The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Baader-Meinhof is the name given to the phenomenon of a thing you've just noticed, heard of or experienced “suddenly cropping up constantly from different sources.” A common example is when a person becomes interested in buying a particular brand of car. Suddenly she begins to notice them everywhere. Or a friend mentions a popular song and later it comes up two or three more times in a short period. Also known as frequency illusion or recency illusion, it could be the result of a new awareness or a subconscious reaction to new information causing the brain to become selectively attentive.

Lately many news stories seem to follow the same theme. It wouldn’t be surprising for the entire society to be feeling a sense of this phenomenon and reacting to it. Are examples really more common or just more noticed?

Take for example, the recent story of the female TV reporter covering a fun run in Savannah, GA. The Huffington Post reports that one of the runners, a man wearing a hat and sunglasses, “smacked her backside as he ran past.” The offender “has been banned from future races after a video of the incident went viral.”

Then slapping became groping in this and several other stories: “Runner who groped reporter identified as local youth minister. Instead of a slap, CBS and others began to use the term grope in an effort perhaps to increase outrage.

The New York Post referred to him as the “pervy” jogger and a “creep.” 

In the wonderful world of new technology, technology that carries with it as many disadvantages as benefits allowing, for example, bullying to be raised to a new level of viciousness and relentlessness or one thoughtless comment to incite protests, boycotts and job losses, this grew from a localized incident of bad judgment into a national example of the prevalence of sexual harassment. 

This incident has created another celebrity victim: “It’s not playful. He hurt me both physically and emotionally.” The perpetrator, pervy jogger, creep, groper was given a national platform to apologize not only to the victim, but “to her family, her friends and her co-workers,” saying, “It was an awful act and an awful mistake.”

He’s lost his volunteer position and faced nationwide pillorying to his character and reputation based on a single misjudgment. Had it remained a local issue, he might have been charged with a misdemeanor. Instead he is another offender in the records of the Me-Too movement where examples are “suddenly cropping up constantly from different sources.”

What if a woman runner had done the same to a male reporter? I have met several women over the years who would have thought it both playful and funny. But that doesn’t fit the mold. It’s not confirmation bias or Baader-Meinhof. We are not sensitized to it. It wouldn’t have gone viral. 

And then, there was this story from the Business Insider, although ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post as well as many other news organizations covered it. “West Point and the Naval Academy are investigating students giving hand gesture tied to white supremacy during Army-Navy broadcast.”

These are not new, unique, hateful hand signals. “Students from West Point and the Naval Academy were seen giving the ‘OK’ sign…during a pregame show.” A hand sign that has been used for almost 2000 years to mean OK (or something similar) was, as of three months ago, “added to the Anti-Defamation League's online database of hate symbols used by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.” I guess if they use it, it’s now off limits to everyone else. 

Talk about tyranny of the minority! According to a site called The Wrap, “White power groups are still decidedly on the fringes of society, especially compared to the prevalence of religious groups that preach positivity and acceptance.” And contrary to popular sentiment, the Southern Poverty Law Center lists fewer hate groups today than in 2013. But when hand signs at a football pregame make the news, the issue comes up again. There has to be an investigation into the intentions of these students.

Who is looking for and reporting hand signs on TV? Who thinks a local incident of acting like a complete jerk warrants national attention? Is life so easy or so boring in America that we have to search for problems, go out looking for reasons to be offended and upset? Do we have no perspective?

Flashback - Ignoring The Facts

[This one comes from January 2012 and is still one of my favorites. People, who are involved in a test that proves that a $30 item is not effective, continue to insist on buying one. Note, they didn't just hear on TV or read on the internet that the item is bogus - they were actually involved in testing it and shown the results. It didn't work as advertised, but they still wanted one regardless of what their eyes were telling them because of all the hype they had heard elsewhere! Being swayed by marketing promotions and celebrity endorsements is not wise behavior.]

While looking for a different article on the Placebo Effect, I found this interesting video. As you know, the Placebo Effect causes people to recover or show improvement even when they are given only a fake remedy, the familiar sugar pill. The power of the mind is amazing.

I recall an article a number of years ago stating that the improvement within the control groups in certain drug studies increased as the power of the real medicines increased. They were getting the sugar pill but believed they were getting the latest, stronger medicine, so they experienced even better results. It was all psychological. It is easy to understand how this reaction could play into the hands of "snake oil" salesmen. They sell you a useless cure and let your mind do the rest. Then they get a few believers who help them sell more. That's why I always say, "Endorsements are not evidence."

Here is the  CBS News video testing the claims of a particular performance wristband, one endorsed by famous athletes, and touted to improve athletic performance. When test subjects were given the advertised wristband, their performance on physical and balance tests did improve. But when they were given a one-dollar replacement band and told it also was special, performance on physical and balance tests improved comparably. The video also explains how the bracelet company sets up tests to ensure the perception of improved performance.

The scariest part is the ending where, despite the fact that the $30-wristband claims had been debunked, shown to be no more effective than the $1 bands or even not wearing a wristband at all, the participants still wanted one!

This is not critical thinking! This is the kind of decision-making that leads people to spend money on worthless items instead of using it wisely. Then they wonder why they get into debt and can't afford to retire. It's the kind of thinking that leads us to vote for candidates based on endorsements or personal appearance or charisma instead of the leadership and ideas we need. It's the kind of thinking that contributes to the decline of America!

Using Perspective to View Gift Cards

While shopping a couple of days ago, I noticed some people gathered around the gift card display at a local store. There were gift cards for a number of other stores and restaurants in town. 

There are a number of ways to interpret this. One is that those people were too lazy to try to figure out a good Christmas gift for some of the people on their list and decided to give them a gift card, which is only slightly more personal than an envelope full of cash. Another is that they didn’t really understand the tastes of the people they were buying for, for example, unable to come up with something appropriate for teenaged grandchildren living many miles away. A third is that it is so difficult to buy for people who have met all their wants and needs. The third is a distinct possibility in a country where nearly everyone has enough stuff. 

