This is an often unacknowledged part of the cost of fast food. It turns susceptible people into diabetics. As a diabetic there is little I can eat there, since I manage it with food not drugs. When I do I get a burger and throw out the bun, which isn't very thrifty.
If you just go with the flow and eat what this culture makes easiest, it's an unusual specimen who can be healthy and happy in late life. And it's not at all unusual to turn young people into patients.
It costs very little to eat mostly lentils/legumes/nuts/yogurt/vegetables, and drink mostly water without carbs dissolved in it, but no business is going to survive selling those things.
There's an argument to be made that inflation is ultimately the driver of all three complaints, but boy did that all happen seemingly overnight.
I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.
Why would a few months of a “bad idea” induce decade-long changes?
I don't know about how COVID-19 was handled in the USA, but in Germany it rather was "many years of bad idea".
January 2020: there is nothing to afraid of, the new disease is mostly harmless and affects only the elderly and immunocompromised. Closing down borders is xenophobic. March 2020: do not go outside unless critically necessary and if you violate the rules, we will severely punish you May 2020: it's fine to have large public gatherings for BLM protests.
February 2020: masks do nothing and actually are harmful unless you are trained to use a mask, do not buy any masks. April 2020: wear a mask if you go outside, or you kill everybody else. Your own fault that you don't have a mask.
Summer of 2020: look, it's actually so great that we are all working remotely now, the nature is healing, all the emissions are so much reduced, this is the new future! Summer of 2023: everybody back to the office, real estate is suffering. People who joined during COVID time? Your contract is now altered, pray we do not alter it any further.
The promises around vaccines, printing money and "loans for struggling businesses" are even more stories of their own. Beats me why after a few years of these kind of shenanigans people would generally get tired of other people.
I don't know if HN is the place to say this. But, it's just infinitely better these days to cook your own meals. With some modest initial investment and planning, you can minimize the average time and cost of doing it, while still having access to a reasonaly healthy and delicious menu, though slightly repetitive. But if you really want to indulge, setting aside a couple of hours will give you dishes that taste way beyond anything you can afford from outside.
Some people are natural born chefs with an intuitive understanding of tastebuds. But if you're like me in that you're clueless about it, there are still some exceptional recipes you can steal online. I treat cooking more like chemistry, insisting follow exact measurements and time. It still works out really well for me. You might even tweak the recipe over 4 or 5 repetitions to your at most satisfaction. Anybody who hasn't given it a try really should, at least once.
Now, that will take you about 2 hours to make in absolute time, but the actual time to do this is very little, a few minutes.
Picking fries brings me to a one-item category where I can... pick fries again.
Latency during the order process is insane, and then they add animations and little popup alerts throughout that actively interfere with me getting my all-important order code while I'm sitting like an asshole in the drive-through.
It also has some ridiculous restrictions. Nearly every week I take advantage of their in-app deal for free medium fries on Friday if you spend at least $1 on other stuff. I make a sandwich at home, order a couple cookies plus the free fries in the app, then go pick them at the McD that is about half a mile from my home.
Occasionally though instead of making a sandwich I decide I'd like to use my McD reward points to get a free burger. But you can't get both a rewards points item and a deal item on the same order.
I end up doing a rewards points order for a free burger, picking that up at the drive through, parking, then doing a cookies plus free fries deal order, and going through the drive through again to get that.
What's the point of not allowing both a rewards item and a deal item on the same order? If the rule was you could only use one reward or deal per day, then it would make some sense.
McDonalds is not food and it is not even fast anymore.
I cannot blame their staff for any of this anyway; if I was being paid that little to be treated like garbage I wouldn't give a shit either.
If all accessible jobs have declining pay, when do you start to reduce effort to match?
Better replace the kitchen with cooking robots as well then.
That's the thing with McDonalds.
You could go in to any store no matter where you was and know you got a consistent level of hygiene, cleanliness, good fast efficient service and while not gourmet food you knew the food you was going to get was a consistent standard. It was the reliable, dependable safe option in a list of unknown options. McDonalds was McDonalds know matter where you was.
Now it's no longer clean as they got rid of all the staff replacing them with screens. Stores are generally filthy with mess everywhere.
There is no consistent service as they got rid of all the staff and replaced them with screens that sometime work, sometimes don't, often out of paper for receipts/order numbers.
