Critical Thinking in Crisis

American critical thinking is hard to find and completely disappears in the face of a crisis. During the virus scare last spring, two types of info emerged. One, often from the medical professionals, was the calm reasonable kind. It was right to be careful, practice social distancing, wash hands frequently and wear a mask. That message was typically drowned out by the breathless, panicky pandemic warnings seen on the news.

 

We got the daily numbers of cases and deaths. We watched stories of people hoarding Purell, toilet paper and water. During the first week of the 15 days of voluntary lockdown, there were a shortage of coconut water and cellphone videos of fights in grocery stores over paper goods! Even before the disease got to the US, diners shunned Chinese restaurants. Then we were asked to stay in and practice social distancing, but some college students on spring break and others couldn’t be bothered. Today’s fun and freedom took precedence over the possible spread of the disease tomorrow or in a few weeks.

 

On the first Monday that the schools closed to protect students, I went to my local grocery store to pick up a prescription. It was overrun with parents who brought their school-aged children shopping. Did they think a good activity to keep them “isolated” and protected was a family shopping trip?

 

Day 12 brought this from CBS News: “Egg prices triple in 3 weeks amid coronavirus panic shopping.” This wasn’t price gouging; it was a genuine shortage. At the same time the price of regular gasoline dropped to around two dollars a gallon, also a result of supply and demand. Most people were driving much less and, for some reason, stocking up on eggs. Only the first makes logical sense. The CBS headline got it right, calling the run on hand sanitizer, paper products, bottled water and eggs “panic buying.”

 

Politicians and media commentators capitalize on this tendency toward fear and panic, encouraging the same reaction to win elections on one hand or to keep ratings up on the other. It has gotten progressively worse. Manufactured fear quickly turns to anger, then to hatred and to more fear. It makes people easier to control. Thus, politicians count on citizens leaving their brains outside the polling place and voting based on fear and hatred while the media counts on them to be glued to the TV for the next shocking update. Since we fail to remain calm and rational, we no longer receive calm, rational messages.

 

The same kind of "thinking" applies to everyday situations as technology gets more and more sophisticated and the people using it don't. We discover nuclear power and use it for bombs and submarines: but try to use it to produce pollution-free electric power and NO! No one can be serious about climate change and not be a advocate for nuclear power. Chlorine gas is deadly; chlorine in a swimming pool is safe. Nuclear bombs are deadly; nuclear power plants are safe. But the opposition is led by politicians and activists who are either well intentioned and ignorant or who have a financial interest in alternative energy sources. Regardless, they use fear and panic to sell their position, and it works.

 

The internet and cell phones allow rapid communications and information, but they lead to a lack of privacy, more sophisticated scams, cyber-bullying, targeted marketing for legitimate and bogus products, a mindset of finding people guilty before evidence is submitted and without a hearing. This technology which has so many positive applications, is used to incite riots and demonstrations and to spread misinformation and whacko theories.

 

We have more food, and people are overeating. We have more prosperity, and people are going broke. We have more leisure, and people are more stressed. We vote based on fear and hatred. We never calm down to think things through. That’s the America we live in.

Flashback – Price Deception

[On New Year’s Eve 2012 I posted a look at the various ways advertisers use prices to convey a false impression. Make prices appear low to suggest a bargain; jack them up to give the impression of special quality or luxury items. Because of the date, I ended with a brief note on champagne. Though it’s only June, why not read this and then find something to celebrate?]

We are deceived by a lot of things, by ourselves and by others, especially advertisers. We are all familiar with the pricing scheme of marking items as $19.99 instead of $20 to make them seem like a bargain, even though many people, when asked, will describe the $19.99 shirt as a $20 shirt.  Consciously we are not fooled, but subconsciously it registers as a better deal. Consider that  nine-tenths of a penny per gallon on the price of gasoline.

