Franchising has come a long way from the days when Ray Kroc sold his first McDonald’s restaurant and Col. Harland Sanders set out to share his “11 secret herbs and spices” with others — for a share of the profits, of course. Kroc is long gone, though McDonald’s Corp. has grown into a multinational powerhouse that’s all but synonymous with American fast food.
A little more than a year ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to push a diabolically simple plan to give the nation’s faltering economy a much-needed jolt. His proposal: to reduce, in one fell swoop, the tax burden on 132 million low- and middle-income Americans and six million businesses, thereby fueling consumer spending
“The first essence of journalism is to know what you want to know.” John Gunther once wrote. “The second is to find out who will tell you.” Gunther, who died in 1970, was one of the 20th century’s most ambitious and prolific journalists: He knew what he wanted to know, found out who would tell him, and told the rest of us in Inside Europe, Inside U.S.A.,
J. EDGAR HOOVER ALWAYS GOT HIS MAN, or so they said, but apparently he never got his hat. Sometime during World War II the fearsome director of the FBI went into Harvey’s, which was then next to the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, and laid his fedora on the counter of the restaurant’s checkroom. Hoover didn’t bother to get
There is a story about a man who shows his friend through his new house. “This is the living room, here is the dining room. This is the Florida room,” he says, “and that is my wife” and there she is sitting on the love seat just kissing up a storm with another man. And they go on into
IT WAS AT THE TOBACCO COUNTER of the Willard Hotel at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the story goes, that Thomas Marshall, who served for eight years as Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, uttered the words that were to become one of America’s classic aphorisms: “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.” As with so many other good
START WITH A BANG, GO OUT WITH A WHIMPER. When Dwight Schar’s NVHomes launched a hostile takeover bid for Ryan Homes on September 29, Ryan’s executives weren’t exactly pleased. They turned to the proverbial poison pill, outfitted themselves with platinum parachutes, and denounced Schar’s bid as “illusory, misleading, and unlawful.” They called NvHomes’s $45-a-share tender offer “inadequate” and urged
IN ITS EARLIEST DAYS the mile-long stretch of F Street from 15th to Fifth was called the Ridge. Until Pennsylvania Avenue was paved, it was about the only way to reach the Capitol from downtown Washington. But the name didn’t stick, and with the turn of the 20th century F Street finally came into its own. For decades it
Where’s the capital capital of the world? Just ask Luther Hodges, the president of National Bank of Washington. Two years ago Hodges put together a syndicate of nearly 100 investors and orchestrated the acquisition of NBW from the United Mine Workers. The biggest chunk of capital for the deal came from an investor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Down to the Wire
No one in the nation’s capital — or anywhere else, for that matter — can say with any certainty exactly how Nafta would affect the United States. This much is clear: Over time, by eliminating most tariffs and other trade and investment barriers dividing the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Nafta would create the world’s largest free-trade zone — a mammoth market of about 370 million consumers with $6.5 trillion in annual economic output. But
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