Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's mis-analysis of health care policy today in the Wall Street Journal is only bested by his failed attempt to run his own company. He ran Whole Foods into the ground, and with it my investment in the company. Two years ago I invested $2,000 in the store where I shop. My shares now hoover near $500 -- a real improvement over the $200-something they were worth earlier this year.
I assumed the tanking company was expending too much for sustainable agriculture or third world donations, just as I explain the over-priced groceries by the lack of pesticides. Little did I know it was another case of right-wing fiscal policy gone wrong: predatory attacks on competitors (Wild Oats), leveraging of assets, soaking stockholders, etc.
But all that is nowhere near as wrong as the card table set up outside my local Whole Foods a few weeks ago sporting a poster of Obama as Hitler and comparing the Obama health care initiative to Nazi death squads. Now it all adds up.
Auf wiedersehen, Whole Foods.