A captive audience is valuable; firms and shop owners around the globe work desperately to get people to give them "just 10 seconds." This is why Super Bowl commercials are so pricey; they're shown to a huge audience of captive viewers. That said, Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport takes the cake for the biggest consumer trap in the world. If Swoopo.com is in the lowest circle of rent-seeking hell, Terminal 3 is in the one just above it. It's the only airport terminal I've ever seen where the rents are so high that even McDonald's can't compete. Terminal 3 does one simple thing that I've never seen at any other airport: they don't tell you what gate your flight leaves from until a few minutes before you're supposed to board. The passengers have to sit in the terminal lobby, in front of all the duty free shops, until their plane's ready (for me, this was 4 hours). And these are rich, international passengers, Saudi oil princes and high-power business executives, in the world's busiest layover. There's nothing to do in this lounge that doesn't involve spending money, besides using the bathroom. People are generally ready to spend money in airports; Terminal 3 has all of the popular upscale Western brands (all the alcohol you want, D&G, Burberry etc), and travelers might have forgotten to get gifts while abroad. Furthermore, the "duty free" tag is a popular lure, even though the pound and the high rents pretty much eliminate any savings from buying there. I'm surprised, and grateful, that this business model hasn't spread to other airports.

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Monogamy may not be the most natural arrangement of man and woman. Sebastian Horsley slept with over 1300 prostitutes, and finds the arrangement satisfactory:

The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you’re enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years, you’re either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives—love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you’re going to get. The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you’ve got to talk to them. Once you know someone well the last thing you want to do is screw them...What I hate are meaningless and heartless one-night stands where you tell all sorts of lies to get into bed with a woman you don’t care for. The worst things in life are free. Value seems to need a price tag. How can we respect a woman who doesn’t value herself? When I was young I used to think it wasn’t who you wanted to have sex with that was important, but who you were comfortable with socially and spiritually. Now I know that’s rubbish. It’s who you want to have sex with that’s important. In the past I have deceived the women I have been with. You lie to two people in your life; your partner and the police. Everyone else gets the truth. [...] Having an instinctive sympathy for those condemned by conventional society, I wanted to cross the line myself. To pay for sex is to strip away the veneer of artifice and civilisation and connect with the true animal nature of man. Some men proudly proclaim that they have never paid for it. Are they saying that money is more sacred than sex? But one of the main reasons I enjoy prostitutes is because I enjoy breaking the law—another reason I don’t want brothels made legal. There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it desirable. When I have dinner every evening in Soho I always think: isn’t scampi delicious—what a pity it isn’t illegal. I’m sure I am not alone in this. Even Adam himself did not want the apple for the apple’s sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden.

Then, Michael Skapinker writes about the social (and economic) benefits of cigarettes:

But I have not been able to track down any research on one of the most striking aspects of workplace smoking groups: their heterogeneous make-up. Companies spend money on activities such as Outward Bound adventures and cookery classes, hoping to encourage bonding between different departments. Smokers already cross those boundaries. Look at any group congregating for a cigarette: you will see senior executives and security guards, marketing and IT support. Does smoking produce business benefits? "There's no doubt in my mind that it inspires cross-departmental collaboration," one FT commercial manager (and smoker) told me. "You get to know people who you otherwise wouldn't, and get a feel for what they do. If you've half a spark of creativity about you you'll doubtless stumble across an idea you hadn't thought of before. It also allows for the 'off the record' conversations between departments that grease the wheels of business. I'd be pretty lost without them."

Smoking is also an excellent social bonding tool - you consume the cigarette for a fixed amount of time, but unlike a drink there's a culture of borrowing and lending smokes and a lighter. Furthermore, it gives you something to do while you talk, which is important for guys. If you drink all the time while you talk your drink is done within about five minutes. In foreign countries, try to find a friend who smokes (who can introduce you) although expect dirty looks when women realize that you yourself don't indulge. We should probably take pause before judging or condemning those who smoke or frequent the whorehouse.

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"There have been no papers linking how leverage is positively related to expected returns [for businesses], even though this result would have been consistent with a Nobel-prize-winning theory."

That's from Eric Falkenstein's Finding Alpha: The Search for Alpha When Risk and Return Break Down.

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Why the 24-hour media cycle is rewarding outrageous, dumb comments by politicians. WashPo wants average people to write short opinion pieces, and put the winning entry on its opinion page. Or the writers could, you know, start blogs. I hope Jim Henley's entry wins. Costco's focus on providing excellent products at low prices, explained. Which city will win the Olympics? I use "win" loosely - it's an expensive boondoggle that most residents can't afford. After Cash for Clunkers ran out, auto sales fell off a cliff.

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From the Guardian, Dan Brown's new book sold 550,000 copies last week. The next best hardcover fiction book sold shy of 7,000. I read the Da Vinci code in about four hours; if I read it any slower, I would start thinking about it, and that's a bad thing. I figure the optimal time for reading a complete Dan Brown book is around two hours.

