The Dr. Doug Ramsey Show - 20240825

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The opinions and information expressed and discussed on The Doctor
Doug Ramsey Show or for informational and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide, and should not be
relied upon for accounting, legal, tax or investment advice. Please
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applicability of this information to your situation.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
All things financing business leading you to success at work,
at home, and in live. It's the Doctor Doug Ramsey Show,
and now here's your host, Doctor Doug Ramsey.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Welcome to the Doctor Doug Ramsey Show. Your host, Doctor
Doug Ramsey, broadcasting the Moja Favo Radio Network. All right,
it's that time of year. Starbucks bringing back to pumpkin
spice latte, one of my favorites. They're bringing it back

(01:01):
sooner than normal. This is from CNN Business from Wednesday,
August twenty first, and it's still summer, but the Pumpkin
Spice Latte is coming back to Starbucks beginning Thursday. The
fall favorite beverage returns the US menus two days earlier

(01:24):
than in twenty twenty three. Its return also marks the
launches Starbucks Fall Autumn Menu, which includes pumpkin and apple
flavored drinks and snacks. You know, I took a basic
patrol rifle class with one of the Breeze Independent directors,

(01:48):
Albert mccleollan. This is then and at Hill College in Hillsboro,
south of Dallas, And this was in the debt of
winter in January this year, and it was so cold.
We'd spend all day. This is a three day class.

(02:08):
In the last day is the shooting qualifications, and with
the wind chill, it was zero degrees and it was
so so cold. The instructor between evolutions, he would let
us go warm up in our cars and reload and

(02:28):
do what we need to do. But even with that,
it was so hard to feel my fingers, and oh
it was. It was a tough environment to be training in.
But at the end of each day Albert and I
would go to the local Starbucks there and I would

(02:49):
get the matcha latte which was and got that hot
and god, that was so good. That was the only
way to warm up. But yeah, that's one of my
other favorites too, besides their pumpkin spice latte. So it

(03:13):
says a spumping pumpkin spice latte as fans called or
the PSL has become a reliable hit, making the drink
in autumish mainstay that gives the coffee chain a much
needed sales boost during this time of year. Roughly ten
percent of starbucks overall sales come from seasonal staples, the

(03:34):
chain revealed Wednesday. That's pretty incredible. Last year, Starbucks celebrated
the drink's twentieth anniversary. Since it's launched, the PSL Pumpkin
Spice Latte has taken on a life of its own,
becoming a signal for fall both beloved and mocked and

(03:54):
ushered in an era of pumpkin spice products from cat
litter to yogurt to beer pumpkin spice cat litter never
heard of it. It has even prompted rival change to
introduce their own pumpkin beverages and foods earlier than Starbucks.
Starbucks credits the PSL's popularity to its familiarity something you

(04:19):
can depend on. Thomas prath, Or, vice president of Marketing
and Starbucks, previously told CNN. When PSL comes back, it's
something that you've remembered over the years, and it's like, Okay,
something in my life is normal and predictable and comforting.
The PSL could also give the chain a jolt. Starbucks
has been struggling with sagging sales and an abrupt leadership change.

(04:44):
I'll go over that here in a minute. So there
you go, coming back two days earlier. And since it's
only like one hundred degrees here in the Dallas area,
sounds like a perfect drink the get right now? Not really,

(05:04):
Maybe launching a little too early based on the temperature.
All right, So here's the problem with Starbucks. This is
coming from Fortune, and this is about the old CEO.
They just booted out former Starbucks CEO, Laxman Narus Simmons.

(05:25):
I guess I'm pronouncing that right. Favorite drink is an
espresso mack Gyatu with hot skim milk on the side.
Even though he is he no longer works at the
company after getting deposed in favor of Chipotle chairman and
CEO Brian Nicol, Naris Simon won't have any trouble paying

(05:50):
for his coffee fix thanks to what should be a
generous exit deal. According to Starbucks executive's severance plan, he
stands get one and a half to two times is
one point three million dollars salary and target cash bonus
as he exits the company. That adds up to about
ten point six million dollars in salary and bonuses plus

