[Doomsday Economics] Home of Kirbeh's $17 slice

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Doomsday Economics] Home of Kirbeh's $17 slice

(Thread IKs: skooma512)

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Penisaurus Sex posted:

A whiff of grapeshot combined with a strong state, a much more militaristic outlook on life, and a wounded revanchist conservative population? I don't think you have to squint too hard to see that in a future America. Even a future of ten years.

They'll lose a war against Mexico who only has DJI Mavics, Ukrainian Javelins, and Great Wall Motors pickup trucks.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2023 04:26

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:29

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

mastershakeman posted:

Govt regs changed a while ago and drove the small farmers out of business. You have to have a climate controlled storage facility for them now instead of just piling them up in a big barn
I thinkt this changed around the end of Obama's term but just another way that good intentions of less rotting food meant more ability for the mega Corp to fix prices

It's the entire point. Deliberately forcing production to be more capital intensive at the expense of the individual (businesses) either forces them out of the business or enriches the supplier of the capital and the financier who supplies the loans for the purchase of said capital.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2023 20:18

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

SKULL.GIF posted:

https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/12bgqwv/growing_number_of_canadians_believe_big_grocery/

While going through all the shitlibs, something suddenly occurred to me. See if you notice the same pattern I did. All of these are from separate accounts:

Countermessaging hard at work!

unsurprising that reddit has is populated by petty bourgeois and bourgeosis proletarians who think all this hate is being driven by greed, resentment, and gullibility

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 23:53

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

super sweet best pal posted:

They should just start a military school program that yanks "troubled" kids out of regular schools under the vague claim it's to reduce school shootings. Then when they graduate they're forced into conscription with way fewer benefits or pay than a regular enlisted soldier.

peasant soldiery for the 21st century with american characteristics :hmmyes:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2023 00:20

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Zodium posted:

willa's right

# ¿ Apr 7, 2023 00:34

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/Karl_Was_Right/status/1643367566893805568

probably won't even be able to afford the circuses with all the rent seeking subscription hell too

# ¿ Apr 9, 2023 00:59

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Willa Rogers posted:

CNN carrying the feds' water in trying to ban tiktok.

The city without TikTok offers a window to America�s potential future

Prepare for your tiktok-less futures!

article's awfully silent about whether douyin made its mark in hong kong

# ¿ Apr 10, 2023 20:31

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/JordanChariton/status/1645548218074136579

we spilled some death cloud soil on the highway

# ¿ Apr 11, 2023 06:22

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/TheHidingGhost/status/1646016462170079233

reject literacy and communism and return to illiteracy and feudalism

# ¿ Apr 12, 2023 21:43

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/WaitingOnBiden/status/1646533790724915204

best we can do about all this child labor is write an angry letter

# ¿ Apr 15, 2023 01:24

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/TripInChina/status/1647890894392287232

robots coming for your jobs in china

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 05:32

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

biceps crimes posted:

will never get over "student loans" being a concept that is real

anyone have a good link to read regarding student loan history in the US?

wait until you discover school lunch debt op :capitalism:

# ¿ May 14, 2023 20:25

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

meanolmrcloud posted:

alright, I�ll bite. where is all this cash coming from? is it just mountains of debt being shoveled into the furnace?

For Europe, it's the one-two punch of them sanctioning their main supplier of energy and low value commodities (Russia) and the US draining industrial investment from Europe to the US (IRA). This one-two punch is also happening to the Asian vassals of the US. The dynamic this time however is the Asian vassals destroying their exports to China while simultaneously being forced to invest in US facilities. In other words, it's the US draining their allies dry to sustain them vampire-like.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2023 02:37

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/philippilk/status/1676121242531774465
https://twitter.com/philippilk/status/1676121266489638913

quote:

1/ Yesterday I published an article in @unherd
arguing that the situation leading up to the French riots is being driven by high food prices and low consumption. I presented INSEE data showing a 17% drawdown in food consumption, totally unprecedented in recent history. Chart 👇

10/ Anyway here is the link to the INSEE data. Feel free to replicate my chart. Its real.

https://t.co/2WKNpZ3Bay

Europe's going to Make Bread Riots Great Again.

