Market Power

Fast Food Quality > School Lunch Quality

2009-12-09T17:12:31-06:00

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC, a USA TODAY investigation found.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program "meets or exceeds standards in commercial products."
That isn't always the case. McDonald's, Burger King and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.

Yet people want government-run health care/public options etc, but I'm far from convinced that government officials have the knowledge and incentives present in the competitive market place.

In addition, companies that sell bottled water get the business from critics because they pull water from municipal water supplies. But the companies further filter that water to get rid of medicines and other nasties in the water supplies. After all, there's nothing like the discipline of a competitive marketplace to get you on the straight and narrow.

"Bowl Snub is a Holiday Tradition"

2009-12-08T17:14:55-06:00

Joe Walljasper provides a voice of reason in the Big XII bowl selection process:

The Tigers — who are better than the Cyclones according to arcane measures such as records and head-to-head results — play the better opponent (Navy rather than Minnesota) and get better exposure (ESPN rather than The NFL Network) in a city they recruit (Houston vs. Tempe, Ariz.).
So getting upset about the Insight Bowl stiffing Missouri in favor of Iowa State is like getting mad when the person you want to dump dumps you first. The result is fine, but the process isn’t.

He also writes about the revenue sharing system in the Big XII that I discussed in this TSE post earlier today. Read what he has to say

Hey Beer Drinkers: Next Time You Crack Open a Beer...

2009-12-08T17:01:53-06:00

Remember that the EPA has designated the gas that makes the beer all bubbly as a pollutant. Never mind the CO2 created during the brewing process. That's why brewers have these things installed on their fermentation tanks.

How long before the alcohol abstinence folks jump on this little fact?

Brian Burwell on the BCS: Break Up the Cartel

2009-12-08T16:56:10-06:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Be honest: What would you actually do if you didn't have the ludicrous college-bowl system to complain about?

Brian Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch takes on the BCS does just that.

The nervous defenders of the Bowl Championship Series' bogus "national championship" think they have gotten it right this time. No muss, no fuss, no uncomfortably awkward idiocy like last year when the wrong team (Oklahoma) ended up in the title game.

Alabama vs. Texas.
...While I'm fairly confident that No. 1-ranked Alabama is the best team in the country, why not let a playoff format decide it, not a convoluted computer program? And while we're on the subject, who's to say Texas really is the second-best team in the country? That ugly struggle against a 9-4 Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game didn't inspire much confidence now, did it?

Why shouldn't 12-0 TCU, the third-ranked team in both polls, get a chance to prove its worth in the title picture, or 13-0 Boise State? I don't want to hear anyone say that they know for sure that Texas is the second-best team in the country. Why? Because the Longhorns didn't beat a single team that finished in the Top 20 until the Big 12 championship game.

Then he breaks out the antitrust language:

So until Congress can break up this power-conference cartel, I will not accept it as the national title game and neither should anyone else.

The BCS is and always will be about the business of preserving a monopoly of the power football conferences, which have little if any interest in sharing the wealth with everyone else. A true playoff system would certainly provide an opportunity for an enormous payoff for everyone, just like the NCAA basketball playoffs. But that would mean sharing all that cash on a more equitable basis with the entire upper tier of Division I football schools.

It won't be the first time that the NCAA has run afoul of antitrust laws. Remember your monopoly theory from Principles of Micro. Monopolies, because they face no competition by definition, restrict the access to a product and, in so doing, drives the price higher than otherwise.

Similarly, cartels between businesses limit competition between themselves which results in higher prices for consumers.

But without an effective enforcement mechanism, there is a strong incentive for members to cheat on the cartel agreement. By cutting a side deal and, the cheater can capture a larger market share than agreed upon and, of course, higher profits. Without a way to punish members for cheating, the cartel falls apart.

When it comes to college football telecasts, the league (or the teams, depending on the league agreement) is the supplier and the consumer are media providers. Back in the 1970's and early 1980's, people would be lucky to find three games on television on a given Saturday.

According to Rod Fort's Sports Economics text (second edition, chapter 13 table 13-10) there were 28 games on television in 1982 and in 1983. The price paid for media rights per game in 1982 was $4.09 million (all prices quoted in this post are in real 2004 dollars). In 1983, that price was $4.3 million per game.

