McDonald's restaurant, circa 1960The lead business story in this Sunday's New York Times on the continuing success of McDonald's Corporation sounds a number of themes that readers of this column will find familiar.The chain has broadened its merchandising appeal beyond kids and young parents just as management's renewed focus on value, quality, service, and cleanliness has taken hold.Minor adjustments in the menu in the form of fresher food, better coffee and more savory seasonings (including a return to the Big Mac sauce in use when CEO Jim Skinner and I worked on McDonald's crews in 1971) appeal to the tastes of an aging population. Reformatted restaurants feature more comfortable
Chevy SuburbanLast week we posed a simple question to readers of some of the new discussion boards on LinkedIn:Do you think funds from TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) should be used to help the U.S. automotive industry? How about other troubled industries, like retail?Readers from the Strategic Business and Competitive Intelligence board had the least sympathy for the industry. Eric Garland's first post favored the market-oriented approach:If we really believe business is about innovation, then having businesses "too big to fail" is likely incompatible with future success. Plus, as a U.S. taxpayer, this is starting to get maddeningly expensive. Break them up, or let them fail.Jorge
Tarpeian Rock, RomeEconomists, bloggers and amateur historians will read with interest the rich exchange of ideas on the Paulson bailout plan instigated by Christopher Carroll, the economist from Johns Hopkins University, on the Economists' Forum blog of the Financial Times, TARP and the Ruin of Pompeii: An Analogy.Professor Carroll poses a simple model of a financial system in crisis that results when an under-capitalized bank holding mortgages of the citizens of Pompeii learns that its balance sheet has been compromised by an unforeseen event, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Writing during the critical days immediately following passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
The Library of CongressThe U.S. House is expected to vote today on the Senate version of the bailout plan, HR1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Following two weeks of intense scrutiny, debate, political wrangling and even some soul searching, Congress seems ready to pass a bill that offers hope of cutting the Gordian knot strangling credit markets. Action could not come too soon.The bill, summarized here, has undergone some important changes over the past two weeks and its scope and intent have been clarified. Initially dubbed the "bailout plan" or the "Troubled Asset Rescue Plan," the bill's original intent was to grant sufficient authority to the U.S. Treasury to
Peter Orszag, Ph. D., Director of the CBOThe Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), economist Peter Orszag, publishes a blog with detailed information about the issues shaping current legislation. In his role as the leader of the non-partisan research office of the U.S. Congress, Dr. Orszag is the ultimate insider--a primary source of impartial information to which Members of Congress often turn when seeking deeper insight.Of course Dr. Orszag has posted a number of comments over the past few weeks on the current liquidity crisis. For example, the article posted 26-Sept-08, entitled Net Budget Cost of Treasury Proposal, begins:A Wall Street Journal blog posting
John Kuhlman (left), economist, teacher and humanitarianStruggling to understand the depth and breadth of the liquidity crisis enveloping us, I thought back to a quote projected onto a giant screen behind Professor John Kuhlman in the 900-seat auditorium at the University of Missouri many years ago.The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. - John William GardnerHenry Paulson, U.S. Treasury Secretary, has put forth an emergency plan by which taxpayers would buy up
A review of SCOTUSBLOGProviders of professional services, including lawyers, consultants, accountants and doctors, face a uniquely awkward sales challenge. Discouraged or prevented by law or practice from conspicuously flogging their services, most market their services through bone-dry websites. A few have begun to realize the potential of blogging to help them make more personal, but unobtrusive, contact with prospective clients. Among those leading the way is Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a US law firm with 700 professionals and 12 offices.Their traditional website at www.akingump.com, with a reported Google PageRank of 6, draws an estimated 5100 visitors per month. That site lists
"50th Anniversary McDonald's"in River North, Chicago, ILIn a story appearing in today's Chicago Tribune, McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner reports that his biggest pet peeve is when a worker fills a cup of coffee directly from the drip dispenser instead of waiting for the pot to be filled."You don't get the best cup of coffee that way," he said.Having myself worked at a McDonald's restaurant in the St. Louis area when Skinner was getting his start with the organization as a manager trainee in Carpentersville, Illinois in 1971, I had to chuckle. Like Skinner, most of my managers had come out of the U.S. military and they had taught me to "shortstop" the coffee machine when a customer was waiting