Some interesting facts about fast food in the US

[Mallette]

THey are just trying to make a beautiful product that lasts long.

 

Another point on that thought.  Why would they care about long lasting in our part of the country?  There's a supply of dirt cheap corn tortillas within 10 miles of almost everybody in the state, made daily.  Automated fryer which takes maybe one minute and you are good to go.

 

There must be some seriously stinkn' thinkn' at Taco Bell headquarters and people who can't tell refried schies from beans.

 

Dave

[Jeff Matthews]

 

 

  I can understand, though not like, the reasons to fill meat.  Even 5% would add up to big bucks over time.  But tortillas?  Gimme a break...  

 

The deal with breads is to add preservatives.  It really has nothing to do with cheapening them by way of adding filler.  THey are just trying to make a beautiful product that lasts long. 

 

 

Which is cheaper:

Baking 1000 loaves a week and tossing out 500 because they go stale, or baking 500 loaves filled with chemical preservatives?

 

I think you've missed the economic incentive for tainting the products.

 

 

Yes, I didn't miss that.  That was my point.  Add something to make the product cost a tiny smidge more but last forever.

[Axz Hout]

H

[Travis In Austin]

 

I don't think they teach "bad" at Penn, McCombs, Harvard Business School, or elsewhere, but they DO do a lot of case study analysis.

 

Our CEO corps comes out of these prestigious B-schools. That's not too arguable. Our current CEO culture has a set of values that can be assessed in aggregate by examining the state of business. It's not therefore a stretch to correlate the teaching of those schools, with the results we see in the business community. Fair?

 

 

 

Not fair, and the assumptions which flow from that faulty premise defy logic.

 

People don't learn values in graduate business schools, law schools, medical schools, high schools or even primary schools for that matter.  A person's sense of values, their moral compass if you will, is established long before graduate school, probably before middle school even.  

 

I don't pretend to know why people do what they do, but you don't need to go to business school to be a bad person, unethical or greedy.  I don't know if it is because of our economic system or if we are hard wired this way because of DNA or our creator.  A since of self-preservation seems to hard wired in us, and when it comes to self-preservation people do the stupidest crazy things.

 

People have done far worse things to their fellow man that lie, cheat and steel to get money.  The  studies of the psychology of the buyer by Robert Cialdini which led to his six influences is pretty spot on in what motivates buyers.  

 

Are people basically good, or bad?  I don't know, that is a question better to Hobbes (Levithan, basically evil), Locke (blank slate)  and Rousseau (social contract, basically good).  The world's great thinkers and philosophers have been thinking about this for a long, long, time.  

 

But I do know this, it does not take much, at all,  for people to be evil, for almost no money at all.  Most people are aware of the following two psychological studies, but for some reason they so easily forget their implications.  I think this is we don't want to think what we are capable of.  

 

Stanley Morgan's electrocution study.  Research subjects believed that were zapping somebody in an adjacent room that they could not see, but could hear screaming.  Some refused to keep going, some were hesitant but only need to be told by an "authority" figure that they need to keep going, and they did.  Sixty-five percent (65%) of the subjects went up to the maximum of 450 volts shocking their fellow man, or so they thought, by just being told they needed to do it.  Throw money in the equation and how hard is it to get a CFO to cook the books of Enron?  

 

Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment.  Two equal size groups of students were selected as "guards" or "prisoners" and put in a simulated prison at Stanford.  Anyone could quit at anytime.  The guards began to abuse the prisoners.  Troublemakers were put in solitary confinement, made to sleep on floor etc.  The experiment had to be ended early because of the treatment by the guards.  None of the guard's reported any of the abuse of their fellow guards.

 

The Prince, when viewed as satire, which I think it was, points out all the human failings which prevent a monarch from being good, and because of human failings, the compromise of a republic is necessary.  I think you can look at those perceived failings of a monarch and apply them to the potential of a CEO.  Some monarchs might be truly good, just as some CEO's might be good, but human nature does not allow for most monarchs to be good, nor CEO's to be good, thus, there has to be a system of accountability, of oversight.

 

What is surprising to me is that we have to learn these lessons, over and over again.  The term regulation is tossed around as an evil word, yet it assures our safety, our health, and helps assure our pursuit of happiness.  We deregulate and problems happen.  

