Il problema dei pop corn

Riccardo Mariani

13 h · 

Amazon

 · 

Perché i popcorn al cinema costano di più?
L' ingenuo pensa: "perché o li compri lì o non li mangi". Il cinema avrebbe come una sorta monopolio sui popcorn, e lo sfrutta.
Ma il cinema ha il monopolio anche sul bagno, eppure i bagni del cinema non costano nulla!
#Amazon

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples…

AMAZON.COM

Mi piaceVedi altre reazioni

La retroattività del fisco

Riccardo Mariani

13 h · 

Amazon

 · 

Le leggi non sono retroattive, è questo un fondamentale principio del diritto poichè ognuno di noi deve essere consapevole delle conseguenze di ciò che fa. Se oggi faccio qualcosa di legale che domani verrà proibito non sono per questo perseguibile, il nostro istinto di giustizia che lo rende evidente. Se oggi gioco al lotto e domani il lotto finisce nella nera dei giochi proibiti non per questo io finirò in manette, qualsiasi giudice applicherà il sacrosanto principio di non retroattività.

Ma a quanto pare I sacrosanti principi non valgono in materia fiscale, perché? Perché se compro una casa motivato dal fatto che la tassazione è al 20% domani potrei anche pagare il 40% senza possibilità di addurre in tribunale alcuna giustificazione senza che il giudice rida?

Certo, al momento dell'acquisto io so che la legge fiscale potrebbe cambiare ma questo vale anche per la legge penale!

Certo, lo stato potrebbe anche avere bisogno urgente del muo denaro ma in casi del genere può sempre ricorrere ad un prestito, al limite ad un prestito forzoso.

Se volete una spiegazione a questo fatto non cercatelo nella teoria legale poiché non esiste nulla che possa chiamarsi "teoria legale". Ad ogni modo se a tentare di spiegarvelo sarà un giurista ignoratelo, non hanno quasi mai niente di interessante da dire nel merito delle cose.

#Amazon

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples…

AMAZON.COM

In attesa di giudizio

Riccardo Mariani

19 min · 

Amazon

 · 

È giusto rilasciare un imputato in attesa di giudizio?
Solo un giudice possiede gli elementi per dirlo ma deve avere anche i giusti incentivi per prendere una decisione corretta.

Propongo un bonus monetario ai giudici per ogni imputato in attesa di giudizio che rilasciano, in cambio saranno corresponsabili nelle eventuali malefatte dei soggetti beneficiati.

Quanto all'ammontare del bonus sarà compito della politica stabilirlo poiché è una preferenza politica il peso da dare alla sicurezza in rapporto alla libertà personale.
#Amazon

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples…

AMAZON.COM

La promessa elettorale

Riccardo Mariani

27 min · 

Amazon

 · 

Perchè non dare ai politici in campagna elettorale la possibilità di formulare promesse legalmente valide? Rischierebbero ma si aprirebbero per loro molte possibilitá.

Anche noi, quando ci impegnamo a rimborsare un mutuo o a sposare la nostra fidanzata, rischiamo in cambio di opportunità!
#Amazon

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples…

AMAZON.COM

Argomenti ragionevoli per la reintroduzione della schiavitù

Riccardo Mariani

3 min · 

Amazon

 · 

I migliori argomenti per la reintroduzione della schiavitù vengono da una possibile riforma del diritto penale.

Pensate per un attimo allo spreco delle carceri: una massa di gente buttata lì a far niente per anni con una massa di gente che cura la massa di gente buttata lì a far niente. La rieducazione non funziona e la deterrenza nemmeno: a chi interessa capire se la pena è adeguata al danno procurato? A nessuno. In primis non interessa alla vittima che dalla pena dei criminali non guadagna nulla.

Meglio sarebbe un diritto al risarcimento abbinato a lavori forzarti con cui pagarlo. Tale diritto sarà negoziabile: i cittadini lo venderebbero in anticipo a imprese dalla reputazione “spietata” pubblicizzando la cosa. Tali imprese – loro sì - avrebbero tutti gli incentivi per mettere al lavoro i rei rivendicando giuste punizioni.

