Cash, check or no charge?

Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, before the World Wide Web, when Ronald Reagan was president and cruel, evil and self-serving capitalist ideals abounded, there was a restaurant in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area that began allowing customers to pay the amount they felt their meal was worth. They took all prices off the menu. Initially, customers were leaving money at a level nearly equal to the prices that were formerly on the menu. It didn’t take the J Wellington Wimpy-like moochers long to realize they could not pay Tuesday for a hamburger today and the establishment was forced to abandon the practice. Unfortunately, they waited a bit too long and ended up closing altogether.

Proving there really is nothing new under the sun, the website NWCN.com had a story back in November that, thanks to Michelle Malkin’s phenomenal website has been kept alive. The OpShOp in Seattle allowed customers to pay what they felt an item was worth. It too has closed its doors.

Blogs that I won’t link to have been blaming the closing on the uncaring landlord who, like the evil Snidely Whiplash demanded the rent be paid. I’d guess George Bush was a close second as to the cause of the store’s demise. They also wondered why no Dudley Dorites rode in on white horses with saddlebags of money to keep the store open. The undercurrent of these comments is that conservatives, the only rich people in America, should have stepped up to help.

What these nimrods fail to realize is that, when it comes to pulling the fair Nell off the tracks in the form of a hand up financially, conservatives do some much more frequently than their counterparts on the left. Perhaps the solution to the OpShOps problem would have been for the owner to invest a small amount in a pricing gun. Even a pen and some sticky paper could have helped. With either of these items, she could have placed on every item in the store a fair price that would have included a markup to cover expenses and a profit margin. When it is allowed to flourish unfettered by government intrusion, Capitalism works folks. As evidenced, by the results of the OpShOp’s experiment, more “social” centered societies don’t.

In the “opinions are like buttholes” review of the ballot recount in Minnesota, look here and prepare to lose your lunch. I hope you didn’t have to pay too much for it.

Finally, in the “we are getting to be more like the Russians every day” review, I offer this:




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