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Comment Re:Sleezy stuff, but not price fixing (Score 1) 90

They are still part of the same parent corporation.

No they are not, they are just licensing the right to use the McD branding and products. That are not part of anything.

They are in a contractual relationship with that parent corporation and that contract includes a significant amount of cooperation.

Comment Re:Real life different than ivory tower (Score 1) 90

It is because he didn't loose his faith in communism, he lost his faith in the USSR.

Wrong, He tried to reform a communist system. It wasn't working. After the random visit to a US grocery store he lost his faith in communism. Realized reforming the communist state was futile. And decided capitalism was superior.

It never was based on Marx, on Lenin yes but not Marx. The key point or Marxism is that the workers should control the means of production, this never ever happened in the USSR, nor in the DPRK.

Marxism provided the economic foundation of the USSR. Lenin proposed Vanguard leadership due to the overwhelmingly rural population.

Instead the means of production was controlled by a few oligarchs which means that the USSR had far more in comparison with capitalism that what you want to believe.

No, leadership was provided by Lenin's "Vanguard" concept, embodied by the Communist Party.

Bread lines and empty shelves long predated those events.

Yes it was, not sure why OP decided that those two events where the basis for the collapse.

You misunderstood. Those two events were mentioned because of GP assertion that communism is the solution to the food pricing problem McDonalds presents.

The bread lines and the empty shelves was due to the failure of the plan economy and Lysenkoism.

Actually, the underlying economic theory based in marxism.

Actually the US standard of living is higher. Hence the European socialist joy when they visit a USA supermarket.

Not at all, try and visit outside of America even once.

I have, western and eastern europe. Various capital cities. About the only superiority is mass transit in cities. We truly suck at that. NYC, SF, WDC subways pale in comparison.

The "joy" that Europeans show when they visit American supermarkets is "see how silly and comically large this place is".

Actually it is comical to Americans too. But like the Europeans we also love it, learning its convenience and value.

yes there where a few that showed actual joy during the world cup but they all turned out to be Americans pretending to be Europeans

LOL, why am I not surprised at the lengths you denial goes to. Was Yeltsin somehow duped at his supermarket experience where he learned that superiority of the capitalist economic system. Note also the Chinese Communists also learned the superiority of the the capitalist economic system. Like Yeltsin, choosing not to go down the suicidal marxist path.

World history shows that capitalsm raised people out of poverty, communism pushed them a big step back towards poverty.

Comment Re: Technically, I think its "price experimentatio (Score 1) 90

Pricing experimentation doesn't have anything to do with other restaurants pricing. It means a single company trying different methods internally.

I don't think we have "other restaurants pricing". I think we have each restaurant experimenting with its pricing using guidance from the parent corporation. Each restaurant will discover a different price.

Comment Re:Real life different than ivory tower (Score 0) 90

Especially when readers like you subscribe to capitalist propaganda.

Its not propaganda that the leader of the Soviet Union visited a random US grocery store and lost his faith in communism. It happened.

There is no argument that "real world Marxism produces" what you say ...

Other than the Soviet union being fundamentally based on the theories of Marx and Lenin?

And the USSR failed by a combination of Afganistan war and Chernobyl.

Bread lines and empty shelves long predated those events.

"Today we see a loss of faith in marxism in youtube videos when someone from venezuela or north korea visit costco, an american grocery store." No we don't.

Only if you don't watch them. They exist nonetheless.

"Hell, European socialists are overwhelmed with joy." Why shouldn't they be? Their standards of living are higher than ours.

Actually the US standard of living is higher. Hence the European socialist joy when they visit a USA supermarket. The national government involved in national issues and needs is not socialism in the marxist socialist sense. Neither is a local government involved in local issues and needs.. It all predates Marx even in the USA.

Comment Re:Sleezy stuff, but not price fixing (Score 0) 90

They are competitors because they have different owners.

They are still part of the same parent corporation. And there is much legal coordination, sharing of trade secrets, etc as a result.

Another difference is that the two restaurants will not ultimately have the same price. Each will independently determine the willingness to pay of its respective customers and price accordingly.

This sounds more like price experimentation. Franchisees have always been able to have different prices. This is just a new way to determine a different price. Its not like they are directly or indirectly (some ration relationship be tween prices) sharing some price.

but they definitely compete with each other.

So do the corporate owned restaurants.

