The general decline in standards today

[LoveMyHats2]

According to a book called "Fast Food Nation", your statement above is correct. A charbroil 'flavoring' is sprayed on those burgers to make them smell and taste, well, charbroiled. Not salvaged materials, but a cocktail of chemicals concocted by chemists who make food essences for a living ... and are very good at it.

I just knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I have been a steak loving person for sooo long and just knew that there was something not at all right with the "smell" if the Burger King place cooking a form of meat.

See now everyone, is this not how correct "details" are always displayed by Marc? If you ever want a job and are in my end of town, please let me know.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Thank you for the offer. I was born in Detroit (but didn't live there long), so going back would be a homecoming.

There's more. According to Fast Food Nation, McDonald's french fries are also sprayed with a flavor cocktail. Apparently, all that processing and freezing kills the potatoes' natural flavor, so it has to be re-inserted (and enhanced) with a sprayed-on essence.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The only thing at McDonalds that I find palatable is the fish sandwich and even that isn't reason enough for me to want to go there.

 

[PoohBang]

you know the more I think about it, I'm not sure there actually is a "decline in standards"

It's just the names and faces have changed.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Thank you for the offer. I was born in Detroit (but didn't live there long), so going back would be a homecoming.

There's more. According to Fast Food Nation, McDonald's french fries are also sprayed with a flavor cocktail. Apparently, all that processing and freezing kills the potatoes' natural flavor, so it has to be re-inserted (and enhanced) with a sprayed-on essence.

I can believe that, and I think perhaps that was a product if you wish to state without it being a pun, in the 1970's I had a personal friend that his family owned a facility that had one customer, and the product they made was french fries. My friend's Father passed away and he of course become the owner of that business. At the time, they were very quality control oriented as to the nature of healthy food product being given to McDonalds. In about 1988, he sold that business and retired. I am very confident that someone decided to make the french fries have more "zing" to them and thus, the additional flavoring become a part of the package.

As noted, to date, I never buy any foods from a fast food place. I find a local store to the area I would be in and would rather buy a small purchase of real food and make a fast meal that way. For the money, you can get a loaf of bread, some real meat, a small container of mustard or mayo, for about the same price and have some food left to go home with you.

 

[ButteMT61]

This is the little film that changed my life this spring...
It's not preachy at all, and really opened my eyes. My daughter began PA school this fall, and she and her fiancé are really healthy. She had us watch this (on Netflix if you have it) and it's well worth the watch.
Pay no attention to the products - they aren't necessary to get the point, and sprung up after the success of the film. Rightly so. It's a good movie, and if it helps others get healthy, great.

 

[1961MJS]

I think it's a question of attitude. No one is *entitled* to be rich. Not even those who were born that way.

Hi Lizzie

Good statement, but I think our primary problem lies in that we entitle people to stay rich. We're all legally allowed to become rich, but no one is (or should be) legally obligated to keep us that way.

Later

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I completely agree with this. It's like my dad always says "Row your own boat."

We're all legally allowed to become rich, but no one is (or should be) legally obligated to keep us that way.

 

[jamespowers]

My friend, there is more truth here than most people realize. The fact of the matter is, it is not what you sell, it is how you sell it. Marketing people today, with enough time, could and would, sell rat poison to people if they thought it would earn them a profit.

And before you start spouting off, James, the trick is in the presentation. Are people responsible for their own consumption? Yes, but it is much harder to act responsibly when you have the little devil on your shoulder whispering at you on TV, radio, newspaper, internet, etc. As I said earlier, hook 'em young and you hook 'em for life.

They do sell rat poison to people. We use it to kill rats.

If you are a big enough sap to buy the presentation then you pays your money; you takes your chances. [huh]

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's all about greed. What drives the businessman is wanting to be a bigger, richer businessman. It's what drives the average politician, as well. All through history there have been economic ups and downs, and left to right and back again swings of the pendulum. Mankind is not cut out for balance. Excess is the buzzword, no matter what side one is on. A society goes down in flames, the reaction is to go the opposite way to 'fix' things, there is a recovery, and then the cycle starts all over again. Blame is placed, although everyone in any position of power has at least part of that blame to shoulder, denying it all the while.

