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Friday Fun Thread for March 22, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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the “efficiency” goes to just a few at top

No, when there's competition, it'll tend towards the efficiency going entirely to the consumer (insofar as we can treat efficiency as a thing, the units are probably not quite right), in the long run.

In the meantime, sure, it'll make a profit, but that'll trend to zero unless there's a reason for it not to, in an environment of competition.

This just evades the point, try again but for soda

Your point here was that "that's extremely economically inefficient, because McDonald’s surplus profit goes disproportionately to already-wealthy individuals."

First, we don't know that this would go to surplus profit. One benefit of higher priced sodas is that with that extra money, they are able to afford to lower prices for other things, meaning that it's not obvious that they're making much of a profit. Now, it was elsewhere pointed out that they are making a profit, (presumably due to a mix of people valuing the brand, and that the relevant measure is not nominal profit, but profit compared to the return of the next-best alternative for the investment used to set up the franchises, like the stock market). But profit going to wealthy individuals does not mean that it's economically inefficient! The measure of economic efficiency is not whether it leads to equality, but whether it leads to value production. And this system of allocation does lead to production of value, because there's now a bunch of McDonald's that we wouldn't have otherwise, providing food cheaply, that evidently, people appreciate, since they shop there.

And even if there isn't competition (which is not the case), well, it's still better than there not being any soda available for you to buy.