Sox First

The collapse of Iceland’s economy has taken its toll on McDonald’s which has announced it is pulling out of Iceland. That came after Icleand’s currency, the krona, went into a tailspin, falling more than 80%. McDonald’s imports all the raw ingredients, from beef to special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and, we assume, sesame seed buns, from Germany so the currency collapse hurt its margins.

So how significant is this? Only that The Economist regularly publishes a Big Mac Index which basically measures purchasing power around the world. So McDonald’s exiting Iceland is probably a bad thing for economists who like to measure that sort of stuff. But it’s a good thing for Icelandic cuisine and nutritionists.

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