cc cc wrote:
> "Kevin Gowen" <kgowenNOSPAM@myfastmail.com> wrote in message :
>
>> I think that is a bit of apples and oranges, given that the labor
>> and beef content of a Big Mac are domestic,
>
> Ah yeah ?

Ah yeah.

> The bigmacs in my shotengai have a domestic content ?

Yes.

> They
> use Japanese beef, Japanease flour and sewing-machine oil ( to make
> the bun), Japanese pickles, Japanese trees (to make the package) ?

No. Did you see where I said "beef content"?

>> Your father's study doesn't seem to take over/undervaluation against
>> the euro into account.
>
> My father's what ? Study ?... er, I call that a "parodie", in
> eigo...."parody" or "mockery".  Usually people get the hint and stop
> comparing pears and apples.

But only after they make like a tree and beat it.

> When you base your evaluation on bigmac, you assume everybody does or
> should live like an American.

Nothing of the kind is assumed. The Economist came up with the standard
because a Big Mac is a common, standardized item that is available for
purchase all over the planet. I suppose you could use a bottle of Coke.
Perhaps you would prefer a container of Yoplait yogurt?

> That's an everyday item in the US, but
> most people on earth have never eaten a bigmac in their life

And that is entirely irrelevant to the Hamburger Standard.

> (that
> includes my father and at least 90% of the Chinese).

That's a shame. He should try the Big N' Tasty.

> All your comments about imported (or not) ingredients, about labor,
> standardisation or not...have the same ethnocentric bias.

There is no bias whatsoever. At least, no more than an oysters/wine
standard.

> There are
> countries in the world that are not organised like the US, there are
> other ways of life. Yes, they dare being different !

How charming for them. Which ones do not contain a McDonald's restaurant?
Not too many. Have you ever noticed that whenever a McDonald's opens in one
of these countries that dare to be different, there is a line of people
stretching for blocks waiting to spend a substantial part of their monthly
income on a Big Mac?

> And well, that magazine couldn't have chosen a worst example than
> mcdo, given their practices on most foreign markets (dumping,
> "ignorance" of local work legislation,  etc...).

Let's see some examples. Has there been a WTO dispute on the dumping of
McNuggets?

-- 
Kevin Gowen
"I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New
York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White
House."
 - Columbia University professor Eric Foner in the London Review of
Books, on the attacks of 11 September 2001. A new study has recently
suggested that the inferno that destroyed the World Trade Center and
killed thousands of innocents was indeed more frightening than the
rhetoric of the Bush administration.