【ineffable】第11次作业-Argu15_by Karen

karen_06UID: 2728072

TOPIC: ARGUMENT15 - The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors.

"Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat products abound in many food stores. Since many of the food products currently marketed by Old Dairy Industries are high in fat and cholesterol, the company's sales are likely to diminish greatly and their profits will no doubt decrease. We therefore advise Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares and other investors not to purchase stock in this company."
WORDS: 431
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010-1-22 14:45:00



A Newsletter of Advice to Investors

The author advises stockholders to withdraw their shares in Old Dairy company, and suggests other buyers to invest in the Old Dairy. The advice is based on a survey; however, the author makes several analytical fallacies and neglects some relevant factors that make this argument lack sufficient evidence. The fallacies are showed as follows.

First, the argument is depended on a research which presents that over 80 percent respondents love food containing less fats and cholesterol. While, the author does not show us whether the survey is representative or not. For example, how many people are surveyed? If the sample is too small, it will not stand for the most people's attitudes. And we do not know where the survey is taken place. Is it done near the Old Dairy Industries or not? What kind of people are questioned, women, men, children or pregrants? As we all know that each kind of person have different taste, children may like screams that contain high fats and cholesterol, while mature men do not. Some pregrants may also like fats and old men are on the contrary. Unless the detailed information is supplied, the survey is not sufficient to support the author's advice.

Second, the author fails to tell us what kind of food Old Dairy provides. Are the foods in Old Dairy the same as the survey indicates?If people just do not like hamburgers, or fast food that contain much fats and cholesterol, while Old Dairy does not produce such kind of food, there is no certain relationship between the survey and the sales of the company. Thus it is not certain to say that the sales of Old Dairy will decrease.

In addition, even those foods in Old Dairy that high in fat and cholesterol sales bad, we could not say its profits is sure to diminish. Because we do not know the percentage of these food occupied in the total amount of food produced in the company, and we also lack the information of food cost, such as material cost. If the material is very cheap, and the amount of such high fat food is verysmall, the company can also acquire profits.

Therefore, to make this argument convinced, the author should present detailed information of the survey, such as the size of sample, kinds of food, characters of sample, place of survey, as well as the production circumstance, sales information and cost-price information of Old Dairy. Only after a large number of researches, data and convinced analysis are made should the author give reasonable suggestions on investment.