 

I have not run across David Korten before, I am going read his works to see if they goes beyond the generalities and offer suggestions for realistic change.  A "values based" operating system is certainly admirable, and I would love that to be the reality, but there has to be a mechanism to accomplish that, putting aside for the moment the deeper questions of what values and who's?  If he has realistic suggestions for solutions I will probably be his biggest fan, if not it is just fiction or philosophy, and there is plenty of that already on this subject.

 

Travis

[slickrick63]

Silly Putty for God's sake!

I always end up with a stomach ache from McDonalds food. I always knew something is not right about that meat, It's just not normal. it seems like paper pulp or something.

[Jeff Matthews]

More bad values compounding here, this time from our law schools. They lied. They cheated. They stole. They bribed. And then held the entire nation hostage by threatening us all with even deeper disaster unless we paid them off.

 

... and they used the bailout money to give big bonuses to keep the crooks on the payroll.  

[Travis In Austin]

 

People don't learn values in graduate business schools, law schools, medical schools, high schools or even primary schools for that matter. A person's sense of values, their moral compass if you will, is established long before graduate school, probably before middle school even.

I didn't say they obtained their values or sense of value in B school. Let's please be careful. I said they learn "bad values" there (new ones, overriding their old ones). My argument has been that our society is suffering under the horrendous values of capitalism writ large. That in fact, the extreme profit seeking of the past 30 years is creating misery where none belongs in such a wealthy nation.

How did this new viscous profit seeking arise? It arose in the nation's premier business schools where the arts of "financialization" were invented, along with the distorted values needed to implement them.

What distorted values you ask? How about "too big to fail," for a start? That's the embrace of a very powerful and very socially evil value system which seeks to cover private losses with public funds. A reverse Robin Hood. That was held as a value of all the largest WS operators. Let's find a few others, lest you think I was overstating my case.

How about the securitization and sale of known defective loan bundles under the cover of caveat emptor? How's that for values? The invention of the mortgage securitization system was that of the "quants" coming out of Harvard B school. The values here are that real economic activity is unimportant in comparison to synthetic economic activity, as long as the profitability is huge, and the action stays one step ahead of the SEC. It's a combination of theft with obfuscating the activity to prevent SEC scrutiny. We might as well cover another bad value, which was capturing the regulatory body to prevent over sight while crimes were being committed.

These B school big brains plunged the world into suffering not seen since 1930 while chasing higher profits. That they are not all in prison right now is a poor reflection on the VALUES of our justice department, who chose to spit in the public face, and declare that these people were above the law. More bad values compounding here, this time from our law schools. They lied. They cheated. They stole. They bribed. And then held the entire nation hostage by threatening us all with even deeper disaster unless we paid them off. What kind of values are those?

Our financial system in the 2000s was stocked with the best and brightest of these quants directly out of the premier B schools. Yes, they arrived to school with normal and typical American values, but left with new dangerous and evil values that directly plunged the world into a near disaster. Are you unaware or unsympathetic to the millions who lost their jobs and were booted to the street from their homes because of what these brilliant new titans of Wall Street "valued?"

I guess I am now wondering where you have been living for the past 10 years? Not in America, I presume.

A massive criminal conspiracy operated on WS for two dozen years and brought the country to near death. It was run not by some gun toting gangsters, but diploma toting Big Brains, with despicable values learned from our nation's premier institutions. And, they're still free to continue wreaking havoc on the economy. THAT'S what's not fair.

 

 

 

Oh I can assure you I have been living here, but I don't limit myself to a ten year window.  Where I am at is with Howard Zinn.  The values you describe were present in the 1500s when The Prince was written, and they were present during the founding and development of our Nation.  What has occurred over the last ten or twenty years didn't start then, it has always been.  I know that your values, from reading your posts over the last ten years, are nearly identical to mine, and my reaction to the results are the same as yours.

 

However, I think it unwise to believe that what we are seeing now is the result of of business or law schools.  Carnegie and Morgan never went to business or law school, although Mellon was a lawyer and judge, none of them learned what they in fact created.  Have you been to Hearst Castle, the summer "cottages" in Newport, Jekyll Island?  Zinn discusses how that wealth was created, the CEO's of today are mere amateurs compared to those guys.  