One thing that's really swept the world over the last thirty years or so has been the idea that the sole responsibility of any business is to its shareholders. This was not a dominant view prior to the '80s, certainly not to the extent that it is today -- it's a notion that was popularized by Milton Friedman and his followers, and has now become practically a religious dogma among those who hold to it.

By contrast, the dominant view in the Era, especially from the thirties forward, was that business existed to serve its *customers,* and that profit was a just return for service provided, both in terms of the product and service sold and in terms of the service provided by the business to its community. That seems like a subtle difference, but it explains a lot about what's happened in recent decades: businesses increasingly see themselves as being solely in the business of making money, not of providing a product or a service. That makes it all too easy to justify and rationalize the abuses we see today.

 

[ButteMT61]

Hi Lizzie

Good statement, but I think our primary problem lies in that we entitle people to stay rich. We're all legally allowed to become rich, but no one is (or should be) legally obligated to keep us that way.

Later

I'm curious what folks here think rich is exactly? I wonder as the number put forth keeps changing when I listen to the news and the attempts at adding more taxes.
I know it's like being an Ice Road Trucker talking about this, but I'd like to know...

*Edit. Just got my Cali registration renewal for my Scion tC. It's a 2006 model. $354 dollars for a car that I bought in December, 2005 new. Talk about government out of control?

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Thank you for the offer. I was born in Detroit (but didn't live there long), so going back would be a homecoming.

There's more. According to Fast Food Nation, McDonald's french fries are also sprayed with a flavor cocktail. Apparently, all that processing and freezing kills the potatoes' natural flavor, so it has to be re-inserted (and enhanced) with a sprayed-on essence.

Well as little as I personally know about you, and as much as thinking you may not know a lot about machine manufacturing of commercial building, I have the deep sense that you could be afforded the opportunity to merely observe what takes place. After a short time, I am confident you would be able to manage a project on site, or run promotional advertisement all on your own. Your natural talents for details is a viable asset to say the least.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

You're kidding, right?! I pay 85 Bucks a year for my truck, because it's a class B truck plate, and 75 a year for my Caprice wagon, as a car, and I paid 300, one time, for my Mercury because it's licensed as a collector car. Well, it is California, so I'm not THAT surprised.

*Edit. Just got my Cali registration renewal for my Scion tC. It's a 2006 model. $354 dollars for a car that I bought in December, 2005 new. Talk about government out of control?

 

[ButteMT61]

You're kidding, right?! I pay 85 Bucks a year for my truck, because it's a class B truck plate, and 75 a year for my Caprice wagon, as a car, and I paid 300, one time, for my Mercury because it's licensed as a collector car. Well, it is California, so I'm not THAT surprised.

I so wish I were kidding...

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I had no idea that registration was so high there. California used to be the Car Culture place.

I so wish I were kidding...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I suspect it has something to do with maintaining all those Car Culture freeways.

 

[ButteMT61]

I suspect it has something to do with maintaining all those Car Culture freeways.

Hardly. It's the government's refusal to cut their spending of my money.
The roads have never been in worse shape. Same for bridges, etc.
And the same yahoos have no worth-while mass transit here. They collect, they spend, they waste. Then they raise taxes and "fees" again. Repeat.

 

[jamespowers]

That's the poster child for it.

Tell me about it. Around 600 pieces of "legislation" hit the governor's desk this session. He vetoed 38. Wheeeeee.....
Sixty years ago it would have taken years to get that much "legislation" done. We are slouching towards Gomorrah. :eusa_doh:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... it's a notion that was popularized by Milton Friedman and his followers, ...

Yep, the so-called "Chicago Boys".

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I wouldn't be surprised if the (California) DMV is one of the few government agencies that actually makes a profit. They probably take in enough revenue to cover the entire West Coast in asphalt yet our roads are still crappy. Even though vehicle registration fees, like property and Social Security taxes, are ostensibly for a specific purpose the revenue instead ends up in General Funds to be spent kid-in-a-candy-shop fashion for God knows what.