Danann has issued a correction as of 00:39 on Jul 5, 2023

# ¿ Jul 5, 2023 00:28

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Raskolnikov38 posted:

so do they have a total surplus of 5 bil or it only added 5 bil to the surplus they had at the end of the previous period?

It's the latter, they added 5.4 billion to their current account.

Also peep how imports of goods is actually higher than last year's period by ~19.5% and Russia's been through ten rounds or so of sanctions lol.

Danann has issued a correction as of 07:15 on Jul 14, 2023

# ¿ Jul 14, 2023 06:58

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Nothus posted:

Is this actually true, or is it spin to cover the fact that the Nomenklatura sold everyone out on the promise of joining the global cybernetic capitalist elite

There's a shocking amount of naivete and romanticism that the pro-capitalist section of the populace found in the West:

Communism in Wonderland, Blackshirts and Reds posted:

...

Wanting It All

I listened to an East German friend complain of poor services and inferior products; the system did not work, he concluded. But what of the numerous social benefits so lacking in much of the world, I asked, aren�t these to be valued? His response was revealing: �Oh, nobody ever talks about that.� People took for granted what they had in the way of human services and entitlements while hungering for the consumer goods dangling in their imaginations.

...

Likewise, the big demand in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was for travel, new appliances, and bigger apartments. [27] The New York Times described East Germany as a �country of 16 million [who] seem transfixed by one issue: How soon can they become as prosperous as West Germany?� [28] A national poll taken in China reported that 68 percent chose as their goal �to live well and get rich.� [29]

In 1989, I asked the GDR ambassador in Washington, D.C. why his country made such junky two-cylinder cars. He said the goal was to develop good public transportation and discourage the use of costly private vehicles. But when asked to choose between a rational, efficient, economically sound and ecologically sane mass transportation system or an automobile with its instant mobility, special status, privacy, and personal empowerment, the East Germans went for the latter, as do most people in the world. The ambassador added ruefully: �We thought building a good society would make good people. That�s not always true.� Whether or not it was a good society, at least he was belatedly recognizing the discrepancy between public ideology and private desire.

In Cuba today many youth see no value in joining the Communist party and think Fidel Castro has had his day and should step aside. The revolutionary accomplishments in education and medical care are something they take for granted and cannot get excited about. Generally they are more concerned about their own personal future than about socialism. University courses on Marxism and courses on the Cuban Revolution, once overenrolled, now go sparsely attended, while students crowd into classes on global markets and property law. [30]

With the U.S. blockade and the loss of Soviet aid, the promise of abundance receded beyond sight in Cuba and the cornucopia of the North appeared ever more alluring. Many Cuban youth idealize life in the United States and long for its latest styles and music. Like the Eastern Europeans, they think capitalism will deliver the goodies at no special cost. When told that young people in the United States face serious hurdles, they respond with all the certainty of inexperience: �We know that many people in the States are poor and that many are rich. If you work hard, however, you can do well. It is the land of opportunity.� [31]

By the second or third generation, relatively few are still alive who can favorably contrast their lives under socialism with the great hardships and injustices of prerevolutionary days. As stated by one Cuban youth who has no memory of life before the revolution: �We�re tired of the slogans. That was all right for our parents but the revolution is history.� [32]
...

Reactionism to the Surface

For years I heard about the devilishly clever manipulations of communist propaganda. Later on, I was surprised to discover that news media in communist countries were usually lackluster and plodding. Western capitalist nations are immersed in an advertising culture, with billions spent on marketing and manipulating images. The communist countries had nothing comparable. Their media coverage generally consisted of dull protocol visits and official pronouncements, along with glowing reports about the economy and society � so glowing that people complained about not knowing what was going on in their own country. They could read about abuses of power, industrial accidents, worker protests, and earthquakes occurring in every country but their own. And even when the press exposed domestic abuses, they usually went uncorrected.

Media reports sometimes so conflicted with daily experience that the official press was not believed even when it did tell the truth, as when it reported on poverty and repression in the capitalist world. If anything, many intellectuals in communist nations were utterly starry-eyed about the capitalist world and unwilling to look at its seamier side. Ferociously opposed to the socialist system, they were anticommunist to the point of being full-fledged adulators of Western reactionism. The more rabidly �reactionary chic� a position was, the more appeal it had for the intelligentsia.

