MCD Execs Sacrifice Operator Margins For Traffic

"We are willing to invest margin in the short term to continue to grow our business

for the long-term," McDonald's Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said Thursday

on a conference call.

Some one should tell Pete that the franchisees set the menu prices, or do they?

Easy for him to spout off since there are far fewer McOpCos.

Dow Jones reports HERE

On menu pricing - I keep hearing that McDonald's regional bureaucrats are

urging Operators to "not repeat the mistakes of 2008". Apparently the Operator

is then supposed to hang their head and feel guilty about being opportunistic the

last time we had food inflation.

But this is the usual revisionist history, or a sign of high turnover in the McDonald's

executive ranks. The truth is that 2008 saw some back door increases but that

was also the middle year of three annual Federal minimum wage increases, along

with many state minimums.

I submit raising the minimum wage from $5.15 in June 2007 to $6.55 in July 2008

was the cause of menu price increases far more than food inflation (or greedy

franchisees).

So you might educate the corporate types HERE'S a link to the D.O.L. history :

.