Jason Arment, English major, expressed his opinion July 6 in the Iowa State Daily saying “Stop shopping at Wal-Mart.” He said, “Trickle-down economics is for suckers.”

Wal-Mart is the biggest employer in America now. I’m sure all those employees would not mind being unemployed, Jason — our daughter is one such person.

When I was an English major at good old Iowa State, the joke was that we all had to practice saying, “Would you like fries with that, sir?” And back then we could at least hope for a job in journalism, but now that employment opportunity is drying up too.

Arment objects to Wal-Mart’s CEO making the big bucks. Does he also object to Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks making $20 million a picture? Would he be just as happy to see Julia Throckmorton, Tom Shuttleforth or Tom Ackley playing those parts and being paid far less?

I guess you see my point. If you are not worth it, you won’t get paid to do the job. If your name is Walton, I could understand the envy or jealousy, but none of the family members run Wal-Mart now.

In 1967 Sam Walton began as the mom and pop business type Arment recommends. He was successful. He grew. All the mom and pop stores have to do is copy Walton’s business model and work hard.

Why did Arment not attack Target? It is huge, and also has a well-paid CEO.

How about the CEO of Principal or Ruan or any of the Fortune 500 companies? Microsoft is coming to Des Moines and bringing many jobs; why not attack them too? Let us dismantle Microsoft, and go back to when computers cost $3,000 each just 25 years ago. That’s the kind of trickle down I can relate to.

English majors have the fun from their studies and the fun of criticizing successful companies, but I doubt you will ever see such a critical opinion from an ISU business major. He or she might actually get hired by Wal-Mart, Target or Microsoft one day just as our daughter was.