Will McDonalds Finish Off Starbucks? Coffee Wars!

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A follow up to my post on Starbucks "What are the plans of McDonald's" as they continue to increase their pressure and capture a larger share of the coffee market.


A new plan for McDonald's to crush Starbucks

Posted May 27 2009, 05:50 AM
by Douglas McIntyre

American management has been trained that any company can think and execute its way out of trouble. That means that there is a solution to every sales or cost problem. It is just a question of finding it and pulling the right strings to make it work.

Often making the best of a bad situation is not that simple. Sometimes competition is so powerful that there are no answers to maintaining or saving a business.

McDonald’s (MCD) plans to march into Europe and will have 1,300 McCafe locations within the next few years. McCafe only has one significant competitor and that is Starbucks (SBUX), which has already been beaten by McDonald’s at every turn in the U.S.

Starbucks has done its best to fight back. It has gone “down market” with inexpensive instant coffee. It offers combinations of food and coffee as part of a new breakfast menu. But so far, the only thing that has helped keep Starbucks earnings at anything other than a dismal level is its ability to close stores and fire people.

McDonald’s will press the advantage of its brand and financial might in Europe. The region is already one of the best for McDonald’s in terms of sales growth. It can afford to finance the rent and construction costs for new locations. It has a nearly bottomless marketing budget. And, in most cases it can and will undercut Starbucks on price.

Starbucks has been in trouble because the recession has hurt its sales and McDonald’s has been a formidable competitor. Its troubles are getting worse and the solutions are non-existent.

Top Stocks blogger Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Chrysler In Bancruptcy, GM Getting Ready, Anyone Surprised?

Years ago, there were hundreds of car makers dotting the landscape. Overtime, quantity, quality and efficiency of construction eliminated most of them. They dwindled down to a precious few.

Eventually, we were left with what has been called for years "The Big Three". There was a line credited to the CEO of Gm back in the 50's who said "What is good for GM is good for the country". The statement, not entirely true, still reflected the mood of the industry and the country. However, lack of completion eventually reared its ugly head.

After going through the glory years, 55-69, government regulations on pollution put the manufacturing process in a downward spiral.
For the most part, the cars were poorly made, too big, inefficient, and cost too much.

Looming on the horizon was Honda and Toyota, which had to rebuild all their factories because of the war, while in the USA, the factories were ancient, but good enough.

The imports were talked about in derisive terms, as being too small, tinny, not well made, but they got better mileage, which didn't seem that big a deal. Until the first oil crisis.

Fast forward to today.

Will only Ford survive? Many jobs count on the car industry. But back in the day many jobs counted on the buggy whip industry.This too will pass, painfully.

Now Toyota and Honda rule the landscape supplying more jobs, taxes, and all that goes with it. The car industry continues to evolve and in 20 years will not be recognizable.

Life goes on. GM and Chrysler won't.

The End of the World December 21, 2012? And miss the After Christmas Sales?

Isn't the Mayan prediction about the end of the world getting a little out of hand? Is this 2000 all over again? This is like going through tea leaves to predict the future. Nostradamus back dating musings. How come rational people can start the slide to the edge and suspend all disbelief , once again?

Haven't we learn from the past, cults that spring up and then fade away. What we can't understand must be mystical. That is how religions sprung up, to supplant reason and give comfort. To eliminate reason is to give up control of ones thought process.

Abracadabra!

Many people will die on December 21, 2012. But they were going to anyway. That is the problem with statistics , stuff happens. People live, people die. Are we insignificant? Maybe. Some of you anyway. Bad drivers for one.

For me, I plan on being here on December 22,2012. I have booked a tee time at a great golf course, and one can not miss a tee time.

Oh no more thing on my things to do list. Buy a helmet!

Kind and Fraternal Feelings

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Is Memorial Day a day for shopping or picnics, or barbecues? Yes, but remember the reason for it all, the sacrifices of those before us and the ones that returned not as whole as before. I had the opportunity to visit Arlington Cemetery, quite a sobering experience, and the Tomb of the Unknown soldier. For those who would make war, not love, they should visit and understand the harm they can do.

www.commondreams.org

Kind and Fraternal Feelings
05.23.09 - 1:46 PM

Memorial Day, it turns out, is yet another hijacked holiday. It was first observed in 1865 as Decoration Day by liberated slaves, who independently set up, decorated and proclaimed an ad-hoc graveyard – a field of "passionless mounds" – to honor dead Union soldiers.