#Amazon

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples…

AMAZON.COM

Perché al cine i popcorn costano di più?

WHY POPCORN COSTS MORE AT THE MOVIES AND WHY THE OBVIOUS ANSWER IS WRONG – The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life – Steven E. Landsburg

***

Punti chiave: La discriminazione di prezzo spiega tutto – isolare i clienti secondo le loro caratteristiche – I clienti dei blockbuster hanno una domanda di popcorn più robusta – Un minimo di monopolio è sempre richiesto: in concorrenza perfetta discriminare è impossibile – 

***

Yellow highlight | Page: 157
Popcorn is expensive because, once you have entered the movie theater, the theater owner has a monopoly.

Note:LA SPIEGAZIONE PIÙ COMUNE

Yellow highlight | Page: 158
Once you enter the theater, the owner has a monopoly on a lot of things. He is the only supplier of rest rooms, for example. Why doesn’t he charge you a monopoly price to use the rest room?

Note:E IL MONOPOLIO DEL BAGNO?

Yellow highlight | Page: 158
When I go to watch a movie and buy a quart of popcorn, I am quite indifferent between paying $1 for the popcorn and $7 for the ticket or paying $3 for the popcorn and $5 for the ticket.

Note:PREZZO BIGLIETTO E PREZZO POPCORN

Yellow highlight | Page: 159
some moviegoers like popcorn more than others.

Note:IL FATTO CENTRALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 159
the purpose of expensive popcorn is to extract different sums from different customers.

Note:SCOPO

Yellow highlight | Page: 160
In a seller’s paradise, each customer would be charged exactly his reservation price

Note:PREZZO MASSIMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 161
When you buy a Polaroid camera or a ticket to Disneyland, your expenses have only just begun.

Note:DISNEYLAND

Yellow highlight | Page: 161
Expensive film extracts more from the heavy users, and Polaroid sensibly believes that the heaviest users are willing to pay the most.

Note:ABBINATI ALLA POLAROID

Yellow highlight | Page: 161
why should a coupon for 50 cents off a bottle of detergent be a more effective lure than an ad announcing that the price of detergent had been slashed by 50 cents?

Note:PERCHÈ I BUONI SCONTO?

Yellow highlight | Page: 161
Discount coupons are intended not to lure customers in general but to lure a certain class of customers—namely, those who would shop elsewhere in the absence of a bargain. The device works only if the discounts end up in the right hands

Note:ALLETTARE I TERZI INCONSAPEVOLI

Yellow highlight | Page: 162
Sometimes an easily identifiable group, such as students or senior citizens, is particularly sensitive to price. In such cases, sellers give discounts to those groups directly.

Note:VECCHI E STUDENTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 162
Did you buy this book in hardcover or in paperback? It might interest you to know that the production costs for the two kinds of binding are very close to equal. By pricing the hardback several dollars higher, the publisher effectively charges different prices to different classes

Note:COPERTINA RIGIDA

Yellow highlight | Page: 162
Airlines charge different prices depending on whether you stay over a Saturday, hotels charge different prices depending on whether you make reservations in advance, car rental agencies charge different prices depending on whether you belong to a frequent flyer program, doctors charge different prices depending on your income and your insurance status, and universities charge different prices depending on your grades and your family’s income.

Note:ESEMPI DI DISCRIMINAZIONE

Yellow highlight | Page: 163
But if this is the whole story, then why don’t popcorn lovers simply patronize a different theater?…The theater that sold a quart for $2.50 instead of $3 could attract all of the big popcorn eaters… Why don’t we see popcorn price wars?…

Note:PROBLEMA

Yellow highlight | Page: 163
So one more ingredient must be added to the price discrimination story. Price discrimination can work only when the seller has a monopoly of the appropriate kind.

Note:UNA FORMA DI MONOPOLIO DEVE ESISTERE

Yellow highlight | Page: 164
The standard textbook example of a perfectly competitive industry is wheat farming. No wheat farmer has any control over market conditions, and no wheat farmer represents a significant share of the market. That is precisely the reason why wheat farmers do not give senior citizen discounts.