Yes, different locations can have different prices for this very reason. The problem is when the locations conspire together to keep prices artificially high.

Are they conspiring, or are they each determining their respective customer base's willingness to pay? I don't think the end result of this new process is a common price, that would not optimize revenue as would each discovering its own customer base willingness to pay

It sounds like corporation has some pricing algorithm to maximize profit, it then tells franchisees what to charge, monitors sales, tunes the prices with experimentation, etc.

RealPage ... McD's seems to have some version of this but for burgers.

Except franchisees are part of the same corporation and are already coordinating in many different ways.

Comment Technically, I think its "price experimentation" (Score 1) 90

It says the prices will be adjusted to what consumers will pay in other nearby restaurants. Isn't that the very definition of collusion?

Note "competitors"

"Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftc.gov%2Fadvice-gui...

A company doing some sort of price discovery process at different locations, say A/B testing, is something different. Technically, I think its "price experimentation"

"Pricing experimentation is the systematic process of testing different pricing strategies, structures, and price points to determine what maximizes revenue, customer acquisition, and profitability. Rather than guessing at optimal prices, companies run controlled experiments to understand how pricing changes affect customer behavior."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.meteroid.com%2Fgloss...

Comment Real life different than ivory tower (Score 0, Troll) 90

If this pisses you off you can choose not to go to there OR you can choose another economic system

Given the real world long lines and mostly empty shelves that real world Marxism produces, you might want to fund a different topic for the marxist propaganda.

"Yeltsin's entourage made an unexpected stop at a Randalls grocery store to see what the average American shopping experience was like. Multiple commentators have noted that the grocery store visit had a major impact on Yeltsin's political views, with an aide who had been present with him during the trip saying that "the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed inside" of him following the trip. Upon his return to the Soviet Union, Yeltsin continued to advocate for political reform and for closer ties with the United States. In 1991, he was elected president of Russia and, in that position, helped lead the country away from a communist system and towards a democratic capitalist one."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Sorry, real life marxism is a bit different than ivory tower marxism. Today we see a loss of faith in marxism in youtube videos when someone from venezuela or north korea visit costco, an american grocery store. Hell, European socialists are overwhelmed with joy.

Comment Sleezy stuff, but not price fixing (Score 1) 90

Because it is price-fixing via an app.

I think price fixing requires collusion between competitors. It will be hard to argue that franchisees of the same restaurant are competitors. Plus the franchisor could argue that this is price discovery. determining the customer willingness to pay. That the two Fresno restaurants with different prices is an A/B test.

so every restaurant everywhere has the same high price

It doesn't sound like they are doing that, that they are trying to discover local willingness to pay to maximize profits. Consider those two Fresno restaurants, I expect one is downtown and one is next to the offramp of a rather large freeway; and that their respective customers are willing to pay different prices.

I agree all this is a little sleezy, that different prices at different restaurants should be based on different expenses. Like higher rent in one neighborhood compared to another.

Comment Re: How about fruit (Score 1) 138

I'm trying to figure out what you're talking about. Are you maybe talking about PEPC binding of bicarbonate and dissolved CO2? That's a replenishing / balancing pathway for the citric acid cycle to make up for the plant robbing from it when it sequesters nitrogen (and to restore pH). It contributes at best 1-2% of the plant's carbon, and that's only if nitrogen uptake is very heavy. And bicarbonate and CO2 (they form an equilibrium) are not "soil carbon"; they're not part of the soil, they're just gas dissolved in soil moisture; the same applies equally whether the plant were grown in rich fertile humus or totally inert sterile perlite. Humus is inert and decay-resistant (that's why it persists).

A couple other guesses as to what you mean. Scavenging of free amino acids from decaying matter? Plants do that to capture nitrogen. Any carbon captured inadvertently in the process is completely irrelevant in scale. They can also pick up very tiny amounts of sugars - not physiologically relevant.

Or are you saying that soil matter rots, CO2 returns to the air, and then plants "breathe" it in? I mean, it's... technically true? But it's still atmospheric CO2 at that point, in an atmosphere shared with all life.

If not, I'm baffled. Maybe you're confusing "corn is a heavy feeder" with thinking that means carbon? (that's about fertilizer). Or perhaps you're confusing how effective corn is at capturing carbon and depositing it in soil with thinking that that's coming from the soil? I'm just guessing here.

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