• TheDubz87@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Which is ironic as fast food used to have 2 appeals - quick and cheap.

      I’m not sure how quick they are these days because I can no longer afford it.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Which is ironic

        Is it tho?

        It’s capitalism, once you dominate the market share you raise prices.

        Fast food pushed out small local shops, but there’s a few major chains everywhere. So now they’re more expensive than sit down restaurants, because the “speed” which isn’t all that fast anymore is treated as a premium and not a side effect from being cheap/easy food.

        Like, everything is based off stock price, and stock price is about profit margin going up. And that’s exponential, it’s not mathematically possible to keep going up.

        The only way is to keep pushing up prices and making products shittier.

        It’s not irony, it’s working as intended.

        Capitalism only works when you break up monopolies regularly so there can be competition.

        Hell, this is way more evident in a franchise model. The actual owners can’t really do anything, they’re locked in long leases and are forced to buy from only one supplier.

        If McDonald’s says party prices go up 50%, the franchise owner has literally zero options. They have to pay it.

        The whole system is fucked and pretty much a pyramid scheme.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Just to add, Reagan ‘deregulated’ the hell out of the economy. It gave America a phoney boom in the 1980s.

          In 1980, ‘middle class’ was still one Union job supporting a family of four, and $1 million was considered a vast fortune. By 1992, middle class was two incomes to keep the house going, and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Republicans break shit, moderate Dems neglect to fix it.

            For generations we’ve had a steady march to the right because of that system.

            And considering the same people/corporations donate to both parties, it doesn’t seem overly cynical to say ourmodern political system is working exactly as the wealthy designed it to work.

            • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Moderate Dems get elected because this country isn’t progressive. We collectively want these things to happen, which is why they do.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Progressive policy is popular regardless of labels or even parties.

                Even in 2020 most Americans wanted single payer healthcare.

                But because trump ran as a Republican, that meant the Dem candidate couldn’t want to fix healthcare, for some reason is till don’t understand.

                We collectively want healthcare to be improved, but the people who donate to both parties don’t, which is why it doesn’t happen.

                • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Either our government is representative of its people and they don’t really want those things, or it’s not representative of its people and needs destroyed. See the Declaration of Independence for more information.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              If voting didn’t work, the GOP wouldn’t be trying to prevent people from voting.

              If you don’t like the Dem candidates in your area, you can contribute to AOC or Omar.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                you can contribute to AOC or Omar.

                Yep. Stopped giving to the DNC back in 2016 after Hillary’s swindle.

                I only give directly to individual candidat I support now.

                Doesn’t stop all the spam from Biden or the DNC tho, no matter how many times I text “stop” or “unsubscribe”, they just don’t care about anything a voter says.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    When FDR created the minimum wage he explicitly stated that someone making it should be able to live in some comfort. That meant not just food and shelter, but some savings and a chance to have a few nice things.

    In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour. The average house was $11,000.00. Two people could eat and go to a concert for $5.00. In those days, $1 million was an incredible fortune.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The wages of fast food workers have been increasing over the past decade. Ten years ago, their median wage was $8.69/hr. Today, it’s over $14/hr. In California, the minimum is now $20/hr.

      Increased wages for low income workers are good, since they have outpaced inflation. But they will inevitably result in increased prices. It’s unrealistic to expect the employer to absorb all of the increased costs.

      And fast food employers often couldn’t absorb the wage increases even if they wanted to. Remember, a McDonald’s employee isn’t paid by McDonald’s HQ, they are paid by the person who runs the individual location, who is also paying McDonald’s HQ for ingredients. Some of the franchise owners are doing well, some of them aren’t, but all of them are going to raise prices.

      In other words, if you don’t want to pay more for fast food, then you don’t actually want to see fast food workers earn a better wage.

      • legofreak@feddit.de
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        4 months ago

        In other words, if you don’t want to pay more for fast food, then you don’t actually want to see fast food workers earn a better wage.

        If a business relies on exploitation, it shouldn’t exist. If paying the workers a living wage means raising the prices beyond a sustainable level for the business, this business shouldn’t exist. If a business pays out millions in bonuses to it’s executives while the workers are relying on government subsidies, the business shouldn’t exist.

  • fpslem@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    How much of the increased price of fast food is because restaurants have to pay workers more than $7.25/hour now? It seems like the entire business model of cheap fast food was premised on low-quality food and labor costs so low that most fast-food workers qualified for public assistance. Leaving aside the low-quality oligarchical food product industry and just looking at the labor side, it’s still a failure. And a business model that relies on food stamps and welfare for its employees really isn’t a business model.

    • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      This is the EXACT reason why prices NEVER WENT UP until the $7.25 Minimum Wage was RAISED!

  • Kekzkrieger@feddit.de
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    4 months ago

    Fast food used to be shit quality for little money.

    Now its shit quality for a fuckton of money.

    Cook at home folks, more nutricious, tastes better, is cheaper and if you pick the right recipes its also fast.

    • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      And if you don’t want to cook for yourself, at least go to a local take-out restaurant that probably costs less than the shitty fast food, even if you have to wait a few more minutes for it.