As for Target, they have a distribution center here in WI – nothing to brag about.

I’m switching jobs. Let someone else wait tables for utter pricks.

(I’m not bitter.)

Roun’ these here parts, poor folks shop at Wal mart. Wealthy but frugal Republicans like myself, shop at Costco. And some military can retire at 20 years at about half salary – which isn’t much but is good for only 20. I didn’t.

Pionar,

Point taken.

I would’ve guessed a military pension would let you eat a little better, Dug.

Via Oliver Willis: In this article from the NYT’s, Jim Sinegal, the chief executive of Costo Wholesale asserts that;Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco s customers,

Dugger

I file them under “ethical” and “tasty”.

Wall Street is all about the performance of the stocks, period, end of story.

Well, not quite the end of the story, JD. Wall Street is all about the future performance of corporations. When investors buy shares, they’re buying a portion of the corporation’s future earnings and dividends. If investors think a company’s future earnings are going to grow rapidly, they’ll pay more for a stock. If they believe the company’s earnings are going to grow slowly or even decline, they’ll pay less.

As it happens, the management of Costco has a theory of how to make the company’s earnings grow more quickly. Wall Street analysts like the one quoted in the story, think this theory is wrong.

Wall Street investors see it differently:

IF shareholders mind Mr. Sinegal’s philosophy, it is not obvious: Costco’s stock price has risen more than 10 percent in the last 12 months, while Wal-Mart’s has slipped 5 percent. Costco shares sell for almost 23 times expected earnings; at Wal-Mart the multiple is about 19.Mr. Dreher said Costco’s share price was so high because so many people love the company. “It’s a cult stock,” he said.

This is because the electorate votes for people that pander to corporations at the expense of the worker.

First, the campaign finance system needs to be reformed, to take away the influence that corporations have over policy.

Second, some real progressives need to be elected, who can bring issues like living wages, union protection, pension guarantees, and socialized healthcare into the public debate.

The modern Democrat has been no alternative to the Republicans when it comes to these issues, so the debate turns to wedge issues, like abortion and gay marriage, which are really not anything government should involve themselves in.

I think most liberals would LOVE to talk about living wage legislation, but they won’t get campaign financing if they do. And the self-financed candidates are too wealthy to understand the poor, for the most part.

It kills me when some Walmart employee making $6/hr, who can’t afford healthcare, votes for some NeoCon because they don’t want gay people to get married. Seems to me we should be offering them a real alternative.

Sam’s? Walmart? Well, it’s cheap, that’s all they’ll say.

The last remark about alturism vs business sums up what I learned in an intro business course, basically that altruism has no place in business. It’s not charity. Obviously Sinegal sees that treating workers well makes those workers happier than their counterparts at other stores, which translates into better customer service and employees that actually give a damn.