France resistance to Starbucks

While picking out my preferred Starbucks selection last Friday in the soft and typical Starbucks atmosphere, I was wondering why Starbucks was not established in France. One of our friends even told us that Starbuck of Rue de France in the very core of Paris was poised to close and that Starbuck CEO Howard Schultz had decided to curb next openings initially scheduled.

I tried to figure out why Starbucks brand did not succeed in France.

I think Starbucks concept based on the Italian or French café has been a success in the United States because the concept did not exist yet. That means, Starbucks was one of the first to offer in the 70’s a neatly decorated and relaxing place where you could stop and take time to savor one of the delicious composition offered.

Howard Schultz marketing strategy was to offer a “third place to live” (meaning Home, work, Starbucks).

French café or “Bistrot” exists for ever. They are small shops, often family businesses that you can find in each town, and village even very small. Cafe is the focal point where people like to come. Café-keeper usually knows his clients and habits. He is like a friend who is happy to see you and serve you the coffee selection or the drink you usually have. Starbucks tried to reproduce this characteristic by asking you your first name. I think Starbucks did a cultural error here as French people, more distant and protective in the first approach, do not like to tell their first name unless very close from the person.

Another cultural difference perhaps not properly considered is that in the United States, people prefer more diluted coffee they drink all along the day with a wide range of flavors. In France we like strong small coffee, we drink either black or with some cream. That’s it! As it is strong we rarely have coffee after 2 or 3 pm.

Finally Starbucks’ prices are very high while coffee in France is one of the cheapest beverages affordable.

I think these cultural differences should have been considered by Starbucks marketing before establishing shops in France as they have a significant impact on the activity and were predictable.

Health Reform and French system

A lot has been said and disputed about Obama’s Heath Reform aiming to give access to Health care system to everybody.

Coming from France, our Heath care system is often viewed as a typical French privilege. I think this perception has to be explained and clarified.

It is true that French and American systems are very different. In France, EVERYBODY, even homeless people, can go to the hospital 24/7 and receive care they need. It is one of the basic foundations of the French ethic where everybody has to be treated as equally as possible.

I remember the first time we have had to find a doctor for a throat infection. My mom called a family doctor to get an appointment. The first questions asked have been: “ Do you have an insurance? How will you pay? Who are you working for? Do you have a financial guarantor?” Because we were a self-cash payer, the lady said she was sorry but we had to go to an emergency care center to see a doctor.

This would not have happen in France. Each town, village has a panel of family doctors and specialists that can be visited upon an appointment or family doctors can be called to visit a patient if needed.

Medical costs are mainly covered by the Heath branch of the Social Security budget coming from the two third of tax-payers. Care reimbursements are governed by rules. That means that the rate of reimbursement will depend upon the type of care concerned. Typically what we call “Comfort care” will be reimbursed at low rate while others will be reimbursed at 100%.

For a better coverage, you need to have a personal insurance often proposed in your employee package.

This is a very good system but too many abuses have lead to a serious debt in the State budget. Abuses and unfairness come essentially from the increasing portion of population, which does not pay income taxes because of their low revenue (unemployed, immigrants…) and who benefit the system without contribution in return. This results in several tensions in the population between those who have a job and those who do not.

So I would not say that French system is ideal. It is different with some advantages and drawbacks. To me the main weakness of the French system is to make people too dependent of the medical care. In other words, people go to the doctor for nothing. In reaction and to reduce the deficit of the budget, more and more medications and cares are less reimbursed by the Social security.

At the opposite, the United States system, based on 100% assurance coverage, is a real penalty for those who cannot afford an insurance and may people take risk with self medications as regularly reported in the news.

I hope that Medicare program will help to find a balance between both and make people responsible of their health.

Innovation

Everybody talks about innovation as the key driver to recover from the numb situation economy is today. Companies spend a lot of money in technology and programs to stimulate innovation or innovative ideas.

