>Forecasting and revenue management kept me occupied for big chucks of a previous life.

Now, it’s a fact that there’s a clear correlation between ambient temperature and the consumption of ice cream – i.e. folks eat more icecream in summer. Duh. But you really can use historical data to tie in the variables (such as forecast temperature, day of week and stuff like that) to fine-tune manufacturing capacity and supply chains and stuff to make sure that you get the right quantities to the right places on time.

And there’s also a clear correlation between temperature and political brain farts – hence the Silly Season or the Sommerloch – or summer slump -as they call it over here.

True to the tradition of calls for

• a smoking ban behind the wheel (to match the unenforced bans on seatbeltlessness and mobile phone use at the wheel…)
  
• a reduced TV licence fee during summer to reflect the high incidence of repeats
• penalties for employers who sack staff

comes the idea to

• reduce vacation entitlement by the number of days of work for sickness.

Now, just follow the logic –
The Silly Season coincides with summer
Temperatures are high in summer
Ice cream consumption is at its peak in summer

Thus- declare ice cream as an illegal substance, consumption goes down, temperature drops, silly season doesn’t happen, no more political brain farts.

or ….correlation implies causation