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Assorted links
1. Competition in the hug market.
2. Should restaurants charge for bread and butter?
4. The education of a libertarian, by Peter Thiel.
5. The ten most influential films of recent times?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 29, 2009 at 11:51 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
2. Should restaurants charge for bread and butter?
The trouble with charges is that people use that charge, supposedly a means to address free riding, and they lump a lot of other free riders into the charge and that excessive charge becomes a strong incentive that is doomed to lose money. At an R&D facility, we had a central testing facility. They started charging for the tests. The problem was that the tests cost so much that people started reducing testing drastically. Having the test facility available is a service that wasn't factored in. It simply wasn't worth the cost of the test when the entire budget was spread across the bill. But, once the testing facility closes and a product fails noone will remember that the recall costs should be included in the cost savings calculations.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 29, 2009 12:19:51 PM
The problem with the argument that charging for bread would mean better bread is that my experience is that free bread in U.S. restaurants is generally better than both non-free bread in U.S. markets and definitely better than non-free bread in European restaurants (although break from European markets is great). The restaurant bread in Europe seems to consist of a loaf that has been set out and sent back many times until some poor group of diners accidentally takes a bite and has to pay for it. In U.S. restaurants, though, the bread is pretty much always warm and fresh.
My experience is:
European market bread > U.S. restaurant bread > U.S. market bread > European restaurant bread
With the latter trailing by a pretty wide margin.
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 29, 2009 12:36:13 PM
5. I would argue many of these changes were not for the better and some of them are a bit exaggerated.
Posted by: Ted Craig at Apr 29, 2009 1:18:55 PM
I don't necessarily mind charging for the bread so long as it's made clear that this is being done. When it's put out w/o being asked for and then charged for, that's very obnoxious. (It happens w/ chips and salsa in Mexico.) Slocum's point is something to worry about, though.
As for the films, I agree that many of these influences are, for the most part, bad ones, especially the fast camera work stuff. And, to call Coraline one of the most influential movies of the last 10 years is dumb given that it's only been around 6 months or so. It _might_ become influential, but it cannot possibly yet be one of the 10 most.
Posted by: Matt at Apr 29, 2009 1:24:13 PM
I hadn't realized that extending the franchise to womyn was the doom of the libertarian project, but heh, I'll take it.
The rest of the screed seems to imply that the failure of Donner Party Conservatism directly caused the debauchery (or escapism) of Rich White Males, as reported by someone uninformed by Yi-Fu Tuan's "Escapism". I'll let Holbo unpack the hilarious connections if he's so inclined, but frankly, yall libertarians are so tired (and tiring) that it's not really worth it.
Posted by: Russell L. Carter at Apr 29, 2009 1:35:25 PM
Most people do not like leaving a restaurant feeling hungry. However, Eating 800 calories of caviar is not much more enjoyable than eating 200 calories of caviar. It is however, quite a bit more expensive. So it makes quite a bit more sense to fill up on bread and have smaller entrees.
The first thought is then "Why not have individuals individually order bread if they so choose?". The answer is that ordering bread poses a collective-action problem.
If somebody orders extra bread, they might be judged by their peers as gluttonous. However, if all of their peers at the party also order bread, then such fears go away. So even if everyone involved actually wants to consume bread, nobody might order it.
Because of this, giving bread to everyone for free and charging collectively sometimes leads to better outcomes.
This raises an interesting question though. Which restaurants should offer free bread(or other equivalent filler), and which should not?
Posted by: David Shor at Apr 29, 2009 1:37:52 PM
Thiel; "In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms..."
Agreed. The productive class cannot compete with the political class in the arena of politics for the simple reason that the politicians are professional politicians and the producers are professionals only at whatever it is that they produce.
Though I doubt that "escape" is truly possible, what may be possible is to simply ignore them. Pay taxes and obey the laws, but otherwise refuse to participate. Do not endorse their schemes, do not participate in their wars. Make it personal. Resolve to live by the code of the productive, and not by the code of the political.
Posted by: Randy at Apr 29, 2009 1:41:34 PM
In Brazil restaurants charge for bread, called the "couvert". Guidebooks warn tourists gainst ordering the couvert and I've seen it served only a few times. But in Brazil you often get sides of rice, bean soup, and a sort of garlic dish, often more than enough to make a meal in itself.
Just another data point. Charging for bread isn't the worst thing to happen in NY restaurants, but I don't see the rationale behind changing the previously accepted practice. You go to a restaurant to eat a meal, not an individual item. Maybe some dishes should come with bread and not others. Will anyone order and pay for just the bread and not anything else on the menu?
