The Liberal Order

Loud Music in Restaurants

Craig Newmark wonders why the music seems so loud in restaurants. Similarly, why does it seem so cold? Whey are the seats just a little uncomfortable? Why does the waiter or waitress keep coming back after I'm done eating?

A restaurant ties two goods together and then charges you one price. You pay for the food and they give you a free place to sit down and eat. (It makes you wonder where the D.O. J.'s Antitrust Division is since Microsoft.) The restaurant makes only so much money from each table of patrons and relies on  continuous turnover to keep the money coming in.

So the goal of the restaurant is to make you just comfortable enough that you enjoy the restaurant but not enough to keep you hanging around. The fact that the seats are hard and their backs are too straight, the music gets too loud, and that it get chilly, are ways to get you to give up your seat and allow another patron to sit and order food. It's also why the waitress keeps coming back with something like, "I don't mean to bother you, but would you like anything else?" Next time respond with, "Yes, some peace and quiet. We plan on hunkering down for the long haul." See if the manager doesn't come over next to ask if there's anything else you would like.

This, of course, is more prevalent with chains that rely far more on turnover, and less so in fancier restaurants where the cost is so great that you're paying dearly for the table and the atmosphere and therefore expected to linger.

Is there anybody who once worked in a restaurant like to confirm or add to this?

Greenspan On Economic Policy Under Republican Leadership

"The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

Story here. Can't wait to read the book.

The Economics of Discovery

An excellent example of using existing technology in innovate ways.

Driven by Fossett's fame and Google search technology that enables couch potatoes to view from their computers high-resolution photographs of the rugged Nevada landscape where he went missing, thousands of amateur volunteers are trying to help the hundreds of official searchers.

Story here.

Sue the Dog

There's a story about a man who died in Colorado and left his entire multi-million dollar estate to God. Shortly thereafter, and before a court in Colorado could figure out what to do with the money, a man in California was apparently struck by lightning. He sues God and when told by the judge that his suit could not proceed because he couldn't locate God and anyway God had no assets, he pointed to the money left for God in Colorado.

It seems that Leona Helmsley's dog, who is now $12 million richer due to his inheritance from the Queen of Mean (how appropriate now), is being sued by a former housekeep who claims to have been bitten by the dastardly dog.

Helmsley's actions following her death, and having toured the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, have moved me one step closer in agreement to James Buchanan's argument for a 100% inheritance tax.

The Unintended Consequence of Cigarette Taxes and Litigation

Has the increase in cigarette prices as a consequence of states suing the tobacco companies, as well as the tax on cigarettes improved public health. A new study out of Norway reveals the unintended consequences.

While smokers of hand-rolled cigarettes "consumed (fewer) cigarettes, and statistically had fewer years of smoking, hand-rolled cigarettes were more carcinogenic, resulting in a higher incidence of lung cancer development," the study by Heidi Rolke, of Norway's Sorlandet Hospital, said.
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Jonathan Samet of Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health said similar findings had been documented in the higher rate of cancer among Hispanic women in the southwestern United States who tended to hand roll cigarettes.

"There is, perhaps, an indication that we should be concerned if rising prices for manufactured cigarettes would lead to substitutions," Samet said.

Story here.