I don't give to the Big Issue Seller
'Cause he's probably on heroin
I walk past him with a grin
And if I can, I kick his dog

No I don't give to the busker
He's talentless and lazy
He's ruining the country
I think he should get a job

Instead I give my money to:
Walmart, for its tax evasion
Primark, for its child labour
Texaco for the next invasion
Don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

No, I don't give to the beggar
That's what I pay my taxes for
The government should shove him through the door
Of a prison cell, or a hospital

I don't give to the homeless pisshead
He'll blow it all on booze instead
Such a waster doesn't deserve a bed
What do you mean welfare is dead?

Because I give my money to:
Walmart, for its tax evasion
Primark, for its child labour
Texaco for the next invasion
Don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to:
Starbucks, in case they get hard up
BP, 'cause making living ain't easy
Barclays, do they look after me?
And I don't give a fuck about you

Give my money to the millionaires
Give my money to the millionaires
Give all my money to the millionaires
And I don't give a fuck about you

For the record, it is more than 300m (1000 ft) until it is possible to turn left (into Starbucks).
https://www.google.com/maps/search/Highway+7+kfc/@43.87283,-79.262215,18z

Tags for this video have been changed from 'conan, deon, shut the hell up, thailand, starbucks, howard schultz' to 'conan obrien, deon cole, shut the hell up, thailand, starbucks, howard schultz' - edited by xxovercastxx

Holy SHIT is that Starbuck?

@GaussZ

I've not been to Brick Lane but there are similar areas in Chicago. Chinatown has endless Chinese restaurants on the south side. Devon Avenue on the north has curry place after curry place.

These exist for a few reasons.

First, immigrants often naturally group together in certain areas of a city. This is very true of Chicago if you study the demographic profiles. It is not surprising that people want to open a business in the community they live in and eat food they are familiar with.

Second, these streets become destinations in and of themselves. "Let's go get some curry up on Devon Ave (Chicago) or Brick Lane (London)." You may not even have a particular restaurant in mind - you just go there and see what you find.

I would guess that those restaurants are able to survive because they exist in a community where there is high demand for their goods.

Those businesses are competing with each other but there is enough demand for their product in one area that they can all stay open.

Going back to the beach analogy it is like everyone on the beach wanting a LOT of ice cream AND people travelling to the beach because it is known for its great ice cream (presumably they know how to make the best ice cream, curry etc).

Back to my earlier comment, restaurants do like being next to one another and they would prefer if the product is different. Why?

Imagine there are two retail spaces available in a town that has no restaurants. You want to open a curry restaurant in one of the spaces and sign a lease with the landlord to do so. Ideally you are the ONLY restaurant in town. If people want to eat out they have to come to you. Now the landlord wants to lease out the other space - what would you like to see there most? Another Curry Restaurant, a pizza place, or an ice cream shop?

I can tell you for a fact that fast casual restaurants in the USA love being next to a Starbucks because people got to Starbucks everyday. That means if you sell sandwiches people know exactly where you are. They see you everyday and you are right next door to one of their favorite establishments etc.

@newtboy

That is pretty much correct. I've met with the Starbucks people a few times and know people who have worked there or with them.

It is similar to the restaurant discussion above. Everyone wants their coffee at the same time and they can only turn them out so fast.

In addition they want you going to Starbucks, not the Dunkin that is closer to your office.

They may also be in transition in that market - a corner spot may have opened up so they leased that in addition to their two other stores.

Every major retailer crunches a lot of data when picking stores. The metrics are usually very good at predicting sales / market share.

That reminds me of the last time I was in downtown Houston, there was a street intersection with 3 starbucks, 2 on the corners, one one door down. I thought it was insane, but maybe in the morning and lunch they all fill up?

I believe Vancouver BC was the first or second City where a Starbucks opened on a downtown intersection, diagonally across from a Starbucks.

Caffeine is a drug.

@entr0py

The premise is not off at all. Starbucks simply skipped all the moving around steps and located in the "middle of the beach" where the existing coffee shop already was, because (it is likely) that is the best spot in the market.

Starbucks, or any business, does not open to "drive them out of business" they open a store to sell their goods and make a profit.

As someone who has worked with several retailers in very aggressive market sectors (pizza, fast casual, etc) I can tell you that the two vital components to any successful retailer/restaurant are 1) Good location 2) Good Operations. A good location means your customer will see you and get to you. Good operations means once they are there they will be served well.

More often then not when we start working with a new client we look at their competition not because we want to "drive them out of business", but because they have already looked at and evaluated the market. We then evaluate their locations and see if that is still the correct location or not. Markets shift for a variety of reasons - housing growth, retail expansion, major retailers relocating, etc.

"It's easier to steal someone else's customer base than try to create your own." Really? I find this to be the silliest argument. There is a limited amount of money people are going to spend on a product. Lets say a town will spend $1000 a day on coffee. If you open another coffee shop they are not going to spend an additional thousand. The $1000 is just going to be divided up. Maybe there is a slight increase because of access, but by and large people are only going to spend so much. Furthermore, people are creatures of habit. They are actually more likely to continue to go where they have been going unless you offer something better. That better might be a combination of easier access, faster service, a nicer interior, cheaper prices, or better product.

