6 ms·

Huh? If you can't afford to eat at McDonalds, maybe you should be protesting for a higher wage.

kefka 11y ago
Mcdonalds is expensive for the quantity and quality you get. I can make the similar much healthier, tastier, and cheaper than they can.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Good grief, I didn't plan to defend Macdonald's, but this sounds delusional to me. If you're trying to get food cheaply, unless your labor is pretty much free and you're incredibly efficient I very much doubt this is true. Assuming I were to prepare a home cooked meal from scratch, the chances I would get away with less than 1h of labor (including driving to markets, shopping, and preparation) alone justifies eating out (at a restaurant, forget Macdonalds). Certainly eating home-cooked food is healthier. And it's probably more delicious. And cooking can be enjoyable, but not as a daily grind. But don't make the cost argument unless your time is free.
  - kefka 11y ago
    Don't make the argument "unless your time is free" unless you have 0-turn around time->money converter. Which, your argument is that "Time isn't free, so neener neener", which falls flat in its face. I'm not in the upper, or middle economic class. And making our own food is how we save a great deal of money, and also eating much healthier. We probably could eat on $50/wk for both my wife and I. But it would be junk food and bad calories and malnutrition. Last night, we had shrimp, tilapia, roasted veggies, and a capezzi salad. That would have been ~$40 each out on the town. It cost us $10 for both of us combined. And it was a half hour work for one of us. We can't even work a half hour on no minutes notice.
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      Yes but your "free" time is valuable in a different way. I cheerfully cook for myself and my family on occasion, but having to do it all the time (for a family which has different conflicting dietary issues) is not much fun. (We don't eat out much for reasons of health as much as anything.) I just wouldn't make the cost argument -- it doesn't hold water.
  - bigtunacan 11y ago
    Ok, I'll follow on just slightly here related to the cost argument. First let's take time out of the picture because there are too many factors to measure it properly... How close is a McDonalds, do you enjoy cooking, blah... blah... Instead let's compare on cost only... When I originally posted I did not mention the dollar value menu, that is what was immediately posted as a response by someone else. But since it is the lowest common denominator and the representation of McDonalds has cheap food... Let's try to approximate how much it costs in money only to make a "dollar burger". The dollar burger has only 1.5 ounces of meat. Today when I checked my local grocer 80% lean ground was $2.48 a pound. So that should make about 12 dollar burgers. ~21 cents per burger for hamburger Hamburger buns were 68 cents for an eight pack; that's 8.5 cents per burger. It was $2.50 for an 8 pack of presliced cheese These were much thicker higher quality cheese, and unsliced cheese can be bought far cheaper... But we splurged so that's another 32 cents per burger. 88 cents for a head of lettuce which will easily make 20+ dollar burgers so that's 4.4 cents per burger So we add this up and we are now at a burger that costs 57.4 cents to make. We still need to add a sprinkle of onion crumbs as well as a squirt of mustard and ketchup; I think we can safely assume that is going to cost less than the remaining 42.6 cents. So yes; in fact I can make an equivalent burger for less than it costs at McDonalds. If I was going to get a sandwich at McDonalds more likely I would end up with something that doesn't totally suck, like the Big Mac, which averages $4.79 in the US. For $4.79 I can make one hell of a burger.
bigtunacan 11y ago
My point was not that I can't afford to eat at McDonalds, but rather that it is a convenience purchase and eating at home is more cost conscious. If prices raise, which they will if wages go up, then more people will choose not to eat there and this will result in less jobs for the very people protesting the wages.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Preparing food at home is not actually cheaper than Macdonalds -- I defy you to create a double cheeseburger for $1. (The beef alone would cost over $1 at Walmart -- roughly $6/lb. Macdonald's gets its beef a lot cheaper.) The food at home is possibly healthier, but healthy food is even more expensive. That said, I doubt people will baulk at paying $1.05 (after all they are paying sales tax on it in many cases).
  - bigtunacan 11y ago
    Indeed, the dollar menu is incredibly cheap, but I cringe to even call that food. I'm probably better off eaten the cheapest off brand hot dogs than those slime burgers. That said, they are looking for a $15/hour rate. Since federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour we are talking a potential wage cost doubling. I doubt that will only result in a 5% cost increase and that it will be much more. Also, I'm not saying that all sales will stop, but that they will decrease. That is the substitute goods effect. McDonalds food is an inferior good. As it's prices raise more people will move away from them to substitute goods.
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      It's easy and fun to dismiss Macdonalds, but their "slime" burgers are made from beef (no pink slime even). I doubt that cheap hotdogs are made from better ingredients. "I doubt that will only result in a 5% cost increase and that it will be much more." Well -- make your case. A Bloomberg reporter guesstimates that doubling salary costs at fast food franchises would increase prices by 25%. http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-02/this-is-what-would-happen-if-fast-food-workers-got-raises http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-02/this-is-what... But that's pretty much a worst case scenario (assumes that everyone working there is minimum wage -- in fact from the figures I see, no-one at Macdonalds earns the Federal minimum wage). I suspect if you did the analyses what you'd see is something like this: 1) Increasing the minimum wage would have flow-on effects to other salaries causing wage increases across the board. 2) There would be price rises generated by increased labor costs, and also by more money being in the economy (this would improve GDP, but that's not a useful measure). 3) It would have a significant stimulus effect (low income people tend to spend more than save, so giving them more money has a high multiplier effect -- it's really the best kind of stimulus). This would reduce unemployment. 4) A lot of people who have multiple jobs to survive would be able to give up some of them, which would reduce unemployment. 5) Some companies would make do with fewer employees, which would increase unemployment. 6) My guess is 3 + 4 would overwhelm 5. Combined with 2, this would raise interest rates. Seems like a pretty desirable outcome all round.

kefka 11y ago

Mcdonalds is expensive for the quantity and quality you get. I can make the similar much healthier, tastier, and cheaper than they can.