Yale history professor David Blight tells the story in his book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which traces the way in which the meaning and significance of the Civil War was reshaped in the 50 years following it. For now, the original Memorial Day Order:

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but Posts and comrades will, in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, Comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers sailors and Marines, who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead? We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security, is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation's gratitude—the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

Addicted to Starbucks? Not me! Give me a cup of Joe

Starbucks menu

Iced Coffee with Milk As sunny and refreshing as a run through the sprinkler – (16 fl oz).
Iced Caffe Mocha A rich reward of espresso, milk and mocha sauce. Whipped cream too if you want it.

Caramel Frappuccino® blended coffee This is sweet, buttery bliss in the afternoon.

Caffè Misto/Café Au Lait
Coffee and steamed milk

Coffee of the Week
Today's freshly brewed coffee

Decaf Coffee of the Week
Today's freshly brewed decaf coffee

Iced Brewed Coffee


Iced Coffee with Milk
A delicious and refreshing blend of freshly brewed Starbucks® Terraza Blend served chilled and slightly sweetened on ice with a splash of 2% milk.


They all sound wonderful and intimidating to order. I need my hand held to order a cup of java? What about the other customers? Can I ignore the snickering and the sighs, who let this one in? If the lines are too long they send someone out to inject humor into the long wait playing Trivial Pursuit.

I look longingly at the tables outside with people conversing, sharing ideas, from all walks of life.

The big umbrellas that open to shelter one from the sun's rays.

The Big Barista blending the perfect cup of coffee.

I love coffee. I confessed recently to drinking coffee cold, most of the time. Hot coffee is a time luxury I usually can't afford.

I didn't start drinking coffee untill by 30's. My parents always drank coffee but they mixed in stuff meant to kill the taste? A canned milk called Milnot. Plus sugar. I tasted it a few times and thought it was nasty.

Then one day on a sales call, tired and thirsty, a guy said" have some coffee. It has been sitting awhile and it is cold, but have a cup"

A new thirst sensation was born.

I realized I like coffee. Not fancy, but black. The beans make the difference, brewing technique, ok I will buy that. Black Coffee, I am easy to please.

I would order a cup at a restaurant, black please, and they would bring cream and sugar. Creamer in a jar. No cream in there either.

Coffee from the islands seem to be the best. From Hawaii with Macadamia and Vanilla. That is my current favorite and seems it will be for a long time. Most major store brands deliver the caffine jolt, but not the flavor.

I am not a fancy guy, just give me a big cup of delicious coffee, pull up a chair and lets be friends. Oh by the way, the cute table, big umbrella is ok too, and something to read. I would be so happy, if I had the time. and some ice...too hot!

For the people in the world that don't think we in America have great cuisine, I give you the Wiener Wars!

Martin Nguyen takes a bite of a hot dog at Pink's in Hollywood, California, May 14, 2009. The U.S. celebrate National Hot Dog day on July 12, 2009.
REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES FOOD SOCIETY)



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Just as a sidebar here, Vienna Beef is the Chicago favorite, bar none!

Hot dog sales sizzle as makers Ball Park Franks and Oscar Mayer embroiled in suit

By Emily Fredrix, The Associated Press
Fri May 22, 7:44 PM

MILWAUKEE - Hot dog sales are set to sizzle as people look for ways to eat on the cheap and the summer grilling season starts. But the scramble to be top dog in the US$2.1-billion market has sent the makers of Ball Park Franks and Oscar Mayer wieners to court.


The lawsuit focused on advertising and product claims filed this week by Sara Lee Corp., the maker of Ball Park Franks, against Oscar Mayer-making rival Kraft Foods Inc. is the latest turn in the summer wiener wars.


The stakes are big as the peak season for franks begins this weekend. Hot dog sales are expected to rise as consumers keep turning to the cheaper meat, said Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. But the competition is getting particularly tough as shoppers, looking to save even more money, are trading down to store brands.


"Sales do go up in the summer, always. And in a tight economy I do expect that we're going to see even better performance," said Riley, known as the "Queen of Wien." She said Americans gravitate to hot dogs in tough times. And in summer particularly, with 38 per cent of hot dog sales each year occurring between Memorial Day and Labour Day.


Todd Hale, senior vice-president for consumer and shopper insights at Nielsen, predicts a good summer for hot dogs, especially as people stick around home on "staycations."


Sales had been fairly stagnant in the past few years. But revenue in the category rose 5.3 per cent to $2.1 billion in the 52 weeks ended April 18, according to Nielsen. Part of that was due to higher prices.


"We're seeing comfort foods, back-to-the-basics foods do real well in this economy and that's speaking to some of the success we're seeing with hot dogs," Hale said.


