They have to do something to get back the credibility among progressives that they lost when they became a huge, and therefore evil, corporation.
guy | 04.10.08 - 12:21 pm | #

The guy just pushed one of my buttons with the "50 million Americans do not have health insurance" comment.

That's at best highly misleading. The number -- actually 47 million -- comes from the US Census, which asks how many people went without health care AT ANY TIME in the previous year.

That includes people who were temporarily without health care because they were switching jobs but now have it in their new job. I had a girlfriend who was a doctor at a major hospital who went into private practice and briefly had no coverage during the transition. The census counted her too.

The 47 million figure also includes people who voluntarily go without it because they're wealthy enough to do that. It includes 20-somethings who go without it to save a few bucks because they think they are invulnerable (like I did). It includes people eligible for Medicare and Medicaid who just haven't bothered to sign up.

The actual number of people who are without healthcare because neither the government nor their employer offers it to them and they cannot afford it on their own is closer to half the 47 million figure.

That's still a lot but not as bad as guys like Schultz make it out.

Sorry for the rant ...
Archibald | 04.10.08 - 12:54 pm | #

He's thinking progressively about healthcare. But as a coffee business, he's acting more like a delusional Norma Desmond -- pretending he can turn back the clock back to the halcyon days of Starbucks rampant growth and yet higher quality.

But Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. Opening so many cafés so fast in expansion, they've had to hire lower and lower skilled staff, had to reduce their selectivity on bean supplies and preparation standards, etc. The company he founded is dead, gone, and never coming back. Starbucks today is altogether a whole other beast, and it's going to take him 12 stages of grief to acknowledge the loss.
Greg | Homepage | 04.10.08 - 8:45 pm | #

I avoid Starbucks becuase the lines move so damned slowly. I can tell that the company loses a lot of money because of this as when I do go there I notice that several people walk in, see how long or slowly moving the line is and walk out. In operations management they call this "balking" and it is corporate suicide as you actually have customers INSIDE (and paid big marketing $$ to get them there) and they walk out.

Why are the lines so long and slow? The food offerings seem to take a lot of time, as does the dreaded frappuccino. I think that Starbucks also attracts annoying customers like groups of teenage girls who are talking on their cell phones while ordering and can't decide which muffin they want. And then there is the fact that the cashiers often spend more time talking to/flirting with other employees versus focusing on completing a transation in a timely fashion.

Peet's is exactly what a coffee shop should be. Too bad we don't have one in DC.
Leonardo | 04.11.08 - 3:26 am | #