Good local businesses?

The McDonalds on Vandy and Atlantic has been around forever and has provided tons of money into the area through service, construction and maintenance jobs, not to mention saving local consumers tons more by consistently providing inflation-proof, affordable meals.

The Usual, Bob Law's, Mitchell's, they've been here forever as well. They provide good (or not so good depending on your opinion) , cheap meals, and provide work for people struggling to make ends meet.

brooklynleather wrote: i have never eaten at the usual but i recently saw a take out menu and i wouldn't call it it a cheap meal by any means (entrees around 15 bucks)

sounds like you saw a menu from the short-lived experiment with "diner by day, fine dining by night".

rest assured that the usual is the home of cheap eats -- i worked out for a piece i was writing last year that breakfast at the usual cost me around (i'm not looking at my notes, but i think i posted it here somewhere) $1.96 more than its components would cost me at Met foods. and that's not counting my electricity, gas, or water expenditure making the meal.

also, mike and johnny (the owners) would make my list of good neighborhood business owners, though i have no facts about charitable giving other than the collection they had going for the funeral of a worker of theirs who was killed. they are genuinely friendly, welcoming men. (when i first got to the neighborhood, mike made a point of giving me his card, saying, "if you ever get lost, don't be stupid. call me or my brother, and we'll tell you how to get home.") they care a great deal about their customers, and do things like have birthday parties for a regular now and then.

and they serve grits! (but the iced tea is ghastly.)

glad it didn't take too long to swing this thread over to food, which after all is a fine way to give back to the neighborhood.

Ain't no difference between Dems and GOP'ers. Go to Beast, they're Communists.

And every Dem who gave Bush full support for Iraq?

Tom's, by far. Even better since he 1) lives in the neighborhood 2)closes on Sundays. Now stop the whining about that, and make your own eggs & bacon on Sunday.

McDonald's, sadly, has also greatly contributed to thousands of people becoming obese. I'd say they are a poor example of giving back to the neighborhood. Thank you McD's for the high blood pressure, the diabetes and heart disease. Thanks as well for providing cheap, though horrendously malnutritioned meals to the poor. Thank you McDonald's for supplying us with trans fats to clog our arteries......you get the jist, yeah?

Howsabout the U-Haul (I think) rental place on St Marks between Underhill and Washington? We had a thread going in December about it -- the guy who owns it puts out lots of those inflatable outdoor decorations for Christmas, Halloween, and I think other holidays too for the neighborhood kids to enjoy, and he was staying open kind of late at night before Christmas so that people could come on the lot to take pictures.

F & B enterprises on Washington at the corner of Prospect place is owned by Alijay (sp?) and is a great mail and postage place. He is a real community person and sometimes has band practice in the space as well.

Ginger Cafe on Washington rocks.

I think the Met on Vandy is a great local grocery. I am bugging the owner to start an organic produce section and he just might do it as they try to stock things that customers ask for. All the staff are great.

LOVE Shambala Yoga at St marks and Washington. LOVE Gen sushi on the opposite corner. LOVE Geido sushi on Flatbush. LOVE Aliseo's italian on Vandy. The Indian food (delivery) is better at Joy indian on Flatbush near Prospect Ave.

Prospect Natural on Washington has a nice stock of toiletries and pet supplies.

I think the dry cleaners on the corner of Vandy and Park is quite good tho not the cheapest. But good quality.

The stationary store on Flatbush at Park is quite well stocked with office supplies, wrapping paper, pens etc.

I like Kings Pharmacy as well on Flatbush tho for convenience i stop into the Thriftway on Washington quite often.

Hate the Mayday hardware because of poor selection tho they are very nice. LOVE Pintchiks hardware on Bergen and Flatbush!

Have rented from the uhaul place on St marks and they are great.

ALso have rented zip cars which are garaged at both Underhill and St Marks parking garages.

Another vote for Geido. Nod to Natural Land on Flatbush, they might not be cheap but they have the best produce in the area.

I like the vibe at Joyce, their coffee is pretty good, but I'm not trying to start Yet Another neighborhood coffee shop flamebait thread.

The Usual, Flatbush Farm / Barn, Sepia.

And big shout-out to the guys at Acme Pet Foods on Vandy, since they let me bring my big goofy black mutt into the store while shopping, and he loves it (which then turns into add'l sales for them).

escap,

just give me a little bit to digest your posting. I have a bit to say about what you wrote. I don't even think I'm gonna argue with you too much about your points......

I'm leaving the country for a vacation and have a million things to do.

