Let's not get too excited. California's history is that the voters speak, and the elected officials go around the voters and pass bad laws anyway. Or, the bureaucrats in Sacramento make up regulations that have the force of law.
Measure would have raised wage to $18, highest in the nation
With the sanctimonious talk about the American diet, here are two of the most popular entertainers in our culture today.
Country Western Star Jelly Roll and rapper Lizzo. Good examples for our youth, right?
Related to the onion outbreak:
The Wall Street Journal reports that McDonald's is "investing about $35 million into marketing for its U.S. business" and "a total of $65 million into supporting franchisees who have lost business."
Mr. Charlies is often referred to as the vegan McDonald's
Parent company of Mike Tyson’s cannabis brand buys vegan franchise
"Among c-store operators who consider their foodservice programs to be in direct competition with QSRs, three-quarters said they are specifically concerned about McDonald’s value meal offerings on their own traffic and sales for foodservice"
Elon Musk on DEI: “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening,” Musk said on X.
In a subsequent post, Musk wrote: “People will die due to DEI,”
Boeing dismantles DEI department - NY Post
Attempting to Convince Shareholders that QSRs are a Growth Industry
* In most chains, new stores typically pay higher franchise fees and royalties than older stores.
* As Wendy's has acquired many franchisees over the years, the corporation has likely developed a real estate portfolio that needs trimming. In many locations, a QSR is not the highest and best use of a property. Wendy's (and other chains) can close the store, sell the property, and book a tidy gain. Let the franchisee pay to build a new store down the street and pay higher fees.
"That man stuck his hands in the fries, and McDonald’s had E.coli like the next day,"
We've posted a lot of fun items this week, but this might be the best. Three elderly politicians think they can understand how a franchise system determines pricing. Not even their brightest young aid can make them understand. This is like V.P. Harris. She keeps trying to throw money around, but it's obvious she doesn't understand the difference between a tax deduction for a small business and a direct cash payment from the government. She also doesn't understand that small businesses don't need a tax deduction for many tax years, especially start-ups.
Three Democrat Senators attack McDonald's for hosting Trump visit
This sounds like fun, so I may be jealous, but it could backfire with international repercussions. McDonald's dodged a bullet in Israel with an ownership change, but these days it's risky to have a potential U.S. President appear to have a favorite global restaurant brand. Plus, McDonald's USA serves millions of Democrats every day.
Isn't this contrary to the Election Season guidelines published earlier this year?
Immediately after leaving the Fox News interview, Kamala Harris called McDonald’s to see if she could, by chance, get her old job back.
Allegedly conspiring to fix the price of beef
Occasionally, McDonald’s Corp. gets a little slap-happy with litigation. Like a hammer thinking everything looks like a nail, the legal department thinks every corporate challenge looks like a possible lawsuit.
This “management by bullying” peaked in the late 1990s when the company was suing everyone and threatening every Owner/Operator. Part of the problem was that one of McDonald’s directors was a prominent Chicago attorney who was a partner at a prominent Chicago law firm. Conveniently, said firm handled most of the company’s litigation.
This compulsion fizzled out around the turn of the century with all the changes in CEOs and directors.
If they give a pajama boy an unlimited legal budget, it can be a control freak’s dream. Let’s hope not.
Back in June, we discussed, with some alarm, that McDonald's share price had drifted down to the mid-$200 range.
Is anyone watching the MCD stock price? - 6/18/24
We should now recognize that the MCD share price has finally topped $300 over the past week, driven by market momentum and an announced increase in the MCD dividend.
However, in the longer term, the increase comes from investors' confidence that McDonald's Owner/Operators will continue to follow corporate discounting plans.
Congratulations to MCD shareholders.
This is one last post about the Kamala Harris and McDonald's issue. It seems to have run its course, and I'm told she isn't going to use McDonald's in her commercials anymore. That doesn't mean Trump/Vance won't still mention it, but probably with less frequency. It is disappointing that news reporters in their 20s and 30s expect businesses to produce employment records from forty years ago. Of course, if Kamala hadn't ever worked at McDonald's, there would be nothing to reveal.
Harris touts her time working at McDonald's. Will it help? - LA Times
It doesn't happen that often that a former McDonald's exec goes on to a successful position elsewhere. Debbie Stroud appears to be the exception.
Whataburger CEO retiring - Stroud takes post - Rest Business
https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-stroud-88149540/details/experience/
Kamala Harris' claim that she once worked for McDonald's continues to attract considerable attention. So far, McDonald's Corp. has responded with "no comment." While this is dangerous ground because no corporate favor can be shown to any candidate, isn't this a chance to reinforce the fallacy of the Joint Employer concept?
Shouldn't one of the pajama boys be able to put together a statement that says, "These people don't work for us, and we know nothing about them?" And/or "We don't keep records of franhiceee's employees?"
A proper nonpartisan statement would be better than leaving the questions hanging, which only allows the media to speculate that McDonald's Corp. is hiding something.
McDonald's is getting a lot of attention on the campaign trail - Yahoo
And McDonald's management is focused on testing a larger, more expensive hamburger?
It's good to review these numbers once in a while - Yahoo Finance
Insiders? - Less than one percent of outstanding shares
This $100 million excludes many people, but it gets the government involved in measuring a citizen's level of wealth. Where else do they do that? Your bank does it - does the IRS? This takes me back to Trump's first Presidential campaign when the liberal media was frantic to get hold of his tax returns. They thought they could determine his net worth from his returns.
For taxpayers with $100 million in total wealth - CATO Institute
There are only a few baby steps between government controlling grocery store prices and government controlling restaurant menu prices.
