To what level is it sustainable in terms of debt-to-GDP? Coles Notes must be a Canadian thing.... brief plot summaries of popular books used by students to avoid reading the actual book..
On reading about fast food franchises, it's clear that most of them are profitable, and most succeed longer term, though certain chains are reaching market saturation, apparently. And going by a proxy for inflation, like the Big Mac index, it's clear they have been passing along increased input costs successfully for decades. And still they have grown massively in number. No reason to believe most of the owners are deep in debt and operating "zombie shops", which I guess you meant to imply that they would never get their investment back. It's just not true.
Ever heard of surivorship bias? It means the sample you are looking at are the ones that remained. You view the winners. The losers disappear out of sight. So yes, there are plenty of profitable restaurants around because the losers went under. Again, survivorship bias is EVERYWHERE. And yes, most of the franchise restaurants are drowning in debt. Do you think they give out those licenses for free? Ricter are you playing with me or are you really this dense? A mcdonalds franchise alone cost 750k!!!!. That's debt Ricter. All these franchisees borrow money from the parent company and "hope" over time to pay it off. Most never do. They scrape by and borrow more. The cheapest franchise I'm aware of are Subways. When I was growing up that was the rage because they were very cheap, I think 75k. Ricter I really have a hard time believing you are this stupid.
New restaurant chains are popping up all over. The money is made in the franchising fees. Not the food. Entrepreneurs caught on to this and sell the illusion of prosperity to operators, when its really themselves who make bank. Sort of like the MLM model.
You have to look at the size of the debt and the size of the economy. It's like looking at a mortgage and comparing someone who owes 50k on a small home vs someone who owes 500k on a large home. The debt might be ten times bigger but that 500k debt is worth more and will appreciate more over time. Our country is like a huge mansion. It's the best house in the best neighborhood and it's appreciating over time. The size of the debt is sustainable based on the size of the economy. Yes, at some point it's not sustainable obviously. The real issue is where the debt is going. Most of our borrowing now is going into unproductive areas that are hindering growth. But that could be cyclical and swing the other way. Remains to be seen.