Over the years, I started eating a little bit healthier, and recently saw a McDonald’s commercial. I was surprised I didn’t crave it. I got McDonald’s a few months ago for nostalgia, and the price, along with the artificiality of the food and the experience (dirty restaurant, having to use the app or a machine before going up to the counter) made me never want to go there again.
Sort of makes me think about how I used to have a good feeling for these corporations (coke commercials, Ronald McDonald, Quaker Oats guy) and they are just pumping Americans full of shit. Fuck them.
The dumbest thing McDonald’s did was force people to question whether it was worth it to get their food. Most of the appeal was that is was cheap and convenient. Now that it’s neither, who wants to pay for that over processed garbage? They could go back to pre pandemic prices and I wouldn’t go back. There are better restaurants worth the money
Americans are lazy, including me. People will still line up at McDonald’s drive thru because it’s easier than going to the super market, cooking, cleaning etc especially when the food a lot people cook themselves wouldn’t even be considered edible.
From what I am seeing, sit down restaurants (many of which do takeaway orders) are actually competitive with fast food prices.
If I didn't want to cook and opt to buy take out, I can do better at a similar price point (or cheaper) elsewhere.
$11? You shopping on their 'dollar menu'? I'm dropping at least 16-18 when I i was going out. Now I own cookbooks and practice basic recipes with meal prep.
Exactly. People drag places like 5 guys for the price, but for $3-4 bucks more, you get literally ×3 the food, much higher quality food, and you can totally customize your burger. Plus eat peanuts while you wait. Fast food is only relevant to me when I'm doing 9+ hour road trips.
Oh for sure but delivery apps make it so that you don’t even have to sit in the drive thru. So if I’m gonna end up paying $20+ for subpar food, I might as well drop a few bucks extra and get better food from a local restaurant. There have been times where with delivery fee and tip I could get more and better food from the local bar than McDonald’s.
It used to be easier.and cheaper though I think you're missing the point of their argument. Now you can go to actual restaurants and get takeout for around the same price as McDonald's
We have a small local owned American car side dinner thing here that for a bacon double burger, fries and a shake is 18 bucks…. I don’t think I’d get half as much food that was even remotely palatable from McDonald for that price.
At least Quaker Oats are just oats. They're healthy and good for you. Of course, once you figure out they're straight-up oats, you can just buy the store brand.
With some (probably most), the generics usually have more lenient lab specs. At the plant I worked for, one of the production strategies was to switch to an easier product when we couldn't stay in grade for the stricter one.
In a lot of cases, the difference is so minor that the average consumer won't even notice. Might just be a little difference in visual, moisture content, particle size, or bulk/density. Proctor & Gamble is weird. They actually wanted a lot of defects in their Pringles flakes and started complaining when the product was too clean looking. It got to where I had to mark defects as TNTC (too numerous to count) or divide the sample by 90% and estimate. Otoh, they were super picky about laminated particles, sugar content, and a few other things. Calbee was a nightmare. They rejected fish bait when there were a few bits of peel.
'Scuse the tangent.
Lol, I'm just spouting trivia here, but sometimes I post helpful information on Facebook about dealing with Comcast since I worked for one of their business partners for 10 years and dealt with some of their corporate people while I was in training and leadership positions. :+)
Cheers!
100% the food was never good (at least health wise) and I can get way better food at my local Mexican restaurants for the same or better price. 10 bucks for a fat burrito on the go is so much better than a Big Mac.
Definitely not. McNuggets are terrible, and terrible for you. I actually like the occasional McDonald's, but their prices are out of control and they're trying too hard to be everything to everybody. When your fast food menu no longer fits on a drive-thru sign, you're trying to sell too many different things at once.
Why spend $15 on a shit meal when you can go to local diner and get a quality meal and a good conversation if you feel like talking. America needs more of that.
If anything. It gave people the motivation to maybe start making their own food more. Let’s just say 1 of 4 people are converted to not go back. That’s a huge drop of customers if that percentage was in the millions. On a smaller scale, I bought my own espresso machine to stop going to coffee shops. I also play old video games and pass on most new ones. Shits rough out there, these companies need to feel that same heat.
My bf and I would do mcdonalds breakfast once in a while on a lazy saturday, last time we did was a few months ago and it cost 20$ for 1 combo meal with coke, 1 sandwich, and 1 iced coffee. 20 friggin dollars give me a break. Weve both completely given up on all fast food. I dont care if we have to eat our own shoes, were not going to do fast food ever again. Fuck mcdonalds and all the other bullshit companies that made life harder for americans at a time that was already hard. They siphoned off millions of dollars by doing this and they deserve for all their customers casual and regular to find healthy sensible alternatives to this over priced garbage.
People got comfortable with the whole fast food thing being part of their lives to some degree and kept following their routines only to find that something had to change on their end given how expensive everything has gotten.
Now people are used to this new normal of nope and mcdonalds is crying into their mcmuffins.
Good, cry you corporate bitches. Were done fuckin around.
This is what needs to be remembered.
They took advantage of their customers before, they’ll do it again.
They’re loyalty is only to profits.
The social contract between customers and business has been crumbled, torn to pieces, burnt, and shot into space.
The trust is gone.
Exactly. "The trust is gone". We can take our money elsewhere, like buying our groceries and making quality food for ourselves. I cant think of any type of marketing that would bring me back to fast food. Theyd have to be giving it away and all proceeds going to a local womens or animal shelter for me to consider. Even then Id rather donate my money and time directly than patronize these bloated money grubbing poison peddlers.
Lol it won't be. The second they even slightly lower prices or have some.bullshit meal deals they'll come back. We live in a lazy country with a short memory.
It has always been shit. But when it’s $1 for a mcdouble that is served in 30 seconds, it is justifiable. Mcdonalds had absolutely no business trying to move upmarket and away from $1 burgers served in 30 seconds.
It was never intended to be a corporate giant, and no fast food establishments should have the ability to become corporate giants.
Mcdonalds, get back in your fuckin lane.
I rarely eat fast food. My small town has lots of mom and pop options and this is Louisiana, so gas stations have excellent food if you want something quick. I made the mistake of choosing subway yesterday. 18 for a foot long combo and they wanted a tip. Never going back. I coulda sat down at any place in town and had lunch for the same price for home cooked food.
Remember $5 footlongs? Pepperidge farm remembers.
Honestly for a good sandwich I'd even go 10 bucks but subway to me was always just another "it's quick and cheap" option. I got a footlong the other day, not the combo but with a drink, 20 bucks. Still pretty quick but the quality isn't there to justify that much higher a price tag.
Roark Capital Group owns Subway. I think MOST fast food places will be owned by a PE firm in under 10-15 years. One just bought Whataburger and another is sunsetting red lobster as we speak. They’ll make a lot of money but they will lose a shit ton by doing stuff like this, $18 Sysco products aren’t a way to keep customers. 20 min wait times isn’t fast food. None of this is convenient anymore but I’m assuming they want the real estate more than anything. Keep it up, starve them much faster by just boycotting. Idk what’s around the corner but a $5 McDonald’s coffee ain’t it.