I was reading a paper about Nobel prizes and that discussed how legitimate it was to award a prize to one group. Should the prize go to the group having made a theoretical prediction in Astrophysics science or to the group having made a technology breakthrough in telecommunication science?

I think the debate between Theoretical Science versus Applied Science is an endless topic of discussion, though I think we need both.

The main question I had after reading this paper was to try to figure out what should be the next most innovative and significant discovery we should need. Everybody has in mind Light bulb from Thomas Edison, airplane from the Wright brothers, Einstein’s Theory of relativity or the discovery of Post-it by Arthur Fry.

To me I think the most significant discovery will probably be a medical discovery. I think resources and efforts should be put on research for the Cancer, HIV and degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson or Alzheimer (stem cells!).

Then any findings to reduce pollution, negative impacts on the climate and preserve the planet would be the most significant discoveries.

If you have any other ideas to contribute this conversation, do not hesitate to post a commentary and enrich this conversation!!

TV shows and Philosophy

I was not really happy when my mom told me that we will were invited to a dinner with people I did not know. The atmosphere was heavy and conversation was limited to social things like “ how long have you been here? Do you like the area…’’. It was so boring that I finally asked: “What is your favorite TV show’’ Instantaneously, everybody had something to tell and we finally spent a good time to exchange our point of view on TV series and their new role in our life.

Coming back home I started to think about what happened during the evening.

To me, TV show, more than music or cinema, have become point of reference, a topic of conversation. Everybody has watched or heard about House or Lost… And has an opinion about this.

How to explain this new phenomenon?

I think the unique and new point with the TV show is to create a unique situation like a flight crash in Lost or new medical cases never seen before in House, and to involve the viewer in the exploration of all the consequences on the characters. Contrary to cinema where the viewer has only the possibility to observe a situation, characters and psychology issues, the show concept immerges the viewer in the action and gives him the chance to have his own opinion on psychological dilemma evolving in the show.

I think TV show, or at least some of them, are really interesting as they address a social or psychological issue that lead you to think about and formulate your own opinion.

For example, House is not a pure medical show that addresses a key medical ethic question concerning the place of emotion in the medical practice.

House, in the show, never shows any emotion but resolves all medical challenges. He pushes reasoning to its extreme. Each episode includes a phase of crisis where he has to make patients take risks, in order to find the truth.

Cameron, one of the doctor in his team represents the theory of Care strongly present in the United States medical system.

As said Nietzsche a crisis step is necessary to get to the revelation. I think this show demonstrates this concept very well.

Each show has its own characteristics and philosophy.

I learned in Latin class that Socrate used maieutics technique to make his student express their ideas using mythology stories. I think TV shows could be seen as the new Socrate support, to make people formulate their opinion on a specific topic.

Beauty and estheticism

Some days ago, we talked about beauty and symbolism of the beauty during the Middle Age in English class. We have had an interesting conversation on the topic saying that at that time a woman was considered attractive if she was fair-skinned and overweight because it represented wealth.

After the class, I started thinking about the beauty in general.

To me, I think there is a difference between beauty and estheticism. Something will be elected beautiful at a certain time because it meets the specific esthetic codes of the time but it will be ugly later if the codes have changed. The case of Middle Age we are studying is a good example. At that time, beauty was characterized by a fair-skin and over-weight, while today you have to be tanned and slim to catch eyes on you.

I think we are not talking about beauty here. We are talking about estheticism codes and that these codes vary with time.

I think beauty is not only limited to the physical appearance but also can be related to the emotion. We can be moved by a music, a scenery, the cherishing mother’s look on his baby…

Beauty is the richness of a person whatever how he/she looks like. The appearance should not have an influence on our judgment. As in the Wife of Bath Tale, wisdom and intelligence reveal the true beauty of someone. I have met a lot of people that were disgraceful but were so rich by their reflections and their open-mindedness that you wanted to stay with them. This is the real beauty.

