Alpine Buttercup

Coffee Wars: McDonald's vs. Starbucks

Gentlemen,

I completely disagree with all your analysis of the $4 coffee. It is about taste. It is not about experience (or just a little). Why on earth would anyone pay $4 for a latte? It is a well packed espresso with fresh crema on top. Properly foamed milk that picks up the oils from the fresh roasted beans. And the smell. Women that don't like to over eat can have a liquid that is satisfying and doesn't make your stuffed stomach hang over your pants. Ten minutes with a delicious coffee and the rest of the afternoon is great.

When you automate the espresso process and have untrained kids in a hurry to slap out hot milk (with poor foam and no smell from the coffee) why on earth did I just pay $4 for that? And if Starbucks can push a button so can anyone. It becomes a drink for people who can't tell the difference and will eat any old junk food. Those people are hardly likely to discriminate on name and are likely to fall to price and convenience. Pile it up with whip cream (edible oil product) and sugar... who will notice?

This is why the independent coffee shops stay in business and won't be competing with McDonald's. Starbucks lost the core of its earning power when it switched to automated espresso machines. Now it's a race to the bottom of price.

4 Money Problems That Obama Can't Fix

massive subsidies from exporting oil? What about all the years when oil was $10/bbl? $30/bbl? Health care in Tuktayuktuk would be (is) so expensive... who would provide it under an American system? If it was provided, who could use it? Canadian health care is necessary for geographic reasons. What we save on all the paperwork and bureaucracy of the American system, we can spend on health care for small northern towns. For all the rhetoric about socialism etc. the Canadian system beats the American system hands down on efficiency. It is an economic trade off that provides basic health care across a large land space in the most efficient manner that we can manage at this time. What isn't efficient is the transparency in our government. I don't think anyone would be capable of seeing money directly placed from oil to health care.

Potash One Will Be Top Performer in Agriculture Bull Market

Solution mining might not be a great idea over the long-term. They will be fighting oil and natural gas for water as they try to increase productivity of aging wells. Oil sands need water. Farm irrigation and beef also require water. Water-policy and conservation have been in the news for a few years.

Penn West Energy: More Questions Than Answers

Hi there,

Steve Ward, thanks for your kind response. I'll keep looking through all this info. I just have another question... as I'm still getting used to all these metrics. I just can't see how buying land is a bad idea. And leumas, you mentioned "without huge sacrifice in terms of per share boe production or reserves". Leumas, you also found the information from CIDA... Does anyone know if they have already counted oil sands proved and probable? (Sorry if my language is not very sophisticated) Alberta has had traditional seismic over every meter of it... and most places have been looked at two or three times. I don't think traditional seismic picks up oil sands reserves though. I think it focuses on pools. It was only last year or so... when the US started recognizing oil sands reserves in the accounting. If they bought (are buying) all that land and are planning to do gravity, radiometric and magnetic arial surveys so they can officially recognize oilsands reserves... have they already included that... and I just can't see it yet? In reading all these annual reports and websites I still don't understand things well enough. That would make sense with no premiums on the last acquitions... and not paying high prices for oil reserves that haven't even been recorded yet, but they know are there.... They have a 100 years of oil drilling data and low success rates in the beginning years because the will didn't frac right or was full of sand.

Penn West Energy: More Questions Than Answers

Thanks for a great website and great comments! This is my first time writing, but I've been listening for awhile. I've just finished my first Financial Accounting course at university, and I've been listening and reading about income trusts for awhile. I have a few questons...

1. AET.un talks about all the DRIPs and how that allows them to have distrubutions that don't affect cash flow and they can have higher payout ratios with comfortable cash flows. Management in Calgary is a small club of old boys... and they just all know how this works and don't offer much to the public in the way of information. It's true. I think this might be what their new "free flows" are referring to... any thoughts?

2. It's break-up up north and there can't be a lot of drilling or develpment until summer or freeze up again next winter... As far as reserve replacement goes, everyone is criticizing them for buying all this land. Are they using the land rights as a way to store cash? The tax rules for income trusts have them distributing all the profits, so they could store cash in land and then they can sell it to Exxon or Imperial or Petro-Canada when they need to prop up cash? Sell it off saying that they are divesting non-core assets or something? If oil stays high, then they eventually drill it? I've been watching PD.un... It seems like everyone is getting ready to move, but not yet. The oil patch seems to be reorgaizing it self. They have to figure out how to change from trusts into something else. Everyone on BNN talks about the tax pools that have been built up, but Encana has also just announced a split of the oil and gas. It seems that reorganization is going on. The environmental regulations are pushing for more carbon capture... and gas flaring regulations. To stop the gas flaring they need more pipelines closer to these swan hills, pembina, and seal fields. The roads are far too muddy to get a truck in most of the time. To get at the Peace River oilsands, they need to wait for the nuclear energy plants in Peace River to be built. I don't think regulators will allow another Ft. McMurray oilsands development. It will have to be insitu with steam. That takes infrastructure. Which alberta doesn't have and doesn't have the labor to build. How to sit on cash? Buy land and rights? Good payouts while waiting for these things to sort themselves out. How can you see whether this is in the numbers? True or not true?