Friday, May 9, 2014

The Dying Dollar (McDonald's Menu Edition)

By Chris Rossini

This is a McDonald's menu from the 1970's:


Everyone who eats at McDonald's knows that their cheeseburger looks and tastes exactly as it did 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. The same applies to McDonald's french fries, filet-o-fish, and quarter pounders.

The food didn't change, but the purchasing power of those pieces of paper (that we're all forced to use) sure did.

The amount of wealth that has been cunningly removed from our pockets by the Fed is extraordinary. Easily the biggest heist in world history.

[h/t Dan Sanchez]



Chris Rossini is on Twitter

23 comments:

  1. Actually, the food is different now. And they owe me a free meal.

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    Replies
    1. Actually, it's no longer food, but a food-laced substance marketed as food.

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    2. If it was really food like they served in the 70's, it would be 3 times more expensive.

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    3. Just about everything is "a food-laced substance marketed as food" anymore. Most of the crap people shovel in their mouths these days is the product of some chemist being paid to cull the population.

      Delete
  2. This is what happens when you give bankers a monopoly on the supply of currency. When this baby bursts, the aftermath is going to be epic.

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    1. The bankers do not have a monopoly on the supply of currency. You are free to convert all your wealth into cash and then burn it.

      Delete
    2. Why Is The Federal Reserve In Your Wallet?

      The Federal Reserve is the means by which the government spends more than it makes.

      Federal Reserve Notes are printed under the Treasury Department, signed by the treasurer, but ultimately backed by the Fed. Because Federal Reserve Notes represent a loan from the Fed, these notes are printed in accordance with the assets it holds. The primary collateral backing these notes are more IOUs, mostly from the government.

      Every dollar in your wallet is a Federal Reserve Note, a sign that the Fed owes you. It is an interest-free loan from you to them that they can never pay back. And when the Fed gives the government their notes, these interest-free IOUs, they get an interest-bearing Treasury bond in return. It doesn’t matter how much the interest is, the Fed is guaranteed to make money.

      Federal Reserve Notes are not redeemable in anything of value. If you try to redeem a $10 bill, all you will get is two $5 bills.

      In 2008 when the country’s largest banks were insolvent due to their own mismanagement, the Fed, with its unlimited supply of fiat reserve notes, simply purchased toxic assets and bailed them out. These purchases were then counted as assets in the Fed and used to justify the printing of more Federal Reserve Notes.
      The Fed has incurred much financial harm to our nation since its founding. It is a post-democratic organization that take prides in keeping its reasoning and incentives completely free of governmental review and influence. It is naive to believe its incentives are aligned with altruism toward the populace.

      Increasing the Fed’s accountability is a popular stance, but government is even more susceptible to special interests. The best method to reduce the power of the Fed to do harm, short of abolishing it entirely, is simply to reduce its decision-making power. Redirect your generic hatred to the true source: Occupy the Fed.
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarotta/2014/05/08/why-is-the-federal-reserve-in-your-wallet/

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  3. The "which we're forced to use" complaint is inappropriate. You're complaining about the dollar getting weaker which means you would prefer to spend the dollar.

    Nobody forces you to denominate your wealth in dollars. Supposedly a McDonalds burger saved from the 70s can be eaten today so you can denominate your wealth in Big Macs.

    This Is What A McDonald's Hamburger Looks Like After 14 Years - more than a decade later, the sandwich looks exactly the same. Only the pickle has disappeared
    http://www.businessinsider.com/man-saves-mcdonalds-burger-for-14-years-2013-4#ixzz31FVX7dlm

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  4. For anyone interested in learning something about money:
    Rothbard's What has government done to our money?
    http://mises.org/money.asp

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  5. I can remember when a McD's hamburger was 15 cents as was the fries. (About 1963.) And...gas was 19 cents/gallon except during gas station wars when it was 12 cents/gallon. (A silver dime & two real copper pennies.)

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  6. Actually it is way worse, chemical composition and "food like substances" have replaced the actual food in that burger. Farming has got more mechanical, the items have more GMO ingredients that should have brought prices down due to economies of scale and resulting productivity gains. These have all been offset due to monetary debasement, labour laws being less flexible, litigation risk etc.