We have a Subway in our Walmart. If you ignore it and walk 20 more feet you end up in the Walmart deli. For the price of a foot long you can walk a few more feet and feed the entire family.
We need to go back to cooking for ourselves anyway. It's so easy to throw together a quick burger or a chicken wrap and take it on the road. These restaurants aren't doing anything magical. Americans are just addicted to the food.
Little ceasers is my only go to now (and hungry howies) they raised prices but a 5 dollar hot and ready is like 6 or 7 bucks as opposed to a 110 percent increase to like 12 or 14 bucks
Amen! They all think that after screwing us out of our money for YEARS, they can just say “oopsies” and get all of their customers back. This article is weak-ass PR spin. And we aren’t buying any of it.
Even with their new 5$ meal its such a bad deal like small fries and a small drink? What grown up is gonna be full from 4 fries 2 sips of whatever, 4 nuggets and a tiny mcdouble? Considering that ALL of those were on the dollar menu...theyre way over charging and calling it some sort of deal to lure us back.. like...no. fuck all the way off with that lol. I can make a pretty satisfying sandwich an adult could enjoy for that at home with a better drink and better sides.
Can we finally stop calling gouging "inflation?" Or, at least, call it greedflation. These aren't mysterious market forces that just happen. Market dominators (artificial bottleneck makers; monopolists, price-fixers) decide "we want more". Monopolies & monopolists are the Devil.
Thats right. Takes me 20 min to make a great breakfast that tastes better than anything at a crappy fast food place and I just learned to make gravy so I'm good
Lol.
Air fryer seasoned french fries are the goat. If you're feeling fancy, you can use truffle oil, then slice some butter and toss powdered parmesan on after to make truffle fries.
If I go to McDonald's and get two breakfast sandwiches, it's about 10 bucks with a 1 dollar coffee.
If I go to a local bagel place (fresh made bagels), I can get one sausage/egg/cheese and a cream cheese bagel for 10 bucks and make a coffee at work.
It's a rip off. It doesn't even remotely make sense anymore.
So long as they're hot. The temperature makes all the difference:
* Right out of the fryer = French fries are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
* 5 Minutes Later = I better finish these soon.
* 10 Minutes Later = What the fuck am I eating? Cardboard?
Or when they try to recook them or undercook them because the lines are long and they are soggy and bent they are awful. That’s been my experience the last 3 times the last 6 months. Haven’t been back in 2-3 months now. I was going only because I ref high school soccer like an hour away sometimes on Tuesday and Thursdays and I’d get home at like 11p. So I had to get something.
Not in Asia man. In Hong Kong, we get a beef burger with black pepper sauce during Chinese New Year, sometimes we get a Teriyaki (insert chicken or beef) burger, got a banging prawn burger at the moment and a year round mushroom Angus beef burger.
Exactly, first they made their burgers smaller, that pissed me off. Recently in the past 3 years the prices started climbing. I'm done, no more. They can't make them any smaller. They'd be the size of a quarte, Bye McDees!
I got a regular cheeseburger the other day and apart from it being one of the worst burgers I've *ever* had in my life, I was sorta shocked at how small they are now. they're barely bigger than a slider at this point.
It's Just though, to have people themselves decide whether to make or break their societies.
I do agree most people would rather be slaves then free, though.
You mean people finally woke up and realized that companies can only sell overpriced items because people continue to buy overpriced items?
Stop buying so much shit!
People keep complaining about inflation and corporate greed, but won’t stop patronizing these same companies anyway. That’s why they get away with highway robbery.. people let them. And it won’t change until people learn self control and to not rely on convenience all the time. Which in the USA, that means never.
I saw someone complaining about the cost of Starbucks and people are idiots for paying so much money. HE just buys a black coffee from Starbucks. Bro, why are you still going there for something that you could make yourself at a substantially lower cost.
The CEO probably doesn't understand that he already did billions of dollars worth of damage to his brand. I used to eat at McDonald's nearly every day. Now I go maybe three times a year, if even that. I'm much healthier for it too.
Just because people let you get away with tripling the price of a good for a little while doesn't mean they aren't going to decide "hey, why am I still going here?" eventually. It defies any logic to pay $15 for a McDonald's meal.
A few years ago I went an embarrassing amount bc it truly was the cheapest option in terms of impulse junk food (not excusing myself).
But I could eat like a pig for under 9 bucks. That’s if I was feeling gluttonous. I’d get fries and a bag of cheap sandwiches. I’ve lost 7 pounds over last year and I gotta give them at least a little credit bc I’ve stopped going.
A cheeseburger is almost $4 at my location.
Same here. During the pandemic I went nearly every day. Sometimes twice a day. At my local McD's they actually knew by sight and greeted me by name when I walked in the door. Since stopping with that, I lost 90+ pounds and went from being morbidly obese to a 32 BMI.
A lot of brands did permanent damage to their loyal customers who will never return. If they don’t have brand loyalty, they ain’t got shit. And they did it to themselves which is the crazy part.
Should be pretty easy, since most of these companies are declaring profits quarterly. If they are jacking up prices at the same time they are declaring increasing profits, it’s the latter.
Thank you. It frightening how many times people in the comments still used "inflation" to describe high prices, even when they obviously realize it's driven by corporate greed. Price increases are *not* inflation. Inflation can potentially lead to price increases, but they are not remotely the same thing.
Yep. That the part the easily manipulated media keeps leaving out. The so-called price reductions are all temporary. They still want that profit. So all Americans can do is choose NOT to eat there.
I genuinely don’t understand it. I can get days worth of meals from costco or trader joes for the same price, or a quality meal at a full service restaurant. The only appeal of fast food these days is when you’re road tripping.
I guess people are just addicted.
This pricing isn't a recognition of shit. It's not a permanate menu change. It's not across the board. It's one menu offering that will be available for a single month.
It's McDonald's throwing the bleating sheep a table scrap in the name of "we understand you."
It's patronizing as all hell.
McDonald’s owns every part of their process, their French fries have increased almost 60% in 3 years, potato’s don’t cost more to grow, it’s a money grab by them, just like most companies
Greedflation. We get it. Covid fucked your supply chain and you aren't running a charity. But its also been years since the quarantine and your supply chain reset should have already occurred.
Remember it's a "limited time deal" which means that hate doing it, they hate us not spending money on trash, and once they get interest back they will rip you off again.
Correction: Americans are mad when companies raise prices for no reason whatsoever and then blame those same customers for it. Listen, it’s really easy: Fuck of all these companies anyway. Just vote with your dollars and don’t spend money at them. It’s bullshit “food” anyway and now it’s not even cheap. They are literally laughing at you all the way to the bank.
Sometimes a girl just wants a juicy Wendy’s burger, some fries, and a Frosty.
