Price of a Big Mac in 73 cities
p2pnet news view | Cool:- The Economist says its Big Mac index, “seeks to make exchange-rate theory more digestible,” stating, “It is arguably the world’s most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast-food item.”
They can’t go wrong with that claim. 
In Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock, “documents this lifestyle`s drastic effects on Spurlock`s physical and psychological well-being and explores the fast food industry`s corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit,” says the Wikipedia.
Spurlock ate exclusively at McDonald`s restaurants three times aday, sampling every item on the chain`s menu at least once. And at the end of it all, he was in a bad, bad way, said p2pnet.
But last year Canadian scientists concluded a Big Mac was an, “apt symbol of globalization,” and The Economist recently said Burgernomics, based on the price of a Big Mac at various points around the world, points to, “uncompetitive currencies in continental Europe”.
The size of your pay packet may be important, “but so is its purchasing power,” says The Economist, going on:
“Helpfully, a UBS report published this week offers a handy guide to how long it takes a worker on the average net wage to earn the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities.
“Fast-food junkies are best off in Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo, where it takes a mere 12 minutes at work to afford a Big Mac.
“By contrast, employees must toil for over two hours to earn enough for a burger fix in Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi.”
Now you know.
p2pnet – Big Mac: `symbol of globalization`, February 5, 2008
The Economist – Cheesed off, July 16, 2009
The Economist – An alternative Big Mac index, August 20, 2009
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August 24th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
1. Doubble Whopper > Big Mac
2. Morgan Spurlock is a douche bag…Stating the obvious with obvious methods is not ’science’. Yeah, if you eat fast food for every meal…..you’re gonna get sick….duh. The things people fall for this days and how lazy they’ve become. Everybody wants to blame the corps for all their troubles instead of taking the responsibilty for themselves(sp?). What a joke.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
@ EPiPH0N3:
You’re right, up to a point. But as I understand it, MacD and others of its ilk have become the main sources of food for very significant numbers of people who don’t have a lot of money, and whose neighbourhoods offer little, if anything, in the way of alternatives. So they almost have to eat fast food stuff. And they get sick. And fat. Very fat.
Cheers!
August 24th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
[addendum to Jon's...]
Not to mention the fact that McDonald’s blatantly advertises its products to be nutritionally sound and healthful. Spurlock’s movie was simply a way to illustrate the lie. Though I think the whole “Supersize Me” project was a dumb thing for him to do to himself, I do have to give the guy credit for being willing to be his own guinea pig.