Gift cards originated in the mid-1990s. Around that time common ads asked, “What can you get for the man (or woman) who has everything?" Yes, Americans at that time already had most of everything they needed, especially compared to earlier times. When they were popular, the solution recommended by these ads was something exotic or unusual – and probably not what the person really wanted anyway.

Since then the market for gift cards has skyrocketed, growing from just over $80 billion in 2009 to $160 billion last year. Consumers are tempted with special offers and discounts from nearly every store or restaurant. Retailers also love gift cards because a small fraction of them goes unspent, pure profit for the store, and when people use them they typically spend more than the value of the card.

Does this mean that the number of men (and women) who have everything is growing? That could be the case, but we don’t seem to appreciate it. Gift cards are a convenient way to deal with this problem, if it can be called a problem.

This information comes from the Progress Paradox (p. 80) written in 2003: “Average Americans…not only live better than more than 99 percent of the human beings who have ever existed, they live better than most of the royalty in history.” We are better off than ever. In 1900, the life expectancy of an average American at birth was approximately 47 years, and what were then considered luxuries only enjoyed by the very rich are now very common, considered as necessities by nearly everyone. We also have conveniences they never dreamed of. In a historical sense twenty-first century Americans are the people who have everything - making it so hard to shop for us.

A good, healthy reaction at seeing the crowd around the gift cards is to rejoice that those people have it so good that they can afford to buy the gift cards (at an average around $50 each) and that their friends and relatives are so well off that it presents a challenge to those trying to figure out what to get them for Christmas (or any other occasion). 

This good feeling about the state of our society may help to buoy us up over the weeks ahead – at least until Congress is back in session. 

Flashback - Health Insurance

[My argument back in July 2011 was that people needed to better understand how health insurance works to keep from getting fooled by advertisers and politicians. Here is the entry in full.]

A flyer in the newspaper today reminded me how naïve consumers are about understanding the economic process, business and insurance, or at least how naïve advertisers think we are.

An ad from AARP promoting their Medicare supplemental insurance plan states that Medicare pays only about 80% of Part B (non-hospital) expenses and the other 20% is up to you.  (True.)  Right below is the statement that a supplemental insurance plan could save you up to thousands of dollars in out of pocket costs. That looks like a great deal, but where do those thousands of dollars come from, the AARP magic money tree? Perhaps the insurance company, out of the goodness of its heart, is going to make up the difference? – of course not.

The insurance company is going to collect premiums from everyone.  (Since premiums are not out-of-pocket costs in insurance language, maybe they are ignored when counting up the thousands in savings.)  The first thing the insurance company must do if it intends to stay in business is to pay its expenses (including the costs of the “free” brochure and of paying for all the people who work there and of other operating costs).  They also want to make a profit.  So already the total amount paid by everyone must be more than the total amount paid back to everyone (or to their doctor).

There will be winners and losers. The (financial) winners will be the people with high medical expenses for doctor visits, tests, etc. The losers will be the healthy ones. This may fluctuate, so in some years you come out ahead and in other years you may be part of the healthy bunch subsidizing the sickies – paying more in premiums than you receive in return.  Except for people who are chronically ill, this amounts to little more than a smooth-monthly-payment program similar to the installment plans offered by some electric and gas utilities. It is often a good budgeting tool to trade unknown payments for smooth, predictable ones, but you are hardly getting thousands of dollars for nothing as the flyer suggests.

This is a common tactic. It implies that the money is coming from somewhere else - but there is no money except our money. Companies and governments handle it, allocate it, and sometimes waste it, but their only source is to get it from us. Americans must listen to advertisers, news media and politicians with this always in mind to avoid getting tricked by this common something-for-nothing sales pitch that is really a smokescreen to disguise redistribution.

[Note that two and a half years after this posted, Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT and an architect of Obamacare said publicly: "And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically [an intentional lack of transparency] was really really critical to get for the thing to pass." According to Snopes, the video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it.]

Fluoridation Facts

I stole the above title from a newly released American Dental Association (ADA) pamphlet on the controversy about fluoridation of public drinking water. This is another area where people with little understanding of science have spread falsehoods leading to some resistance to a beneficial practice. A brief review of the executive summary makes it quite clear; fluoride prevents cavities.

Although I have never had doubts about the safety of adding fluoride to drinking water, twice a year I am faced with the question of whether to pay an extra $35 at the dentist for a fluoride treatment. I know there is evidence that these treatments, along with the fluoridation of drinking water and toothpaste, are beneficial for children’s teeth, but I wondered about the effectiveness for adults. 

The fact that my insurance company doesn’t pay for it raises some suspicion. Coverage decisions may be based on cost factors, but one cost factor they must consider is higher future dental bills. Normally they would prefer to pay for prevention than to pay more later.

I began my research on the effectiveness of fluoride treatment for adults at a site billing itself as “the top magazine for dental hygiene professionals.” One hygienist, whose boss wants her to push the treatment to increase business, asks directly whether every patient needs fluoride.

The answer goes to an ADA publication from 2007. (The advisor didn’t know of any more recent updates.) A patient whose risk is low “may not receive additional benefit from professional topical fluoride application.” Low risk is defined as "No incipient or cavitated primary or secondary carious lesions during the last three years and no factors that may increase caries risk." It goes on to say there are other factors to consider, but generally “blanket mandates of fluoride for everyone are not appropriate.”

Consumer Reports gives basically the same answer (with less dentist jargon). “Extra fluoride may be helpful if you’re at increased risk of developing cavities, indicated by frequent tooth decay in recent years, dry mouth caused by medications or disease, or gum recession that exposes the vulnerable tooth roots.” 

They go on to say that home treatments are not effective, and that those in the low risk category should do fine by brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste “especially if your water is fluoridated.”

The National Center for Biotechnology Information site reviews a compilation of research on the “effectiveness of fluoride in preventing caries in adults.” They believe that the authors' conclusions favoring the use of fluoride treatments for adults “appear to follow from the results presented, although the paucity of more recent studies and poor quality of the included studies limit their reliability and relevance to current populations.” This vague recommendation (also from 2007) is not very compelling.

