Sunday, March 24, 2013

A Venti Stand

By Jeff Simpson

H/T Forbes:

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently voiced his support Washington’s state’s referendum backing gay marriage.  Due to Starbucks support of equal rights for all, the right wing went into their typical boycott mode!   However Schultz did not back down, instead gave the right wing founder of "Corporate Morality Action Center" a lesson in morality: AND economics:

Last year Starbucks announced its support for Washington’s state’s referendum backing gay marriage, and in response the National Organization for Marriage launched a boycott of the coffee chain.
“In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing,” said the shareholder, Tom Strobhar, whom the Huffington Post identifies at the founder of the anti-gay marriage Corporate Morality Action Center.

Was Schultz taken aback? Not in the least. He responded, “Not every decision is an economic decision. Despite the fact that you recite statistics that are narrow in time, we did provide a 38% shareholder return over the last year. I don’t know how many things you invest in, but I would suspect not many things, companies, products, investments have returned 38% over the last 12 months. Having said that, it is not an economic decision to me. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens of our people. We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity. Of all kinds.”
 Wow a right wing hypocrite being exposed for citing misleading statistics and proving his right wing view of the world is bad for business!   Schultz was not done with just delivering that message though, he went for the close:

Schultz replied bluntly that Starbucks's endorsement of marriage equality wasn't about making money, but about the principle of diversity.

“If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much," Schultz said, to applause from the audience.
Lesson delivered and even for less than it costs to buy a Peppermint Mocha!  Of course the unhinged right is now trying to boycott Starbucks, not understanding where the "All men are created equal" comes from! 

As for Howard Schulz, I kinda like the guy!  





1 comment:

  1. Yeah - some of my right wing friends at church stopped going to Starbucks a few month ago as a sign of protest but this Sunday - guess who had a tall Starbucks Coffee - yes the same guy who condemned Starbucks.

    I was tempted to say something - but I was a good Catholic and kept my pie hole shut.

    ReplyDelete