It's no longer fast as you need to mess about with broken screens, and repeatedly declining up sell options each step of the way vs giving a order at the counter and being done.
The quality now varies from store to store
It's no longer cheap. For the price of a McDonalds, in Australia I can go in to a Pub/Hotel and get a better meal if i get a special.
Hasn’t seemed to have a discernible quality difference since back when I ate it regularly a decade ago.
Prices noticeably up, but I refuse to use the app and am willing to pay extra for the privilege.
I could swear it wasn't that long ago it was under £3.
For a fiver I can get a better 'real' Bacon & Egg bap from an independent.
A bacon & egg McMuffin provides 336 kcal, which is 13% of an adult male's RDI. So on a purely kcals:price level it does seem to provide decent value.
On the basis of an actually balanced diet, boiling a pot of water and adding lentils, rice, and value frozen veg on a timer, are likewise. Which is of course why that's a staple diet in parts of the world much poorer than the UK.
- one English muffin (is it called an English muffin in England?)
- one slice of cheese
- one egg
- one slice of ham
- one cup of coffee
- one hashbrown
£5.09 for that? Obviously when you buy from a restaurant you're paying for their labor, rent, electric, and much more so it makes sense - McDonald's franchisees tend to operate on single digit profit margins even at that cost. But mehhh, still. And then the food you end up buying is packed full of preservatives and other additives and artificial ingredients.
If you've never lived here, I'm not sure you can really say what £5 is or isn't worth anyway.
English Muffin: 70¢
Slice of cheese: 40¢
Egg: 40¢
Slice of Ham: 50¢
Hash browns: 40¢
Coffee: $1?
In total $3.40. £5.09 for that in hot, prepared form ready to eat sounds cheap to me, not expensive.
That's about the same as $3.40, but for 4 full meals (one of those is smaller than the others)
Admittedly I've optimized my menu.
Even going to the grocer the price for raw goods is way up.
It truly is the most "Shove this in your slop hole you wretch" experience in all of fast food.
McDonald's is laser focused on low income customers. They do not want to compete in the middle income space, as they don't visit as often and there's ton more(and better) competition.
Their CEO has been blunt about this recently, and trying to find ways to get low-income customers back. Dire straits ahead for them, they've priced themselves into a place they don't want to be nor will they be able to succeed in.
I used to stop at ones off the highway if I was taking a road trip.
I used to grab the occasional soft serve just for nostalgia sake.
Now I'll hit the gas stations deli sandwiches or roller dogs before setting foot in the attached McDonalds.
They've been pushing $5 value meals recently because the dollar menu's just not fiscally feasible anymore and $10-12+ for the normal value meals isn't a value to most people.
They're particularly good at getting orders right compared to some other restaurants, so the additional value here to me is negligible. It's actually negative value to me, since if I can do a transaction without having to sign up, that's what I prefer. The value is entirely in the other direction: McDonald's wants to monetize their customer's identity information.
Where I am both Subway and Burger King have been sending approximately monthly a sheet full of coupons with some quite good deals.
My actual favorite “fast food” is IKEA — surprisingly good as a coworking spot, and their vegan Köttbullar are great. And honestly, in Germany who needs McDonald’s when there’s a good Döner place around? It’s basically a 5-in-1 burger: real bread, salad, sauces, and your choice of meat/halloumi/seitan.
From what I see here, McDonald’s mostly survives in low-density areas or as car-dependant late-night junk food where alternatives don’t exist. But if people go out less, or can’t afford a car anymore, that model gets shaky fast. There are simply too many better options now.
It reminds me of the same shrinkflation/bloat cycle we see with American pickup trucks: beds get smaller while prices balloon, and then people act surprised that these wank-tanks fail in Europe where efficient vans just work better. “Free market” also means that bad products eventually lose.
Same story with phones: everything keeps getting bigger, heavier, and more bloated with features nobody asked for. Bring back the iPhone Mini — not everything needs to be Super-Size Me.
I know from first hand, how difficult can it be in that environment with limited money, time, and energy to go to the grocery store often, buy fresh things, and cook. It is much more convenient to buy things that go in the freezer, when they are in offer, and throw them into the oven when arriving home.
Stuff like rice, beans, and chicken breast are extremely cheap, and most of the way towards a balanced diet by themselves. And cookers are like magic - just toss a bunch of stuff in, some spices, and it will come out amazing. I like a bit of yogurt as my fat, but you can go way cheaper - just toss some lard in there, it'll taste great.
