Here is an article that discusses today's move by Burger King to purchase the Canadian fastfood chain, Tim Horton's for roughly $11 billion.
The combined company now is the third largest fastfood chain in the world, and has generated considerable controversy, not least of all for the fact that Burger King left the United States in order to avoid paying American corporate taxes. The American corporate tax rate is 35%, while the Canadian tax rate is 15%. The combined company will be moving it's headquarters to Ontario.
While I cannot say that I go to Burger King these days (have not been there in years), whenever I go to Canada, I do usually go to Tim Horton's, and fairly regularly at that. I always enjoyed the food, which tends to be of better quality than that which you usually associate with fastfood.
There are now calls to boycott Burger King.
I have been boycotting Burger King for some time now, but if I was still eating there, I would not boycott it, and here's why:
While I find the moves to offshore locations, particularly third world nations with more lax labor laws (and laws governing whether children could work at sweat shops, for example), despicable, I cannot find a move to neighboring Canada despicable. In Canada, the people there enjoy a very high standard of living - in many ways, higher than Americans enjoy! They have more vacation time, better benefits, including a true, universal affordable healthcare system for it's citizens. Their schools rank higher than American schools, and their cities and parks are more well maintained than their American counterparts tend to be.
In other words, Canada, in many respects, is what the United States should strive to be more like. It is a beautiful country, and this should prove only more beneficial to Canada.
As the article that I have a link to below pointed, out, Canada is a first world country, with solid infrastructure and labor laws, and a high standard of living.
As for any outrage that they are leaving the United States? Why not save that outrage for companies with far more outrageous practices, such as Walmart which, while still headquartered in the United States, gets many, if not most, of their products from third world nations, where people receive virtual slave labor and no benefits, and where Walmart workers here receive such low pay and minimal benefits, that many of them are on government assistance, even though they have jobs, all so that American consumers can purchase these things very cheaply? Why not get outraged when clothing or shoe companies move to third world nations to make their products dirt cheap, then resell them here in the US for outrageous prices?
If I were to boycott Burger King for anything, it would be for clearing too much forests in order to have land to produce cheap burgers and other foods, a practice that is detrimental to the environment. That is a large part of why I do not eat there anymore. In fact, that's the biggest reason why I do not eat there.
Still, a lot of people are expressing outrage that Burger King would dare leave American shores. But, since people here believe so strongly in pure free market, and since that is one of the inevitabilities of the free market system, I'm not sure why they are complaining, to be frank.
Is this a trend that more companies will follow?
I don't know. But my outrage is saved for more shocking things than a move out of the US.
Quite frankly, I am not even sure what people are so outraged for over this move.
In any case, if you want to read more about this acquisition of Tim Horton's by Burger King, click on the link below:
Why more U.S. companies will flee to Canada by Rick Newman of Yahoo Finance, August 25, 2014:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-more-u-s--companies-will-flee-to-canada-170750190.html
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