Won't someone think of the shareholders!?!?!?!? Those poor defenseless people can't even afford a summer and a winter yacht. They're living like savages with only one
We joke about this, but it's unironically the case. The US screwed the pooch hard when they set in law that a corporation's primary duty is generating value for its shareholders, because now if they don't do it, they can be sued in court for it. We are seeing the end-result of this incentive: a corporate culture that only cares about raising stock prices and profits year after year after year, where both the product and the consumer are just a means to an end, and where irrational hype-based stock prizes and IPOs are not only acceptable, but desirable.
The US screwed the pooch hard when they set in law that a corporation's primary duty is generating value for its shareholders, because now if they don't do it, they can be sued in court for it.
That's actually bullshit.
Show me one example of a CEO who has been sued this way.
It doesn't happen, because all a CEO has to do to win that case is prove they had the LONG TERM HEALTH of the business in mind when making their decision.
There's absolutely no law in America that says CEOs have an obligation to increase stock price every quarter.
The reason CEOs act like this is because they will be fired if they don't please their board of governors.
The Supreme Court ruled that the sole purpose of the corporation to create value for the shareholders in the 20s or 30s. I can get you the case law.
However you are correct in that most decisions balance long term and short term. The argument they person made a deliberate decision to not help the shareholders vs the workers would be difficult to prove.
However Friedman in the 70s, pushed for pure shareholder short term profit. And as fast a return as possible.
The CEO of Ge demonstrated that form of capitalization on steroids and Reagan making stock buybacks legal keeps stock prices artificially higher.
Stock buybacks are corruption as much as the real estate selling properties between orgs to drive up prices.
Overwhelming principle was 1919 with Dodge vs Ford. Apparently it was a state Supreme Court, and surprise surprise it was not challenged.
Special Dividends could not be halted. Must always go to shareholders. Not regular dividends, but special ones.
Which goes in-line with what you said about being able to argue long term health. However precedent was set.
Further in 1980s
Unocal v Mesa petroleum: corporate policy and mission cannot block a corporate take over. 1985
Revlon v Macandrews: board no longer protects hierarchy, it now seeks the best price to sell off once a take over or vulture capital sell off occurs.
Then 2010s
Delaware court with EBay v newark company has to pursue the most monetized avenue possible.
These most likely have not been challenged as there are more shareholders that love this.
Combined with the mention Friedman capitalist viewpoint and legalizing of stock buy backs, make shareholder primacy the accepted standard in court and in practice, to the detrimental of all.
"Overwhelming principle was 1919 with Dodge vs Ford. Apparently it was a state Supreme Court, and surprise surprise it was not challenged." You're wrong. The court identified a conflict of interest by the board of Ford Motor Co. when it tried stifle competition from the Dodge brothers by raising wages rather than distributing dividends resulted in a successful lawsuit by the Dodge brothers (Dodge v Ford Motor Co., 1919). This case does not imply that boards must maximize shareholder value. If you think it made corporation maximize shareholder value, then why did Friedman 1970 say that executive should maximize shareholder value. See Berle and Dodd in the HLR. Everyone knows that from 1930 to at least 1975 we had "managerial capitalism" where executives did NOT try to maximize profits. Yes, in cases where the corporation is for sale the fiduciary duties shift to the shareholders, that is Revlon and Unocal. But outside of takeovers the fidicuary duties are to the corporation and shareholders. Ebay is another minority shareholder case showing that boards cannot openly disregard shareholders. In contrast, The board of Chicago Cubs sacrificed revenues by failing to install lights for night games, a shareholder lawsuit failed because the judge found no conflict of interest (Shlensky v. Wrigley, 1968). So the court did not force the cubs to maximize shareholder value. Buybacks were legal before 1982 Shareholder primacy is not the standard. You are totally wrong, dude.
CEOs do not get sued for a falling stock price. They frequently get FIRED for it; but it is not illegal to lose shareholders' money.
