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McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

corporate.mcdonalds.com

321–330 of 394 posts

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#321

This 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.

No post body was provided.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. Same as Apple waxing lyrical about privacy, all the BLM bandwagon jumping in 2020, etc etc ad nauseam

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Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#323

Can you sell the Russian business without violating the sanctions?

Russian social media are full of winking posts hinting that McDonald's will sell operations to a Russian company which it will still profit from "behind the scenes" (via offshore proxy or some other indirect way). They also hint that this will pave the way for other Western companies currently in limbo: split ownership between controllable proxy and Russian owner. And at the same time shout in Bloomberg how much you…

It's just one of the possibilities. It's not like corporations aren't full of “government relations” staff whose job is inventing creative names for bribing officials, and creative methods of doing so. Especially in “interesting” countries where it's easy to have an excuse that “everyone does that”.

There is technology that can be important for military industry; no doubt it is going to be tightly controlled. There are people who decided it was unacceptable to work in Russia; it was their choice. However, these corporations are not people, nor they are important in the arms race. If we skip the fact that Central Bank severed everyone's ability to do business to control the money flow out of the country, corporations that left Russia made statements about leaving it for the media picture. And flashy media picture is once again really important to hide the elephant in the room — what really powers Russian economy, and how. It's not McDonalds.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#324
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to be careful. Is it the stated goal and mission to terrorize or is that being carried out by rogue units? Most army and war operations do have rogue units —those doing things on their own. Just about any war has this aspect. If this is a criteria then we’ve all been terrorists and calling terrorism ceases to have a defining meaning. But again it likely depends on how widespread and sanctioned or igno…

I understand the need to be careful but when you have widespread reports of execution and rape of civilians in all the areas being invaded by Russia (i.e. all 3 fronts) it seems to be more of a pattern than an exception.

Look, there is no denying war atrocities. But all conflicts have them to one degree or another. If we go by the definitions above, then most allies (and foes) have engaged in terrorism too, including ourselves and then the distinction the term provides disappears.

Let's look at it from another angle. In order to submit the people of Ukraine, has Russia taken out all the stops? Do they have other more lethal and effective options?

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are their values that make the first two acceptable but not the third?

They list unpredictability as a factor. They obviously believe Saudi Arabia is a stable place to conduct business.

So their values have nothing to do with the humanitarian concerns they mention, just the ease of doing business in the country. Believable, but makes this press release sound like BS.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has always been a defensive alliance, a retaliatory deterrence against attacking any one member, especially weaker members that would be easy to pick off. NATO expansion has pretty much always been a reaction to Russian aggression, including the most recent accessions following Russia's takeover of Crimea and now their invasion if the Ukraine. Painting NATO expansion as an aggressive act that forces Russia to re…

I think whataboutism is just a very nice word that is being used more and more in order to retain some sort of moral superiority and no accountability for actions, like we need to use two weights and two measures just otherwise we are whatabouting No it's not whataboutism it's just to make sure that when we say that Russia is crazy and US is some sort of holy state, we are trusting the wrong people to tell us what is…

When you use bad actions by the US as justification for bad actions by Russia then you can call it whatever you want-- ditch "whataboutism" for you favored rationalization of choice, it's still a fundamentally flawed argument that avoids addressing the issue at hand in favor of hand waving non sequiturs and distractions.

It shows either a fundamental disinterest in or inability to argue the issue on its own merits, and you continue that flawed course of arguments in your above comment. By all means condemn the US for any actions you believe are wrong. Argue for the same sorts of sanctions or other measure that you believe are merited if you think the US should be held to account for those things.

But don't mistake your criticisms of the US or anyone else as coming anywhere close to a valid argument for why Russia is justified in its current course of actions. Don't mistake them for a valid argument against new NATO applicants fearful that they are next on Russia's hit list. No, instead you need to understand that you are defending Russia's actions as though they are a necessary response, when nothing could be further from the truth. In the wake of the Soviet breakup the remaining Russian Federation was extremely well poised to break out of its isolation and contribute significantly to the world with its rich culture & strong scientific tradition instead of just its commoditized natural resources. Instead it was coopted by oligarchical kleptocrats that stifled its vast potential. The world is poorer for Russian leadership's self-interests & self-dealing, and their short-sightedness now requires it to response with force to situations it could have managed to the net benefit of itself and its partners.

