Starbucks Idea

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I stopped at a Starbucks Coffee in Montclair, CA last week.  I was on the way back from Mexico and needed a restroom break.  They had a feature that I’d never seen in a Starbucks before.  A b... Read More

Avoiding Moral Hazard

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Moral hazard occurs when someone insulated from risk behaves differently than they would behave if they were fully exposed to the risk. An example is people who live in coastal zones where there is a ... Read More

Dam Wages

“How are you going to determine what the work is worth unless you begin thinking that a day’s work is worth a certain sum of money.” The quote above was written by Elwood Mead the fa... Read More

Diseconomies of Scale

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We know about economies of scale from Adam Smith and the famous pin factory.  As you make more of something the per unit cost goes down. But when an organization get past the optimum size dis-economi... Read More

Mystery Pod

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I found this mystery pod on the ground outside Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. It turned out to be the dried and twisted seed pod of a Wisteria vine.  This is an example of Backyard Scuba.  If you ... Read More

The Goose Indicator

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Here is a proposal for an economic indicator to consider. When geese are running wild around residential neighborhoods the economy is okay.  If they start to vanish it is a sign of a serious recessio... Read More