(06:11):
thirty seven thousand, six twenty dollars in Cobra premiums. Ben Silverman,
vice president and head of research and insider stock sales
platform Verity, told Fortune So Nourissiman joined Starbucks in March
twenty twenty three after founder Howard Schultz stepped down as

(06:31):
interim CEO for the third time in twenty twenty three.
Nourissimon's total pay package is valued at fourteen point six
million dollars based on the company's disclosures. The ten point
six million dollars is what Nourisman is entitled to take
with him when he leaves Starbucks. High wrapped going CEOs
and corporate boards off and negotiate new terms and separation

(06:53):
agreements to keep the transition frictionalists and a nit potential
lead to a reputation risks in the bud And said
it's possible that all the prior agreements Nouriceman had with
Starbucks concerning his exit could be superseded by a termination
agreement with different terms, so that may change some let's

(07:16):
see trying to find the We don't need to go
in all the details of what it might be, but
there was a part about the value drop. Well, the

(07:40):
headline has it. I thought it'd be in the body
of it. This oucid CEO. He oversaw a thirty two billion.
That's a billion with a b drop in market value,
but he still leaves with millions. So it's a you know,
it's always a kind of a dilemma. A conflict here

(08:05):
is that do you pay somebody a bonus for doing
a bad job? And what's a bad job? Thirty two
billion dollar dropping market value? I'd say that's pretty horrendous,
all right, So why does? Why does and why should
this guy get at least ten million dollars And it's

(08:28):
probably gonna be a lot more in sevens pay And
that's the age old question, and you don't see it
at lower levels very much. You know, if somebody gets
kicked out of McDonald's and he's the fry cook for
burning the fries, he doesn't get a severance package. That's

(08:52):
you know, one and a half to two times is
an you'll pay. So it's kind of like, why why
did that happen at the C level, the executive level, one,
not at lower levels. But that's a debate for another day.
But I'm just gonna leave you with that to think about,

(09:15):
all right, So the new CEO, let's get onto this article.
This is from The Guardian. This guy's already facing a backlash.
Oh my gosh. So here's a picture. This picture is

(09:36):
kind of the lead off of this article. And it's
got the four cup sizes, and I never knew how
many food ounces were in each one, and I half
the time I mix up the name of the cup
sizes anyway, Short, which I didn't even know they had,
as eight ounces, Tall, which is the the smallest of

(10:01):
the three I typically think about because you got Tall,
Ronde in Venti. Tall's twelve ounces, Grande is sixteen, and
Venti is twenty. So they're going up by four ounces
each from short short to venti A twelve sixteen to twenty.

(10:23):
Just in case you didn't know that, I had no idea,
all right, learn something new every day. Starbucks incoming CEO
Brian Nickel is facing environmental criticisms following the company's offer
for him to commute from his home in Newport Beach, California,
to its headquarters in Seattle via private jet instead of
relocating in Starbucks offer letters and cole, The company said,

(10:48):
during your employment the company, you will not be required
to relocate to the company's headquarters. You agree to commute
from your residence to the company's headquarters and engage in
other business travelise is required to perform your duties and
respond its abilities. Speaking to CNBC, as Starbucks spokesperson said
that Nicol will be expected to work from Starbucks Seattle

(11:09):
office at least three days a week in line with
the company's hybrid work policies. Starbucks will also offer Nicoll,
who was a former CEO at Chipotle, a small remote
office in Newport Beach, as well as an assistant of
your choosing for such office. Starbucks added that this office
location will be maintained at the expense of the company.

(11:34):
Following in Newport Beach isn't the cheapest place to rent
office space. Following reports of nicole super commute, people were
quick to point out the apparent hypocrisy and the use
of private jets and the context of the company's sustainability efforts,
including its ban on plastic straws. Oh This is so good. Yeah,

(11:56):
that is definitely hypocrisy. The new Starbucks CEO is super
commuting one thousand miles to Seattle on a private jet
to work. So don't be too harsh on that waitress.
He gave you a plastic straw when you didn't want one,
one user wrote on x Another person wrote absolutely wild

(12:22):
that it costs eighty five million dollars in cash and
stock to private guy from Chipotle, and then they'll just
let him thrash the environment to commute one thousand miles
three times a week on a corporate jet instead of
having him move to the PNW that's for Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile,

(12:42):
someone else said, MPR reported the new Starbucks CEO will
commute from his so Cal home to Seattle and back
on the corporate jet three times a week. What a
bunch of performative hypocrites with their enviro friendly branding. No
company who truly cares about the climate would agree to this.