Nowadays conferences such as the Big 10 and the Big XII have nearly every game televised. What happened?

Back in the early 80's, Oklahoma and Georgia didn't feel their programs were on the telly enough. Unable to convince other schools that they should have their games on the telly more often, they sued the NCAA, a suit that made it to SCOTUS. In short, the NCAA lost in a landmark 1984 case.

What happened in the market for media rights? Almost immediately, the number of games on the telly increased and the price paid for media rights fell. In 1984, there were a total of 36 games on television and the price per game paid by media providers fell by over $3 million per game to $1.1 million.

One year later in 1985, there were 42 games on television and the price per game was at $1.12 million. Ten years later in 1995, there were a total of 71 games on television and the price per game paid by the media was $1.07 million.

The NCAA television case was a textbook case not only of monopoly power but also of how individual interests tend to chip away at the power of cartels. It's a classic prisoners' dilemma game.

Now, I'm not so sure that the federal government (i.e. congress or the executive branch) should busy itself with a playoff system. Like they say, there's still no cure for cancer. Instead, it seems that the judicial branch is the way to go given the antitrust laws already in place.

Then again, in order to run afoul of antitrust laws, the NCAA needs to be sued. Which member school is up for that given what happens when a cartel gets broken up?

Markets in Everything: Doggie Day Care

2009-12-08T16:44:22-06:00

We've got a doggie day care near my house here in the nort' lands, so this probably comes as no surprise to all y'all outside the sticks.

"She has always had an entrepreneurial spirit about her," says Ms. Nichols's husband, Mike Schlegel, who met her when they were both working in the telecommunications field. Today, Mr. Schlegel is the vice president of franchise development for Dogtopia. He says that one of the first things Ms. Nichols asked him when they met was where he saw himself in five to 10 years. He didn't have a good answer. But, he recalls that Ms. Nichols quickly "professed that she wanted to run her own business."
Getting there was no walk in the park for Ms. Nichols, who met with 12 landlords during the second half of 2001 before finding one who was willing to give her a lease. While she had an excellent work record and a 30-page business plan, she didn't have experience running her own business. Plus, she was a young, single woman. And the dog concept, virtually unheard of at the time, wasn't translating with property managers.
Ms. Nichols's luck turned when Net2000, one of the telecom companies that had tried to recruit her, went belly up in late 2001. She quickly secured a lease for the 8,775-square-foot building. "Their failure led [the landlord] to look outside that industry for the next tenant," she says.
But it wasn't just landlords who were skeptical of the dog-day-care concept. Ms. Nichols approached seven banks before securing a loan. Like the landlords, they all wanted to see a successful owner track record. It was a small women-owned bank, Southern Financial Bank, that finally gave her a $75,000 Small Business Administration-backed loan. She had also been saving her money for several years and she sold her house, which netted about $80,000. Everything went into the business, with a few thousand dollars going into marketing, says Ms. Nichols.

Read the whole thing. It's an interesting story of the entrepreneurial spirit glossed over by so many formal economic models.

A Buddy Fight Goes Terribly, Terribly Wrong

2009-12-08T16:39:56-06:00

A buddy fight is just what the name implies: a fight between friends. Most buddy fights start out with a little pushing, a little shoving. It may come to blows, but if you know the type of fight I'm talking about, none of the punches seem to be thrown with much conviction. Each person is mad enough to rumble, but he doesn't want to hurt his buddy too much. This wasn't that type of buddy fight.

The argument started when Texas edged Nebraska on Saturday night and continued oh-so-typically when two buddies with two different favorite teams jawed after the game's final play.

But this college football fight ended very badly.
It ended with the Texas fan, Jonathan Clinton Rodriguez, dead of an apparent accidental gunshot wound to the chest. It ended with his friend, Florida football fan Lionel Loya, jailed and facing an involuntary manslaughter charge.

Neither man hails from Nebraska, and neither is a Nebraska football fan, said the police chief investigating the apparent accidental killing in Havelock, N.C.
...Their argument began after Texas kicked a field goal on the game's final play to beat Nebraska 13-12, a win that secured the Longhorns a spot in the national title game. Earlier in the day, the Florida Gators, Loya's favorite team, had fallen to Alabama in the Southeast Conference title game, a loss that dropped the Gators out of the national title race.

It's only sports, but sports can get us awfully worked up.

