We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco.

There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts? That's true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam's Club next door.

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company.

You take an educated gamble. If you don't occasionally make a mistake, you're not doing your job.

You could raise the price of, say, a bottle of ketchup to $1.03 instead of $1, and no one would know. Raising prices just 3% per product would add 50% to your pretax income. Why not do it? It's like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

Technology helps us become more efficient and productive but our business still has a lot of art as opposed to strictly science.