If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk from a food services supply store. 2 weeks ago when I last walked through the cooler section it was sitting at $1.29/lb in 40lb cases. Costs maybe 10 cents per food saver vacuum bag or so to freeze them in packs of 2-4 each.
A lot of folks are price takers and have forgotten how to comparison shop or buy on sale and stock up. These were skills lost over the past few generations - likely since stores thought they were competing on price far more than they actually are. Covid taught them the average consumer simply isn’t as price sensitive as the business classes teach you, and have engaged in aggressive price segmentation.
I don’t bother buying most shelf stable or freezable products these days unless it’s on a very large sale - which I’ve found tends to happen roughly quarterly for most things. Beef is the current exception, but we buy a half cow from a local farm and eat off that for a year or more.
If I have spare time on a weekend it can be picked up far cheaper in bulk
from a food services supply store.
I just checked around and for boneless, skinless chicken breasts:
Sprouts $7/lb.
Safeway $7/lb (more if you don't want the chlorine treated stuff).
Trader Joe's $7.50/lb (but they've gained a reputation for nasty, woody chicken).
Whole Foods out of stock.
Lucky's $8.50/lb.
Mollie Stone's $8.89/lb.
Berkeley Bowl $9.59/lb.
US Foods Chef Store $3.75/lb for *twelve pounds*.
I swear my growing boys have hollow legs. How do you eat more than I do?
Chicken well raised and fed, is usually good starting at around 30-40 EUR / kg. I supermarkets selling 1kg of chicken for 4-5 EUR / kg - I would not touch this.
Animals held and then sold for 4-5 EUR per kg is pure shit. Period. I would rather eat groceries instead.
Most people have no idea what high quality meet is because they buy their stuff always at large chains - remember: None of the sustainability-interested local farms sells to any of those supermarkt chains. You have to GO there to get your stuff.
Such animals you can also eat without having remorse.
[1] - https://kristineskitchenblog.com/honey-garlic-instant-pot-ch...
And a pressure cooker is not a luxury, nor is it something that's outside anybody's price range. On Amazon it looks like they start around $20. And the whole point is that it takes basically 0 time, and saves a ton of money, and even time, relative to things like eating outside the house.
I eat only food cooked by myself from raw ingredients, in a microwave oven. Previously I was cooking with traditional methods, but some years ago I have eventually discovered that I was misusing a microwave oven only for reheating, when it can be much better be used for cooking.
In most of the cases, I cook everything that I eat immediately before eating it, which rarely needs more than 20 minutes for cleaning/peeling/paring/slicing vegetables, cooking in the oven and washing dishes.
This is short enough. If I would go out to eat somewhere, I would loose much more time than that. The only thing that I do not cook immediately before eating is meat, as depending of its kind it may need up to 30 minutes of cooking in the oven, so I cook all the meat for a week during the weekend and I just reheat it and combine it with the garnish in the other days. When you cook for a large family, you can cook all the food for a week, for a few hours during a weekend day, and you can reheat the food in less than 5 minutes in all the other days.
You can even bake bread very quickly and with excellent results in a microwave oven. When I want bread, I bake it immediately before the meal. Cooking at home and using only raw ingredients results in a cost for food that is frequently even 10 times less than a similar dish would cost from a supermarket, while being more healthy due to the use of high quality ingredients without any dubious additives. Even for bread, home-made bread is about half of the price of supermarket bread. Eating in a restaurant is of course much more expensive than buying processed food from a supermarket, so the difference in cost is even higher.
Therefore I agree that most poor people spend too much on food that is also unhealthy, and that is because they do not know how to choose wisely what they eat and how to cook that quickly and inexpensively. I believe that these are essential survival skills that should be taught to everyone in elementary school, but, even if I had a much better education than most, that did not help me, so I have learned most of them only when old and after a lot of failed experiments.
More difficult? Time consuming? Requires practice? Yes. Usually overblown though on all fronts, considering the types of families that seem to find ways to make cheap meals compared to those that do not in my experience.
Fast food (and prepared/junk foods) are low friction and convenient. Cheap is not a metric they compete within.
Also I'm pretty sure they are spending more time on social media than cooking.