Peace out, escap. I'll be back sometime after the 7th! We will continue this then.

Smokin' Joe wrote: true enough that outside investment brings money into a local economy, but you're ignoring basic economics: any business that puts in more than it takes out is not long for this world. and with a locally owned business, much--though certainly not all--of what's taken out gets plowed back in to the local economy.

Though what you're saying seems so intuitive, it's unfortunately one of the great prevailing myths of our time. It's the same logic that leads Hugo Chavez to nationalize his telecom industry and Lou Dobbs to rail against foreign ownership of toll roads. The notion is FALSE, and in fact ignores basic economics, to use your expression.

Let's walk through the steps using a simplified example. Company ABC is interested in buying an asset (property, a lease, a business, whatever) in PH. That asset is currently generating a $100 profit per year and can be expected to continue to do so going forward indefinitely. Let's arbitrarily choose 10% as the appropriate discount rate to measure the present value of those profits, meaning the asset has a net present value of $100/10%=$1,000 [if you're not familiar with this calculation I'll have to just ask you to trust me]. That is the wealth of the asset's owner in PH.

Now, an outside investor determines that he can, through greater knowledge, economies of scale or whatever, yield $200 a year profit from the same asset, at an equal level of risk. Thus, to him the property is worth $200/10%=$2,000. The local owner, only able to generate a present value of $1,000 himself, thus sells his asset to the investor, realizing an immediate $2,000 of cash on hand. Now imagine for the moment that other similar assets in the neighborhood exist--since we've already established that he has the capacity to generate $100 per year per asset, each of which was worth $1,000 to him, he can now go out and buy two assets to replace his one. He, the local owner, is now operating two businesses, and realizing double the profits. Or perhaps he just buys a stock that gives him a 10% return--whatever. He is clearly now better off by $1,000 in present value terms, and thus the "community" is richer by that amount.

Now let's see what happens with the outside investor. He has increased the wealth of the community by $1,000, but we know that area residents will spend an additional net of $100 per year at this store than they were before, which reduces the community's wealth by a present value of exactly $100/10%=$1,000 (actually they will spend more b/c the $100 is profit not revenue--however, $100 is the appropriate number because don't forget they are getting some product or service back, it's not a donation!). Thus, worse case scenario, in which the investor extracts every dollar of profit, then you have a net gain/loss to the community of $0. HOWEVER, virtually no business dividends out every penny to its shareholders. More likely, the investor might take some amount (let's say 50%) of the profit for himself, and reinvest the rest into the business. In our simplified example, this means that he is now funneling in an extra $50 per year, which discounted at 10% in perpetuity equals $500 of net present value, into the community, that did not exist there before. This $50/yr will take the form of new jobs, construction, etc. Thus, the community as a whole has been enriched, not to mention the intangible benefit people receive from having an addition to their consumer choices.

Hopefully a couple of you have made it through all this. Most of you have probably tuned out long ago. Some who did make it to the end are probably full of protests at the simplifications, the numerous flaws here and there, and are thinking, "But this! But that!". You may not, for example, be familiar with time value of money calculations, in which case you probably think I'm insane. Please let me assure you that for the sake of trying to clearly express the point I have obviously made this example unrealistic, but the fundamental logic is absolutely correct. And what I say is most definitely basic economics!! You will not find any economists who will argue that countries, for example, reduce their wealth by allowing foreign companies to invest and take the profits abroad, nor that countries increase their wealth by nationalizing foreign owned resources. This is just another manifestation of the myth you outlined above. Some liberal economists like Joseph Stieglitz and Jeffrey Sachs will make other arguments along the lines that foreign investment hurts the environment, labor conditions, local culture, that the contracts are negotiated unfairly and corruptly, etc. But they would not disagree with the basic premise that outside investment increases domestic wealth.

No one can dispute the results when you look at, say Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, all of whom have welcomed foreign investment, compared to North Korea and Cuba, who have proclaimed "self-sufficiency" as their goal. Look at the growth in China, Vietnam and India since they opened their countries up to investment. And yes, this same principle absolutely holds true, if not more so, on a micro level (ie neighborhoods and cities). Like I said at the outset, the notion that a business will "take out more than it puts in" is truly enticing, but is flat out wrong. In fact, if it were true you could never have any wealth creation of any kind! The absolute best-case scenario would be simple maintenance of current levels. But a profitable business creates value, it doesn't destroy it.

Hopefully this has given at least some of you food for thought. Perhaps we can meet up at Starbucks sometime to discuss further....