With almost religious fervor, intellectuals maintained that the capitalist West, especially the United States, was a free-market paradise of superabundance and almost limitless opportunity. Nor would they believe anything to the contrary. With complete certitude, well-fed, university-educated, Moscow intellectuals sitting in their modest but comfortable apartments would tell U.S. visitors, �The poorest among you live better than we.�

...

Romanticizing Capitalism

...

Most people living under socialism had little understanding of capitalism in practice. Workers interviewed in Poland believed that if their factory were to be closed down in the transition to the free market, �the state will find us some other work.� [39] They thought they would have it both ways. In the Soviet Union, many who argued for privatization also expected the government to continue providing them with collective benefits and subsidies. One skeptical farmer got it right: �Some people want to be capitalists for themselves, but expect socialism to keep serving them.� [40]

Reality sometimes hit home. In 1990, during the glasnost period, when the Soviet government announced that the price of newsprint would be raised 300 percent to make it commensurate with its actual cost, the new procapitalist publications complained bitterly. They were angry that state socialism would no longer subsidize their denunciations of state socialism. They were being subjected to the same free-market realities they so enthusiastically advocated for everyone else, and they did not like it.

...

Still, substantial numbers, especially among intellectuals and youths � the two groups who know everything � opted for the free-market paradise, without the faintest notion of its social costs. Against the inflated imagination, reality is a poor thing. Against the glittering image of the West�s cornucopia, the routinized, scarcity-ridden, and often exasperating experiences of communist society did not have a chance.

It seems communism created a dialectical dynamic that undermined itself. It took semi-feudal, devastated, underdeveloped countries and successfully industrialized them, bringing a better life for most. But this very process of modernization and uplift also created expectations that could not be fulfilled. Many expected to keep all the securities of socialism, overlaid with capitalist consumerism. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, they were in for some painful surprises.

One reason siege socialism could not make the transition to consumer socialism is that the state of siege was never lifted. As noted in the previous chapter, the very real internal deficiencies within communist systems were exacerbated by unrelenting external attacks and threats from the Western powers. Born into a powerfully hostile capitalist world, communist nations suffered through wars, invasions, and an arms race that exhausted their productive capacities and retarded their development. The decision by Soviet leaders to achieve military parity with the United States � while working from a much smaller industrial base � placed a serious strain on the entire Soviet economy.

The very siege socialism that allowed the USSR to survive made it difficult for it to thrive. Perestroika (the restructuring of socioeconomic practices in order to improve performance) was intended to open and revitalize production. Instead it led to the unraveling of the entire state socialist fabric. Thus the pluralistic media that were to replace the communist monopoly media eventually devolved into a procapitalist ideological monopoly. The same thing happened to other socialist institutions. The intent was to use a shot of capitalism to bolster socialism; the reality was that socialism was used to subsidize and build an unforgiving capitalism.

Pressed hard throughout its history by global capitalism�s powerful financial, economic, and military forces, state socialism endured a perpetually tenuous existence, only to be swept away when the floodgates were opened to the West.

tl;dr - A shockingly large number of people thought they could have all the socialist stuff like healthcare, housing, public transport, etc. with capitalist treats like 24/7 fruits and all the appliances.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 22:27

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/craftsman-america-wrench-stanley-black-decker-reshoring-factory-1125792f
https://archive.ph/RQev4

quote:

Why America�s Largest Tool Company Couldn�t Make a Wrench in America �
John Keilman
16�20 minutes
July 21, 2023 11:00 pm ET .

The world�s largest tool company couldn�t figure out how to make a wrench.

Stanley Black & Decker built a $90 million factory on the edge of Fort Worth, Texas, intending to burnish the Made-in-the-U.S.A. luster of the Craftsman brand by forging mechanics� tools with unprecedented efficiency. But the automated system was a bust, and the tools that were supposed to be pumped out by the million are so hard to find that some consider them collector�s items.

In March, 3� years after breaking ground, Stanley announced it was closing the factory. The property is now being advertised for sale.

