Half Sigma

Gourmet food for baby?

Beech-nut baby food in those little jars isn’t good enough for some spoiled parents, who give their babies gourmet frozen baby food.

The jarred baby food has made us bigger and healthier, so I wouldn’t be so eager to experiment on unproven stuff like lentils with “shallots and herbs” or carrots with a “gingery zing.” Babies don’t know the difference.

Why do movie ticket prices vary by age of the customer?

At the AMC movie theater on the Upper West Side, people between the ages of 13 and 59 pay $10.75, but "seniors" and children pay only $7.00. I don't understand the logic for this price discrimination.

I can only think of three economic theories behind this pricing: (1) seniors and children have a higher elasticity of demand (in other words they are too cheap to pay full price); or (2) seniors and children purchase more stuff from the snack bar so they are more profitable; or (3) it costs the theater less money to provide the service to seniors and children.

I don't think that any of these theories hold up to reason. Let's examine them one at a time.

(1) Seniors have more money than young people and they can certainly afford to pay full price. If any age group needs a discount it's younger people. Is there any evidence that seniors stop seeing movies when they have to pay full price? Children, of course, don't have their own money, but their parents are paying. Maybe people with children are especially cheap? In any event, this type of pricing only makes sense when there is no shortage of seats. There's no rationale for discounting the price for movies that sell out anyway, and at the UWS AMC movies always sell out.

(2) If people are too cheap to pay full price, they are probably too cheap to buy lots of stuff from the snack bar.

(3) Every person occupies the same amount of space. But children make noise and impose externalities on other customers lessening their enjoyment of the show. If anything, children should be charged a higher price.

In conclusion, movie theater pricing makes no sense and movie theaters could better maximize their profits by charging the same price for every person regardless of age.

Photos from Thailand

Googling for something else I accidentally came across the website of Yoonki Kim, a Korean who lives in Thailand.

Yoonki is a fantastic street photographer, and because he uses 35mm film and mostly 50mm and 35mm prime lenses, his photos have a look about them that you just don't see with digital cameras.

He also has the following observation about photography:

I recommend stay not-married if you want have freedom to waste money doing stupid (and unproductive) things like photographs.

I highly recommend that you check out his website.

Is Tide the best laundry detergent?

I few days ago, I blogged about how I had no idea as to which laundry detergent was the better. (See my post on perception vs. reality in marketing.)

So I attempted to do some research, but unfortunately, I still don't know. There's hardly any information on the internet about laundry detergents. I spent a significant amount of time doing Google searches but came up blank. This is in stark contrast to the digital camera market where a review of the new Canon EOS 30D takes up 30 web pages. If only I could find a single web page devoted to tests of a laundry detergent.

I am certain that the consumer is getting ripped off on laundry detergent. This is because (1) the market has oligopolistic competition (Proctor & Gamble has near monopoly power); (2) there is asymmetric information (the consumer has no clue what the difference is between products); and (3) the demand curve is price inelastic. That box of Tide which I bought for $5.27 at Duane Reade probably only cost P&G a few cents to manufacture.

Despite the illusion that there are many brands of of laundry detergent, there are really just four brands. P&G brands include Ivory, Era, Gain, Cheer, and of course Tide. Tide alone comes in dozens of different varieties and sizes. The goal here is to grab all the shelf space and crowd out any competitors.

I've blogged before about how competition causes higher prices. If P&G didn't have to spend so much money on marketing in order to maintain its near-monopoly, it could probably sell Tide for half the price and still make the same amount of profit.

Unilever is the next biggest competitor with two brands, Wisk and All.

Then there's a new player in the laundry detergent business, Phoenix Brands. What, never heard of them? That's because they knew how difficult it is to break into an oligopolistic market with huge barriers to entry, so they bought all the brands from Colgate-Palmolive, including Fab, Dynamo, and Ajax.

There's a final independent brand, Arm & Hammer. I've been using this brand because someone (my mother) gave me a free jug of the stuff, but my clothes don't seem especially clean so this stuff must suck.