Surprisingly, the opposite strategy is also used. When paying a higher price, we often believe we are buying better quality even when we are really getting substantially the same thing. In prior postings I brought your attention to tests of (more expensive) organic foods showing that they are not nutritionally superior. Recently we learned that family cars outperformed luxury cars in the new crash tests. I have seen many Consumers Digest-type articles saying that ordinary moisturizers help your skin as well as the high-priced brands that claim to be superior. Higher-priced brand name drugs continue to sell well against similar or even identical generics by virtue of perceived quality. “When served microwaved food from the frozen food section in the setting of a fine restaurant, most people never notice.”

I remembered some time ago seeing a story about wine judging. Experts were asked to rate a certain group of wines. Later, in what they thought was a different event, they were presented with the same wines. The ratings of the same wines by the same judges came out completely different – no correlation whatsoever. I couldn’t find that source, but was overwhelmed by similar stories.  One told of wine tasting experts fooled in general, recommending wines with expensive labels with eloquent descriptions of their superiority over the same wine poured out of an different bottle. Experts also gave differing descriptions when served a white wine and the same wine with red food coloring added. Others couldn’t tell if a wine was red or white when they drank them from black-colored glasses.

It’s not only the experts who are fooled. “Expensive wine is like anything else that is expensive, the expectation it will taste better actually makes it taste better.” This article gave even more examples.  HDTV clarity and cheese tasting elicited the same perception errors based on price. A January 2008 study showed that adults rated the same wine as tasting better when it came from bottles labeled $45 than from ones labeled $5.

How would this apply to the art world? Experts always want to tell us what to think and what is real art. We often look at the work and scratch our heads. Here is a comment from a friend who visited an exhibition of what was proclaimed to be a major contemporary British artist at the Aberdeen (Scotland) Art Museum. “Imagine a giant empty exhibit hall with nearly-blank canvases, each about 7 feet square, or painted unevenly in reddish-orange oil. A life-size bronze casting of a rumpled sleeping bag.” I'm sure most of us would be equally puzzled at the praise for such an exhibit, but in the art world there is so much hype, and it’s so easy for the experts to pompously fall back on the accusation that others "just don’t get it." We buy that logic and that’s why we get what we get. (For an amusing spoof on contemporary art check out a film called Untitled).)

The effects of high price and over-reliance on so-called experts apply in many other fields. So before you buy something based on the name or the price, do the research. Whether it’s food, art, drugs, wine, cosmetics or cars, more expensive is not necessarily better. When all you have to go on is expert opinion rather than evidence, you are usually safe to trust your own taste.

Which brings us to the real topic for today – champagne. It is, after all, New Year’s Eve.  In this case I have done the research for you, and guess what?  More expensive is not necessarily better. As this British source says, “In a blind test that has thrilled the marketing departments of the major retailers and perturbed at least one of the grande marques, six wine experts gave a resounding vote of support to some of the less glamorous bottles.”

So buy what you like and save a little cash. Happy Critical Thinking in the New Year [or Independence Day], and Cheers!

Flashback – Perspective and Gas Prices

[In the fall of 2011 I published a piece with that title. At that time, eight and a half years ago, people were looking forward to prices dropping to about where they are today. The point of the discussion was how short memories are, how easy it is to complain when things change for the worse and how quickly we take benefits for granted. Here it is again for your consideration.]

A couple of days ago the AP published an article on lower gas prices. The price has dropped significantly since summer and some people were amazed and thrilled to find prices below $3 a gallon.  If things go well some parts of the country could see prices as low as $2.50 in the near future (or not).

What does this have to do with perspective? To me it’s a reverse example. Here we have people very happy with prices below $3 and possibly headed toward $2.50, whereas not too long ago we were hearing cries of pain and anguish at prices as high as $2.50. But compared to $4.00 it seems like a bargain. People tend to have short memories and get used to things as they are, reacting with some discomfort to changes. In this example it is joy rather than discomfort, but because we have experienced such economic and technological growth and improvements throughout our lives, our expectations are set and any loss or reduction causes discomfort.

