I Ate My Lunch in San Francisco

GetQuik is now servicing San Francisco.

We began our SF launch 2009 January 8th and have gotten off to a robust start. Our key man on the street Manu is heading up the effort. We are actively adding new restaurants to service San Francisco customers. We now have over 20 SF restaurants committed, and will be rapidly adding more over the course of the next couple of months.

Some of the SF restaurants who have recently joined include:

- South Beach Cafe (Pizza, Salad, Sandwiches),
- Viva Restaurant (Italian),
- Baghdad Nights (Persian & Baghadian),
- Cinecitta (Italian & Pizza),
- Quiznos (Sandwiches), and
- Estia Greek Eatery (umm Greek, well duh).

Some new restaurants who have committed and you will see shortly on our site:
- Broadway Pizza (Pizza),
- El Faro (Mexican), and
- Racha Thai (Thai).

We are taking requests. If you would like your favorite restaurant added, you can email us your request to sales@getquik.com.

Are you a restaurant owner looking to join? Contact us at sales@getquik.com to join.

Happy eating.

American Amnesia

A view of recent American bubbles and troubles.

Late 90's to 2001: Dot Com Frenzy and bust.

Late 90's to 2001: Enron's rise and fall.

September 11, 2001: Terrorism hits home.

2003 - 2008: Housing boom and bust.

2007 - 2008: Oil skyrockets and tumbles.

2004 - 2008: Wall Streets record profits and massive bankrupcies.

So with the unemployment rapidly increasing, consumers fretful about their retirement and nest eggs, the comparisions to the Great Depression are flying about. Although it makes for better drama, I believe that we can look at more recent history for a comparison of our current economic troubles. In the late 70's, oil prices hit record highs, inflation spiked, and stagflation decimated Wall Street and Main Street. Too far back? Then perhaps we can remember 2001. Dot-com crash, 9/11, and to top it off the Enron scandal.

So what is going on here? Are Americans incapable of learning from the past?

Let's compare the current economy crisis to the 2001 situation.

IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE

2001: Dot-com crash as investors come to the realization that companies without any profits or reasonable expectations to make profits may not be the safe haven for investing Johnny's college fund.

2008: Housing bubble bursts after massive speculation leads to a housing equity bubble fueled by free and often fraudulent lending practices.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

2001: A flood of VC funding leads to a land grab for any semi-fundable Internet play as investment bankers package and successfully pump out a huge volume of Internet IPO's.

2008: Primary lenders take advantage of record low interest rates to massively expand their lending volume. Bonus: They find they can offload their assets to a hungry Wall Street crowd who discovers their own risk management vehicle (CDS - Credit Default Swaps).

BAD ACTING AND CREATIVE ACCOUNTING

2001: Enron uses a massive web of off-shore entities and round-trip accounting to pump up artificial earnings and hide away massive operations losses. A flood of suspicious stock option grants at a huge percentage of public companies reduces investor confidence in the public markets. Investors move out of the stock market, lenthening and increasing the dip in the Dow Industrials and NASDAQ composite indexes.

2008: Predatory lending practices featuring "no-interest ARMs" (Adjustable Rate Mortages) lure housing buyers without proper credit in over their heads. Wall Street buys and then offloads portfolios of housing loans in the form of Credit Default Swaps. The problem is that the CDS, which are supposed to serve as insurance against the potential risk associated with these housing loan packages were largely backed by firms without the reserves to payout the losses to the CDS. The banks ended up holding the bad loans. With their cash reserves running low due to these huge losses, lending freezes up.

THE FALLOUT

2001: Nasdaq goes through a massive correction falling from over 5000 in February 2000 to under 1200 in August 2002. Massive wipeout of a huge number of technology firms. VC investments freezes up. 200,000 workers in Silicon Valley find a pink slip in their in box.

2008: Dow Industrials falls from a high of 14,000 in July 2007 to under 7600 in November 2008. Credit market freezes up. Prestigious financial institutions fail or require a government bailout. Consumer confidence and spending plummets. Housing foreclosures skyrocket as housing equity tumbles.

THE AFTERMATH

2001: After two rough years of high unemployment and fear of another 9/11, American comes back. Americans adjust to a post 9/11 world. The stock market begins to show signs of life. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) restores confidence in the accounting practices of publically traded companies. Housing gains drive up consumer confidence as American begin to use their housing equity as a credit line for new toys.

