Summary
Costco’s board rejected a shareholder proposal to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, arguing they foster respect, innovation, and cultural alignment with customers and employees.
Shareholders claimed DEI could lead to lawsuits citing “illegal discrimination” against white, Asian, male, or straight employees, referencing legal cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Costco countered that its DEI efforts comply with the law and enhance its culture, rejecting claims of legal risk.
The proposal will be voted on at Costco’s January 23 shareholder meeting.
Ok, but biggest owners are Blackrock & Vanguard megavultures (like all the everythings).
The proposal came from a racists NCPPR group, so without significant support & the board just jumped at the free PR opportunity.
How is Vanguard a mega-vulture? Their ownership stake derives from their index funds, which make up American retirement funds like 401ks and IRAs. They mostly vote according to board recommendations, but have increasingly tried to offer customers other voting options.
You might be able to answer this for me as I don’t really understand.
What is the value of shareholders for massive corporations? Is it that they fund retirements of future generations?
Surely there has got to be a better way. The way I see companies structured with shareholders seems to inevitably make the product or service worse due to demand for increase growth and return for shareholders and it really frustrates me.
Corporations don’t start off massive. They start off small and lacking “capital” or money with which to fund the creation and support of their products before they become profitable and self-sustaining. So, how do they motivate people to lend them money? They sell shares, aka ownership, of the company. If the company succeeds, the shares become more valuable and the shareholder that bought them can sell them for more than they initially paid. Mostly, massive corporations don’t need to raise money in this way of selling shares, so most shares are traded publicly through third parties.
Kind of. Retirement is expensive, and saving alone isn’t really enough to pay for it. On the whole, stocks tend to go up, so people mostly invest their savings into the stock market for years before they retire so that their money will grow enough to retire. Individually, people are usually trying to find their own retirements, not future generations. However, there do exist big retirement funds for entire companies called pensions that are interested in growing a pool of money for its current employees and future ones. Vanguard, and similar companies, offer tools to make investing for retirement easier, like accounts that you don’t have to pay taxes on until you retire, or single shares that are actually thousands of different company’s shares grouped into one.
To your last point, there could be better ways, but we don’t currently use them. There are problems with the system for sure.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
This all makes sense, but I do wonder if we should have a limit on the company size and shares. As you say massive corporations don’t need to raise money this way and it just extracts value from other areas. So I would be nice to see a system where shares are all bought back and cease trading once a company grows so large.
Thanks for the quick deep dive nfo