Food for Thought #2

All these vegetarian enchiladas need is a nice bowl of pinto beans or maybe some refries slopped on the plate. Oh, and some salsa on the side.

Photo source: sweet and saucy

I need a logo for this series. Any artist types got an idea?

Appetizer: Look to your left. What color do notice see first?

Suna is wearing a quiet brown jacket and shirt. She usually picks a much more festive pallet, so brown is very noticeable. I like it.

Soup: What type of beans do you enjoy most?

Pintos. They are very flexible. You can put them in chili (if you don’t follow the Terlingua rules), serve them in bean broth, or fry them again. I love them.

Salad: What was the most interesting thing that happened during the last week?

To me it was that a CEO acted with dignity and honor rather than taking the money and running. See my post about Howard Schultz yesterday.

Entré: What was the most difficult decision your had to make in the last year? How did you decide?

That would be the decision to sell part of the old family homestead. I needed the money, but I didn’t want to do it. Finally, Dad said he couldn’t take care of it anymore and wanted a neighbor to have it. The neighbor offered a really fair price, and it was done.

Dessert: Among your friends and family, who has the next birthday?

I think that would be TrackGrease, on the 10^th of February.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, showed real leadership this week.

Photo scource: Pro Commerce

Everyone knows that the economy sucks right now. It seems we learn of more closures and layoffs every day. If fact, the latest number from the government show the highest number of people on unemployment this week since statistics were tracked. And that doesn’t count those on a special extension enacted last year. (In case you aren’t depressed enough already, Stateline.org has a state-by-state breakdown of unemployment.)

So I wasn’t surprised to learn this morning that Starbucks closing another 300 locations and reducing payroll by thousands. This action comes after Q1 profit fell by 69%.

I listened to Wendy Kaufman’s article (NPR.org) with growing numbness until something unusual caught my attention. Chief Executive Howard Schultz is showing incredible leadership and responsibility in his drive to turn the company around. Schultz has taken the remarkable step of asking the board of directors to reduce his base salary to $10,000 from more than $1M last year.

Contrast this determination with the actions of Merill Lynch CEO John Thain, who spent more than $1.2M (Wall Street Nation) redecorating his office while his company burned around him. (Hampton Roads has his complete shopping list.) While negotiating the sale of Merrill, Thain and the board also pushed through measures to speed their bonuses before Bank of America took over. These bonuses totaled several billion dollars while the company lost more than $15.3B in one quarter. In my humble opinion, that constitutes theft of the stockholders’ equity. Thankfully, I have never owned Merill stock.

So I want to nominate Howard Schultz for some kind of award. He is actually walking the walk instead of just expecting his employees to cover all the slack.

While most CEOs don’t come anywhere near Thain’s Nero-esque behavior, you also don’t hear of many of them offering to cut back their salaries.

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6 February 2008 Update: The economy continues to real under the weight of the theivery of those who had the helm of some of the world’s largest financial companies. Even relatively conservative outlets like The Motley Fool, an investment firm and advisor, are calling for blood. See “Hundreds Should Go to Jail.”