2008: The troubles in 2008 seems deeper and more difficult than that of 2001. Unlike 2001, credit was still flowing and interest rates were failing, which helped to revive the economy. With interest rates at a close to 0% on short term interest level, the Feds do not have that tool in their arsenal this time around. Also, this time around, people are losing their houses. Finally, the sheer magnitude of the problem in dollars is much more significant than the paper dot-com losses... to be continued.

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT

When we think about all the things that make American great; qualities such as optimism, creativity, and tenacity come to mind. The less desireable qualities of the American way are our greed and impatience. An important characteristic that is difficult to classify is our forgetfulness. For better or worse, Americans are not long to dwell on our successes or failures. You could argue that our national motto could be "what have you done for me lately?" We are too busy chasing the next dream to be deterred by past failures. We live for the moment, and believe that tomorrow will be better than today. This American Amnesia is in our DNA and helps us cope with massive challenges. Another saying that is indicitive of the American spirit - "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

A BETTER AMNESIA

There is no better country to dig out of a mess that the US. What is troubling is that speed in which we are finding ourselves in new pitfalls. We have numerous challenges facing us today including a troubled economy, global warming, affordable health care, a huge trade deficit, and the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks. Sure enough, we will emerge from the current economic crisis. This time around, let's hope that we build this comeback on a sustainable platform and not forget to tackle the looming challenges that we face. In the 70's, our dependence on foreign oil was a major concern. There were major initiatives to get us off of our oil depedency. The combination of 3 Mile Island and the freefall in oil in the 80's lured us back to a state of lethargy regarding our foreigh oil depency. 30 years later, we are back where we started. The New Deal laid the foundation for a robust infrastructure of interstates, telecommunications and electricity which lead to decades of American prosperity. Rather than buying Wall Street's next gimmick, we are better served by investing in technology which can eliminate our foreign oil addition, reduce greenhouse emissions, tackle our inefficient health care system, and protect us against terrorist attacks. Unlike the dot-com era, the funding for these technology companies, must be performance based. Addressing our current challenges will take creativity, money and human resources. With unemployment rising, there should be a viable work force to engage. The problem is the cost. The enormous federal deficit is also a ticking time bomb, so funding such initiatives will likely exasperbate this problem. There are no easy solutions this time.

Two Right Films

You plunk down your $10.50. You sit through your 7 previews and 2 commercials. Your reward is 90 to 120 minutes of escape. Hollywood has perfected this model. You exit the theatre with a smile and yawn and reenter the real world. An aspect of the movie-going experience is how little you need to think during the process. In the rare event that the director trusts the audience to think, the impact can be profound.

The offbeat 2007 film "Juno" was a surprise hit. "Juno" is a story of a pregnant teenager who decides to give her child up for adoption. The main character Juno defies society's conventions with a smart and confident attitude. She refuses to hide her pregnancy and continues to attend her high school through her term. At one point, the movie appears to fall into formula as she meets the couple who she agrees to adopt her child. The wife, played by Jennifer Garner, is presented as the overbearing Stepford wife looking for the perfect child to complete her storybook life. The husband, played by Jason Bateman, is introduced as the cool husband who finds himself suffocated by his overbearing wife. As the story develops, something interesting happens to the model couple. The wife turns out to be human yet flawed. The husband turns out to be "cool", but disturbingly selfish and childish. In the end, the real human drama unfolds as this couple grapples with their life altering decision. We are left feeling that like many of our friends, family and acquaintanences, these folks have their positive aspects, as well as their less desireable qualities. Who is right, the husband or the wife? "Juno" leaves the question unanswered, though hints that there is no easy answer to this question.

Golden Globe winner "Slumdog Millionaire" is a vivid portrayal of two brothers growing up in Mumbai, India. The imagery is powerful. The two boys end up using their street smarts to hustle their way through the tragedy and poverty of the streets of Mumbai. The paths they take eventually diverge and the hero Jamal ends up working at a multinational call-center, while his older brother Salim takes up with a Mumbai crime boss. The story stretches the experiences of the two boys in order to showcase the color and culture, as well as the dark, seedy side of India. The power of "Slumdog" is the choice of direction of Danny Boyle. The movie takes you through three periods of Jamal and Salim's lives. There are parallel events that foreshadow and link back to past events. Boyle trusts the audience to discover these connections without the usual obligatory explanations or flashback scenes.

"Juno" and "Slumdog" are vastly different in tone, message, and direction, but they share the rare quality of respecting the audience's intelligence. Hollywood are you paying attention? Although we do love to escape in movies, we don't mind engaging our brain as well.