From the "can't please everyone" file comes a complaint directed at Costco Wholesale Corp. The 423-store retailer has been going out of its way to ensure good working conditions for its employees, and Wall Street doesn't like it. As far as the pin-striped set is concerned, Costco is taking money out of the already-fat pockets of its shareholders by treating employees too much like humans.

"Costco's benefits are overly generous," says Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank Securities. "Public companies need to care for shareholders first."

Costco's shares trade at a mere 20 times their projected per-share earnings. Dreher blames such luxuries as health coverage, and suggests Costco's brass could take a lesson from the infamous exploiting pricks over at Wal-Mart, whose stock trades at 24 times their projected estimates.

Another of Wall Street's complaints involves Costco's "high wages." The starting salary at American Costco outlets is a staggering 10 bucks an hour.

» Scott Saxon