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The Best Places in America to Starve

Jeremy — Wed, 13 May 2009 02:28:05 +0000

On the boot heels of a Lucrative Investing article about the top 25 areas in America to succeed in business, an article must supplement that and provide the best places in America to go broke due to the high cost of living and failing economy. There are a few things that this writer finds rather symbolic, ironic even, about these locations, some due to the locations involved in the previous article, which you will see if you read both articles, and some are from personal connections.

One thing that the intuitive reader will notice is that in the previous article, a lot of suburbs and rural areas were credited as the best places to prosper. In this article, conversely, major cities are picked on. That is primarily caused by a more demanding economy, with most of these cities totaling well over one million residents.

Thanks to real estate prices that are ‘through the roof’, pun intended, high costs of living, and the highest unemployment rates in the nation next to Detroit, Los Angeles tops our list. Despite being home to the President of the United States, with high real estate prices, high cost of living that is barely under LA and New York City, and almost 10% unemployment, Chicago comes in second. Miami comes in third, despite having three of its close suburbs on the positive list from yesterday’s article.

Residents of The Big Apple have to try to curb the high costs of living, exorbinant living expenses, as even rent in many Manhattan condos can draw blood, only with a median income of $69,500. That may seem reasonable, but remember, so many television personalities live in New York City, like all sorts of nationally syndicated newscasters and the Olsen twins. Naturally, that brings the salary for “normal” people much lower. Coupled with an 8.8% unemployment rate, that brings frenzy to the streets of New York, and puts them at number four. Providence, Rhode Island is fifh on the list, primarily due to the fact that business activity is scarce. Few businesses are quick to branch out into Rhode Island, few universities there come out with top workforce prospects, and venture business capital cannot be easily obtained. Median salary is around 56,000. That obviously means many people are under 30,000 a year, with which it is hard to provide for a family.

The most ironic thing about this list is the fact that some larger cities that are on this list, namely Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, have suburbs that made it near the top of the list on yesterday’s article about productive areas. The suburbs are thriving, but as soon as you hit the city limits, you theoretically hit poverty central. Unfortunately, this is the pattern of a large recession. These cities will bounce back like they always do. When the economy bounces back, it will bounce back as quickly as it declined, and these cities will thrive once again.

Full list (ties are designated with matching numbers):

19. Boston, Massachusetts

19. Warren, Michigan

18. San Francisco, California

17. Jacksonville, Florida

16. St. Louis, Missouri

15. Orlando, Florida

13. Memphis, Tennessee

13. Tampa, Florida

12. Portland, Oregon

11. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

10. San Diego, California

9. Newark, New Jersey

8. Cleveland, Ohio

7. Long Island, New York

6. Riverside, California

5. Providence, Rhode Island

4. New York, New York

3. Miami, Florida

2. Chicago, Illinois

1. Los Angeles, California

Starbucks to close 300 more stores, eliminate 6,700 jobs

Jeremy — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:27:53 +0000

The story of the store that over-expanded. Starbucks has been the butt of many jokes for years because of its odd store locations, sometimes across the street from each other. Well, now it appears that those days are numbered.

Last year, Starbucks closed several hundred stores all across the country due to falling profits and a looming recession. Now it has announced another 300 store closings and a loss of 6,700 jobs. Two-hundred of the stores will be located in the U.S.

I never understood why Starbucks chooses to locate in some areas, but not others. For example, I live in a college town with a student population of around 12,000. We have one Starbucks inside the student union and it’s a collaboration with Barnes and Noble. Yet, in the Grapevine Mills Mall just outside Dallas, there were 2 full size Starbucks. I like Starbucks, but for me, it’s just too inconvenient to buy on a regular basis.

Best Buy hoarding Wii’s?

Jeremy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:56:04 +0000

Over two years after its initial release some stores are still having trouble keeping Wii’s in stock. Just the other day Walmart.com said they had “tens of thousands” of them and still sold out within a matter of minutes.

A rumor floating around gadget and electronic blogs says that some Best Buy stores are holding the popular game system until this Sunday.

I can’t believe that the Wii is still so hard to find. After the 2 years it has been out, it has been steadily out of stock in a lot of locations.

Acer takes top spot in netbook sales

Jeremy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:31:45 +0000

Acer and its Aspire One has overtaken Asus’s EeePC as the top selling netbook in the world. Asus started the trend when it first released its mini notebook the EeePC last year. The third quarter 2008 is the first time that Asus has been overtaken in sales.

The Acer Aspire One was first released in July 2008 and from what I can see it is being sold at more locations that the Eee PC. Where I live, there are two locations that sell the Acer and none that sell the Asus.

HP is also a fast gainer in the market. HP has released the Mini-Note, one of the only netbooks to carry Vista as an operating system option.

The Mumbai terrorist seige has ended

Jeremy — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:16:50 +0000

After days of gunfire, grenades, and hostage taking, the terrorist killing spree in Mumbai, India is finally over. Indian commandos killed the last few gunmen that were held up at the Taj Mahal hotel.

Since the attacks started Wednesday night, at least 150 people were killed and many more were injured as more than a dozen terrorists attacked several locations around Mumbai.

The largest amount of casualties were found where the terrorists were holding hostages, at the Taj Mahal hotel, the Oberoi hotel, and the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish center.

The attacks were some of the worst seen by India short of full blown war.

Even though many people will be forever changed by the events that transpired in the last few days, the country as a whole will prevail. Our thoughts and prayers are going out to the families lost in the attacks.

Go to Starbucks and get free coffee…just ask! and other freebies

Jeremy — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:29:58 +0000

For about a week, Starbucks has been advertising that if you tell them you voted, you would get a free tall size coffee. That promotion is now under scrutiny. Someone crashed the free coffee party and brought up that the promotion could potentially break election laws by providing a good in return for voting.

Starbucks, however, didn’t want to ruin all the fun. Now Starbucks is giving the free tall coffee to anyone who asks.

There are other “I Voted” freebies today:

Krispy Kreme is giving away a free star shaped doughnut if you show your “I Voted” sticker (I didn’t get one of those, my polling place didn’t have them)

Some Chick-fil-A locations are giving away chicken sandwiches.

Ben and Jerry’s – a free scoop of ice cream

Books-A-Million – another free cup of coffee.

German Electric Cars? Perhaps.

Jeremy — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:37:32 +0000

After watching plenty of auto makers make more energy efficient cars, German auto makers have finally decided to start rolling out electric cars. VW is said to start in 2010, and BMW said just last week that they would start testing "several hundred" electric models of the Mini. I guess this is ok, except I thought the point of electric cars was to limit emissions and reduce energy costs on the average consumer. Consider the rising cost of heating and cooling our homes, this doesn’t seem like a great alternative. Not to mention that while an electric car may not produce any or a lot of emissions, coal does. In most locations in the U.S. coal is still the only provider of electricity. Ugh.

However, I have to say, it is about time for VW to make a more efficient car…or alternate energy car at least. When looking for a car last year, the best they could do is a diesel car. However, the better mileage with the diesel fuel was offset by the extremely high cost of diesel. boo.

Sometimes I still wonder if we’ll ever see hydrogen fuel cell cars. I know that right now the technology isn’t in place, but maybe one day.