A Healthline.com page from 2018 asks: “What Are the Benefits, Side Effects, and Recommendations for Fluoride Treatment?” Again the emphasis was on children and adolescents with some discussions of minor side effects of treatments and real dangers of fluoride supplements. A little new information was that it was “best to get fluoride both topically [gel or toothpaste] and systemically [ingested]” from drinking water.

With several references to the 2007 ADA advice, I went there next. In addition to brushing twice a day, flossing and regular dental examinations, a “key to good oral health is fluoride.” Maximum benefit “is achieved when fluoride is available both topically and systemically.” Treatments from a dentist are recommended for adults with high risk factors such as poor oral hygiene, active caries, eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse, lack of regular professional dental care, high levels of bacteria in the mouth, exposed root surfaces” and a few others.

In my case it seems I have been correct in saving $35 per visit. I eat most of my meals at home, so I am able to brush three times a day. We use fluoridated tap water for cooking food and drinking. (Bottled water is non-existent in the house.) I have not had a cavity in at least ten years. (Knock on wood.) Nor do I have any of the other critical factors or habits.

It’s interesting what a little research – a factor in critical thinking – can do to help with everyday decisions. 

Flashback - Discrimination

[Here is a posting from June 2011. The original title was Age Discrimination, but the idea is broader.]

Recent news articles presented the fact that the older unemployed are finding it harder to reenter the workforce. In one television interview a man told the reporter that one company directly admitted to him that he had all the qualifications and experience and if he were 20 years younger, the job would be his. This is not only illegal, but a distinct failure in the dimension of critical thinking. It’s illogical and probably a disservice to the owners and customers of the company.

Consider that until recently it was not unusual for a company to have a turnover rate in the area of 20% - much higher in some cases, slightly lower in others depending on the work.  [Today (2019) it might be higher than that considering the number of job openings available to any disgruntled worker.]

At 20% turnover the company is losing it’s entire workforce, on average, every 5 years.  Even a person 55, who expects to retire no earlier than 62, would have a longer than average tenure.  In any economy it's likely that a 55-year-old would remain a loyal employee for those seven or more years until retirement with a company willing to give him or her a chance.

Furthermore some studies have shown that older workers spend more time on the job, with fewer sick days, no lost time due to maternity leave, fewer interruptions with calls from the daycare or school, etc.  Add in the mentoring potential, and arguments in favor of age discrimination become even weaker.  (Here are links to just a couple of articles supporting this position.) Furthermore, older employees have not grown up with all the technology. Those who are successful have shown that they can learn and adapt on the fly.

A company that ignores these realities exhibits behavior based on unwritten policies, past practices and gut feelings. That is both irrational and not in their own best interests – a failure in the dimension of critical thinking.

Reflect on this:  how many other laws are in place, including all other aspects of illegal discrimination, that would be unnecessary if company executives made sound (critical thinking) decisions instead of letting their prejudices short-circuit their brains?  And how many tax dollars could be saved on the development and enforcement of those laws and regulations if people just acted sensibly?

Astrology?

A few weeks ago CBS ran a story about millennials and astrology. The opening paragraph states: “Astrology is booming in popularity, especially among millennials who, according to the American Psychological Association, are among the most stressed Americans. The generation that grew up online is now turning to the ancient practice for help.”

Of course, astrology is not science. Research finds that people born on the same day at the same time do not have the same personality or life experiences. Show people the sort of general descriptions or predictions in a horoscope and they will rate them highly for accuracy, even if they are generated randomly. The mass of a person sitting next to you has a greater gravitational effect than all the planets combined.

Is this growing interest, booming popularity, a sign of poor critical thinking? 

I was ready to be discouraged about another example of behavioral failure until my research led me to a piece from early last year in The Atlantic called, “The New Age of Astrology.” They repeat that although there is “no evidence” to back any claims, astrology seems to provide some relief from a “combination of stress and uncertainty about the future.” Young people especially “find comfort and insight in the zodiac – even if they don’t exactly believe in it.” It can be meaningful and unreal at the same time. In this age of comfort animals and New Age mystical trends, astrology helps people remain calm.

There is a pattern here that goes deeper than astrology. Earlier this year, “American Psychology Association (APA) reported in their annual Stress in America survey that millennials are the most stressed generation.”

Huffington Post in April 2017 reported: Both Gen-X and Millennials “report nearly twice the level of stress that’s considered safe from serious health risk…and it’s affecting their children.” [Emphasis in the original.]

Time, October 2018, wrote: “Members of Gen Z – people ages 15 to 21 – reported the worst mental health of any generation” according to that year’s APA report.

That young people feel stressed is not hard to understand. It comes down to increased speed and reach of communications and the commoditization of audience, not to actual facts. Fifty years ago there were hurricanes, fires, the cold war and political scandals. There were drills in schools (for nuclear attacks), drugs, crime, poverty, bullying and social pressures. In the seventies there was even talk of climate change – another ice age – and don’t forget the oil crisis.

One reason the Boomer generation made it through was the absence of hyperbole and hysteria today delivered 24/7 on handheld devices with the express purpose of keeping the audience intensely engaged. Since then the standard of living has soared, the crime rate is down, there is less war and poverty in the world, families are smaller and houses are bigger. Modern conveniences – dish washers, microwaves, home air conditioning, cell phones, more reliable vehicles and many more – are both taken for granted and allow more time to worry. 

Favorable violent crime and murder trends, longer life expectancies, and diseases cured or prevented by vaccines are not emphasized, leaving the false impression that conditions are growing worse. Reporters give breathless accounts of tragedies and disasters all over the world, as they show graphic pictures and interviews with crying survivors. Thoughtful reporting has been replaced by each new and exciting item of “breaking news” to accommodate a short, Sesame-Street-fostered, attention span. Rumors and opinions from single unverified sources are treated as facts. Exceedingly rare incidents, child abductions and school shootings, are blown out of proportion. Constantly exposing a young captive audience to dire predictions of climate disasters, eyewitness accounts of shootings, pictures of terrorist attacks is bound to drive a sense of insecurity. 

Words are considered weapons. Incidental touching is assault. Every stranger is a potential abuser or abductor. Being offended has become the national pastime sometimes resulting in death threats against the offender. Ordinary life has become a legal mine field leading to the need for more insurance, warning labels, permission slips, hold harmless agreements and institutional overreaction to minor infractions. 

