Despite growing pressure to take advantage of the inflation narrative and price
gouge customers, Costco is refusing to raise their prices or their member fees.
So this is according to reporting by More Perfect Union,
these companies that are publicly traded, Costco happens to be one of them,
have these quarterly earnings calls with their investors.
And during these earnings calls, you kind of hear the back and forth in regard to
what the investors want, what the shareholders want the company to do.
And more often than not, the executives at the company or corporation oblige because
they want to maximize profits and provide a nice return to their shareholders.
That's not the case with Costco, which is pretty shocking.
So there had been some reporting earlier this year in regard to Costco potentially
increasing their membership fees, but it looks like they're holding off on that and
they're pushing back against bank analysts who are urging them to do so.
So Costco CFO Richard Galanti said,
we've got enough leverage out there to drive business and
we feel that it's incumbent upon us to be that beacon of
light to our members in terms of holding them for right now.
So what he's saying there is, look, we don't really need to increase
our prices and we certainly don't need to increase our membership fees.
As it stands right now, we're doing well.
We're turning a very nice profit.
In fact, More Perfect Union sheds light on that as well.
Costco has absorbed 2-3% of inflation across most items.
Its sales last quarter increased by 6.5% to a whopping $54.24 billion.
So they're doing well.
And that's the point that the CFO is trying to make here.
Why mess with something that is working?
And to be clear, even though I live in a two person household,
I went from shopping at a regular grocery store to now shopping at Costco because
it's just more cost effective, it's more affordable.
And I also want to show support for what Costco is doing here and
pushing back against what the bankers want, what the shareholders want,
in order to do right by the customers.
And obviously the customers appreciate it because their sales have increased
significantly.
>> So, first of all, Costco is not a sponsor, just to be clear.
>> No.
>> And we just tryna highlight companies that are in what is now being called
the good economy,
companies that are actually trying to do a little bit of good in the world.
And so I would say that Young Turks is part of that TYT as a network is and
Costco is.
And guys, it's not that higher bar, right?
In this particular case, with food prices,
everyone else raised their prices and way past inflation.
And on their earnings calls and we reported this earlier on TYT,
they would brag about how it turns out the customers could absorb the increases, so
we just decided to make more profit.
I mean, they brag about it that it wasn't inflation.
They chose to do it on purpose, okay?
So the reason we celebrate the Costco's of the world is because, number one,
it turns out you can choose to do the right thing.
They keep telling you, no, there's nothing they could do.
It turns out there is something they could do, right?
They could actually be a good company and actually care about their customers,
by the way.
They also care about their employees.
They're great to their employees, unlike a lot of these other companies.
So we want you to know that there are options out there.
Don't believe the hype, okay?
And the second reason is just to highlight,
apparently it wasn't inflation, was it, that drove all the prices up.
It was the decision to price gouge by every other company.
>> Guys, I mean, it is so brazen that at this point, as far as we've seen,
even The Wall Street Journal has published two separate pieces shedding
light on the corporate greed that's really behind these price increases.
I mean, it is a sight to see, and I do appreciate it.
I like when reporters,
even reporters at a publication that tends to lean to the right does its job in
fairly reporting what's actually transpiring in the economy right now.
>> And by the way, now both Republicans and
Democrats that are politicians are like, no.
And I'm seeing OPECs in the opposite direction, right?
It wasn't the price gouging, damn it.
Did somebody leak this real story?
We can't have actual information in the media.
They're like, no, it's the goddamn employees.
Their wages are too high, they're sick, they're disgusting.
So, look, the other thing about Costco is I think
that what they're doing is really good for business.
>> Yes, exactly.
>> And the difference between them and other companies is they're playing for
the long term.
We actually want to take care of our customers so they come back, so
we have a good business.
They're not trying to give away the store.
They're just saying, hey, I wanna build a long term business that delivers for
people enough that they always wanna use it.
That's how business used to be back in the day.
And so they're going old school with it.
By the way, there's another company that does that us.
So we didn't raise our prices at all either.
For membership, it's still $4.99.
Never didn't increase at a dime.
And yes, some of our costs went up, etc.
But we're still okay there.
And we asked people to upgrade through the same join button to cover for
some of the people that are at 499, but we didn't raise prices.
So it is possible, it is possible.
They're just choosing not to do it.
And when you see the good articles like the ones in The Wall Street Journal,
shockingly, okay, credit where credit is due.
When you see the BS articles blaming you guys and
then saying there was nothing they could do, understand it is BS.
>> By the way, the most nefarious narrative that inflation was
caused by ordinary people getting a little bit of assistance
from the federal government during the Coronavirus pandemic.
So incredibly disgusting that corporate media was trying to push that narrative as
these corporations were taking advantage of the inflation narrative to price
gouge us in order to increase their corporate profits.
And then they would brag about it during their shareholder calls.
>> And then they would say things like, they put too much money into the economy.
And what did they do since then?
They've increased defense spending dramatically,
putting more money into the economy.
But hey, that goes in the defense contractors hands and
they're all donors, funny.
And what are the Republicans planning to introduce next?
A three and a half trillion dollar tax cut for the rich.
But that's all gonna go into the economy and it's bigger than COVID relief and
it's only gonna if the great majority of it goes to the rich.
They're like, exactly.
Okay, so every part of this corporate infrastructure is meant to
lull you back to sleep and get you to take lower wages and higher prices.
And that's exactly what's happening here.
And you can see through the successful operations like Costco.
They're a multibillion dollar corporation.
There's nothing wrong with their bottom line.
There's nothing wrong with their business.
They're still standing.
In fact, they're doing fantastic without screwing people over.
The exception in this case proves the rule that you can do it.