Marginal Revolution

Markets in everything, human carpet edition

A man walks into a bar. He’s carrying a carpet under his arm. He wraps himself in the carpet, lies on the floor, covers his face and waits for people to step on him. A sign taped to the bar reads: “Step on carpet.”

People step on the carpet — dozens, in fact. The more people who step on the carpet, particularly if they are women in heels, the happier the man is. Some are timid, others are audacious. Some dance on the man. Some step on him while ordering their drinks, completely unaware that a live body is underfoot. Some just stand there, frozen, looking totally freaked out.

Four hours later, the man slips out from beneath his carpet, folds it up, tucks it under his arm and heads home. “It was a nice party,” he says cheerily, as if he were talking about something far more ordinary, like, say, a backyard barbecue.

His standard rate is $200 "a session," he seems to enjoy the work, in some situations he values the situation as a fetish, he once had ten women stand on him, and the market structure appears to be one of duopoly.  Here is more and I thank Jeffrey Valentine for the pointer.

Assorted links

1. The new Lars van Trier film is extreme.

2. John Nye: an economist walks into a bar, short podcast, direct link here.

3. There are seven years of health reform benefits, not ten.

4. Unusual hypotheses about John Milton.

5. Via Bamber, which is the most humane state?  And would you rather lose the right to vote or the right to bear arms, state-by-state?  Do note this is user-submitted data and not a random sample; here are more results.

WSJ article on the economics blogosphere

Here is the ungated link, it also covers MarginalRevolution and has a good picture of Alex.  It seems silly to excerpt the discussion of MR because you are already here.  But for a long time Alex and I had the plan to first write a blog and then write a textbook.

Internet celebrities (according to the WSJ)

Here's the WSJ article on economics blogs (subs.) and here is the list.  I was pleased to see this shout-out to Marginal Revolution commentators.  Keep up the good work!

One of the things that makes Marginal Revolution good is that where other economics blogs are plagued by rude comments (Greg Mankiw has shut down the comments section on his blog) commentators on Marginal Revolution are usually civil and often thought provoking.

Is suicide expensive?

Ezra Klein writes:

But it's expensive. With only Switzerland in the market, there's little competition. And in addition to the 4,000 euros required for the services of Dignitas, you also have to pay for your flight, and for those of your loved ones.

Well, sort of.  But if you already have $4,000, or can borrow $4,000 (don't tell them why you want the money), ex post it's actually not as expensive as it looks.  Which may help explain why the demand is somewhat inelastic.

China markets in everything minus one

Al Roth has the scoop:

Those of you reading this will be glad to know
China bans electric shock therapy for internet addicts

"China has outlawed the use of electric shock therapy to treat internet addiction, after a scandal at a hospital in the Northern province of Shandong."

"Internet addiction has become a growing problem in China, where officials believe as many as four million people spend more than six hours a day online.
Several clinics have sprung up, offering parents the chance to "cure" their children of the uncontrollable urge to blog..."