And, no, I'm not going to tag this one under "Economics, Sports, Economic Impact."

Revenue Sharing and Salary Caps: Will the NFL End Up Like the Big XII?

2009-12-08T13:34:46-06:00

I've got another post up at The Sports Economist. In this one I look at the NFL's decision to suspend part of its revenue sharing system and the impact of salary caps and revenue sharing on competitive balance. I also look at Big 12 football as a reference point.

Danica Patrick to Join NASCAR

2009-12-08T11:29:16-06:00

My latest post at The Sports Economist is up. I post about Danica Patrick's move to NASCAR.

It's Starting to Look a Lot Like WInter - Plus A Little Vivaldi

2009-12-08T10:37:34-06:00

Southern Minnesota, and the entire upper midwest for that matter, is under one sort of winter weather advisory or another. We locally are under a blizzard warning for today and tonight. The current forecast calls for nearly a foot of snow, light and fluffy snow, with winds whupping up to 30 mph. Those winds are forecasted to drive the wind chil down in the 25 to 35 below range. Ew. So it seems appropriate for a little Vivaldi.

"California Nude Beaches Take Cover"

2009-12-08T08:08:00-06:00

No nudies for you on some Callie beaches.

"Volunteers Log off as Wikipedia Ages"

2009-12-08T07:58:00-06:00

Wikipedia was started by Jimbo Wales who was influenced by the writings of economist FA Hayek, specifically his paper "The Use of Knowledge in Society." Hayek noted that knowledge in a society is not held by a few chosen ones, but is instead dispersed throughout society. To solve societal problems, it is necessary to use as much knowledge as possible. Wikipedia, by allowing volunteers rather than "experts" to create and edit entries, does just that. With all its warts, Wikipedia brings together that dispersed information in millions of entries and has become one of the most popular encyclopedias.

But as the WSJ reports, Wikipedia is finding some of its volunteers are logging off permanently. An excerpt:

Volunteers have been departing the project that bills itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" faster than new ones have been joining, and the net losses have accelerated over the past year. In the first three months of 2009, the English-language Wikipedia suffered a net loss of more than 49,000 editors, compared to a net loss of 4,900 during the same period a year earlier, according to Spanish researcher Felipe Ortega, who analyzed Wikipedia's data on the editing histories of its more than three million active contributors in 10 languages.

The Coaches' Rankings Are Out

2009-12-07T20:35:46-06:00

Here at USA Today. Dave Matter notes on Twitter that only two coaches have Mizzou ranked in their top 25. One is Mizzou's Gary Pinkel and the other is Navy's Ken Niumatalolo. Oh, and by the way, Mizzou plays Navy in the Texas bowl. I'd like to think there is a little game theoretic strategizing going on, but no-one voted Navy in the top 25 except for Niumatalolo.

Frustrated With the Big XII Bowl Selection Process?

2009-12-07T15:45:11-06:00

My latest at The Sports Economist is up. In it I look at the Big XII's bowl selection process.

By the way, two years ago the Orange Bowl said it picked KU over MU even though Mizzou had beaten the Beakers head to head and even though Mizzou was ranked above KU in the BCS rankings. The primary consideration, officials said, was that MU had two losses but KU only had one.

Of course KU never got the chance to lose that second game because of its loss to MU. Had the Beaks won, they would have had the honor of facing a loaded OU team in the Big XII championship game.

Fast forward to this year. The Orange Bowl picked Iowa as an at-large team over conference mate Penn State. The biggest consideration, according to the same official, was that Iowa had beaten Penn State head-to-head and that Iowa was ranked higher in the BCS rankings. Unlike the KU-MU situation in 2007, both teams have two losses.

HT to Dave Matter.

Houston Nutt to KU?

2009-12-07T15:41:34-06:00

The Kansas City Star is reporting that Houston Nutt, the former Arkansas and current Ole Miss head coach, is interested in the open Kansas job. This would be a great hire for KU.

Quality Cameras for $200-$300

2009-12-07T15:13:14-06:00

I was in the market for a new point-and-shoot camera. That was until my old tube telly crapped out on me. If you are in the market for such a camera and have a budget less than $300, check out these suggestions by USA Today.

Do You Have the Traits of a Psychopath?

2009-12-07T14:56:03-06:00

A scientist named Jim Fallon in researching traits of psychopathic killers found out that he himself has some of the traits.