(13:05):
Another user echoed similar sentiments. Riding to this man is
commeding raguling in a private jet. Do not let Starbucks
convince you they are environmentally conscious. They get on us
commoners about our cars, but things like private jets and
yachts do way more damage to the environment per unit.

(13:25):
According to a report released by ox FAAN last year,
the carbon footprint of the zero point one percent, including
their use of private jets and supererots, is seventy seven
times higher than the upper level required for global warming
to peak at one and a half degree centigrade. Moreover,

(13:49):
private jets are up to fourteen times more polluting per
passenger than commercial planes and fifty times more polluting than trains,
according to a twenty twenty one report by the European
Federation for Transport and Environment. Well, there you go, controversy

(14:09):
brewing at Starbucks. Mister Softie, It's never been harder to
be mister Softy. According to CNN Business from yesterday, August
twenty fourth, says, once there were more than two thousand

(14:32):
mister Softy trucks in thirty eight states during the company's
peak in the nineteen sixties. Now there are only around
six hundred and thirty mister Softy trucks looping around neighborhoods
and parks in twenty one states. Competition and rising costs
or hurting sales. Counterintuitive factors like increasingly hot weather are

(14:53):
also detting business and broader social trends like the shrinking
sizes of American families and even the advance of technology
play a role too. There's a lot more competition, especially
New York, than there was in the nineteen eighties and
nineteen nineties, Mike Conway, the vice president of Mister Softie

(15:16):
and grandson of the company's co founder, told CNN in
a phone interview from the company's office in Runimede, New Jersey.
Ice cream has become more popular, more stores are doing it.
Everybody is getting into the business a little bit. Mister

(15:38):
Softy trucks have been around since nineteen fifty four, when
two brothers, James and William Conway, started the business in Philadelphia.
An advertising agency created the iconic jingle several years later
for radio commercials, and it helped propel the company into
the largest franchiser of ice cream trucks in the United States.

(16:00):
But the real key wasn't the jingle. It was a
soft serve ice cream. Not because customers loved it, although
they do, but because it made better business sense. I
can't say I ever remember seeing a Mister Softy truck anywhere.

(16:20):
We found there was a demand for soft ice cream.
William Conway said in a nineteen ninety one interview they
sold soft ice cream because it was easier to serve
and they needed volume to make the business sustainable. A
local dairy developed the recipe, a friend drew up our
cone head trademark, and I came up with the name

(16:42):
six letters in each word. But some Mister Softy franchise
owners are questioning how much longer they can stay in business.
Most Mister Softy trucks are owned and operated by independent
franchise dealers, many of them first generation immigrants and small

(17:02):
business owners. Franchisees are given a designated neighborhood or area
where they could sell within their assigned tour. Franchise owners
set ice cream prices and decide the prime selling spots.
Carlos Vasquez has been a Mister Softy franchise owner for
more than a decade in downtown New York City. He

(17:26):
saw entering the industry as a way to achieve the
American dream of saving money and buying a home. But
the turf assignments don't account for outside competition. Of course.
Boutique ice cream, gelato and dessert shops like Van Lewin
and out fellows have popped up in neighborhoods and malls
across the country. And it's not just ice cream shops

(17:48):
and trucks. Shake Shack and other chains are selling more
milkshakes too. Vasquez has seen every part of the business
get more expensive since the pandemic, including licensing charges he
pays to the company ice cream supplies, gas and wear

(18:09):
and tear in the trucks. Then and then there are
the simmering turf wars with independent trucks for covet at
street corners. Mister Softy has successfully sued Upstart competitors for
allegedly ripping off its design and jingle. We have to
pay more money on the insurance. Half a million dollars
of policy goes up, he said. The maintenance if something

(18:31):
broke on the truck, the labor for the maintenance on
the truck is a lot. Milk and ice cream supplies
have also gotten more expensive. Wholesale inflation on ice cream
has increased twenty one percent since twenty twenty. Whole cell
inflation on ice cream cones has increased twenty five percent
during that stretch. But Kamala is gonna fix it soon

(18:58):
as she gets in office. Starty in office number two
in charge of the country, should have been fixing it
for the last three and a half years. That has
forced him to raise prices. As the franchise owner. A
cone with anell Or chocolate ice cream now costs five bucks,

(19:18):
up from a dollar when he first started. He sells
half as much ice cream on most days as he
once did. We cannot control inflation, he said. It's part
of the world. Perhaps surprisingly, extreme heat is also denting
mister Softy's business. The equipment in the truck breaks down
more easily when it's too hot, and customers stay home.