Smithfield Foods Inc., the largest U.S. pork producer, has seen hot dog sales down the past 10 years but now they are up "substantially," chief executive Larry Pope told analysts at a conference this month.


Sara Lee and Kraft are continually battling to be top dog, and Riley said store brands are now gaining market share. Private label dogs used to be in the top 10 as far as hot dog sales, but now she figures they're in the top five.


That means less wiggle room for Sara Lee and Kraft, which are embroiled in a lawsuit.


In the four-week period ending April 19, Ball Park was the top dog, with nearly a 21 per cent share and sales volume up 22 per cent at supermarkets, drugstores and mass market retailers, according to Information Resources Inc. Oscar Mayer had a nearly 18 per cent share with a 5.4 per cent slump in volume. The data does not include sales at Wal-Mart.


And now the two are embroiled in a lawsuit. Sara Lee alleges that Oscar Mayer's claims that its Jumbo Beef Franks are "100 per cent pure beef" are false and hurting sales of Ball Park franks and the brand's reputation, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.


Downers Grove, Ill.-based Sara Lee said Oscar Mayer makes the claims "despite its being well aware of the chemical and other non-beef contents of this product."


Sara Lee also questions ads claiming that Oscar Mayer wieners outperform Ball Park and Hebrew National hot dogs, made by ConAgra Foods Inc., in taste tests.


The company is asking for corrective advertisements and damages.


Oscar Mayer says this is all just sauerkraut.


"Clearly, Ball Park does wish it was an Oscar Mayer wiener, since we are America's favourite hot dog brand," said Syd Lindner, spokeswoman for the Madison, Wis.-based company. "We stand by our reputation for accurate advertising to our consumers."

Oscar Mayer is pushing its brand this summer and just this week held a promotion to give away $1 million worth of hot dogs. Lindner said the promotion was motivated by the slumping economy.

Sara Lee, meanwhile, is putting a heavy emphasis on its new low-fat franks. The company is doing national in-store promotions this weekend offering a free package of buns with the purchase of two packages of Ball Park franks.

Hebrew National, not wanting to be outdone, is giving away 45,000 hot dogs on Monday in Times Square in New York. ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Moritz said the Omaha, Neb.-based company is also handing out 30,000 coupons for a free pack of Hebrew Nationals.

Why Do American Politicians in Washington hate The French? They gave us the Statue of Liberty!

Remember after 9-11 and we were wondering what national monument was next? We were worried the Statue of Liberty was next? One of our greatest symbols of freedom?

Remember trying to rename French Fries - Freedom Fries? The mockery of the French people giving up the fight, hands up in surrender?

We Americans can be thoughtless instead of thoughtful. We have never had a major war except with ourselves(Civil War)on our soil.

We don't have a long history as a country, let alone as a world power. Unfortunately, the image the world has of us is not what we would hope for.

People for forget that the French helped us win the Revolutionary War. Granted they didn't like the English, fighting for the trade in Canada and the colonies.

But remember, the French gave us the Statue of Liberty. Their people paid for it. They built it, brought it to us, and put it together. All we had to do was build the pedestal.

I will let Wikepedia fill in the details with some information and for the balance click on the title for the link.

And from one proud American, thank you!


This is from the plaque inside the Lady Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty

The End of Personal Finance

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From Slate
The Big Money

Decades of advice turn out to be so much garbage.

By Helaine Olen
Posted Sunday, May 3, 2009 - 12:56am

Years ago, when I wrote a popular financial makeover feature for a major national newspaper, one of our subjects asked if he should be plowing his more than $50,000 in savings into gold. It was 1997 and gold was trading at a little more than $300 an ounce. The financial planner assisting with the piece laughed dismissively, and the question never made it into the final write-up. Well, my bad. As I write, gold is hovering around $900 an ounce.

For more than two decades, as income inequality increased and job security decreased, Americans lapped up personal finance columns, books, and television shows. We thrilled to stock tips and swooned at sensible strategies for using dollar-cost averaging to invest in no-load index funds. Buy and hold, my friends! The annualized gain for the S&P 500 stock index over time is more than 10 percent! You, too, can turn into the millionaire next door. Carpe diem, folks! Seize the financial day!

The advice proffered by the vast majority of analysts, would-be gurus, and television pundits came down to one word: stocks. Some, like CNBC's infamous Jim Cramer, advocated stock-picking strategies. Others encouraged mutual funds. But very few—at least of those that could get publicity via mainstream outlets—doubted the efficacy of the market.

