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Good to the last drop?
By kirk noonan | May 1, 2008
Following is the lead line of a recent New York Times article: Starbucks, faced with a sharp drop-off in customers, reported on Wednesday that earnings declined 21 percent during the second quarter.
That is absolutely stunning news.
Who w
ould have thought that Starbucks would ever experience a sharp drop-off in customers? Then again, who would have thought gasoline would even come close to four bucks a gallon or the price of eggs would skyrocket or the housing market would plummet or flying would begin to move back to being for only those with large, disposable incomes?
Certainly not most people. If they had, many wouldn’t have operated with a no thought for tomorrow philosophy when it came to their finances. With blind abandon hundreds of thousands of homeowners liquidated the equity in their homes, took vacations they couldn’t afford, racked up huge credit card bills and bought vehicles that were way out their league. Countless consumers also didn’t give one thought to dropping four or five bucks a day at Starbucks either.
Now here we are. Inflation is making people reprioritize their needs and wants. Discretionary incomes have been zapped. People are beginning to watch their pennies and Starbucks is having a sharp drop-off in customers.
Excellent (not really).
Though it’s easy to point a finger at the government or big oil companies or food corporations for the current economic downturn maybe we should be pointing a finger at ourselves. After all, we’ve helped create the economic beast that is now feasting on our pocketbooks.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
While I wouldn’t say we helped create the economic beast, we sure have fallen prey to it! Our leaders of our nation have failed to provide leadership and a positive example to “the people” as it relates to the handeling of money. Corporate America has aggressively pursued “the people” because they know we want what we can’t afford and they come to the rescue offering credit to those that can’t afford to pay cash.
Yes, we may have become unwilling prey at first, but how many times do we have to fall for the same old tricks before we wake up and smell the coffee?