More Dollars to Gold(en Arches)

Said McDonald's competitors recently:
"While the rest of us lag, they do decently;
We must capture, like they,
An original way
Of promoting the spread of obesity."

In times of dollar distress, investors take to gold. The same holds true for the golden arches of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) which, practically alone in the fast food industry, continues to grow same-store sales at a healthy (if that's the word for it) pace. Perhaps, as Kelly Evans writes in the Wall Street Journal's Ahead of the Tape column, it's due to the traffic drawn to those fruity smoothies and sweet iced coffee drinks. Or maybe those golden fries really are a store of (caloric) value.