Russia is not the victim here. Russia is not justified in its actions. It's been outplayed in economics & geopolitics only because its leadership never considered cooperation as a first-line stance on the world stage. If it feels "forced" into violence now it is only because its leadership has always extended the mailed fist instead of trying the velvet glove first. So it is no surprise that countries would flee that approach in favor the velvet glove that offers prosperity through cooperation before it extends the threat of force.

The result is a military failure the will achieve every strategic horror it thought to fight against. It is severely weakened militarily, unable to defeat an enemy it should easily have bested even with the light weaponry aid provided to Ukraine, much of which only made it there after their initial failed invasion. This has shown the world how poorly prepared it is to project military power beyond its own borders, except by nuclear threat. From here on out, it can do very little militarily without resorting to threat of nuclear war. It now has almost not option in-between minor skirmish & nuclear bombs because its weak logistics and untrained troops are revealed to the world.

In the broader geopolitical game it has reversed a decades-long decline in the relevance of NATO, a long sought strategic goal of theirs, and instead injected new life into the organization making it more relevant and stronger than it has been for a very long time. Just a few years ago there was strong support among many in the US to dismantle NATO or at least gut it by withdrawing, but now you'd be hard pressed to find more than a slim minority who believe NATO has outlived its purpose.

Russia, by taking steps that you seem ready to support & justify, has weakened itself in every conceivable way. Point fingers at other awful things done by other countries all you want, you cannot get around this. You cannot avoid the fact that, even if Russia's actions were even minimally justified (they're not) they are a strategic disaster that will leave its unfortunate population worse off for at least a generation.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#328
post #73

I would keep the business open, add a 20% Ukraine war fee to all sales (call it special operation fee if needed), and give it to a Ukraine war relief fund.

and have your windows smashed daily. You underestimate the power of propaganda and how people think in Russia in regards to this war.

It is regular thugs — sent by officials, secret police, mafia bosses, or persons taking more than one of those positions — who smash windows 9 times out of 10. However, your logic takes unwarranted turn to “power of propaganda” and “people of Russia”, probably because there's plenty of stereotypes of how “people” in any country behave to use.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sanctions, but Russian regulation. From your link: >The Bank of Russia more than doubled the benchmark interest rate to 20%, a 19-year high, on Feb. 28 and also imposed capital controls, including a ban on foreigners’ selling of securities. Nabiullina said decisions to suspend some regulatory requirements amounted to a capital boost for banks equivalent to 900 billion rubles ($8.7 billion). Putin banned all Russi…

Interest rate is already back to 14%[1]. Russian economy recovered super fast. Ruble is already stronger than before war (around 64 RUB for USD). Basically sanctions are a joke made for Biden to shout once before American public attention shifts to Amber Heard trial or some other spectacle of the day. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-central-ban...

If you read your article you'll learn they are cutting the interest rate back because of sanctions (to mitigate the effects), and inflation is still soaring. 20% is not sustainable, analysts have seen this coming as Russia tries to avoid a recession, in fact the drop by 300 bps was larger than predicted.

Re: McDonald’s to Exit from Russia

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the reasoning at all. I think trying to conduct transactions in a heavily sanctioned nation that's also fighting a war of aggression against a neighbor, and incurring heavy losses, is causing a headache for the bean counters, and it has finally become more trouble than it's worth, financially. These enormous multinational behemoths - as an entity - don't give two shits about the people dying in…

Quoted post unavailable.

> "NATO has been aggressive in it's expansion towards Russia. Russia warned NATO to back off many times, and as late as January the two negotiated, Russia laid down the terms to either back off or it will invade, and NATO called Russia's bluff."

This is completely detached from reality.

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