PREGUNTAVER

I have previously written about profit (as a motivation to become efficient and its benefits to the consumers) and competition & price equilibrium in relation to the coffee shops industry . Taking competition a bit further, Starbucks is offering $1 coffee (still expensive, if you'll ask me) and free refills. This is in addition to earlier moves to install drive-thru counters and national advertisements. This will probably be a long protracted "Cafe Wars" in an industry worth billions of dollars. I surmise that such move by Starbucks was in response to McDonald's move to compete in the industry. MacDonalds already serve cheaper coffee (with refills) and gives free WiFi services, something that Satrbucks is yet to do. I heard that WiFi in Starbucks outlets in the UK costs an arm and a leg. With probably more outlets worlwide (Starbucks has 15,000), McDonalds should never be taken lightly as a competitor. My biggest pick as a future industry loser remains to be Nes...

One of the beauties of competition is that the equilibrium price speaks well of the products being sold. Demand for the particular product goes up or down depending on the supply of its competitors brand. At this point, the demand for coffee shops is on the rise and many brands have joined the fray. Starbucks dominate the market but other companies are moving heaven and earth to get bigger slices. This led to good services from everyone in the industry and to mention one improvement, WIFI services are now available in most stores, some of it are even free. Further to my previous post , I visited a another coffee shop and found it worth some space in this blog. Nescafe Cafe' been around for some years and searching the web, you'll find lots outlets in South Africa, Poland and other countries. Well, I went to one in Manila and to my horror, the price is so obscenely high! Common, Starbucks imports coffee beans, other shops also do and, they brew their coffee beans right under you...

Free market economists contend that profit is the main motivation why man becomes efficient. When he sees an opportunity to make money, he takes it and in the process makes the community a better place. Well, they started by serving free WiFi and now, they have added a Barista position in their restaurant crews. By adding more products and services on their repertoire, the world's number one restaurant chain hope to gain US$ 1 billion in their annual profits. It's all about profit for McDonalds but for us lowly humans, its better service that we get for our money.

Fed up with your tax bill? Maybe you should consider moving to Alaska . Where to locate the company's offices & facilities should always be a part of every start up businessman's checklist. There are cities that offer tax holidays and incentives for certain industries and being able to identify and take advantage of such a program can spell the difference between a firm's highway to profitability or road to bankruptcy. Of course, there are a lot of other items to be considered (such as salary rates and cost of living) but for now, this short essay will dwell on taxes. As explained by a number of American exporting companies that I deal with, their products which used to bear the proudly "Made in the USA" logo now says "Made in Mexico" for tax purposes, among other reasons. In the same vein, every citizen should also consider a similar checklist in order to make life a lot easier. For the ordinary employee or small entrepreneur, taxes may also spell t...

The previous post spoke well of the government for its intervention in a market failure scenario. In the situation mentioned, 70 million (mostly poor) Filipinos were being deprived of proper health care by being forced to buy expensive medicines, in a cartel like (oligopoly) situation. A follow up to that story, however, will show that the government action to correct market failure is fast threatening to become a classic example of "Government failure". The Philippine Government created the "Botika ng Bayan " (People's Drugstore) in order to make affordable medicines accessible, especially to the poor. In order to show the strengths of the program, the cheap product prices , printed in colored canvass, stands outside the branches. At present, it has 5,800 branches and by 2007, the goal is to expand to 7,800 local offices. What fuels skepticism over the project are experiences that include: Two visits to a branch showed that the outlet was already closed by 7P...