The Grilled Cheese

Listening to the soothing voice of Tom Shane on a Shane Company radio ad for engagement rings, I got to thinking: Do jewelry stores advertise a return policy for their rings? If they are worried about people without ridiculous amounts of disposable income not buying engagement rings because they are afraid to bear the cost if the woman doesn't say yes, then we can expect return policies to both exist and be prevalent in the store and to customers. But if jewelry stores are aware that customers do not appreciate such pessimistic thoughts, or if it is possible that such a reminder that she might say no would drive a confidence-lacking bachelor to change his mind, then we can expect return policies to be in the figurative (and literal) small text. It would be interesting to see if in-store promotion of return policies in jewelry stores differs from other retail areas.

Contrary to much common opinion, the existence of clutch hitters has been repeatedly smashed to the floor by sabermetricians. For some examples, see this and this. Clutch hitting has been defined as the ability to hit better (i.e. have a higher OPS) in close and late situations than in the average situation. There is convincing intuition that batters cannot perform better in these situations. Primarily, pressure makes everything harder. It is unlikely that anybody will perform better than normal under more-difficult-than-normal circumstances.

But if nobody can be consistently better than normal in difficult situations, then maybe being clutch is simply performing normally under pressure, not succumbing to pressure. Of course, this can only be considered clutch if the majority of players cannot achieve such consistency across situations varying by pressure. So if the average MLB player has a lower OPS in pressure situations than other situations, then we can change the definition of clutch. And if certain players are able to maintain their normal OPS during pressure situations, then maybe those players are clutch players.

Brad Pitt is always eating in his movies, and his characters seem to effortlessly command respect. Does the act of eating affect the social power of the eater in certain social situations? The intuition is that the eater appears to not (to a degree, of course) respect the other actor(s) or the situation itself, leading the other actor(s) to feel as though they are not important. Any decrease in other actor(s)’ power is of course an increase in the eater’s power in that specific situation.

Would the relative authority of the eater and the other actor(s) make a difference? For example, would a boss/manager eating at a meeting increase his power over his employees? On the other hand, would a subordinated eater experience a decrease in social power? Also, would the type of food matter?

L&

One issue many have with a line-item veto is that it would give too much power to the president. But if congress could designate passages (i.e. multiple lines) as packages exempt from line-item veto, then the president would only be able to veto the unimportant parts of bills (like earmarks).

One potential problem with this is that congress may waste valuable time debating what gets included in such packages. Also, such packages may provide more opportunity for rent-seeking behavior, as inclusion in a package would guarantee a pass for pork. However, for this to happen, the pork would have to be discussed explicitly in congress, decreasing the likelihood that it will survive.

For many issues, such as abortion, the choice should be on an individual level. Ron Paul opposes Roe v. Wade on the basis that states should have the right to choose. But, even more in line with libertarian thought, individuals should be the ones with the right to choose for issues with low externality threat. While I do think there are externalities involved, drugs are another potential example.

This is an idea I had a while ago.

In theory, voting is inefficient. Voters are forced to allocate the same voting power to issues and positions that are important to them as to issues that mean nothing to them (and ones about which they know nothing). The result is that an election will never truly capture the total opinions or value of the voters.

One solution is to turn voting into a market system, where voters pay to have their candidates or propositions win. The choice the choice for which the most was paid wins. Of course, this is not exactly a solution, since it is hardly fair. Rich voters will dominate less advantaged voters, which flies in the face of the values of this country.

There is, thankfully, a happy medium between these two systems: Give all voters an equal endowment of continuous credits or points (continuous like dollars that turn into cents) which they can assign to either a YES or NO vote to candidates and initiatives. Voters are thus forced to make trade-offs when voting. There will now be a cost to voting for a proposition about which you have no information or for a political position about which you don't care. And if you are really passionate about something, you can make that known by allocating more credits to that vote. But since all voters have the same endowment of credits, everybody has the same voting power.

Pennies suck. They are a pain to carry, and less and less useful as standard inflation continues. When I see I am going to get a penny back in my change from a merchant, I usually just tell the cashier to just keep it. To be honest, carrying any change is a pain.

So can we solve this awful problem? I think so. Pennies or other coin change at stores and restaurants could be given to charity electronically. Here's how it could work: Cashiers would simply ask if customers wanted the change or wanted to give it to charity. Customers could also be given the opportunity to donate more if they wished.