tlg - does that track with beverages writ large, or non-alcoholic beverages?
Though I guess retail beverage will suffer - 4 pints at a bar vs a 30-pack at home is pretty simple economic calculus.
So much for "If my boss has another meltdown because of his anxieties and I get fired this time, I can always work at Starbuck's."
We are headed for a 1930's style depression, and Americans don't realize it yet. And Americans today are not equipped to deal with it the way people did then. Can you imagine all the kids who grew up in McMansions never having to so much as share a bath when they don't get a new Lexus anymore for getting a good report card?
Actually home purchase for Alcohol, (take home 6 packs) and video rentals both go higher in sales during economic downturns. guess that is understandable.
Also some restaurants that are offering economy specials, 2 for 1's and other recenssion buster menu items are seeing some improvement in recent months.
TLG, escapism should do very well for the next 5 - 10 years...movies, cheap books, alohal...ect.
Jill, I think you err on the side of optism, parts of the country are allready in a depresion, it will go nation wide soon.
get to know your nebighors, make friends with them, you will all need to rely on each other...grown what you can, work on tightening your belts now so changes wont coem as too much of a shock. We will maek it through this...its amazing what people can do if they don't have a choice.
oh and now may be the time to find a depresion safe industry...im startign to worry im not in one...
Starbuck's had been headed in this direction for years, at least in Seattle.
Do you know how thickly these are sown here? You walk five feet from one and you stumble over another one.
I think the management of Starbuck's saw the handwriting on the wall at least two years ago, too. I know of at least two Starbuck's which were started that long ago, but have never even been completed, let alone opened.
I'd also note that a lot of artists work at Starbucks for the health benefits in addition to their chosen profession.
The Republicans attempted reconstruction of "The Gilded Age" didn't exactly turn out well for the bulk of us did it? The only benefit from this is the 40 year hiatus that they will take from politics while we normal people have to clean this shit sty up again.
Problems this time around include: lack of industry, lack of energy resources, crumbling infrastructure. What we do have is lots of food that can be sold for more money now on the world market, but the profit from that will keep going to the people that got us into this mess. It is clear that this government is going to have to rob the robbers to recreate our industrial base and resolve our energy resources problem, but this government doesn't even have the political will to tax investors higher than 15 percent, and they nearly blew a gasket when Obama suggested raising the top rate on the highest tiered capital gains tax.
The entrenched power base will simply have to be extracted and disposed of. I am certain that many of them will voluntarily leave when they see what's coming(think Dick Cheney to Dubai), but most of the rest will have to be worn down and defeated. In the 1930's it's not as if the Republicans didn't want to keep doing what they were doing in the 1920's or in the late eighteenth century. It's that no one gives a shit about your bankrupt ideology when you have no power.
Tax the rich. End the imperialist adventures. Rebuild the national infrastructure. Rehabilitate the manufacturing sector to build renewable energy resources.
Remember when the rich people gave themselves a huge tax cut on the eve of sending soldiers off to die and kill in this insane fucked up piece of shit of a war? It's time for us to say fuck you to them. And also time to make sure that after Obama is elected that Bush doesn't say one last "fuck you" to all of us by attacking Iran this Christmas.
Bush/Cheney in prison. ExxonMobil being made to pay for technologies that will destroy them. A sustainable future on the horizon.
It's all possible, but we need to start controlling the agenda instead of reacting to it.
TLG, I spent 20 years in the food business.
Dishwasher.
Fry cook.
Short order cook.
Steakhouse cook.
Waiter.
Bartender.
Hotels.
Kitchen Manager.
Chef De Cuisine.
I was a VERY good saucier, but never a chef, but I ran kitchens at times.
Praytell, how are YOU employed in the biz?
And I concur, it's a brutal business, with no days off for managers, 16 hour days in kitchens, no weekends, no holidays, Monday's and Tuesdays off if yer LUCKY to get two in a row or any at all off!!!
Once in it, it's hard to make money, and even go to school unless you work full time . . . .
Larue,
That is the sad truth isn't it?
I'd gladly work in the restaurant industry if there was any money in it for those who don't have an ownership stake. I love food, I love to cook, and I love working in a commercial kitchen or behind a bar.
Ah well keeping computers running has better hours pay and benefits.
Wengler, American agriculture wholly, utterly, completely depends on oil. That's why the prices of food are going up like a bat out of hell -- and will keep going up as long as oil does.
Which means that, right alongside rebuilding our energy infrastructure under some new paradigm, we're also going to be completely reworking our food production systems as well. (I'm looking at my barren backyard and seeing raised beds with drip irrigation. There's six hundred square feet of food back there, just waiting to happen....)
This is why eating local and eating organic is so damned important. It's a start at building the market that will create non-carbon-intensive food alternatives. The more of that we can get going now, the better off we'll be in a few more years when industrial ag really goes all to hell. It's our big Plan B, and it's going to be Plan A Real Soon Now.
I grew up in a working-class family that loved doing things with its hands. My mother taught me to sew when I was eight. She could type, do bookkeeping, garden like a demon, and can enough to get us through a winter. My dad fixed the cars, did woodworking, shoed horses and gave music lessons for extra cash. I remember learning to knit, crochet, do beadwork, and make my own moccasins from scratch.
I think our kids are going to rediscover doing this kind of stuff -- and those of us who still have a memory of these skills are going to have great fun teaching them.
"That $4.00 cup of coffeee starts to look a bit too needlessly extravagant?"
STARTS? A BIT? Look, I *live* in the Seattle area, and I don't go in fucking Starbucks. I sure did when Zev and Gordon owned it, when it was one store at the Pike Place Market in the mid-70s -- but I don't pay a nickel for coffee outside my own house.
I buy the 2.5 pound bag of beans at Costco for eight bucks and grind my own. That lasts me a month.
Otherwise I drink tea. Remember tea? I can get a box of 100 bags for between $2 and $2.50 at the Chinese markets, so one out (2 cups) costs me what, 2.5 cents? And it's not that Lipton shit either.
I can buy it in bulk, and that's how I get my Green Gunpowder and my Pu-Erh.
Fuck Starbucks. Fuck them where they breathe. No hometown loyalty here. I hate fucking Amazon, too. But that's another story.
Bottom line is my money stays in *my* pocket, so I can send it on to Darcy Burner.
ivan take the next set man..
I buy bags of green beans from sweat marias adn roast my own 
ivan, good on you. and that is pretty much the kind of thing we do too... BUT my point is more about the service industry economy. I don't care if starbucks as an entity doesn't make it hand over fist. But I work in F&B-- everyone of those store closures means more people out of jobs. And starbucks was one of the companies that was historically good to their staff. Benefits, stock options, promoting from within, help for college. I am not a supporter of big chains, starbucks included BUT-- that is a LOT of jobs, and it is an indicator of what is to come in the industry. and that does matter.
Gator:
Fact: Some services are more essential than others.
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