Perspective should remind us that how things are today is not the way they always were. Gas was not always three or four dollars a gallon, but televisions were not always digital, with 50-inch screens, surround sound, 200 channels, or even in color (and we had to get out of our chair to change the channels). Less than one hundred years ago most Americans had to live without radios, a second car, a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner, in-door plumbing, Social Security or any expected retirement, Medicare or any health insurance. More recently people got along fine without home computers, dishwashers, smartphones, moon roofs, garage door openers and home air conditioning. But it’s easy to take these things for granted and feel we could not live without them, when, in fact, people lived for all of history without them. Recognition of this makes it easy to understand how Greek citizens can march in protest over loss of benefits while their country teeters on the edge of bankruptcy.

Perspective is about values, values that keep our wants from morphing into needs (and needs into rights), values that remind us what is vital vs what we can really live without. It’s nice to see the price of gas turn around, but it should also remind us to be grateful for what we have and to consult our core values when we decide how to spend the extra cash. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it very bluntly in his 1964 lecture at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies: “Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.” I think he was talking, in part, about perspective, and I wonder if we have been progressing or declining since then.

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!

Gas Price Self-Deception

Here we are in the middle of the Independence Day weekend. AAA expects a record number to spend time away from home, an estimated 49 million people traveling in total. “That’s up 4.1 percent – 1.9 million people – compared to last year. This will mark the sixth consecutive year of travel growth for the holiday.” This source says “you’re better off staying home,” but that’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind.

Of all those travelers, more than 41 million will be driving, “likely thanks in part to lower gas prices,” which AAA expected to be 19 cents lower than last year.

The estimate of 19 cents was posted on June 27. A week later the new number was lower. “U.S. gas prices are creeping higher this week, owing to an extended rally in global oil markets and a weaker dollar, but drivers are still set to pay some 15 cents less per gallon over the July Fourth holiday and the weekend that follows, adding more than $100 million in extra spending power to the consumer economy.”

This is something I can never make sense of. A few pennies per gallon and people are ready to adjust vacation plans. Consider first the estimate cited above of $100 million available for other spending. That’s a lot of money. But wait! That amount divided by the 41 million people filling up their cars (or riding in them) is $2.44 per person. That is not a lot of money. Even if the difference had stayed at 19 cents and the savings jumped to $3.10 per person, that is still not a lot of money. Yet people make these kinds of decisions all the time without doing the math.

(Also, if an AAA estimate can be off by over 20% in less than a week, consider how little faith to put in other, similar estimates, even when they are made by people who study the subject all the time.)

But back to the subject of gas prices and on a related note, we find that Illinois residents who live near the border are going out of state to refill their gas tanks after the state doubled the gas tax, raising it (coincidentally) by 19 cents per gallon.

The July 1 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times leads with: “Illinois Drivers Head Over The Border To Find Cheaper Gas On First Day Of New State Gas Tax.” Gas stations just across the border are seeing a surge in business as “some Illinois drivers are frustrated, fed up and willing to make the trip to save some money.” They are almost in the same boat as the vacationers except the decisions they are making are long-term, so calculations are even more important.

The newspaper interviewed various residents traveling to Hammond, IN for gas. In one example a man said, “Takes me 20 minutes to come over here” to fill the tank. That could easily burn half a tank of gas. Burn half a gallon of gas each way at $2.75 per gallon to save on 19 cents for 12 or 15 gallons? (19 x 15 = $2.85) After the round trip the savings comes to about one dime!

Another case looks more favorable. “He makes the trek from Pilsen,” near Chicago, which is also about 20 miles away, but he buys more than gas. “We go to the big box store” and “are able to get more groceries for the family.” Now it becomes a destination for other shopping, not just a round trip, and the Indiana sales tax is 3% lower than the tax in Chicago. This makes a little more sense.

One other consideration, though, is the value of your time. Some insist it should be worth a minimum of $15 per hour to any employer. Should it be worth less to you? Is spending an extra 20 minutes an investment of another $5 or do people consider it free time? 

Critical thinking leads to some interesting questions and often some different conclusions.

Food For Thought

Here are just a few items I have been wondering about.