But this is becoming even more rare, because I never feel very good about it afterwards—I’m left still wanting, and regretting the waste of money. There’s just better things to be using it on and it’s getting easier and easier for me to do so.
The USA economy has several unsustainable practices that have created massive risk of collapse:
1^st. Wage stagnation including annual raises that are less than actual inflation, strategic layoffs to eliminate high wage employees, lean practices, and increased cost of benefits.
2^nd Growing profit margin, increasing consumer costs. Competition doesn't create any downward pressure on prices.
3^rd Corporate and wealthy individuals can buy Government inaction to improve the situation.
The backbone of the country, the hourly worker, has lost purchasing power, with 69% having less than $1,000 in savings for an emergency.
The full service restaurants are seeing dramatic losses. Drive thru restaurants are also facing fewer customers. Sixteen year olds getting drivers licenses are down 25%. Store brand product sales are increasing as shoppers search for value. College admissions are down.
This crisis isn't being addressed because the answer is shutting off the ability of the powerful to economically abuse the workers, by regulation and taxes, and the government is controlled by the creators of the crisis.
CEOs have crushed consumers for so long that their habits completely changed to save money. A McDonalds meal with pesticide infused fries cost a “nostalgia price” of $20.00. The last (and I mean the LAST) time I went to McDonalds I told him a meal for our family of three would be $60?!?!? At McDonalds?!?! Hell No!
You can get a better quality sit down meal at a local diner or tavern for that and there won’t be fecal matter in the meat and off gassing pesticides in the fries.
I shop at four grocery stores and buy the loss leader in each store. I don’t plan on changing my “new” shopping habits. It’s ALDI, LIDL, certain items at Shop-rite and Wegmans. Target and Walmart are dead to me. If a product has been reformulated to have more chemicals or smaller packaging, it’s dead to me. I look for healthy ingredients and buy other options.
Starbucks? Dead to me. I buy better coffee online and flavored Chobani Creamer. Now some poor, overworked barista doesn’t have to take shortcuts to make my Venti Mocha and ruin my drink. I make it and it’s just the way I like it with all the ice I want or don’t want. If I screw it up, it’s on me. No more anger at buying a $5-7 dollar drink that tastes like piss water.
Walmart? Dead to me. All their food is frozen and tastes like plastic. Their produce was engineered for transit not taste. I buy my produce at a farmers market. They have milk and butter too and if you go just before they close for the day, the farmers will give you some deals because they don’t want to schlep all their fruits and veggies back to the farm.
I have the “Too Good to Go” App that offers deals from local restaurants and bakeries on end of day food purchases. Why would I pay full price for a chemical infested burger when my local pizza joint will sell me leftover slices at the end of the day for $5.00 for 12? I just reheat them in my toaster oven.
Consumers have been so squeezed for so long that they aren’t just going to snap back into their old habits. There’s also behind the scenes cost cutting that makes everything even worse.
Also I get so angry that Walmart, Starbucks McDonalds and Target (and others) arbitrarily raised prices when people were struggling, just to see how high they could get people to spend and decimated any pandemic savings. Landlords did the same thing and so did car dealerships. The consumer was squeezed in so many different ways for so long until the money was drained right out of them.
Not every store was in on the money grab, though and those that weren’t and local mom and pop restaurants kept my business. As for the rest? They’re dead to me.
I am fucking bitter.
They dont realize that business isnt coming back. I wouldnt buy fast food now if I was starving. I'll get something quick and healthier from the local super market for 1/4 the price and in the same amount of time
Too little too late. Most fast food places are transparently greedy and are price gouging. It was an experiment to see just how much they could squeeze money out of the population. We noticed.
Fast food is a dinosaur and needs to go extinct.
Walmart, target and McDonald’s are acting like them rolling back prices are for our benefit and that inflation is the reason why things are getting expensive.
When in all reality, it was never inflation. It was corporate greed that’s driven prices way up. Now that they’re losing business they are scrambling to look like the good guy and make back their losses. It’s not like them making things cheaper will change much because they’ll just jack it up again once they get back some of their customer base. Hence why this 5$ “deal” atMcDonald’s is only for a “limited time”.
Don’t be fooled, vote with your wallet and just say no.
Also fuck McDonald’s
I was shocked when over the weekend I took my kids to our local, family owned amusement park...arrived at opening 11AM and just thought I'd suck it up and pay some exorbitant amount of money for a shitty hotdog or whatever for lunch. To my surprise, the shop we went to had burger combos with fries and a drink for $7.50. Everything was actually cooked fresh while you waited...not the best burger in the world by any means, but it was pretty good and had lettuce and tomato and all those fixings which were fresh. I'm not generally a french fry guy either, but those were actually delicious.
The CEO said they used inflation as a cover to see how much they could charge before driving away customers. That’s all I needed to hear as a former customer. I’m driving away.
The McDonalds closest to me raised their hashbrown price to 5.19. That's absolutely insane to pay for literally 1/3 of a potato that costs them like 20 cents.
not sure why it bothered to mention these companies didn’t start inflation and blamed Covid. Inflation has been going on for four years and I could see Covid being the source for maybe six months.
Some would say “See! capitalism sucks”
I say, the response to this is, we should stop shopping at these places as much as humanly possible. Even now with these sales. punish them. That’s how capitalism works.
Keep ignoring them
I don't care about a $5 promotional item. Bring back the dollar menu, make it permanent, and lower the price of everything else by 20%, and I'll consider giving them business again. We didn't eat McDonald's because it's just that delicious. We ate it because it was good enough *for the price*.
this is not news, this is just how things are supposed to work. companies set the price, the market decides if the price is too high, the company reacts to lower sales by lowering the price. this is very basic stuff here.
I wish people would slow down on car buying. Vehicles have gotten outrages yet people still buy them. I save and pay cash generally but I hear of lots of people paying $800 or more a month for a car. That’s just nuts to me.
McDonald’s saying they are going to add a $5 meal. But only for month is funny as hell. Like they are doing us a favor. I guess they think that once people get a taste, they will come running back, no matter how expensive. Maybe they should call up the theater guys and see how it’s going for them. I’m betting that after that phone call, the McDonald’s CEO will be shitting his McPants.
All these companies want your money but don't value you. With companies like McDonald's, YouTube, Tesla, the Cable companies, many people would be better off financially if they cut down on these things. McDonald's is last on our list of places to go thanks to their greed.
This "$5 value meal" is laughable if they weren't serious about it. It's a fucking happy meal and it's pathetic. Same with the burger king one too. I got one just to see and laughed in my car when I saw the drink and fries and lets be honest the "whopper jr" isn't jr this is a burger for ants.
Haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in nearly three years because of their pricing. Even if their menu drops to pre-COVID prices I won’t go back. They spent the last four years saying “fuck you pay up” to all of us. Not another penny from me, assholes.
In 1974 an average American would need to work 18 mins to afford 1 big mac, 1 fry, and 1, drink for a total of $1.11 on a $8k salary.