All this naturally leads to an atmosphere of safety paranoia where anxious parents overprotect frightened children.

Politicians have driven the country into opposing camps, painting the other party as a stupid or evil enemy, stressing dire consequences if they come to power. The press then promotes worst-case interpretations to further their interests. Thus everything has become political, and the best way to manipulate people is to use children as pawns by showing them as the ultimate victims and by terrifying them into carrying forth the message. 

Calm voices are ignored. Is it any wonder that a younger generation feels stressed, with constant messages of anxiety exacerbated by the misuse of increasingly powerful technology? The panicky voices, heart wrenching stories, the warnings of overblown dangers and threats expressed by the government, parents, teachers, advertisers and advocates were not something they could adapt to. They were brought up on this dystopian garbage and expected, even encouraged, to participate.

Interest in astrology by Millennials is not something to be mocked as lack of critical thinking by them. It’s their refuge from a world of unjustified panic resulting from a pattern of abandoning critical thinking and insistence on the truth.

Flashback Fridays

Now that the count of these short essays nears 900, it makes sense to review some of the better examples from the past. I explained on November 15 why the Real American Solutions must come from Americans themselves. Most of the crises we face individually and as a society are the direct result of individual decisions, not government action or inaction.

Behavior has consequences. Ill-advised decisions and actions lead to bad outcomes. Individual bad outcomes build on one another combining into what people consider national problems – the country moving in the wrong direction. To turn things around, to mitigate these crises and epidemics that we hear so much about on the news requires better decisions, leading usually to the opposite actions, saving instead of spending, for example, to improve retirement prospects. But that is just a single example. There are so many others.

One way to make sense of the myriad of possible decisions and actions is to categorize similar actions into dimensions, as I have done here. Poor choices in each of the areas of Critical Thinking, Economic Understanding, Perspective, Responsibility and Discipline lead to similar bad outcomes.

The purpose of these essays is to help readers develop two skills: recognizing behavior as the driving force behind consequences either good or bad, and being able to assign problematic behaviors to a dimension to see similarities. The result can be an “ah-ha” moment, identifying and seeing in a new light the errors of our communities and of ourselves. This understanding can lead to better outcomes, less stressful lives and even better voting decisions. 

So, with 900 examples to choose from, it shouldn’t be necessary to provide so many new examples. Some of the older ones will do just as well. It’s not like we’ve seen any significant progress over the past ten years. Americans are still making the same mistakes. The only differences today are that new technologies help to spread bad ideas faster and that almost any current example is far more likely to be politicized, which gives everyone an easy way to place the blame somewhere else and ignore their own contribution to the problem. 

Beginning soon, I will review some of the oldies-but-goodies from these many examples of poor choices and post them as Flashback Friday specials. These are still a relevant starting point to practice the skill of focusing on behavior instead of looking for new policies, promises of miracles and other unrealistic solutions. 

Are Cars Too Expensive?

It’s hard not to feel like a victim when the media keeps reminding us that we are being taken advantage of and pointing out the evildoers. This segment from CBS This Morning is fairly typical.

The question posed and answered was: “Can a middle-class budget buy a new American car? Probably not.” They begin with the fact that the average vehicle price increased by about 38% for a new car or truck compared to 10 years ago. Of course they don’t mention that more than half of that amount can be attributed to normal inflation. Some comes from required and optional safety improvements and some from added amenities. 

That situation will likely not improve in the future as GM just settled a six-week strike with 46,000 union members who will receive $11,000 ratification bonuses along with other contract improvements. This sets the level for negotiations with the other two US automakers. Economic understanding reminds us that those added costs will be passed along to the car buying public, but back to the story…

Armed with the average annual take-home pay and the recommended percentage for car payments, Tony Dokoupil visited a couple of New Jersey dealers to price a typical car. The only way he could meet his presumed budget was either with a 96-month loan or by buying a much smaller car.

Where is the problem according to CBS? “The big three auto-makers are retiring many family sedans while rolling out souped-up SUVs and trucks at premium rates that families often can't afford without taking on loans that are now larger and longer than ever” while “a record number of Americans fell behind on their car payments.”

About this time I’m yelling at the TV that automakers don’t make cars that don’t sell. The reason they are producing bigger cars is to meet the demand. They are not the bad guys.

To back this up I found a site from January 2019 headed: “39 Interesting Car Buying Statistics, Trends, & Analysis.” Two facts near the beginning of the list were: 

• “Passenger car sales dropped below 30% of the market share in August 2018 for the first month ever. (USA Today) 
• Sales of mid-size (15.6% decrease) and compact cars (13.6% decrease) fell in August 2018, while compact crossovers and SUV’s rose about 14.8% of the market share. (USA Today)”

That’s what people are buying.

Later in the list is the fact that the “top three features consumers are looking for in a new car are safety (21%), Bluetooth/USB connectivity (15%), and a spacious interior (11%). (Crimson Hexagon).”

Safety is number one. A reliable source provides the unsurprising information that “new small cars are safer than they've ever been, but new larger, heavier vehicles are still safer than small ones.” Not only does this explain the trend toward bigger vehicles, it also explains why the cost of cars may have risen more than inflation – even the smaller ones are safer than ever, plus customers are expecting more amenities.

Finally, Americans for a long time have had a love affair with larger vehicles. In 2016 we read: “With gas prices relatively low, you might be tempted to buy that SUV you’ve always wanted.” A few years earlier: “larger vehicles accounted for 63 percent of total US sales in 2013” and “88 percent of all pickups sold in the US in 2013 were full-size models” and 54% of the SUVs “were on the larger side.” 

A couple of other observations: the percent of budget given to Tony to spend was a range of 10-15%. In the story he used 10% for his examples resulting in a worst-case scenario. There was no mention of a down payment or trade in, but many Americans are underwater with the car they are driving, so this may be fair. But it also could be an indication of where the problem really lies. With cars and many other purchases, buying now to pay later has become normal. (See my last entry.)

