I've hit my restart button so many times, but have failed only because I procrastinate. Now, if only there was an easy pill I could take. I have to say, shaking off laziness and procrastination is one of the hardest things to do. Motivation is there, goals are there, but I find I get overwhelmed and then put things off. I find myself thinking at times, "it's too hard!" But that just gives me an excuse to put it off again. Hmmm. It would be nice to be able to figure out psychologically why procrastinators can never seem to get anything done, even with the best of intentions.

GOOD EXEMPLE TO FOLLOW

5% would go to charity

I believe that everyone should have this type of success. This adrenaline of success is what I get up for despite of all the negative bias, wars, financial crashes, The Great Recession, and other hurricanes. Take Nikola Tesla, a man who out of nowhere defeated Thomas Edison from nothing but a joke Edison told Tesla. I will keep on pressing the restart button as many times as I have to. Running a business is one of few ways to get successful, rich, and proud about your life. Good thing I am a "spring chicken".

For me this the phrase that changed me.

"Everyone wants to be rich, but no one wants to work for it"

It is maybe tied for my love of simulation/strategy games and games that have no end or require immense thought, because every time I play I want to play until I am bored, that is satisfaction for me knowing that got the value out the game. I personally dislike games that have a set campaign because it is always someone's story. Maybe I will create a game were YOU write the story. I will create a business that fulfills me life to happiness no matter the cost. Dang I might just have to sign a contract for security. Because as you know Job Security is a illusion, I know that I am just as likely to lose my job as my business so I believe "whats the point of a job" even though we would suffer from the "Too many Chiefs not enough Indians" I believe we are in a "Too many Indians not enough Chiefs"Job market.

Say Joshua, do you ever get bored with you business, or is like a never ending exciting game?

Great article, especially the last part about not quitting.

If all you care about is money, then Wal-Mart is definately for you...Such a horrible outfit...The Waltons truly believe they can "take it with them".  I go out of my way to NOT buy from Wal-Mart regardless if it costs more. P.S- Not everything in Wal-Mart is cheaper.

I tend to like, and even feel affection, for Walmart for one simple reason. If you are the typical American family, they save you $1,500 to $2,000 per year.

To an honest, hard working school janitor who is doing the best he can for his kids, or to a young, single mother working double shifts at a diner, that is real money. That is money that can make life much better; pay for a vacation, get a new television, purchase school supplies, or cover car repairs.

To someone like me, that isn't a lot of money. I am fortunate, and blessed, enough to not have to worry about putting food on the table or paying health care costs.

For me to condemn them as being "greedy", or to criticize Walmart for actions that directly benefit the poorest of the poor, is a special type of arrogance and elitism. It is easy for me to make such condemnations. Those families are making economic choices that are rational to their situations. They can't afford Fair Trade coffee or Made in the USA furniture. What are they supposed to do?

If someone can't compete against Walmart, they should go into a different line of business. The horse and buggy manufacturers said the same thing when Henry Ford made the car affordable to the masses. Not everything is so simple. It's easy to tell people they should behave differently, especially when one has the luxury of not having to worry about the consequences.

Joshua, you are a bit confused about the Ford and Walton business plans.

Henry Ford found ways to be innovative such as requiring parts' suppliers to ship parts to the Ford plants in containers meeting certain specifications so they could be used as a part of the current model being built such as floors or door panels. But Henry Ford is better known for his innovative policy of paying his employees much above the going rate of pay in order to create a market for automobiles Ford was building. His competitors hated him because they had to raise the wages of their employees.

The Waltons, on the other hand, don't give a damn about their employees or perhaps I should note, they teach their employees how to go to the government for food stamps, medical assistance, etc. in order to keep body and soul together. The Walton family members could very well limit their profit taking to merely obscene amounts and pay their employees enough to provide food, shelter, and medical care for their families.

The Waltons insist on keeping their employees poverty stricken so they have no where to go, as opposed to Henry Ford who paid enough to encourage his employees to enjoy a better life style. I am not saying that Henry Ford was a paragon of virtue, but compared with the Waltons, he was god.

Did you ask ALL Walmart associates if they are on government assistance? I think not. I have never accepted a handout, or government assistance. Walmart is a great company with good wages and great benefits. Maybe people like you need to do your research and not speak off hear-say!

I get what you're saying; I do. It's not that I'm confused - believe me when I say I am intimately familiar with both empires - the problem is that a discussion about the issue requires tens of thousands of words and will get into a lot of economic and financial information that would be easier to talk about in person.

