Not Quite The News
By: Christopher De Aveiro
A Gold Christmas Tree?
For those in the Holiday Spirit with some money to burn, here’s just the thing for you. A jewelry store in Japan inoffering an 8-foot tall Christmas tree made completely out of pure gold. The tree also comes with ornaments of solid gold plate cutouts 50 various Disney Characters, and it also revolves. The price tag for this tree is just a mere 4.2 million dollars. The tree took 10 craftsmen 2 months to complete. The store has yet to have any buyers but the price is apparently a dealconsidering the current price of gold.
For those who may not yet be prepared to pay out such a hefty sum of money, for a Christmas tree, the store is also offering a smaller scaled down version featuring only 20 Disney characters for the price of $243,000.
Man Gives Stores To Employees
Christmas is just around the corner and one Minnesota man seems to already be in a very giving mood. Joe Lueken, 70, is retiring from the grocery store business, and although he has received multiple offers from various large chains for his 3 grocery stores, he has decided to take a different path. Lueken, whose motto in life is “Do the right Thing,” has instead chosen to give his 3 stores to his employees. The stores will be given to the employees as part of an employee stock ownership plan, and will not cost the employees any money. The amount of shares the employees receive will be based on length of service and salary.
Lueken, who has Parkinson’s disease, was informed by his sons that they were not interested in taking over so instead decided to give back to his employees. “My employees are largely responsible for any success I've had, and they deserve to get some of the benefits of that," Lueken told the Star Tribune. "You can't always take. You also have to give back." While Lueken and his wife live their dream of traveling the world, the company will be managed by new President and CEO Brent Sicard who started off in the company as a Janitor and has worked his way up to the top.