I read an article in the December 12 Daily Press by Sandra Pendicini titled "Restaurants Change Their Tunes."  It explained that chains such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster fell that a good way to make more money is to update their soundtrack.  Olive Garden used to play songs by people like Frank Sinatra, but now he is heard less often and artists like Adele are being played more.  The sales managers at these restaurants think that by playing new music will attract younger customers, and change the atmosphere of the place, which might people want to stay longer and spend more money.  I think that this is a good marketing strategy, yet I think Olive Garden should probably keep Itialian music more often than not because it might add to the theme of the restaurant.  I also disagree with Sonny's BBQ because they have decided to play less country music.  A BBQ restaurant in the South should definitely play country music to add to the atmosphere.  In class, maybe Pete and Joe's or Weserville family restaurant could learn a lesson from this.

On Sunday, December First,  Daily Press had an article by Geoff Williams titled "Bracing For the High Price of Teen Drivers."  It explained that a new driver is very expensive for a teen's parents. Insurance companies will raise the insurance rate when you add your child to your policy.  A girl in Alexandria, VA received her driver's license, and since than has gotten into two accidents.  The insurance company quickly cancelled her family's policy.  The average premium increase in the nation after adding a 16 to 19 year old driver to the policy is 84 percent.  Insurance rates are raised higher if a male is added. I think this is hard financially on parents of teenage drivers.  I do not think this is unfair, however.  Teen drivers are more likely to get into a wreck because they are new to the skill.  Insurance companies will lose a lot of money if they have to pay the cost of the wrecks a new driver will get in. However, I also think these increased insurance rates will affect the economy because it may discourage the parents of wanting their teen to drive.  This would mean less people buying cars as well as gasoline.  Already, the majority of teens do not want to drive because it is too expensive for them anyway.  With an increase in insurance rates, though, new drivers are more expensive to themselves as well as their parents.

In yesterday's Daily Press I read an article by Robert Reich titled "Henry Ford could educate Walmart."  The article was interesting because we recently had a debate about Walmart in Weserville, and we had talked about Walmart's low wages.  It turns out these low wages might be hurting Walmart's sales, as well as the economy.  Mainly people who work at Walmart shop at places like Walmart.  If the company were to increase its wages, then the workers could buy more, helping the economy as well as Walmart.  Walmart is so big that if it increased its wages, many other companies would as well, boosting the entire nation's economy.  Henry Ford did this in 1914.  By increasing his wages to his factory workers, many more people could now afford his cars, meaning he made a fortune and helped America.  I admire good ol' Henry's descision, because he helped his workers, the economy, and got rich.  I think Walmart would be very wise to do the same, however they may not understand the benefits.   In our classroom, we could increase Weserville's economy if maybe the almighty giver of our paychecks would maybe increase our wages...            Maybe.  Anyway this would let us be able to put more money into the market of Weserville.  Do you want to earn more money and at the same time help your town?????  Wink wink nudge nudge mrs weser :)

An article in Yesterday's Daily Press by Andrea Chang called "Heat on Blackberry to hang up on phones" showed me that Blackberry is in the trough part of the business cycle.  The author thinks that if Blackberry keeps on trying to sell smart phones then they will never enter a reconstructing stage.  In the business cycle, this means they will never reach a peak again.  Blackberry is trying to transform its business model to save itself.  I think this is a smart decision because the company is obviously not doing to well in the smart phone department.  I hardly see Blackberry phones at all anymore.  To other businesses in the smart phine market, mainly Apple and Android, this is probably good because even if it was a very weak competitor, it still is decreasing the competition a little bit.

On Tuesday, October 29, an article in the Daily Press titled "Burger king thinking 'impactful' ", explained that Burger King is not going to put introduce as many seasonal menu items in order to improve the speed of service as well as profits.  They will stock new and interesting food items, such as a bacon sundae, but not as many as usual.  I think this is a good idea for Burger King because they can make more profit, and satisfy customers at the same time.  Though there are not as many new food items, the items seem very attention grabbing, like bacon sundae. Like we learned about in class, fast food hamburgers are an oligopoly, because a few companies own almost all of the percentage of the market.  If Burger King offers these cool menu items, its competitors may need to rack their brains and find some new ideas as well.

This week we started a project about advertising tourism in Weserville.  We must think of ideas that will appeal to other people and make them want to come to the town.  We have learned before that one of the factors that changes demand is consumer taste, which is influenced greatly by advertising.  I think that it is interesting how advertisers are paid money for the sole purpose of changing someone's mind.  They would have to be good at this in order for the business to make stacks and stacks.  BOYCOTT RAY'S BLOG!!!!

This week I read another article about the stock market.  It was in Wednesday's newspaper and written by Gail Marks Jarvis.  The article was called "Stocks Unfazed By Stalemate."  It said that even though the government is temporarily  shut down,  investors of the stock market did not panic and frantically sell out.  The article explains says that if anything, the stocks went up.  I was scared at first with our virtual stock market game, but luckily I forgot to check my stocks so I didn't have a chance to sell out.