    
teleburst
Advanced Member
Username: teleburst
Post Number: 987
Registered: 06-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Sunday, July 02, 2006 - 01:10 pm: | |
"...based on sound economic principles. It IS economically efficient. It allows restaurants to get opened,
It subsidizes restaurants and too many open. That's bad it wastes resources".
Nope. Our culture demands a proliferation of restaurants. Many fail because it's a tough business. None fail because of tipping. Once again, yours is a solution in search of a problem.
"it offers the consumer the ability to reward or penalize service if they so choose,
Of course it does".
Yep, I'm right again.
"But that doesn't mean it's free from defects".
Nor would a mandatory service charge. So what?
"it provides incentive for increased job performance and it gives the opportunity to be altruistic.
And many people take that opportunity. And that taken opportunity inflates their incomes beyond an efficient level".
I think you misstated your position. You might want to try again.
"What is wrong with altruism anyway?
It causes too many restaurants to be opened. It causes other industries to lose workers to a less productive field".
You mean like that highly automated t-shirt manufacturer that you mentioned? I'm guessing that many of those "displaced workers" that you claim could find work in other industries might very well have been absorbed into the restaurant business (which is, I think, the largest employer in the US).
"It boosts the total average meal cost for customers".
You claim otherwise. You claim that a mandatory service charge would be a wash, right?
"I maintain that a little more altruism in business would be a good thing. I suppose you're now going to deny Warren Buffett the opportunity to be "inefficient" by giving away the bulk of his wealth upon his death.
Your supposition would be wrong. First of all, he's not injecting his money into fields that already have strong economic competition".
So? It's still altruism at base.
"In fact, Gates and Buffet are looking for fields that don't have strong economic competition precisely so they don't distort markets".
This has nothing to do with "markets".
"Second, Buffet spent decades being a hard ass business man. He's wealthy precisely because he didn't tolerate inefficiency and he demanded objective evidence of value".
Which is why he's invested in the restaurant business. Of course, it would be impossible for him to invest in my current restaurant as a stockholder. |