I don't think people really understand the fast food industry AT ALL. They literally have margins of $0.05 - $0.10 on the dollar. I spoke with an owner of 17 McDonalds locations here in West Texas, Wages account for 33% of costs. He informed us that his stores will one of the 1st to try the new Kiosks.
McDonalds is on it's way out. The whole Kiosk thing is nothing but a ploy to belabor it. People don't want their food anymore and they simply cannot support their current infrastructure and business model by selling coffee drinks, salads and breakfast. Nothing personal toward McDonalds.....I think the same will hold true for many other traditional fast food chains in the next 10-15 years.
People still want fast food and the fast food industry is always reinventing itself. Nobody goes to macdonalds for a salad or a latte. But they do go for breakfast.
Are you high, McDonals is STILL THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD??? People don't want their food? Just a 92 Billion market cap. Not sure what you think or mean by "traditional fast food". You scope is small and are probably not thinking about the global market place. I NEVER eat at McDonalds, but the point remains even for places like Chipotle in which wages cost about 25-28% per dollar. McDonals will more than likely reduce their menu over the next 5 years and go back to their key menu items. Not sure exactly what the items are, but majority of their sales are from like 5 items.
man its hard to go into a convenience store without seeing the poorest of the poor. the blacks in front of me always buying some cigar singles, some liquor and maybe a urnge fanta for the kids. the white trash getting lottery scratch offs, cigs and their family groceries for the gd week. they all pay with some combination of their own money and welfare. then usually digging for change for the next hour to cover whats short. i think maybe the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country made this impoverished group disposable in the top 1%'ers eyes. While I am a conservative first and strongly believe in personal accountability; I also think we must acquiesce that success should not merely be judged by quarterly earnings but by longterm overall success of the communities, and in a larger scope, the success of overall society in which these corporations prosper. in that respect, we are failing. badly. I dont have the answers or think raising min wage will help either side in the long run. But I do know something needs to change or eventually the adverse effects will outweigh the positives. then short-term profits become meaningless if it all collapses. When I was growing up my parents' companys upper management actually knew the families and gave a shit. The people were real. Upper management had a face. Now its completely profit driven and there is a huge disconnect between top level and everyone else. Businesses shouldnt use simple metrics alone to determine success. Society and its people matter most for the longterm success of both. The only answer I have is those in charge have to be much more virtuous. Someone needs to start giving a shit again.
Pell grants are fine for those who go to college but there are lots of people who aren't college material. Halloween, you're a teacher. You know which ones of your students are going to college and which ones couldn't pass basketweaving 101. I don't know if there are similar grants and assistance for people who aren't going to college but want to learn a skill but there should be for trade schools, tech schools and the like. Those schools aren't as expensive as a 4 year college but even that is probably out of range for a minimum wage worker. Pretty sure truck driving school is pretty close to $10,000. I know a guy who went to a local cooking school a few years ago and it was pretty expensive. A couple of days ago I read about a very innovative program. In Ascension Parish of all places. Kids can enter the program as high school freshmen. At the same time they are enrolled in a local community college, I think it's River Parish Community College. They attend school at the CC and take both high school and college courses. Even though they physically attend the CC they are still considered students at East Ascension HS or St. Amant HS or wherever and can take part in school activities, ie, sports, cheerleading, debate club, chess club, ect. At the end of 4 years the student not only receives his high school diploma but also an Associates Degree from the community college. Then when they enter a 4 year college they do so as juniors. Great for the college bound but there needs to be some program like that for the future plumbers, electrician. repairmen, computer programmers, ect. Somebody learning auto mechanics for example would probably learn to be pretty good after a year or two but after 4 years of advanced courses would be great at it and would be in demand for a very well paying job. Or a kid could learn several related cross disciplines like carpentry, plumbing, ect and after 4 years be just as knowledgeable about running a construction job as somebody with a college degree in Industrial Technology. But all this would take a lot of money and where would they get the teachers? A guy qualified to teach advanced mechanics probably already has a higher paying job than teacher. As far as minimum wage goes there should be two tiers. One for young kids set lower than the MW for adults so that companies would hire them in the first place. But if you increase the adult minimum wage significantly you're going to run into the same problems they are facing in Seattle. If people are afraid to earn so much that they get their food stamps or disability payments cut out or reduced they're just going to work fewer hours to make the same amount of money. I can't blame them. I wouldn't work just as many hours if the net result was that I ended up with less money.
Yes but that still doesn't address the problem of training non college bound students for marketable skills outside the academic setting.