Note:CONCORRENZA PERFETTA

Yellow highlight | Page: 164
if price discrimination is as common as our many examples seem to indicate, we are forced to conclude that monopolies are everywhere.

Note:MONOPOLI OVUNQUE

Yellow highlight | Page: 164
One product at two prices requires monopoly power, but two products at two prices is the normal order of things.

Note:DIFFERENZIAZIONE DEL PRODOTTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 164
Doctors charge wealthy patients more than they charge poor patients. Is this price discrimination? Perhaps. But perhaps wealthy patients are in general more demanding

Note:FINTE DISCRIMINAZIONI

Yellow highlight | Page: 166
And finally and once again, why is popcorn so expensive at the movie theater? If this be price discrimination, whence the monopoly power?

Note:DA DOVE IL MONOPOLIO DEL CINEMA?

Yellow highlight | Page: 166
The Locay/Rodriguez response is that popcorn eaters cannot go to another theater without splitting up their social groups.

Note:SPLIT GROUP

Yellow highlight | Page: 167
Let’s stick to theaters with low-priced popcorn, and I’ll occasionally pay for your tickets.

OBIEZIONE COASIANA

Mai fidarsi dell’ analisi costi benefici

TELLING RIGHT FROM WRONG The Pitfalls of Democracy – The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life – Steven E. Landsburg

***

Punti chiave: Chi giudica fa filosofia – Il democraticismo come filosofia morale e la sua impossibilità – Criteri minimali: Pareto e simmetria – Il velo d’ignoranza e i suoi problemi – La morale degli economisti: l’efficienza, ovvero fare un passo indietro –

***

Yellow highlight | Page: 49
My dinner companion was passionate in her conviction that the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes. I didn’t understand what she meant by “fair,”

Note:IL SIGNIFICATO DI GIUSTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 49
What she lacked was a moral philosophy.

Note:FILOSOFIA MORALE

Yellow highlight | Page: 50
Which is better: A world where everyone earns $40,000 a year, or a world where three-fourths of the population earns $100,000 a year while the rest earn $25,000?

Note:LA DOMANDA DA FARE AI POLITICI

Yellow highlight | Page: 50
One of the first rules of policy analysis is that you can never prove that a policy is desirable by listing its benefits…And if you are going to argue that a program does more good than harm, you must at least implicitly take a stand on a fundamental philosophical issue…

Note:GIUDICARE È FILOSOFEGGIARE

Yellow highlight | Page: 51
any meaningful policy proposal must entail a huge number of trade-offs

Note:DILEMMI OVUNQUE

Yellow highlight | Page: 51
It is easy to get carried away making long lists of pros and cons, all the while forgetting that sooner or later we must decide how many cons it takes to outweigh a particular pro.

Note:IL LATO OSCURO DELL’ANALISI COSTI BENEFICI

Yellow highlight | Page: 51
During his presidency, George Bush was particularly fond of saying that it would be good to lower interest rates..Everybody also knows that lower interest rates can devastate people who are saving for their retirement….

Note:ESEMPIO: INTERESSI

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
I do not yet know what justice is. But I do believe that economics illuminates the possibilities.

Note:L’ECONOMIA COME PREMESSA

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
One approach to justice is the extreme democratic view that the majority should always rule.

Note:DEMOCRATICISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
I do not know anyone, or expect to know anyone, or want to know anyone, who believes that the majority should prevail when 51% of the populace vote

Note:ASSURDO

Yellow highlight | Page: 52
A problem with majority rule is that it provides no guidance on what to do about multiple options, none of which garners a majority…Any voting procedure must include rules for what to do when there are many options….To choose randomly among these alternatives would be at best unsatisfying….

Note:PROBLEMA DELLE OPZIONI MULTIPLE

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
it seems uncontroversial to require that if everybody unanimously prefers Tinker to Chance, then Chance should not be able to win

Note:PRIMO REQUISITO X DEFINIRE LA DEMOCRAZIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
Second, the outcome of a vote ought not depend on arbitrary choices about the order in which things are carried out.