Jim Fallon recently made a disquieting discovery: A member of his family has some of the biological traits of a psychopathic killer.
"These results will cause some problems at the next family party," he said, reviewing the data on his laptop in his backyard. Meanwhile, his wife, Diane, stood in the kitchen, using a knife to slice through a blood-red pepper.

I don't know if revealing this would be guaranteed to break the ice at parties. But I wonder which is more likely to get the conversation going: "Hi, I'm xxxx and I have some traits of a psychopath" or "Hi, I'm xxxx and I'm an economist."

The Music of Star Wars in Concert

2009-12-07T14:50:45-06:00

From the Detroit Free Press:

You might not know the name Anthony Daniels, and you very likely have no clue what he looks like in real life -- but you certainly know his voice. The gold-plated robot of the "Star Wars" saga is taking on a new role as the live narrator for "Star Wars": In Concert, a symphonic extravaganza with an 86-piece orchestra, large choir and accompanying memorabilia exhibit that visits the Palace of Auburn Hills on Saturday for two performances. Call him Emcee 3PO, even if it makes you cringe.

One of my favorite record albums of my youth was the Star Wars soundtrack. I used to listen to it for hours on end and the music still ranks up there as some of my favorite orchestral pieces.

In many instances, incidental music is pretentious. But you can reasonably argue that the John Williams masterpiece is a big reason why the movie so successful.

Congress Contemplates Legislation to Increase the Supply of Doctors

2009-12-07T14:44:58-06:00

Rather than let the market work its magic, Congress feels that it needs to craft legislation that supposedly will help increase the supply of primary care doctors.

A handful of Democratic senators are pushing to change pending health-care legislation so that it would help increase the country's stock of primary-care doctors, heeding warnings that the bill may exacerbate the difficulty some Americans already have in finding a doctor.
More than 30 million Americans would get health insurance under the health-care overhaul that passed through the House and a similar bill moving forward in the Senate. If that does indeed happen, many previously uninsured people who haven't had a regular doctor before will need a primary-care physician. Demand would also likely increase for nurse practitioners and general surgeons.

Here's a thought: how about getting their mitts out of the healthcare industry? I realize that's a pipe dream, but its a pipe dream that needs to be noted.

Score Another One for Wal Mart in Its Fight Against Unions

2009-12-07T14:40:42-06:00

From the WSJ:

Canada's top court has ruled in favor of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Canadian unit regarding the closure of a unionized store in Quebec four years ago.
The Supreme Court of Canada, which heard the case in January, voted 6-3 for Wal-Mart Canada.
The store, located in the town of Jonquiere, made headlines in 2004 when it was unionized without a vote. But after nine contract-bargaining sessions, Wal-Mart decided to shut the store the following year, saying the store wasn't making money and the union's demands, which required hiring an additional 30 employees, would have kept it from ever being profitable.

"An Economist's Invisible Hand"

2009-12-07T14:38:50-06:00

Professor Pigou: he isn't just for understanding (Pigovian) taxes and subsidies anymore.

The winner's name, however, turns out to be much less familiar: Arthur Cecil Pigou (pronounced "Arthur See-sil Pig-oo"). Stepping from the wings, a strapping Englishman with fair, wavy hair and a luxuriant moustache, smiles awkwardly and accepts his prize. A contemporary of Mr. Keynes at Cambridge University, Mr. Pigou was, for a long time, the forgotten man of economics. In the years leading up to his death, in 1959, he was a reclusive figure, rarely venturing from his rooms at King's College. His novel ideas on taxing polluters and making health insurance compulsory were met with indifference: Keynesianism was all the rage.
Today Mr. Pigou's intellectual legacy is being rediscovered, and, unlike those of Messrs. Keynes and Friedman, it enjoys bipartisan appeal. Leading Republican-leaning economists such as Greg Mankiw and Gary Becker have joined Democrats such as Paul Krugman and Amartya Sen in recommending a Pigovian approach to policy. Much of President Barack Obama's agenda—financial regulation, cap and trade, health care reform—is an application of Mr. Pigou's principles. Whether the president knows it or not, he is a Pigovian.

