on the other hand, more Americans own stock than ever more, so more Americans than ever before are "benefitting" from corporate cost-cutting. similarly, although Wal-Mart -type stores do not help American workers, they do greatly aid American consumers, and there are more American consumers than workers.

Which is not to excuse American corporate behavior. I want to echo what NWAOldtimer said. Che Guevara!

Guess they didn't get the message ....
 

According to an article in yesterday's San Francisco (right in the heart of Lalaland) Chronicle, 11,000 people have applied for 400 jobs at a new WalMart in Oakland, CA.

So in Oakland there are 27X as many people willing & wanting to work at a Walmart as are needed, and tens of thousand more who will benefit from the low prices. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Owning stock does not equal a benfit. The major index(s) are lower than what there were was at the turn of the century, which means $$ lost as a stock owner (on average.) This does not count if you received any dividends, but most likely most portfolios would have earned more $$ in a bank, or even in your pocket. Ownership in loseing company/fund=money gone forever.

I think that the above comment reeks at best of naiveté and at worst of duplicity for the sake of making a rather extreme argument. Try visiting a real sweatshop sometime to give yourself some perspective. It is a term far too often bandied about to characterize any workplace that entails manual labor and what some consider to be low or unfair pay when in reality it should only be applied to places where true abuse of workers takes place.

I don't disagree one bit that the income gap is widening and a lot of self-serving BS is spurning this trend forward to an uneccessary extent. I don't think that discouraging entrepreneurialism or capitalism is the solution however depite my own social and fiscal liberalism.

I especially don't think that broad discussion of the US income gap is relevant in this thread since it unnecessarily broadens the scope of the discussion to a point where it gets off-track and completely dilutes relevant information about NW.

peace,
~Ben~

Baloney.

For starters, most portfolios receive dividends, so you've pretty much discounted your analysis from the top as not applying to most investors.

Average return from U.S. stock market 1926 - 1999: 11%

You'll never beat that at a bank.

If by "turn of the century" you mean 2000, you're too shortsighted. Anyone who is investing for only 5 years stands a good chance of losing.

NW Strike? Yes or No?
 

Just a simple yes or no required. Cast your vote with one word! Let's see what FT members think...

Yes. Why? Because NWA apparently thinks so. An hour ago someone I know just got a call from NWA telling them that their flight had been cancelled and they'd been re-booked on AA.

sure there will be a strike. And they will be at the picket lines for a while. Hope they (both the Mechanics and the FA's if they join) have a big strike fund.

(Yes)

Yes..

..no..

Yes..

(yes)

Strike?
 

Yes--

*yes*