(19:40):
The weather is really hot, it's not really good for business.
It's weird, said Vesquez. People don't want to have to
walk too much. It's creamy and melts, and you get
dirty and you ask for the extra napkins. Twenty twenty
four has been the hottest summer on record to date
for around one hundred US cities from Maine to California.

(20:03):
If you take the country's fifty biggest cities an add
up the number of days above ninety five degrees, there
have been at least one thousand and seventy one this summer.
One hundred and sixty one more than the average over
the past decade for the same period. Extreme heat is
even debting big ice cream brands. Unilever, the maker of

(20:25):
ice cream brands like Magnum, said last year that sales
dropped because of the heat wave sweeping through Europe. When
it comes to the weather, there's a sweet spot for temperature,
Unilever's chief financial officer, Graham Pikeithley said at the time,
when it gets too hot, people move away from ice

(20:46):
cream and buy a cold drink instead. He said, so
there you go, if you're a mister softy franchisee, kind
of in some hard times right now, all right, this

(21:06):
next article I pulled because retail theft has just exploded.
You've got those gangs that just storm in and sweep
the shelves, take everything they can grab. And now you
got most corporate policies tell the employees just let them

(21:28):
grab and go. And it's costing everybody lots of money
because they're passing the retail theft through the cost of
that they're translating into higher prices on what they do
sell to make up for the losses. So it hurts
everybody but old California Governor Newso finally got off his

(21:52):
rear and signed ten retail theft bills into law, says
Governor Gavin Newsom and other California state officials announced the
official signing of a historically robust package of bills targeting
retail theft on Friday morning as a press conference or

(22:16):
at a press conference at a home depot in San Jose,
the bills authors, along with retail and law enforcement groups
gathered to commemorate the remarkable passage at ten bills that
address multiple facets of retail crime. It's a whole circular

(22:39):
outcome here, because these saying people were all about defund
the police, get more like social workers into the law
enforcement ecosystem, and get soft on crime at the DA level.

(22:59):
And now everybody's fed up, so they're going to solve
They being the governor and other state lawmakers, are going
to solve a problem that they actually endorsed and created,
so they look like heroes. I mean, it's just the

(23:21):
this cyclical effect, and it always seems to wind up
happening right before elections too, where they solve the things
that they screwed up. So it says from instituting new penalties,

(23:45):
use of the ten bills instituting new penalties for stealing
with the intent to reseal, the regulating online marketplaces being
used for fencing schemes, allowing for the aggregation of charges
across retailers and jurisdictions, implementing higher penalties for repeat offenders,
in eliminating the statue of limitations for prosecuting organized retail theft.

(24:09):
The newlymitted laws were designed to bolster the state's response
to retail property crimes. The governor said, I like that
eliminating the statue of limitations because it's almost like a
shot clock. If you can get away with the crime
and not get prosecuted within a certain amount of time,
and that's that limitation that is defined by statute, that's

(24:34):
what they call the statute of limitations, then you've gotten
away with it. But if they eliminate the statue of limitations,
where you can have charges brought at any point, I
love that these bills will strengthen existing laws, they will
enhance other laws, and they will address the challenges that

(24:56):
are well outside the purview of previous initiatives miles like Prop.
Forty seven, and that's the issue of organized retail theft.
The issue of theory serial theft, the issue that is
front and center in the consciousness of so many Californians.

(25:16):
He added, I'm not sure what the theory ceial theft is.
The state's problems with rising retail theft have been well
documented in recent years. The world's fifth largest economy plays
a massive role in generating commerce, and that's made it
a prime target for crime. Yeah, that's the thing about California.

