As IF Times

$12 Cup Of Coffee Comes To New York.

Another example of why capitalism is great.  To people not living in NY city, $12 seems like a lot of money for a cup of coffee.  Bear in mind though that the cost to rent a cubbyhole in Manhattan is much higher than anywhere else in the U.S.   According to rent.com, an average rent (and this can be a meaningless statistic) is about $1600 per month plus utilities.  They go on to claim that:

“…The overall cost of living here is 364% compared to the national average, making it just slightly less than California’s Silicon Valley, the most expensive area in the nation…”

So, 12 bucks for a coffee may not be out of whack  in this context.  But here’s the salient point:   Not ALL cups of coffee are 12 bucks a shot.  Assuming you were too lazy or your apartment wasn’t big enough for a coffee maker, you could always find a coffee somewhere at a discount place….like Starbucks.  Nobody compels you to pay the top tick for a coffee.  It’s entirely at your discretion and the vendor is entirely entitled to charge whatever he thinks the market will bear.  It’s not as if everyone is forced to patronize this vendor.   If the guy can’t get enough people to buy his brew, he goes out of business.  If he gets customers, he prospers.  It’s all fair.  He can’t run to the government and claim  a subsidy.

Recently I had occasion to dine at a restaurant at a resort destination which charged $52 for a bottle of Cabernet available at the grocery stores for $14.  While this was annoying, the fact is we paid for elegant surroundings and pleasant ambiance.  Like the coffee, we are willing to pay up as a trade off for some tangible or intangible benefit.  For New Yorkers, the ultimate option is always available for them to not  live there.  At some point the cost of living is going to overwhelm whatever benefit may accrue to their continued residence.  People may come in to take their place, or they won’t. 

We’ ve fallen into the trap of thinking there is a ‘right’ price for something, a notion that is wildly irrelevant.  As the crazy theory goes, the right price for things should be a function of supply and demand.   In real life, there should not be an arbiter of what price is the right price.  At the moment, most of the U.S. is suffering from the ongoing real estate softness that began a few years ago.  Government is being asked to help out homeowners who are at risk of default because of ill timed or ill advised purchases. For most people, they were innocently caught up in the tide of rising prices and inaffordability and it must seem unfair that they now suffer for only wanting to acquire a home. 

The role of government in this disaster cannot be overstated.  Their role of essentially providing a guarantee for everyone who wanted to buy a home has backfired in the cruelest way, bankrupting many and indirectly causing the great bank debacle of 2008/2009.  While it may be compelling for state and federal governments to help out with one hand,  the fact is, it can only be done by taking with the other hand through taxation.  This is especially galling to those who were not leveraged and exposed to the housing markets because now, they too will be exposed through higher taxes and reduced services by governments because of it.   It may seem outrageous for someone to pay $12 for a cup of coffee.  It’s more outrageous when you find out you are indirectly paying  for it and didn’t have a sip.

FOXNews.com – Climate Scientist, Heated Up Over Satirical Video, Threatens Lawsuit.

One of the main tenets of being in the science business is that any findings in a particular field should be quantifiable and reproducible in order to qualify as legitimate science.  If a theory is offered that our ancestors are all from Mars for instance, it may be a good idea to have some photos of the great great grandparents as evidence.  Unlike the political or law rackets, just because you say something is, doesn’t mean there’s truth to it.

When Nicolaus Copernicus offered the notion that earth was not the center of things in the universe in the mid 1500’s, that was pretty radical and probably drew some ridicule.  In those days of course, scorn was probably as scathing as lawsuits are today.   There are no records to show whether or not he decided to hire teams of re-butters to the naysayers, but instead went about offering compelling evidence to support his notion.  In fact, this was considered a pivotal moment in science since this spawned subsequent research and debates over the veracity of his claims.  It is doubtful that even if Lawyers.com were available in his day that he would have resorted to using them to push his theory. 

Such seems to be the case with Dr. Michael Mann, not the Miami Vice guy, the scientist who offered the hockey stick graph on the effects of global warming.  He’s offended by a well viewed YouTube video mocking his revelation and is threatening to sue.  This will truly mark a change in the way science is propagated for future generations.  Scientists will now merely require an in house legal staff in order to legitimize their findings or theories.  Much time will be saved having to retest or prove the science.  As we all know, research funds can be scarce and over time, the filing of legal science postulates will be routine.  College curriculums will offer combined science and law degrees for those wishing to established a vertically integrated science business.

In some respects, we have already even transcended legal debate on science issues since Nobel laureate Al Gore has stated that Global Warming is like gravity; it just is.  I’m not sure what room there is to debate that position legally, other than; is not.  Starting now, be prepared to see scientists on the podium announcing some breakthrough accompanied by his team of lawyers in the background.  The implications are that much of what we now accept as science may have to be reviewed by lawyers to determine the veracity of the postulates.  I’m thinking of such things as the Laws of thermodynamics, the Theory of relativity and others.  I fear real hell will break loose once they repeal the law of gravity.