About Patrice Sarath

It’s only been a relatively few decades since credit has become ubiquitous and necessary to modern life. I know people who have abandoned cash in much the same way they have given up their landlines — with nary a thought. That annoying commercial about how people who write checks stop the flow of happy commerce? Yeah, that’s how we live now.

But it’s not just about the convenience anymore. Try to book an airline flight without a credit card. Try to order anything online. Yeah, there’s PayPal, but just try to order something from Lands’ End using PayPal. Heck, try to get decent insurance rates without your credit score being taken into consideration.

So the fact that credit card companies are cutting people off, scaling back on perks like miles, raising interest rates, and reducing lines of credit isn’t just inconvenient, it’s putting consumers between a rock and a hard place. We like to think that using credit is about prudence and we scorn people who can’t handle their credit responsibly, but because credit has become so intertwined in the way we live, credit is a necessity, not a choice. Even good credit card customers, the ones who always pay their bills on time, are being penalized by credit card companies. (It’s hard to make money on people who are prudent about debt.)

The new credit card laws will help, but gone are the days of easy credit. I don’t know if that means a cash economy is going to come back. Will paying with folding money take on a sort of retro cool? I just think that before we throw out the baby with the bathwater we take a look at how commerce has organized itself around the ubiquity of credit cards and dust off the old systems of payment — do you know where your checkbook is? — before the whole thing grinds to a halt.

One last note — a local coffee house gives you a discount if you pay in cash. It’s like they are living in the past! It’s refreshing. And it makes me feel just a little bit virtuous when I pull out a few battered ones for my coffee and scone. That’s the kind of happy commerce I like, and it doesn’t stop the flow at all.

The Boston Globe is worth a dollar, according to news biz analyst Ken Doctor. That’s just a bit less than the New York Times paid for the newspaper back in 1993 – about $1.1 billion less. Essentially the new owner would simply assume the costs and the New York Times could walk away and stick to its own knitting.

The Gray Lady is also in trouble, in this not-so-exclusive club of major city newspapers on the ropes. Add it to the list that includes The Chicago Tribune, struggling after being bought by Sam Zell, and the Rocky Mountain News, which folded this year. Boston’s local competition, The Christian Science Monitor, went to a weekly print edition in 2009, shifting to an online-only model for its daily news. A recent New Yorker article on Mexican mogul Carlos Slim covered his investment in the New York paper and the possibility that he’ll buy the whole thing, if the Sulzberger family decides to sell. And they might. Every family has its price, as the Bancrofts showed us when they sold The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch.

While there’s a sense of betrayal about the Times selling or closing down the Globe, it’s not unusual. Back in the 1990s, San Antonio, Texas, was a two-newspaper town, with papers owned by giants Hearst and News Corp. Hearst acquired its rival paper, San Antonio Express-News, and shut down its own paper, The Light. There are still plenty of reporters who are bitter about that.

Even with a buyer, the Globe will have to revamp its operations substantially and may even have to follow the Christian Science Monitor example of shifting from print to online delivery. We’ve heard plenty about how readers are loathe to pay for online news, but someone is going to have to. I think in this respect that the Kindle and other e-readers will help. Kindle users are used to paying for content – how much different will it be to pay a few bucks for a book or for a newspaper subscription? News aggregators such as Google, likewise, will have to pay syndication fees for the news they deliver. Online delivery will also help solve another problem – the aging of the customer base that reads newspapers. This was an issue plaguing the industry and it isn’t going to go away. To attract younger readers, newspapers have to go where the kids are.

If newspapers can position themselves as news delivery services, and if the general zeitgeist can accept that one pays for information, even if it is online, the industry can overcome its current malaise and prosper. It might not be easy and it might not be quick, but it can happen. Let’s hope the Boston Globe will get an owner who will help it make that transition. Because we shouldn’t be losing newspapers, not now, not in this day and age. Information may want to be free, but when it comes to that, you get what you pay for.

Now that I own a car company, I’ve decided to get into the car design business.

So what should the ideal car consist of?

It should get great gas mileage.

It should be safe.

It should have enough power that it can reach maximum speed on the suicidal entrance ramps to I-35 that were designed in the 1950s for a highway that had no traffic.

It should be environmentally friendly, and have low emissions.

It should be easy to get into and out of, and fit dogs, car seats, luggage, groceries, and family members.

It should be stylish.

And it should be affordable.