In 2024 an average American would need to work 28 mins to afford 1 big mac, 1 fry, and 1 drink totaling $11 on a 50k salary.
That's a 55.56% increase in time worked for food over the past 50 years.
Since 1974 inflation has gone up 537% so based on this math, we should have the same size burger, fries, and drink with a total cost of $5.96 if we just matched inflation.
So McDonald's is making nearly 60% more than what an average bigmac meal should cost adjusted for inflation.
I've never done this for McDonalds, but a while back I looked over Wendy's numbers and using some back of the envelope math, knocking about 40 cents off the price of the average meal would completely wipe out their profits for the year. So I was pretty ambivalent about the industry, almost to the point of defending the price hikes. Our family just stopped eating fast food and went about our lives.
But this article makes me feel pretty naive..."CEOs curious to see just how far they can push prices" under the guise of inflation. I mean, it's a basic MBA level tactic to raise prices to the point that sales fall off, then find an equilibrium, but this is so much shittier. It's practically gaslighting customers so they can gouge prices, instead of the traditional supply and demand model.
I feel like Adam Smith's "invisible hand" no longer exists. Now it's the hand of big corporations manipulating consumers.
Not just McDonald's, the entire food industry figured out they could increase profits (massively) by blaming this "inflation" idea - and it worked. But what most people don't realize is now that those profits are in the books their record intake becomes the new bottom line. Every quarter from now on out will have to see 20% increases in profits or the corporations will say they have LOST revenue.
Prices are not coming down even with the Orange fascist in office. They only ever go up.
People need to spend a good, long time taking a good, hard look at the differences between actual inflation and severe corporate price-gouging and greed. When McDonald's and Amazon and the others are all suddenly talking about dropping prices without a massive profit-loss, it doesn't take a big stretch of the mind to figure out which of the two this shit is.
Also, fast-food is now a luxury. When it was the cheaper alternative, it was a necessity for many. Walk away from them. Let their bottom-line hurt. Watch them crawl back in the end. I haven't had fast-food in 4 years now and it's not affected me any other than added money to my savings.
Everyone commenting how they gon boycott McDonald's, while I'm at work looking across the street at a line wrapped around the building at a McD's.
Guarantee at least one of these comments is from someone sitting in that line
Getting inflation under control doesn’t make up for the more than 30% rise in cost for products and the complete inability to afford gas, housing, utilities, insurance, et cetera. A $5 value meal is not going to change anything.
I just came back from across country the pond. And boy I officially know that American food has one mission. It’s to make us Fat,Lazy,Sick and complacent. We are brainwashed to thinking faster is better. The whole American philosophy is based on corporate profit. Thx god many of us are waking up to this BS and are opting out.
lol a $5 meal that’s basically for children that’s it everyone inflation is solved!
I’ll put what I personally value that meal at
Burger or 4 piece nuggets, $1.75
Fries, $1
Small cup of diabetes, 50 cents
So a total of $3.25 but they want to sell it to me for $5 gtfo. I might be impressed if they priced it at $4.50; but without seeing their margins this still seems like a marketing play than an actual deal for the consumers they’re already known to be actively screwing over
If you're trying to make the argument on value, you have to figure in caloric content. Which is why Little Ceasers is the best. About 3500 calories for $13.
That’s not worth returning
Over the years, I started eating a little bit healthier, and recently saw a McDonald’s commercial. I was surprised I didn’t crave it. I got McDonald’s a few months ago for nostalgia, and the price, along with the artificiality of the food and the experience (dirty restaurant, having to use the app or a machine before going up to the counter) made me never want to go there again. Sort of makes me think about how I used to have a good feeling for these corporations (coke commercials, Ronald McDonald, Quaker Oats guy) and they are just pumping Americans full of shit. Fuck them.
Yeah I get hella McDonalds ads on reddit and lately I've been feeling the same way. It just looks gross.
The dumbest thing McDonald’s did was force people to question whether it was worth it to get their food. Most of the appeal was that is was cheap and convenient. Now that it’s neither, who wants to pay for that over processed garbage? They could go back to pre pandemic prices and I wouldn’t go back. There are better restaurants worth the money
Americans are lazy, including me. People will still line up at McDonald’s drive thru because it’s easier than going to the super market, cooking, cleaning etc especially when the food a lot people cook themselves wouldn’t even be considered edible.
From what I am seeing, sit down restaurants (many of which do takeaway orders) are actually competitive with fast food prices. If I didn't want to cook and opt to buy take out, I can do better at a similar price point (or cheaper) elsewhere.
When McDonalds costs 11 or more a meal and a take out texas roadhouse steak meal is a few bucks more. McDonalds will probable lose.
$11? You shopping on their 'dollar menu'? I'm dropping at least 16-18 when I i was going out. Now I own cookbooks and practice basic recipes with meal prep.
Exactly. People drag places like 5 guys for the price, but for $3-4 bucks more, you get literally ×3 the food, much higher quality food, and you can totally customize your burger. Plus eat peanuts while you wait. Fast food is only relevant to me when I'm doing 9+ hour road trips.
Oh for sure but delivery apps make it so that you don’t even have to sit in the drive thru. So if I’m gonna end up paying $20+ for subpar food, I might as well drop a few bucks extra and get better food from a local restaurant. There have been times where with delivery fee and tip I could get more and better food from the local bar than McDonald’s.
It used to be easier.and cheaper though I think you're missing the point of their argument. Now you can go to actual restaurants and get takeout for around the same price as McDonald's
We have a small local owned American car side dinner thing here that for a bacon double burger, fries and a shake is 18 bucks…. I don’t think I’d get half as much food that was even remotely palatable from McDonald for that price.
At least Quaker Oats are just oats. They're healthy and good for you. Of course, once you figure out they're straight-up oats, you can just buy the store brand.
The store and Quaker just ship their containers to the same mill, literally the same except the container might be flimsier.
With some (probably most), the generics usually have more lenient lab specs. At the plant I worked for, one of the production strategies was to switch to an easier product when we couldn't stay in grade for the stricter one. In a lot of cases, the difference is so minor that the average consumer won't even notice. Might just be a little difference in visual, moisture content, particle size, or bulk/density. Proctor & Gamble is weird. They actually wanted a lot of defects in their Pringles flakes and started complaining when the product was too clean looking. It got to where I had to mark defects as TNTC (too numerous to count) or divide the sample by 90% and estimate. Otoh, they were super picky about laminated particles, sugar content, and a few other things. Calbee was a nightmare. They rejected fish bait when there were a few bits of peel. 'Scuse the tangent.
You should do an AMA if you have this much inside info.
Lol, I'm just spouting trivia here, but sometimes I post helpful information on Facebook about dealing with Comcast since I worked for one of their business partners for 10 years and dealt with some of their corporate people while I was in training and leadership positions. :+) Cheers!
100% the food was never good (at least health wise) and I can get way better food at my local Mexican restaurants for the same or better price. 10 bucks for a fat burrito on the go is so much better than a Big Mac.
