Burger King

On August 2, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote an op-ed in the New York Times with the title, “Welcome to the Recovery.” Despite the brash headline, Geithner was cautiously optimistic about the direction of the economy.

“Recoveries that follow financial crises are typically a hard climb,” he wrote. “That is reality. The process of repair means economic growth will come slower than we would like. But despite these challenges, there is good news to report.”

The good news, the secretary said, includes “booming” exports, private job growth (“not as fast as we would like”), a stabilized banking system, and a business sector that has “repaired its balance sheets” and is in “a strong financial position to reinvest and grow.”

Geithner conceded that such positive indicators were “cold comfort to those Americans still looking for work and to those industries, like construction, hit hardest by the crisis.” But he defended the Obama administration’s actions to combat the recession: the $787 billion stimulus package; the Trouble Asset Relief Program, or “bank bailout,” which was set in motion by the Bush administration; and the so-called “auto bailout” of Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford.

Though there is still a tough row to hoe, Geithner said, “we are coming back.”

Some restaurant industry players, however, are far less optimistic than the Treasury Secretary.Read more

In the aftermath of the massive earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, the restaurant industry has responded with various fundraising initiatives to help the devastated Caribbean island nation.

The destruction was “unimaginable,” in the words of Haitian President René Préval, whose presidential palace lay in ruins after an early-morning earthquake that may have killed as many as 200,000 people. The earthquake razed large sections of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, burying countless bodies in the wreckage of collapsed buildings.

As the images of devastation flooded television sets across the globe, U.S. restaurants large and small sprang to action. Two days after the earthquake, McDonald’s announced a $500,000 donation to be matched by Arcos Dorados, the company that operates nearly 1,700 McDonald’s locations in Latin America.

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