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“Let’s imagine, though, a perfectly altruistic Wal-Mart, a Wal-Mart that took every bit of its net income and returned it directly to the employees. We shall forget, for the moment, that this would also drop Wal-Mart’s stock price to zero (no dividend and no possibility of growth means no reason to invest). We shall also forget that our new firm—call it Charity-Mart—will entirely lack the ability to meet unforseen contingencies. We shall even put out of our minds the imminent dissolution of the firm, which would surely be the result of this disastrous policy. Hey, whatever. Imagine no possessions and all that. . . . So here are the numbers, if we returned absolutely everything Wal-Mart made to the employees:
“10.267 billion net income / 1.6 million employees = A one-time cash payoff of . . . $6,626.25. Which they will have to spend wisely, since they will momentarily be out of a job.” (Read the whole thing; the comments are intelligent and civil as well.)
