WALMART RAISES BAR

Wall Street Lawyer Sees New Model For Walmart and Other U.S. Corporations

By Sylvia Bippy CPW News Service

     Wall Street Lawyer, Benjamin R. Screwge, believes that the Thanksgiving push for contributions to Walmart employees is a fore curser of an ever evolving business model.

     “We have seen many hybrid organizations in recent years that combine the best aspects of For-profit and Not-for-profit organizations.  In the past, these organizations have had to watch very carefully to separate their disparate functions.  However, in a highly volatile and competitive business culture that since, for example, the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act which following the Great Depression separated banking and investing functions until the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999, things have gone a bit haywire.   Without Glass-Steagall a new period of blending of seemingly incompatible business models found them vernalizing like Dandelions ,” said Screwge not addressing the issue of how deregulation had reinstituted devious business practices such as those of Enron, WorldCom and other scandals as well as the 2008 housing bubble and credit default swap fiasco that led to the Hank Paulson "bailout" while recipients of the bailout gave their executives record compensation and severance packages. 

     “Recent Supreme Court decisions favoring this more flexible business climate have also helped to set the stage for Walmart’s recent decision to ask the public to support its employees.  President Obama's administration in not reinstating Glass-Steagall has left the door wide open for the 2016 arrival of a Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush whose platforms will unleash the pent up funding for these new blended companies and their allied bankers.  WIth 2 tenths of one percent of the 'too big to fail banks' holding 70% of America's wealth, the rise in the new Walmart model will be a slam-dunk,” said Screwge who added...."The times they are 'a changing."

     “In the future we will see companies like Walmart using their wholly owned non-profit subsidiaries as a social network supporting their For-profit operations.  In the past companies have created non-profit subsidiaries....for example....health care companies that want to oppose a national healthcare program, but not appear greedy.  They give something to the non-profit to cover indigents and run that up the PR flagpole to deflect criticism.  Walmart's approach works a bit in reverse.  I would look for this social networking, non-profit side of the business to offer support to paying customers. For example, helping with people looking for products within the store, helping with bagging items and pointing people to self-checkout counters or helping them find things that are in boxes on pallets, but with the social non-profit networkers' help are placed on a shelf and therefore easier for their new friends to find.  The 'social networkers' will be rewarded with free rations of donated food stuffs and an occasional piece of clothing,” said Screwge.

     While the business side of the model could contribute to the non-profit side, corporations that contribute to charities can only receive a 10% deduction while individuals receive a 50% deduction making the modeling of Walmart’s 2013 Thanksgiving push for donations a “more responsible way to educate the American public about the power of giving.   Corporations may be a 'person', but they don't share in a human's tax deduction advantage.  It also underscores the power that individuals have to eclipse the claims of the good work of For-profit corporations.  A good For-profit/Not-For-Profit Corporation could ideally run an organization with 95% of its social-networking donation-receiving recipients and a 5% For-profit employee "overseer" mix thus putting huge smiles on stockholders' faces,” said Screwge.  "Like good Boy Scouts helping people to cross the street, many will hang out at Walmart out of a deep sense of social responsibility," said Screwge.  "The social networker and donation recipients should feel so superior to the 5% on the company payrollees knowing that the company is only 1/5th as effective in delivering charity to the needy," said Screwge.

     Gary, Indiana's NeuCorp Iron Smelters are looking to put this model to work in their blast furnaces where they believe that social networkers receiving free coffee can also help clean oxygen injectors, watch gauges and pour ingots.   They will also be receiving free heating in the winter just by standing near the open doors of the blast furnace.  These social-networkers will be able to perform ancillary functions which in the past were prohibited by OSHA.