A common excuse for bad behavior in politics and business is that someone else did it first or the other party started it. Doesn’t that ever strike you as the kind of response you would expect from a couple of third graders arguing on the playground? ("Did not!" – "Did too!" "He started it!") Don’t we deserve better from our leaders? Unfortunately in many cases, before the leaders can say it, their advocates on social media have already started looking for comparisons. Does the liking it and sharing it make us all more like third graders?

Has anyone ever seen something go viral that actually teaches people something or makes them think about an idea? I suppose the “stupid people tricks” might hint at teaching people not to try it at home (or anywhere else), but most of us don’t have to see someone else figuratively “crash and burn” to know what is dangerous. Those videos are obviously for entertainment value rather than instruction. Thinking is not something people do for fun, so we stick with the cute pets, fluffy wildlife, heartwarming stories and YouTubers selling us items we don’t need.

And speaking of entertainment value and oddities going viral – isn’t it interesting that the fad of encountering aliens from outer space, common in the 1950s, vivid descriptions of little green men with large eyes and foreheads, has disappeared? There are so many cell phones with cameras and so many people taking pictures of almost everything they see that if those space aliens were really among us, we would have been exposed to a boatload of selfies by now. I guess the search for intelligent life in the universe goes on – whoops, did I leave out the word “elsewhere”?

I have never thrown a plastic straw into the ocean and never intend to do so, so why can’t I use one? I have accidently dropped a plastic bottle and been thankful it was not made of glass. Once again, it’s not the plastic; it’s the behavior.

Finally, the fuss about the price of gas around the holidays seems to be mostly manufactured by the news media. It happened for Independence Day; expect to see it again for Labor Day. “The price of gas is 60 cents higher than a year ago, what are people going to do? Will anyone be able to afford to get away?”

The average mileage for a car/light truck in the US this year is about 25 mpg. A 60-cent-per-gallon increase adds $2.40 to a 100-mile trip. A 400-mile round trip for the weekend comes to less than ten extra dollars – less than two beers at any major league ballpark in the country or slightly more than a single movie ticket. Remember, that’s based on average mileage, so half the driving public is even less affected. But when they ignore the details and just target people’s emotional gut reaction, it sure makes a good story.

Biofuels and Butterflies

Perspective teaches us that life is about tradeoffs.  Here is one that is not so obvious.

Any Master Gardener (or third grader) can tell you that pollinators are vital to our food supply. So when I hear people fuss about monarch butterflies, I always wonder if it’s because they are superior pollinators. It turns out they probably are not.  The National Wildlife Foundation tells us:  “Bees are well-known pollinators, but over 100,000 invertebrates—including butterflies, moths, wasps, flies, and beetles—and over 1,000 mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, act as pollinators.”  All pollinators are struggling, but why the emphasis on monarchs?

This website describes monarch butterflies as charismatic mini-fauna, small animals that stir positive feelings in us when we see them. They are pretty and easily identifiable, so we feel a special bond with these butterflies, hence the fascination with them and the handwringing over their gradual disappearance.

Reasons for their decline include logging in the Mexican overwintering zone and the uses of broad-spectrum insecticides on farms and in personal gardens. Inability to adapt to some factors of climate change may also contribute.  But that particular site puts the bulk of the blame on the disappearance of their breeding habitat. “The caterpillars eat only one plant: Milkweed. And milkweed has been vanishing from the landscape.”

Especially corn farmers are tilling every last inch of soil available, thereby eliminating milkweed that once grew around the edges of their fields.  The site links this to our demand for the cheapest food possible, which they say leads farmers to “keep their fields weed free, kill milkweed, and – by extension – kill monarchs.”

But that’s not exactly correct. Farmers do not grow more corn because we insist on low food prices any more than Saudi Arabia pumps more oil because we like low gasoline prices.  The problem is not on the supply side; it’s the high demand for corn brought about by rules requiring that ethanol be mixed with gasoline to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Some argue that the ethanol rules are also designed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.  Burning ethanol or other biofuels is “cleaner” than burning gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis, but they are not as efficient. Burning a gallon of gasoline provides more energy than a gallon of ethanol, so when everything is accounted for the mpg-to-mpg difference is insignificant in terms of CO₂ emissions. Foreign oil is the primary reason.

