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Which is more important to Wall Street, money or evilness? (Economics)

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 05:58

Here we have another article about the ongoing criticisms Costco gets from Wall Street analysts. The company's problem isn't that it's not making money, because it is. Despite its profitability, financial houses are worried that the company treats its employees too well.

"He has been too benevolent," she said. "He's right that a happy employee is a productive long-term employee, but he could force employees to pick up a little more of the burden."

It's generally assumed that Wall Street treasures money above all else, but this case would seem to cast that axiom into doubt. Could it be that they value poverty (of others) over wealth? Is there any other way to interpret such a statement?

Costco vs. Walmart
by Linknoid (2005-07-20 06:50)

Having grown up on the west coast where Costco is much more prevalent (ok, so I haven't seen one in the midwest, period), I heard good things about working at Costco when I was younger. We did a large portion of our shopping there exclusively. I don't think I ever stepped in a Walmart in California until I got out of college. Costco does have a membership fee, so since I was only doing occasional shopping with no job, I had no way to use Costco, so I had to explore other options. If you don't like anything else about them, they have really good muffins.

But related to the point of the actual article, I think what they're saying is they want the big discrepancy between the haves and the have nots. They don't see him as greedy enough, he disrupts their culture of CEOs getting 10s or 100s of millions of dollars a year.

Good place to work
by Kiesa (2005-07-20 07:34)

Costco is a good place to work. One of my friend's husband works at Costco and makes enough money to actually live on it (River's father - from the wedding). I personally find it very impressive. If Costco was just a smidgen closer, I would shop at it.

Wall Street
by Yanthor (2005-07-20 16:48)

I would content that Wall Street doesn't believe anything, at least not in the way you are characterizing it.

The so-called "Wall Street" industry, is as complex and multi-faceted as our country is. Just like you have a hard time saying "America believes in abortion." At best you might be able to say something like, "58% of Americans believe in a woman's right to have an abortion and 68% do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned."

"Wall Street" is made up of millions of companies, people, reporters, and individual investors. Each with their own religion, political beliefs, etc.

I think it would be safer to say that that article's author questions whether Costco employees are paid too well, not "Wall Street".

Clarification
by Yanthor (2005-07-20 17:00)

I suppose, now that I think about it some more, this does involve the need to define some terms.

I generally use and hear the term "Wall Street" in reference to the entire financial and securities industries.

In the article where the guy made the quote, "On Wall Street, they're in the business of making money between now and next Thursday" In this quote, he is using the term "Wall Street" to refer to a subset of financial analysts and stock day traders who only care about the short term.

There are HUGE sectors of "Wall Street" the industry who care about the long term. Millions of private investors, mutual funds, and companies looking for buyout targets who want well-built companies which are going to be good long-term investments.

The business buzzword "Destination Employer" means exactly what Costco is trying to do. Make a business which is so nice to work for, nobody leaves.