Note:SECONDO REQUISITO: NEUTRALIZZARE LA FORTUNA

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
Third, a third-party candidate with no chance of winning should not be able to affect the outcome of a two-way race.

Note:TERZO REQUISITO IRRILEVANZA DEL TERZO CANDIDATO

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
In the early 1950s, the economist Kenneth Arrow (subsequently a Nobel prize winner) wrote down a list of reasonable requirements for a democratic voting procedure…Arrow was able to prove—with the inexorable force of pure mathematics—that the only way to satisfy all of the requirements is to select one voter and give him all the votes….

Note:ARROW E L’IMPOSSIBILITÀ DEMOCRATICA

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
a moment of pause to anybody who imagines it is possible to conduct an ideal democratic voting system.

Note:IL SISTEMA IDEALE DI VOTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
we have absolutely no justification for the expectation that democracy leads to good outcomes.

Note:UNA RAGIONE PIÙ FONDAMENTALE PER RESPINGERE IL DEMOCRATICISMO

Yellow highlight | Page: 53
It is often asserted that our system of republican government works well in this regard, because the passionate minority can organize

Note:ANTIDOTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
Any assertion of “rights” appeals to our preferences for specific rules as opposed to the consequences of those rules.

Note:DIRITTI

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
Economics offers no objection to a philosophy of rights. But consequences matter also

Note:CONSEGUENZE

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
If happiness is measurable, then it is easy to list a menu of consequentialist moral philosophies

Note:FELICIOMETRO

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
Pursue the greatest good for the unhappiest person.

Note:ESEMPIO DI CRITERIO NORMATIVO

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
happiness can be equated with income

Note:ASSUNTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 55
Maximize the sum of human happiness.

Note:ALTRO CRITERIO

Yellow highlight | Page: 56
“seek the greatest good for the greatest number.”

Note:UN CRITERIO AMBIGUO DA SCARTARE

Yellow highlight | Page: 56
The problem with all these criteria is that the choice among them seems entirely arbitrary.

Note:IL PROBLEMA

Yellow highlight | Page: 56
we might require that whenever there is an opportunity to make everybody better off, our normative criterion ought to approve it…

Note:REQUISITO DI PARETO PER IL CRITERIO DI EQUITÀ

Yellow highlight | Page: 56
our normative criterion treat everyone symmetrically

Note:REQUISITO DELLA SIMMETRIA

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
Which of your reasonable requirements are you most willing to abandon?

Note:PASSO SUCCESSIVO

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
we seem to have deep visceral preferences for requirements like symmetry.

Note:VISCERALITÀ

Second approach to the problem

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
we must imagine ourselves behind a veil of ignorance…According to Rawls, the just society is the one we would choose to be born into if forced to choose from behind the veil….

Note:VELO D’IGNORANZA

Yellow highlight | Page: 57
We know that when people can insure at fair odds against catastrophic diseases, they typically do so. It is reasonable to infer that if we could insure against being born untalented or handicapped or otherwise unlucky, we would do that as well.

Note:CATASTROFI

Yellow highlight | Page: 58
Harsanyi gave an argument—just slightly too technical for reproduction here—demonstrating that under certain reasonable conditions we would be forced to agree on a sum-of-happiness formula.

Note:HARSANYI

Yellow highlight | Page: 58
Should abortion be legal? My answer behind the veil might well depend on whether “aborted fetus” was one of the identities I thought I might be assigned.

Note:MA CHI STA DIETRO AL VELO?

Yellow highlight | Page: 58
I suspect though that the choice of a normative criterion is ultimately a matter of taste.

Note:GUSTO

Yellow highlight | Page: 59
If you took a poll of economists, you would probably find a clear preference for a normative criterion that I have not yet mentioned. The criterion goes by the deceptively calloussounding name of economic efficiency

LA MORALE DEGLI ECONOMISTI: L’EFFICIENZA