Posted by: Ed at Apr 29, 2009 2:12:25 PM
I found the parent essay by Patri Friedman, for which Thiel's essay was a response, to be at least as interesting if not more so. I recommend people read both.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/06/patri-friedman/beyond-folk-activism/
Posted by: BillWallace at Apr 29, 2009 3:45:35 PM
I'm not a big fan of Thiel's essay, both for its stereotyping of women and its obliviousness to reality in favor of libertarian tropes. Sure, taxes are coercion and all that, and Thiel's taxes are about to go up modestly. But has he noticed the fairly consistent trend to greater civil liberties and more free trade ever since World War II? Apparently not. I can see how the financial crisis and the response must be disheartening for libertarians. However, I can do without Thiel's romantic rationalization of alcohol, drugs, and the web as the only logical responses to the overwhelming non-utopian nature of reality. What a morose and not very insightful essay.
Posted by: Greg at Apr 29, 2009 6:20:20 PM
"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
So, for the record, this is what he said about women. Not that stereotypes are all bad, but he didn't. He stated a testable fact, and in my experience it is a truth. I have a theory that does border on the stereotypical, so I'm not telling.
I also have a theory on the answer to the problem of libertarian democracy, and I'm not telling that one either. Nanananana.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 29, 2009 6:28:39 PM
Thumbs down on Thiel's "essay." What self-absorbed drivel.
Posted by: David at Apr 29, 2009 6:29:51 PM
5. I would argue many of these changes were not for the better and some of them are a bit exaggerated.
Actually, so did the creator of the list.
Posted by: Kolohe at Apr 29, 2009 8:03:11 PM
Bread & butter.
In Italia, it is called "Pane e coperto".
When we visited, it was around $2/person. Given that we were spending $40+ per person, it did not seem unreasonable. And, you "know" it will be charged.
Just don't surprise me. I hate being surprised with an "extra" charge.
Posted by: Dave Barnes at Apr 29, 2009 9:33:04 PM
Gorobel, commenting on the orgasm essay in one of he last episodes of Assorted Links, refers us to pandagon.net, whose Amanda Marcotte has this: Libertarian inadvertently argues for 90 percet marginal tax rate and this: But I'm the nutty one to say about Thiel's piece.
I used to be perfectly fine with the libertarian label; it's on my facebook profile and the guys on the right-wing college paper up at school and I never shied away from it.
But now I'm starting to see that I'm not what most people, on the net especially, are calling libertarian. These libertarians do not speak the language of Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, or even Hayek, really. It seems rather a shame to have to abandon this term; I don't see why the Austrian types out there, eg, can't just own up to being anarchists.
Anyway, it's not quite clear to me how Thiel fits in to all of this. I'm on board with most of what he's saying in this piece, and feel a common experience (he was on Stanford Review, I was on Binghamton Review), but the stuff about outer space and the seasteading and his self-portrayal as a beleaguered minority do evoke the kind of libertarian nuttiness that I see people decrying on the net.
Posted by: Jim at Apr 29, 2009 10:35:52 PM
A lot of the Austrian types DO own up to being anarchists.
Posted by: TGGP at Apr 29, 2009 10:50:52 PM
A real libertarian would not lament women's suffrage.
Posted by: David at Apr 29, 2009 11:07:35 PM
Jim:
"Libertarian" is increasingly a diluted label -- and when it is at full strength, it usually connotes an extreme philosophy close to minarchism, if not anarchism. The libertarianism of Tyler and Alex is not exactly the libertarianism of Arnold Kling and Bryan Caplan, which is not exactly the libertarianism of David Henderson and Don Boudreaux, which is not exactly the libertarianism of Ron Paul and Michael Badnarik. There's a sort of spectrum here, and unfortunately it's people like Paul and Badnarik who have wound up defining libertarianism in the public eye -- and also for a lot of impressionable people looking for a message of liberty which neither major American party stands for sincerely.
Will Wilkinson calls himself a liberaltarian, since he doesn't fit the minarchist/anarchist mold of libertarianism. I call myself a classical liberal to distinguish myself from the nutty brand of libertarianism (and also because John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat also stood for some minimal governmental role in the economy). America is a weird place because this kind of liberalism/libertarianism is a minority in a minority.