Now we get to the trade off.  Most think: monarchs are good, and biofuels are good, but drilling for more oil off shore or in Alaska is bad. But doing so could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil resulting in less pressure on the farmers to till every available square foot leaving more milkweeds as a breeding habitat for monarch butterflies.

Perspective reminds us that we can’t have everything exactly the way we want it – butterflies and biofuels.  Compromises are sometimes necessary.

Note:  Near where I live (that evil) Monsanto promotes planting milkweed in highway medians.

Gas Prices in the News

First let’s check a few gas price projections for accuracy and then think about the real impact of those relatively small changes that so often make the news.

I happened upon this report about gas prices for the Washington, DC area – “AAA: Gas prices projected to rise this summer.”  This report was dated April 2, and they were saying, “AAA Mid-Atlantic estimates that prices at the pump this summer could rise 40 cents or more per gallon.”  The spokesperson from AAA gave a number of reasons for the prediction and concluded:  “We may be looking at $2.60, $2.65, $2.70 by Memorial Day.”  He added that by the Fourth of July $2.80 was possible, but $3.00 was unlikely.

Fast forward to the first day of summer.  This comes from the AAA website showing gasprices for Washington, DC:  Current average price = $2.479.  Average for the last month was $2.537.  It came close, but never hit $2.60, not to mention the $2.70 by Memorial Day.  But those headlines can sure get your attention!

Now on July 3, the AAA site for Washington, DC lists the current average price at $2.46.  What happened to $2.80?

Don’t blame the AAA.  One of my economics teachers used to say, “If you could accurately predict interest rates, you would never have to work another day in your life.”  The same can be said about gas prices.

Meanwhile, the headline from a June 13 issue of Time-Money article reads:  “Gas Prices Are at Historic Lows. Take Advantage With One of These Inspiring Road Trips.”  They point out:  “According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $2.33 nationally. That's about 5 cents cheaper than this time last year.”  Because the price is below last year and the lowest since 2005, they recommend a number of road trip options.

How is five cents per gallon enough to justify a road trip?  At that difference a road tripper would be saving $5 for every 100 gallons of gasoline purchased.  With an average efficiency for a small SUV of about 20 MPG, 100 gallons would take you 2000 miles.  Without stopping to see many sights the trip would take at least 4 days.  A $5 savings isn’t exactly going to last very long?

The same article lists other states with more significant predicted price drops of 13 cents to 25 cents in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, but that’s still only about three to five times the miniscule average savings, and to enjoy that savings you must limit your 2000-mile trip to the Midwest.  (Note:  Effective July 1, Indiana raised the gas tax by 10 cents.)

This is not intended to poop anyone’s summer party plans or put a damper on a fun family road trip.  But do it only if you can afford it without counting on a few cents of savings at the pump.

According to some polls, about 40% will skip the summer vacation because they can’t afford it (the smart ones), while about 20% of those taking vacation will go into debt to do so.  You certainly can’t depend on the price drop at the pump to finance it.  And remember, those predictions are not exactly reliable in the first place.

More About Predicting the Future

Americans tend to make knee-jerk reactions to changing economic conditions.  As the gas prices have remained low, the switch is on to bigger cars and trucks.

In April we heard the news:  “Pickup truck sales surged in the first quarter as businesses rushed to replace aging equipment and consumers, encouraged by both low gas prices and interest rates, purchased bigger vehicles.”

A little later in the year the news came, “General Motors' U.S. sales plunged 18% in May as low gasoline prices took a bite out of car sales.”

Finally in November “General Motors announced…that it will permanently lay off nearly 2,100 U.S. auto workers in the coming months. Why? Apparently because drivers are buying fewer smaller cars.”

This was not a surprise.  It is totally consistent with past consumer behavior.  People make decisions not based on their needs, but based on the short-term conditions.  Do they expect gas prices to remain low forever, or even for the average length of time they own their cars?  This seems not even to be a consideration.

