The crazy thing is that their margins are super low, and the subscription fee isn't super onerous (as you mentioned, there are multiple ways to make it back--for instance, we've never yet had a year where we didn't get our Executive membership totally paid for by the rebate check), and yet they still pay substantially more than other employers in pretty much every area, and they're still one of the most profitable retailers in the country.

Basically, I think every other big box store's executive team should be fired whenever they say they "can't" do something like pay their workers or offer benefits or whatever. Obviously you can, because Costco does.