Late last night, Goldman Sachs issued an email report to investors about America's fine restaurants and eating facilities! Their point seems to be that the downward trend in the industry is "expected" and even "good," which I am not enough of an economist to understand. (Overall growth in the industry this spring apparently was -0.7%, and "independents led the decline (-1.7%)." And also there was, sort of hilarious, a "bar & grill contraction" of -1.3%.) But here's something interesting!
Emphasis mine:
Secular challenges remain for restaurants – casual dining and QSR. We continue to believe that restaurants' share of food spend will be difficult to grow as consumers continue to rationalize discretionary expenditures after massive wealth destruction and demographics shift unfavorably. Demand at casual diners has remained soft despite broad discounting, but in the near-term, cost saves at casual diners have helped sustain margins.Oh really! A destruction of America's wealth, you say. Impacting consumers and businesses! I had not heard of this before from Wall Street.
"sort of hilarious" eh? Tell that to the gang down at Houlihans, tough guy.
(Also who the fuck writes these reports? Jesus. food spend? casual diners? cost saves? Did not a single one of you take an intro to writing at your fancy Ivy League schools in between learning how to steal all our money?)
Oh, they're unintelligible to people like me. I assume they are very very smart and know lots of things, because I can barely get through them. I may be assuming wrong.
You are wrong (and I mean that in the nicest possible way!) The banks think that/intend for the use of jargon such as "food spend" (WHICH, UGH OHMYGOD UGH) makes them sound insidery and Smarter Than You, when really the use of jargon is an indicator that one's pig is wearing a glaring shade of lipstick.
Respect the business man/woman who can speak to you in plain English. That's the guy/gal you want working for you and I'm serious.
(Sorry! This is my sweet spot! I could talk corporate voicing all day long! I am actually a tremendously boring person, yes!)
It's all available on Mad-Libs (and PowerPoint templates).
EXAMPLE:
(Industry)is being (verb for size change)(adjective) because of (catchphrase), (trend), and (weather-noun).
Way back in the othergolden era, the 80's, I did a lot of temp work, and I can assure you that half my tasks were not secretarial, but proofreading and re-writing. For guys who had gone to Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth...Half of them couldn't write a phone message.
Yeah, its all industry talk. I worked at a shop where I covered a lot of casual dining restaurants so it makes perfect sense to me. But then again, my sense of grammar has gone down the toilet since I began my career and had to adjust to writing everything in bullet point format
Someone got an average of $770,000 to write that.
There is probably more than one credited author, so yeah, it's expensive to put out missives like this.
What the fuck is a "secular challenge"? Godless heathens are refusing to eat blooming onions?
It means erosion caused by forces outside of the restaurant sector. I know. I KNOW! Also, blooming onions, heh.
Oh, how I laughed at this!
I laughed so hard it made me spend on my food.
I want a lunch date with the food with eyes.
Secular challenges remain for my interest in this story and I expect that my interest spend will be difficult to grow.
Yes, too bad about the destruction of all that wealth. If only the bubble could have continued to inflate ad infinitum...
Why do I see this in a Star Wars type scroll, disappearing into the starry cosmos at the beginning of a movie.....