When will we see the trend change and gas prices to once again move up?  No one really knows.  One energy forecasting website predicts that the price of oil will increase by about 15% in the next 6 months.  That’s not too bad.  The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts oil and gasoline prices around 20% higher this year, but there is a possibility for prices to swing up to more than double 2016 prices before settling back down.

Another site provides an interesting review of all the factors involved in the supply and demand for oil and gasoline.  What effect will the OPEC production cutback last month have?  What about increased Iranian production now that sanctions have been lifted?  Will the shale oil industry in the US and Canada survive long enough at the current prices to make a difference?  Will worldwide demand continue to grow despite an easing in the growth of the Chinese economy?  Will other factors affect the value of the dollar, the currency used to price oil internationally?  Will speculation cause the kinds of huge price swings we have seen in the past?  All these and others could send the price of gasoline skyward.

Do you think the average American car buyers look at any of this information before making the decision to trade in small cars or sedans for a large car or pickup truck?  This is very doubtful.  Instead they look at the posted price at the corner gas station and take the plunge.  In this case it may work out with prices remaining relatively low for quite a while, but the price of oil is very unpredictable and volatile.

Sooner or later, when the price of a gallon of gasoline rises again to around $4 and we hear the news of people in panic, trying to make ends meet, should we be surprised?  Yet the news media will make a big deal of it, saying how unfair it is, interviewing people at the pump complaining as they fill their trucks and large SUVs.  But the news media is always looking for an opportunity to feature victims, refusing to ask what behavior led them to their current predicament or to even entertain the notion that they may have had anything to do with it.

Looking For Hope

Last week I wrote an essay called We Are All Doomed, about the apparent inability of Americans to recognize the discrepancies between their words and their actions or to see the connection between those actions and predictable consequences causing them to make the same mistakes over and over.  It was a pretty pessimistic piece of prose.

But that is not my usual tone.  I really do try to hold out hope.  So when I saw the partial headline:  “DUNKIN' DONUTS: People aren't buying doughnuts because…”, my first thought was very encouraging.  Great, people are laying off the donuts due to a rational concern for their health.  They are not obsessing about gluten or organics or artificial ingredients; they are concerned about something real – donuts = calories!  With so many Americans overweight, a downturn in donut sales is good news.  It shows responsibility, a willingness to take some action to correct the situation, and discipline, the ability to forego the temporary pleasures of today in return for a healthier tomorrow.  It also shows some perspective, properly classifying drive-thru donuts and coffee as a luxury.

With this in mind, I followed the link to read the full story.  The full headline on the Business Insider website was, “DUNKIN' DONUTS: People aren't buying doughnuts because they're worried about the election.”  That doesn’t make sense.  You would of think donuts as comfort food.  They should sell more if people feel under stress.

Upon further reading, I found that it was common these days for CEOs to blame the election for financial shortfalls.  In fact the news was not so bad for Dunkin’.  They reported profits and US same-store sales higher than analysts’ expectations, but total revenue was lower.  And they will not open as many new stores this year as originally planned.  More donuts were sold, but not enough donuts to make management happy.  This supports my comfort-food theory better than the election excuse, but it’s not unusual for CEOs to take credit for good news while blaming some outside force for falling short – looking good in a strong economy and pointing fingers in a poor one, for example.

In this case, the CEO blamed “changes in gas prices, changes in food stamp regulations, and…the presidential election."  Taken one at a time: 

First, this graph from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows gas prices lower this year than several prior years.

Second, it is hard to believe that such a significant portion of their business came from food stamp recipients to affect their overall results.  But if new regulations discouraged people who are having trouble feeding their families from buying donuts, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Finally, “last year, researchers at Princeton and Chicago found that election uncertainty affects consumers' outlook, but not their immediate spending.”

That’s three strikes for the CEO, but unfortunately, not much support for my original hope that responsibility, discipline and perspective are making a comeback based on information from the quick-service donut business.