McD's is "lovin' it"-- their profits, that is...

From The American, news that Morgan Spurlock's nightmare continues apace...

Four years after the release of “Super Size Me,” Morgan Spurlock’s popular anti-McDonald’s film, the fast food giant is going gangbusters. In January, CEO Jim Skinner affirmed that McDonald’s plans to return between $15 billion and $17 billion to its shareholders from 2007 to 2009. That same month, as Reuters reported, CFO Pete Bensen “reiterated the company’s forecast for capital spending of about $2 billion in 2008.” Its first quarter sales were strong across the globe.

Ironically, in the years immediately before “Super Size Me,” McDonald’s appeared to be in bad shape. In January 2003 it posted its first quarterly loss since becoming a publicly traded company. But over the past half decade McDonald’s has rebounded tremendously, thanks to its breakfast offerings, menu innovations, savvy marketing, and longer hours.

And then, a very cool point:

From a business perspective, we’d suggest that critics of the Golden Arches remember a point made recently by columnist George Will: “McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants—average annual sales, $2.2 million—are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s has made more millionaires, and especially black and Hispanic millionaires, than any other economic entity ever, anywhere.”