McDonalds lies to US investors?

McDonalds, that bastion of corporate food production for the masses, has lied to it's investors in the US during a presentation about it's performance in Australia. They used figures that were so glaringly wrong that the only conclusion I can come to is that they were lying. If it looks like a duck.....

Australians are going to McDonalds less and less. Rather than come up with a realistic reason why this might be so (um, you know, like "our food is shit and people don't like it") they have blamed their poor performance on the Australian economy slowing and high youth unemployment; pretty much saying that it's not their fault, it's the economy stupid.

Whether people are slowing down on fast food because of the economy or not, who can tell? Has there been any sort of study done about this? Or are we just getting corporate bullshit feed to us by a pontificating multi-national company? Given the case that they didn't get the basic economic numbers right in their US presentation, my assumption is the later.

McDonalds told the audience that youth unemployment in Australia is 25.5%. Therefore youth aren't buying fast food like they used to. Sounds sort of logical, apart from one big elephant in the room. Australia's youth unemployment is actually only 11.6%,  but don't tell that to the brainwashed US investors..... 

"Australia is another one of those markets that at this point in time we see from their perspective you're seeing some softer – clearly a softer economy," Mr Thompson said during a presentation for McDonald's second quarter earnings. 

"Youth unemployment in Australia is about 25.5%. So they're facing something, unemployment for them has risen." 

According to recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics there were 116,500 unemployed 15- to 19-year-olds, equating to 14.5 per cent of those in the labour force. The ABS reported the youth unemployment rate in May was 11.6 per cent. Read more