The Craftsman plant was a high-profile example of a drive among U.S. manufacturers to bring offshored plants back home. Government incentives and a desire to shorten supply chains have sparked a factory-building boom. The high cost of American labor makes automation critical for plants to turn a profit.

Turning manual tasks over to machines, which are supposed to churn out goods with minimal human involvement and maximum productivity, poses its own challenges. The Craftsman factory�s first-of-its-kind system was supposed to make tools so efficiently that costs would be on par with China, but ex-employees said it had problems that couldn�t be fixed before the company decided to pull the plug.

�It was supposed to be different,� said Tom Felty, who worked in the factory as an electroplating engineer. �It was supposed to be bringing the Craftsman brand back. It was all these new technologies. It�s why I moved from North Carolina to Texas to be a part of it, and it was an absolute disaster.�

Echoing a previous statement, Stanley blamed several factors for the plant�s closure.

�We endeavored to make Craftsman mechanics tools in a new and innovative way,� a spokeswoman said. �The events of Covid and supply chain challenges, coupled with technology that did not meet our expectations, resulted in the discontinuation of operations.�

The company declined to comment further.

The closure marked a turn for the tool maker, based in New Britain, Conn., which spent much of the past 14 years chasing growth. Stanley merged with Black & Decker in 2010 and bought Newell Brands � tool unit in 2017. The spree turned the company into a colossus, taking it to nearly $17 billion in revenue last year, from $3.7 billion in 2009.

Craftsman, which accounted for more than $1 billion of that total, was a key part of the expansion.

For decades, it had been a flagship brand of Sears, which contracted with U.S. manufacturers to make mechanics� tools like wrenches, ratchets and sockets. The tools were fixtures in American homes and garages, but after Sears cut costs by shifting production to China, aficionados said the products� quality declined. Some Craftsman wrenches, for example, fortified their open ends with extra metal, which made them hard to use in tight spaces. That earned them the derisive nickname �lobster claws.�

Stanley bought Craftsman in 2017 for $900 million, a deal then-Chief Executive James Loree said offered the chance to �re-Americanize� the brand. The company began assembling Craftsman tape measures, air compressors and other products in its U.S. facilities, packaging them with a red, white and blue logo that says �Made in the USA with Global Materials.�

The Fort Worth factory, announced in 2019, was meant to go a step further, forging the brand�s iconic wrenches, ratchets and sockets from American steel to feed a consumer desire for U.S.-made tools. Automation and other advanced manufacturing techniques would allow the plant to compete on cost with imported products, executives said.

Steve Stafstrom, Stanley�s vice president of global operations at the time, said that required devising a system that would increase both labor and material efficiency far beyond the norm.

�We had a group of folks very committed to making it work,� he said. �We had to come up with technology that had never been used before.�

Stanley was already making mechanics� tools for the premium MAC and Proto brands at a factory in nearby Farmers Branch, Texas. Former employees said much of that work was done manually, which is standard for the industry. Workers used tongs to adjust a hot piece of metal as a press smashed it into the shape of a wrench or ratchet, and moved tools by hand from one machine to the next.

Stanley�s plan for the Craftsman plant centered on automating much of that process, as seen in a YouTube video uploaded by a Belarusian company that supplied some of the machinery.

A bar of steel called a billet was sliced from a coil by a guillotine-like device, then carried by conveyor belt through a heater. A machine rolled the glowing red billet into a shape resembling a lollipop and a robot placed it onto a press, where mechanical fingers moved it through several stations until it was pounded into a fully formed ratchet.

The video shows piles of unfinished ratchets and wrenches with scarcely any excess metal clinging to them. Ex-workers said the automated method was supposed to increase the yield well above the traditional toolmaking process, in which more than half of a billet�s steel is trimmed away.

Executives said at Stanley�s May 2019 investor day that the factory would be in production in 18 months. Former employees said that timetable, thrown off by the pandemic, meant the system wasn�t properly tested before being brought up to scale.

A former operations leader said adjustments to the Belarus-made rolling machine sometimes required new tooling to be sent from overseas, which could take weeks. He and other former employees said wrenches and ratchets became misshapen in the press. One fix would have required running the machine at half capacity, he said, but that would have thrown off the factory�s cost effectiveness.

�They spent millions of dollars trying to make those machines work,� said Felty, the electroplating engineer.

