Three C words: Capitalism, Consumerism and Costco

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that the fact that the ultra-wealthy exist and still want more wealth, is really just the only issue. Like if there weren’t a bunch of extremely powerful people constantly complaining about how the government sucks, we could probably have a government that does good things.

And it works directly with people like bezos keeping his employees barely above subsistence so that he could maybe become a trillionaire, but also indirectly with nearly all large corporations being majority owned by a relatively small number of individuals/institutions that constantly threaten to ruin the company unless they pay employees the absolute minimum.

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Even worse, in this country, that kind of greed is seen as a virtue, not a vice.

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All companies should be run like Costco and REI. Customers first, then employees, then shareholders.

There should be tax incentives to encourage this kind of behavior, instead of incentives to do the opposite.

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Curious, how so? They seem to pay their employees a living wage and there’s a lot of upward mobility. For years when we were fighting for a $15 min wage (which is too low now) costco was my go-to example for a company that paid their employees well and still were enormously profitable.

Ah, gotcha, thanks. Maybe they’re able to pay their employees well because they take part in predatory business practices.

I wonder if there’s a good example of a large company that does it “right?” Like, they’re environmentally conscious, they pay their employees well, they don’t use predatory business practices, provide a great service, etc.

Apple Computers c.1986

Isn’t this kind of what we want government to do in providing universal health care? Use its scale and power to put people/customers first?

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so costco is … (squints at notes) lowering prices by squeezing their suppliers’ profit margins? And this is… bad?

It’s bad for the suppliers

yeah so what

Who are also large employers, and therefore bad for wages.

I’m not judging one way or another, but every business model that is in any way disruptive is gonna upset somebody. Its perfectly reasonable to favor the constituency of consumers but it also shouldn’t be surprising that somebody doesn’t like the outcome.

who said I’m concerned with either?

if the supplier can’t pay their employees then they need to be in a different business perhaps?

“costco is cutting the margin of their suppliers” and “those suppliers employees are going to die in a ditch” are not logically connected

like, sorry the CEO of la Croix won’t be able to buy a 4th mountain cabin

this is essentially the “if we raise minimum wage then McDonalds cheeseburger will cost $19” argument in reverse

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WELL WHERE THE HELL IS HE SUPPOSED TO PUT HIS 4TH EX WIFE THEN ANSWER ME THAT MR SMARTY PANTS!

It’s this that results in some sort of equilibrium. Some purchasing organisations (eg in the UK the NHS) have such a huge purchasing power that if they try to nail down some suppliers to rock bottom prices they’ll put them out of business.

Recognition of this means they effectively become partners as there’s a mutual dependency.

Wtf?! Reads thread about how Costco sucks, immediately gets shown article on how to cancel you membership. Can I just upload my subconscious to an amazon cloud and give them some parameters for my budget and just have AI buy and send me everything I need including food yet?

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It’s bad for the world. You’re part of that.

If the suppliers can’t figure out that they can’t supply socks for $X without going bankrupt and yet agree to do it, seems like they’re pretty bad at their jobs.