This meme is once again being resurrected, and is a great example of how fake news is generated. Taco Bell was NOT voted “Best Mexican restaurant.” This comes from a survey about brand equity, which lets companies see how their brand is doing with consumers.
▪️The original meme dates back to 2018, when news articles picked up on the annual Harris Poll results. This is a survey on brand identification, not some effort to discover the best restaurants. The 2018 link no longer works, but here’s the 2021 poll:
https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/the-harris-poll-announces-this-years-brands-of-the-year-2021/
▪️Respondents weren’t voting on their favorite Mexican restaurant, they were answering online questions about thousands of brands across hundreds of categories (i.e. cars, travel, insurance, tech, media, restaurants, etc.)
▪️In the Mexican restaurant category, there were only 6 options: Taco Bell, Chipotle, Moe's Southwest Grill, Qdoba, Baja Fresh & Del Taco. The chains were judged on three qualities: familiarity, quality & future consideration. Taco Bell prevailed, but Moe’s & Chipotle also won in recent years.
▪️Taco Bell was awarded “brand of the year” in the Mexican restaurant category, it was the first time it won the award in 30 years. The winner of the “burger restaurant” brand of the year category was Wendy’s, yet no one would equate that with “Wendy’s was voted best burger restaurant!”
▪️But media outlets saw an opportunity for click bait, and an easy “look how stupid Americans are” story. Some admitted it wasn’t really a vote of Best Mexican restaurant in the actual article, but since no one reads articles the headlines won, turned into memes, and fake news was born.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/taco-bell-america-apos-no-192600054.html
▪️Far from this being an example of what happens “when you don’t vote”, it’s a pretty apt comparison. You’re forced to choose among a small number of options that you probably don’t really like, the winner gets undue recognition and is declared the representative of the entire country.
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