In the city I work in there are several grocery chains expanding and opening new stores. Does that mean people are spending more on groceries? No. What has happened is the grocer with the weakest operations closed. Those locations (over 30) have since been taken over by a variety of both national chains and local independent grocers (all who have better operations). This competition has meant better prices and service for customers.

I buy my coffee a block from my house (and I usually just buy the beans they roast on site) from a local shop. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that other people choose to go to the Starbucks up the street. The coffee I buy is better and I pay a premium for it.

Edit: One last thought - Among the many competitive advantages corporate users have is that they can operate at a loss or lower profit than many "local" stores. That being said the same is not quite as true from franchisee business owners (who have different advantages, hopefully).

Yeah, I think that's a much more accurate description of what's going on. Another example is how national chains behave when they're trying to break into a new market. Back before Starbucks was everywhere, their strategy in a new town was to build right next to the local coffee shop (and hopefully drive them out of business). People are already in the habit of going to that location for coffee; it's easier to steal someone else's customer base than try to create your own.

But still I have to upvote for a good illustration of a few game theory concepts, even if their premise that it explains business clustering is off.

@Shepppard

Restaurants like to be next to one another so long as they are different products. It creates a "food destination". Preferably lack of availability or a restriction would prevent users that have a product that is very similar.

Ever notice how most retail developments only have one coffee shop or one sandwich shop? Retail users ask landlords for an exclusive use. For example, Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts will say they can be the only store that sells coffee in a shopping center. Another restaurant may serve coffee as an incidental use - that is it can't be the central part of their business. This makes it harder for a new user to enter an established market.

You seem to be fixated on peak capacity of sit down restaurants. Restaurants have to complete their own analysis of how much square footage to have to accommodate the heaviest dining times, but still cover their costs when seats sit empty. Each square foot adds to their cost.

This video is very accurate in describing how users evaluate and respond to competition within a market.

I have worked in commercial retail brokerage for the last 10 years with several national users - pharmacies, banks, restaurants, and general retail use.

As a final comment, users can and will move. People do not notice as much but retailers relocate when they must to stay competitive or to block another user from coming into a market.

Your video, Starbucks Drive Thru - Slingblade style, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I hope my daughter and wife handle my ... peculiarities like these do.

Daughter: Dad's being weird again. Par for the course.
Mom: We can never come back to this Starbucks again!

In my opinion - and i think Brand's too, though i don't want to put words in his mouth - the motivation to act based upon nothing but profit is the largest and most significant drain on happiness and especially the advancement of us as a people. We need a revolution of principle, a revolution of the mind, we cannot keep on doing what we are doing when it is so clearly not working.

We have been pouring the results of our productivity into bank balances for so long now. If our productivity was represented by food instead of money, we would have been putting corn into a hole in the ground for 30 years and wondering why people are hungry. In a system based on corn, prosperity of a nation is based upon the free and active flow of corn.

I ask this question of you, because i don't know the answer. Do you think that we can continue pouring our productivity into big holes that other people sit on for "whenever they might need it?" Is it reasonable to build a system based on flow, but let huge clumps of it gather and expect everything to keep running quickly and without turbulence?

It just doesn't work anymore. The very rich don't realise it yet because they can afford to pay to avoid it, the quite rich notice it when they sit in traffic for example, but eventually things will become so clogged up that they will have no choice but to notice that there are no quality schools, hospitals, roads, airports, shops nor people to do their shopping, cleaning, cooking and driving. We all benefit, including the rich, if money is put into improving our infrastructure and facilities. We all benefit when productivity is flowing freely and quickly through the system. The opposite of that is called a depression, and it's when people don't have confidence in spending their money... we know that, we accept it, people were repeating it during the recession. How come we can't recognise the polar opposite? We're in a semi-permanent state of inverse depression, where those at the top don't have the means to spend their money, so it doesn't move.

This is an idea that needs to come from grassroots, everyone needs to come together somehow and unify over this idea. Because you can't blame any one individual for taking advantage of their fortunate position on the uneven playing field, or for fighting for a better position on the field. We all need to agree that the playing field has to be even, otherwise eventually the playing field will not be worth using.

I cannot stand this poisonous idea that you cannot ask a company for tax and here's my argument against that:
A lot of people live in the UK and a lot of people want to buy coffee and other assorted goods (starbucks, amazon). Even including tax, there is a lot of money to be made selling to these people. Let's say there is 2 billion pounds in profit available to be made by someone. That's still profit to be made by someone, and whoever offers that service to them under the correct rules makes that money.

The problem is that there's 4 billion to be made without tax, and it's cheaper to buy the politician for a billion to ensure you get the tax breaks. That is the poisoned system that psycho-capitalism has eventually produced... And it's so naive to think otherwise... so naive to think that those with billions of pounds wouldn't buy economists and lawyers, tout the favourable theories, generally spend top money on creating the right environment to make more money. Whether you think more or less tax is a good idea, surely have to agree that whatever the rules are, we adhere to them, or the system that we so carefully designed it around will fail.

Why are people so reticent to believe that we're being duped? No, surely not, it's the government, they can't possibly be lying to us. They stood in front of us, bare-faced, and told us they weren't torturing people, they had intelligence about WMDs, they weren't spying on us all. They prove themselves to be deceitful but like toddlers we trust the adult.

You're not your Starbucks coffee.