davis_square | Maynard James Keenan of Tool Wine

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buy/sell

Maynard James Keenan of Tool Wine

A couple of months ago Maynard James Keenan came to the Whole Foods on River Street and signed bottles of his wine to many, many individuals who camped out in line for hours on end in the vain hope that he would emerge topless from the produce section belting "Lateralus". Anyway, I have a bottle of the 'Chupacabra' signed by MJK that I would like to sell before I move to Oakland. $35 OBO!

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I may boycott them after this little stunt by the CEO.

"Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

yeah; after Whole Foods went to the really high deductible plan with savings account, their insurance costs dropped about 15%. Except that a LOT of it was that their employees, who earn about $400 a week after taxes, could no longer afford to see a doctor for preventive care with that $1500 deductible before their health care kicked in. So they didn't. I don't shop there much, and I avoid the produce because I *know* that a Whole Foods employee doesn't see the doctor if they 'just' have the sniffles or a cough.

Wow, that is a good point. Now I have this image of snot on my fish, damn you!

i can't tell if you're being serious on the last bit or not.

i mean, you know if you work at a grocery store or some other minimum wage type paying job you probably will take as little time off as possible, insurance or no right? and, there's that whole part about the general public being allowed near the goods in a grocery store.

taking time off, of course. i just mean taking basic care of yourself; ie, going to the doctor to make sure it's a cold and not swine flu (perfectly do-able around most retail hours). Whole Foods employees used to do that frequently; the CEO who has 'saved the company $14 million a year' has pretty much guaranteed that until you HAVE to go to the doctor, you won't. He instituted it about 5 years ago, 6 months after taking over as CEO. It's saved the company a ton, and their employees see the doctor 27% less frequently than they did before.

Did you know that the CEO used to be a liberal Democrat when he was young and starting his company? Check Wiki...

I still think it's funny that people now want to boycott them, given that they have always intentionally overpriced their product to market to yuppies and wealthy suburbanites who want to feel rich, while they intentionally try to force small, local health food stores and coops out of business. (They took over Bread and Circus, a much, much better store, and Wild Harvest, and tried to force the Harvest Coop out of business.) The main premise of Whole Foods is cut-throat competition and a monopoly of big box stores.

As for his last sentence, I completely agree. I think everyone has an intrinsic right to food and shelter and health care. In fact, I'd say that food and shelter are, in fact, primary elements of health care.

But it's better NOW than NEVER. Right?

They took over Bread and Circus, a much, much better store

They bought that in an ordinary sale--it wasn't a "takeover", the business was up for sale.

and Wild Harvest

I think you mean "Wild Oats"? That was also a straight sale, not a "takeover."

I am not a giant fan of Whole Foods, but you can hardly blame them for buying other businesses that have been put up for sale by their owners.

Whole Foods is entirely responsible for it's own actions of trying to essentially become a monopoly. It's their goal. So while "blame" isn't something I do (it's stupid, really), I certainly do consider their actions of buying up other companies (which I consider to be "taking the stores over") all over the country when I decide what sort of company they are, and whether or not I want to support them.

Wild Harvest was a small natural-foods chain started by the Star Market company. They later sold the chain to Wild Oats, and kept 'Wild Harvest' as the name of the natural-foods aisle at Star Market (now Shaw's).

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Maynard James Keenan of Tool Wine

Whole Foods is evil!

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