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Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are not worth getting fired up about. They are not even worth a post saying "Look at the latest outrage from these two." Because it's their job to do outrageous stuff. As I've said before it's not their job to find the Truth, or argue fairly, or have a consistent set of beliefs, or even represent conservative views. Their job is to make money by attracting as many viewers or listeners as they can. And they've found a very successful formula for doing this; tell a story of fear, communism, and populist economics that has little base in reality, and which gives people a warped view of the world. While I can't blame people for wanting to be entertained, and feel a little better about their political group at the expense of another group, it's a shame that people fit the opinions espoused by Beck and Limbaugh into their worldview. But when Megan McArdle, Ezra Klein or Andrew Sullivan post about the latest outrage by these guys, I don't believe that they are helping anything. The people who already follow Beck and Limbaugh aren't going to be swayed, and for everyone else you're merely preaching to the choir. I am surprised that they seem surprised by the antics of Limbaugh, Beck and the rest of the Fox News crew. Beck et al. boil frogs on live TV because they want attention; the antics drive viewers, and profits, to their shows (and that's what they are - "shows"). The problem goes deeper than the pair of talkers; for the majority of people in the United States, politics are a form of entertainment; there's no money riding on false, or hurtful beliefs. That is, people have no incentive to believe in policies that work. We're not going to change that, or the ability of the Becks & Limbaughs to thrive unless something happens that changes politics as entertainment. Update: Limbaugh's response to David Brooks's critical column, "You're jealous," pretty much sums it up.

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Athletes spend their whole lives working out and trying to make it to the big leagues; what happens when they do? Over 78% of NFL players are bankrupt two years after leaving the NFL. Furthermore, having spent their whole lives having things handed to them on a silver plate they're unprepared to work in other careers. How do they go bankrupt? Bill Simmons knows, in my favorite column that he wrote.

"Wait, how can a dude making $8-10 million a year live paycheck to paycheck?" Easy. First, he's only banking 40 percent once the IRS and agents are done with him. Second, he's probably overpaying for multiple houses and luxury cars just to keep up with everyone else. Third, he's buying expensive clothes and dinners, chartering planes, buying expensive TVs, going to casinos, and paying for friends and family at every turn. Fourth, there's a decent chance he's supporting a bunch of people back home -- family and extended family -- and not just that, but he might have gotten roped into funding at least one dumb "investment" by a loser family member. ("Uncle Lenny, I thought you told me this nightclub couldn't miss?") Fifth, he is, um, "dating" frequently -- even if he's married -- and if you "date" frequently, mistakes might happen that lead to hospital bills and child support payments. (If you catch my drift.) And sixth, he's not adding these numbers up in his head because he's thinking, "I don't need to worry about money, I'm making $10 mil a year!" I know it sounds farfetched, but I've heard the Inexplicable Tale Of Financial Woe with NBA stars too many times to count … and that doesn't include stars such as Scottie Pippen who were screwed by their financial advisers.

The flipside is that thousands of people cheer for you, and you have had everything handed to you up until the point you leave the league. After that, good luck with the concussions, lack of education and financial troubles. Hope you don't end up like Lenny Dykstra.

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There's been a penny sitting on the floor outside our bathroom for the past two days.

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“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez While in Scotland I met a guy who said he was from Oxford. Cool, I said, I spent three weeks there when I was 17. I thought about the Pitt Rivers (a legendary museum), and the grass in the quad you weren't supposed to walk on, ever, but those topics were both non-starters. And that was that; really boring, shutting that avenue down and forcing the conversation to restart from the beginning. What could I talk about? Later I was thinking about the didgeridoo guy. Every day I'd see him on Cornmarket Street outside the Tesco wearing dirty, loose-fitting clothes, and bare feet which were callused and caked with dirt. On one foot he had slipped on a sort of tambourine; the other foot had a pedal which beat a gong when pressed; between his legs was a drum, and of course he had a didgeridoo in his mouth. Every fifteen minutes or so he would play; just the didgeridoo at first, in long, slow bursts, luring in the crowd. Then he'd start with the gong and the tambourine, building up to the drums in a frenzied crescendo which could be heard for about three blocks in any direction. Any visitor or local would know exactly who the didgeridoo guy is. Here's video of him on the street. Here's his website (which I checked after recalling the previous paragraph from memory - I think the steel drums are new). So now when someone tells me they're from Oxford, going to Oxford or want to know what it's like, I'm gonna talk about the didgeridoo guy. So when you're trying to relate a great trip you had, a place you've been to, or just find some common ground, find specific good memories. They probably won't come to you right away unless you keep a journal or you're diligent about noticing them.

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Here's Abhijit Banerjee talking about why aid programs fail, even when they have adequate funding:

The real issue is often in program design. Our endlessly repeated line is that details matter infinitely. The difference between successful programs and unsuccessful programs is not the sector, it is how you do it. Has the implementer thought completely about the reasons why a program might not work? In my experience, even when you talk to very competent, well-meaning organizations, that is the step where you see the biggest gap. Perhaps because the paradigms are easily available to jump into, the last mile thinking just doesn’t happen. Details unexpectedly and often in unfortunate ways determine everything. You get the details wrong and you got it all wrong. So we often end up ritualistically talking about big picture research, and how this didn’t work or this did work. But in practice those big picture issues probably do not matter. What matters is that some programs are well designed and some are not. Our goal very much has been to draw attention to the detailing of that. Take water – within water there are any number of special solutions, and then a couple of things that seem like good ideas. The most valuable work is not in distinguishing water from health, but in separating the many meretricious ideas that get lots and lots of coverage and turning them into practical programs that are not overly complicated or unnecessarily expensive. There is a tendency to think, “I have a hammer so everything is a nail.” Everyone has their own particular bias and everything has to go through that filter. Ideology is a huge reason why you get bad design.

Banerjee's colleague Esther Duflo recently won a MacArthur grant. Their lab, the Jameel Poverty Lab at MIT, uses randomized trials to determine which antipoverty programs are actually effective. Hope more people can start doing work like they are. UPDATE: Alex Tabarrok points out that the problems facing Africa today are the same ones they faced in 1938.

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