(25:38):
It is a giant economy that Governor NUS's managed. All Right,
we'll break away, dog out, so he knew. Some and

(25:59):
others state officials, from Assembly members to state senators, who
believe Prop. Forty seven has been an essential tool in
addressing mass incarcerations social inequity are hoping that the passage
of wide ranging tough on crime legislation this week will
tamp down efforts to reform the law knew. Some said

(26:20):
Friday that one point one billion dollars in resources have
been invested in fighting crime since twenty nineteen, including two
or sixty seven million dollars last year. That was ear
mark for organized retail theft in particular. We've been working
at vertical prosecution investigations. We've been working on advancing and

(26:41):
enhancing technology to address the issue of retail theft. He said.
According to data from the California Highway Patrol, eight hundred
and eighty four arrests have been made in twenty twenty four.
Loan Assembly Member Mark Berman, He's a Democrat out of
Palo Alto, th Ovenor, along with Speaker of the California

(27:02):
State Assembly Robert Reeves, President pro ten of the California
State Senate Mike McGuire, and members of the public safety
of business communities for supporting the package, which included a
bill he authored AB thirty two and nine. Creed say,
first of it's kind of retail crime restraining order for theft, vandalism,

(27:25):
or battery of an employee within a store. All right,
So this goes on and on. But that's a good
step forward. But we should have never taken a step

(27:45):
backward of you know, several years ago with this whole
defund the police movement. Just ridiculous. All right, RII. Anybody
that's done camping or rock climbing and all that, probably
you've been into an RII store. This is from Fortune

(28:06):
from yesterday, from the twenty fourth August. RII has hemorrhaged
money for two years in a row. Now employees fear
it's famed out. Outdoor nerd culture is at risk. Recreational Equipment, Inc.
That's what ARII stands for. I didn't even know that.

(28:27):
The outdoor gear retailer better known as ARII began it's
annual meeting this May and pretty much the way you'd
expect from a member owned co op. Fame for its
progressive practices in the meeting, held virtually and open to
all the company's twenty four million members and outgoing directors,

(28:48):
out at Arii's record is a values based organization, pointing
to the company's latest work to protect public lands, such
as mobilizing customers to pressure the US government to expand
Joshua Tree National Park. Executives proudly noted that company carbon
emissions had fallen ten percent in twenty twenty three compared

(29:10):
to the prior year. In past years, in person meetings
have included land acknowledgments recognizing that speakers were standing on
territories stolen from Native peoples. The updates were a reminder
of the planet friendly earnestness that has endeared arii to

(29:31):
its millions of customers. And thousands of employees known as
green vest for decades. We're not just about year, we
were about collective impact. To CEO Eric Art stole the meaning,
but soon enough, Arts delivered a reality check in the
form of a discussion of Arii's twenty twenty three financial results.
ARII bled money last year, losing three hundred and eleven

(29:55):
million dollars its second year losses in a row. Sales
meanwhile slipped two point four percent to three point seven
six billion dollars, hurt by shrinking outdoors gear market in
Rii's own missteps, Man, that's huge. I didn't realize their
sales were up there almost four billion dollars. Crazy. Our

(30:19):
CEO since twenty nineteen had already warned that more pain
was likely in twenty twenty four. We have borrowed from
our savings, but we cannot do that forever, he wrote.
In a letter to stakeholders published a week before the meeting.
He blamed the company's wages, which are higher than average
for retail, in Rii's decision to continue paying a dividend
to members for the steep losses. That April letter, it

(30:49):
previewed more belt tightening at ARII at a time when
relations are already tense between the C suite and the
thousands of frontline employees who have helped the retailer build
its high touch brand. Only executives were able to speak
in the Millennial meeting, but the green vests, reeling from

(31:11):
reduced hours and three recent rounds of layoffs, have been
increasingly vocal about their grievances. Or the past two year,
staff at ten of Arii's one hundred and eighty seven
stores have unionized. Oh No employees have chafed not only
a cup acts, but what they see as changes in

(31:31):
Rii's culture. Arts has implemented more centralized decision making, conducted
a costly overhaul of its e commerce, and they and
hired a raft of executives from large national retailers, leaving
many green vests in industry observers to wonder where ARII
is losing its sould by, or wondering whether ARII is

