<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">On Wed, May 27, 2026 at 5:36\u202fPM Chris Frey <<a href="mailto:cdfrey@foursquare.net">cdfrey@foursquare.net</a>> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
I think the change we need is more people competing against the big<br>
brands. McDonalds apparently has a 44% operating margin:<br>
<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCD/key-statistics/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCD/key-statistics/</a><br>
I'm told that in a competitive market it should be around 10%. So why<br>
does McDonalds have such a high percentage? How? And why are we not<br>
creating competing businesses to eat McDonalds' lunch? I'd love to<br>
know the answers to this.<br>
<br>
I want to see new entrepreneurs springing up in that 34% gap.<br>
That's the change I'd love to see, and even be.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>There already are. Burger King, <span class="G8OMXb ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">Harveys,</span><span class="G8OMXb ng" style="border-style:none;background:none"> Wendys,</span> etc. are all major chains <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">that are trying to overtake McDonalds and continue to fail to do so.</span> <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">McDonalds has a</span> such a grip on consumers that even large chains can't overtake them. A small business has <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">less chance.</span><br><br></div><div>I worked in the restaurant industry for about 8 years and managed one for about 2 years. Economies of scale make it hard to compete. Most smaller restaurants <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">run</span> on a <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">1/3 labour, cost 1/3 food cost and almost 1/3 overhead+profit.</span> It's a business with slim margins. <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">McDonalds</span> can fine tune the entire process and can spend millions in R&D shaving a fraction of a percent in costs. The small <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">guy doesn't have any R&D money and</span> barely any <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">ad budget</span> and certainly doesn't have teams of experts trying to improve efficiency.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
As for the rest of his argument, that the ultra wealthy owe to society<br>
their fair share of taxes, </blockquote><div><br></div><div>The argument is simple: Those who benefit the most from society should <span class="gmail-Asgive gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(146,84,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none">pay</span> the most back to society. I'm one of the few <span class="gmail-G8OMXb gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(219,55,45);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none">businesmen</span> who have said that I owe part of my success to our government. I needed educated people <span class="gmail-Asgive gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(146,84,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none">and I didn't have to train them</span> myself. I needed security for my business <span class="gmail-Asgive gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(146,84,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none">and I didn't have to hire</span> security guards. I needed business contracts and I could lean on a legal system for that. I needed to <span class="gmail-Asgive gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(146,84,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none"><span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">do</span></span> business across national borders and I could rely on trade agreements and UN protections and standards <span class="gmail-Asgive gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(146,84,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none"><span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">to make</span></span> contracts. Every time I <span class="gmail-Q6ibn gmail-ng" style="outline:none;border-bottom:2px rgb(50,113,234);background:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-left-style:none">called</span> or sent a letter across a border, government and UN standards come into play. The UN is a government and it requires national governments <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">to</span> agreements with the UN.<br><br>In the past companies (local ones at least) had to care about their employees more. Today companies can fire <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">people knowing that they'll</span> have <span class="G8OMXb ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">unemployent</span> to lean on for a while, <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">knowing that they'll have health care,</span> knowing there is a support system to help if<span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none"> it gets worse.</span> It sounds callous, but that typically helps small <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">business more than large business.</span></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">I ask: do we really believe that siphoning<br>
more money into government coffers, in order to dole it out to the<br>
poor through various stingy methods, will cause prices to go down? </blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't think that's the idea. "Dole it out" sounds like subsidizing. I'm not sure that's a solution. The solution is things like right-to-repair and restricting proprietary advantages. Maybe refactoring patent and copyright laws and base its term partly on ROI.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Won't<br>
the wealthy just bake in the costs into the goods they sell from their<br>
major brands?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't think so. Company performance and most shareholder decision-making don't take into account shareholder taxes, and for good reasons. Every shareholder has a different tax burden, They may actually be in a different province or country and certainly they have different numbers on their tax returns.<br><br>Corporations are run by shareholders, who put a management team in place. So CEO taxes only come into play when they negotiate an employeement contract.<br><br>I also think, at least for the very wealthy, it's not about money. They already have more money than they can spend (mostly tied-up <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">money.</span>) It's about their ambition, the size of their company, their wealth and it must be compared to others. </div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
But if society and government is fixed, in order to promote a multitude<br>
of grassroots competitors to spring up, the large brand names will have<br>
no choice but to lower their prices, which will help all of the poor.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't think governments are as broken as people think. At least not any more broken than any large organization. However I do think one issue today <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">is</span> lack of competitiveness. We have too many oligoplies and monoploies. Anything that large needs more regulation to ensure that the small <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">guy</span> can compete better. I have very few ideas <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">on</span> what that entails.</div><div><br></div><div>One issue I don't like is how large businesses have an effective proxy vote of their employees, suppliers and their supply chain' employees. They can ask the government for favours, subsidies, zoning changes, even infrastructure changes by threatening the loss of jobs. I'm old enough to remember the highway 8 extension to the 401 and how the businesses on Old King complained about loss of business so the government changed the highway, forcing all westbound traffic to stay on Old King. So for decades we've wasted fuel and time for business that went out of business anyway.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
To put this in practical terms, instead of taxing Elon Musk's current<br>
wealth, we should recognize that a significant amount of Tesla's<br>
battery and electric car tech was funded by government subsidy.<br>
Now some of that was in loans that were paid back, but I don't believe<br>
all of it was. There is a precise calculation to do here. But in the<br>
end, that is technological advancement paid for by public funds, at least<br>
in part. I don't know about you, but I remember a time when such<br>
copyrighted intellectual property became public domain.<br>
<br>
Public funds? Public tech, so everyone can build their own Tesla.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I like that idea. Tying grants and subsidies to IP ownership.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
The wealth tax doesn't go far enough, and like most communist solutions,<br>
doesn't fix the core problem.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Are you really using the term "communist" properly? Because your idea of making IP public is kind of communist.</div><div> </div></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>John Van Ostrand<br></div><div>At large on sabbatical<br></div><br></div></div></div>