The company in Belarus, AMT Engineering, couldn�t be reached for comment.

Other parts of the plant had problems, too. Jeremy Scheffer, who worked in heat treating, said sockets sometimes arrived in his section with metal that hadn�t been fully punched out, or without the Craftsman name stamped onto them.

Stafstrom, who retired in 2021, said the factory�s struggles were exacerbated by attrition among �gray-haired folks� with deep knowledge of tool making, while Felty said turnover at the top of Stanley�s tool division contributed.

Jeffrey Ansell, the company�s president of global tools and storage when the factory was announced, left that job in 2020 and has since been succeeded by four other executives. He couldn�t be reached for comment.

Despite the problems, tooling designer Greg Heltne said workers still made thousands of sockets. But retailers didn�t want them without ratchets and wrenches that also had been made in the factory, he and other former workers said.

�When the customer says, �I want everything I ordered� and we can�t deliver it, there�s not much that can be done,� Heltne said.

Lowe�s, one of Craftsman�s major retail partners, declined to comment. Other retailers that sell the brand, including Ace Hardware, Amazon.com, Blain�s Farm & Fleet and Atwoods Ranch & Home Goods, didn�t respond to requests for comment.

Former workers said inventory accumulated at the factory. Scheffer said that when top executives and board members visited, he and his colleagues were told to rearrange bins of unfinished sockets so they would be less noticeable.

�There was a lot of fanfare, a lot of bigwigs checking out the plant,� tooling engineer Ronnie Cotton said. �They were just trying to show some sort of progress, but in the end, it just wasn�t working properly.�

Rival companies that make mechanics� tools in the U.S. say their factory lines are partially automated but still rely heavily on workers� skills.

�The artistry of the human being that�s making those wrenches�that matters,� said Wright Tool President Tom Futey, whose company manufactures high-end tools in Barberton, Ohio.

Nick Pinchuk, CEO of Snap-on, another premium brand, said that in 2010 the company�s U.S. factories had a roughly 100-to-1 ratio of workers to robots. Today it�s 8 to 1, but the gradual transition helped the company identify the optimal roles for humans and machines, he said.

�Sometimes the ease of installing automation is a little bit overestimated,� he said. �Where that comes from is, people don�t really understand how the product is made in the first place.�

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and roboticist Julie Shah said people often have expertise and flexibility machines can�t match. She recalled an aerospace company asking whether it could automate the work of an employee who had decades of experience heat-treating components in precise and varied ways.

�You dig into it and you�re like, �No, that is an extremely computationally complex problem,� � she said. �It�s really easy to undervalue the judgment and experience that someone brings to what seems to be like a fairly simple task.�

As tool enthusiasts wondered when Craftsman�s Texas-made products would be available, the company�s social-media accounts offered repeated assurances. In June 2022, Stanley�s Twitter account said the factory was �gearing up for its debut� and aimed to hire another 100 employees.

By then, Stanley had already announced it was divesting its security business, its oil-and-gas unit and a door-making division in a bid to become a more focused company. An earnings call in July 2022 revealed that the core tool business had suffered a sudden drop in demand after the boom times of the pandemic.

Stanley�s stock price plummeted and cutbacks became the priority as it tried to whittle down more than $6 billion of inventory. Donald Allan Jr. , who became CEO last year, said the company would reduce its facilities by 30% and the number of products it sells by 40% as it sought to cut $2 billion in costs.

Some ex-employees said the Craftsman factory seemed to be getting closer to solving its production problems before Stanley began thinning the workforce. Heltne said he and a colleague were laid off this past December.

The plant, which never reached its planned staffing level of 500 employees, was down to 175 in March when Stanley announced the shutdown. The company said the same day that it was closing a plant in Cheraw, S.C., that had 182 employees who made utility knives and portable storage units, folding those operations into other factories.

Tooling designer Greg Heltne said he was laid off from the Fort Worth factory this past December.

Cheraw Town Manager Robert Wolfe said a few Stanley workers remain in the plant, and no buyer has materialized. Cushman & Wakefield, the real-estate firm selling the Fort Worth factory, said no deal has closed on that property.

