Welcome to the podcast Organized Money. You can listen to today’s episode on Apple on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This week, a solo-David is joined by Dan Jacobs, chef, restaurant owner, and active member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition to discuss a looming threat to neighborhood restaurants: the proposed merger between the food giant Sysco, and the cash-and-carry Restaurant Depot.
Restaurants already operate on thin margins, but this merger threatens to cut off a major source of restaurant bargaining power and a competitive check on the market. As a result, this merger could reverberate through the restaurant industry and local economies, forcing limited menus, thinner margins, and even closures. We also discuss how restaurants are being squeezed by post-pandemic changes in food prices and the labor market, child care needs, and credit card swipe fees. We also get into the value of small restaurants organizing and potential legislative solutions to help keep local dining thriving.
Finally, we end on another edition of Makan’ Fun, our now-regular segment on the ongoing drama surrounding the Paramount Warner Brothers merger.
Listen via Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We also provide transcripts and video for every episode. Here is last week’s episode. And here’s a link to this week’s transcript.
Thank you so much for listening. If there’s a monopoly you’d like us to explore this year, or if you have anything else to tell us, please let us know by leaving a comment or by responding directly to this email.
Another topic. My husband and I are having solar panels installed. We were offered by the installing company (a local, employee-owned, highly recommended company) an option to either buy our panels outright or go with a leasing plan through a third party. We decided to buy. The agreement with the lease holder/owner sounded fine in most respects: savings on initial price, 25 yr contract on maintenace with the installer, after 5 years owner would sell the panels to us for an unmentioned price, but something extremely cheap since their interest is in getting the depreciation tax benefits that would run out after five years. Alternately, we could choose to stay in the agreement, which would then renew annually for 20 years.
None of that seemed so very far out of line. But, reading other details in the agreement gave me the willys. The owner reserves the right to transfer ownership to other entities without our consent.
It started to 'smell' like a private equity kind of deal where this owner outfit would be rounding up lots of roof-top panels all around Seattle, or beyond, and one day have the equivalent of a electrical utility wherein they could decide who gets the electricity and what remuneration would be owed us.
Currently we'll connect to Seattle City Light, our public utility and get reductions in our electric bill up to the allowed limit.
I'm not opposed to creating a distributed electrical generating utilty out of rooftop panels, but I'd like it to be a public utility or better yet, a co-operative so that the people whose houses the panels reside on could be part of the benefit.
I'm just wondering if you've heard of this kind of effort taking place elsewhere in the country and if my 'spidey sense' has any merit!
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