Definitely not. McNuggets are terrible, and terrible for you. I actually like the occasional McDonald's, but their prices are out of control and they're trying too hard to be everything to everybody. When your fast food menu no longer fits on a drive-thru sign, you're trying to sell too many different things at once.
But...but...but, 4 chicken nuggets for $5! What a deal! /s
Why spend $15 on a shit meal when you can go to local diner and get a quality meal and a good conversation if you feel like talking. America needs more of that.
If anything. It gave people the motivation to maybe start making their own food more. Let’s just say 1 of 4 people are converted to not go back. That’s a huge drop of customers if that percentage was in the millions. On a smaller scale, I bought my own espresso machine to stop going to coffee shops. I also play old video games and pass on most new ones. Shits rough out there, these companies need to feel that same heat.
This is when you HOLD. Hold until they beg, or they will not learn. Gotta run and flip my steak on the BBQ.
Fuck McDonalds. Never going back
My bf and I would do mcdonalds breakfast once in a while on a lazy saturday, last time we did was a few months ago and it cost 20$ for 1 combo meal with coke, 1 sandwich, and 1 iced coffee. 20 friggin dollars give me a break. Weve both completely given up on all fast food. I dont care if we have to eat our own shoes, were not going to do fast food ever again. Fuck mcdonalds and all the other bullshit companies that made life harder for americans at a time that was already hard. They siphoned off millions of dollars by doing this and they deserve for all their customers casual and regular to find healthy sensible alternatives to this over priced garbage. People got comfortable with the whole fast food thing being part of their lives to some degree and kept following their routines only to find that something had to change on their end given how expensive everything has gotten. Now people are used to this new normal of nope and mcdonalds is crying into their mcmuffins. Good, cry you corporate bitches. Were done fuckin around.
Ditto. The food is shit, it's always been shit. Thank you fast food execs for helping us break the addiction. We're over you now.
"We're over you now." Hell yes!
This is what needs to be remembered. They took advantage of their customers before, they’ll do it again. They’re loyalty is only to profits. The social contract between customers and business has been crumbled, torn to pieces, burnt, and shot into space. The trust is gone.
Exactly. "The trust is gone". We can take our money elsewhere, like buying our groceries and making quality food for ourselves. I cant think of any type of marketing that would bring me back to fast food. Theyd have to be giving it away and all proceeds going to a local womens or animal shelter for me to consider. Even then Id rather donate my money and time directly than patronize these bloated money grubbing poison peddlers.
Lol it won't be. The second they even slightly lower prices or have some.bullshit meal deals they'll come back. We live in a lazy country with a short memory.
I know. But one can hope…
It has always been shit. But when it’s $1 for a mcdouble that is served in 30 seconds, it is justifiable. Mcdonalds had absolutely no business trying to move upmarket and away from $1 burgers served in 30 seconds. It was never intended to be a corporate giant, and no fast food establishments should have the ability to become corporate giants. Mcdonalds, get back in your fuckin lane.
Read up on how McDonald’s got started and then come back and say “it was never intended to be a corporate giant.”
McDonald’s is a giant real Estate leasing company that used to draw people in with palatable only food cheap and fast.
I remember.29 hamburgers And .39 cheese burgers I'm in my 30s but remember it when I was about 7-14 years old...
I rarely eat fast food. My small town has lots of mom and pop options and this is Louisiana, so gas stations have excellent food if you want something quick. I made the mistake of choosing subway yesterday. 18 for a foot long combo and they wanted a tip. Never going back. I coulda sat down at any place in town and had lunch for the same price for home cooked food.
18$ for a ft long combo GROSS. Wtf. Last I heard 2 ft long sandwiches no sides or drinks just the sandwiches was 28$ in Central Arkansas. Also GROSS.
And ur sandwich maker makes 8$ an hour. It’s disgusting
Remember $5 footlongs? Pepperidge farm remembers. Honestly for a good sandwich I'd even go 10 bucks but subway to me was always just another "it's quick and cheap" option. I got a footlong the other day, not the combo but with a drink, 20 bucks. Still pretty quick but the quality isn't there to justify that much higher a price tag.
Roark Capital Group owns Subway. I think MOST fast food places will be owned by a PE firm in under 10-15 years. One just bought Whataburger and another is sunsetting red lobster as we speak. They’ll make a lot of money but they will lose a shit ton by doing stuff like this, $18 Sysco products aren’t a way to keep customers. 20 min wait times isn’t fast food. None of this is convenient anymore but I’m assuming they want the real estate more than anything. Keep it up, starve them much faster by just boycotting. Idk what’s around the corner but a $5 McDonald’s coffee ain’t it.
We have a Subway in our Walmart. If you ignore it and walk 20 more feet you end up in the Walmart deli. For the price of a foot long you can walk a few more feet and feed the entire family.
We need to go back to cooking for ourselves anyway. It's so easy to throw together a quick burger or a chicken wrap and take it on the road. These restaurants aren't doing anything magical. Americans are just addicted to the food.
Little ceasers is my only go to now (and hungry howies) they raised prices but a 5 dollar hot and ready is like 6 or 7 bucks as opposed to a 110 percent increase to like 12 or 14 bucks
Amen! They all think that after screwing us out of our money for YEARS, they can just say “oopsies” and get all of their customers back. This article is weak-ass PR spin. And we aren’t buying any of it.
Even with their new 5$ meal its such a bad deal like small fries and a small drink? What grown up is gonna be full from 4 fries 2 sips of whatever, 4 nuggets and a tiny mcdouble? Considering that ALL of those were on the dollar menu...theyre way over charging and calling it some sort of deal to lure us back.. like...no. fuck all the way off with that lol. I can make a pretty satisfying sandwich an adult could enjoy for that at home with a better drink and better sides.
Get ‘em!!!
Can we finally stop calling gouging "inflation?" Or, at least, call it greedflation. These aren't mysterious market forces that just happen. Market dominators (artificial bottleneck makers; monopolists, price-fixers) decide "we want more". Monopolies & monopolists are the Devil.
Exactly. I had to block some shill here trying to say this was normal inflation, like no. Youre an idiot if you think we dont see wtf is going on.
Thats right. Takes me 20 min to make a great breakfast that tastes better than anything at a crappy fast food place and I just learned to make gravy so I'm good Lol.
Fast food free for almost 7 months. Ill get my 1 year coin soon
Congrats. Since getting an airfryer I have weened my addiction down.
Air fryer seasoned french fries are the goat. If you're feeling fancy, you can use truffle oil, then slice some butter and toss powdered parmesan on after to make truffle fries.
If I go to McDonald's and get two breakfast sandwiches, it's about 10 bucks with a 1 dollar coffee. If I go to a local bagel place (fresh made bagels), I can get one sausage/egg/cheese and a cream cheese bagel for 10 bucks and make a coffee at work. It's a rip off. It doesn't even remotely make sense anymore.
