Well, the writing was on the wall and my stock in Starbucks [[SBUX]]. Yes, I had stock in S-bucks but, ya can’t pick winners hot holders all the time. Your favorite gentrification barometer, Starbucks is cutting back. Once seen as the coming of y(b)uppie revolution is now a mere financial fallout.

600 stores, plus the 100 earlier (forgot about that huh?), 12,000 jobs to spread, (*cough* let go). Its obvious the reemrgance of the Dunkin Donuts brand started eating away at the success of Starbucks around Jan/Feb ’08. But when gas got high, those extra dollars that are usually annexed by the “morning coffee” budget , started going towards, um..gas.

It was only a few years ago, the brand saw a slight drop, ironically around the time of Oprah’s Budget Diet, where morning coffee could save people money. That lasted a bit and people couldn’t rough it that long. Then Dunkin Dounts coffee got um…good. It was downhill from them.

Then the $4.00′ish gas.

In the same day, Ford and other auto makers, obviously shot in the knee caps from the economy, were crotch kicked, with the gas. Cause lets face it, gas prices just made this junk worse.

As everything related to oil started to crumble, I started thinking, whats next? We know food, the airlines and anything trasported by big rigs but, transportation as a whole might be dissolved.

I had previously made note of the bad roads and in Illinois, our gas taxes and lottery (potentially) were to go towards our roads. It was no secret that Illinois, well the “midwest roads” were bad, I suspected got it for cheap antics, and was called paranoid…well, it has finally been exposed and they have been cutting back on material for roads. Not just the midwest but the country.

Be ready, the roads, bridges, are ready to crumble. [Dailygazette] | [TRNS]

If you think cost are trouble, wait till accidents from cutting back hit the news….bad news thats for sure.

Our resources on what to be cut next [NYT]

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