Unfortunately, in our society, appearance often dictates the chance and opportunities that will be offered to you in your life.

To me beauty is not necessarily link to something visible. The quote I posted at the top of this page reflects pretty well what I mean by that –“ On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur; l’essentiel est invisible aux yeux’’ which can be translated by “ We can only see well with the heart; Essentials are invisible to eyes’’

Shopping on credit card

Banking and credit card system has probably be on the most difficult thing to manage for us when we arrive from France and certainly something that still continues to question us as an irrational concept.

American and French banking system are completely different as well as the credit management.

Typically, French banks only deliver debit cards. In most cases this is a VISA with a financial limit of debit authorization, which is fixed according your financial situation. If you exceed the limit you have penalties to pay and your card is blocked. Some private credit firm like SOFINCO exists which propose you credit cards with rates in the range of 9-12%. Salesman often proposes them when you want to buy standard consumer goods, like appliances, vacation package, or a car.

So we were and are still very puzzled when the cashier at Heinen’s ask us “Debit or credit’’. For us it is obvious that expenses like buying food for the week have to be paid cash or with a debit card with direct withdrawal.

With time, I realized that a lot of people paid their shopping with credit card. Once I witnessed a situation that surprised me: a person at Heinens had to use 3 different credit cards to pay her cart. My first thought was: are people indebted at such a high point that they cannot afford to buy food? Do they still have any control on their purchase capacity?

Then came the time for us to buy our house. There we learned about the credit score system and the paradox of the concept.

In France, you are a reliable person if you do not have more than 30-35% debts or in other words, the less credits you have, the more reliable you are. If you want to buy a car or a house and need to get a credit from your bank, you will be eligible only if you do not exceed this limit. This limit is considered as the maximum amount of money a household can spend for credit reimbursement while keeping their capacity to pay other expenses like insurance, food, schools…

In the United States, you have to prove that you have credits and you are able to pay them as a proof of reliability. This is recorded under credit score. It is common here to receive in your mail box proposals from private credit companies or banks saying “ Congratulation, You have been pre-qualified for a Platinum card with a reserved credit line...’’ Then in very small characters at the bottom of the page, you can read that the annual interest rate is 19.99%!!!

A real paradox to us. Arriving from France, we had no credit history, no debts with the financial capacity to pay our house cash, but not eligible for a credit because we had no credit history !!

To me, this partly explains the financial crisis we are plunged in. Living in a consuming society supported by a dangerous credit system, people have lost track on their financing capacity. Then devastated by too many debts to reimburse, they have all kinds of proposal coming from credit companies. Because people who had contracted these kind of credit did not have financial back up, credit companies collapsed, letting thousands millions of dollars unpaid to banks with the financial crash we have witnessed the lat two years.

I think a profound reappraisal and a new look on our consumer behavior would be essential. Even if consumption is a key part of the economy, rules should be established and basic principle introduced in the education to teach people not to purchase if they cannot afford it.

Women leading the economy

I read an interesting article in Newsweek, explaining how women are poised to become the most important and leading force of the post-recession era.

Actually, women represent a real driver of the economy as they make the majority of the purchasing decisions.

Besides that, women’s role in the world has significantly changed in the past decades:

· Access to education around the world has improved and colleges in Europe and in the United States became equally open to boys and girls.

· Laws changed to give women equal representation to their male peers.

A significant change is being observed.

Women from the previous generation, who tended to be paid less than their male peers, are retiring, leaving the place to a younger group with equal education that male. However, studies show that a woman with the same level of education and the employed at the same position than a man still tends to be less paid than him.

Hit by the crisis, companies had to licentiate people with a high salary in order to save money. Therefore, according to the article, 80% of the job losses in the United States were held by men, allowing women to access to high positions.

The article was interesting as it brought a new light on an unobvious aspect of recession and pointed out that the recession can benefit a certain category of person while hurting even more another one.