See, what the race-to-the-bottom people forget is one simple fact:
The average cost to replace a minimum-wage retail employee, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, is $3,328. And that’s a lowball. Basically, any time somebody quits or is fired, it costs the company money. A lot of money. New employees are also less productive (because it takes people longer to do things they are less familiar with). Employee churn is very expensive.
The Wal-Mart (and Amazon) model is to consider employees as expendable robots. They completely dismiss the costs of hiring, onboarding, training, reduced productivity during the training period, etc, because “these people are cheap.”
Costco treats employees as “appreciating assets” - that is to say, employees become more valuable over time. Therefore, it is better and more productive to only replace employees who aren’t doing their jobs.
Let’s take a warehouse worker in a large facility. A new worker will waste time remembering which aisle it is, may take a longer route there, etc. Somebody who has been there a year has it down cold. They’ll pick the item far quicker than the new person. This improves productivity, which improves profits.
But for some reason a lot of companies don’t seem to grasp this.
All they see is the paycheck, when the actual figure they should be looking at is the profit a worker produces. That is to say, the difference between productivity and pay. Raising pay causes people to stick around and become more productive, which actually increases the profit in the long term.
We need to stop thinking so short term.
The average capitalist and the average theist have a lot in common. Their ideologies are the dominant ones so they don’t actually bother to learn much about them, assuming they’re correct because “everybody else does.”. Which is a polite way of saying they’re idiots. Want to understand religion? Talk to an atheist. Want to understand capitalism? Talk to a socialist.
I’d like to add: Costco also takes care to ensure good working conditions throughout its supply chain, meaning the factory workers who actually make the products. Factories are audited regularly to ensure good working conditions and also good manufacturing practices (so you’re not buying junk). ALL products sold through Costco are also tested for safety and general performance quality. They don’t outsource this process or ask factories to sign essentially meaningless codes of compliance; they have an internal quality assurance team dedicated to this.
Costco also doesn’t underbid, or force drastic price cuts (which leads to outsourcing, which means your carefully audited factory is paying some other factory to make the product for cheaper, under who knows what kind of conditions). They make their money through memberships, so what you pay in store is closer to what it actually cost to make the thing, than pretty much any other retailer I can think of: their margins are closer to 5% than the 30%+ that most retailers maintain. INCLUDING Walmart, Forever 21, and other low cost : mass market retailers.
Our characters were all first levels when they came upon a village being sacked by an unknown force when they’re all challenged by a half dragon for one on one *honorable* combat. The rouge decided it would be a good idea to sneak attack while the Goliath fighter was fighting him. The half dragon one shots the rouge and knocks the Goliath down telling his minions to open fire on the others.
Dm: rouge and fighter roll death saves.
Rouge: nat 1
Fighter: nat 20
Dm: fighter you’re back up with one hit point
The wizard is shot down and the half dragon knocks the fighter back down.
Dm: roll death save.
Wizard: fail
Fighter: nat 20
Dm: Okay… fighter you’re back up again with one hit point.
Minions hit wizard and he dies, bard goes down, half dragon runs the Fighter through with a great sword.
Dm: roll death saves.
Bard: nat 1
Fighter: third nat 20
Dm: Jesus okay, the half dragon says you have strength and he’s going to let you live to fight you another day. Congratulations you have a mortal enemy.
