I'm amazed at what people are amazed by.
I went to my Macroeconomics class tonight, and the teacher had a slide that showed the price of a Big Mac: "1940, $0.30 / 1997, $1.97". I piped up: "... except that McDonald's didn't exist until 1955, fifteen years later." A guy a few seats in front of me turned around and exclaimed, "Duuude! How did you KNOW that?"
How do you answer a question like that? "Dude, it's just knowledge."
McDonald's was franchised by Ray Kroc in 1955 but McDonald's the restaurant was opened in 1939/40 and the Big Mac wasn't introduced until 1968. Lots of economists use this example though for intro classes as nearly all college students are familiar with a Big Mac enough to understand the value of it over time. Going pedantic on the trivia misses the point of the exercise.
I know this as being the econ dept sysadmin at wu made me pretty adept at TeX and I learned enough econ to hang with the local nobel and not look like a dork.
Re:You were both wrong :)
brian_d_foy on 2002-09-19T17:19:45
It's not "going pedantic on the trivia", but critically thinking about what the person is saying.
Since the Big Mac was not introdruced until 1968, it could not have been 30 cents in 1940. The prictures of Ray Kroc's restaurant that I have seen say that the price of a hamburger was 15 cents. Intellectual integrity is not the same thing as pendatry, and you don't need to be a Nobel Laureate to hold people to the truth.:)
The problem with standard examples like this is that authors copy other authors who copied other authors, and a single mistake in the figures becomes canon (for more examples check out "Lies
My Teacher Told Me"---a survey of history books that do the same thing). Authors should verify their claims from original documents, not other second-hand sources.
Once the professor corrects that information, he also needs to state where in the world (literally) those numbers came from. A Big Mac does not cost the same everywhere, and does not cost the same all the time at the same place. Its price fluctuates according to local conditions. The Economist's Big Mac Index uses this to measure purchasing power parity, but its even flawed a bit because it assumes that a Big Mac costs the same everywhere in the same country.
And why should Andy, or his class know any of this? The first franchise was opened in Des Plains, not to far away from where the professor was lecturing. Andy's fellow students can take a trip to the original franchise (now a museum) and find out for themselves. No business student should be amazed that another b-student knows the history of a hugely successful multinational (and especially local) company.:) Re:You were both wrong :)
hfb on 2002-09-19T20:44:26
It's like saying 'pass the scotch tape' or 'pass the kleenex' where the brand name becomes synonymous with the item itself as not all clear tape is scotch brand tape nor are all big macs McDonalds big macs..they're just hamburgers. This is macroecon, an introductory course, so going pedantic on the minutiae for the sake of 'academic integrity' is tedious not to mention probably drawing negative attention from the teacher which they'll remember at grading time. Again, it's a common example in introductory courses even if the teacher should have simply said 'hamburger'. Besides, before Ray Kroc raped them, the McDonald bros were known for their shakes, not their hamburgers
:) Re:You were both wrong :)
ziggy on 2002-09-23T15:00:45
"Big Mac" is not synonymous with "hamburger", regardless of any proof-by-repeated-assertion to the contrary. That's why McDonalds still sells hamburgers alongside Big Macs. In «macroecon» terms, the Big Mac might be a shorthand for a "premium burger", specifically one with two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seIt's like saying 'pass the scotch tape' or 'pass the kleenex' where the brand name becomes synonymous with the item itself as not all clear tape is scotch brand tape nor are all big macs McDonalds big macs..they're just hamburgers.e d-bun.:-) It's also a standard, known quantity for the most part; order a burger a dozen random restaurants and you'll find a pretty big variance. No, they were known for their burgers. Ray Kroc brought the milkshake machines to the restaurant:Besides, before Ray Kroc [...], the McDonald bros were known for their shakes, not their hamburgers:) Raymond Albert Kroc, A Salesman Ray Kroc mortgaged his home and invested his entire life savings to become the exclusive distributor of a five-spindled milk shake maker called the Multimixer. Hearing about the McDonald's hamburger stand in California running eight Multimixers at a time, he packed up his car and headed West. It was 1954. He was 52 years old.Re:You were both wrong :)
petdance on 2002-09-19T17:35:55
Going pedantic on the trivia misses the point of the exercise.It's possible to point out inaccuracies in the example, AND still understand the point of the exercise.
Here's the Museum, if anyone's interested. I've seen it, and been to the McDonald's across the street many times, but never been inside.
Re:You were both wrong :)
hfb on 2002-09-19T18:04:35
Even when you were inaccurate too?
:)
Here's how you answer: http://www.bash.org/?993