That our personal finances weren't fully ours to seize didn't seem to occur to many of us until recently, when the stock market plunged almost 40 percent in a mere year, housing went into free fall, and the unemployment rate began to climb perilously toward double digits. All these facts suddenly left the personal finance industry facing a conundrum of its own making. The backbone of the self-help complex is the idea that you can do it. You. Singular. But what happens when you lose your job and can't find a new one before your six months of recommended emergency savings runs out? Or a good chunk of your retirement income is in the form of a pension from your former employer—and that employer is named Chrysler? What then?

"Personal finance has come to substitute for the role government should play for people," observes Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents. "In the past 20 years the myth of the person succeeding on their own has gotten bigger and bigger. This myth is dangerous. It tells you if you can't balance everything and you are in debt, it is your fault."

Sounds harsh, but if you are laid off and at the end of your resources, what other message can you take away from people like mega-personal finance guru Suze Orman, who continues to argue that people's main problem with money is ... emotional. (Orman also urges people to invest for retirement in the stock market, while admitting the bulk of her savings is in municipal bonds.) Or Jean Chatzky of everywhere from NBC's Today show to Oprah's couch, who helpfully tells people in her latest book, The Difference: How Anyone Can Prosper in Even the Toughest Times, "Overspending is the key reason that people slip from a position of financial security into a paycheck-to-paycheck existence." (Note: Italics original to Chatzky.) Chatzky forgets to mention that studies have demonstrated the problem most likely to land one in bankruptcy court isn't an addiction to designer clothes but, instead, overwhelming health care expenses.

All in all, these might not be the right messages just now. While Orman's book, no doubt propelled by her continuing celebrity and television show, remains at the top of the New York Times best-seller list, Chatzky's book is languishing listless, a very different fate than the one met by her last book, which was released in a different era—2006, to be precise.

In the current economic climate, a new group of au current advisers is coming to the fore. Many of them, like Peter Schiff, received their initial boost of fame by predicting various aspects of the current meltdown and are now trying to make money by telling people how to survive and thrive in the post-crash world. Schiff's Crash Proof, currently in its 11th printing, urges consumers to buy gold to hedge against coming hyperinflation. At the other end of the spectrum is Martin D. Weiss' recently published The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide. Weiss, a Florida-based investment adviser, advocates that many people should cut their stock losses and sell off, as we are entering a period of deflation.

Online gurus are also seeing spikes. ITulip.com's Eric Janszen says he received 12,000 new subscribers last year. George Ure, a business consultant who runs the free site UrbanSurvival.com and the subscription site Peoplenomics, makes predictions about future events based on a linguistics theory applied to Internet postings and has seen an increase of more than 20 percent in unique visitors year over year. Nonetheless, it's not looking like the new gurus will be any more helpful than their more conventionally minded peers. After all, the online world has been abuzz with accusations that many of Schiff's personal clients suffered losses of between 40 percent to 70 percent in 2008.

Which leads to another question: What's next for personal finance? The past two years have demonstrated over and over again that bad things can happen to good savers and investors. Very few of us have the wherewithal to fund both retirement savings and a large enough emergency fund to sustain us through a bout of unemployment lasting, say, more than a year. No one, it turns out, really knows what an individual stock, mutual fund, or commodity like oil or precious resource like gold will be worth in six months, never mind six years.

Nonetheless, personal finance is unlikely to crawl away and die anytime soon for a simple reason: We think we need it. "We're kind of screwed but we don't have a choice but to take care of ourselves because no one else is helping," admits MSN's personal finance columnist, Liz Weston.

A number of personal finance gurus have been moving, some ever so slowly, over toward the idea of pressuring the government for change. Weston, who has written extensively about what should be and isn't in pending congressional legislation putting brakes on the credit card industry, is begging her readers to contact their representatives about the plan. Others have gotten more ambitious. Schiff used his burst of fame to endorse presidential candidate Ron Paul. Weiss is currently circulating a petition to stop further bank bailouts.

Me, I'd settle for a few mea culpas from our finance gurus. After all, I am aware I owe my gold-loving dude an apology. Unfortunately, I know the planner assigned to the case won't be eating crow any time soon. I recently received a copy of his latest book in the mail. It's all about how if you can just identify your money archetype, financial success will be yours. Oh, and one other thing. The press release quotes him as advising, "Don't rush out to buy gold."

Helaine Olen's work has appeared in the The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. She's the co-author of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding and Managing Romance on the Job.
(Photos of Jim Cramer by Scott Gries/Getty; Can by Ryan McVay/Getty Creative; Suze Orman by Bryan Bedder/Getty)

Olbermann to Limbaugh: ‘Eff you!’