Ethanol is Such a Great Product that Congress has to Mandate Its Use

2009-12-07T14:35:20-06:00

From the Des Moines Register on Dec. 1, 2009:

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to rule this week whether more ethanol can go into the gasoline used for everything from automobiles to boats and snowblowers. But that doesn't mean higher-proof gasoline is headed for service stations any time soon. Even if the agency agrees to allow higher levels of ethanol in gas - and that is no given - it's not clear when the higher-proof fuel would reach the market. Refiners are saying they won't put more ethanol into their gasoline unless Congress gives them protection from potential lawsuits from motorists or consumers who claim the ethanol hurt their engines.

I love that last sentence. It's such a great fuel that producers need protection from us big-bad consumers who find their product ain't all that it's cracked up to be.

Don't forget that there are recent reports stating that the "U.S. is unlikely to need all the ethanol congress ordered."

Minnesota mandates a 10% ethanol blend, probably to appease the farm lobby and other ethanol interests. Whenever I have a choice (which almost always means when I'm in another state) I always choose a no-ethanol blend when I fill up.

The NHL's "Trade Imbalance"

2009-12-07T14:26:07-06:00

From the New York Times:

The decline of the American dollar has led to a trade imbalance north of the border, on the rinks of the National Hockey League.

Over the past two decades, the Canadian teams in the N.H.L. were considered poor cousins of their colleagues in the United States. Some floundered financially, others packed up and moved south. The league even created the Canadian Assistance Program to subsidize the country's struggling teams.

But the landscape in Canada has changed drastically, because of a rise of more than 50 percent in the Canadian dollar since 2002. A stronger currency has made it cheaper for the six Canadian teams to pay their players in United States dollars and to reduce debts. It has also inflated the revenue of the six Canadian franchises and, in turn, the league's revenue. That has hurt some of the weaker teams in the United States by pushing up the minimum amount teams must spend on payroll.

"The Canadian teams went from being very weak to the crown jewel in a short period," said Rob Tilliss, the founder of Inner Circle Sports, which advises owners and teams. "There are cycles, of course, but there's enough interest and enthusiasm in Canada that this isn't going to reverse" anytime soon.

Which probably partly explains why Jim Balsillie wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move them to Hamilton, Ontario.

"Why Have College Completion Rates Declined?"

2009-12-07T14:22:40-06:00

NBER paper by Bound, Lovenheim, and Turner (2009).

Partly as a consequence of the substantial increase in the college wage premium since 1980, a much higher fraction of high school graduates enter college today than they did a quarter century ago. However, the rise in the fraction of high school graduates attending college has not been met by a proportional increase in the fraction who finish. Comparing two cohorts from the high school classes of 1972 and 1992, we show eight-year college completion rates declined nationally, and this decline is most pronounced amongst men beginning college at less-selective public 4-year schools and amongst students starting at community colleges. We decompose the observed changes in completion rates into the component due to changes in the preparedness of entering students and the component due to collegiate characteristics, including type of institution and resources per student. We find that, while both factors play a role, it is the collegiate characteristics that are more important. A central contribution of this analysis is to show the importance of the supply-side of the higher education in explaining changes in college completion.

The emphasis is mine. Not only are men a minority on many college campuses, many aren't finishing when they do start.

Bowl = Benjamins for Coaches

2009-12-07T14:17:48-06:00

USA Today has a list of bonuses to be earned by college coaches when their teams reach certain heights.

Links on Racial/Ethnic/Nationality Differences in College Athletics

2009-12-07T14:16:28-06:00

Are there enough white kids playing tailback in football?

USC vs. 'Bama: "The game that changed Alabama."

Who needs signals when you can communicate with your teammates in a language few other players understand? Haitian kids become big-time players in college football.

Danario Alexander Snubbed by the AFCA

2009-12-03T13:47:44-06:00

The American Football Coaches' Association has released its 2009 All American Team. The wide receivers on that team are Notre Dame's Golden Tate and the University of Cincinnati's Mardy Gilyard. Golden Tate has had a fine season, but how can the AFCA vote either one of these two players above the most-exciting big play receiver in FBS college football, Mizzou's Danario Alexander. Let's check out some stats courtesy of cfbstats.com

Player	G	Rec.	Yards	Avg.	TD	Rec./G	Yards/G
Alexander	12	107	1644	15.36	13	8.9	137
Gilyard	11	75	1032	13.76	10	6.8	93.8
Tate	12	93	1496	16.09	15	7.8	124.7