(31:54):
losing its sold by aping big box rivals like Cabella's,
Dick's Sporting Goods, or Walmart. You know, and that can
lead to a real culture class too. We had that
happen in our oil and gas production company, where we

(32:15):
had very entrepreneurial minded employees who took over the company
when it was really small, watched every penny and were
super enthusiastic about building the business. And then we brought
in some people from the majors because we didn't have

(32:37):
horizontal joint capabilities or technology and the mindset of people
that came from that environment, you know, working for like
the Exxons and Taxicoas and Shells of the world. When

(32:59):
they came in, it was like a well and water
because they had huge budgets, they didn't grind things down
to the penny, and because for us it translated right
into our wallet because we had stock options and every
penny counted. It was a real, real difference of approaches

(33:27):
and it really I think changed the company for the worse.
So something to think about it, And I bet your
ARII is struggling with this as well. For all of
Arii's idealism, its website states that being a member owned
co cooperative allows us to focus on shared values, not

(33:49):
share value. The co op is colliding with the realities
of a tough retail climate as it struggles with intensifying competition,
a cautious consumer, and thin profit margins. The high touch,
eco conscious ethos that made ari I so popular with
shoppers and workers is also arguably jeopardizing its future and

(34:13):
as it fumbles toward becoming more efficient, a company that
started out selling mountain climbing and equipment finds a self
caught between a rock and a hardliss. Oh good way
to finish that. Chick Fila set to open its first

(34:33):
restaurant with elevated drive through. You know, I'm looking at
this picture. Two stories looks pretty modern, contemporary this building design.
Let's see what it's all about here. This is from
USA Today. From Wednesday, the twenty first to August, chick

(34:58):
Fla is opening its first elim drive through restaurant in
the chain, the company announced Wednesday. The restaurant, located at
two to one, five to five Jodeco Road in mcdono, Georgia.
Not even sure I'm pronouncing that right, just south of
Metro Atlanta. I know I pronounced Atlanta right, will begin

(35:21):
serving customers on Thursday. It's twenty second and is a
first of its kind restaurant for the popular fast food chain.
According to the company, the drive through only restaurant features
four drive through lanes and an elevated kitchen with a
unique meal transport system, described by the company as a
sophisticated conveyor belt that streamlines food delivery by quickly moving

(35:43):
the meal from the elevated kitchen above to a team
member on the ground below. The kitchen is double the
size of a typical Chick fil A restaurant kitchen, and
the conveyor belt allows for a meal to be delivered
to a team member every six seconds. According to Chick
fil A, there is no dining room or dining in

(36:05):
services at this restaurant. Chick fil A noted, but the
four lane drive through has the capacity to support two
to three times more vehicles than a standard Chick fil
A restaurant drive through. Chick Fila says the restaurant will
provide two options for customers and get their meal. They
can order ahead of a head on the Chick fil

(36:28):
A app and pick up using the dedicated mobile through lines. Well,
they can play sur order with a team member in
the traditional drive through lanes. Our guests lead busy lives,
and we're focused on designing our restaurants the best serve
their needs, said Jonathan Reid, executive director of Designed for

(36:48):
Chick fil A, Inc. In the news release with the
new elevated drive through design featuring a first four lane
drive through, We're aiming to deliver quality food and genuine
hospitality in a way that's uniquely Chick fil A and
gives our guests time back in their day, read added.
The new drive through restaurant concept comes just a few

(37:10):
months after Chick fil A opened its first ever mobile
pickup restaurant in New York City in March. The mobile
pickup restaurant, according to the company, aims to cater to
busy New Yorkers by focusing solely on delivery and mobile
app ordering for a quick and easy pickup experience. It
is located at seventy ninth Street and Second Avenue on

(37:32):
the Upper east Side. According to Chick fil A, the
new restaurant concept begins when customers order ahead for delivery
or carry out via the Chick fil A app or online.
A restaurant will be alerted by geofencing when customers are
on their way to expedite the process and ensure each
meals time with the customer's arrival. So that's interesting. So

(37:52):
geofencing can really add some unique capabilities here because if
it's tracking how far away from the story you are,
and if it works like they're theoretically thinking here, they'll
be able to time it out where they start cranking