Tloewald 11y ago
Good grief, I didn't plan to defend Macdonald's, but this sounds delusional to me. If you're trying to get food cheaply, unless your labor is pretty much free and you're incredibly efficient I very much doubt this is true. Assuming I were to prepare a home cooked meal from scratch, the chances I would get away with less than 1h of labor (including driving to markets, shopping, and preparation) alone justifies eating out (at a restaurant, forget Macdonalds). Certainly eating home-cooked food is healthier. And it's probably more delicious. And cooking can be enjoyable, but not as a daily grind. But don't make the cost argument unless your time is free.
- kefka 11y ago
  Don't make the argument "unless your time is free" unless you have 0-turn around time->money converter. Which, your argument is that "Time isn't free, so neener neener", which falls flat in its face. I'm not in the upper, or middle economic class. And making our own food is how we save a great deal of money, and also eating much healthier. We probably could eat on $50/wk for both my wife and I. But it would be junk food and bad calories and malnutrition. Last night, we had shrimp, tilapia, roasted veggies, and a capezzi salad. That would have been ~$40 each out on the town. It cost us $10 for both of us combined. And it was a half hour work for one of us. We can't even work a half hour on no minutes notice.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    Yes but your "free" time is valuable in a different way. I cheerfully cook for myself and my family on occasion, but having to do it all the time (for a family which has different conflicting dietary issues) is not much fun. (We don't eat out much for reasons of health as much as anything.) I just wouldn't make the cost argument -- it doesn't hold water.
- bigtunacan 11y ago
  Ok, I'll follow on just slightly here related to the cost argument. First let's take time out of the picture because there are too many factors to measure it properly... How close is a McDonalds, do you enjoy cooking, blah... blah... Instead let's compare on cost only... When I originally posted I did not mention the dollar value menu, that is what was immediately posted as a response by someone else. But since it is the lowest common denominator and the representation of McDonalds has cheap food... Let's try to approximate how much it costs in money only to make a "dollar burger". The dollar burger has only 1.5 ounces of meat. Today when I checked my local grocer 80% lean ground was $2.48 a pound. So that should make about 12 dollar burgers. ~21 cents per burger for hamburger Hamburger buns were 68 cents for an eight pack; that's 8.5 cents per burger. It was $2.50 for an 8 pack of presliced cheese These were much thicker higher quality cheese, and unsliced cheese can be bought far cheaper... But we splurged so that's another 32 cents per burger. 88 cents for a head of lettuce which will easily make 20+ dollar burgers so that's 4.4 cents per burger So we add this up and we are now at a burger that costs 57.4 cents to make. We still need to add a sprinkle of onion crumbs as well as a squirt of mustard and ketchup; I think we can safely assume that is going to cost less than the remaining 42.6 cents. So yes; in fact I can make an equivalent burger for less than it costs at McDonalds. If I was going to get a sandwich at McDonalds more likely I would end up with something that doesn't totally suck, like the Big Mac, which averages $4.79 in the US. For $4.79 I can make one hell of a burger.

bigtunacan 11y ago

My point was not that I can't afford to eat at McDonalds, but rather that it is a convenience purchase and eating at home is more cost conscious. If prices raise, which they will if wages go up, then more people will choose not to eat there and this will result in less jobs for the very people protesting the wages.

Tloewald 11y ago
Preparing food at home is not actually cheaper than Macdonalds -- I defy you to create a double cheeseburger for $1. (The beef alone would cost over $1 at Walmart -- roughly $6/lb. Macdonald's gets its beef a lot cheaper.) The food at home is possibly healthier, but healthy food is even more expensive. That said, I doubt people will baulk at paying $1.05 (after all they are paying sales tax on it in many cases).
- bigtunacan 11y ago
  Indeed, the dollar menu is incredibly cheap, but I cringe to even call that food. I'm probably better off eaten the cheapest off brand hot dogs than those slime burgers. That said, they are looking for a $15/hour rate. Since federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour we are talking a potential wage cost doubling. I doubt that will only result in a 5% cost increase and that it will be much more. Also, I'm not saying that all sales will stop, but that they will decrease. That is the substitute goods effect. McDonalds food is an inferior good. As it's prices raise more people will move away from them to substitute goods.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    It's easy and fun to dismiss Macdonalds, but their "slime" burgers are made from beef (no pink slime even). I doubt that cheap hotdogs are made from better ingredients. "I doubt that will only result in a 5% cost increase and that it will be much more." Well -- make your case. A Bloomberg reporter guesstimates that doubling salary costs at fast food franchises would increase prices by 25%. http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-02/this-is-what-would-happen-if-fast-food-workers-got-raises http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-02/this-is-what... But that's pretty much a worst case scenario (assumes that everyone working there is minimum wage -- in fact from the figures I see, no-one at Macdonalds earns the Federal minimum wage). I suspect if you did the analyses what you'd see is something like this: 1) Increasing the minimum wage would have flow-on effects to other salaries causing wage increases across the board. 2) There would be price rises generated by increased labor costs, and also by more money being in the economy (this would improve GDP, but that's not a useful measure). 3) It would have a significant stimulus effect (low income people tend to spend more than save, so giving them more money has a high multiplier effect -- it's really the best kind of stimulus). This would reduce unemployment. 4) A lot of people who have multiple jobs to survive would be able to give up some of them, which would reduce unemployment. 5) Some companies would make do with fewer employees, which would increase unemployment. 6) My guess is 3 + 4 would overwhelm 5. Combined with 2, this would raise interest rates. Seems like a pretty desirable outcome all round.