This leads me to the recommendation part of the post. I am pretty sure that no brand works any better than Tide. Now read what I said very carefully. I'm not saying that I'm sure that other brands are worse, I really have no idea, but the scanty evidence I could find on the internet indicates that Tide is the gold standard. If some other brand came up with an advertising campaign demonstrating how they are better than Tide then I'd recommend that other brand, but you will notice that no brands attempt to compete in this market through comparison. Obviously they have an oligopolistic gentleman's agreement not to rock the boat.

I also recommend that you used powdered detergent instead of liquid. Not only does the powdered stuff cost a few cents less, there is some evidence that powders work better. I have no idea why this is the case. I can only assume that the powders contain some chemicals that become unstable after they are dissolved in liquid. The Tide website says that liquid Tide is better for grease while powdered Tide is better for all other dirt. Because most of the dirt on your clothes is the non-grease kind, and you can always pre-treat a grease stain with some liquid product, I don't see any reason not to make the powdered detergent your regular detergent.

If powdered detergent works better, why is liquid more popular? Because consumers think it's easier to use and consumers have no idea that powdered is better. Probably P&G doesn't want consumers to know because it gets to dominate more shelf space with both liquid and powdered versions of all its detergents.

With tax, that $5.27 box of Tide costs me only 38 cents per load. I'm already paying three dollars in quarters for every load, what's an extra 38 cents? This demonstrates why the demand for detergent is price inelastic. I used to use whatever detergent I found at the lowest price, but now that I've done more research I realize that it's worth paying an extra twenty cents per load to make sure that I'm using the best stuff.

The politics of Battlestar Galactica

If you watch the new Battlestar Galactica, then you will enjoy my post on the politics of Battlestar Galactica.

Is eighties music the best music ever?

I've been listening to Sirius Satellite Radio's 80s station the past few days. I don't think I've ever enjoyed listening to the radio so much. This music is great!

But looking at this more logically, my guess is that listening to music over and over again creates neural pathways in the brain receptive to the particular musical pattern. As you get older, your brain has more difficulty creating these new neural pathways, and this means that you stop enjoying new music and think the music you heard when you were in your teens and early twenties is the best music ever.

So sadly, the supremecy of eighties music is just an illusion created by my brain and not reality. Nevertheless, I'm going to keep listening to it. When I'm sixty and still listening to eighties music, the younger generations will laugh at my old fogy musical tastes.

Dahesh Museum of Art

The Dasheh Museum of Art, located in midtown Manhattan, is dedicated to displaying mostly 19th century European academic art.

The concept is great. Much beautiful artwork has been ignored and forgotten because of the leftist movement to discredit art in which the artists demonstrate genuine talent. The leftist likes art that anyone could do, because the leftist thinks it’s unfair to untalented artists to glorify those with talent.

Ignoring the mysterious issue of “Dr. Dahesh” who seems to be a real weirdo (albeit a weirdo with good taste in art), my problem with this museum is that there is hardly any museum at all. Most of the museum is dedicated to a gift shop and a café. The actual gallery is a tiny hallway in the basement. It’s hard to overstate exactly how small the gallery is. This museum is simply not worth the $9 cost of admission.

For only an extra dollar you could visit the New York Historical Society instead, which features an impressive collection of 19th century art, including famous paintings like William Beard’s “The Bulls and Bears in the Market.”

Are children brats?

You seldom come across a female who expresses her dislike of children, but Christy breaks the mold here:

Now experts believe you can get a good idea of who will become a criminal at around the age of 3-4 years old. I for one am not surprised. This summer I'm living in the Chicago suburbs and have been subjected to screaming little monsters everywhere I go, I'm glad someone else sees the criminal potential in these brats.

I wish I could meet a girl like Christy!

One thing I hate about children is that they scratch DVDs. When I rent DVDs from the local video rental store, which is in mostly child-free Ballston, I have never had a problem. But when I was renting them from a Blockbuster in Old Town Alexandria (where there are more children living), they would always have scratches and would skip on me.

Gay vague

New York Times journalist David Colman tries to coin a new word: gay vague. This refers to when you can’t tell if a man is gay or not.