Finally, in the story CBS included statements from GM and Chrysler explaining their decisions were based on a “customer-driven trend to larger vehicles” and “based on what the customer wants,” respectively. Much as it’s popular to blame the big corporations for problems, the real problem is the appetite and resulting behavior of consumers. Saving for a car before stepping on the lot and then not overspending seem to be ideas of the past.

Buy Now, Pay (or regret) Later

Usually on Black Friday I write about perspective – that any deal on electronics is not worth the life of the person trampled in the stampede. Another aspect of perspective is appreciating what we have and not constantly yearning after more or bigger or newer. The problem is that understanding the difference between wants and needs is only a first step. It must be followed by the discipline not to ignore reality by buying something anyway, especially something you can’t afford.

What seems to be catching on today is a new gimmick called point-of-sale installment loans. “This holiday season, it's not enough to spot a great Black Friday deal on a big screen TV or a sweater. You need to consider whether you want to take out a loan at the checkout, too.” 

That’s right; shoppers no longer need to go to a bank for a loan to buy something they can’t pay for. An installment loan at checkout breaks the cash register receipt into a number of easy monthly payments. That service is now available at Wal-Mart and at many other retailers, both brick-and-mortar and on line. And installment loans are expected to be “hot this holiday season, as retailers attempt to drive sales and shoppers demand easy-to-understand credit.” Retailers are partnering with finance companies to give shoppers these loans, even to people who might not qualify for regular credit cards. Instead of paying at the time of purchase, shoppers can take the items home and pay in 3, 6 or 12 monthly payments.

This is not a new idea, but was usually limited to big-ticket items. Furniture stores have used it for years. The problem is that the eventual monthly payments add up to more than the original price – sometimes 20% or 30% more. 

Not paying cash at checkout is not new either. Credit cards made that possible years ago, and both arrangements involve interest. But shoppers generally ignore the interest in light of the convenience and recognize some advantages over credit cards. Installment loans have no late payment fees, which are a big revenue source for credit card companies, and people tend to like the idea of a predictable, fixed amount each month.

It really is the same idea as a mortgage or car payment, but now the idea is moving downstream to less expensive purchases. Another source says installment plans have a “wide appeal but resonates most strongly for debit users. Four-in-ten would consider using an installment plan for everyday purchases like groceries and household items.”

An American Banker article has another explanation for the trend; “many younger Americans are uncomfortable carrying credit card balances, partly because they saw their parents struggle with debt during the financial crisis and prefer the more certain repayment terms of installment loans.”

This brings up a few issues. First, the financial problems of the parents of younger Americans were not the fault of the credit card. They were problems of discipline and perspective. Going into debt in a different way is no guarantee of success. Since installment plans have no late fee, what do they do instead, send debt collectors or repossess the sweaters and Christmas toys? (This is not addressed in any of the stories.)

In effect, this is just another marketing ploy to get people to spend money they don’t have. The example in one of the articles was of a woman who bought tires from Wal-Mart. She was all right with paying the $644 in three monthly payments of $224, but she “doesn't remember the interest rate.” (It’s about 18% APR.) In this case, tires were probably a necessity, but sweaters, purses and toys?

All this is happening while U.S. household debt, according to Motely Fool, reached $13.54 trillion earlier this year, “an amount that has risen for 18 consecutive quarters.” 

Wake up America; debt is debt! Have a happy Black Friday, but don’t do anything foolish.

Food Labels are Confusing

It began with a local health-news report that led me to the Consumer Reports website. The problem: Food labels are confusing. Not all claims and seals on food packaging can be trusted. 

Consumer Reports wants to help shoppers by making sense of some of the more common labels. But the labels they refer to are the ones designed to lure uninformed shoppers, enticing them to pay more for imaginary benefits like all-natural, non-GMO and organic.

I’ve written before about the science behind GMO foods and organic growing practices. Genetic modification acts as a short cut to the crossbreeding that has been practiced in farming for thousands of years. In some cases it will be the only way to save certain crops from going extinct due to diseases or pests. Organic produce has been tested and found to be marginally cleaner than traditionally grown crops, but if you wash your fruits and vegetables before preparing them, as everyone should, it makes no difference. (See the links for a fuller explanation or enter GMO or Organic in the search box in the upper left of this screen.)

Consumer Reports lists 6 seals of certification rated from fair to excellent: Grass Fed, Certified Humane, Animal Welfare, Non-GMO Project Verified, United Egg Producers, and USDA Organic. A deeper dive tells more about the certification process of each. For example, United Egg Producers Certified is rated fair overall for being very good in terms of verification but poor for animal welfare. Three labels are rated poor: Natural or All Natural, No Antibiotics, Non-GMO.

At a local grocery store I found seven different varieties of large eggs. Prices ranged from $1.09 for one dozen generic eggs in a gray container to $5.79 for a dozen labeled as organic and pasture raised. Priced between them were the cage free; cage free brown; free range; and the no-hormone, no antibiotic eggs. Apparently people will pay five times more for eggs to be reassured that the hens were leading a happy life, frolicking in a pasture. Of course, there is no label to tell how the hens are treated after they reach their 5- to 7-year period of peak production.

These decisions are mostly made by people who have never seen a chicken, pig or cow close up or visited a farm. They get their news from websites like this one that claims “rearing of farm animals today is dominated by industrialized facilities…that maximize profits by treating animals not as sentient creatures…” Each animal, according to them, is a “social, feeling individual capable of experiencing pleasure. The vast majority, however, are only familiar with deprivation, fear, and pain.” (Perhaps they called in an animal psychic or Dr. Doolittle to confirm this statement.)

Another site, with a more realistic and less of a concentration camp concept of farms, contradicts the factual part of the above statements. “About 98% of U.S. farms are operated by families – individuals, family partnerships or family corporations (America’s Diverse Family Farms, 2018 Edition).”

 Is this another form of virtue signaling, paying almost $6 per dozen for eggs because we care so much about chickens we will never meet? It’s no wonder that earlier this month the headline read: Consumer debt reaches record-high of $14 trillion.” As long as the cows, pigs and chickens are happy, what’s five dollars here and there?

