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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: reaper who wrote (3822)	4/7/2004 1:29:54 PM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

<I can assure you both prices were well below what I paid for similar items last year.> Well, perhaps we can at least count on lower prices in electronics. I'm sure that's what the guys who calculate the CPI are counting on. They exclude everything else. On the pizza companies, cheese is 40% of product cost. Sure there have been ups and downs in cheese for years, but this is one powerful up cycle. Too many people are finding it too easy to keep dismissing this pattern, in just too many products. Cheese: hoards.com Butter: hoards.com

To: reaper who wrote (3822)	4/7/2004 1:57:04 PM
From: DOUG H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

which is why they formed that off-balance-sheet cheese trading company to begin with (to smooth out the crazy year-to-year variances in cheese costs). Do you know when this was formed? It is far more likely it was formed (and run by the franchisees)to a. get their own experts in procurement doing the buying. b. pocket, rather than pay the substantial supplier discounts that allow suppliers to keep their high "street price" while giving discounts to bigger buyers. Franchisors negotiate these contracts, TELL the franchisees where to buy, and pocket teh significant supplier discounts. Depending on when it was formed, this could be the result one would expect. Beyond that, pricing and changes and differences in menu mix could account for the improved COG line.