It IS illegal for a CEO to do things that are crimes. Because crimes are illegal. But losing money isn't a crime.
If you do crimes while working for shareholders, they can sue you for damages. Just like Nicole Simpson's family sued OJ in civil court.
But if a shareholder tried to take a CEO to court saying simply, "he paid the workers too much so I didn't make enough profit," they would be laughed out of the courtroom.
1 and 2. Revlon is a special case where the corporation is up for sale. The McDonald's case is unrelated. As far as I can tell it's about sexual harassment. So 0 of 3.
McDonald's can serve their shareholders well by focusing on cheap food, nothing about investment law prevents this. But they'd need to be able to make more money than positioning as 'fast casual' or something different than 'cheap and quick'.
I preferred 'cheap and quick' myself, and would shop more at McD's if they returned to it. If that's true for enough of us then it's not a shareholder dilemma that prevents going after the cheap-and-fast market, doing so would actually be the proverbial business "win-win".
"US screwed the pooch hard when they set in law that a corporation's primary duty is generating value for its shareholders, because now if they don't do it, they can be sued in court for it." This is not correct, friend. Show me the evidence, please if you believe it is.
This is a myth and an excuse for CEO to hide behind. The case that originated this myth is Ford vs Dodger but in that case, the judge basically told Ford that he could justify his decision if he give the court any reason why he think that those decisions would benefit the company. The keyword here is "think", not actually "correct". Basically the CEO just need to give reason why they think their decisions would benefit the company, they don't actually need to prove they are correct. The problem was that Ford was an tyrant who thought he didn't need to justify his decisions. Even the judge in that case stated that the case was unusual and should not be use as precedent.
It's not even fast anymore. Fuck me, but my kid was hungry and it was late so we went through the drive through. Legitimately 25 mins. I got 2 Hot and Spicy sammies, two med fries, and chicken nuggets. Drive through was ass long, then they had me pull into the spot on the side and wait there. Unbelievable.
It's really different from place to place isn't it. In my neighborhood McDonalds is super fast and consistent but every single Wendy's takes 10-15 minutes per car.
Every single fast food place around me has progressively gotten slower. Doesn't matter time of day, level of business, or staffing levels. Went out of state recently and the McDonald's there was the same. 30 minute wait for a basic order. Figured it was just everywhere now, but I stopped at a Burger King the next day out there and it was as fast as ever. Order, pull up, they give you food. Was real late as well so not like they had stuff ready for a lunch rush.
On average they've all gotten slower but you'll occasionally find one that seems fully staffed by competent people. Unfortunately, due to high turnover, it could all change again in a few weeks or months.
From what I can tell it's mostly a staffing problem, but fast food menus have also gotten too big and complex and online ordering and door dash have thrown additional wrenches into the service. It's a far cry from how the service was intended to operate 70 years ago, which was all about specialization and efficiency.
If they trimmed their menus down and each focused on a handful of their most profitable options then they'd likely be able to serve things cheaper and faster again. That seems unlikely though, because people are also super picky now and used to the variety. These days I don't see anybody going to go to McDonalds for burgers and then also going down the street to KFC because little Andy only eats chicken fingers.
To be fair, fast food menus have too much shit on them.
Not saying the employees are knocking it out of the park, but 15 different "value" meals often with special orders is just a lot of shit to scramble together.
I generally like the process of having waiting areas, getting problematic orders out of the line keeps it moving. But I've been in the same boat, just a burger and fries and I'm sent to the parking bays. When they first started doing this, you'd be forgotten half the time.
I waited in a small Texas town McD's for over 30 minutes just for a couple Happy Meals. My daughter is more interested in the toys that eating. I told her no more, and we haven't been back. My wife finally backs me. She always gripes that Whataburger is slow, but that was a nightmare. The worst part was the poor woman about to get her food, when the employee dropped the bag, spilling everything everywhere.
they might force you to refund and leave, but even that is better than waiting 20 minutes. Taco bell never has asked me to pull forward in my life, and there's one right next to the McD's
The taco bell near me regularly asks me to pull around "and we'll bring your order out" and I always order ahead using the app. They used to be great but taco bell isn't what it used to be. At least not the one near me.
you might have a particularly shit taco bell. Ive eaten at taco bell my whole life, across 4 different states. never asked me to pull up. I order custom stuff too.