Perhaps instead of trying to make sense of the seals and claims to help you understand the meaning behind them, Consumer Reports should have published the fact that most of those are simply marketing tactics playing on the egos, guilt and fears of consumers following the popular sentiment of the day.

What comes in the next issue, how to buy the right saddle for your unicorn?

It Doesn’t Take Much

A number of weeks ago, one of my loyal readers sent me an email with this excerpt of an article on homeopathy saying I might find it interesting. 

“Something like 5 million adults and 1 million children use homeopathy, remedies that, in fact, contain no discernible amounts of the active ingredients…. Analysts project that the global market for homeopathic treatments will rise 12.5 percent by 2023, and already it’s a $1.2 billion industry. People are beginning to feel cheated: a nonprofit suing Walmart and CVS for hawking such snake oil conducted a survey that found 41 percent of people feel negatively about homeopathy when they learn about the pseudoscience behind it.”

I did find it interesting. I was familiar with the lawsuit mentioned and had referred to it earlier. But this time what struck me was the data from the survey. If 41% are willing to change their minds (and feel cheated) when presented with the fact that there is no science behind homeopathy, that means 59% were unmoved even in the face of good evidence. They were that strongly committed to their opinions. From a critical thinking standpoint, this is very disturbing. Why look for evidence just to ignore it?

My reader thought that those 59% were in trouble, but I responded that we are all in trouble. When more than a majority hold any particular opinion, it is so easy for that to become policy. Cowardly politicians, primarily interested in job security, will go along with any crazy idea.

This phenomenon is not limited to homeopathy or alternative medicine. When I looked through articles on the Post Truth Culture and ignored those that spin the erroneous notion that it began with the Trump presidency, I found this interesting opinion piece arguing that the source lies in the ideas of individual freedom and the trend toward personalizing every experience: especially things like clothing, entertainment and tattoos.

“If you take this culture of hyper-individualism to its extreme, one might come to believe that we have the right to believe whatever we want, to – even if those beliefs are immediately provably untrue… Freedom to believe in one's own, individual universe; freedom to pick and choose facts, and discard those that are disagreeable.”

So we continue to see headlines like this one from last month: “Kindergarten Vax Exemption Rates Up – Again.” The science doesn't matter when people can personalize reality.

Likewise in politics, some recent research shows that “party identification bests ideological identification. And most people will stick with their party long after they’ve abandoned their ideology.”

Critical thinkers would work out their ideological beliefs first and then support the party or candidate that best fits them. They would begin by deciding where they stand on issues before committing.

“The truth, it seems, is closer to the reverse: We choose our party for a variety of reasons – chief among them being the preferences of our family members, core groups, and community – and then we sign on to their platforms.” 

What’s even scarier than this total disregard for information and facts by vast numbers of people is that it takes only a few people, not close to a majority, or a few incidents to incite calls for new laws or even mob action.

In one example, in response to the death of an Indiana woman from strangulation by her pet boa constrictor, the Humane Society of the United States called for legislative action. The news item tells, “at least eighteen people have died from large constrictor snake related incidents in the United States since 1978 – 13 of those since 1990. If less than one death every two years calls for a new law, what of the 350 children who drown in swimming pools each year? 

Another is the legal battle between Oberlin College and a local bakery featured on CBS Sunday Morning. A shoplifting incident by an African American student led to protests and accusations of discrimination and white supremacy, resulting in a substantial loss of business for a local family-owned store. All it took was a few activists using social media to spread a slanted story.

There are so many other examples where a minor action, incident or comment gets people up in arms, demanding changes, revenge or satisfaction, often based not on the facts or intention, but on the firm beliefs of the group. No amount or logic, reason or science will persuade them to change their minds.

Words Matter

I don’t watch many ads on TV, but I happened to see this one near the end of a football game last week. It was one of those public relations ads from Exxon Mobile telling what a wonderful job they were doing developing biofuel from algae. Someday this fuel will be used to power planes, ships and trucks “and cut their emissions in half.”

Wait a minute; something is not right here! Biofuels are carbon-based. When they burn, they emit mostly carbon dioxide. The only way to cut emissions in half is for the same amount of fuel to produce twice the energy as traditional diesel or jet fuel. That involves a factor called energy density.

Now biofuel is generally good. It comes from plants that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere. When biofuel burns it releases the same CO₂ back into the atmosphere, so it is considered to be carbon neutral. 

The downside is that first generation biofuels, such as ethanol, are produced from edible crops. They require a lot of space to grow and a lot of energy to plant, harvest and transport.

Biofuels processed from algae are a second-generation biofuel, similar to fuel made from the inedible and discarded part of a food crop, such as cornhusks or switch grass. The advantage is that food and fuel do not compete with each other, as when ethanol is made from corn.  And the production consumes “small amounts of energy while producing considerable fuel output.”

Other advantages are that algae production is efficient, in that, it can be grown “in almost any climate thanks to the open- or closed-tank approaches that are available today. As long as we can provide this natural product with enough sunlight to create photosynthesis, then it has the capability to grow quickly.” It is a renewable energy source that can be refined into a variety of products, and it can yield almost five times more fuel per acre than sugar cane or corn.

Two major disadvantages according to the same source are that it currently requires about 20% more energy to grow than it yields and production cost is still higher than the alternatives.

Exxon Mobile confronts the skeptics by citing partnerships with several major universities and a private firm to use gene technology and other research to build on the advantages and overcome many of the disadvantages. It looks promising, but they still “face some significant technical hurdles before biofuels production from algae will be possible at a significant commercial scale.”

The question remains about the claim of half the emissions. All fuel from wood and manure to jet fuel has a characteristic called energy density. “Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume or mass.”  Gasoline has an energy density of about 45 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg). “Ethanol produces 30 megajoules/kilogram.” For that reason, a car will go farther on a gallon of pure gasoline than it will on a gallon of ethanol or any mix of ethanol and gasoline. Adding ethanol at the pump reduces MPG.

This 2011 paper from Stanford gives the energy density of algae-based biofuel at 20-25 MJ/kg, about half that of gasoline. Even if the research at Exxon Mobile’s partners could double it to equal that of gasoline or diesel, it would still be far short of their claim of cutting the emission of planes, ships and trucks in half. 

