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Comment by zaptheimpaler | Hacker News Reader

Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock market, everything must perpetually grow.

That’s a very reductionist take on what happened here. I don’t think increased profit is likely to result from these firings. How would it?

Profit = revenue - expenses.

Firings reduce expenses, the equation above explains the rest. Of course, that's only in the short term, but that's what exec bonuses are given out on!

Firings in this case were for union busting. Illegal union busting is profitable - that's why business owners do it. Because it's illegal, they will make up a different excuse for why the workers were fired. They will never admit to illegal union busting. So you should not take their statements as good faith.

It may sound simplistic but its the truth and there are plenty of other examples and history around this - Starbucks recently. 30 employees unionizing may not have any significant impact on their profits, but if they let that union grow it would have a lot more members demanding better working hours or wages over time. A strong union also generally leads to a loss of control by management where they have to negotiate more with workers which they don't like. Why do you think they were fired?

This is also true if humans in general, at all stations in life, including union members and union leaders. Is there any offer a union would refuse on the grounds that’s too much?

Is that true? Feels like you are begging a huge question and also assuming everyone has to exist in a capitalist society forever.

It will still be true under not-capitalism. Perhaps it won’t be measured with money but it will exist.

People like getting more money, but they don't die without it. You can get a job that pays just enough to pay your bills and work at it until you die. Companies can't do that under capitalism. They take on debt and require growth to pay back their investors, or they don't take on debt and get undercut by a competitor who does.

And yet Costco still does just fine.

Costco might not be your intended example. It has amazing revenue growth:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/revenu...

While simultaneously growing profit margin:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/profit...

Hence growing annual net income from $2.3B to $8B in the last 10 years.

I imagine the GP was referring to the fact that Costco experiences that kind of growth while giving their employees excellent pay and benefits. Even low-level store employees typically make $20-30 an hour.

Correct

If only we had more of this. Why is it so rare?

Do they have a benevolent dictator? Is this a temporary glitch that will be "corrected" when profits aren't looking as good? Are they a monopoly?

I'm genuinely curious.

It’s because they don’t sell everything, and the things they do sell, they sell to the top 50%.

They also did have benevolent dictators who spent decades building up good will, but supposedly the new bosses as of a few years ago are not so benevolent anymore.

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