The Subtlety of Politics

For the past month I've been watching the candidates for national office give speeches and interviews. I've been impressed with the ability of J.D. Vance to respond to questions, hostile or otherwise, and show that he has more than a surface knowledge of the issues. Of the four candidates I think he is the most skilled at dealing with the press.

Below is an example, albeit during a friendly interview with Fox News' Dana Perino:



At the 1:25 mark he says "You can't just walk into a McDonald's and sign a W-9 and actually go onto the payroll." (The W-9 is the IRS form in which a new employee declares his Social Security Number to his employer.) The fact that Mr. Vance knew the correct form number and stated it when he didn't have to was impressive to this career accountant.

Additional comment on McDonald's: there's a ridiculous controversy about whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. She claims that she did, and her detractors say that she didn't; neither side has produced evidence to support their position, and McDonald's has no record of her employment. (The Harris campaign believes that she worked during the summer of 1983 at the McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda, California.)

There's an easy way to check. Just ask the Social Security Administration:

We can give you copies or printouts of your Forms W-2 for any year from 1978 to the present. You can get free copies if you need them for a Social Security-related reason. But there is a fee of $62 per request if you need them for an unrelated reason. You can also get a transcript or copy of your Form W-2 from the Internal Revenue Service. However, state and local tax information isn’t available if you e-filed your tax return.

How tough would it be for Kamala Harris to request a copy of her 1983 W-2 from the SSA or IRS and put the matter to rest? The fact that she hasn't done so is a strong indicator that she did not work at McDonald's, but of course yours truly is just a simple accountant who knows nothing about the subtlety of politics.

It's a Wonderful Country

John Sowell, at the chain's grand opening in Idaho

We went to the San Carlos In-N-Out tonight, like we do once a month, and ordered the double-double animal style (double cheeseburger with grilled onions). I thought I knew the In-N-Out "secret menu" lingo, but I'm a neophyte compared to John Sowell:

“I ordered what I call a 2-by-1, known by In-N-Out as a double-single, two beef patties but only one piece of cheese versus the two on the double-double,” he recalls.

“Animal-style, with mustard slathered patties on the grill, extra of their thousand island spread and pickles. I also asked for cold cheese, so it wasn’t melted on the grill, a whole slice of grilled onion and whole slice of raw onion. And cut in half. Also fries cooked light well which keeps them in the oil about 40 seconds extra. The regular fries, to me, aren’t cooked enough.”

John Sowell is a fast-food superfan, which is a sub-genre of superfandom, who camps out overnight to be the first in line at the opening of an In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, etc.

Wait of the future

Your humble blogger isn't a snooty gourmand, but I wouldn't wait a couple of hours, much less overnight, for a burger.

However, McDonald's new space-themed restaurant, CosMc's, sounds interesting...

Present Tents

Now that I'm retired, I have (even more) difficulty keeping up.

Earlier today I had to go to McDonald's(!) to discover the term "table tent." In McDonald's case a table tent is the triangular plastic on which a customer's order number is inscribed.

Table tents are more commonly used as marketing tools.

These cardboard, self-standing mini billboards can help you display promotions, menu items, service list and more. They’re also a great way to greet and guide customers at tradeshows, reception areas, and lobbies.

"Table tent" has been in use for at least a decade,

Frankly, I don't like the coinage because the underlying noun, "tent," is a temporary shelter made of cloth, soft plastic, or cardboard. "Table tent" appears to originate from the triangular shape that used to be commonplace but is no longer a prerequisite for tentship.

There's no point in being distressed. If McDonald's is using language that I'm unfamiliar with, I should just accept that I have become permanently out of the loop.

You Deserve Egg Whites Today

While placing an order for others this morning at the local McDonald's:

I’d like a Sausage McMuffin with egg whites.

“We have brown eggs.”

Never mind.

I didn't want to embarrass the earnest young newbie at the cash register by explaining the difference between egg whites and white eggs. Besides, the line was building up behind me.

If you're high maintenance and go to McDonald's, either adjust your expectations or don't bother going.

Father's Day, 2019

You know that it's going to be a good day when you order the Big Breakfast (without pancakes), and McDonald's gives you the pancakes by mistake.

That's 90 cents of value---ka-ching!

Happy Father's Day!

I'm Watching You Watch Me

At the local Mickey D's the Google driver was on lunch break. In San Mateo County condos, townhouses, and apartments are springing up on every privately owned patch of dirt, accompanied by a few new roads that need to be mapped from above and from the street.

Despite the expensive electronics, the car is totally theft-proof; everyone knows it's watching them watch it.

They Deserve a Break Today

On Thursday the person in charge of McDonald's Twitter account seemed to have a brain [freeze]:

Gullible commenters of both the left and right praised and dissed Mickey D's for its impertinent tweet. The Twitter post is obviously a fake or the result of a hack. Large public companies don't risk alienating a good portion of their customers by making political remarks, however strongly some executives might feel toward expressing themselves in such a manner. (They might chance it as individuals, but that would kill a shot at a promotion.)

WSJ:

McDonald’s mostly stays out of politics, declining to comment publicly on administration policies that could affect the restaurant industry, deferring comment to the industry’s trade group.

It's not clear, by the way, that McDonald's management has a monolithic political view. According to the The Center for Media and Democracy [bold added]

" McDonald's political action committee (PAC) spent a total of $1,071,627, including $735,875 to individual candidates, at the federal level in the 2014 election cycle. Of candidate contributions, 55 percent went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats.")

McDonald's followed shortly with a claim that it was hacked:

Twitter notified us that our account was compromised. We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this.

— McDonald's (@McDonaldsCorp) March 16, 2017

To its credit McDonald's got out in front of the controversy early. It was also lucky that there wasn't more mischief done.