I haven’t decided yet if this is a real trend, or if the NY Times needed a filler article and they know these kinds of article are popular. It reminds me of the “man date” article from a month or so ago.

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Sorry for the light posting, I’m in New York City and using a dialup connection. I could never maintain a blog with just a dialup connection. I’ll be back on my high speed connection on Monday.

Plus-sized women not welcome?

An article in today’s Washington Post informs us that young “plus-sized” women are unable to buy clothes in fashionable retail stores.

There is one paragraph from that article that seems full of wrong and misleading information:

The moves [referring to retailers discontinuing plus-size lines] struck some industry watchers as counterintuitive -- if only because Americans are becoming heavier. In 2002, 16 percent of teens were considered overweight, more than triple the figure in 1980. The average woman in her twenties weighs almost 29 pounds more than women did in 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

First of all, the 29 pounds figure seems too large to possibly be true. I don’t buy it. Someone at the Washington Post has failed to do proper fact checking.

Secondly, because weight is not distributed evenly between the social classes and races, 16 percent of teens being overweight does not translate to 16% of a clothing store’s sales being made to overweight shoppers. Hispanic and black women weigh more, on average, than white women, and poor women, on average, weigh more than rich women. Stores catering to white women in the upper half of the income distribution probably only have a tiny percentage of potential customers who are overweight.

This type of article might make women, for some unknown reason, mad at heterosexual men. I would like to point out that the fashion industry is run nearly entirely by women and gay men.

The poor little Corcoran Museum

I am saddened to find out that the Corcoran Museum is having fundraising problems. It will have the cancel its plan to erect a new buliding.

The Corcoran is a nice little museum where I took a photography class a year ago. Unfortunately it has trouble competing for attention being in the same city as the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution. The National Gallery of Art is not part of the Smithsonian, but like the Smithsonian it's funded by your federal tax dollars. How can a donor supported museum compete with the unlimited spending power of the government?

The National Gallery of Art is slated to receive $97 million in FY 06, and the Smithsonian $615 million. Government funding for culture is a multi-billion dollar affair. (See WaPo article.) That's some serious money.

That said, I never liked the design of the new Corcoran building. It looks totally out of place next to the rest of the museum.

Apprentice Blogging: Kendra wins as predicted here

As I previously predicted here and here, Donald Trump picked Kendra as the winner of the third season of The Apprentice.

What Donald Trump disliked most about Tana was how she put down her team members (calling them the Three Stooges for example) when they were out of earshot. This is probably good business advice. Never call you subordinates the Three Stooges.

Frank McCourt for greatest American

Many pundits in the blogosphere have been chiming in on who they think ought to be added to the list of the 100 greatest Americans (reproduced at Professor Bainbridge’s blog).

Professor Bainbridge has a list of additions heavy on lawyers and people whose last name is Marshall. Pete the Elder suggests Boss Tweed and Wyatt Earp. She who will be obeyed supports cooking instructor Julia Childs (but Lawgirl and David Schraub don’t agree) . The Unabrewer thinks James Madison should be on the list. Greg Hlatky has his own list of 100, which includes Irving Berlin, the musician best known for his Broadway showtunes. The Monk nominates William Seward, who probably deserves to be there a lot more than Condoleezza Rice. Kevin Drum suggests Andy Warhol, famous for designing the Campbell’s Soup label. Kevin of Lean Left likes Eugene V. Debs who was sentenced to prison for treason against the United States (but at least not for child molestation which is likely for Michael Jackson who did mysteriously make the list). Linkmeister likes Duke Ellington (though I would pick his contemporary Glenn Miller first).

So in light of what all these other bloggers have written, my nomination is for Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes.

First of all, the list is short on authors, with only Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens making the list (and most deservedly so). I can’t think of any contemporary writer more deserving of inclusion than Frank McCourt. In addition to being a huge bestseller with millions of copies sold, Angela’s Ashes also received critical acclaim and won a Pullitzer Prize. This is a pretty rare combination; usually critical acclaim and sales are inversely related.

