Daily Archives: Nov. 10, 2008

Death of high dollar coffee?

Starbucks and their ilk always struck me as a little ridiculous, a small sign of America’s debt-fueled over-affluence, selling coffee 4 to 6 times more expensive than homebrew. Well, like so many other things, fancy coffee is cooling fast as people clutch their dollars close to their chests.

Today, Starbucks reported that sales per store are falling. Caribou Coffee and Tim Horton’s have done likewise. But those companies also report bagged coffee sales are still strong, meaning people are making it, but at home.

19 bank failures and counting

This year’s bank failures far exceed any year’s bank failures since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. started publicly counting them in 2000.

On Friday, the FDIC was named receiver for two failed banks: Security Pacific Bank, a $561 million bank based in Los Angeles, and Franklin Bank, a Houston-based thrift with $5.1 billion in assets.

Friday’s closures brought the number of failed banks in 2008 to 19. That’s higher than the bank closures in 2002, which totaled 11.