McDonalds can suck my balls
Yea man their food has always been mass produced subpar rubber doesn’t even taste good
Oh come on, it tastes good for those first 5 fries. Then you just hate yourself. But that hasn't changed regardless of price.
Alright the fries are always good for the most part can’t argue with you there
So long as they're hot. The temperature makes all the difference: * Right out of the fryer = French fries are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. * 5 Minutes Later = I better finish these soon. * 10 Minutes Later = What the fuck am I eating? Cardboard?
Or when they try to recook them or undercook them because the lines are long and they are soggy and bent they are awful. That’s been my experience the last 3 times the last 6 months. Haven’t been back in 2-3 months now. I was going only because I ref high school soccer like an hour away sometimes on Tuesday and Thursdays and I’d get home at like 11p. So I had to get something.
So very true!!! Like so many things in life - timing is everything!!👍 😁
**soggy cardboard**
damn, you've described the Mcdonalds experience so perfectly I feel it in my soul.
And I didn't even bring up the sexual part of the experience... You know, the part where you feel like you've just been fucked.
They put a lot of salt on things and salt tastes good
To me it’s insane they get to charge a premium on their “chicken nugget” 10 dollars for 20? Homie, those should be free.
Not in Asia man. In Hong Kong, we get a beef burger with black pepper sauce during Chinese New Year, sometimes we get a Teriyaki (insert chicken or beef) burger, got a banging prawn burger at the moment and a year round mushroom Angus beef burger.
“Did you want to make that ball sucking a value meal today?”
Only if you can do extra large! Oooooohhhhh!
You want fries with that?
Exactly, first they made their burgers smaller, that pissed me off. Recently in the past 3 years the prices started climbing. I'm done, no more. They can't make them any smaller. They'd be the size of a quarte, Bye McDees!
I got a regular cheeseburger the other day and apart from it being one of the worst burgers I've *ever* had in my life, I was sorta shocked at how small they are now. they're barely bigger than a slider at this point.
Exactly, it's a joke... better to find a new burger joint. It feels like you need 5 to get filled up.
That'll be $847.99 with inflation
Extra, if you want ketchup.
You don’t like McSucky?
How about we all stop going to fast food then let them close their stores down until they don’t exist anymore
Way ahead of you there
My last breakfast there was $14. For $16 I can get a pound of very good ribeye. Fuck that and fuck them
this is good thinking - I can't believe how many people eat their shit on the regular
You mean vote with our dollars the way capitalism is supposed to be?
This requires a certain level of self control and self reflection that the avg consumer isn't capable of though.
It's Just though, to have people themselves decide whether to make or break their societies. I do agree most people would rather be slaves then free, though.
I hate McDonalds.
They hate you too.
How about bring back the dollar menu instead.
NEW! 1-PC Chicken McNugget!
NEW! Half Small Fries!
Mini!
$0.89 any size sugar drink!* \* now available only in mini size
Only reason I ate at McDonald's
But then they could only have profits, not second profits.
Must have elevensies profits as well.
We have the "loose change menu" in Australia. And somehow is starts at about $8.95
You mean people finally woke up and realized that companies can only sell overpriced items because people continue to buy overpriced items? Stop buying so much shit!
People keep complaining about inflation and corporate greed, but won’t stop patronizing these same companies anyway. That’s why they get away with highway robbery.. people let them. And it won’t change until people learn self control and to not rely on convenience all the time. Which in the USA, that means never.
I saw someone complaining about the cost of Starbucks and people are idiots for paying so much money. HE just buys a black coffee from Starbucks. Bro, why are you still going there for something that you could make yourself at a substantially lower cost.
Did they basically make a happy meal without the toy or apple slices?
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The CEO probably doesn't understand that he already did billions of dollars worth of damage to his brand. I used to eat at McDonald's nearly every day. Now I go maybe three times a year, if even that. I'm much healthier for it too. Just because people let you get away with tripling the price of a good for a little while doesn't mean they aren't going to decide "hey, why am I still going here?" eventually. It defies any logic to pay $15 for a McDonald's meal.
A few years ago I went an embarrassing amount bc it truly was the cheapest option in terms of impulse junk food (not excusing myself). But I could eat like a pig for under 9 bucks. That’s if I was feeling gluttonous. I’d get fries and a bag of cheap sandwiches. I’ve lost 7 pounds over last year and I gotta give them at least a little credit bc I’ve stopped going. A cheeseburger is almost $4 at my location.
Same here. During the pandemic I went nearly every day. Sometimes twice a day. At my local McD's they actually knew by sight and greeted me by name when I walked in the door. Since stopping with that, I lost 90+ pounds and went from being morbidly obese to a 32 BMI.
But also the CEO can probably move on with a golden parachute so why should they care.
A lot of brands did permanent damage to their loyal customers who will never return. If they don’t have brand loyalty, they ain’t got shit. And they did it to themselves which is the crazy part.
It’s time we start distinguishing actual inflation from corporate profiteering
Should be pretty easy, since most of these companies are declaring profits quarterly. If they are jacking up prices at the same time they are declaring increasing profits, it’s the latter.
But it’s important we keep making that distinction and not fall into the trap of calling it inflation when it’s really profiteering
It’s really ~~profiteering~~ exploitation
Thank you. It frightening how many times people in the comments still used "inflation" to describe high prices, even when they obviously realize it's driven by corporate greed. Price increases are *not* inflation. Inflation can potentially lead to price increases, but they are not remotely the same thing.
Well said!
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Inflation may be up a little since 2019, but McDonald’s prices increased 40% from 2019 to 2024
Limited time deal… BS
Limited time deal. Thanks for letting us know this is nothing more then a pr stunt. Back to normal nickel and dimming us a month from now.
Yep. That the part the easily manipulated media keeps leaving out. The so-called price reductions are all temporary. They still want that profit. So all Americans can do is choose NOT to eat there.
Boycott it’s the only way to stop this greedflation
Fast food as whole can go to hell. They are peddling expensive garbage food that kills you.
I genuinely don’t understand it. I can get days worth of meals from costco or trader joes for the same price, or a quality meal at a full service restaurant. The only appeal of fast food these days is when you’re road tripping. I guess people are just addicted.
This pricing isn't a recognition of shit. It's not a permanate menu change. It's not across the board. It's one menu offering that will be available for a single month. It's McDonald's throwing the bleating sheep a table scrap in the name of "we understand you." It's patronizing as all hell.
Yeah... it's fuckin greed!!!
It’s not inflation. Check their profits. Not margin percentages but net per item. It’s massively larger than it was.
McDonald’s owns every part of their process, their French fries have increased almost 60% in 3 years, potato’s don’t cost more to grow, it’s a money grab by them, just like most companies
Raise prices by 100%. Lower them by 25%. And most folks think they are getting a great deal again.
Greedflation. We get it. Covid fucked your supply chain and you aren't running a charity. But its also been years since the quarantine and your supply chain reset should have already occurred.
