. This is true to a certain extent. But the very wealthy do not use ALL their wealth to make jobs, they horde incredible amounts of it. Since human nature is to be acquisitive, it is up to society to define the limits of tolerable acquisitiveness. Clearly the Waltons and the Gates of this world have crossed those boundaries. == Walmart Worker Speaks Out: Raise the Minimum Wage to Get My Vote Posted: 08/03/2012 9:28 am React Amazing Inspiring Funny Scary Hot Crazy Important Weird Follow Elections 2012 , Veterans , Wal-Mart , 2012 Presidential Election , Mike Duke , Mike Duke Walmart , Minimum Wage , Minimum Wage Increase , Our Walmart , Veterans Jobs , Wage Increase , Miami News . I am family man, I have a wife and I just had a child. I am also a veteran, a Marine who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I now work at Walmart, serving customers every day. While I am excited and appreciative to have a job, I wish that I was paid enough to make ends meet. I currently make $7.70 an hour, three cents more than Florida's minimum wage. At 30 hours per week, that's a little more than $12,000 per year. That is just not enough to pay for food, rent and and still pay for things like car insurance. I don't drive now because I can't afford it. And believe me, it is hard to survive in South Florida without a car. However, not everyone at Walmart makes minimum wage. Mike Duke, our CEO, made $18 million last year. That's close to $9,000 an hour. Many Walmart workers would be happy to make $9 an hour. My co-workers and I formed OUR Walmart (Organization United for Respect at Walmart) because we believe that we deserve better. Walmart made over $25 billion in profit last year, and the six members of the Walton family own more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined. We are coming together to ensure that Walmart, a company that can afford to pay us more, does so. On election day, my vote will go to the politicians leading the fight to raise the minimum wage. I support legislation introduced in the House and Senate to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour and I hope our representatives and senators in South Florida support "raising in the wage" as well. Raising the minimum wage means almost $100 more in my pocket each week. With $100 extra to spend, I could find a better place to live for my family. I could afford car insurance so our family wouldn't have to wait for the bus on a hot Florida summer day. I would have more money to spend at the stores in my neighborhood that are also struggling. It would be the best economic stimulus my neighborhood has seen in a while. I am not asking for a bail-out or a hand out. I am not asking for something that would bankrupt Walmart. If anything, studies have shown that Walmart could raise wages to $12 an hour without needing to significantly raise prices for our customers. All that I am asking is that we recognize that when minimum wage workers do good, we all do good. Raising the minimum wage is the best opportunity we have to get our economy back on track. Will you stand with me in restoring the American Dream for minimum wage workers like me? ==

Pamela K. Taylor wrote I'd love to hear some proposals on wealth taxes rather than income taxes, so everyone pays a percentage on their assets subtracting basic necessities such as a home to live in, a car for each person of driving age within a family... or to c ontemplate the notion of wage structuring... for instance, CEO's are only allowed to make, say, 100% of what their least paid employee makes... that or a much more progressive version of the current tax system. And I really don't have any problem with people having even a few hundred million, it's when they own billions and billions that they and their descendents can't ever possibly spend all of while the very people who help them get those riche s can't afford a CAR, or are working in sweatshops in Asian, Africa or South America... that's where I start saying, we can't legislate morality, but we can legislate away the effects of immorality. Gates did give a lot to malaria prevention /eradication efforts... but his website makes it quite clear they do not give to American organizations, which seems quite wrong headed to me.... besides he gave away 40 billion dollars, which leaves him with 40 billion more. I'd be more impressed with his generosity if he didn't keep so very much for his own self. I think people are competitive regardless. Look at all the Olympic athletes, why do they compete since they are not (most of them) getting rich off of it? It gives us pleasure to compete.