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  7. Bob - Serious question: How much do you think is due to inflation and how much of the price increase(s) came from management raising prices over the years?

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    1. Serious answer: Read up.

      Signed,
      Not Bob

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    2. Anon-

      McDs cannot raise prices without losing business. Management cannot set prices, EVER. They can RISK increasing the price, but might lose out to BK, or Wendy's, or cooking at home.

      These prices are set by the market. A McD burger in Hawaii or Alaska is more expensive due to costs. Same with NYC. As soon as Seattle makes the minimum wage $15/hr the cost of a McDs burger there will skyrocket. Well, unless they bring in our new robot overlords.

      Seattle is the now the BEST place to open a "get in, get out in 5 years" local fast food chain. The $15/hr minimum wage for big businesses will make it easier for upstarts that can pay 60% of their minimum labor costs.

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  8. "Everyone who eats at McDonald's knows that their cheeseburger looks and tastes exactly as it did 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. "

    No. It doesn't. That's why I stopped eating there 20 years ago because it was (IMO) horrible food. When I last ate something from them 12 years ago it was even worse. It's cost reduced food that tastes horrible. They are best that I can tell trying to maintain price point by sacrificing quality and taste.

    My father tells me how the food was prepared when he worked at a MickyD's in the 1960s as teenager. It has no resemblance to how they do things today. It certainly isn't the same food they had when I was kid in the 1970s and 80s.

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  9. Due to the anti-McDonald's comments being posted, I thought it might be worth posting this, which refutes the negative mythology surrounding the McDonald's burger. http://nomsandsciunce.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/why-wont-those-mcdonalds-burgers-go-bad/

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  10. what's in your pocket????????????

    Master Currency Counterfeiter Prints Millions, Says ‘Screw You’ to US
    A man who claims he is the best counterfeiter in the world, Frank Bourassa, has been allowed to go free after turning over a huge quantity of fake U.S. $20 bills that authorities say are “not detectable by the naked eye.”

    Bourassa, a resident of Trois Rivieres outside Montreal, Canada, spent only a month and a half in jail and Canadian authorities agreed earlier this year that they would not extradite him to the United States for prosecution.

    He walked out of court on March 28 after paying a $1,500 fine in Canadian dollars.

    “I’m safe, absolutely,” Bourassa told ABC News in an interviewed to be broadcast tonight on "20/20".

    “They can’t do nothing about that,” he said after freely admitting how he set up a secret printing operation capable of producing $250 million in fake U.S. currency.

    WATCH the full "20/20" report tonight at 10 p.m. EST

    Bourassa’s fake $20 first showed up in Troy, Michigan in 2010 and U.S. and Canadian authorities spent almost four years tracking the source to Bourassa.

    The fake notes have since been found across the U.S., from California to Nevada to Florida to states in the Northeast.
    http://news.yahoo.com/master-currency-counterfeiter-prints-millions-says-screw-us-161816484--abc-news-topstories.html

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    Replies
    1. Ah come on, they're all fake.

      Delete
  11. Not to disagree with the intent of the post, but as a Boomer who remembers eating at McDonald's back then, when I was dumb and young, maybe this menu is from 1971, but I would place it some time from the late 60's. I swear that by 1978 or so a Quarter Pounder with Cheese would have set you back for at least $1.50

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    Replies
    1. The quarter pounder (according to Wikipedia at least) was not introduced until 1972.

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  12. Spare a thought for the days when prices were engraved on wood, rather than displayed on ever-changing tumblers.

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  13. Bloomberg headline today, "Record Meat Costs Mean Pricey Barbecues: Chart of the Day." (Still looking for any hint of inflation.)

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  14. Chris, I beg to differ. In the late 70s, one could eat a McDonalds' burger secure in the knowledge that one was actually eating REAL FOOD. Anyone dumb enough to eat in McDonalds nowadays is surely taking their life into their own hands. Between the steroid pumped, GMO fed, antibiotic stuffed beef, to the chemically doused french fries doused in GMO corn or canola oil, eating that crap nowadays is the same as getting on the expressway to disease and death.

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