Deeper reading at the Exxon Mobile site gives the answer: “If key research hurdles are overcome, algal biofuels will have about 50 percent lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-derived fuel.” The saving is not in emissions but in the energy expended during the entire production and delivery process.

The claim in the ad is inconsistent with that explanation thus is really inaccurate. Perhaps the advertising firm misunderstood, or the company just dumbed it down for football fans. In either case, I love it when I’m right!

Real American Solutions?

What are the real American solutions; what is real about them, and what are they solving?

First, what needs solving? The problem is that Americans are not satisfied with the direction of the country. This link leads to a graph of weekly Gallup Polls (with the data points below) showing “satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S.” from 1979 to the present. Unfortunately the graph is split into quintiles and has no 50% line making it hard to see a majority. But it would be reasonable to expect that if at least half the people are satisfied, we are doing OK.

The last time the number on the satisfied column reached even 40% was July 2005. We are going on 15 consecutive years with 60% or more dissatisfied. Herein lies the problem.

Furthermore, what are people dissatisfied with? The list is a familiar one and never seems to change: the obesity epidemic, retirement insecurity, drug and alcohol addiction, teen smoking and vaping, declining educational system and student performance, sleep deprivation, consumer fraud, smartphone addiction, science illiteracy, spiraling healthcare costs, deceptive advertising, media-driven fears and hype, health and financial scams, income inequality, frivolous lawsuits, gun violence, the demonization of big business and many more.

Life continues to grow more complex. Our children must be protected from Internet predators, school shooters, violent videogames, drugs, too much screen time, tobacco, faulty highchairs and car seats, laundry soap and other household chemicals, dangerous toys and insufficiently padded playgrounds. Adults must to be warned about the dangers of ladders, power tools, tobacco, alcohol and texting while driving (or walking). Students’ science and math scores are declining. Americans are eating too much, spending more screen time amusing and competing for attention on social media causing them to become angrier and more isolated and spending more money than they earn. Advertisers seem to invent new problems as quickly as they try to con us into buying their miracle products to cure the old ones.

It’s not just President Trump’s fault. The Gallup graph spans the administrations of eight presidents and 20 congressional elections. We seem to keep asking government to fix it; but if government could fix it, we should see some evidence of at least some progress over the past 40 years. In fact, government has been fighting a “war “on poverty and another on drugs for longer than that with nothing to show for it but a stable poverty level and an opioid epidemic. Government got involved in student loans and mortgages to what end? Government is the wrong American solution!

A careful review of the problems shows that most of them are caused by individual behaviors resulting in poor individual problems. The only reason they become national problems is that they spread and accumulate across society. People eat too much, spend too much and fall for advertising tactics, not because of the government or any other outside agent. They make choices. Make the opposite choice and get the opposite outcome, a favorable outcome.

As evidence of this, twice a week for almost 450 weeks, I have been giving examples of how unwise behavior in one or more of the five key behavioral dimensions leads to unhappy consequences, many of which are listed above. Wiser behavior in those dimensions may not solve everything, but it’s an excellent place to start. We can think and act our way out of most of those bad consequences, which is far superior to sitting back and waiting for someone else to bail us out, especially after seeing few positive results over the last 40 years.

Pursuit of Happiness?

Last week the news broke that Americans spent about $9 billion on Halloween. That’s over twice the budget of the entire National Park Service and included almost half a billion dollars on costumes for their pets.

My first thought on hearing this was that people must be feeling pretty good about their life and their personal economic situation if they are willing to spend so much celebrating what years ago used to be a time for homemade costumes for kids going door to door. Now it has become a full-fledged manufactured holiday along the lines of Valentines Day. 

The overall spending level on Halloween has been consistent for at least the last eight years.

But the original story decries it as out of control consumerism. The writer labels that much spending on a non-holiday as a sign of conspicuous consumption. “Conspicuous consumption is designed to show others you are rich, smart or important.” It used to be a case of having a bigger house or fancier car than the neighbors. Today it’s having a better picture of themselves or their pets on Facebook or Instagram and garnering more likes.

That is also the conclusion of this Fox Business article: “Social media 'pressure' drives Halloween spending.” Their conclusion is based on a survey showing that “48 percent [of millennials] admitted to purchasing Halloween items solely for posting online, and four in ten millennials felt a lot of pressure to spend that money.” They were not alone. Over thirty percent of the generations that bracketed them admitted to having the same motivation.

This idea of conspicuous consumption goes beyond dressing up for selfies as this Forbes article explains in: “What Handing Out Full Size Candy Bars on Halloween Says About You, According to Behavioral Economists.” Stores this year were stocking more packages of full-size candy bars in anticipation of the pressure to out-do or at least keep up with the neighbors. “Your Halloween treats can signal not just what you have, but aspects of your character, such as your generosity.” It’s about social signaling, how we try to shape what others think of us.

This whole dynamic, too, is amplified by social media, the way it sets expectations and the way it makes the spread of a reputation, positive or negative, so much faster and easier.

So it’s conspicuous consumption, a sign of insecurity, that drives people to dress the dog like a cat or a box of cereal. It doesn’t sound like they are spending for the sake of a good time or to celebrate happiness at all.

Finally, this Washington Post story from last March confirms that notion: “Americans are the unhappiest they’ve ever been, U.N. report finds.” The US dropped for the third year in a row to 19^th place among 156 countries in the United Nation’s World Happiness Report, an annual ranking of overall happiness. 

“By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever,” writes Jean M. Twenge, one of the report’s co-authors. “The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades.” It’s hard to believe, except that the news media rarely reports this type of good news. Instead they dwell on the negative, the scary and the sensational to incense the audience and attract clicks and eyeballs. 

Commenters on the report blame the trend toward unhappiness in part on the rise in addiction, but isn’t that more of a symptom than a cause? Is it an increase in screen time, activities that have been linked to increases in depression?

Perhaps one key can be found back in the full-size candy bar story. “Our satisfaction is very subjective…it’s not absolute, but driven by what we expect.” Expectations are set by perspective. If we lack perspective we allow others to judge us and set our expectations, and that can only lead to unhappiness.