Craftsman mechanics� tools continue to be made in Asia, according to their packaging. Former Stanley employees said those plants have some automation but still rely on manual processing.

Allan told an investor conference in May that the company has opened new plants in Mexico to serve the North American market, and that Stanley aimed to reduce its manufacturing presence in Asia. He didn�t specify the brands or tool lines that would be included in the shift.

Goldman Sachs analyst Joe Ritchie said that the shutdown of the Fort Worth plant is a minor issue in Stanley�s overall business. Shoppers likely will take it in stride if the tools continue to be made overseas, he said, and investors are focused on the broader cost-reduction plan. Shares are up about 27% since the start of the year.

Some consumers, though, were infuriated. Jeff King, a former tech executive who hosts a YouTube review show called the Den of Tools, said his viewers� excitement about once-beloved tools returning to U.S. production curdled into a feeling that they were misled.

�Other companies didn�t make promises to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.,� he said. �Craftsman did.�

Stanley had predicted the factory would make 60 million tools annually, but ex-employees said in the weeks after the shutdown that they weren�t sure if anything had made it to store shelves. By summer, though, domestically manufactured Craftsman socket sets began to appear at retailers.

A Wall Street Journal reporter on Monday bought an 88-piece set straight out of the shipping box at a Lowe�s in suburban Chicago. The bright red case was embossed with stars and stripes, and inside was a cardboard placard that read, �Forged in Texas.� The set cost $89.98, less than half of what some eBay vendors were seeking.

�LIMITED QTY never to be seen again,� wrote a seller who posted an identical set for $189.99.

Wisconsin carpenter Eric Jacobi got two sets through an online store that serves the military. A spokeswoman for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service said it had acquired 1,200 produced for a retailer that backed out of its purchase.

Jacobi, who runs a Craftsman fan group on Facebook, said the tools felt sturdier than their Taiwan-made equivalents, though some sockets were overly shallow and not entirely chrome plated.

Given their imperfect state and apparent scarcity, he worried that using them could damage their value as a collectible, so he heeded an online follower who advised that he lock the tools away.

�I don�t think I ever will touch these,� he said.

nobody knows how to make things anymore in america

# ¿ Jul 23, 2023 05:05

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

gradenko_2000 posted:

At what point does CS2 just start needing to simulate an economy, straight up, in order to make proper sense of the land use and transportation models

TBH it'll probably just go full neolib by asserting that the fart apps economy can materialize high opportunity cost items like food and oil out of thin air because the fart app economy makes a lot of money with low costs

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 23:31

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Gwyneth Palpate posted:

Stupid, in terms of the needs of the average consumer, but extremely smart for profit. The fact that they're bringing back a non-premium-consumer-level EV is, frankly, kind of shocking. I wonder what their rationale is.

Building only premium consumer EVs means that BYD, SAIC, Geely, etc. snap up the rest of the world with affordable average joe EVs.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2023 04:14

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

StratGoatCom posted:

https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1688187346322124801

https://twitter.com/SilingWu/status/1650883036299264001

the diablerization will continue until the derisking is done

# ¿ Aug 7, 2023 01:43

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1701412813967589641

Bidenomics!

# ¿ Sep 13, 2023 06:34

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

McDonalds to get rid of soda fountains by 2032.

quote:

cbsnews.com
McDonald's to eliminate self-serve soda machines at U.S. locations
Aliza Chasan
3�4 minutes

September 12, 2023 / 7:36 PM / CBS News

Say goodbye to self-serve drink machines, McDonald's fans.

The fast-food chain plans to get rid of self-service "beverage stations" at its U.S. locations by 2032, McDonald's confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday. A spokesperson did not say how the change would impact international locations.

McDonald's USA said the company is making the change so that customer and worker experiences will be consistent across all ordering points, from dining in person to visiting a drive-through or ordering via the company's app.

McDonald's USA did not say how the removals would impact drink refills. Franchise locations until now have had control over refill policies, the company previously shared on social media. CBS News has reached out to McDonald's for additional details.

Some locations have already removed their self-serve soda machines, customers pointed out on social media. One person on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, said the change happened at their regular McDonald's location not long ago. The customer said they asked an employee for a refill and it took more than five minutes to get the the drink.

