Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Business plus The State: Taco Bell Edition

By Chris Rossini
Entrepreneurs and corporations should be employing resources, and creating products, that are the most urgently desired by their consumers.

The marketplace even has built-in mechanisms to help bring this about. They're called Prices, Profits & Losses.

Taco Bell has access to all of these.

Their P&L statements tell them exactly what customers desire (and don't desire). And I'm sure they work tirelessly to anticipate any changes that may occur. Customers are very fickle, and Taco Bell needs to anticipate correctly.

If it's true that Taco Bell's food is unhealthy, and customers wanted a healthier menu, sales would reflect it by dropping!

Taco Bell would then have to discover if so-called healthier restaurants were experiencing increases in patronage. If Taco Bell came to the conclusion that this was the case, and that tastes were changing, they would surely adjust their menu accordingly.

None of this involves the Mayor.

There's no need to bring in the Mayor to 'work with them' on putting together a menu. Can the Mayor read P&L statements better then the owners of Taco Bell themselves?

If that's the case, and you're a shareholder of the company....Sell!




4 comments:

  1. If you want permits and licenses and want to limit permits and licenses for competition then it pays to "work" with the mayor.

    Face it, the country is corrupt and in steep decline.

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  2. Probably a small sign of the 'corporatist' state (in Mussolini's words) where the local fast food operators society signs up to head off food regulation and to brake up other smaller entrepreneurs. I give you Chicago....

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-25/news/ct-edit-trucks-20120725_1_food-trucks-gps-spaces

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  3. The only disagreement I have with this post is impression at the end that the company is doing the wrong thing thing for its shareholders with these life sized pictures of the OKC Mayor in its restaurants (and so on). I don't think Taco Bell needs or really wants "input" on its menu choices from politicians, but it realizes that right now the politicians can't stand to not meddle and grandstand in their business so they are shrewdly trying to co-op them.

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    Replies
    1. Tony, that was meant as a tongue-in-cheek statement.

      If the Mayor is better at reading a profit & loss statement better than Taco Bell management, then the company is in trouble.

      But yes, I'm fully aware that companies play ball for their own gains.

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