17 Comments
Oct 24·edited Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

So the third senator from New York, love child of Tiny Tim and Jar-Jar Binks is now an expert on running Fast Food franchises. Here I thought he was only an expert on running his mouth; who knew

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The Tiny Tim/Jar-Jar Binks thing gets me each and every time.

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Hey, I calls dem like I sees dem

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

Keep on keeping on, sir. As an aside, Judicial Watch, an NGO watchdog, has sent a notice to the Oregon Secretary of State notifying them of "evident violations of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, based on their failure to remove inactive voters from their registration rolls." The letter serves as a "pre-suit" notice. There may yet be hope.

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Saw that. Interesting stuff.

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

Suit has been filed on behalf of the Constitution Party and two lawfully registered voters in Umatilla County and Marion County. I'll bet Blobby is upset...

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Blobby's diligently searching for noncitizens DMV/SOS registered to vote against their will. He does not have time for this.

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If Wyden is really concerned about families "putting food on the table" his focus on one junk food purveyor is odd. I wonder if Bynum will rethink her identity as a Democrat after this, or if she will at least consider term limits on U.S. Senators.

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

The bigger issue is how clueless a senior senator is regarding business. I do believe he chairs the finance committee??!!! McDonald’s should have never let Trump touch the fryers, they’ll be on blast til the election!!

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

Wyden, what a dip stick. He should stay with laundering crypto money and stay out of the kitchen.

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

McDonald's really isn't food anyway.

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it's got calories, and will keep you alive for awhile, and it is still pretty affordable (despite Ms Bynum). we just had a sandwich and a salad at Subway in Olympia... $25 not including Tip. I think Ms Harris has her work cut out for her if she wants to lower fast food prices. She might want to reconsider her support for higher wages for entry-level employment if she really expects to lower food prices.

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Franchisees might set prices, but surely they are affected by their costs such as what corporate McDonald's approved vendors charge for the ingredients that the franchisees are required to use. The franchisees can only buy the beef, chicken and fish patties, fries, cheese, buns, etc. from the list of approved vendors. This article does not delve into the increased costs of ingredients to franchisees. (I have no idea how those costs have increased. I have no dog in this fight. I am just observing the additional information that would assist in understanding how costs born by franchisees have changed and so presumably affected the prices that customers are charged.)

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one must ask then, why the same franchises in the same area, but with different owners, and presumably with the same costs, charge different prices for the same product.

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Oct 24Liked by Jeff Eager

The reported differences were just 10 or 20 cents for the same product. That is just a few percentage points difference. Different franchisee locations might also have somewhat different other costs of operating, such as rent. Even stores owned by the same franchisee might have different prices for the same menu items. It could depend on what competing fast food restaurants were nearby and what they were charging for their comparable menu items. My point is that there are questions that could be asked, but that this article is not asking and providing answers for.

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This article was not intended as an analysis of McDonald's pricing. Some of the articles linked therein go into quite a bit of detail. The point is that franchisees have final pricing decisions, and there is considerable variation in pricing between locations and franchises, e.g. $8.00 for a Big Mac in Massachusetts vs. $4.00 elsewhere. By Wyden's definitions, any franchisee, including Bynum, who prices food items more than other similarly situated franchisees might be engaging in price gouging.

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I had assumed that the franchises had to conform to pricing set by the McDonald's corporation. Who knew?

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