Doing the Math

I love it when people use the phrase “You do the math,” because, unlike most people, I enjoy not only doing the math, but figuring out exactly what math ought to be done.

Case in point from social media:

“The U.S. exports 63% of its fish. 91% of the fish eaten in the U.S. is imported. You do the math- we could be doing this very differently.”

Very well, here’s the math:

63% of U.S.-caught fish is exported, therefore 37% is retained for consumption within the U.S.

91% of fish consumed in the U.S. is imported, therefore 9% consists of fish caught in the U.S.

If 37% of U.S.-caught fish equals 9% of U.S.-consumed fish, then the total amount of fish caught in the U.S. equals 24% of the total amount of fish consumed in the U.S.

So even if we exported 0% of our fish, over 75% of the fish we eat would still be imported. Does that constitute doing things “very differently?” Not in my book, and I imagine not in the original poster’s either.

Then there are the things not considered in this simple exercise in arithmetic. Things economists are trained to consider; things that actuaries would do well to be similarly mindful of. The whole, big, macroeconomic picture that is fudged or ignored when simple statistics get thrown around as though they constitute knowledge and reasoning in and of themselves. It’s like reducing The Godfather to a single GIF and calling it Film Studies. Considerations like:

Different types of fish live in different areas of the world. Are Americans with a taste for John Dory wrong?* What justification is there for denying the Russians the Great Lakes sturgeon they’re so fond of? Our ability to trade things we have but don’t want for things places on the other side of the world have that we do want is the chief benefit of living in a global economy. It’s what all of human economic progress to date has been about. To object to a global allocation of resources is, quite frankly, to object to human happiness.

Fishing is also impacted by seasonal changes. Fish populations migrate, hurricane season makes fishing too dangerous, depleted fish populations require time to replenish themselves, etc. In order to smooth our consumption of fish throughout the year, we rely on parts of the world with different seasons than ours. The person who posted this was promoting a fish taco business. Does she realize that every component of a fish taco- fish, onion, cilantro, corn, tomato, avocado, lime, serrano, etc.- is only available locally some of the time? As a one-time gardener, I can tell you that time is often extremely limited. Yet this fish taco business gets to stay open year round, serving pico de gallo in the dead of winter. Again: thank the global economy.

Speaking of the local craze, the idea that U.S.-caught fish is more local than imported fish is flawed, too. One of the consequences of not being able to find other countries on a map is not developing an understanding of just how incredibly, unusually big the U.S. is. We’re basically a continent all by ourselves. The only countries larger than us- Russia, Canada, and China- have substantial uninhabitable areas. Atlantic fish caught by U.S. fishermen and served in San Francisco is not significantly fresher than Pacific fish caught by Japanese fisherman and served in the same place. In fact the third largest foreign supplier of fish to the U.S. is Canada, right next door, and surely as fresh as Seattle fish is to the rest of the country. And if we’re talking about frozen fish, which is exactly what we import from our biggest fish supplier, China, it hardly matters how far that Filet-O-Fish traveled to get to the deep fryer of your local McDonald’s.

In point of fact, not long ago, we were doing things “differently.” We imported less fish, because we ate less fish, and so did the rest of the world. But with new trends favoring fish, like the omega-3 craze and the global sushi obsession, people all over the world want more of the stuff. And they want it more than we, in America, are willing or able to fish for it. Whether this is primarily due to our increasingly white collar society (only 2% of Americans are involved in agriculture of any kind today) or our tight environmental regulations restricting fishing, I don’t know, but both certainly have an impact. Would anyone seriously argue that we ought to ravage our local fish populations before looking to cheaper, more plentiful sources abroad? Even as an anti-environmentalist, that doesn’t strike me as a smart policy.

And here we have the true beauty of not just the global economy but any economy: specialization of labor. Want fish but hate fishing? No problem. There’s a guy in China more than happy to trawl all day in exchange for small, green pieces of paper. Love to live the Deadliest Catch lifestyle despite your shellfish allergy? Not an issue. You can do the work you love and bring home more bacon than those finance yuppies, all because said yuppies can’t get enough Dungeness. Want to bring the joy of fresh, local fish to people who can afford to pay $10 for a taco? Evidence suggests that San Franciscans will quickly line up at your food truck. We’re all getting what we want here, so let’s just set aside the moralizing and the arrogance of attempting to dictate to others what their tastes and values should be.

And for god’s sake, don’t say “Do the math,” unless you’ve actually done the math.

*In this fish-eaters opinion, yes, they care, but as an economist I respect even the most questionable of tastes.