Toujours l'audace

L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!

Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration...


And yet I felt the need to correct him anyway...
~

Panic in Nice Suits

So here's my thinking:

Goldman Sachs was next to fail - they call a favor from once-and-future employee Paulson.

Paulson analyses the situation, goes into reactor scram, and calls in the leadership.

PANIC.

So, what set off G-S?

The Chinese pulled their cash:

China: A Run on the Bank of East Asia.

As always, WTFDIK and YMMV.
~

The End of the Monte Cristo Sandwich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennigan%27s

On July 29, 2008, the web site of WBBM-AM news radio (Chicago) reported that the Bennigan's chain had closed due to bankruptcy. The website cites calls to several area Bennigan's locations in which managers and employees told reporters that the closings were company-wide, having been informed by their own supervisors early on the morning of July 29, 2008. There are reports of shutdowns in Chicago [1], New Jersey [2], North Texas. Florida, and Colorado [3] Later that day, sister station WBBM-TV reported on its web site that only company-owned stores were closing, and that franchised locations remain open. [4]

Other reports indicate that the massive shutdown only remains within the national borders of the United States, allowing international locations to remain open.

The Wall Street Journal reports [5] that both Bennigan's and Steak and Ale have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and have shut down. According to the news report, they are not expected to reopen...
~
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/food/1079580,bennigans072908.article

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=96673&provider=top

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121734771456393641.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

Into the future...

Guess what? No catfish for you next year:

LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds.

“It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.

As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.”

Coffee is Important

Coffee is important!

The meaning of Starbucks

The coffee company announces plans to close 600 stores, while simultaneously watering down its primary house brew. As if we needed any more evidence that the economy is in the dregs

Andrew Leonard [2008-07-02]

Starbucks may not have the BEST coffee, but it's damn sure better than what we used to get before they came around - What is Chock Full O Nuts made of, anyway? The only place you ever could get an espresso or a cappucino when I was growing up in New York was down in the Village or Little Italy.

Folgers and Maxwell House never had a French Roast or a Columbian Supreme back in the the day - that's the Starbucks influence.

There simply aren't enough of the others around to make a difference at any given place or moment, so until there's a different coffeehouse pulling espresso on every block that pays health insurance for part-time employees, I'm pulling for Starbucks.

Oh, and please note - a "cup of coffee" at Starbucks only costs a buck-fifty...two bucks ($1.95) for the venti, or large. Y'all might want to lay off the caramel and the whipped cream. That's not a coffee, it's a milkshake.