The Economy

The amount of research Dollar General puts into selecting sites is pretty amazing. If there aren't X number of people making above Y salary, but below Z, within a certain radius then they don't build.

 

Bullshit. Dollar General stores clone themselves.

 

Did your father start out with a house he inherited? If not, you had a head start compared to his generation. And your kids will have an even greater head start compared to your generation.

Think of a typical middle class kid growing up in the Bay Area or some other uber expensive place.

They'll graduate, go to work, probably struggle to make ends meet at first --- especially if they choose to stay in that area.

Then one day they inherit a $2 million home. Which they could keep, and not have to worry about sky-high mortgage or rent. Or they could sell, move someplace cheaper and have a seven-figure bank account before their 401(k) is barely warming up. All because they had parents who lived in scorching real estate market.

That $72 trillion is not going to just the wealthy.

What other generation has been so blessed?

 

Until recently the best food value anywhere was a 20-oz. Coke for a dollar at Dollar stores.

 

Paid $3.50 the other day for a "Mexican" Diet Coke in our building. WTF is a "Mexican" Diet Coke if there's no sugar in it?

 

It does the job American Diet Cokes won't do?

 

Are there chains left in America that don't do this?

 

Diet Coke is blended differently in various countries and some say they can perceive a difference in taste. I can not taste the difference, but imaginary or not, a market exists for the Mexican variety. My Mexican born wife used to go to the Hispanic supermarket and there would be Mexican Coke products on sale.

 

Probably not.

I get amused when locals complain about "another bank branch" opening here or there. Like US Bank or Arvest or Wells Fargo doesn't do a shit ton of research before building something!?!

 

Yeah, Wells Fargo sure did a shit ton of reserach before surreptitiously signing loan customers up for auto insurance, its account fraud scandal, as well as fraudulent behavior against its foreign exchange currency trading customers. And a $3.7 billion federal fine for accidentally deeming many customers to have negative bank balances. Oh, and money laundering and funneling cash to Mexico through fictitious accounts.

 

That’s not the real estate arm. And, frankly, I think there are only a couple locations here. I was just naming banks I drive past on n the commute.

 

We went from zero to a half-dozen Chase branches here in the last six months. All of them freshly built. I don’t believe they bought anyone out to enter the market.