OPINION: Alaska’s attorney general might need math lessons

Remember those perplexing math problems in school? Not the easy ones that required only simple subtraction, addition, multiplication or division. I’m talking about those word problems that told a purposefully confusing story, such as two trains moving in opposite directions at different speeds and you had to calculate how far apart they would be in an hour.

I figured the point was to teach us problem-solving. Though in my early school years, the biggest math problem I wanted to solve was how to buy 25 cents worth of candy when I had only 10 cents in my pocket.

Of course, like many adults, I came to appreciate problem-solving as a way to teach — and use — math. Or so I thought.

While tutoring a high school student years ago, I suggested that knowing geometry is important in life, so that, for example, if she ever wanted to paint her house, she could calculate the square footage that she needed to cover and could then determine how many gallons she needed to buy.

Seemed reasonable to me, but the kid had a better idea that did not require learning any geometry: “I’ll buy more than I need and just return the cans I don’t use.”

As you might expect, she did not do very well in math with that attitude.

I figure Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor also wasn’t very good at problem-solving math questions in school. He certainly failed to understand the math in his recent public statement as to whether the proposed merger of the parent companies of Fred Meyer and Safeway would drive up prices for Alaska shoppers.

The Federal Trade Commission, all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation and multiple state legislators have done the math and questioned the merger. All added up the numbers and calculated that one supermarket owner is less competitive than two, and more competition is good for shoppers.

Taylor sees the math differently.

The two companies have offered to sell 18 Carrs Safeway stores in Alaska to a privately held, New Hampshire-based company, C&S Wholesale Grocers. The merging companies hope that by putting the Alaska stores under new ownership — creating competition for the Fred Meyer stores they would retain — they can win court and federal regulatory approval to go ahead with the merger.

Other states affected by the merger are not buying it and have gone to court to block the deal. But not Alaska. Taylor said last week he is still thinking about it.

And then, he showed his math skills.

“Potentially, there’s going to be more economies of scale for Alaskans and we will see prices drop, potentially, if there’s more economies of scale,” he told an Anchorage Daily News reporter on Aug. 28. “One of the big hiccups for getting goods into Alaska is obviously shipping, and if you can double the shipping you can reduce your shipping rates. So ostensibly that would result in lower product prices for Alaskans.”

Huh? Currently, Fred Meyer ships goods to Alaska, as does Carrs Safeway. If the merger goes through and the biggest kid on the block sells its 18 Carrs Safeway stores to C&S Wholesale, there would still be two grocery shippers to the state, same as now. Same number of stores, same number of container vans aboard the same barges and ships.

That’s not doubling the shipping; it’s changing a name on one of the freight bills.

Taylor needs to double down on his math lessons and then try answering the question again. His first answer does not add up.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.