The third-largest party in the United Kingdom, the Liberal Democrats, is a good example of a classical liberal party, I think. In the American milieu it makes no sense: you have a party standing for strong federalism, greater civil liberties, free markets, and publicly-provided welfare. The Lib Dems can credibly insist that "Government doesn't know what's best for us, and it never will" (straight from the mouth of their leader, Nick Clegg) while advocating a welfare state, because they share Bastiat's observation that some welfare is perfectly justifiable as long as it avoids unduly supplanting individual foresight and responsibility with that of the government's. And this liberaltarian ideology is pretty common throughout the rest of the developed world; it's more or less that of the "right-wing" parties in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. Not coincidentally, these parties form the government in most of the countries I just named (the Liberals in Australia got booted for John Howard's Iraq venture and his constant kowtowing to Bush).
If you're as frustrated with the apparent wingnut dominance of American libertarianism, you might find this website interesting: http://www.holisticpolitics.org/WhatIsFreedom/
It's not the prettiest site out there, but it at least gives me hope that there are ordinary Americans who care about libertarianism enough to not let the wingnuts be the sole voice for "liberty".
Posted by: johnleemk at Apr 30, 2009 2:00:29 AM
JAPAN SOFTBANK
Softbank, now with about 20.6 million subscribers, controls about 19.2 percent of the nation's market, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous fiscal year. But average sales per user declined for voice calls, while they were up for data transmission.
Losses on investments from the market downturn dragged on its earnings, according to Softbank, which bought British cellular giant Vodafone Group PLC's struggling Japanese operations in 2006.
A major one-time loss related to payments for bonds for its mobile unit as well as a write-off for its optical fiber Internet services, also hurt results, it said.
One business area that performed better than last year was its Internet-related "cultural" businesses such as advertising, Internet shopping and auctions, Softbank said.
Softbank also introduced attractive mobile content such as video of comedy acts popular in Japan called "S-1 Battle," and easy-to-use applications called "mobile widget."
For the fiscal year ending March 31, Softbank's profit dropped 60.3 percent to 43.2 billion yen, on 2.67 trillion yen in sales, down 3.7 percent on year.
Softbank did not give a net profit forecast, but expects operating profit for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, to rise 17 percent from the fiscal year just ended to 420 billion yen.
Posted by: von raivo pommer-www.google.fi at Apr 30, 2009 9:40:12 AM
Thiel's essay was excellent and on point, as was Patri's parent essay by the way.
I would have thought that the notion that a highly disproportionate amount of libertarians are, and have been, men was generally considered in the realm of known fact, but I guess I was mistaken in that belief.
Anyone complaining about Thiel's words regarding alcohol and other drugs is basically missing the point about seasteading (or other forms of escaping the tyranny of politicians). The whole point is that people of many sorts currently don't have anywhere to go that they are free to choose how to live their lives or transact with consenting adults as they choose. For many of those people, it is mainly a one issue problem, with the issue varying per person, and pretty much by definition their desires are found odious amongst some powerful portions of society, powerful enough to have used the coercive power of the state to tell others how they can and can't live their own lives.
So by complaining about Thiel's mention of drug and alcohol escape, you help to illustrate the validity of the basic thesis. You just can't seem to let other people be.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Apr 30, 2009 11:27:27 AM
"So by complaining about Thiel's mention of drug and alcohol escape, you help to illustrate the validity of the basic thesis. You just can't seem to let other people be."
Bzzzt! Wrong again. In fact I am amused by his account of he and his acquaintance's dissipation, and most definitely NOT interested in curtailing it. AFAIAC, a drunken, useless libertarian is in the best of all possible worlds, for everyone. What I was pointing out was the assignment of blame for this happy state: apparently NON Rich White Males.
Posted by: Russell L. Carter at Apr 30, 2009 6:55:01 PM
Russell,
I guess I should name who I am quoting from here on out, it is a bit sloppy on my part just using my memory. I wasn't referring to your post, I was referring to Greg's, a couple of posts after yours.
However, I can do without Thiel's romantic rationalization of alcohol, drugs [....]
Anyway, going back and reading Greg's post I am not sure I didn't take him out of context. Perhaps I was wrong there.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at May 1, 2009 10:41:54 AM
As for the films, I agree that many of these influences are, for the most part, bad ones, especially the fast camera work stuff. And, to call Coraline one of the most influential movies of the last 10 years is dumb given that it's only been around 6 months or so. It _might_ become influential, but it cannot possibly yet be one of the 10 most.
Posted by: SAMSUNG X20 laptop battery at May 18, 2009 8:50:00 AM
I agree that slowing down imports will probably help the US economy. Especially from countries like Japan who really haven't been playing fair all along.
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