The United States is a nation of immigrants, and Frank McCourt’s memoirs capture the spirit of the immigrant experience. He has a horrible childhood in Ireland, but then he finally saves up enough money to buy passage to America. Angela’s Ashes ends with Frank finally returning to America, the land of opportunity.

In addition to being short on writers, schoolteachers are completely absent from the list. Yet surely teaching is an important enough profession to merit one inclusion in a list of 100 great Americans? The very basis for our Democracy lies with an educated public.

Before becoming a famous author, Frank McCourt worked for thirty years as a humble public high school teacher in New York City. But he was more than just a mere high school teacher; most of his students remember him as the best teacher they ever had.

Frank McCourt truly deserves nomination to the list.

UPDATE

Lawgirl responds to what she says is a misconstruction of her Julia Child remark. I agree with her. Why is a cook promoted to the list of 100 while other accomplished American women, such as author Edith Wharton or artist Mary Cassatt, are ignored? In fact, I agree that Professor Bainbridge’s inclusion of only judges, politicians, and military people shows his lack of interest in other equally important aspects of American culture such as art, literature, and science. Who is Chester Nimitz and why is he a more important American than Ansel Adams, Albert Bierstadt, or John Singer Sargent?

Barack Obama, the greatest American?

Professor Bainbridge says that Barack Obama doesn’t belong on the list of 100 greatest Americans.

I give the professor credit for even knowing who he is. Barack who? I never heard of the guy.

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I think at least one person on the professor’s discard list deserves to remain. That would be Babe Ruth, the most famous historical player of the most quintessentially American sport of baseball.

Apprentice blogging: the penultimate week

Kendra and Tana squared off, with each receiving the three worst candidates from their team as their employees.

I think this week once again demonstrates that the primary difference between the college graduates and the high school graduates is class. The high school graduates bickered and fought as usual, and Brian and Chris showed a basic lack of respect for their assignment.

The college graduates, even though they were the worst of their cohort, behaved in a civilized manner befitting of college graduates, and in doing so helped Kendra look good.

I just don’t see Trump picking a cosmetics salesperson to run one of his businesses. Trump may pretend that he’s a street smart guy who has greater respect for those who made it without college, but the reality is that he graduated from the same Ivy League school that I did.

Apprentice blogging: Danny returns!

Craig has been a mystery to me throughout the whole contest. He never seemed to be doing anything, yet he somehow managed to escape being fired all the way up to the final three. He won both times he was project manager. Was there something there, or was he just lucky?

I was definitely routing for Craig as the underdog. So I was disappointed when the executives unanimously rejected him. And besides, I cannot imagine Tana being Trump’s apprentice after that ridiculous trip to Staten Island to buy some beads to glue on the T-shirts in last week’s episode. (I grew up in Staten Island. I should know as well as anyone that there’s no reason to ever go there.)

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My favorite candidate of the season is Danny (whom I previously blogged about). So I was greatly excited to see him return for the final task.

I was very much hoping that Danny would finally redeem himself. I figured that a guy who owns a marketing company (check out the website, it sure looks a lot different since the last time I was there) would have no problem schmoozing with some executives for a few minutes, but alas, once again he came out looking like a big loser.

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Meanwhile, Tana is stuck with Brian, the worst candidate of the entire season. I previously wrote:

Brian is supposedly a "self-made millionaire" at the age of 29. But he's also an abrasive moron with absolutely no self control. This proves that you can be a person with few redeeming qualities and still be successful in real-estate sales. A very important life lesson there.

I think that, unless Kendra seriously messes up this task, she’s going to be the next Apprentice. Tana’s trip to Staten Island was incredibly stupid, and Trump is not going to forget that.

Cars for kids

Mr Bingley writes, “No kid needs to drive a BMW at 17.”

I sadly confess to sharing those middle class values. When I was a kid, I would have been thankful if my parents bought me a used Ford Pinto.

Actually, I think that families should live in cities where kids can get around by foot or with public transportation. No need for kids to have cars in the city. Unfortunately, the perception (mostly true) of unsafe public schools in the cities have caused all the families to move to the suburbs where there’s no way to get anywhere without a car.

I agree with Roger Chermak who suggests that school vouchers can bring middle class families back to the city.