Howard Schultz Says Via "Resonating," in a Good Way, Amid Stable 4Q Results

Posted Nov. 6 at 8:00 am by Brian Miller

​Remember affordable luxury? All those daily lattes at Starbucks back when the economy was booming? Now people hoard their pocket change for the Metro bus ride home from work (assuming they still have a job).

But SBUX and its CEO, Howard Schultz, have also been feeling the pain. From the fall of 2006 to the fall of '08, the troubled company's stock fell almost 75 percent from a high of $40. (This prompted Schultz's famous "lost soul" remarks, when also he resumed the role of CEO.) But following today's fourth quarter financial results, the company's stock is trading around $20, double its low point this spring. Clearly, the company is enjoying a nice rebound so far as investors are concerned.

But for only one reason. The company lauds is cost-cutting, to the tune of $580 million, chiefly through closing excess stores (and shedding that staff). That's important, because "consolidated same store sales improved to negative 1% from negative 5% in the previous quarter." Which sounds bad. Or is that good...?

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Topics: Business

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Nordstrom and Costco Financial Results Both Confirm and Confound Recession Thinking

Posted Nov. 5 at 11:39 am by Brian Miller

​October sales figures are being reported from retailers, with confusingly different data from two national companies based in the Northwest. Nordstrom, as our Mark D. Fefer recently wrote, has seen sales decline 13 percent at its top-tier stores. (At the same time, it's been expanding the Nordstrom Rack discount line of stores.) This would seem to align with conventional thinking about the recession—we're all feeling poorer, shopping for price instead of brands, steering our dollars to value retailers like Target and Wal-Mart.

But here's contrarian trend, as reported by Thomson Reuters and The New York Times: Nordstrom same-store sales for October went up 6.5 percent compared to the same month last year. Good news, right?

Nordstrom won't provide detailed third quarter info until Nov. 12, but the company does specify how its October growth is divided. And here we reach the recession crux...

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Topics: Business

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Toyota Trying to Have It Both Ways on Defective Prius

Posted Nov. 5 at 10:57 am by Mark Fefer

You can't say you weren't warned.

​You may remember SW's cover story last April about unexpected acceleration (and other strange automotive behavior) bedeviling owners of the Toyota Prius.

Back then, the amusingly patronizing response from a Toyota spokesperson was: "People are so under stress right now..." In other words: It's the driver's fault—they don't know what pedal their foot's on.

Five months later Toyota issued the biggest recall in its history—3.8 million vehicles, including all Priuses made between 2004 and 2009.

But Toyota seems to be trying to have it both ways.

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Topics: Business, Seattle Weekly, and Transportation

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Condo Demand? Not So Great. But Serving the Homeless Is a Booming Market

Posted Nov. 5 at 8:03 am by Brian Miller

​One of the bright spots in our current recession is that voters are still willing support low-income housing. Seattle's Proposition 1, which will raise $145 million over seven years, is currently passing with 64 percent of the vote. It's the fifth such measure in a row that voters have approved, a record that extends back into the boom years. Today, all over Seattle, condo projects have stalled, or been flipped to apartments, or become perennial holes-in-the-ground, seemingly abandoned by developers. (The most astounding downtown flop was the planned luxury 1 Hotel & Residences, at Second and Pine, which is now filling in its giant foundation hole to become, again, a surface parking lot, as the Times reported earlier this month.)

But one residential construction project is moving along just fine: an 84-unit mixed-use complex rising on a small former parking lot at First and Cedar. How is this possible when buyers aren't buying and banks aren't lending? Keep reading...

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Topics: Business, Campaign 2009, City of Seattle, and Real Estate

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T-Mobile Service Currently Down: Ominous Sign for Mallahan?

Posted Nov. 3 at 4:28 pm by Mike Seely

Mallahan makes use of more reliable communication technology at the REVERB debate than his cellular company's.

