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August 27, 2014

#BurgerKing in Canada? Canadian bacon burgers?

Have it your way, employee on food stamps and all. / Photo via NY Times
And, no, I don't mean Ted Cruz, who, despite denouncing his Canadian citizenship, will always be Canadian bacon (as in a real ham, or a real hog) in my book.

Fox News lists "what we'd like from Canada" with BK buying Canadian icon Tim Horton's to slash taxes.

Actually, here's what I've said.

This is the perfect new leverage to talk about a carbon tax.

And, by "carbon," I of course mean other man-made climate changers, including methane from human-raised farting and belching cattle. If we had a domestic carbon tax, we could also have a carbon tariff on foreign companies, and a fast-food place like Le Roi de Hamburger in Quebec could get dinged twice.

Beyond that, people worried about losing an American icon, besides the tax dodge?

That top link points out other issues, including how globalization means that Americans aren't always the top business dogs:
The acquisition highlights the ever-higher ambitions of Burger King’s majority owner, the relatively low-key 3G Capital. In just six years, the firm, backed by one of Brazil’s wealthiest men, has taken over Burger King and the ketchup colossus H.J. Heinz and helped orchestrate the megamerger of the beer giants InBev and Anheuser-Busch. …
 (I)t has no bigger admirer than Mr. Buffett, who is a longtime friend of the 3G co-founder Jorge Paulo Lemann and was a partner in buying Heinz last year for $23 billion.
Let’s note several things.

First, that first sentence. Burger King hasn’t been an “American icon” for some time, just like Budweiser hasn’t, if you will.

Second, getting back to that tax dodge, something like this was probably going to happen in the future.

Third, the way to stop this is to plug corporate tax loopholes, ideally in a non-revenue neutral fashion, and most ideally in a progressive fashion. (Good luck with that, though.)

And, then, fourth, the way to try to stop this from happening in the future is to stop voting for either neoliberal Democrats or Republicans.

That said, back to the taste buds.

The Canadian-style bagel as a breakfast sandwich basis sounds good. So, too, does the bison burger, and it couldn't be more expensive than a Carl's Jr., could it?



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