From Alec Torres, Costco: The Argula of Chain Stores:
President Obama has been talking up the members-only shopping chain Costco in his crusade to raise the federal minimum wage, but the favored big-box store for well-heeled shoppers is probably far from the right model for most American businesses…
Costco not only pays wages above those of its obvious competitors — the average Costco employee earns $22.89 an hour, compared to $12.67 an hour at Walmart — but also offers health care to its workers, boasts a meager 5 percent turnover rate among employees, and has seen sales increase by 39 percent and stock prices double since 2009, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
But what is good for Costco may not be good for everyone else…
The article itself is pretty ridiculous but it does have entertainment value. More interesting though is one of the reader comments it inspired:
Well, Costco is a good demonstration of how expensive it is to be poor. When you don’t have a car to drive to costco and can’t afford the up-front cost of a membership and can’t afford a lot of storage space for the food and dry goods, your per-unit costs will be much higher than those of the middle class family of 4 living in a single family home.
The other big complaint I see about the CEO is that he is giving his employees “undeserved” benefits which is just [taking] food out of the mouths of his investors. This ends up stagnating the lives of his employees who end up satisfied with the own jobs rather than realizing they need to start their own businesses. Conservative objections to Costco are that it is just another form of redistribution: money gets taken from job creators and investors to fatten up the salaries, retirement accounts, and health care plans of the staff. The latter is much like Obamacare where the well off have to pay for the health insurance of those who would otherwise not be able to afford it (or would not want it).
In conclusion, Costco is build on hate for capitalism and job creators because it treats its employees above the level to which they are due, creating a sense of entitlement among the lower orders, while Wal-Mart follows the lead of its investors to ensure that the staff is properly kept in its place and no funds due to the investors are unfairly handed out to the staff.
So is the commenter (Tyro) parodying the anti-Costco argument or providing an overview? I can’t tell. If it’s serious, is the commenter not making a strong argument in favor of slavery? It’s parody, right?