Mister Sam would be ashamed

        Just how wealthy is the Wal-Mart Walton family?

 This from Politifact:

     On Nov. 27, 2013, a Madison-based liberal advocacy group used a mass email to promote protests that were planned against Walmart stores for two days later -- Black Friday.  The demonstrations aimed to "expose Wal-Mart’s shameful labor practices and support workers," according to One Wisconsin Now, which then made this claim: "The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."

     That reminded us of a March 2011 claim by filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore.  He said in a Madison speech that 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined, a statement we rated True.  Based on online hits, it became one of our most popular fact-checks ever. So we wondered about the Walmart claim.

     In the days before and after Black Friday, leaders no less prominent than President Barack Obama and Pope Francis decried the extent of income disparity in the United States and around the world. Obama called the growing income gap a "defining challenge of our time." The pope said that while the earnings of a minority "are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."

Walmart, of course, is a big target.

    According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as “Mostly True”  a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies.

     Walmart was founded by the late Sam Walton, who opened the first store in Arkansas in 1962. Walmart incorporated in 1969 and became a publicly traded company a year later. So, Wal-Mart is not family owned, but rather owned by its stockholders; on the other hand, according to Bloomberg and other news reports, the Walton family members still have control of the company, owning about half of the shares.

Using the Forbes 400 list for 2013, that the wealth of six of Sam Walton’s descendants has continued to grow. Here are their rankings and their wealth:

No. 6 Christy Walton (daughter-in-law), $35.4 billion
No. 7: Jim Walton (son), $33.8 billion
No. 8: Alice Walton (daughter), $33.5 billion
No. 9: S. Robson Walton (son), $33.3 billion
No. 95: Ann Walton Kroenke (niece), $4.7 billion
No. 110: Nancy Walton Laurie (niece), $4 billion

             Total Walton family wealth: $144.7 billion.

Our (Politifact’s): rating

     One Wisconsin Now wrote: "The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."

For comparison purposes, the latest data available, for 2010, the figure is 41.5 percent.  We rate the statement True

I post this to say the following with evidentiary backup:

 There are wealthier Americans than The Walton heirs. There are

some of them (rhymes with Koch Brothers) who spend huge

amounts of it on political campaigns to support political whores

they hope will be inclined to produce legislation or fight regulation

that might reduce their (the Koch’s)  humongously bloated personal

balance sheets. Then there are Bill and Melinda  Gates, Warren

Buffett and others (like the builder Arnold Fisher, building

traumatic brain injury centers for vets)  , not necessarily “liberal”

but genuinely  humane Americans who realize how well off they

are and at the same time how disparate are their lives and those of

the average citizen. These humanitarians have given away literally

billions of their personal wealth to help deserving causes, here and

around the globe.

I defy anyone to show significant charity and/or compassion shown

by the Walton heirs. Other than large political contributions to far

rightists, they are largely invisible. What is truly troubling to me is

that Mister Sam Walton was, by all accounts a sweet, gentle and

compassionate man. The first Walmarts proudly proclaimed “Made

in America” on large signs over displays of merchandise.  Just try

to find one now.

Instead of supporting American companies,  Walmart has driven

some of them (Rubber Maid is an excellent example) to shift

manufacturing overseas. Shame on them, and shame on Mister

Sam’s greedy, do nothing heirs.

I’ll close with part of another article on these spoiled wastrel

children:

“Quite a few billionaires, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates,

have pledged to give away almost all of their fortunes to charity.

The Waltons take a different approach. They have decided to hoard

as much of their fortunes as possible. They have decided to use

each and every tax loophole possible in order to keep their money

in their own family, and not to allow the public to claim a single

dollar more in taxes than they absolutely have to. In Bloomberg

today, Zachary Mider has an excellent in-depth report today on the

strategies the Walton family uses to avoid estate and inheritance

taxes on their fortune, which has been built on the backs of

extremely low-paid workers. One of their favorite techniques:

establishing a type of charitable trust that can shelter money from

taxes, and later put that money back into the pockets of family

heirs. Sometimes, with a profit!

 If the trust’s investments outperform that benchmark rate, then the

extra earnings pass to the designated heirs free of any estate tax.

With a big enough spread between the actual performance and the

IRS rate, this trust can theoretically save so much tax that it leaves

a family richer than if it hadn’t given a dime to charity...

     So the next time you hear about how fabulous the Walton family's opulent new art museum is, or how much money the Walton family has given to land conservation, remember that all of that charity is part and parcel of a structure designed expressly to hoard billions of dollars within this one single family, and to avoid paying the normal tax rates that have been levied for the purpose of a tiny step towards equality. And also remember that all of the millions and millions of workers who made those billions and billions of dollars possible are trapped in a world of low wages, and are prevented from unionizing and bettering their own situation by the zealous efforts of Wal-Mart.

The Walton family's very existence is an insult to the American dream.