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From Raw Story


By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: May 21, 2009

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has been needling right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh for a long time, but on Wednesday he was able to pride himself for having finally gotten under Limbaugh’s skin.

“This network’s coverage of him has not only gotten to him but gotten to him to a point perhaps never reached before by any other megalomaniac,” Olbermann said of Limbaugh. “Suddenly the impact of being accurately called out day after day, hour after hour as a faux populist, press release-regurgitating lackey of repressive and regressive political flunkies — that has hit bone.”

Limbaugh recently complained on his radio show that MSNBC “cannot go any appreciable length of time without showing video of me … or having a bunch of hack guests on to discuss me. So my challenge is this to MSNBC: Let’s see if you can run your little TV network for thirty days … without doing a single story on me. And then let’s take a look at your ratings.”

“Eff you!” exclaimed Olbermann in response. “You’re not in charge of this! You put your bile out on the public airwaves for three hours a day and you get to decide how people react to it? The hell you do! … Either man up and live through the bad press or get out!”

“Stand on your own two feet,” Limbaugh had urged MSNBC. “Stand on what you believe.”

“This is, in part, what we believe,” Olbermann replied. “This isn’t a bid for ratings. We believe you suck. We believe you have contributed to the coarsening and deadening of the political dialogue in this nation — and I’m saying that as a guy who just said ‘eff you.’”

Limbaugh had complained in particular about MSNBC using video of him cheerleading the crowd as last winter’s CPAC, so Olbermann singled out one clip of Limbaugh flabbily bouncing up and down and put it on a repeating loop in one corner of the screen. “This is our new logo,” he announced with a fiendish grin.

Olbermann’s final proposal to Limbaugh was, “I will go thirty days on this program without referencing what has been done or said or boasted about by Rush Limbaugh, provided you go thirty days on your program without mentioning what has been done or said or boasted about by — Rush Limbaugh.”

“Hannity would last longer on the waterboard,” smirked Olbermann in conclusion.

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast May 20, 2009.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Google Almost Bought a Paper

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From Slate
The Big Money

Google Almost Bought a Paper

By Chris Thompson
Posted Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 4:06pm

That's what CEO Eric Schmidt told the Financial Times yesterday. In an extensive Q&A with the newspaper, Schmidt reveals that Google (GOOG) seriously considered either buying a newspaper as a for-profit enterprise or hiring a pack of smart lawyers to reconfigure the paper as a nonprofit venture. He doesn't name which paper, of course, but the Financial Times reporters pointedly remind their readers that the hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners offered Google its twenty percent stake in the New York Times. Ultimately, however, the company decided that going so far as owning an outlet that actually produced copy, rather than simply aggregating and organizing it, would be "crossing the line" between a content company and a technology company. Wall Street Journal writer Jessica Vascellaro argues that this position is growing increasingly flimsy. After all, she writes, both YouTube and Google's Book Search project are awfully close to resembling content production.

The real reason may be twofold. First, as Schmidt readily concedes, the targeted papers are either far too expensive or burdened with too much debt and liabilities. Second, the advertising model for general news reporting is obsolete, and Google's execs have decided instead to work with papers such as the Washington Post (the parent company of which also owns TBM) to come up with a new model that can subsidize serious general news gathering. The days when general display ads would float on the page, contextually disconnected from the substance of the stories, are over. But who wants their ads tied to stories of Gitmo torture? Unless the business model radically changers, there will be no revenue stream that props up the most serious and important news stories.

So what does Schmidt have in mind for the Washington Post? "It seems to me that the newspaper that I read online should remember what I read. It should allow me to go deeper into the stories. It's that kind of a discussion that we're having." In other words, the paper will store and archive a catalogue of the stories you read, steer more stories along those lines to your eyeballs, and keep you coming back for more by knowing what you're most interested in. Google already remembers what you search for, in order to more accurately match ads to your search screen. Now, it seems, Schmidt would like to apply this technique to news gathering.

In other news, Schmidt flatly refused to share more revenue with newspapers whose headlines Google aggregates. He argues that the traffic Google steers toward media outlets more than makes up for the ad revenue it gets from collecting headlines. And he's probably right. If you want to read the entire Q&A, click here.

Chris Thompson is a writer living in Brooklyn.

You might like:
Mr. Schmidt Goes to San Diego (from The Big Money)
Blowback on Eric Schmidt (from The Big Money)
Google Kicks Ass (from The Big Money)
More Ads With Your Google (from The Big Money)