Price controls could create more problems than they solve - CNN
The WSJ looks at McDonald's Owner's recent lobbying attempts, apparently directed by a guy named Gonda. Warning - paywall.
Peter Romeo from Restaurant Business with a 10 minute podcast about McDonald's history. One correction, if I heard him right he has the McDLT after the Arch Deluxe. Actually, the McDLT was introduced in the 1980s, the Arch Deluxe was from the mid-1990s.
Otherwise, it's very educational if you are being asked to invest in a new product.
Some have observed that we've been paying a little more attention to the stock market lately, particularly McDonald's (MCD) shares. That would be correct.
Over the decades, when McDonald's was a growth company, the factors that impacted the MCD share price have been numerous and complex. Be it new products, more new stores, fewer new stores, drive-thrus, playplaces, promotions, pandemics, etc.
But these days, it's pretty simple. The most important thing will be same-store sales in the United States. International markets will play a part, but Wall Street will judge the company's performance based on what happens in the USA. It's doubtful new products will be a factor, and major remodels will be impossible to sell, so it comes down to one thing - how much discounting will domestic Owners/Operators be willing to accept?
It will be easy to draw a straight line between U.S. same-store sales and MCD share price. It's going to be a simpler but more interesting time.
However, investors demand a new product pipeline and this will keep them satisfied for a while. Very few MCD watchers understand that the system can't sell high-end products while distracting customers with deep discounts.
The topic, particularly on red meat, has resurfaced since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency.
"The agency also said that franchisors can’t take action against franchisees that take complaints about the business to the government."
@McFranchisee (Twitter - formerly @MCDtruth) claims that the typical
U.S. store will receive one case of 250 Black Garlic packets. Is that worth
while of a promotion? Sounds like a half-day supply.
During one of the previous burger wars, a QSR corporate head (I think he was from Burger King) coined the phrase "Barbell Menu." The term was used to describe pricing that brought customers into the restaurant with the hope they'd forego the discount and move up to more profitable menu items.
Today, we have a different "barbell menu" this one is more of a corporate strategy. The only "new" idea the corporate guys can come up with is discounting. But they can't admit to investors that price-off is their only idea, so they'll try to deflect attention to new product promotions. This works well because analysts and reporters are always expecting new product news. And, if there is no new product news, they'll criticize management for not having a "healthy product innovation pipeline".
If the discounting works, management will credit the new products. If sales haven't improved, they’ll blame the American consumer.
And everyone else in the system will be left asking, “How did our menu get so big and complicated?”
Well, it wasn't really a "McDonald's" race, the first Chicago NASCAR race (2023) just looked that way based on photos and videos. I watched most of last year's race live and was surprised at how much visibility the McDonald's logo received. McDonald's banners covered many of the walls and barriers that made up the racecourse. These banners always seemed to be on camera. I couldn't help but wonder how much this cost.
Later, I learned the facts. Because it rained for much of the race, the TV cameras installed on high-up scaffolding or on the sides of buildings were temporarily disabled, leaving the ground-level cameras to cover the race. This meant shooting straight across the course with the racecars in the foreground and the McDonald's banners constantly in the background.
It sure looked like a race entirely sponsored by McDonald's.
“Think about our scale,” he (Elinger) said, noting that the incremental cost of adding fries and a drink to a sandwich was minimal.
McDonald's $5.00 value meal intensifies a fast food price war
This year, the price has drifted from $300 to $250. Only two things can turn that around: * several miracles in international markets or * McDonald's Owner/Operators in the USA can discount their menus and invest in promotions until same-store sales turn around.
There is some humor in how reporters and analysts think about drive-thru technology. They seem to think the answer to everything in drive-thru is faster ordering. Of course, that's the only part of the operation they can see and hear. This is why McDonald's management can generate headlines about AI but can't actually make it work.
Rubio’s and In n’ Out have been two destination brands. When folks visit Southern California, they have to eat at these two chains.
But Rubio's never did real estate well. They often went with the cheapest site, so it’s no surprise they have many marginal locations.
Rubio's closes nearly 50 locations - NRN
Today's open letter on McDonald's pricing and the attached infographic are well done but long overdue. I was originally going to claim the $18 meal deal had been in the public eye for a few months, but then I did a search. It first showed up on social media in July of last year!
Since these myths were allowed to fester it seems every media report on inflation has mentioned prices at McDonald's. This could have been squelched with a more modest version of today's release - maybe last fall.
Remember when McDonald's Corp. had something of a "quick response" team to deal with such misreporting? If there is still such a team, they must have been off attending a ESG or DEI workshop.
Your "Royalties" at work.
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| MCD YTD 2024 - bigcharts.com |
Fast food slump could be a buying opportunity - Yahoo Financial
By "buying opportunity," the writer means, for shareholders
This concept reminds me of something, oh yeah, the SPOD / Walmart platform
Customization = Slow Service = Low Volume
Jared Bernstein is President Biden's chief economic advisor. He often appears on TV in front of the White House to explain global economics.
Economics for people who don't understand economics - 3 min video
Jonathan Maze updates progress of negotiations
"McDonald’s then returned with a different proposal, one that featured incentives from Coca-Cola, the company’s beverage provider. That assuaged many operators’ concerns about profitability. The proposal also has carve-outs for higher-priced markets, enabling them to run the promotion at a higher price.
The National Owners Association, an independent group of McDonald’s operators, praised Coca-Cola for providing the financial assistance."............
"But the group also said it felt McDonald’s should step up financially, too."
Not to beat a dead topic, but there's a lot to learn from the Arch Deluxe, both in terms of product development and marketing. Most internet videos, such as the following, are snarky and juvenile. This one is professionally produced and, if memory serves, quite accurate. And it's only six minutes long.
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