We changed the quality of food on our home. The amount of money and time invested was much more than we expected. Everthing from a decent equipped kitchen, with enough room, knives and other tools are needed… I lived once in 15 sq meter flat… I can tell you, is difficult to cook in a kitchenette.
But you don't need too much to cook a healthy food. One pan, one pot, one knife and a spatula. Yes, not everything could be cooked with such setup, but tons of healthy cheap food.
Sorry I know such people that I profoundly admire. I feel is just unfair such a comment. I have enough time and little stress in my life, I can plan what I’m going to cook the next week. But I could never criticize that people for not being able to.
The example he gave of beans is perfect. They can be done almost completely passively, are healthy, and dirt cheap. Add some rice, a meat, and you have a delicious dirt cheap meal that takes probably less than 5 minutes of active effort, and also has minimal cleanup time as well.
Like this article had some quote about somebody in it spending $20 at McDonalds for some drinks and bemoaning there being nothing healthier. That's simply ridiculous. And if somebody told them that and explained why - they could very possibly dramatically increase the quality of this person's life.
Btw that portion you mention won't be 0.5$, more like 2-3$ if if balanced and healthy enough. Tons of rice as is still very common in south east Asia ain't very healthy neither. But its sorta proven once folks start to cook for themselves more, they cook healthier than preprocessed junk food. And I don't mean some exquisite stuff, spending even 10-20 mins ever second evening can provide enough for whole family.
Instead of blaming people, perhaps it is better to look at the systemic factors that we can change to help people who are already playing life on hard mode.
Beef and... salaries? I think I found the name of my new fast food place.
------
Mariam Gergis, a registered nurse at UCLA who also works a second job as a home caregiver, said she’s better off than many others, and still she struggles. “I can barely afford McDonald’s,” she said. “But it’s a cheaper option.”
On Monday morning she sat in a booth at a McDonald’s in MacArthur Park with two others. The three beverages they ordered, two coffees and a soda, amounted to nearly $20, Gergis said, pointing to the receipt. “I’d rather have healthier foods, but when you’re on a budget, it’s difficult,” she said.
Her brother, who works as a cashier, can’t afford meals out at all, she said. The cost of his diabetes medication has increased greatly, to about $200 a month, which she helps him cover.
------
I don't live in CA, but this just seems insane? Even in "captive" locations like airports etc. where prices for stuff are higher than a typical brick-and-mortar location, I don't even understand how two coffees and a soda could approach $20. If they'd DoorDashed it, sure. But those numbers don't make sense.
But if you turn those into "specialty" coffees and upsize them, and then add ~10% sales tax, it's very plausible that the price was closer to $20 than $10.
Between prices inflating and people's tastes being pretty unmoderated and indulgent for a long while now, the total cost of "everyday" expenses adds up quick.
Even the simple black drip coffee drinks that have basically no material or labor cost are priced at $2-4 in a lot of places now because people have become so dependent on the habit of treating themselves to one, and often a very large one, that they've become price insensitive and easily exploited by any coldly calculating business.
Raw coffee prices have been rising for a while now[0], and I assume even in the US people are more attuned to decent coffee.
And I kinda hope producing countries get enough power to get better deals (thus increasing coffee prices further...) as they're usually getting shafted pretty hard.
Right off the bat, it's McDonalds, there are no "specialty" coffees. And the sales tax is irrelevant, what matters is what comes out of the pocket.
$20 for McD-quality coffees and soda is insanely expensive. It puts it above places like Starbucks which makes no sense because there's a Starbucks literally 50m/150ft away from that very same McD.
Pictures of the menu at the closest McDonald’s to MacArthur Park show the coffees at ~$4 and sodas at ~$2-3 all large, which is a more realistic number but still only around half the quoted amount.
Of course there are "specialty" coffees at many McDonald's. Well over a decade ago, recognizing the margin and admitting the public interest in sweet, creamy, coffee drinks, they began a shift into direct competition with Starbucks, et al and offer a full menu of Americanized espresso and blended coffee drinks. Like at Starbucks, these easily run over $5 for the large sizes, and they're widely available.
Because of both brand loyalty, or because they also want other things from McDonald's that Starbucks don't carry, it's a extremely successful and profitable product segment for them, even when a Starbucks is "literally 50m/150ft away".
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/full-menu/mccafe-coffees....
They're not. They're priced out from the efforts and hoops required to get the deal.
