I see firsthand how the “China” effect has cut costs for manufacturers and retailers. My small company buys 80% of materials from China now and has kept our price increases to a bare minimum for the last 11 years as a result. This year we have reached the limit of switching our purchases from China. Now, we will have price increases.

I suspect this China effect has run its course overall, and we will see inflation roaring back from now on. It’s already happened in imany industries such as autos and homes and home grown goods

We are looking now to get rid of employees thru more automation and having Chinese workers do more assembly for us.

When the Chinese stop taking our depreciating paper money and raise their prices, the jig will be up and our costs will go up to where they should have been.

When that happens, we will be forced out of business and our 10 employees will be out of work

"These hate posts perpetuate that Objectivist are racist."
Yes. Anyone reading this to get an idea what Rand's books are about, should go to the primary source.

"liberal CEO salary"
I get it, but it's funny how this sounds to someone from a place known for coffee shops: Ancora, Colectivo, Etes Vous Prets, Mother Fools, Barriques, Moka, Steep and Brew. I know I left about a bunch of them out. Coffee shops are a common place for meetings, and Starbucks is hardly is probably one of the least common. It's the most common, though, for gift certificates from vendors.

Starbucks is alright, but I think of them as the generic option. If you ever have a chance to go to a place like Mother Fools or a place like, that's a real liberal coffee shop.

customer NEEDS?????? really. anyone that goes to a starbucks has no NEEDS. spending that kind of money for a freaking coffee???? wow.i say let starbucks set their price as hugh as they want. it is their business. Not a single person in this entire world NEEDS to patronize a starbucks.

The timing would have been fine if they hadn't caved to rubbish political correctness, but I get your point, MrS. If I thought that Starbucks management had any real philosophical integrity, I'd have concluded this was a pointed,intentional lesson in economics to the pc people who frequent Starbucks. There is a price to the foolishness that Starbucks' clientele feel is more important than Starbucks' product.

Well, it's an amount , not sure I'd call it a "value." ;^)

When you take into account the company and it's virtue signaling mentality you begin to wonder if they even believe their own BS. Yes, they had someone run the numbers, but the timing is suspect.

So there is a monetary value to progress.

Sarcasm?

And the low interest rates for the big borrowers. Feds have been reporting misleading inflation for years to hold down retirement increases. It's all the government and federal reserve act (banksters) at fault. Prior to 1913 there was never any inflation in America except during war.

Really?...has anyone tried to tickle their feet to test their level of sensitivity?

Why does anyone in the Gulch even have an opinion. Starbucks has a full staff of people whose job it is to analyze costs, market share, client loyalty, and probably a dozen other variables. I am sure they have an astronomical amount of data to use for this decision. It is sad that this article is being used to post a bunch of hate driven shots. Whether or not Starbucks sensitivity training was overreacting or not, they should honored for reacting to a an obvious incident of discrimination by one of their employees. These hate posts perpetuate that Objectivist are racist.

We are seeing the bush/Obama’s/trump inflation roaring back, one industry after another. It’s been held back by the pressure from low priced Chinese imports for awhile now.

You see this is the problem that most people in business do not get: just because your costs go up, unless your competitors costs are also going up, people are going to switch to a competitor when you raise prices. When you raise prices due to a change in your own costs and only in your own costs, you are always being foolish because your competitors can then eat you for lunch.

Except the point is that if you are already profit-maximizing, you DO NOT raise prices UNLESS there is an increase in your marginal costs OR there is a change in your elasticity of demand. There was no change in elasticity of demand and their marginal costs did not change. Period. End of discussion. So either they were not profit-maximizing or their profits WILL go down. There are NO exceptions to this economic rule.

The stores were required to be shut down. The employees were required to attend some nonsensical leftist bent training. It does not mater what required all this, it is the customers, employees and investors that will pay.

Except none of this was required. It was introduced by Starbucks themselves. It is like deciding to give every employee a one time $500 bonus. It is a fixed cost, not a marginal cost and trying to pass this on to the customers is plain idiocy because it can only lower your overall profits.

Here’s the thing: raising prices because your costs (and not the costs of your competitors) go up is STUPID. If you are profit maximizing, the only costs that matter are marginal costs and these training sessions are not raising marginal costs, they are raising fixed costs. You don’t adjust prices in such a case unless you want your profits to fall.

it costs money to be "socially conscientious"....I will never shop Starbucks ever again...

Perhaps Starbucks' lack of sensitivity is more about a hope of ka-ching! dissuading riff-raff and other entitled minorities from entering their shops.
For example, me a dino has never stepped into a Starbucks for my entire life.
Well, to be fair, I only drink coffee to crank myself up at home in the morning.

I had a youth of a different color than me scowling at me the whole time I was in a Starbuck's last weekend. It was obvious I wasn't welcome. So...F-em. I'll spend my money elsewhere. Their coffee isn't that good, anyway.

Those racist sob's!

Someone has to pay for all that unconscious anti-bias counseling. Even libs have to pay their shrinks.

Customers are always paying for required regulations. That includes all that useless unconscious bias training.

I love my home roasted, home made 40 cent cappuccino. My automatic machine makes a much better tasting drink than Starbarf's burned bean concoctions and the built-in counter says I have enjoyed it over 3,500 times.
My music sounds a lot better, too. ;^)