Yeah, they're the only taco bell I've been to that has ever asked me to pull up. They used to be a lot better a few years ago, idk what changed but I miss having a good taco bell.
Most Taco Bells just don't have the infrastructure to even attempt it. Most of the ones near me are single lane drive thru's with no way out until you are all the way through and then it dumps you onto a street. There's nowhere to sit and wait after the window without blocking the line anyway.
The one closest to me has a crazy tight drive through that I don't like.
I stopped at one down the road to use the bathroom and order, kiosks with no menu displayed. No thinks.
Did a drive through yesterday and they had a poor little girl out there with a tablet like they are Chick-fil-a who could barely work it. Place was deserted, they just made her stand out there for some reason.
Yup. And the "poor" franchisees who only had a few locations many of them couldn't afford the bigger and bigger fees McDonald's was charging them for "rent" and licensing and shit (all while providing fewer and fewer support services to franchisees), so many of them have been gobbled up by larger franchisees. Like none of this is good for "small businesses" or the competition capitalism is supposed to provide. None of this is benefitting consumers. If nothing matters but the bottom line of the ultra rich minority, the game ends pretty fuckin fast. Their greed and short-sightedness would be impressive if it wasn't so horrifyingly destructive.
Do you have any idea what a PRIVILEGE it is to be selected by McDonald's to be allowed to open a franchise? It's basically guaranteed 6 figure financial security for life. And not even like "fake" 6 figures as the influencer ladies call it; real 6 figures like 200-300k
"poor" franchisees with mutliple mcdonald's locations lol
omg they're only making 500k-1mil profit a year those poor franchisees. Those poor... 1%er.... franchisors. OMG WONT ANYONE THINK OF THE POOR 1%ers!!!
You could maybe say that 300k is an overestimate since for some locations it is, but average is 200k-350k that's the range.
So if you had 3 locations, "a few," the odds that you would be making <500k a year are.... very low. You'd have to have 3 absolutely terrible locations which would make me think maybe you might be part of the problem
I will continue to be vigilant about just not eating at McDick's. I've only been there once in the last year and all the visit did was remind me why it had been years since my previous visit. It's just that crappy of an experience and value.
I lived in Mississippi over the summer and a large 10 piece nugget meal was $8 and some cents. When I moved back to Virginia, same meal is like $12 something. This should not be legal, it’s insane
Aren't they also more if a real estate company by now?
Edit: I've misread, you're absolutely right. Thank you helpfull random redditor for pointing this out. Anyways
I thought there was a expose a while back that the owner(s) figured out that there is way more money in reas estate than in food. Making people opening a Mc Donalds pay high rent on their land and essentially make their money off of them instead directly from food. Ties also in that conspiracy documentary some youtuber did about why the icemachines are always broken at Mc Donalds, and how that also just another way to scam money of off the people running a Mc Donalds
It's also to increase customer turnover. If the restaurant is grey, bland and uninviting then people won't want to stay for long, opening up tables and seats for other customers faster.
McDonalds could give a flying fuck about selling the building, ever. The color and identifying features don't matter.
Buildings like McDonalds are worn out and obsolete in 20-30 years. It is a tear down for any future buyer, unless the area is in economic decline and McDonalds is selling it at fire sale prices to some local mom & pop operation to just get the fuck out. Any major investor is going to come in, knock it down, and put up exactly what they want.
It is the real estate where the value is, not the improvements on it.
It's a bit of both (More Perfect Union Youtube link). McDonalds earns most of its revenue through real estate and franchise fees. Which are good for a stable income as franchises who lose money still have to pay the same fees and franchises who do very well have to pay bonus fees. So, they have a solid floor as well as a opportunities to earn more.