And while there's deals in the app, not every deal is the best deal (leading to the min-max situation).
(I live somewhere super-rural where McD is one of the only lunch options. I've figured out that depending on promos, one of the 'cheapest' options is to take advantage of the "buy one get one for $1" double cheeseburger every day offer, then check the 'deals' section to see if there's a cheap fry offer (because fries are always expensive). Drink offers are never worth it when the sodas are always $1-$1.49 for a large soda, but sometimes there's a "free medium fries with purchase of drink" that definitely maximizes the value offer here. Combined, this 'meal' is often less than even the new Extra Value Meals they offer at below $6-7 depending on deal applied.)
When I was rallying for a higher minimum wage and was challenged on it driving up costs, I made it abundantly clear that would only be the outcome if the corporate leadership refused to budge on their compensation and shareholder reward schemes - which, surprising nobody, is exactly what they did, and this was the entirely expected outcome.
We’ve tried being nice about this and attempting to reach a compromise in long, gradual, sustainable changes to the economy so everyone can benefit from its improvements in efficiency and scale, but the grim reality is that said compromises are no longer on the table, and harms are inevitable. With no more room to squeeze workers, it should be of no surprise that a growing plurality are demanding immediate and substantial change instead of piecemeal reform - and Capital has every right to be terrified of an angry labor class.
The entire piece reads as a sympathy puff article to paint McDonalds in a “woe is us, our business dictates we raise prices to only serve the wealthy” posture, which is insincere at best, and almost certainly shit journalism.
But meat is more expensive than beans and rice.
If no: check for MTHFR gene mutation.
American rice is often washed in folic acid - don’t ask me why - and that’s toxic to MTHFR mutated individuals.
This isn't meant as a Taco Bell commercial, just a comparison to todays McDonald's.
They always have a combo that’s cheap and rotates monthly. And like you said they have a few cheap value food like Bean and rice burrito which is also one of my staples.
Also you’re supposed to use the apps if you’re price sensitive. I work outside all day and couch surf without access to a kitchen. I never look at the actual menu of any place if there’s an app available. Apps also let you see prices between different locations.
However almost everyone I see go to any place in the real world is always buying stuff just looking at the default menu prices.
Food still took 15 minutes, fries were cold, the main meal was nice but was overall disappointing for the eye-watering cost compared to days gone by.
And a few guys collecting for delivery which has split their focus from in-resturant customers.
Can see why people have moved on.
The quality for delivery is astoundingly low for unbelievably high prices.
I cook way more and am healthier for it.
There is currently a beef shortage in Europe (of sorts). The reason is that buying cow feed has gotten too expensive/unpredictable.
I think people generally underestimate the global impact of shutting down production in Europe's bread basket, Ukraine. There is a reason Russia wants this land. It's, as usual, a war for natural resources.
https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/
> In stark contrast to prior decades, low-wage workers experienced dramatically fast real [inflation-adjusted] wage growth between 2019 and 2023
Meanwhile inflation over that period is significantly higher at 19.18%.
So, no, low end wage growth has not kept up with inflation.
That stuff wasn't cheap but I'm gonna make two cans worth next time, since my guests absolutely devoured it.
I live in Oregon where I know we have tons of sheep (you can see them when you're driving on I-5); would be great to get stuff like this with local sheep!
Yes, it is possible avoid meat and still have a child develop well. It was also possible to install Linux on your PC in 1991/1992. Most people couldn't, but the really smart (or special) ones could.
Chicken and sheep seem to be more sustainable. But either way, I think it is good for our health to rotate the types of meat we eat and lower the portions a bit? But it's easier said than done for sure.
So the plan is a beef tax, then?
Here's a reality check from Sweden:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svenskarna-dissar-kottska... (the public service broadcaster)
https://www-svt-se.translate.goog/nyheter/inrikes/svenskarna...
If consumers can’t afford the prices required to pay a restaurant’s labor living wages, then perhaps they’re not viable customers of that restaurant.
Minimum wages above the market-set rate are a form of price control. The distorting effects of price controls—in this case, contributing to shortages of low-margin restaurant meals—are economically inevitable.
They successfully converted from a neighborhood fast food shop into a new chain of automats with almost no staff once touchscreens got cheap enough and the necessary software could be suitably amortized. They ditched the employees, minimized community features like playplaces and tables, dropped the low margin dollar menu that many poorer people relied on, and focused on getting higher-margin products with better photography to busy professionals with brand attachment.
