Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 June 5

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June 5

McDonald's historical prices

Can someone here point me to a list of historical prices for McDonald's? I don't want stock prices. I want the year by year price of a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a Big Mac. I know that prices vary location to location, but they advertise one national "standard" price. That is what I am interested in. I want to show the prices and then show them adjusted for inflation as an example of how to adjust for inflation. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:25, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• One good place to start is The Economist, which has been tracking the Big Mac since 1986. I don't know if the full data set is available for free, but at their website they currently have 1Q 2018 data. --M@rēino 13:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
  • The article is at Big Mac Index. Matt Deres (talk) 14:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
    • The end of the Economist ref linked above has a link to their data but from the title I think it's only 2000 onwards [1]. Also while this may be better than nothing, I suggest the OP may want to read the data info carefully. I didn't find info on how they derive the US data but the 2018 figure is $5.28. I know they do a lot of weird things in the US due to the lack of sales tax inclusion in prices, but the US is not China and the price $5.28 seems a really weird price to advertise even in the US. I strongly suspect this is some attempt by The Economist to derive an actual everyday price in the US, not the advertised price. For example it could include some average sales tax and even ignoring sales tax, the average price nationally may not be well reflected by the national advertised price. Nil Einne (talk)

• If you Google-Image "mcdonald's original menu" you'll see a number of examples, which include the basic hamburger at 15 cents, cheeseburger 19 cents, fries 10 cents, milk shake 20 cents. This was the mid-1950s, and long before there was such a thing as a Big Mac. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Bear in mind that The Economist started the Big Mac index as a humorous effort to explain purchasing power, and not as a rigerous economic analysis. Also, the definition has changed over time, but in the US it has generally been an average of prices in cities where Economist journalists happen to have noted the price at a particular time.DOR (HK) (talk) 09:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Road taxes in Australia

Road tax#Australia says All states and territories require annual phone registration fee to be paid in order to use a vehicle on public roads; the cost of which varies from state to state and is dependent on the type of vehicle. Why must you pay a fee and register your phone annually? How is that one bit related to a road tax? Nyttend (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

It's vandalism. The original line was "require annual vehicle registration, until it was changed in the only ever edit from an unregistered contributor, in April last year. I've changed it. Rojomoke (talk) 23:12, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Ah, okay :-) Makes much more sense. Thanks for the fix. Nyttend (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2018 (UTC)