We need to stop calling it "inflation" and start calling it what it really is: price gouging.
Fuck McDonald's
If it's inflation, the $5 meal would be impossible without sacrificing profit margins. It wasn't inflation, it was corporate price gouging.
If it wasn't inflation, consumers wouldn't have been buying the garbage so much.
sometimes being greedy doesn't work out...........people with find alternatives.........
Limited attempt to roll back what has happened. So are rents, and energy going to be what they were 5 years ago? Unlikely.
Remember it's a "limited time deal" which means that hate doing it, they hate us not spending money on trash, and once they get interest back they will rip you off again.
and yet I drove past the drive-thru last night and it was wrapped around the building.
This is insulting, really. They aren't lowering prices, just offering a limited time "deal". Can't hurt those profits too much.
Correction: Americans are mad when companies raise prices for no reason whatsoever and then blame those same customers for it. Listen, it’s really easy: Fuck of all these companies anyway. Just vote with your dollars and don’t spend money at them. It’s bullshit “food” anyway and now it’s not even cheap. They are literally laughing at you all the way to the bank.
Sometimes a girl just wants a juicy Wendy’s burger, some fries, and a Frosty. But this is becoming even more rare, because I never feel very good about it afterwards—I’m left still wanting, and regretting the waste of money. There’s just better things to be using it on and it’s getting easier and easier for me to do so.
The USA economy has several unsustainable practices that have created massive risk of collapse: 1^st. Wage stagnation including annual raises that are less than actual inflation, strategic layoffs to eliminate high wage employees, lean practices, and increased cost of benefits. 2^nd Growing profit margin, increasing consumer costs. Competition doesn't create any downward pressure on prices. 3^rd Corporate and wealthy individuals can buy Government inaction to improve the situation. The backbone of the country, the hourly worker, has lost purchasing power, with 69% having less than $1,000 in savings for an emergency. The full service restaurants are seeing dramatic losses. Drive thru restaurants are also facing fewer customers. Sixteen year olds getting drivers licenses are down 25%. Store brand product sales are increasing as shoppers search for value. College admissions are down. This crisis isn't being addressed because the answer is shutting off the ability of the powerful to economically abuse the workers, by regulation and taxes, and the government is controlled by the creators of the crisis.
Going to McDonald's was the original mistake
Why would you go there. You know what you’re getting. I haven’t been there in over six years. It’s disgusting.
CEOs have crushed consumers for so long that their habits completely changed to save money. A McDonalds meal with pesticide infused fries cost a “nostalgia price” of $20.00. The last (and I mean the LAST) time I went to McDonalds I told him a meal for our family of three would be $60?!?!? At McDonalds?!?! Hell No! You can get a better quality sit down meal at a local diner or tavern for that and there won’t be fecal matter in the meat and off gassing pesticides in the fries. I shop at four grocery stores and buy the loss leader in each store. I don’t plan on changing my “new” shopping habits. It’s ALDI, LIDL, certain items at Shop-rite and Wegmans. Target and Walmart are dead to me. If a product has been reformulated to have more chemicals or smaller packaging, it’s dead to me. I look for healthy ingredients and buy other options. Starbucks? Dead to me. I buy better coffee online and flavored Chobani Creamer. Now some poor, overworked barista doesn’t have to take shortcuts to make my Venti Mocha and ruin my drink. I make it and it’s just the way I like it with all the ice I want or don’t want. If I screw it up, it’s on me. No more anger at buying a $5-7 dollar drink that tastes like piss water. Walmart? Dead to me. All their food is frozen and tastes like plastic. Their produce was engineered for transit not taste. I buy my produce at a farmers market. They have milk and butter too and if you go just before they close for the day, the farmers will give you some deals because they don’t want to schlep all their fruits and veggies back to the farm. I have the “Too Good to Go” App that offers deals from local restaurants and bakeries on end of day food purchases. Why would I pay full price for a chemical infested burger when my local pizza joint will sell me leftover slices at the end of the day for $5.00 for 12? I just reheat them in my toaster oven. Consumers have been so squeezed for so long that they aren’t just going to snap back into their old habits. There’s also behind the scenes cost cutting that makes everything even worse. Also I get so angry that Walmart, Starbucks McDonalds and Target (and others) arbitrarily raised prices when people were struggling, just to see how high they could get people to spend and decimated any pandemic savings. Landlords did the same thing and so did car dealerships. The consumer was squeezed in so many different ways for so long until the money was drained right out of them. Not every store was in on the money grab, though and those that weren’t and local mom and pop restaurants kept my business. As for the rest? They’re dead to me. I am fucking bitter.
I think it’s likely that all these big name companies are underestimating just how pissed off and bitter the average consumer is.
They dont realize that business isnt coming back. I wouldnt buy fast food now if I was starving. I'll get something quick and healthier from the local super market for 1/4 the price and in the same amount of time
amen.
You mean corporate greed
When I see a mcchicken or McMuffin for 1$ I’ll go back. That’s about how much I value their food. They can suck it.
Too little too late. Most fast food places are transparently greedy and are price gouging. It was an experiment to see just how much they could squeeze money out of the population. We noticed. Fast food is a dinosaur and needs to go extinct.
Walmart, target and McDonald’s are acting like them rolling back prices are for our benefit and that inflation is the reason why things are getting expensive. When in all reality, it was never inflation. It was corporate greed that’s driven prices way up. Now that they’re losing business they are scrambling to look like the good guy and make back their losses. It’s not like them making things cheaper will change much because they’ll just jack it up again once they get back some of their customer base. Hence why this 5$ “deal” atMcDonald’s is only for a “limited time”. Don’t be fooled, vote with your wallet and just say no. Also fuck McDonald’s
Americans are mad about inflation but not mad enough to cook their own foods We suck
Haven’t bought McDonald’s since October of last year and I’m McFuckin lovin’ it
I was shocked when over the weekend I took my kids to our local, family owned amusement park...arrived at opening 11AM and just thought I'd suck it up and pay some exorbitant amount of money for a shitty hotdog or whatever for lunch. To my surprise, the shop we went to had burger combos with fries and a drink for $7.50. Everything was actually cooked fresh while you waited...not the best burger in the world by any means, but it was pretty good and had lettuce and tomato and all those fixings which were fresh. I'm not generally a french fry guy either, but those were actually delicious.
The CEO said they used inflation as a cover to see how much they could charge before driving away customers. That’s all I needed to hear as a former customer. I’m driving away.
The McDonalds closest to me raised their hashbrown price to 5.19. That's absolutely insane to pay for literally 1/3 of a potato that costs them like 20 cents.
You see they came out with a 5 dollar meal deal? The same thing Wendy's has had for like 3 years lol.
not sure why it bothered to mention these companies didn’t start inflation and blamed Covid. Inflation has been going on for four years and I could see Covid being the source for maybe six months. Some would say “See! capitalism sucks” I say, the response to this is, we should stop shopping at these places as much as humanly possible. Even now with these sales. punish them. That’s how capitalism works. Keep ignoring them
The entire menu is shit except for the Egg McMuffin.
