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Whatever led to the beef shortage is going to be affecting mcds food costs.

McD's dumping self serve drinks "for a more consistent experience".

Suuuuuuure. You mean, to control costs and make it so you can charge for refills.

I like refills. But I'm rarely in a fast food restaurant.

Leisher wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2024 5:05 pm McD's dumping self serve drinks "for a more consistent experience".

Suuuuuuure. You mean, to control costs and make it so you can charge for refills.

"Control costs" but now you need a person behind the counter for refills, when your entire strategy of the last 5 years has been to eliminate as many humans as possible from the process.

Some idiot child accountant made this decision.

Average car age is now almost 13, as people can't afford new cars in this awesome economy.

https://www.abc12.com/news/business/ave ... a8b7c.html

Or, they're so reliable no need to upgrade.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 5:30 pm Or, they're so reliable no need to upgrade.

I laughed.

CNN opinion piece about how consumer spending is "the" metric for how the economy is doing.

The claim is that it saved us from recession post-Covid, but now is waning.

As we've discussed, the economy is shit unless you're in the top 10%.

Maybe "shit" is strong? Let's just say that a decent life is becoming unaffordable to most people. Prices continue to rise for less product and worse service. These companies are just constantly raising prices while giving less trying to squeeze every penny of profit. They just can't stop as if they constantly had to keep producing more and more profit to appease some unrelenting master that can never be satisfied. But that's insane because it would be unsustainable.

Drove from Chicago yesterday. Feeling kinda off/half sick, and when i got hungry I just had to eat something.

Turnpike plaza.

Burger King.

#1 combo, whopper, large sized. No changes, nothing added.

Over $16.

Things are not fine. That's a 100% increase over a decade.

Yeah, that's why I never get the combo. Water + burger. Also, it's a turnpike, so did it have higher prices than a normal BK?

I just checked our local BK via Grubhub (so prices are inflated) and it was $13. So that means it's about $10 in real life.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 10:37 am So that means it's about $10 in real life.

As a parent with three active kids, we've driven everywhere and have had to do fast food a lot. Prices are definitely higher than they were a few years back. For a while covid was a logical explanation, but they're still climbing.

GORDON wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 10:12 am Things are not fine.

You know how I rail constantly about the Wall St. Effect? I truly think we might be hitting a reckoning point in that system. Maybe not across the board, but certainly in a few industries. For example: The restaurant industry is struggling. Boeing is paying a price for their short sighted "profit now" decisions and will probably have to back track at great expense. Housing is a total shit show. Disney has been taking hard shots on the chin for a few years now because they thought ESG, also known as "we're completely out of touch, but we're told this will keep shareholders happy", was the way. And so on.

There has to be a cap on the Wall St Effect, right? Americans only have so much money and corporations have been cutting fat and even essential stuff for years. Prices can only climb so high.

Point being, even without consumer pushback, which is happening, there was always going to be a stopping point for the "profit every quarter or we punish you" concept. I wonder if we're close to that point? Again, not for all industries, but some.

Leisher wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:13 am As a parent with three active kids, we've driven everywhere and have had to do fast food a lot. Prices are definitely higher than they were a few years back. For a while covid was a logical explanation, but they're still climbing.

Sure. The gov't injected trillions of dollars during covid, welcome to inflation.

To fix the problem they caused in the first place, with the half-measure quarantines that didn't work.

It wasn't "unintended consequences." Plenty of people were vocal about saying their plan wouldn't work, and it would be an ounce of cure paid for by a pound of prevention.

"10 years to normality" was the closest prediction I saw on this forum. May be more like 50 years before the divergent "what is" and "what would have been" lines come back together.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:00 pm

Leisher wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 11:13 am As a parent with three active kids, we've driven everywhere and have had to do fast food a lot. Prices are definitely higher than they were a few years back. For a while covid was a logical explanation, but they're still climbing.

Sure. The gov't injected trillions of dollars during covid, welcome to inflation.

Of course that's part of it, but as prices do, they went up, but have yet to go down. They're just still climbing.

Also, when will the government, and more importantly voters, come to realize that the government helping means long term pain?

GORDON wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:12 pm Plenty of people were vocal about saying their plan wouldn't work, and it would be an ounce of cure paid for by a pound of prevention.

Honestly, what was really bad about it wasn't their insistence upon sticking with a plan that was being criticized, it was them silencing opposition to the plan.

Only a few years later we now know it was all a huge waste of time, money and effort. Plus, the vaccines, at best, reduced symptoms, and at worst, have actually killed people. But no real harm done, right? It only crippled the economy, possibly permanently set back a generation of children, was the primary reason for numerous businesses going under costing people jobs, furthered the divide among Americans which included people openly calling for people who disagreed with masking/vaccines/etc. to be jailed or put into camps, and so on.

Good times.

Leisher wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:23 pm Only a few years later we now know it was all a huge waste of time, money and effort. Plus, the vaccines, at best, reduced symptoms, and at worst, have actually killed people. But no real harm done, right? It only crippled the economy, possibly permanently set back a generation of children, was the primary reason for numerous businesses going under costing people jobs, furthered the divide among Americans which included people openly calling for people who disagreed with masking/vaccines/etc. to be jailed or put into camps, and so on.

And it wasn't even all that difficult to see coming.

GORDON wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:12 pm "10 years to normality" was the closest prediction I saw on this forum. May be more like 50 years before the divergent "what is" and "what would have been" lines come back together.

I would argue things are already normal. So it was 4 years.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:28 pm

GORDON wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 1:12 pm "10 years to normality" was the closest prediction I saw on this forum. May be more like 50 years before the divergent "what is" and "what would have been" lines come back together.

I would argue things are already normal. So it was 4 years.

I would argue for some, you are correct. If you have the means, you're fine.

However, I would argue for most, you are wrong. 60% of Americans didn't pay taxes last time around. You want to wager they feel the sting of higher prices and a shitty housing market more than you or I?

If a supermajority is worse off , then "the economy" is not better.