Let them eat

After much hullaballoo, New York city chain restaurants now list calorie counts on their menus. The idea is that such information will induce people to make healthier choices, than say a Big Mac, coming in at over 1,000 calories.

But that's widely optimistic. People understand when they are eating healthy and when they aren't. This information may work on the margins--that is, with items that seem healthier than they actually are--but just presenting the information isn't going to change behavior, it would seem to me.

What would be more effective is to list the calories and give consumers a healthier option. For instance for 1,000 calories you can have a Big Mac or you can have a chicken breast, soup and small salad. Given that you are in a McDonald's not all of those options are reasonable, but the overall point is to give consumers information that is more useful because it's relative to what they know, while absolute calorie counts mean very little and provide no information on how to change behavior.

Eateries digest calorie-count law

The Michael Jordan Effect

Golf has been in trouble for quite some time now. Course are being sold to developers for condos or new subdivisions. The average age of players keeps getting older and all those initiatives to get young minority players on board haven't really panned out.

But all of that is pretty easy to ignore when Tiger Woods is bringing people to the television. When he's not playing, it's not pretty. Here are three events Tiger would have played had he not been injured.

"Buick Open. The first event of three events so far that Woods would have played but missed because of his knee surgery. The overnight rating on CBS for the fourth round was down 12%, from a 1.7 to a 1.5.
AT&T National. The overnight ratings for the fourth round on CBS were down 48%, from a 2.9 to a 1.5. Third-round ratings dipped 35%, from a 2.0 to a 1.3.
British Open. Not good. The overnight ratings for ABC's final round coverage Sunday fell 14.6%, from a 4.1 to a 3.5."

The PGA has to address this phenomenom, lest it become the NBA after Michael Jordan retired following the 1998 season. It took a historically interesting matchup (Celtics v. Lakers) for the NBA to fully recover. And the thing about historically interesting is that it doesn't happen very often. Just as there may never be another Jordan, there may never be another Tiger, but that should stop the PGA from seeking substitutes.

Tiger Woods out of picture, TV ratings in the tank
Post Jordan NBA Ratings

The American Dream keeps getting more expensive

With all the ups and downs (mostly downs lately) over housing, one measure has been consistently steady: the 30-year interest rate. Which is odd, considering the number of foreclosures. If interest rates are a reflection of risk of default, then it would be natural that should've been rising, especially since the Fed made no moves to lower them in some time.

Well, that may now be changing:

Even as policy makers rushed to support the two companies, home loan rates
approached their highest levels in five years. The average interest rate for
30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.71 percent on Tuesday, from 6.44 percent
on Friday, according to HSH Associates, a publisher of consumer rates. The
average rate for so-called jumbo loans, which cannot be sold to Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, was 7.8 percent, the highest since December 2000. Loan rates are
rising because of concern in the financial markets about the future of Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee nearly half of the nation’s $12
trillion mortgage market. The federal government has proposed a rescue, and
has urged Congress to approve it quickly.

There are a couple of things at work here. First, there is this news, which would seem to give bankers a parachute should more defaults arise. Secondly, for the banks to continue to loan out cheap money is not necessarily the best sign to investors that you are serious about only giving out good loans. The higher interest rates should act as a signaling device that only those who can afford home ownership should apply.

Woes afflicting mortgage giants raise loan rates

Related: Bush drops opposition to housing bill

The morning numbers

The markets just opened and though it looked as though oil was going to be down today, the Dow is opening lower than I expected, especially on the McDonald's numbers.

As of 8:46 am central,

Dow -36.48
NASDAQ +.02
S&P +.01
Oil -1.64
Gold -5.90

Let's start things off on a good note

This blog will be about many things. It'll be about consumer research. It'll be about economic research. It'll be about sociology. It'll be about what forces and indicators are shaping the world around us.

So for this first post, I'd thought we start off on a good note. The law of unintended consequences is too often given a bad name. Well, thank goodness for high gas prices. From the AP:

Traffic deaths around the country are plummeting, just as they did during the
Arab oil embargo three decades ago. Researchers with the National Safety
Council report a 9 percent drop in motor vehicle deaths overall through May
compared with the first five months of 2007, including a drop of 18 percent
in March and 14 percent in April.

There could be a couple of things going on here, and the article makes mention of the most obvious one: fewer miles being driven. But I also wonder about the effect of people driving slower in general to conserve fuel.

In a related note, there has to be a story out that reads, "Bike accidents soar."

Traffic death falls as gas prices climb