Staying Conscious

Last time I explained how people tend to make decisions based on how they are feeling 95% of the time unless they make some effort to stop and think things through. The 5-second countdown trick is one way to pause, to slow down the process and avoid impulse decisions. 

We must be always alert because everyone trying to sell something takes advantage of this tendency to make decisions based on feelings. They play to our subconscious. 

Shortly after that I ran across a related article. It was called “Don’t get fooled or conned again” and presents five more tactics or techniques people or companies use “to get us to do what they want.” In most cases that means buy a product or service, but it may also mean adopting a particular political point of view.

Some of these tactics are obvious, like promising to send a huge windfall, but asking for a handling fee or a bank account number to get the process going. Most of the tactics though are common but more subtle, like offering a third item free when you buy two, even when two or three is much more than you need.

The tactics, referred to as superpowers, begin with understanding that the process of being fooled takes place inside your mind. If you are not alert to what is happening, you can be manipulated to buy whatever they are selling. "They’re trying to sell you on a story, to get you to buy into their narrative.”

The first is misdirection. Misdirection is why “companies and governments often release bad news on Fridays or before major holidays” when they know we will be distracted.

Next come time pressure and opportunity. The two are closely related. We are presented with a limited time to act or a limited number available. Any special sale or limited time pricing falls into the time pressure category. Car dealers have sales with catchy names near the end of each year with artificial deadlines, think Toyotathons and Happy Honda Days. Sometimes they combine the two by saying the sale is over at the end of the month or when they have sold a certain number.

Made up days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday also are examples. Estimates for this year are that those two days will result in sales of $12.3 billion (a 25% increase) and $9.48 billion (up 20%), respectively. And some companies have already started Black Friday promotions, so be careful to think first. Something you didn’t want or need is not a bargain, in spite of the great price.

The last two tactics are also closely related. “Social compliance refers to how we respond to people in authority” whereas “Social proof refers to how we constantly look to others around us for clues as to how to behave.” Both are powerful. Social compliance comes when encountering someone either with authority or perceived authority, such as a recognized expert. Examples include a treatment or pill advertised with a doctor’s endorsement or advice from TV doctors, who depend on hype to keep the audience engaged.

Social proof comes from the many customer endorsements (instead of evidence) in those same ads. It explains why when one person begins to applaud, the rest tend to join in. It drives much of the behavior on social media where likes draw more likes and people tend to congregate on line with others who share their philosophy. 

In one study in 2011, a cognitive neuroscientist at Temple University exposed 32 teens to a series of Instagram photos while they were in an MRI machine. They mixed them with other pictures and randomly assigned ratings. The teens were allowed to like a photo or pass. “Teens were much more likely to like images that seemed popular [and] skip pictures with few likes. And the brain's reward pathways became especially active when the teens viewed their own photos with many likes.” That is how social proof works on both teens and adults, likes draw more likes and memes go viral with hardly the firing of a single brain cell.

The article presenting the five tactics concluded: “Be careful when you feel emotionally moved by the headline, and be even more careful when you agree with the headline or when the headline makes you happy, because that’s when you need to watch out.” The best defense against being fooled and conned is critical thinking.

New Thoughts on an Old Idea

Looking through my various news feeds, I came across a recent reprint of an article published at Inc.com in 2017. It was called “How to Change Your Life in 5 Seconds” and gives a simple tip on how to avoid procrastination. By merely counting backward from five to zero, mimicking a NASA countdown, you can overcome the inertia that results from feeling unmotivated to do whatever comes next in life, simple decisions like getting out of bed or starting a project.

The thought behind the countdown suggestion references a Harvard Business article from four years earlier that, in turn, presents an interview with a Harvard professor who published a book in 2003, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. The book is about how to ensure your marketing message gets through to potential customers, based on years of research and “drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics.”

So what does that have to do with procrastination, or anything else for that matter? The key discovery is “that 95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind.” In fact he suggests, “95 percent of all cognition occurs in the subconscious mind.” In terms of buying behaviors, we leap before we look. Decisions in general are not based on logic or rational thought. “They're based on emotion, on how a person feels about the action.”

It follows that if you give yourself time to think about not feeling like getting out of bed or not feeling like doing whatever needs to be done next, the result is procrastination. The countdown is a conscious effort to block those feelings and, in those 5 seconds, it’s possible to be out of bed already or taking the first step toward any other task that lies ahead.

But this practice could go beyond the simple, everyday decisions. According to the original source, the same appears to apply to buying decisions as well – and we don’t only buy material goods, we buy ideas and opinions.

Take as an example the common tips for selling a house. Some include: half-empty closets; turning on all the lights; clean or new curtains, door handles and cabinet hardware; inexpensive shrubs and brightly colored flowers for curb appeal; cut flowers or cookies in the entryway instead of the more typical coatracks and key hooks. All this is superficial. It targets the emotions, the feelings, the 95%. It’s manipulative, and it works.

This goes far beyond buying a house. Retailers study how they can get us to buy more: One site lists 15 tricks such as:

• Oversized sales signs;
• Shopping carts at the entrance to inspire larger purchases;
• High profit items at the front of the store so you have walk past them to get to essentials, which are in the back of the store;
• Most profitable items at eye-level;
• Music to make shopping fun;
• Plenty of elbowroom;
• Customer rewards cards;
• Low-cost impulse items at the checkout; and
• Limited time offers, vanity sizing, and other psychological tricks.

One age-old piece of advice to overcome these mind games is to make a shopping list (of items, or features in the case of a larger purchase like a house or car) and stick to it. Also, what if everyone did a countdown before putting something in the cart? What if everyone did a countdown before driving into the car lot? What if everyone did a countdown before believing what we hear or see on social media, on ads from purveyors of health and beauty miracle products, on the national news or in political speeches? 

Use the countdown trick as a safeguard to buy just enough time to let the critical thinking kick in. Make it your trick to defend against their tricks. Use it to protect yourself from the marketing ploys and emotional appeals aimed at that vulnerable 95%.