OK, Putin doesn’t really eat at McDonalds. I made that up. Fake news.
If he did, I’d pray to the Holy Ghost for him to choke on a chicken nugget and for nobody to know how to deploy the Heimlich Maneuver.
The Holy Ghost will take sides and directly smote evil doers whilst God the Father and Jesus like to stay above the fray.
Guy asks me why anybody in Russia would care about McDonalds pulling the plug in Russia. Isn’t it just American tourists eating there?
No. OK, maybe yes. Bigger issue really.
The symbolism
There is huge symbolism in McDonalds closing up more than 850 stores in Russia — accounts for 9% of McDonalds global revenue.
The Russian on the street sees it and understands this sanctions regime is not just going to impact oligarchs and their yachts. It is coming for them.
The Russian on the street sees, investigates, and talks about the McDonalds closing. This overcomes the Putin blackout of the Internet, Twitter, and Facebook.
It’s the bloody supply chain, Big Red Car
Yes, it is, dear reader.
There will be no contented Russian cows turning into Big Macs to serve in Mos-cow. The supply chain from the pasture to the utility company to the auditers will all get a punch in the face.
This will trim Russian GDP.
With 850 stores doing the equivalent of $1MM annually, this is a multi-billion USD impact. Huge in the worthless Ruble.
The Russian economy is 25% SMALLER than Italy. This will be meaningful.
It’s the employment
There are 62,000 Russians working at McDonalds.
McDonalds intends to continue paying their employees during the “temporary” shutdown. Ahhh!
Right there is a keen insight into the differences between our countries.
Russia and its madman despot are bombing, rocketing, shelling children, women, old folks in a medieval siege of a foreign capital in an innocent country whilst the US headquartered McDonalds is providing a paid vacation for its Russian employees.
Huge cultural insight.
Bottom line it, Big Red Car
I don’t see the Russians flooding out into the streets because they cannot get a double Quarter Pounder, but I do see a big hit to GDP, a strong message, a disruption to the supply chain, and a another dozen drips in the drip — drip — drip campaign to unseat a brutal mad man.
I had a Quarter Pounder in support yesterday. Join me.
Russian crowd in 1990 at first ever McDonalds in Mos-cow.