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posted by takyon on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the FIRE-sector-doing-bad-math-again dept.

The Intercept reports:

Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded Chipotle and warned investors that the stock will "underperform", complaining that the restaurant chain is paying its workers too much, and that cutting labor costs further will be difficult for the chain.

[...] Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold called Bank of America's analysis "flawed and inaccurate", adding that the restaurant chain hasn't cut employee hours but recently increased hours in conjunction with the addition of queso to the menu.

"That analysis is making estimates and conclusions about our management practices over a 12-year time frame from 2006 to 2017", Arnold told The Intercept. "Obviously, the scale of our business and labor wages have changed dramatically over that time frame. Drawing conclusions from 2006 and applying them as a directional change to our business over the past 12 months is simply flawed."

[...] "We continue to pay wages and offer benefits that are competitive and that reflect the priorities of our employees", Arnold said. "And with a commitment to developing and promoting people from within, we are providing significant opportunities for advancement."

The downgrade is a symptom of Wall Street's maniacal obsession with labor costs.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:53PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @07:53PM (#586028)
    1. Currently, society exists with a huge distorting force: The Government, which is an authoritarian, coercive, anti-capitalist organization that has used violent imposition to place itself near the very foundations of social interaction; it's not surprising that a lot of people use this coercive mechanism to become wealthy through theft rather than productive work, and you are conflating those 2 modes of personal profit.

      When you live in a culture that reveres government, don't be surprised that people seek wealth through pillaging rather than societal profit—it's natural to them.

    2. Pushing papers is actually a very important role.

      Pulling a lever to stamp out a widget is not nearly as important as knowing what shape that widget should be; the intellectual work of the means of production is worthy of a great deal of compensation, and that intellectual work includes a lot of paper pushing and deal making, and organization of resources flows, etc.

  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:35PM (1 child)

    by mhajicek (51) on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:35PM (#586044)

    I'm not referring to engineering and design or process engineering, I'm referring to those who amass their wealth by moving fiat currency around into different piles, and making wagers with other people's money.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:26PM (#586955)

      Making bets on different economies (currency trading), and pooling people's resources with which to make investment bets, are all very important activities.

      The real problem is that when these activities become dysfunctional and thus become in need of disbanding, they are saved and propped up through bailouts imposed by this one particular, strangely revered, anti-capitalist, authoritarian organization called "government".

      Bailing out failures goes against the OP's point that people who make anti-productive allocations of resources should be stripped of their decision-making powers (e.g., they should go bankrupt).

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @11:45PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @11:45PM (#586094)

    What country^W planet are you from?

    USA bombed the living shit out of Vietnam, killing 5 million people.
    USA spewed Agent Orange over the place, poisoning plants, soil, and people (notably, birth defects) causing multi-generational damage.
    USA didn't win that scrap, but it made damned sure that that country was thoroughly destroyed and would never be an example of Anti-Capitalism and would never suggest that USAian hegemony|mercantilism isn't global.

    In 1953, USA staged a coup in Iran and put a tyrant in power after a democratically-elected prime minister moved to nationalize the oil industry there.

    Ronald Reagan sold weapons to a country that wasn't approved by Congress and directed that money to a bunch of murderous Anti-Socialist insurgents in Nicaragua.

    USA has had a blockade on Cuba since 1959 because that country has economic ideas that are counter to USA's insistence on Oligarchical Capitalism.

    USA is in the process of pulling similar shit in Venezuela.

    In short, you have swallowed a bunch of Neoliberal bullshit and have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

    .
    The Government, which is an authoritarian, coercive

    On his weekly radio program, Ralph Nader regularly says that it's amazing how few people it takes getting seriously involved (1 percent) in order to get things changed.

    Thom Hartmann closes his radio/TV program with, "Don't forget. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Get out there. Get active. Tag, you're it!"

    There's a powerful painting among Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms series.
    It shows a guy who is obviously Working Class speaking while guys in suits listen, apparently at a town hall meeting.
    upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/%22Freedom_of_Speech%22_-_NARA_-_513536.jpg/472px-%22Freedom_of_Speech%22_-_NARA_-_513536.jpg [1]

    As the old saying goes: You get the government that you deserve.

    [1] The S/N comments engine strips stuff like %22 out of hyperlinks, ruining those, so just do a copy&paste.
    Wikimedia is also https-only, but will redirect.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:28PM (#586958)

      I'm sure your twisted mind thinks you've hit the nail, but your ranting seems to be completely irrelevant to the OP's points.