1) Panera is chick food. It's okay, but nothing special. That said, when I am traveling with female colleagues, and there is a Panera in the airport, or near our destination, we often end up in one. I much prefer Jason's deli.
2) BUT, I think the thesis of the article is spot-on, and it addresses a much bigger problem we have -- the false dichotomy that is often boiled down to "that sucks, it's socialism, capitalism rules!" Which, in its application, actually means "anything that doesn't favor immediate yield/profit should be disdained as anti-capitalism!" As I've aged, and gotten a lot more real-world experience and perspective, I've become a lot more critical of Milton Friedman and what turned out to be simplistic views.
A business and its place in an economy is a complex system. Reducing it to two simple measures - max money yield in minimum time - is not just simplistic, it's WRONG if your overall goal is actually a high-functioning economy. In simple metaphor terms, the short-term approach demands that all businesses plant crops that can be harvested in 60-90 days, so there's the shortest interval of time before you realize profits. That approach does not allow for anyone to plant trees, which will take 25 years to mature.
That's folly, for several reasons (let's keep with the metaphor): on an annualized basis, the timber crop can yield profits greater than the short-term crops; the timber crop does far less damage to an important asset of any farm: the land; the long growth period of the timber crop allows the business to turn its attention to other things that may be profitable (leasing the land for hunting, maybe acquiring more land for different crops that can be grown on a shorter time-frame, thus diversifying the business, etc.).
There are dozens of things that a business or society does that seem to be shouted down with "socialism!" simply because they don't yield an immediate profit. That leaves little room for long-term investment, which is necessary for a healthy, functioning economy. I remember as a kid, reading the economic cautionary tales of the Soviet Union, where they could grow great potato crops, but they'd rot in the barns because the Soviets hadn't invested in the necessary infrastructure to get the crops from farms to cities/market. Highways and bridges are a GREAT example of a long-term investment that costs money and doesn't yield direct profits. Yet, they are the lubricant that helps the rest of the economy flow, and are a force multiplier. Of course I haven't done the math, but it seems obvious that we end up with something that looks like "for every $1 spent on roads, $100 in commercial activity travels on that road over its lifetime." Simple public health measures have a similar calculus -- $1 to vaccinate a kid yields $100 in productivity that we don't lose because a parent has to stay home with a sick kid. Sure, it seems like a feel-good socialism thing to do, but it is actually a no-brainer economic move.
Wages are another "investment." If you look at our "golden age" (around 1945 to 1975), you'll see steady wage growth. That allowed an American consumer class to grow, with real purchasing power, which pumped those wages back into the economy, leading to unprecedented growth in the American consumer goods industry (cars, tvs, etc.). An economy that invests in workers is an economy that creates consumers, which are the fuel for production. It's a long-term, collective benefit.
It's like maintenance on property, a real-world economic activity (and man, do we see short-term investors cut corners on that). It costs money to do regular roof maintenance, but it keeps me from suffering interior structural rot. It costs money to replace worn out plumbing, but it keeps me from suffering a devastating flood. In the short term, by reducing the expense side of the ledger, I can show high profits from rental income. But the value of my core asset will actually be depreciating -- but what do I care, I increased profts by 7% this quarter, I got my bonus, and I'll be gone when the music stops and someone is stuck with a broken-down property that's worth far less than it would have been had it been maintained (in fact, the long-term investment yield of a well-maintained property can exceed the short term profits on an annualized basis). And we could go on, and on, and on with different examples and thoughts.
Bottom line, we need to plant more trees. We need to invest in the things that yield long-term benefits, and contribute to the economy across the board. Will those things often make things better for people in general in the short term? Sure. But just because it's good for people doesn't mean it's socialism. We need to realize that good things are also good for business, if you take the long-term view of things. So, not socialism, but actually the opposite -- responsible and wise capitalism. I'm interested in reading more about Shaich's movement.