Politics and Money

[Elroy Jetson]

Wal-Mart is a leading example of those who have forgotten the purpose of a business. More likely they they stopped caring.

Their employee costs they shift onto the taxpayer, through Medicaid and Food Stamps, are far larger than their reported profits - which is to say Wal-Mart is seriously unprofitable.


For the Walton family, Wal-Mart is merely an embezzlement scheme, disguised as a business for public relations purposes.

It is well to remember "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity", as laid out by Carlo Cipolla. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dA-ZoY25k0PWtG2ffjHBBt3iWp0yJN1E1sa31Q-zcgo/edit?pli=1

From the upper-left we see: the Helpless; the Intelligent; the Bandits; and the Stupid.

While the Bandits merely steal from others, the Stupid create damage far larger than the profits they create for themselves. In fact the truly Stupid will often create harm to others and to themselves in equal measure. The Walton family are border-line Bandit-Stupid people, shown as B2 in the graphic.



1.) • Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2.) • The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3.) • A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4.) • Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.