For those of you in the New England-area, this might be old news, but I really think we could have a good discussion here on the Market Basket supermarket protests in the New England area. here is a good overview on what's happening: http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...ry_workers_are_rallying_around_their_ceo.html Basically you have a CEO who runs his business the right way. The "old-school" way of allowing employees to make a decent living: "Employees have been relatively well-compensated. Manager pay often climbs above six figures after years of service. Cashiers with experience can make over $40,000, and full-time clerks start at $12 an hour, the Boston Globe Reports" He also allowed stipends for workers that were college students, gave great benefits, bonuses, vacation, etc... In turn his employees would stick around, they had uncommon longevity of employees. All of this without a union. He was also very successful. Along with their better customer service, he charged less I guess for groceries making the place an attractive place to shop. They grew and grew over the years, had little to no-debt, he and the shareholders all became rich. But- of course in this era of corporate greed, the shareholders, some of which were family, didn't think they were rich enough. They ousted him. They were upset with his profit-sharing initiatives. nice. They replaced him with the fucking ex-CEO of Radio Shack. And they are going to change the way they distribute profits.. ie-into their own pockets. Good for the employees for protesting. It's shit like this that infuriates me... Those of you in New England did you shop there? Thoughts?
I shop there all the time, the place rocks. Easily 10 to 20 per cent cheaper than competing supermarket chains. Which really should be impossible based on what I learned in college. And therein lies the rub, and its absolutely amazing how facile the reporting of this controversy has been. This is a privately owned corporation, so it's books are not open. However, the family has been in warring factions for decades. This has just brought this to a head. Read this from last year: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/print-edition/2013/10/04/demoulas.html?page=all So basically, Saint Arthur T., the one all the overpaid employees and discount loving shoppers are so loyal to, has been taking a page out of his late father's legally discredited playbook and sacrificed the profitability of the retail operation to support the associated real estate empire controlled by his side of the family. If you were a shareholder in the retail business, you'd be happy with this? Bullshit. Talk about greed. Imagine a CEO of a publicly traded company pulling this? Hello Leavenworth. But, yeah, its the other guy that's the evil greedhead.
Thanks for your thoughts Dierking. When I was making this thread I hoped you would respond because I know you live up there and I knew you are a smart guy and would know more about it. I knew there had to be another side to the story... However, and maybe I am wrong for this, but I still am finding it hard to be sympathetic to the shareholders, the other family members, even after reading that article you shared. Sure Arthur T. isn't the saint they are making him out to be, was back door profiting from his real estate ventures and I guess I can understand the top shareholders being upset about that. But isn't that the reason why they are successful in the first place? They don't have to go into debt to expand and they can charge less overall because they aren't in debt.... Take that strategy away and they are just another shitty grocery store. No where near successful as they are now and probably failing because they wouldn't be able to compete with the Walmarts of the world. So although the other side of the family could be upset about Arthur T. making out twice, they wouldn't be in the position they are in if it wasn't for that... plus they split up a $100M a year in dividends!
Well, they are all a bunch of greedy fucks from the Greek mafia. But, let me ask you this, if you owned a business and had thoughts and ideas about how it should be run, but your CEO disagreed with you, what would you do? Sit back and take it, or fire his ass? Some people on this site have really strong opinions that Jeremy Kerley doesn't earn enough money at a half mill a year. Maybe they are right. But people tend to be very generous with other people's money.
By the way, I am truly jonesing for the 12 packs of Sierra Nevada at $10.99 for the last five months or so. How the fuck does that make any money?
My wife shopped there every week. A nice store, clean well stocked and very friendly people. Now she is stuck going to walmart, where they constantly run out of items, she hates it. Billionaires fighting over who gets a little bigger slice of the pie. Hard to feel for either side, but the loyal employees will suffer in the end. Monday is their deadline to return to work or be terminated.
I think (and I could be wrong, heard it on the news) this is a 51-49% ownership with the ousted CEO owning 49% and cousin S owning 51%. If so, it's really not the "owner disagreeing with the CEO" it's 2 owners disagreeing, one being the CEO, the other wanting to be.
I like to think I would be pretty happy in my life as a multi-millionaire and have the foresight to recognize why I am there and what makes my company unique.... but I guess it would be hypocritical of me to say that, who knows.. But from where I'm sitting right now I don't give a shit. I think they are being greedy and stupid. Which brings me back to my original argument..
They are being greedy and stupid. Greedy and stupid is lamenting the possible loss of vastly underpriced products without a rudimentary understanding of the backstory that enables it. Greed and stupidity are practically the founding values of America.
Yes to the first and no to the second. If you are trying to steal land from people there's no more effective way to do it than to kill the people you are stealing it from. Fear drives them away and killing them makes less of them to come back later and try to reclaim the land. Cultural relativism makes murderers into heros all the time.
Well, wanting to steal in that magnitude is stupid if you ask me, but I understand your point. Modern examples of genocide seem pretty stupid to me. Why would the Nazi's divert so many resources to the Final Solution when they had a hot war going on two fronts? Cannot say I think that was smart. But I'd welcome your take on that.
The Nazi's thought they were winning until late in the war. The leadership was on a power high right up until D-Day even though the war had actually gone over when the drive into the Caucasus stalled at Stalingrad. The Holocaust also had a critical momentum to it. The Nazi's were so used to killing people in camps that by 1944 you couldn't have stopped the killing by any method other than the one that finally happened: conquering the territories in which the death camps were located. When a society loses it's moral center it takes outside intervention to get things back on track. Germany had no moral center from 1933 on. The Nazi's killed gays, communists, gypsies, intellectuals (who disagreed with them), the disabled and mentally handicapped, etc. The camp system was well established by 1936 and became the preferred method for dealing with the other, whoever that might be. Jews were targeted by Hitler and the propaganda machine from almost the moment that he took power. When people say scary stuff you have to listen to them because that's most likely what they will do when they take power.