"If they had them I could have refilled it myself in less then [sic] 30 seconds," the person wrote.

Some on social media wondered how they'd be able to create unique beverages by mixing different sodas, with one user posting, "say goodbye to hybrid drinks."

McDonald's has rolled out several other changes in recent years, including the opening of an automated restaurant near Fort Worth, Texas. The chain has also introduced revamped burgers with "pillowy" buns and started selling Krispy Kreme donuts at some locations.

In late July, McDonald's said digital sales, comprised of app, delivery and kiosk purchases, accounted for nearly 40% of systemwide sales for the second quarter of 2023. Revenue rose 14% to about $6.5 billion for the quarter.

"The McDonald's brand has never been stronger," McDonald's President and CEO Chris Kempczinski said at the time.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2023 08:32

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/sorkincel/status/1704254270508572719

lmfao

it's already useless bro

that's a t-34 looking turret on a... bmp looking thing??????

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 06:45

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/kylascan/status/1707103999529234903

:rubby:

# ¿ Sep 28, 2023 19:25

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

Epic Games must be doing poorly if they're taking a crack at being the game service for perverts

can't believe even epic game store is targeting tankies

# ¿ Sep 30, 2023 02:23

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1705324050795663397

orange juice up 70% rip

edit:

https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1708827732296048802

# ¿ Oct 2, 2023 20:55

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/snekotron/status/1720419573315362953

IRA's only ballooning construction but not actual manufacturing lol

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 06:28

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/anothercohen/status/1719408376793219285

lol that it got valued at 4 billion though

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 05:53

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1719701070119837807

in other words, work-from-home takes $51 a day away from our hard working job creators

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 06:17

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Kreeblah posted:

I've got an idea. Let's make auto loans non-dischargeable.

-Joe Biden, probably

Endgame: make all debt nondischargeable and enserf the bankrupt to the private property of their landlords.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2023 05:02

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/peruvian_bull/status/1722040409906450909

one trillion interest a year it's time to print even harder

# ¿ Nov 9, 2023 04:56

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

OhFunny posted:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/americas-population-projected-to-shrink-by-2100-census-figures-show-3c4d60cc?mod=mhp

Who was the guy who wrote that One Billion Americans book? Because that ain't happening.

The Census Bureau has revised its population estimate downward by tens of millions. This is the first time they have estimated a peak and decline of the USA's population too.

All those China population collapse talking points was projection, huh?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2023 16:55

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

gradenko_2000 posted:

"Look, you can't just BUILD a library"

I bet you that Will Stancil has a draft sitting somewhere arguing that private bookstores are the only possible way to make minority access to books possible.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2023 00:16

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1726976509603385359

sign me up for a four day weekday working at home

# ¿ Nov 23, 2023 05:40

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Xaris posted:

it’s very funny how blatantly stupid it is. ok if we say we are not in an emergency then oopsie looks like we gotta cut pensions and food banks, sorry folks just the way it is it’s in the constitution. look we don’t like it but our hands are tied

but oh well we really need to be funding genocides and the MIC war machine right now and can’t won’t stop, so none of this matters, it’s an emergency bitch now start printing the money, bibi needs more bombs

Considering that a single plain high explosive shell costs something like 8,400 USD now it feels like it's just one MIC salesperson quoting increasingly higher prices for the same batch of war stuff to a revolving door of bureaucrats from all of NATO.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2023 23:47

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/deusexmoniker/status/1730328615688999150

quote:

Here's a thread full of mathematical breakdowns of real numbers on why the economy is actually bad for the majority of participants.

This guy [Will Stancil] is such a smug gently caress I have to present concrete evidence. And some logical suppositions.

First of all, bidens favorite number is "historically low unemployment"

This is why he ejected millions of children from SNAP.

It actually makes very little sense as a figure if you just look at it like a thermometer. A million folks died. There was all this propaganda about "no one wants to work anymore" and "there are 10.9 million unfilled job openings in America" in 2021 and by 2022 it went away

Here's what actually happened. A shitload of boomers retired. Then after 2 years of sustained inflation they came back to the workforce excluding the 4 million wealthiest. They couldn't afford to retire.

