Pi-Consulting

Credit card companies, faced with the problem of too many people maxing out their cards, are falling prey to an unexpected variant of the numbers game. Monthly statements tell debtors what the minimum payment required of them will be this month. A new study by Neil Stewart, a psychologist at Britain’s Warwick University, has discovered that the mere fact of mentioning the “minimum number” diminishes the likelihood of card-holders paying more than that amount. People who are disposed to pay more change their minds, and by a significant margin only cough up the minimum requirement on their statement. On that basis, what gets maxed is likely to stay maxed. Source: The Economist

Before the economic downturn changed our mood and our purchase habits, the world was steadily increasing its intake of champagne, with global volume shipments rising by over 2% a year for two decades. Between 2002 and 2007, US champagne consumption rose by 3.5% annually, the UK’s by over 4%, and Japan’s by a fizzy 18%, despite the increasing ubiquity of alternatives like Spanish Cava and Australian or American “methode champenoise”. Faced with this increased demand, the main champagne brands have been boosting their prices by as much as 5-9%. Now the big houses are seeing their sales slump, and prices are falling sharply again. Feel like drowning your sorrows in a spot of cut-price bubbly? Churchill is reported to have said once that “In victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it”. Source: The Economist.

The average American adds a tip of between 8% and 37% after an enjoyable meal. Yet 40% of Americans profess to hate tipping as a practice. They are not alone. Australians have a long history of hating the whole idea of tipping, on the basis that “The person’s doing their job and getting paid, so why should I pay them even more?”. Sydney taxi drivers have been known to give tippers a nasty look, throw the tip money on the sidewalk, and shout “Think you’re better than me, eh, cobber?” (Source: Cornell University, Pi).

he average American will still order a double cheeseburger and large fries, then virtuously pick a diet soft drink to wash it down with. Since the early 1990s, America’s average bra size has jumped from 34B to 36C. Brassiere company executives attribute this mainly to the above mentioned double cheeseburgers and large fries, though surgical breast implants in the USA have also been increasing by as much as half each year. Clearly a contributory factor to the bra-size explosion. (Sources: Simmons, New York Times, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Pi).

Tech rules. The average American comes up with more commercially exploitable technological innovations and ideas than people from practically any other country. The Finns, for some reason, seem to be the runners-up. Despite this, the typical American faced with a malfunctioning electronic device, notwithstanding his/her membership of the most technologically advanced society in man’s history, still usually resorts to ‘percussive maintenance’, i.e. thumping the crap out of the thing to try to start it working again. (Sources: World Economic Forum, The Dilbert Zone, Pi)