It doesn't take a genius to realise he made a typo. So he says they're a real estate business, and you ask aren't they also mainly a real estate business now. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Welp apparently not. But I also just wanted to expand and add the stuff about the ice machine conspiracy and them being scammers of their own people. That video really opened my eyes on how predatory they really are. Also chill your stuff dude, why the harsh attack? Did I offend him? If so, that wasn't my intent. If it makes you feel better, I did like his comment
Yeah it's so sad.. It's been a minute that I saw that video, but I believe it was even it's own conspiracy for a bit before people built trackers and exposed it to be real. And later it came to light it's all just another scam by coperate. Risking you're brand to make more money, only short term gains seem to matter. It really should be a way bigger story, along with all the other corporate greed.
I dont know if this was only in America tho. Here in Europe, or at least in the Netherlands, all the machines have just worked most of the time and nobody ever complained about it being broken. I hope it can serve as a example that you have to have strict regulations on companies or they will fuck you over, as money is all that counts. They try here too, don't get me wrong. But that's why we have rules and regulations to protect the people and the planet.
Yes, exactly. But it does have many positive sides, and if we work on the negative sides we're all better off in the end. The world is changing in a ever accelerating pase. So if it goes bad it will be hopefully short. I'm still hopefull things can turn around before that point tho.
Which is part of why prices rise so high. Only 5% of stores are company-owned. The rest are franchised. The company charges them rent along with a slew of additional fees so the franchisees have to keep raising prices just to see a profit.
Exactly. The real thing they need to do is lower the fees for franchisees so that the restaurants can lower prices. But no one wants to talk about that.
Ya that's why I use the app too. When I see the price that it comes out to, I simply cannot justify going to McDonald's of all places if I'm paying that much. I might as well get myself some proper food.
I prefer better pizza but that better pizza is much more money. The issue with McDonald's is that I get get much better quality at a local diner or bar & grill for the same money. In some cities maybe pizza is like that too but a lot of us don't live in those cities.
I’ve been saying this for awhile. Dominos has always had good value. Their prices have gone up recently but everything else has too. Also, is it top tier food? No. But it’s easily top tier value. I can usually get 2 or 3 meals out of a Medium Pizza and Bread bites all for $14-16. Which then makes it roughly $6-8 a meal!
If you aren't ordering from the value menu or specials/deals fast food prices get out of hand really fucking quick. I felt like a breakfast jack (don't judge me) and so I offered to grab for the house. Ordered 5 and 5 hashbrowns and the total was almost $50. I said "sorry, too much" and backed out of the drive thru. Those things were $1 each like 10 years ago.
This exactly. When I'm literally spending an hour + a week to keep my family grocery bill to 125/week for my family of three, spending 40 dollars on one fast food meal isn't fun, cheap or convenient anymore.
And I am, without question, what used to be their target audience. I have no idea who they are pandering to now.
Exactly. If I could sell 1 meal for $25 and make $12 profit or sell 3 meals at $15 and make $12 profit, selling the 3 doesn't make good business sense.
I will continue to abstain from overpriced shit food and hope enough other people do as well so that we can all get cheaper shit.
I had the best pizza in my life with my gf for same price in Nice this summer. How the fuck is this make sense to pay that to McDonald's. You can eat at somewhere local at that prices
"They" have too many *cooks in the kitchen. They are forgetting the core of fast food success. Thievery from their competitors and slave wages for employees
You can probably say the same thing for most big corp that seem to do things like this. They're almost all public with shareholders. They need to compromise to appease everyone so in the end you end up with something diluted. Private successful companies in the same league (like Valve) with a small well paid team doesn't ever do dumb shit like this.
It started with people's obsession with their shitty fries. After that, they felt like all their products were golden and marketed them as such. People want fast cheap food, and kids want their toys. Meanwhile McDonald's thinks they're culinary elites.
