Any effort to bring art to those who don't traditionally have access to it is a plus in my book.

...by sucking the lifeblood out of some small midwest town.

has ever had including those of WWII

Their business and the Koch bros have done more harm to us on our soil than any enemy ever

in Bentonville, Arkansas? OK, so that's a few thousand people.

I think it might make a little more sense to actually pay their employees in ALL states so they can enjoy things like local museums in the areas in which they live. Do you really think everyone making $7/hr is going to pack up the RV and head to Arkansas this summer?

Surely it's bigger than that (just checked, it's metro area is listed at 500,000).

And that is an area of the country without any high quality museums. In addition to all those rural areas, there are several medium sized cities within a half-days drive that I can think of -- Kansas City, Tulsa, Little Rock and Springfield, MO. Even St Louis, Memphis and Dallas are less than a 6 hour drive from there.

I'm not supporting Walmart by any stretch; but I do think that providing access to an incredible museum / art experience to an area where it is traditionally unavailable is worthy of praise.

that if Walmart paid a living wage to ALL their employees they could enjoy their lives more wherever they live. Why did you intentionally try to steer the conversation away from wages?

You tried to steer it toward wages.

Art for All is a wonderful thing!

Slave wages is a terrible thing!

Both of these statements are true.

to the conversation. Tied them together. It wasn't that much of a logical jump: if ALL Walmart employees were paid decently they could enjoy the museums in their own hometowns. One museum in Arkansas does not serve "ALL".

Enjoy your stay comrade.

That the museum has made a wonderful collection of art available to many people who traditionally wouldn't have access to it? And that is a good thing, no?

I suspect every single poster here has a negative opinion of Walmart because of their destructive, greed-driven business practices.

which is it? Trying to excuse the Walton family "because art museum!" or condemn them for profiting off a shoddy business?

Bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things. The two issues don't cancel one another out.

it's very transparent.

What difference do Chinese prison labor and Indian child workers, a few thousand gutted communities, a few hundred thousand bankrupt family businesses and a few million miserable employees bowing to the Dread God Big BOHICA make compared with this amazing generosity, huh, Mr. Visigoth Art Hater??!?!!??

if we expropriated 99% of these rent-sucking parasites' wealth, leaving them with millions of dollars each to enjoy their lives.

The foundation has also poured roughly $1 billion into the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., a museum headed up by Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

Here are some key findings from the report, which examined 23 years of the foundation's activities:

Rob and Alice Walton (the son and daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton) made zero individual contributions to the Foundation during the 23 years examined


So to answer your question.... no.

please inform yourself.

That's probably their logic.

Last edited Thu Jun 5, 2014, 01:40 AM - Edit history (1)

The fact that they get positive PR out of those little scams is irksome.

Shows just how despicable they are. They want to cheat, lie, and steal and then adored.

Yay billionaires!

They exercise enormous influence over the development of society.

They are how the robber barons co-opt, capture and turn progressive and charitable consciousness.

Sometimes, they are used to undermine democracy and wage covert war abroad in classic CIA fashion.

They exert far too much influence and really got smart and co-opted the left. Straight out of the gilded age. I actually was banned from another democratic board for pointing out the lies in yet another PR puff piece about Gates and his wife in Africa. One person called me a misogynist for implying that Mrs. Gates was on board with the agenda. I can't believe how easily people fall for it.

If Jim Walton made a $3 million contribution to the foundation and the total of all contributions is $6.4 million, that's almost 50% in itself.

Not to defend these bloodsuckers, but you'd think business insider would check their math a little closer.

The Walton heirs have given a total of $6.4 million in personal contributions to the charity, which represents only 0.13% of the total amount of the charity. Jim Walton's $3 million is part of the $6.4 million.

The majority of the money donated to the charity has come from special trusts that were set up to allow the Walton's to use loopholes to avoid paying estate taxes.

Make yourself a board member, schedule board meetings in exotic places, deduct all your expenses as "charitable expenses".

Much like being a board member at a corporation like Marriott (Mittwit). Or Walmart (Hillary)

of a very small local 501(c)3 organization - but a few bucks in mileage and $0.50 parking didn't make much difference!

Last edited Thu Jun 5, 2014, 12:13 AM - Edit history (2)

Like the rest of the billionaire "philanthropic" foundations, it is devoted to the pet social engineering projects of its founder and controllers. This one is most heavily involved in sustaining the corporate school reform.

http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/educationreform

This bogus movement, a war on teachers and children and the public education system, is largely the product of financing from Walton, Gates and the Broads. While there is a lot of neoliberal logic driving it, one wonders how powerful it would be without the ample foundation money creating most of the astroturf for it.

It makes no difference whether the Waltons put their swag into more luxury homes or a pretend charity. Either way, they are making the world a worse place. It doesn't even matter if the charity does good. They shouldn't have the money in the first place.

No one should wield this kind of money as a private individual. 99.999% of it should be expropriated through a 100% inheritance tax above a few million in assets. I'm not a fan of the state owning anything, so we need to come up with models of collective ownership of capital at the levels of localities, regions, industries, states and nations. Foundations should exist: but as bodies under the control of larger collectives than the whims of some robber baron who decides it's time to play "philanthropist" and reshape society according to his singular vision -- which almost inevitably means, according to his own economic interest disguised as some charitable project (like the Gates' promotion of more tech in education).

Who says they, or Gates, or Bloomberg, or Rockefellers, should decide what society becomes simply because they or their parents or their great-grandparents were successful in gathering wealth under the capitalist system? Fuck them all. They are the wealth hoarders.

I think they don't pay better wages and benefits to their millions of emoyees is because the other billionaire retailers would come down on them for changi g the economics of retailing for the better.

I believe Costco has proven that a goodxwage and benefits is possible for huge retail operations.

if the Waltons also call themselves Christians.

But I would probably get banned. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!