Trying to turn this into the tired debate about minimum wage just distracts from a discussion about what's actually happening to this brand.
Something has to give somewhere, the challenging part would be to know where.
Because if the wealthy are not extracting their fortunes from American companies, what then?
That's $200k an employee, on top of what their regular salary is.
McDonalds made $15B and employ 150k people, that's $100k per employee.
So no, not negligible in the slightest.
The article cited analysis which said California's $20 minimum wage increased fast food prices 2% approximately.
It used to be that fast food was always cheap. But now, fast food is a broad market that’s aimed at a wide variety of demographics.
McDonald’s just so happens to be closer to the “premium” side of the market. They have a strong brand and don’t have to be the cheapest fast food restaurant on the block. People don’t buy McDonald’s because it’s cheap.
There are plenty of fast food restaurant chains that still mainly serve lower income demographics.
Rally’s/Checkers, Church’s Chicken, Popeyes, Sonic, and maybe you could even count Arby’s, or Taco Bell depending on what you’re ordering.
Some of the bigger brands like McDonald’s do have some deals to be found but you’ll need to be on their apps hunting for them.
The burger flipper making a lot more money is doing a lot more for their franchisee's than the executives are as of late.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6920afb3-5f84-8008-827d-907e5f0a0a...
The only reason to go there is their method of handling tons of customers (restaurant experience this ain't thats for sure), their opening hours and often location.
That's it, if you look for quality or pleasantness of experience or actual good food in statement above you don't have to bother. Worst burgers Swiss market can offer, we have different food and tasting standards here.
The likes of McDonald's will need to understand who their new customer base is quite carefully and market around that if they are to stay relevant. Sadly their products to me are garbage now; slow service, cold fries, awful oil. Obviously they've had to adapt but it's just expensive slop.
And in the UK they have had scandals around sexual harassment, which hasn't helped their image/branding.
This also seems overblown for dramatic effect as the McD's dollar menu still contains good value meals.
Are they the same people?
Is it possible there are 2 problems?
Who complained? Reporting is not complaint.
In an ideal world, we should be challenging both, rather than throwing up our hands and pleading confusion because someone can’t hold two truths simultaneously.
Not really. Calling food poison and then complaining that poor people can't afford it implies that you support poor people eating poison and or eating the food.
The first complaint implies that they shouldn't be eating it at all and result is that I just can't take the second complaint seriously.
It's just a way to shit on big corporations without having to take responsibility.
McDonald’s food is unhealthy and should be improved. At the same time, they have become too expensive for the poorer working classes to afford. These are two different problems, with different solutions.
You’re basically arguing that because I cannot demonstrate “one easy fix” to a complex issue of nuance that I’m essentially advocating for poisoning people, and it demonstrates your complete inability to grasp simultaneous truths or discuss complex issues effectively without misrepresenting opposition to score points.
Go away.
I find the phrasing odd. It is because corporations have raised prices that inflation has increased. Rising prices aren't a result of inflation.
This is an overly simplistic view, of course, not least because it presumes good faith, but that is really my point: the economy has too many moving parts to simply say “you’re to blame for inflation because you increased your prices”.
Make more money supply -> money is worth less -> prices go up
simple stuff
I guess the next step is: blame corporations, nationalize them, see it causes economic problems (we're here), and then repeat (Trump promises $2k checks to everyone, this is coming soon)
In this particular case it's wage-push inflation. The lowest quintile of workers has seen very strong wage gains among other reasons because of tight labour markets and minimum wage legislation, which on the consumer side prices a lot of people out of the service economy.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcdonald-q3-2025-profit-sales...
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/prof...
[Source required]
Edit: how are you downvoting me? Go look at corporate profit margins now, 10 years ago, and 40 years ago.
If you believe you can hand wave with simplified BS like "Supply and Demand" you probably have some heavy reading on price elasticity to catch up on.
McDonald's a decade ago had a sub-20% operating margin, now their executives are targeting a >40% operating margin in 2025.
If you genuinely think that the simplest, most naive Supply and Demand model is dictating how corporations behave in modern (i.e. late stage) capitalism, and you're unironically accusing others of "having a sea lioning war", you should probably go shove it up your ass.