​Being a T-Mobile subscriber, and being surrounded by a handful of T-Mobile subscribers here on Western Avenue, I can confirm that, presently, T-Mobile service is on the fritz. And that's never happened—not to me, at least, and not within the city limits. If ever there were an ominous sign for the election-night fortunes of a certain former T-Mobile "Vice President of Customer Delight" who's running for the right to run our fair city, I'd say this is it. But nothing will be certain until we say it's so, so keep your web dial tuned to this here blog for updates later tonight.

Topics: Business and Campaign 2009

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Warren Buffett, the Second-Richest Man in the World, Buys Up a Big Piece of the Richest Man's Home Turf

Posted Nov. 3 at 2:20 pm by Mark Fefer

​Warren Buffett, the multi-billionaire investor, has just made what he calls an "all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." And Seattle accounts for a lot of those chips. Buffett today became the proud owner of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., the biggest rail company in the Northwest.

The fact that Buffett finds the future of freight so bright is a very encouraging sign for our blue-collar economy, especially in a week when South Carolina just absconded with lucrative Boeing jobs.

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Topics: Business, City of Seattle, and Economy

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Seattle's Blue Nile, Ruler of Online Diamond Retailing, Outflanked by Israelites at the Courthouse

Posted Nov. 2 at 1:57 pm by Mark Fefer

Are they real—or enhanced?

​When the big company goes after the smaller fry in court, it's usually the latter crying for mercy. Not so in the case of Seattle's Blue Nile, the dominant diamond-seller on the Internet.

The company is faced with a gloating adversary today, in the wake of an unfavorable jury verdict.

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Topics: Business, Law & Courts, and Money

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More Bad News From Indie Booksellers: Bailey/Coy Books to Close

Posted Nov. 2 at 9:41 am by Brian Miller

​As reported, Elliott Bay Book Co. may be moving from Pioneer Square. One possible new location is Capitol Hill, where business conditions aren't necessarily more favorable. Now it's Broadway's venerable Bailey/Coy Books sending out an unhappy news release. After 26 years, writes owner Michael Wells, the store "will be closing its doors at the end of November."

Wells, who lamented changing business conditions on the hill in a SW story last year, blamed most of the same economic forces affecting Elliott Bay: "We have struggled, along with independent bookstores across the country, for the last decade to keep our bookstore profitable and healthy. The economic downturn of the past year, combined with the rapidly changing world of bookselling, has led us to believe that this is the most responsible decision."

The "rapidly changing world of bookselling" includes competition from big-box retailers including Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco. And, of course, Amazon. A going-out-of-business sale begins this week with 20 percent price reductions. It truly is an indicator of how bad things are for the books trade that Bailey/Coy couldn't even hang on through the holidays. Wells explains after the jump...

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Topics: Arts & Culture, Books & Authors, and Business

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Newsweek's Massive F U to Ballmer

Posted Oct. 30 at 3:25 pm by Brian Miller

​Guess who's about to wake up next to a horse's severed head? Newsweek technology writer Daniel Lyons. In a blog post yesterday, which goes into print next week, he offers up some choice words for the Microsoft CEO. Some select quotes:

"Instead of being scary, Microsoft has become a bit of a joke." And why is that? "The bigger reason seems to be that in January 2000, [Bill] Gates stepped down as CEO. It's been downhill ever since." No, really? So tell us how you feel about Ballmer. "He's no Bill Gates." And thus as a result? "In the 10 years of Ballmer's reign, Microsoft's stock has dropped by nearly 50 percent, from $55 to $29."

Let's hope Lyons wrote those words on a Mac, or he'll soon discover one of the great new features of Windows 7: remote-control laptop detonation.

Topics: Business and Technology

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Did Boeing Just Save Mark Sanford's Job?

Posted Oct. 30 at 7:04 am by Caleb Hannan

America's most-fireable man may have just been saved by a bunch of machinists from Washington.

​The saga of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has been the political-theater hit of the year. Were it to qualify for nomination, it'd sweep the Tonys.

As you may recall, Sanford skipped town for a week and told everyone he was hiking the Appalachian trail when he was really sleeping with his Argentinian mistress in Buenos Aires. Out of the resulting fall-out, there seemed to be one thing of which everyone was certain: This guy was going to get sacked.

