Idle Chatter -- Nothing About The Bakken -- March 11, 2018

I think this is the third or fourth time I've blogged about the jobs report this past week. Absolutely amazing, those reports. The WSJ has another interesting story.  At 4.1%, unemployment rate held at 17-year low. I've read a fair number of articles about this surge in employment and it's clear that the press is unable to credit Trump's policies. It's really quite amazing how much they are affected by TDS. Two comments.

By the way, look at that third story: truckers boosted hiring at fastest pace since 2015.

First comment: snowball effect. More jobs will result in more jobs. As more folks go back to work, the need for "support" services will increase. Example: McDonald's will open 1,000 new restaurants in 2018 (that's a Fox Business link so it might be blocked by the blogger app). [Later: this link to USA Today is not blocked.]

Second comment: why are folks coming back to the workplace? Three reasons: they are making more money; they need jobs to get employee-provided health insurance; and, they need cash to pay for their smart phones and data plans (I'm not kidding on the third reason):

• eighteen states have raise their minimum wage
• due to the Trump tax cuts, less is being taken out of hourly wages
• companies are using tax breaks to build their businesses
• health-care costs continue to sky-rocket; ObamaCare is dying; folks need jobs for access to health-care 
• likely amount that the average 19-year-old is paying for her smart phone, data plan, music streaming, apps, etc: $150/month

Companies realize they have a four-year window in which to take advantage of these tax breaks. When the Dems win the US presidency, the US House and the US Senate in 2020, corporate America knows their taxes are going back up.

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McDonald's Has Raised The Bar -- By A Lot

For various reasons, I have had the opportunity to visit three fast food restaurants in the past week: McDonald's; What-A-Burger; and, Chick-fil-A.

McDonald's: their new restaurants have raised the bar. Really, really incredible. Do a google search of McDonalds new stores renovation kiosks and then read some of the articles. I'll come back to this later.

Chick-fil-A: because they are closed on Sundays, and because they are so well liked, and because there are so few Chick-fil-A restaurants, you will have a long line if you visit when they are busy. But pick a "slow" time and their service is incredible. Their sandwiches travel better than McDonald's or What-A-Burger if taking your meal home to eat.

What-A-Burger: nothing new. The hamburgers are outstanding. The service is great but wow, they can be slow, slow, slow -- at least compared to the McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. I visited all three when things were very slow and Chick-fil-A was by far the fastest, then McDonald's and What-A-Burger was a distant third.

What slows down service when ordering inside the restaurant? The drive-through. Obviously the restaurants have to prioritize their drive-through customers or the lines would go on forever. In addition, it appears that more and more folks are using drive-through than coming inside to eat. I talked to the Chick-fil-A folks about that and they said the same thing. Inside can be fairly slow but the drive-through is busy, busy, busy.

Now, back to McDonald's. Three things.

1. If one doesn't like standing around waiting for one's order, McDonald's is the place to go. You go in, place your order on the self-ordering kiosk, and then you go sit down and start working on your computer or read a book or newspaper. No wasted time. A few minutes later, your food is brogught to you. It's quite incredible. Absolutely no time wasted standing around.

2. McDonald's says they do not plan to cut staffing even with the kiosks. We'll see. Right now, iwth no cut in staffing, there were two McDonald's employees standing around with little to do. But they were helping folks using the self-ordering kiosks (one can still order at the counter if one wants). But this gives the McDonald's employees more time to get out and clean the tables, refill napkins and straws and ketchup. I think McDonald's will be able to cut one of six employees once kiosk-ordering takes off.

3. Interestingly enough, McDonald's says kiosk-ordering will cut down on errors. I thought that was a bunch of malarkey. I can't imagine there are that many ordering mistakes made. But I am wrong. When I went up to talk to the MeDonald's employee today, I could not understand her, her Spanish accent was way too strong. I finally figured out she was telling me that the lunch menu would not be available for eight minutes (I had arrived just before 11:00 a.m. when breakfast was still being served -- which, of course, brings up another question, for another day). I told her I would wait. I blogged. When I did order, I went to the kiosk. So, McDonald's can now worry less about what language their employees speak. The kiosks by the way, appear to be pretty much in English (maybe there's a Spanish option that I missed); that doesn't matter -- it's pretty much all in pictures.

Quality of food: that's a completely different issue. I'm only talking about the ordering process and timeliness. However, having said that, the Big Mac is still hard to beat. No one beats McDonald's on French fries (even with their changed recipe [years ago]). Which reminds me, one no longer needs to stand in line to get a cup for soft drinks. All the cups at the renovated McDonald's are freely available. They must be counting on the "honor system." This is not going to work in some areas, such as East St Louis.

Bottom line: for my needs, McDonald's is the only place of the three that I will visit with occasional exceptions. This was the first time I had been in a What-A-Burger in over a year, maybe two years.. No wi-fi at What-A-Burger and the service was incredibly slow. Hamburger choices are much wider but the Big Mac is hard to beat for overall umami-ness. There must be a gazillion fast food restaurants to choose from but for me, bang for the buck, it's still McDonald's. And, yes, in the local area, we have everything: Five Guys, In 'N Out, Wendy's, Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, Sonic, Dairy Queen, and on and on and on.