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because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the McDonalds franchisees. The franchisees aren't

because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the McDonalds franchisees. The franchisees aren't given a choice of what machine and servicers they use as corporate dictates what model of machine they are allowed to use and who is allowed to perform service upon it. So Mcdonalds corporate doesn't care because they aren't the ones loosing money on sales or service fees as they don't run many of the restaurants fore them its a profit center.

gruez 3y ago
>because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the McDonalds franchisees Is there more on this? If they can dig up CEO's emails surely they can dig up the financial arrangements between them and mcdonalds?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pphysch 3y ago
  Given all of the parties' (hacked) accounting books, how do you prove that "Foobar service/fee" is actually "illegal kickback"?
  - gruez 3y ago
    1. If we're to take the plaintiffs at face value (ie. the email in question is really the "smoking gun", didn't bother hiding it, and just handed it over in discovery), then surely the defendants are too incompetent to hide the kickbacks? 2. That attitude is dangerously close to "unfalsifiable claim" territory. There's no evidence for your conspiracy? Well duh, it's all-powerful conspirators that we're dealing with. Of course there's going to be no evidence because they hid it all!
    - pphysch 3y ago
      I'm just saying it's very easy to hide this sort of thing. A brief chat at the country club, totally off the record, is all they need to finalize a backroom deal. The prosecution even argued that the defendents were using Mafia-like language, according to TFA.
- tedunangst 3y ago
  So you know the "puzzle" where you buy a cow for $5, sell it for $10, buy again for $15, sell for $20, and some ding dong on twitter says that you lost money? Well, the same math brains think that if you pay some company $100 and get a $30 kickback, that you somehow made a profit.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    You do if you receive services worth more than $70. A competitor to Taylor without the "free money" maintenance contracts might have to charge $80, but Taylor plus McDonald's can charge each other less than the cost of the equipment because the real profit is in the repair bills.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
> they aren't the ones loosing money From what I'm seeing, besides the monthly rent (in most cases paid to McDonalds), and the required supply purchases, franchisees also have to kick 4% of sales up to corporate. So corporate is indeed losing money when the machine isn't working (also, they're probably not going to be buying supplies for a broken machine, either).
- burningChrome 3y ago
  You also have to factor in the cost to profit ratio. What's more profitable? Kicking out a dozen Big Macs in the same time it takes to make one McFlurry? As an owner, I'm going to focus on where my profits are so that I can maximize those areas that are generating the most profit. Anything with ice cream is a net loss for my profit column so anything I can do to discourage people from increasing those sales which will then cut into my overall profits is just fine with me. Their McFlurry ice cream items were created to compete with Dairy Queens Blizzard items. I'm not sure why they decided they could compete with DQ, but they thought they would siphon some of that market share from them - which I don't think they ever did, but it didn't lose enough money for them to take the item off of their menus.
  - Aloisius 3y ago
    And if people walk out the door because they wanted ice cream on a hot day and go somewhere else instead and stop coming because they assume your ice cream machine is down?
    - burningChrome 3y ago
      Its a McDonalds. They don't go there for ice cream. Yeah, they won't go back for ice cream which has a minimal impact. You can bet they'll still come back for burgers, shakes and fries though. It just confirms people fall into the trap of not going there for ice cream, which reduces the burden of the people having to use so much time to make ice cream for customers and can instead focus on the stuff that keeps the lights on and the profits coming in.
deleted 3y ago
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gruez 3y ago

>because McDonalds corporate profits off of the deal with the manufacturer/servicer who in turn profits off of the McDonalds franchisees Is there more on this? If they can dig up CEO's emails surely they can dig up the financial arrangements between them and mcdonalds?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pphysch 3y ago
Given all of the parties' (hacked) accounting books, how do you prove that "Foobar service/fee" is actually "illegal kickback"?
- gruez 3y ago
  1. If we're to take the plaintiffs at face value (ie. the email in question is really the "smoking gun", didn't bother hiding it, and just handed it over in discovery), then surely the defendants are too incompetent to hide the kickbacks? 2. That attitude is dangerously close to "unfalsifiable claim" territory. There's no evidence for your conspiracy? Well duh, it's all-powerful conspirators that we're dealing with. Of course there's going to be no evidence because they hid it all!
  - pphysch 3y ago
    I'm just saying it's very easy to hide this sort of thing. A brief chat at the country club, totally off the record, is all they need to finalize a backroom deal. The prosecution even argued that the defendents were using Mafia-like language, according to TFA.
tedunangst 3y ago
So you know the "puzzle" where you buy a cow for $5, sell it for $10, buy again for $15, sell for $20, and some ding dong on twitter says that you lost money? Well, the same math brains think that if you pay some company $100 and get a $30 kickback, that you somehow made a profit.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  You do if you receive services worth more than $70. A competitor to Taylor without the "free money" maintenance contracts might have to charge $80, but Taylor plus McDonald's can charge each other less than the cost of the equipment because the real profit is in the repair bills.

Turing_Machine 3y ago

> they aren't the ones loosing money From what I'm seeing, besides the monthly rent (in most cases paid to McDonalds), and the required supply purchases, franchisees also have to kick 4% of sales up to corporate. So corporate is indeed losing money when the machine isn't working (also, they're probably not going to be buying supplies for a broken machine, either).

burningChrome 3y ago
You also have to factor in the cost to profit ratio. What's more profitable? Kicking out a dozen Big Macs in the same time it takes to make one McFlurry? As an owner, I'm going to focus on where my profits are so that I can maximize those areas that are generating the most profit. Anything with ice cream is a net loss for my profit column so anything I can do to discourage people from increasing those sales which will then cut into my overall profits is just fine with me. Their McFlurry ice cream items were created to compete with Dairy Queens Blizzard items. I'm not sure why they decided they could compete with DQ, but they thought they would siphon some of that market share from them - which I don't think they ever did, but it didn't lose enough money for them to take the item off of their menus.
- Aloisius 3y ago
  And if people walk out the door because they wanted ice cream on a hot day and go somewhere else instead and stop coming because they assume your ice cream machine is down?
  - burningChrome 3y ago
    Its a McDonalds. They don't go there for ice cream. Yeah, they won't go back for ice cream which has a minimal impact. You can bet they'll still come back for burgers, shakes and fries though. It just confirms people fall into the trap of not going there for ice cream, which reduces the burden of the people having to use so much time to make ice cream for customers and can instead focus on the stuff that keeps the lights on and the profits coming in.

deleted 3y ago

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