But four months later Sanford still has a job. And now, with Boeing's decision to move Dreamliner production to Charleston, he may actually have enough juice to keep it.

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Topics: Business and Politics

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Where in the World Are Paul Allen's Yachts?

Posted Nov. 2 at 8:15 am by Brian Miller

​Microsoft co-founder and international man of leisure Paul Allen has seen his wealth slide with the rest of us impacted by the recession. Forbes wrote in April that the South Lake Union land baron and Seahawks owner "has lost 36% of his fortune in the last 12 months." He was third among the world's richest people in 2003, but Forbes ranked him only 32nd this year.

Thanks to Yachtspotter.com, however, we can assess a more tangible metric than share prices and land values: Where in the world are Paul Allen's two megayachts? How far have they traveled? And what's their carbon output? Let's look at the yachts, ports, and numbers....

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Topics: Business, Environment, and News

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Amazon Determined to Make Your Credit Card Debt That Much Larger

Posted Oct. 29 at 10:57 am by Brian Miller

​Not content with its awesome third quarter financial results, not resting while indie bookstores succumb to its might, Amazon.com has now announced a means to make impulse shopping from your PC that much easier! And just in time for the holidays.

The venture, called "PayPhrase" is described in company press release as an "easy-to-remember shortcut for paying on Amazon.com. Shoppers simply choose their own customized phrase—such as 'Knick Knack' ... and then enter that phrase along with a PIN to quickly preview their order and complete their purchase." Okay, so we can can choose any phrase we want...?

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Topics: Business and Technology

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Seattle Blogs: Blame Boeing

Posted Oct. 29 at 2:20 pm by Caleb Hannan

Redeemable only for large aeronautics companies.

​Surveying the blogtropolis from the comfort of an office nook.

- HorsesAss says all scapegoating for Boeing's departure should now be forwarded to 1 Dreamliner Way, Charleston, South Carolina.

- CrossCut's David Brewster sees the Boeing loss as a Joe Mallahan win as all Seattle idealists turned to pragmatic pumpkins when the clock struck midnight.

- hugeasscity uses Ralph Waldo Emerson to make the case that a vote for Mike McGinn is a vote for the party of the future. Do ya think that means McGinn knows if the Hawks will cover this Sunday?

Topics: Business and Politics

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Boeing, South Carolina, and the Race to the Bottom

Posted Oct. 29 at 9:21 am by Mark Fefer

Buh-Bye

​Boeing's announcement that it will locate its 787 final-assembly plant in South Carolina has led to predictable condemnation of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. It seems she just didn't do enough to kowtow to the aerospace giant. Republicans, who portray themselves as stout protectors of the public purse when it comes to, say, funding basic health care, cast those concerns to the wind when it's time to bribe big corporations. Republican State Rep. Mike Hope of Lake Stevens angrily observes that "the governor of South Carolina wasted no time in calling a special legislative session to adopt a package of upfront grants [$170 million worth] and tax breaks [for Boeing]. I have to ask our governor... 'Why aren't we in session to demonstrate an equally strong commitment to keeping the aerospace industry...?'"

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Topics: Business and State of Washington

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Microsoft Finds "Family Guy" Offensive, but Thinks "South Park" Is Good, Clean, Family Fun

Posted Oct. 29 at 7:02 am by Caleb Hannan

Nothing says wholesome like a show that depicts the graphic murder of one of its main characters on every episode.

​When Microsoft decided to cancel its sponsorship of a live "Family Guy" episode earlier this week, the TV world had a good chuckle at their expense. The 'Soft pulled out, they said, because they were shocked by the offensive content of a show that included jokes about the Holocaust and incest. To which anyone who'd ever watched a second of the Fox animated hit replied: "Yeah, well, duh."

In light of Microsoft's last-minute change of heart, Joe Flint at the Los Angeles Times asked a media consulting firm to find out if the Redmond giant had bought advertising with other not-so-squeaky-clean shows. The results: Hilarious hypocrisy.

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Topics: Business

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