The Power of a Brand Name

Right now, investors that own companies that possess strong brand names, clean balance sheets, and lots of cash are sitting pretty compared to the rest of the market. With apparently rock-steady performance, businesses such as Pepsico, Nestle, and Johnson & Johnson have weathered the storm pretty well as they go on with their regular, if not somewhat boring, businesses. In fact, brand names got me thinking earlier this week when I realized the lengths to which I would go for one of our offices.

The story begins innocently enough. Every time I'd go into a restaurant, there was a certain flavor of coffee that would make me very, very happy. Finally, in a restaurant in a resort town, I basically gave a waitress some cash to go back into the kitchen and bring me a written list of the machine, blend, and any other information she could find. Before long, I'm having a Netherlands-based brewing system called Douwe Egberts installed at headquarters. With the stock market crashing, rumors of a recession, and doom and gloom in the news every night, that product was so incredibly satisfying to me that I spent quite a bit having an cafe opened for our employees. That is the power, and appeal of a good business.

You don't have to participate in the recession. Main Street seems to be in much better shape than Wall Street and there's no reason you need to panic if you have chosen your investments wisely, are more than ten years away from retirement, and have plenty of liquidity on hand. Even better if you don't depend on one company or cash source to fund your lifestyle.

Oh, and by the way - I read something really interesting the other day. Did you know that if you are a firefighter, married to a school teacher, that your combined income of $75,000 puts you in the top 10% of earning power in the country? I'm not so sure it feels that way to the middle class the way things are going. That fact still surprises me.