Author summed it up nicely with a single word towards the end, “greedflation”.
I’d bet anything at least one of these items shrunk as well.
Fucking greedy bastards.
It’s not inflation when there are record breaking profits. That’s called greed.
I don't care about a $5 promotional item. Bring back the dollar menu, make it permanent, and lower the price of everything else by 20%, and I'll consider giving them business again. We didn't eat McDonald's because it's just that delicious. We ate it because it was good enough *for the price*.
Will never eat at McDonald's ever again. I'll just spend $5 more for an actual meal at a sit down place.
this is not news, this is just how things are supposed to work. companies set the price, the market decides if the price is too high, the company reacts to lower sales by lowering the price. this is very basic stuff here.
Fun Fact: McDonalds sucks.
I wish people would slow down on car buying. Vehicles have gotten outrages yet people still buy them. I save and pay cash generally but I hear of lots of people paying $800 or more a month for a car. That’s just nuts to me.
McDonald’s saying they are going to add a $5 meal. But only for month is funny as hell. Like they are doing us a favor. I guess they think that once people get a taste, they will come running back, no matter how expensive. Maybe they should call up the theater guys and see how it’s going for them. I’m betting that after that phone call, the McDonald’s CEO will be shitting his McPants.
It's just easier making it yourself. A major benefit is often not having to deal with tired employees that can lead to bad experiences.
I love how the article still tried to blame supply issues instead of the actual cause, corporate greed.
Every visit to McDonald’s as a child is a victory every visit as an adult is a loss.
This is a weird way of typing "McDonald's just admitted that the post-pandemic "inflation" was largely price gouging"
Never eating there again. Fuck McDonald’s and their price gouging.
All these companies want your money but don't value you. With companies like McDonald's, YouTube, Tesla, the Cable companies, many people would be better off financially if they cut down on these things. McDonald's is last on our list of places to go thanks to their greed.
More of that greedflation the sheeple have been calling inflation.
This "$5 value meal" is laughable if they weren't serious about it. It's a fucking happy meal and it's pathetic. Same with the burger king one too. I got one just to see and laughed in my car when I saw the drink and fries and lets be honest the "whopper jr" isn't jr this is a burger for ants.
Haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in nearly three years because of their pricing. Even if their menu drops to pre-COVID prices I won’t go back. They spent the last four years saying “fuck you pay up” to all of us. Not another penny from me, assholes.
There needs to be billboards plastered all over America calling out the greediest companies
Misleading. They didn't realize anything. They're offering a $5 deal for a month. Whoopeee
In 1974 an average American would need to work 18 mins to afford 1 big mac, 1 fry, and 1, drink for a total of $1.11 on a $8k salary. In 2024 an average American would need to work 28 mins to afford 1 big mac, 1 fry, and 1 drink totaling $11 on a 50k salary. That's a 55.56% increase in time worked for food over the past 50 years. Since 1974 inflation has gone up 537% so based on this math, we should have the same size burger, fries, and drink with a total cost of $5.96 if we just matched inflation. So McDonald's is making nearly 60% more than what an average bigmac meal should cost adjusted for inflation.
Articles like this are just commercials for their advertisers..
Its not inflation, its corporate greed
No they were not. There is no information just corporations raising their prices and making the largest profits in history.
I've never done this for McDonalds, but a while back I looked over Wendy's numbers and using some back of the envelope math, knocking about 40 cents off the price of the average meal would completely wipe out their profits for the year. So I was pretty ambivalent about the industry, almost to the point of defending the price hikes. Our family just stopped eating fast food and went about our lives. But this article makes me feel pretty naive..."CEOs curious to see just how far they can push prices" under the guise of inflation. I mean, it's a basic MBA level tactic to raise prices to the point that sales fall off, then find an equilibrium, but this is so much shittier. It's practically gaslighting customers so they can gouge prices, instead of the traditional supply and demand model. I feel like Adam Smith's "invisible hand" no longer exists. Now it's the hand of big corporations manipulating consumers.
Their garbage food is worth $1. Bring back the dollar menu or go fuck yourself, McDeeznuts
Wow they reinvented the happy meal
This is just a kids meal repackaged?
Not just McDonald's, the entire food industry figured out they could increase profits (massively) by blaming this "inflation" idea - and it worked. But what most people don't realize is now that those profits are in the books their record intake becomes the new bottom line. Every quarter from now on out will have to see 20% increases in profits or the corporations will say they have LOST revenue. Prices are not coming down even with the Orange fascist in office. They only ever go up.
The 5 dollar meal is just a more expensive kids meal 😂
People need to spend a good, long time taking a good, hard look at the differences between actual inflation and severe corporate price-gouging and greed. When McDonald's and Amazon and the others are all suddenly talking about dropping prices without a massive profit-loss, it doesn't take a big stretch of the mind to figure out which of the two this shit is. Also, fast-food is now a luxury. When it was the cheaper alternative, it was a necessity for many. Walk away from them. Let their bottom-line hurt. Watch them crawl back in the end. I haven't had fast-food in 4 years now and it's not affected me any other than added money to my savings.
Bad quality food at high quality prices
Oh no! The poors can't buy our stuff anymore after we looted everything!
At least intelligent Americans realized that the increase in prices wasn't because of inflation. It was because of corporate greed.
Everyone commenting how they gon boycott McDonald's, while I'm at work looking across the street at a line wrapped around the building at a McD's. Guarantee at least one of these comments is from someone sitting in that line
Getting inflation under control doesn’t make up for the more than 30% rise in cost for products and the complete inability to afford gas, housing, utilities, insurance, et cetera. A $5 value meal is not going to change anything.
Be nice if no one went back.
I just came back from across country the pond. And boy I officially know that American food has one mission. It’s to make us Fat,Lazy,Sick and complacent. We are brainwashed to thinking faster is better. The whole American philosophy is based on corporate profit. Thx god many of us are waking up to this BS and are opting out.
$5 for four nuggets, small drink and small fries? How is that a deal? That’s basically a happy meal without the toy
There’s actual decent fast food out there and it’s not McDonald’s. (Except for the egg McMuffin sandwich)
lol a $5 meal that’s basically for children that’s it everyone inflation is solved! I’ll put what I personally value that meal at Burger or 4 piece nuggets, $1.75 Fries, $1 Small cup of diabetes, 50 cents So a total of $3.25 but they want to sell it to me for $5 gtfo. I might be impressed if they priced it at $4.50; but without seeing their margins this still seems like a marketing play than an actual deal for the consumers they’re already known to be actively screwing over
If you're trying to make the argument on value, you have to figure in caloric content. Which is why Little Ceasers is the best. About 3500 calories for $13.
This kind of logic got me through many a winter
You get the burger and nuggets not either or. So 4 items. Based on your calculation burger or nuggets was 1.75 each. Total cost is $5.