The short version is this: Given the current operating margins at Wal-Mart, and the price points of its competitors in the market, there is absolutely no way Wal-Mart could pay living wages to its employees and avoid a massive fiduciary problem from its owners (half of whom are not the Walton family as it's one of the biggest stocks in the S&P 500; odds are). I explain the mechanics of the underlying cause in this analysis contrasting Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart Stores. It has to do with a financial metric known as "operating profit per employee".

In the final analysis, I can see no way, none, for Wal-Mart to offer substantially higher wages short of a national increase in the minimum wage that affects all of its competitors at the same time so the competitive effects are not problematic. Henry Ford did not have this problem given the nature of the market share and operating margins per employee that were in effect at the time he made the decision you reference.

The other issues involve a psychological phenomenon that results in people seeing Wal-Mart as the problem, when the same situation existed prior to its rise, it was simply dispersed among many more employers, making it difficult to pinpoint a single one.

Some point to Costco, which has a high-wage, low-turnover model. It works there because the clubhouses are membership only and backed by billions of dollars in annual fees, which augment the existing pricing strategy and offer different products than you can get from Big Lots or the neighborhood grocery store. An apples-to-apples comparison doesn't work on the SKU and financial statement levels.

The problem is only going to get worse for Wal-Mart workers, for what it's worth, because a significant percentage of sales over the past few decades has come from things such as software, music, video games, books, etc. Now, all of those products are being digitized in a direct-to-consumer model, cutting out the middle of the distribution chain (Wal-Mart), which will require, if my thesis turns out to be correct based on the evidence I see buried in the 10Ks of those industries as they reconfigure their models, some changes in the average store size and / or total employees per location as the population growth isn't sufficient to offset what I think is going to be significant product mix shift necessitated by technology.

And then there is the thing that is discussed in private among economists and academics but rarely admitted in public: It's generally considered a bad idea to have a society in which menial, low-skill work can earn a wage sufficient to support a family as the jobs are meant to be filled by temporary workers (e.g., college students and newly divorced spouses) as a stop-gap to skill improvement. Human nature being what it is, these types of employment slots are absolutely vital to a thriving economy and the unspoken point is to make them somewhat unappealing. In other words, corner a decent, respected economist and he'll finally admit that no one is supposed to work a checkout line for more than 3 or 4 years of their life. If, after years, someone hasn't moved up or acquired other human capital, the general consensus is they - I know this sounds horrible, but it's what is said when the door is closed - "get what they deserve". (Keep in mind, when discussing policy decisions, most of these people are not cruel or uncaring, they are thinking about the overall national economy like a well-functioning clock without any concern for the individual cogs as the well-being over the overall system must take primacy, just like the Supreme Court is concerned with precedent and constitutional consistency, not justice.)

That aside, the Waltons couldn't limit their profit taking unilaterally. The other 50% owners - the pension funds, unions, private investors, universities, and other stockholders - would throw management out following the first drop in long-term continuing operating profit and put someone in place who keeps making the earnings figures climb higher. It's not a private business. Their opinion is not the only one that matters. People would be especially wary of a major business model change given the destruction of J.C. Penney, which has retail investors, in general, terrified at the moment.

Granted, I'm not saying any of this is right, or even advisable; just that it is far more complicated than you are factoring into the equation, with various constituencies and macroeconomic forces influencing the incentive system that leads to the current status quo.

Regardless, the economist in me can't help but recognize the sheer fact that Walmart saves American families, in the aggregate, far more in groceries and household supplies than it costs in low wages to its employees, who represent a mere fraction of the population base. That's yet another complicating factor, especially since those savings accrue to the poor and working poor as the rich don't tend to shop there (I'm no exception - I opt for an employee-owned grocery store where prices are higher because I like that they get a better standard of living and I can buy ridiculously expensive imported cheeses and fresh ingredients.) It seems arrogant of me to tell more than a hundred million working families to pay more they can't afford so a handful of jobs designed to be transient in nature can become permanent employment. I just don't think I have that level of hubris in me because I'm far removed from the day-to-day struggles the working class faces.

On a personal and moral level, I would not agree with your analysis of Ford being a paragon of virtue. He had his good points, but in a lot of ways, the man was a complete jackass. Between his personal bigotry and some of his behavior, he is not someone I think a person should seek to emulate in a lot of ways. Sam Walton, on the other hand, was a far better man (the company that now carries his name is radically different than the one he left when he died roughly a quarter-of-a-century ago and I can't speak to the behavior of his heirs or firm today as I do have some criticism of some of the actions that have taken place over the past few years), with a far better personal reputation, and a much better legacy with his own children and grandchildren.

less than 5% foreign in all Wal*Mart's in China....

enough said....

Great article!  I am going to work for a holding company beginning next week.  I am VERY excited about it!

Thank you.  Welcome to the site!  I hope your work experience turns out to be everything you dreamed (and more).