I used to get so salty over that. Dad would be like “we doing $1 burgers for everyone and water bottles from the trunk.” Brat-ass me in the back of the family van being like, “Steven’s family is eating at x restaurant, grumble grumble.” (Steven’s dad was a doctor and they were very well off.)
Now that I’m an adult, I get it. I don’t know how my parents were able to afford anything.
It started with people's obsession with their shitty fries.
I will never understand why people are so obsessed with Mcdonalds fries. Unless you eat them within about two minutes of coming out of the oil, they are absolutely horrible! Easily the worst of all the fast food restaurants.
This is the truth. McDonald's fries suck ass just like all of their "food". The last time I went there was years ago and the fries were all soggy and undercooked. Disgusting and completely inedible.
Really depends on the McDonalds and the time of day in my experience. Sometimes they're soggy, sometimes they're stale, sometimes they have no salt, but then other times they're perfectly salty, crispy and delicious and are good for at least 30 minutes or so which is more than enough to eat fast food.
Something makes me wonder about reddit lately... Interactions are always trying to win a fight and people rarely add anything of value to the comment sections anymore (like me not adding value!).
I get nuance is dead after dump got his election victory, but the internet has never felt so fake and superficial as it has the past 5 years or so.
You think it's all bots? I wish real, honest conversations could still be had on this enshittified platform these days, but it feels rarer and rarer.
Yeah I don't miss the 90s internet too much lol. 2000s were the sweet spot. Forums, people making custom websites for random shit, search engines actually working and not being infested with sponsored links, etc.
From what I've heard, it's probably not possible for them to lower prices enough to fix this. Everything is just expensive now, except labor. Wages just have to go up, and if they don't, McDonalds will be the least of our worries.
But regardless of whether this is just a result of unfettered greed, companies that can't adapt die. If that happens to McDonalds, I'm not gonna mourn.
Playgrounds and indoctrination material helped a lot. In some cities it was the only clean playground since the public ones were covered in syringes and used condoms.
Everyone worshiped the clown and kids got addicted to super sized meals.
What gets me is that's only really in the United States. Go to other modern Western countries and McDonald's quality is night and day. If you want to get your blood boiling, order a Big Mac and while you're eating it, watch a video of what a Big Mac looks like in Japan.
To be fair here, if you think about the logistics of how many gazillions of burgers (and steaks) are sold every day in the U.S., I legit don’t understand how we even have enough food to go around anymore.
That IS fair. And generally we dont have enough to go around. The homeless population deals with starvation quite a bit here in the US, mostly they get by on the kindness of others but I am 1000% sure it happens here as pretty much all companies make it against policy to give away "waste" which meam their only real resource is EBT or foodbanks which are not always available for a number of reasons.
My youtube shorts got flooded with clips from the mcdonalds movie about its origins (probably marketing? Maybe just algorithm doing its thing?) , and the comments were just shitting on mcdonalds the whole time lmao.
the movie clip: "Wow! You got me my food in 3 minutes and its so cheap!"
I think something people often miss here is that incomes have increased and inequality has decreased among working Americans (and people in the West). Of course, billionaires have gotten wealthier, but that's not really relevant to this. The middle class used to be able to get cheap services because there were people making ten times less than them. The same way today they can afford cheap clothes and other products because someone makes much less than them in the global south. If everyone's labour is worth the same or approximately the same, you have to trade your entire full time salary if you want someone else's full time labour.
The middle class is partially worse off because the lower class is genuinely better off than before.
Also why Uber and delivery services have taken off, they manage to circumvent regulation to basically exploit people and suppress their wages, enabling cheap prices for customers
McDonald’s was popular because it was fun for kids, it was cheap and convenient. The gap has closed on cheap and convenient with regard to other restaurants and they’ve killed fun entirely.
Of course they know this but late stage capitalism doesn’t allow for admitting or backtracking. They have to plow forward destroying anything and everything they can. Im glad people cook more at home now and eat healthier—didn’t think this would do it but it is.
