KPBS anchor Ebone Monet and SDSU marketing lecturer Miro Copic discuss some of the week’s top business stories.
Q: Why was Jack In The Box looking for a buyer?
A: Jack in the Box has 2,200 locations but it's tiny compared to McDonald's or Burger King. It was starting to struggle. Its same-store sales were declining. It has activist shareholders who are against management (and) for the first time, all franchisees are against the new CEO's policies. So this forced the board to look at strategic alternatives like potentially finding a buyer. And it looks like they didn't find one or at least no one gave them a bid that was attractive enough.
Q: AT&T plans to lay off technicians here in California. What happened to the company's pledge back in 2017 to create thousands of new positions?
A: You know, it's really interesting that they made this pledge when the tax cut act was enacted. A lot of companies did. AT&T is really struggling as a company so the technicians that they're talking about are people who work on DirecTV or slower DSL type Internet services. The demands for those services are declining ... it's unfortunate. It's a highly competitive environment.
Q: Which industries stand to lose the most if the U.S.-China trade war continues?
A: Every industry is going to lose. And here's why. You know we talked about last week that President Trump extended tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods last Friday. On Monday, he announced that he was ready to put on 25 percent tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in trade. That means everything from apparel to handbags to hats to cars to computers are going to cost more. In fact, this week the markets have been crazy. You know the market plunge over 600 points on Monday that because corporate earnings have been fairly strong. The market has staged a rally this week but they're very concerned about what the next round of negotiations are going to be.