When One Big Mac Just Isn't Enough

(Time photo)

Just in time to test one's New Year's resolve, McDonald's will roll out the Big Mac's bigger brother, the Grand Mac, in early 2017.

Both the Grand Mac and the Mac Jr. launched in Florida this month, so if Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings still left you feeling empty, dear reader, head to the Sunshine State for that "hearty, beef-forward experience."

As for me, I'll just have to buy two Big Macs for the times when one just isn't enough.

Blowback

Margrethe Vestager, EU Competition Commissioner 

The field of international tax planning was specialized, complex, cloistered, and quiet---until the European Commission ruled on Tuesday that Apple has to pay €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. Tax-the-corporations crusaders "hooted with delight" and seemingly didn't care about the methods used to arrive at the result. The overwhelming majority who adhere to the rule of law--whether the law cuts for or against their preferences--saw the danger.

The Economist [bold added]:

"The commission concluded that Irish rulings in 1991 and 2007 artificially lowered the tax Apple was due to pay, and that although the firm did not break any law, this arrangement was in breach of EU state-aid rules preventing member states from offering preferential treatment to particular firms."

Normally laws trump "rules" in the hierarchy of legal authority, but not, apparently, when the laws of the sovereign state of Ireland are measured against the rules of the European Commission.

The Wall Street Journal:

For a quarter-century, Apple relied on agreements from Irish authorities that all of a sudden are adjudged to have provided it with billions of dollars in what the EU has now ruled to be illegal state aid.

There's no question that Apple and other multinational corporations take advantage of inconsistencies between tax jurisdictions ("tax arbitrage"). To achieve significant tax reduction under the law, however, multinationals must have employees and other attributes of a "real business" in low-tax countries, hence explaining why Dublin is a boomtown.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: "Total political crap"

Quite apart from the merits of its case, the European Commission ruling can be viewed as an attempt to reassert its authority (and finances) after Brexit. However, the blowback may have been stronger than they had anticipated.

Apple's EU tax ruling has sparked talk of an 'Ir-exit'. Other European countries are watching and weighing the benefits of staying in the union.

Apple, as well as other multinationals like McDonald's and Amazon, will contest the judgment for years. Meanwhile, they have also begun moving some operations out of the Eurozone to reduce exposure to EC rulings. We are seeing either the resuscitation of the European experiment or the beginning of its end. If I had to bet, it would be on the latter.

America is Still Great Golden

A Foster City Big Mac is $3.99

For thirty (30) years the Economist has been tracking the Big Mac index "as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their 'correct' level". Using McDonald's flagship burger as a universal symbol of value, the current BMI shows that

In America, a Big Mac costs $5.04 on average. In Hong Kong, by comparison, the same burger costs the equivalent of $2.50 or so....In Hong Kong, where the Big Mac costs 19.20 Hong Kong dollars, that hypothetical exchange rate would be 3.81 Hong Kong dollars [blogger's note: HK$ 19.20 divided by US $5.04] to the greenback. The real, market exchange rate is much weaker: it takes 7.75 Hong Kong dollars to buy one of the American sort. According to the Big Mac index, then, the Hong Kong dollar is heavily undervalued—by more than half.

This anomaly is what keeps arbitrageurs in business; they could take US$ 5.04, convert it at 7.75 to HK$ 39.06, and get two Big Macs in Hong Kong for the price of one in the U.S. There might even be enough left over for a small order of fries.

Even more interesting is that China now has the world's largest economy as measured by "patty purchasing power."

If a country spent its entire annual income on Big Macs, how many burgers could it buy? America’s GDP is forecast to be over $18.5 trillion this year, according to the IMF. That translates into almost 3.7 trillion burgers at a little over five bucks apiece....China’s GDP will be a little over 73 trillion yuan this year, says the IMF, or less than $11.4 trillion. But in China, a Big Mac costs only 18.6 yuan. So its GDP is equivalent to over 3.9 trillion burgers, over 5% more than the American total.

Of course, I had to verify such an astounding revelation with my own eyes and went to the Foster City McDonald's, where the Big Mac costs $3.99. At that price---and we're in one of the priciest areas in the country---the U.S. can buy 4.6 trillion burgers. Whew! China still has to ketchup.

Pay It Forward

Screenshot: Apple Pay was
also a snap at Whole Foods

Unlike its counterparts in other locales, McDonald's in Redwood City has trained its employees in the use of Apple Pay. The cashier instructed me to wave the iPhone 6 over the near field communication device, then confirm the credit card charge with a thumbprint on the iPhone home button. It worked like a charm.

After lunch we noticed the cashier standing in the middle of the parking lot. She had a McDonald's lunch bag and was walking back to the restaurant at a very slow pace, much slower than barely-mobile relatives who must use walkers. (Her earlier hand tremors now had an explanation.)

When we approached, she asked me to move her car to a more accessible disabled-parking stall. I was happy to spend a minute to save her 15.

Good for her for being productive in the face of hardship, and good for McDonald's for employing her when she cannot perform every task that other employees must.

We will be stopping at the Redwood City Mickey D's more often.

Not Your Grandpa's Great Depression

We had to wait for a table at the Foster City IHOP this morning. An IHOP breakfast costs more than a Mickey D's McMuffin or a Starbucks croissant, but the booth was comfortable, coffee was served in a mug, and I could browse through the Sunday paper. Our waiter cleared the plates and presented the bill promptly, the first time in memory that I felt rushed.

It's good to see local businesses doing well, and I support them as much as I can. I could have had some oatmeal at home, but it's my patriotic duty to go out and spend(shades of 9/11). Can't stuff the money in my mattress.

Memorial Day, 2007

For God, for Country, and for Mickey D's

To the men and women of our armed forces, and especially those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, thank you.