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What Memories Will We Leave Behind in the Year 2016?

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howard_johnsons_times_squareEvery year brings a combination of creation and destruction. As the world looks forward to 2017, it’s a good idea to take a look back at 2016 to see what has been left behind. Earlier in the year I wrote to you about the closing of the last Howard Johnson’s in New England. I wrote:

Investors are taking their eye off the ball. With all the hand wringing over what the Fed is—or isn’t—going to do with rates, there’s a much bigger problem lurking in most investors’ statements. It’s called survivorship bias. Most of the big movers never existed when I was a kid. Great ideas or concepts don’t last forever.

The decline of what was once America’s largest restaurant chain is chronicled in an article by Brian MacQuarrie at the Boston Globe. He wrote:

Launched in 1925 by Howard Deering Johnson from a single store on Wollaston Beach in Quincy, his simple merger of quality food and a friendly atmosphere grew into a commercial behemoth.

By its zenith in the late 1970s, Howard Johnson’s had more than 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges whose orange roofs signaled dependability for millions of customers.

Johnson pioneered the franchise model along the way — the first franchise opened in Orleans, Mass. — in which he sold the Howard Johnson name for a fee and insisted that the owners buy their food and supplies from him.

The chain also operated the first turnpike restaurant in the country — in Pennsylvania in 1940 — and eventually had the largest number of restaurants on toll roads from coast to coast.

Johnson correctly saw how the country’s growing mobility could help his highway-conscious business, but the company could not stave off the mushrooming growth of fast-food outlets from the 1960s onward.

Other competition came from hotels that began offering continental breakfasts, and salespeople who did their business on phones and computers rather than the road. After Tuesday, the only HoJo’s restaurant left standing will be in Lake George, N.Y.

Read more here.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com