Forget Fannie Mae, I'd be more worried about the value menu

All this talk about removing the dollar/value menus from fast-food places has me worried. I almost exclusively order off these menus, rarely venturing out. My favorite value menu has to be Wendy’s. They’ve had the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger for awhile, they added a crispy chicken sandwich to compete with McDonald’s McChicken, and recently added the Double Stack match up with other double cheeseburgers. These, along with the best chicken nuggets in the industry, keep me coming to Wendy’s, not the Baconator. As costs of commodities such as beef and chicken rise, fast-food chains are waiting for McDonald’s to “blink” before raising their own prices. According to the article here, http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/08/25/story11.html, while dollar menu items may only account for 14% of profits, they may also make up 30% of transactions. Wendy’s has been here before: The company moved away from 99-cent prices in the second half of 2005 and sales suffered until its Super Value Menu returned in 2006.
As for myself, I stopped by the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and essentially stopped going to Wendy’s until their value menu improved. Of all the fast food chains, the author says, Taco Bell is most suited to keep prices down as rice and beans are considerably less expensive than beef and chicken.