Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diagonally?
In Russian "to read diagonally" means "to skim" in English. Like, you don't read left to right, top to bottom, but straight from one corner to the other.
In French as well, FWIW.
McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
261–270 of 394 posts
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How is Russia going to not be belligerent if we are even thinking about letting Sweden and Finland in NATO? That's easy: by choosing to not be belligerent to countries exercising their sovereign autonomy. "You're making me hit you!" No.
Ask cubans about exercising sovereignity against the freest world, as said in my main message, we need to give up moral superiority and understand other countries needs
Who are "we" in your statements? And can you elaborate on which other country you mean, and what their needs are? Because it doesn't seem like Russia needed to invade a Ukraine that it already had very close political & economic ties to. When Ukraine decided it wanted a leader who would also be friendly to the West Russia couldn't handle it. They viewed expanding economic interests as a threat, and rather than try to win out on diplomacy and friendly trade deals or any other economic approach they chose war. So please, get away from your vague statements of "we" & "needs" and be specific. Otherwise it sounds like you're reading from a script of talking points without any deeper justification on your difference of opinion.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#263Something that has been bugging me for some time (genuine question, please forgive me lack of geopolitics/economy understanding) is this: Supposing we want to hurt Russian economy - how are we hurting it by stopping selling them licenses/branding/machines to make and sell burgers and fries? Are we not ripping them off money if we sell to them? As in: we gain, they lose? I understand we don't want to sell advanced tec…
And I'll add "What changed here of course is that after Putin...." started getting his arse kicked, several western companies now dont wish to be seen as Russian-friendly (they still are, of course - they just don't wish to be seen as such).
Had the Ruskies taken the ukraine in a few days, as predicted, you can bet there'd be golden arches all-the-fuck over Mariupol right now.
*oh, and finland and sweden could get fucked, too. They didn't give a hoot until for quite several years.
If any western company actually gave a crap, they would have been out on day 1, or 7 or even 30...not 3 months later.
And, as for Renault being called out by Zelensky.....
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#264They never had an issue operating in Saudi Arabia despite the invasion of Yemen. They still maintain their Guantanamo Bay location. How is operating in Russia inconsistent with their values?
McDonalds is a symbol of US global hegemony. Exiting from Russia is maintaining that status quo. Protesting an ally of the US, or the US itself, would be a significant political statement, and probably contrary to their interests.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#265The end of the "Golden Arches theory": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree#G...
From the Wiki entry:
> when a country has reached an economic development where it has a middle class strong enough to support a McDonald's network, it would become a "McDonald's country", and will not be interested in fighting wars anymore
It's amazing how persistent this basic idea is. "Once we reach a certain level of X, we won't fight wars anymore." X can be money, education, scale of war (WWI), etc. but the idea never proves true in the long run. Nations fight for the same reasons toddlers do, just at a much bigger scale and with far greater consequences.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it more important to listen to Russia than to listen to Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland? Or also Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia?
Do you think you are capable of listening to those countries? Take Kazakhstan. It's a country which is in several bloc-like agreements with Russia: СНГ, ОДКБ, ЕАЕС. How are you going to listen to it? I will tell you how the West do it every time: You are going to find some opposition crackpot who will badmouth Russia and crap on Kazakhstan regime, and you will ignore all other voices. The one who may as well be on so…
I don't have to understand those countries to believe they should have the right to make their own sovereign decisions. Let Russia try to influence by diplomatic means, let the west do the same, let the country decide what it wants. You just seem to be arguing that these countries should be Russian proxies instead of Western proxies, which is absurd. Let them be neither. Russia's problem is that it's primary mode of influence is force. The west focusses much more on economic influence. And yes, lest you try for a simplistic "what about", they do use force too, but the focus is overwhelmingly on economic and diplomatic influence first.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia is party to several international treaties that allow it to be sued outside of Russian courts if it doesn't uphold intellectual property law, and if those suits do not go Russia's way, then it is now possible that Russian assets can be seized as compensation. Or, to oversimplify it, if Russia decides that anyone can use McDonald's trademark, then maybe Gazprom's pipelines won't be Russian anymore.
Putin cares too much about his internal front. He will gladly throw any foreign property owned by the Russian state under the bus if he thinks giving the Russians the foreign brands they are accustomed to can quell any disobedience or unrest. Either Russia takes the nationalistic route and converts all of its fast food joints to Uncle Vania's, or it will surely reopen its McDonalds while violating their brands. I don…
I think you are right. I don't see many options for Putin. Russia's relationship to Western businesses is gone for at least a decade. Putin's best option is to confiscate any Western properties and businesses that won't play ball with him. Russia has become a pariah state, so it can just keep walking down that path anyway.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
McDonalds in non US countries is often very different from the US. Its still probably not the healthiest option, but it operates in a different market segment.
The McDonald's on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées has triple cheeseburgers which aren't usually available even in the US, but it is certainly a bit "higher class" if you will, though that may be related to restaurants in general not being as frequented outside the US (only Italy comes close apparently). No free refills, though.
you guys must eat at McDonalds a real lot to be able to discern any difference, it's exactly the same food in slightly different shapes.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#269This is a surprisingly well-written, engaging corporate statement. Most statements are pretty bland and purely to the point but after reading this I thought I was reading news coverage of their exit not their own statement.
In Germany this is called "Gratismut" (gratis bravery). It's the current thing to hate Russia, so they don't lose anything by doing a passionate write-up about it. McDonald's also wants to convince you that they have any values, but in reality they have no problem with horrendous human rights violations in other countries.
Or, more commonly, „virtue signaling“.
Which is bullshit, of course. They are giving up doing business in a rather large country. It’s certainly not free.
Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Obviously they'd want to keep the trademark, otherwise they have no way to prevent those sold restaurants from "re-Arching" after the "de-Arching" :) If a country has gone sufficiently rogue to invade a neighbour, respect for property[0][1] - and by extension trademarks - appears to matter very little, at least for now? [0] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/business/russia-aircraft-... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news…
Quoted post unavailable.
Prior to the invasion Ukraine was breaking their treaty
Sure. The DPR is complete the same as Ukraine, right?
> By January 2015, the Minsk Protocol ceasefire had completely collapsed [f]ollowing the separatist victory at Donetsk International Airport in defiance of the Protocol, DPR spokesman Eduard Basurin said that "the Minsk Memorandum will not be considered in the form it was adopted"