Gas prices: Supply and Demand Strikes Again

According to the Lehrer Newshour, SUV sales hit a record high last quarter, accounting for 29% of all new vehicles sold in the US. A U of Chicago professor says that, out of the $.45/gal average gas price increase we’ve seen in the last year, $.15 of that is SUV demand, $.20 is OPEC, and the rest is refinery production issues.

The show polled people on the street to ask, “When will you give up your SUV? $2.50/gallon? $3.00/gallon?” All people resonded, “Never.”

Website says more McDonalds = more murders

We believe that the United Nations (U.N.) commissioned McDonald’s corporate leaders to help control the increasing populations of its host cities by carrying out plans masterminded by the U.N. to systematically murder these cities’ citizens.

This website is obviously a joke, but they have a graph that tries to prove their case. I ran their numbers and came up with a slightly different hypothesis. Their chart used McDonalds restaurants per city, but McDonalds restaurants per 100,000 people would probably be a better metric:

Clearly, McDonalds does make cities more prone to murders if the number of McDonalds per 100,000 people goes above a certain point. But having too few McDonalds is also a problem. As you can see from the graph above, there exists an optimal number of McDonalds where the city is safest.

Based on this highly scientific research I conclude that each city should have bertween 4 and 5 McDonalds per 100,000 people–no more, no less. For example, my small town of 50,000 is running right on target–we have 2 McDonalds. Excellent. I feel safer already!