 

Kenneth Law had a PhD in economics from the University of Houston, grew up in MO where he received his undergraduate and masters degree.  He didn't learn his "values" from business or law school.  It is like saying people from Scotland have been taught bad values.  Congress has the power to change bad values, the Sherman Act, Taft-Hartley.  Congress is us.  We are to blame for whatever ills we perceive from Wall Street, corporate america, or whatever else.

 

You don't learn values in graduate school, and you certainly don't learn bad business practices there either.  Schools, of whatever kind, are not to blame.  CEO's come from every type of educational background and schooling.  The answer is not the education of CEO's, and to direct efforts in that regard, in my view, is a waste of time for those that really want to change things.

 

Travis

[Tarheel]

 

Some things are presented here which I wasn't aware of.  Interesting that McDonalds is following the same line of "reasoning" as Monsanto that it's fine for Americans to be poisoned, but not fine for the citizens of other countries.  I'd love to see the non-US based bank accounts of those who make the laws here.........

 

Maynard

 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/11/mcdonalds-fries-ingredients.aspx?e_cid=20150211Z1_DNL_NB_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20150211Z1_DNL_NB&et_cid=DM67181&et_rid=838502390

 

I am afraid to read that article, just like I am afraid to watch "Fast Food Wars" based on what I have heard it uncovered.  Subway being made out of yoga mat material.  I thought no way, that has got to be a  hoax.  My quick go to source for an instant BS test is SNOPES.  Comes back true.  I heard that someone had asked Subway what their bread was made out of, got the stall, sent it to a lab on their own, yoga mat.

 

Several years ago I was reading the the label on a loaf of bread, and I am going down the list, whole wheat flower . . . and then saw "sawdust."  I couldn't believe it, had to check it three times.  Not particlized cellulose or some other watered down version, just "sawdust."

 

I was a fast food fiend for years and years, I just almost completely avoid it now, (well, I am assuming that Franklin BBQ is not considered fast food)  but you have to be just as careful with processed foods at the grocery story.

 

Curious myself I went to Snopes and could not find a mention of yoga mats/Subway.  Have a link Travis?  New or used mats

[Travis In Austin]

Some things are presented here which I wasn't aware of. Interesting that McDonalds is following the same line of "reasoning" as Monsanto that it's fine for Americans to be poisoned, but not fine for the citizens of other countries. I'd love to see the non-US based bank accounts of those who make the laws here.........

Maynard

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/11/mcdonalds-fries-ingredients.aspx?e_cid=20150211Z1_DNL_NB_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20150211Z1_DNL_NB&et_cid=DM67181&et_rid=838502390

I am afraid to read that article, just like I am afraid to watch "Fast Food Wars" based on what I have heard it uncovered. Subway being made out of yoga mat material. I thought no way, that has got to be a hoax. My quick go to source for an instant BS test is SNOPES. Comes back true. I heard that someone had asked Subway what their bread was made out of, got the stall, sent it to a lab on their own.

Several years ago I was reading the the label on a loaf of bread, and I am going down the list, whole wheat flower . . . and then saw "sawdust." I couldn't believe it, had to check it three times. Not particlized cellulose or some other watered down version, just "sawdust."

I was a fast food fiend for years and years, I just almost completely avoid it now, (well, I am assuming that Franklin BBQ is not considered fast food) but you have to be just as careful with processed foods at the grocery story.

Curious myself I went to Snopes and could not find a mention of yoga mats/Subway. Have a link Travis? New or used mats

I stand corrected, I was in a bar one day having cocktails when yogamat popped up in conversation and someone also mentioned that "antifreeze" was in Fireball Whiskey. I SNOPESed the antifreeze claim and at the same time someone read the from the Subway site that they acknowledged using a particular chemical which was, safe, nontoxic, and approved by the FDA and then someone said that it got started with a petition on the internet and the ingredient was originally listed by Subway but was discovered by private testing. I think I confused the fact that SNOPES confirmed that propelyne glycol was in Fireball at a level that resulted in a ban in a country with the conversation about the yoga mat controversy.

[Jeff Matthews]

Here you go:  http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/11/subway-yoga-mat-chemical-almost-out-of-bread/7587787/