Dumb CEO – Whole foods edition
I’m sure there are smart CEOs out there. When CEOs make bad decisions, and the decision recently made by the CEO of whole foods was a colossally bad decision, you remember it more than when a CEO makes a good one. Whole foods is often referred to people as whole paycheck because their prices are higher for various processed foods and also because the people saying it think that they are being funny. When I hear that phrase I glare with my whole soul at their failed attempt at humor. Puns should be funny or make you groan. It fails both those tests so…you get the glare. Enough with the glare…on to the real story.
So the CEO of Whole foods wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal. In it he starts off with a quote from Margaret Thatcher about socialism. I’m going to stop right there for a second. If John Mackey, CEO of Whole foods, wanted me in a bad mood, the quickest way to do so would be to start his ideological screed on health care with a quote from Margaret Frign Thatcher. Has John Mackey never been in a single Whole Foods store? Whole Foods customers are not the type to start up Margret Thatcher fan clubs. John Mackey launches into his hatred for a single payer health care system apparently unaware that his own customers most likely favor a single payer system with greater percentages than those any other major corporation’s customer base. I cannot back that up with an actual poll, since I don’t think one has been done, but I would be shocked to find out if it were untrue. So now the stockholders and the board of directors of whole foods can feast on the images such as the one above made by former customers who now feel the burning desire to take their dollars somewhere else. Either A) John Mackey has found a way to make more money by getting his customers pissed off at him or B) he is a colossal idiot.
The major point of the article that he makes is that there is that the government shouldn’t be paying for people’s bad eating habits and if people would just shop at his stores, the private health insurance would be just fine. His article badmouths government plans in Britain and Canada which are wildly popular in those countries (UK conservatives were out defending the NHS from US criticism). Whole foods has stores in the US the UK and Canada. Trash talking popular government programs in two out of your three of your company’s current markets is…(I’m having a hard time coming up with more synonyms for dumb or working in the name Captain dumbass). One has to wonder how Whole Foods got as big as it did with a CEO that has the same wisdom and tact as a man yelling your momma jokes into a megaphone to Godzilla while simultaneously throwing things at it’s crotch(Godzilla is notorious for his sensitivity regarding the reputation of his mother).
The worst part about the whole thing is that this is not John Mackey’s first mistake. He’s been caught trying to inflate the price of his company’s stock on yahoo. Being an idiot once is one thing, but twice it starts reflecting bad on the board of directors and the stockholders if no action is taken against him. The guy is drunk with wealth and doesn’t have a proper outlet for his stupid.
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I’ll bet you a grand that he has more money in his wallet RIGHT NOW than you’ll make in your entire life.
Well, even earning a grad student stipend for about 40 years gets you about a million bucks. John Mackey would have to be pretty stupid indeed to carry that much cash around. I would gladly take that $1000 bet. Of course, this is the internet, where making bold, unsupported statements like JoeF’s there is essentially consequence-free.
Now, it disgusts me that we as a society value John Mackey’s lifetime output at hundreds to thousands of times more than that of a scientist or doctor or whatever. I’m not a big fan of Whole Foods and their CEO has shown himself to be kind of a scumbag in the past.
One big flaw in his argument is that he doesn’t address the necessity of health care. We as a society have decided it’s unacceptable to let people just die because they have planned poorly or are just poor. We manifest this value by requiring that emergency rooms treat people regardless of their insurance or financial situation.
Mr. Mackey claims that health care is not an intrinsic right, and that it is best dealt with like food or shelter. It is odd that he’d compare his ideal health care system to our current food situation and then immediately detail how the problems with our food situation are what is killing us. One doesn’t have to look very hard to see how our private shelter markets are causing us trouble.
The cynic in me says that Whole Foods’ customers don’t really read the WSJ, and are unlikely to change their shopping habits because of this. I also don’t think anyone who reads Mackey’s opinion piece is going to be swayed by it if they didn’t already believe the best thing to do with the poor is to just let them die.
I will take you up on that one. Rich people don’t walk around with a bulging wallet filled with cash. It is unconformable to sit on and when you have to pay for a coffee and you are flipping through your huge stack of Benjamins in order to get to your chump change, people will notice. If you would still like to make your wager please by all means contact me further.
I’m guessing the main point you are trying to make is that the CEO of Whole Foods is rich and therefore he must be right, and I am not as rich as him and must therefore be wrong. That is not logical, rational, moral, or even a good insult.
Here is the real reason for JoeF’s comment. This is his cry for help. He lives in a sad sad world where he doesn’t get enough attention and must lash out at people he doesn’t know on the internet. If anyone out there knows JoeF please give him a hug. Tell him “I understand your need for attention and I’m here to help”. Of everyone I know, JoeF needs it the most. I promise donate one grand, an amount that I will soon acquire from a recently made wager, to go to a help JoeF foundation that I am starting. I encourage everyone to donate to this most desperate cause. Together, we can help JoeF.
Damn It Ben! You beat me to posting on my own blog. Hopefully he has two thousand dollars to make the same bet twice. Want to donate to my new foundation with your future winnings? It is for a good cause.
I’ll donate to your foundation the money JoeF sends me if and only if you can find someone to run the foundation who will write a letter to JoeF explaining, with authority, generally how rich people carry their money.
From what I understand, the wealthy have these interesting devices called “banks”, “checkbooks” and “debit cards” which allow them to dispense money to us lesser peons who provide actual services. Can I work for the JoeF institute and get the $2000 dollars now?
Though now I realize that it’s sometimes possible (depending on the size of the wallet) to carry a debit card or check in the wallet. What if John Mackey constantly carries around a check that has “A million dollars” written on it? DAMN YOU JOEF!!!!
Now try to get $2000 from a pair of grad students.
On a serious note, Whole Foods is sometimes okay when the only other option is Albertsons or Safeway, but in a lot of places like Dittmers and the Milk Pail that provide better quality food for less. Chicago has similar places, though not right next to each other like that. Now that organic and other natural products are widespread, there’s no benefit to Whole Foods, why not go someplace local and better (unless the local place is also run by a nut)