Markets — and business cycles — have never been anything but brutally honest. Over the past year, just about every given in the financial world has been forced under review. Profit margins, cash flow ratios, acquisition multiples, interest rates, real estate and stock market valuations — all have been re-examined in light of economic realities that lack, in the parlance of Wall Street, medium or long-term “clarity.”

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If there has been one overriding message, it has been that the relative values of many things in our lives are less stable than many of us once thought.

What is an hour of a Wall Street executive's or a Detroit auto worker's time really worth? What is the value of a 2,000 sq.ft. home in northern California? Of a bushel of corn or a gallon of gasoline? Of a share of Citibank or General Electric stock? A mid-sized sedan or Medicaid-reimbursable hospital procedure?

For that matter, what is the value of a 12-inch sub sandwich or a 16-oz. cup of hot coffee?

In the context of this great, ongoing re-calibration of value, the good news for onsite operators is that schoolchildren, hospital patients, college students, and government and private sector workers still must eat every day. And for many of them, the best meal values going will remain those available onsite. The challenges our readers will face in their business models will be more easily dealt with than those in the construction, manufacturing and other industries that seem so troubled in the short term.