Stock market pundits reference a story at The Fiscal Times, 13 Disturbing Facts about McDonald’s, every time Ronald McDonald publishes quarterly earnings. It happens with such regularity as to be almost cliché.
Well, we’re in the heat of 4th quarter earnings, and I figured to beat the Street to it.
Mostly, however, I wanted to write this column to warn the premier of China and encourage him to ban McDonald’s from that great nation. Hey, I’m no fan of the ChiComs, but I wouldn’t wish McDonald’s on my worse enemy.
McDonald’s has China in their sights. They plan to open a new McDonald’s every day for the next three years in China. If that ambitious scheme is successful they will no doubt continue the invasion for ten more years, maybe even 20 – hell, forever.
I like Chinese food. I assume the Chinese like Chinese food, too. It’s healthy, chock full of vegetables, low fat, and full of vegetable-based proteins like soy and the three beans.
Ronald McDonald abhors Chinese food. He’s marketing a cheap product that’s more addictive than cocaine. You get three days worth of saturated fat in one happy meal.
A regular diet of big gulps will rot your teeth, give you stomach ulcers, and shock your system with so much caffeine on a regular basis that your offspring will be born with attention deficit disorder (and a genetic predisposition for big macs).
Here in America, the first symbol most babies recognize is the McDonald’s Golden Arches. Ronald McDonald is more well known that Daffy Duck, Ronald Reagan, Mickey Mouse and Clint Eastwood combined. Their advertising methods are more powerful than any force on earth.
McDonald’s stores will spread in mainland China like the plague. Here in the U.S. there is only one tiny spot in South Bumfuck Dakota that is more than 100 miles from a Mickey D’s franchise outlet.
There are so many people in China, by the time they’re done, not one spot in China will be more than 10 miles from a McDonald’s; in big cities the spacing will be 10 blocks.
McDonald’s will obliterate your native cuisine. They will replace skilled food preparers who study under the Kung Fu cuisine masters for years with minimum wage workers who learn to work automated machines in half a day.
Hell, the fad now in America is totally automated outlets.
McDonald’s will obliterate your entire culture, Mr. Premier. Their advertisements will hypnotize the Chinese people into lusting for hot buns with a juicy slab of meat between them. Toys in their happy meals will promote homosexuality in your youngest children.
Do you want a company that employs 1 out of every 6 Chinese, pays them minimum wage, and has a 150% turnover rate?
I am not a big fan of all-powerful central governments, but in this situation I will give China a permanent exemption. I honestly believe the only force in the whole universe that can stop the mindless expansion of the McDonald’s behemoth is you and the National People’s Congress.
Please, y’all. Anything American but McDonald’s. Try Hooters, for God’s sake.
They’re hot.