I'm only including receiving stats since this is for the first team receiver slot. Alexander blows both of these receivers away in total yards, yards per game, receptions, and receptions per game. Tate leads Alexander in TD's but Alexander has 5 more touchdowns than Gilyard. And in terms of big play potential, Alexander averages almost 50 yards per touchdown reception. The next closest is Tate who is averaging just below 30 yards per TD catch. Oh, and in November, Gilyard had 296 yards and 2 TD's in 3 games. Tate had 569 yards and 6 TD's in 4 games. Alexander: 820 yards and 6 TD's in 4 games, an average of 205 ypg. He had three 200 yard games in those 4 games. Before that stretch, there had only been three 200 yard games in the entire history of Mizzou football. Alexander averaged that in 4 games in one month, all conference games.

Heck, about the only place where Alexander trails both Gilyard and Tate is in consistency measured by the standard deviation of receiving yards per game.

Game	Tate	Alexander	Gilyard
1	59	132	89
2	115	56	111
3	127	46	65
4	57	170	177
5	244	43	75
6	117	180	75
7	128	74	82
8	80	123	62
9	132	214	172
10	113	200	22
11	123	173	102
12	201	233
Avg	124.7	137.0	93.8
Std Dev	53.4	68.2	46.1

That's going to happen when you range from 46 yards against Furman to 233 yards against the rival Jayhawks.

He's first nationally in yards per game, 2nd in receptions, first in yards, 4th in TD's. He ranks 6th in the nation in yards per game against teams with winning records (Gilyard is 10th). Tate is first.

So, I don't have a problem with Tate getting AA status. But to vote Gilyard above Alexander? To the list of snubs received by the Mizzou football program over the past 3 years, add the AFCA's snub of leaving #81 of its AA team.

SAS Facing Competition?

2009-12-01T18:41:36-06:00

Craig Newmark links to this article about competition for SAS.

But that good life is under threat today as never before. SAS’s specialty, a lucrative niche called business intelligence software, is becoming mainstream. Free, open-source alternatives to some of the company’s products are increasingly popular. On the other end of the spectrum, the heavyweights of the software industry — Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and, especially, I.B.M. — are plunging in and investing billions of dollars.

“It will be a dogfight,” says Bill Hostmann, an analyst at Gartner. “SAS has never faced a competitor like I.B.M. And I do think I.B.M. sees SAS as a big, fatted cow.”

I use SAS for database management these days. I used to use it for most everything, but there are many more convenient substitutes for it. For most of the regressions I run, I use STATA. I don't need to know a lot of code to be able to use it, but the biggest plus with STATA is the perpetual license. My university buys me a one-time license and I can use that version forever. But with SAS, I need to have my license renewed every year and that costs my university about $700 - $800 annually.

SAS? A big fatted cow? That's about right. I think I'll hoist one to the entrepreneurs who are taking the risk to provide researchers with more bang for their bucks. This Bud's homebrew's for you!

Treat Your Young Customers Well

2009-11-27T09:34:14-06:00

Glenn Reynolds:

Williams-Sonoma, on the other hand, managed to lose my business. After suffering a catastropic coffeemaker failure last night, I had tasked the Insta-Daughter to buy a new one. She was snubbed by the salespeople, who skipped her to wait on someone older who was behind her in line. So she went to Belk and got a better deal on the same thing, but tells me she’ll be personally insulted if I ever shop at Williams-Sonoma again. I’ve noticed a lot of stores that treat teenagers this way, and it strikes me as quite unwise.

I worked for Walgreens for eight years, - four years as a clerk in Sioux City, Ia. and four years as an assistant manager in Omaha, Ne.. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I recall a meeting with, I think, the local district manager from Omaha. The subject turned to kids in the store. The DM asked us if we should be extra suspicious of kids hanging around the candy aisle or if we should not serve them as well as we would serve older customers. He said we should treat our young customers with as much respect as we would treat our older customers because our younger customers were our future customers. That's wise advice and it surprises me that "a lot of stores... treat teenagers this way."

Markets in Everything - Push Button Boobie Lift

2009-11-27T08:56:00-06:00

Story here with video in Chinese.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T14:37:17-06:00

I just want to wish all of my readers a Happy Thanksgiving.