<p>Am on my way up to bed, but here’s a simple comparison. I glanced at the information and will look at it further tomorrow, but in general, it does seem Costco pays a higher hourly wage.</p>
<p>And their membership fee is slightly less. And all of the other retailers have no membership fee at all. They get the money somewhere. So what? It’s a retail job. They still pay peanuts.</p>
<p>I also find it strange that the article is comparing % profit increases between Walmart Corp and Costco. It would be fair to compare Costco to Sams, but not Costco to the entire Walmart stores.</p>
<p>I shop at both Costco and Sams Club. Yes, Costco can seem “nicer” inside, but I have some fav things that I can only get at Sams, and I have some fav things that I can only get at Costco.</p>
<p>Costco seems nicer inside because they charge a higher membership fee to keep out the riff-raff. Some Wal-Mart’s can be downright dangerous at night.</p>
<p>The Costco we frequent is honestly a rather pleasant experience. Know much of the customers and staff there. The place is organized and people are uniformly pretty cheerful. They are grateful to work for a company they like and feel treats them and customers fairly.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, Jim Sinegal used to have an adversarial relationship with the retail analysts since the company rarely met the street expectations. Senegal claimed he ran the company for the customers first and then the employees. The shareholders came later. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the company positive attitude towards employees never stopped the unions to do what they do best, namely extort businesses to the point it might ruin them.</p>
<p>Oh, please, xiggi. What unions do best is protect working conditions and wages for ALL workers, not just members. The decline in union membership has closely paralleled the decline of the middle class in this country. Meanwhile businesses are far from “ruined” but rather are enjoying record profits, in many cases.</p>
<p>The problem with unions is that while they may do some good, they often go too far. </p>
<p>Lots of entities “do a lot of good,” but if they go too far and they cause damage, then that seriously damages their claims of “doing a lot of good.”</p>
<p>Okidoki, Sally. Now look where unions are still clinging to their powers. About 11 percent of US workers are unionized, but more than a third in the public sector are. Look at our education system where the NEA and AFT hold a stronghold. Or look how well it works for the stevedores in harbors such as Long Beach. How do the unions help all? </p>
<p>There might have been a time when working conditions required a balancing force, but the current unions serve only one purpose, and it is the parasitical self-preservation of its power and benefits for an inner circle.</p>
<p>DH got a little video camera with much better sound and light settings than our old one. It’s tiny-almost the size of a cell phone. We tape D’s praise dancers so they can critique their work and the one we had simply wasn’t doing the job. Also got D an ipad from one of the $299 online specials. </p>
<p>I stopped into one store that was having a sale on boots and walked away with nothing. Really still need a nice pair of boots though. My other dress boots seriously messed my feet up wearing them for a weekend at a conference (still don’t have feeling in part of my big toe). </p>
<p>That said, I stopped into Babies R Us to get a shower present for a close friend off her registry, and wanted to get her these bottles that she had on the registry numerous times with various different accessories. I went to the display and as part of a Black Friday weekend sale the particular set I was planning to get her were buy one get one free. And she had listed on her registry that she wanted 2, so I got her 2. $50 worth of bottles for $25.</p>
<p>hyperjulie - I went boot shopping at an outlet mall the day before Thanksgiving with D2. She wanted to get a pair of boots that wouldn’t wear out of the side of the foot in just a few months. She has difficult feet, somewhat wide and flat. We went to this mall because it had a Timberland outlet.</p>
<p>We didn’t find anything she liked at Timberland but they also had a Clark’s outlet. She found boots there and since they were having a “buy 2 get one free” sale, I also got her two pairs of shoes. There were many for her to choose from and I can’t tell you how rare that is with her feet - and she found them all comfortable! Keep looking.</p>
<p>Julie, I highly recommend shopping 6pm for boots if you know the brands that fit you well and your sizes.</p>
<p>I got awaken by a phone call from Macy’s alerting me that my Black Friday dishes got shipped. Really?! A 7 am phone call was needed to tell me that? I already got a an email or two about the shipments!</p>
<p>Besides the poster, I bought 20% off the box set of bootlegs from North American tour, not counting festivals. About 25 shows.
It wont ship till after the tour though.
Cant wait.
Im planning to spend Christmas break listening to the whole tour in order.</p>