The outflow happened in 2020, Biden got them back poor and starving and ready to greet at Walmart or whatever people actually do

These people also generally do not have children on snap. Its usually younger parents. But their large numbers shifting allowed Biden to make false inferences about the economy. It must be doing well. Look at all this "job creation"

This drives alot of Wills claims as well.

So. His case is that the economy is doing well. If that's true then the outlook going forward must be incredibly good according to the government will is doing propaganda for.

No wrong. The outlook is actually the worst in several generations

In fact, a giant portion of the workforce can't afford housing anywhere in America

[urlhttps://cnn.com/2021/07/15/homes/rent-affordability-minimum-wage/index.html[/url]

Statistically we are in a public health crisis related to hunger according to the government
https://t.co/FaHlSjnfnU

Food banks, people who deal with poverty on the ground every day, confirm this fact

Unprecedented usage of their services DESPITE RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT

The pandemic era benefits became inflation relief benefits, then they were gone. But prices stayed high. They're still high.

Let's talk about two of our titans of business. Bezos and Gates. Gates bought most of the farmland in America. Bezos just bought 500m in private 🏘

Why do bill gates, a tech guy, and bezos, a sweatshop guy, need half a billion in private houses and billions in farmland? Because there won't be anyone to buy his products in a decade. It's not sustainable. Rapidly dwindling customer base over ten years

Even jp morgan is buying up private housing as they all race to become feudal lords

They can read just like you can. No jobs in the next decade. So no customers.

In case you were wondering, how fast is the population growing? 2.3 million people per year. That's 23 million new workers in the workforce between 2022 and 2032 competing for a decade for....4.7 million jobs.

23 million people trying to get 5 million jobs? That's collapse math. Imagine all the cities with an extra 15 million unemployed on top of the usual3-6%

The only solution is austerity so the democrats and rep8blicans can mow the grass. Anything else is admitting systemic collapses to the system

I had to go work before but I'm back with more.

You're all behind on your credit cards and car notes.
https://t.co/dUhtqPrSvm

So you aren't extracting enough wealth from the economy to feed yourself, afford housing, afford transportation, and afford credit. Therefore the economy is not doing well. We can see just how far gone south the economy is when 25 million boomers preparing to exit for 40yr..

Only manage to last 18 months or 1 year before returning. As we reach an unprecedented slow down of job growth not seen since the great depression.

The government also can't pay their bills either
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-changes-outlook-united-states-ratings-negative-2023-11-10/

In fact everyone kind of believes our economy is collapsing
https://t.co/AkWw8gJduP

It's not me saying this
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/bonds-crash-in-long-term-treasuries-is-now-bonafide-epic-meltdown/

Biden has never once alluded to the bond market crash even though it rivals the http://dot.com collapse in size. He's been in charge for the entire freefall

You probably didn't even know there's a rout on us treasury bonds. Now you do.

Janet Yellen, who has presided over the collapse of treasury bonds: we can afford two wars

Turn the loving ship you elderly pricks

Time for Doomsday Economics, now including Feudalism with Modern Warfare characteristics, snuffing the life out of boomers for one last rally, food bank use rocketing to the moon, and bonds collapse.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2023 05:27

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1728836264172908548

bezos is running out of labor to squeeze so he's looking at building metal labor

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 00:25

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

PoundSand posted:

Not in this particular pithy manner but I do sort of struggle with this myself. Like I vote for/support additional taxes for public works/education/etc but like realistically I'm accutely aware my money is just going to grift. It's hard to square the circle of wanting the gov to fund more public transport for example while also knowing that like a mile of lightrail costs 10 bajillion dollars and is never going to meaningfully advance as a project. It is a stark reality that extra funds/taxes do often just go to stupid poo poo like police departments that are already overbloated.

bourgeois government allocates resources on behalf of the bourgeois simple as

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 19:35

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Preemptively setting down roots on the best climate-change proof land in America under the bourgeois dictatorship just means that you get to experience eminent domain if market forces haven't thrown you into renter hell by then.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 21:20

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:29

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1734206650888691737

new sequel to CONGRESS CREATED DUSTBOWL will be CONGRESS CREATED POVERTY

# ¿ Dec 15, 2023 03:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Doomsday Economics] Home of Kirbeh's $17 slice

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