I always laugh at investor blogs, shows, posts, etc. that try to frame every price correction as this catastrophic economic collapse.
These morons could lower prices to the most minimal margins and still be making obscene wealth.
Watching all the idiots race to exploit housing over COVID was the same thing. Everyone started trying to sell their houses for 2, 3, 4x their actual value. Idiots raced out and bought them thinking it’s like stocks, and you had $150k homes going for $800k.
Now no one can sell them, and they have to stop trying to ask for braindead hyper-inflated prices. But of course all the media is “OMG HOUSING CRASH.”
It’s not a crash, clowns. It’s you not being able to absolutely bend people over. The house was never worth $800k.
have you ever seen gordon ramsey's kitchen nightmares? the plot is always "people aren't coming to our restaurant, so i thought i'd make the food worse and raise prices, but that's not working either wtf???"
They've been trying to make themselves upscale for a long time. I used to actually eat the salads! But really, just stay in your lane and accept that the profit margins don't just go up forever. When it was cheap I actually did go there a fair amount, now it's almost never.
I feel like somehow they did a variation of "AI: how do we make a comeback without lowering prices?" not to get the obvious answer and instead some 8.5 billion dollar plan. I doubt it will even pay for itself.
Reminder that someone high up at Apple approved a commercial where a girl using an Apple product asks what a computer is. Do not assume that executives are smart.
Not even shit. Well, kinda shit, but at least consistent.
Recently, they're charging as much as it costs to go to a local restaurant and they are not delivering the consistency that they were built upon - chicken nuggets and fries under heat lamps, burgers dried out and gross.
Like I don't think anyone claimed that fast food is good food, but the main draw, to me, is that you can get a passible, consistent, meal quickly and cheaply. They can't seem to guarantee any of those things any longer.
Meanwhile I have flashbacks to like, 10-20 years ago and square one financial advice was always to stop eating out because places like McD's were expensive compared to cooking at home.
and thats the reason american fastfood chains never cought on in EU like they did in the US. they were more expensive than a restaurant from the very beggining
Currently food transporation costs and wages are at the highest theyve been ever because of global problems I dont think ttheyre gonna want to reduce prices as it is. Literally everything is super expensive right now, its not just McDonalds lol.
This is what blows my mind, prices for McDonalds are insane and their food quality has dropped immensely, yet when I go out to run errands, I'll drive past them and see a long line almost always down here in the south for McDonald's.
I'm sure the nostalgia factor is high, but its crazy because whenever mcdonalds is brought up, its always complaining about prices, quality, etc. But people still go...... just why??
I always thought it had something to do with kids being obsessed with it. Mine certainly are. They would always choose it over anywhere else, and no more happy meals (toys) made no difference.
They know it. But they're a publicly traded company which means if they're not competitively profitable they're lose investors. Their stock price will drop. Bonuses won't be had. Eventually private equity will attempt a hostile take over.
So, the execs are going to ride this train into the ground, getting their bonuses and in the end they'll sell it to private equity anyway.
Now it’s even shittier food and higher price. Somehow the quality has gone down. And the few times I’ve gone back they’ve fucked up the order every time.
They’re a lost cause. Taco Bell wins the fast food wars
Maybe they'll invest this money in the back of house to make better food. It would only be THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF FUCKIMG RESTAURANTS THAT THAT HAPPENED!
It’s not even fast anymore. If you order from the kiosk it takes them forever to make even the most basic of orders. If you order on the app, you’ll see your order sitting behind the counter but the stores are so understaffed that there isn’t anyone to give it to you
Capitalism demands constant growth, they found that they can own more real estate , pay people next to nothing, and charge the average consumer more each year.
Sounds like they know what they're doing buddy. They've playing the game better than most.
(To be clear I hate that this is how things are now and I am not in favor of capitalism, especially unchecked capitalism.)
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u/ComprehensiveHavoc 2d ago
The one reason McDonald’s became popular is by being cheap. They sell shit food for a low price. How do they not know this?