Hah! It should be so easy. If it were, we’d already all be driving such paragons of automotive virtue. Not even Honda or Toyota could build such a car and be profitable (the stylish part kind of trips them both up). But there should be a middle ground. America’s love affair with the car led to such icons as the Mustang or the Corvette. It’s also led to more than a few travesties (and you know which ones I’m talking about.)

Car companies in the US became more about the nameplate than the product. Saturn is an example, as is the Lexus at the opposite end of the spectrum. Car manufacturing became more and more marketing driven, and car companies began designing cars for increasingly smaller niches. And it was certainly successful, for a time. Now, who knows? Car buyers are fickle at the best of times, and especially so in a bad economy. I don’t know many people buying new cars, or even used cars, right now.

I don’t know if my car company can rebound in this market. I don’t know if there’s enough of the pie to allow it to take back its share. The competition isn’t going to sit idly by to wait for my car company to get healthy again. In five years, my car company might not even be around.

Plus, in order to even have a chance, my car company will have to convince its new owners that it can build a product they want to buy. That might not be so easy — for instance, none of the cars I own are made by my car company. (Also, I rode my bike to work today. Ironic, isn’t it?)

The world is changing. My car company will have to change too. Because it’s not enough to idle plants and cut expenses to the bone. It will have to come up with a new vision of what it means to compete in a new market.

For all our sakes, I hope it can.

This is taking the bacon meme a few steps too far — like over a cliff. Seattle-based Black Rock Spirits has introduced bacon-flavored vodka.

Premium vodkas have been a big deal for a while. Absolut, Grey Goose, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and other brands have made a splash as the cocktail makes a comeback. These changes, along with changes in state liquor laws (see my post on Utah, previously), are combining to create a sort of boutique culture. Forget 30-year-0ld Scotch or expensive wine beloved of Baby Boomers — distillers are marketing to a younger demographic with kicky new flavors that combine hipness with sophistication.

I think a large part of this has to do with the success of the craft brew industry. Jim Koch’s Samuel Adams set off the craze for beer-flavored beer (as opposed to the big, bland brews from Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors). First came the bocks, the stouts, the ales, the old-fashioned lagers, the IPAs, then they started with the real crazy stuff. Pumpkin beer, anyone?

The interesting thing is that the trend seems to be slightly less crass than the alco-pops of a few years ago. Whereas those concoctions were definitely aimed at the novice drinker, these spirits are aiming for an older crowd, one that is college-educated, professional, and — let’s face it — still employed.

Back to the vodka. Apparently bacon-flavored vodka is good in cocktails like a bacon-bloody Mary or a bacon-chocolate martini. I will reserve judgment except to say, rarely has it been so clearly demonstrated that I am not the target market for a product.

Bacon — it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

In a change from decades of state alcohol policy, Utah has changed its arcane liquor laws to be more in line with the rest of the country. Gone is the so-called “Zion Curtain,” behind which a mixologist had to hide his or her mad skills. So I guess the Coyote Ugly chain of tourist bars plans to open its next location in the ski resort town of Park City. This is an example of the law of unintended consequences. I’m sorry, Utah. This is now what you have to look forward to.

The law was a result of the Mormon-dominant culture in Utah. The barrier was meant to foil temptation, of course, the idea being that if a hapless patron saw a drink being mixed right before his eyes, he would fall upon it as with the thirst of a dying man crossing the Utah wastelands. The thing is, as implemented, the curtains were kind of, well, screwy. As this NPR story reveals, in at least one Salt Lake City bar, Faustina, the curtain was glass. So you could actually see the naughty bartender at his forbidden work. Hmmm.

Utah’s famed private clubs — their version of bars — are also falling by the wayside, but that’s not until July 1.

There are a couple of quirky restrictions. Among them: New restaurants will have to build a separate mixing area to hide alcohol from minors. (Are people really that at risk of temptation just because they catch sight of a bartender pouring gin and tonic together and squeezing in some lime?)  That one came from the Utah chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which also unsuccessfully lobbied for surveillance cameras in every bar, keeping records of bar patrons, and selling beer, liquor, and wine in state liquor stores at room temperature. The national MADD organization was quick to disavow the local chapter as overzealous; the chairman pointed out that MADD has no interest in re-establishing Prohibition, it just doesn’t want people to drive drunk.

Utahans will have some adjusting to do (see Coyote Ugly, above). Tourists on the other hand will not. And tourism and business travel both are a big part of the state’s economy. Come on, admit it — when you think of Utah, only three things come to mind: Mormonism (and polygamy), that big Salt Lake, and its weird liquor laws. By updating the last, Utah and the rest of us can move on to other things.