(38:13):
at your order when you're the right amount of time
away from the stores that when you get there, it's
nice and hot and ready to go. So I love
that thinking. Inside the restaurant, there are active status board
screens designated for delivery or mobile pickups, so customers and

(38:34):
delivery drivers can see when their orders are ready in
real time. Once the orders are ready to guess, the
delivery drivers receive their order. While the restaurant will not
offer a seating or dine in services, a seating area
or dining services, Chick fil A says the company's signature
hospitality is prominent in every step of this digital focused

(38:55):
experienced experience. Nice. But if you haven't already tied to
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a call. It can give you a complimentary review of
your estate planning and insurance program as it exists right now.
He'll tell you what he thinks, and he's a straight shooter,

(39:17):
So if he likes everything you got, or he's got
some recommendations and then you do what you want with
that recommendation. You can reach him at two one four
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four A three seven three five one two, or go
to his website TRIPLEW dot Independent APG dot com. That's
Triple W Independent APG for Advanced Planning Group dot com.

(39:43):
He's been handling high families state planning insurance needs for
well over a decade and a half and does a
great job. So next year reach out to him and
let him know doctor Dougs sent you his way, all right.
Cryptocurrency scam wipes out a Kansas bank. It's from CNBC.

(40:11):
This is unbelievable, says that the former CEO of a
small Kansas bank was sentenced to more than twenty four
years in prison for looting the bank of forty seven
million bucks, which he sent to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by
scammers who had duped him in a pig butchering scheme
that appealed to his greed. Federal prosecutor said, the massive

(40:36):
embezzlement by ex ceo Shan Maybe Shane doesn't have an
E on the end, we'll call him Shane Haynes in
a series of wire transfers over just eight weeks last
year led to the collapse in FDIC takeover of Heartland
Tri State Bank in Elkhart, one of only five US

(40:58):
banks that failed into twenty three. That's just horrible. Haines
fifty three, also swindle funds from the local church, an
investment club, and a daughter's college savings account to transfer
money propoorly to buy cryptocurrency as a scammers insisted they
needed more funds to unlock the supposed returns on his investments,

(41:22):
according to records from US District Court in Wichita, Kansas.
But Haines never realized any profit and lost to all
of the money he stole as a result of the scam.
Judge John Brooms on Monday sentence Haines to two hundred
ninety three months in prison, twenty nine months more than
what prosecutors requested after he pleaded guilty and made to

(41:44):
a single cant of embestment by a bank officer during
his sensing hearing. I called his actions pure evil, said
Brian Mitchell, who for years was Haines's next door neighbor
in Elkhart, a town of two thousand. Were so people
in southwestern Kansas, north of the Yoklahoma Panhandle. Mitchell, who's

(42:06):
farm and movie theater chained businesses banked at Heartland tri State,
said there were around thirty shareholders in the bank who
attended Haines as sentencing more than a year after their
stock value was wiped out in the failure. There were
people who lost seventy eighty percent of the retirement is
reelt Haines's actions, Mitchell told CIBC on Wednesday in a

(42:28):
phone interview. One local woman is struggling to afford a
nursing home for a ninety three year old mother, while
another woman can't retire now because of the crime, Mitchell said. Mitchell,
who was not a shareholder but who belonged to the
investment club victimized by the CEO, said Haines showed little,
if any remorse for his actions, despite hearing victims tell

(42:48):
the judge about the effects of his crime. Jay was
facing the judge and he just looked over his left
shoulder for a second and didn't make eye contacts and
said sorry, Mitchell recalled, describing the scene in the courtroom,
and that was it. But Haynes had a look of
absolute shock on his face when Brooms imposed a stiff

(43:09):
sentence in order the former bank chief taken into custody immediately,
Mitchell said. Mitchell said that for years he considered Hanes
a good guy who like other people, when Elkhart pitched
in to help others in the small community when they
needed help and preach at a local church. Has also
testified several times before Congress about community banking. This is crazy,

(43:44):
says The scheme was described in the court finally as
a scammer convincing a victim to invest in supposedly legitimate
virtual currency investment opportunities and then steals the victims and money.
And they call that butchering the pig because the victim

(44:06):
is a pig. So yeah, what a way to take
down your bank. Horrible leadership there, all right, Turkey leg Hut.
So I've talked about chapter eleven before, you know, in

(44:26):
restructurings and so forth. But this particular reorganization actually has
the details which when you think about it, there's this
absolute rule priority on how value, whatever value, the assets
have the time of the reorganization. It trickles down from

(44:51):
secured lenders to unsecured lenders to preferred to preferred stockholders
in the common stockholder's if there's anything left for the
preferred or the common, but it just gets paid out
in this order until all the value's gone. And this
Turkey Leg Hut, which I had never heard of the

(45:14):
restaurant before, They actually have a detailed in the Houston Chronicle,
so I thought this would be interesting to run through.
So it says Turkey Leg Hut owner Nikiya Holmes. Latest
bankruptcy filing lays out a plan to repay creditors. Now
it's up to the courts to determine if the proposed

(45:35):
five year plan is fair and equitable to all creditors.
The payments contemplated in this plan shall be funded from
post petition operations of the debtors. Restaurant court records read
based on one hundred and forty nine page court order
on June twenty fourth, Homes plans to pay holders of

(45:56):
unsecured claims fifty six percent of the amount of their claims.
The Chronicle previously reported that Homes owed nineteen creditors nearly
five million dollars in debt. The voluntary petition for non
individuals filing for bankruptcy filed on March twenty six, included
only unsecured creditors, a claim that typically has a lower

(46:18):
priority and doesn't have to be paid in full in
a slower and priority versus secured lenders. Obviously, generally unsecured
creditors get sent with the dollar of what they've their owed,
said Peter Marchetti, a professor at Texas Southern University's Thurgood

(46:38):
Marshall School Law, and a previous interview with The Chronicle.
It depends on the assets the business, depends on a
lot of various factors. In an amended bankruptcy petition filing
for creditors with non priority unsecured claims, Homes listed herself
with the claim of seven hundred and eighty one thousand,
seven and fifty nine dollars. Former co owner Steven Rodd

(47:00):
also fell onto the list of non priority insecured claims
for nine hundred and thirty one eleven dollars. Court records
showed around two point two to two million dollars for
priority insecured claims and around two point two one million
dollars for non priority insecured claims, for a total of
rund four point four to three million, and it says.

(47:28):
According to the NOLO network, a library of legal information,
non priority insecured debt tends to get discharged at the
end of the bankruptcy. Homes submitted a plan that spans
five years and includes payments to multiple entities, including but
not limited to the Internal Revenue Service, Texas Workforce Commission,

(47:50):
Texas Contour, or public accounts. That's for sales and use tax.
They also have mixed bevergeage sales tax that's owed. City
of Houston employee claims Harris County US Foods is a

(48:14):
pack and then the Small Business Administration says. The fireman
also breaks down the company's ownership interest between Homes, gospel
singer James Fortune, and criminal defense attorney Carl Moore. Court
records show Homes owns seventy two and a half percent
interest in the third Ward Staple, while gospel recording artist

(48:37):
James Fortunes owns fifteen percent in Houston criminal defense attorney
Carl Moore owns twelve and a half percent. Fortune and
former co owner Lyndale Price have been hosting pop ups
across the country promoting the Turkey leg Hut brand, while

(48:58):
Holmes operates the huge location. Price and fortune continue to
promote events in and around the South featuring the Turkey
leg Hut Express food truck. In some we operate an
outstanding business separate and above the Turkey leg Hut and Company.
We are here now to expand our business, improving the
recipes that made Turkey leg Hut and Company world famous.

(49:22):
So if the plan gets approved, then those payouts or
schedule across you know, multiple years, and what the judge
who it's is or her approval is gonna do. If
assuming they approve it, then those unsecured creditors are going

(49:48):
to get some amount against their claim. It's not going
to be one hundred percent. But like I said, once
you get to that unsecured level, if there isn't value left,
then there really isn't gonna be anything going down to
the equity holders are gonna kind of just start from scratch,

(50:08):
or the unsecured may get some of the new equity
or reconstituted equity in the business. So we'll see how
it's gonna be a tough haul. If you've been listening
to Doctor Doug Range the show, remember you can't make
better without done