There are services like Tinder that help you get into a relationship. Only fair that there be services that help you get out of one. Emanuel Maiberg reviewed one of them:

• The Breakup Shop offers a multitude of services in order to help you break up with your partner.
• An email or text costs $10. A letter costs up to $30. And if you want to add the personal touch to your subcontracted breakup you can pay for a $29 breakup phone call.
• The Breakup Shop also has a gift store where you can buy your soon to be ex a Netflix subscription as a consolation.
• The shop offers merchandise for those initiating the breakup to feel better about themselves too – like Call of Duty.
• Maiberg tried the service and found that it’s probably not suitable for ending long-term relationships but may work as an alternative to “ghosting” out of a short-term one.

Read about the service and hear what a breakup phone call sounds like over here.

Source: Motherboard

Professionals at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business discussed the considerations that go into food truck locations:

• If there are two identical food trucks selling food on a beach, then customers will go to whichever food truck is closest.
• Therefore, to maximize sales, the trucks should locate next to each other. The one on the right will get all the customers on the right, and the one on the left will get all the customers on the left. This helps explain why food trucks seem to cluster together.
• Another reason is supply induced demand. As with food courts, being in close proximity to other eateries increases competition, but the variety of options is a big draw for consumers and increases demand.
• The aim, then, is to be one of many food trucks in a group, but to be the only food truck selling a specific type of food.
• Food trucks don’t want to be destinations themselves. They want to be part of people’s everyday experiences. Expect to see them clustered at subway stations where multiple subway lines meet and foot traffic is high.
• On weekends they may go to the parks in the morning since those with dogs have to get up to walk them, and yoga enthusiasts will be milling about too.
• Regulations play a big role in determining location. Chicago, for example, bans food trucks within 200 feet of most restaurants and food stores. Within such limitations there are only a few profitable locations left.

Read other food truck considerations over here.

Source: The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Via: Marginal Revolution

In the United States its Veteran’s Day today. America is a fairly patriotic country but Barry Petchesky wrote that at times this patriotism can be a little artificial:

• Sporting events sometimes have giant American flags, the singing of the national anthem, or even the depiction of military personnel on stadium screens for a round of applause.
• It turns out that the Department of Defense actually pays for these activities.
• They reason that it’s an effective advertisement that drums up military recruitment.
• The Atlanta Falcons made close to a million dollars by agreeing to run these promos.
• There’s been a backlash to the stealth advertizing and the defense establishment intends to stay away from them going forwards.
• The NFL, for its part, says that it intends to return all of the money it made from the patriotic displays.

Read more here.

Source: Deadspin

Not all is as it would seem at auctions wrote Judith H. Dobrzynski:

• Most of the audience members you see at big name auctions aren’t actually bidders. Those applauding are spectators. The real bidders are on the phone or in overflow rooms.
• Some of the bidders may actually be hired by the artists themselves to drive up prices and protect their reputations.
• The auction houses will set up the offerings so that the item that is likely to sell for double or triple its expected price goes first, setting the tone for the rest of the auction.
• In general, it makes sense to start the bidding low. People will think they might just be able to afford it at the lower price…and will slowly nudge themselves higher as they try to hang in.
• Art owners are increasingly expecting guarantees on the price they’ll receive. In order to do so auction houses will contact potential buyers in advance, meaning that the auction is, at times, a mere formality.
• Potential buyers will be wined and dined, and an auction house may even take a piece of art to their home for a couple days so that the buyer can see what it would look like in their gallery.

Read our previous coverage on why auctioneers speak so fast here.

And read the rest of the article which contains many more details, including ways that headline prices at auctions are driven up here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Everywhere you look people are posting about their latest Avocado based food. Emine Sander and Martin Morales took a look at how the Avocado managed to establish its dominance:

• People used to be disappointed by avocados. Thinking it was a pear they would bite into it and be confused by its mushy bland taste.
• It didn’t help that it was known as the “alligator pear” or ahuacate which translated to ‘testicle’.
• Then in the 20^th century farmers came together and decided to adopt the name “avocado” to make it more marketable to the world.
• Retailers have also done a better job of figuring out how to use ethylene gas to ripen it by the time it’s sold. In the past consumers would have to wait several days for it to ripen at home.
• In 1995 South African farmers hired a British PR firm to help sell avocados and growth soared.
• Initial marketing campaigns focused on basic things like how people should eat avocados – slice them open rather than bite into them.
• Then the focus of the campaign shifted to the health benefits. It was called a “super food,” although that’s largely a meaningless term that can (and has) been applied to almost every vegetable.
• There was a bit of a backlash when consumers realized how fatty avocados are – a single one can have 400 calories and 40g of fat.
• However, consumers were told that there are good and bad kinds of fat – and that avocados were composed mostly of the good kind.
• Due to a poor growing season supplies are contracting, and coupled with a 30% increase in demand in the last year alone, prices are expected to soar.

Read more about its history over here.

Source: The Guardian

Feeding America accepts donations from food manufacturers and operated food banks across the United States to feed the poor. Alex Teytelboym wrote about how it benefited from a shot of Chicago economics:

• Feeding America used to treat all food as the same. A pound of chicken was the same as a pound of French Fries.
• It also prioritized the food banks it sent the food too.
• The organization would ask its food banks, in order of priority if they wanted the food that they had. If a food bank said no, then its priority was lowered and it wouldn’t be offered food as often in the future.
• This meant that food banks were afraid of saying no to a delivery of food. So they would always say yes – even if they didn’t need the food, meaning that a lot of food went to waste.
• An eBay style auction system was designed to make things more efficient.
• Food banks were given daily online credits based on the size and characteristics of the population they served.
• They could use these credits to bid on food deliveries, allowing the food banks to decide what kinds of food they would receive.
• Banks weren’t penalized for failing to use their credits which meant that there was far less wastage.
• For food banks that have an unexpected surge in demand a system of loans was also implemented so that they could effectively serve their populace.

Read more about the system, the economists that helped design it, and what this says about welfare economics more generally over here.

Source: The Week

Via: Marginal Revolution

Want to know how the markets will move? Pay attention to women’s hemlines writes Jo Ellison.

• The more that women’s legs are covered, the worse an economy seems to do.
• One reason could be that longer dresses are more versatile – they can be worn at work, casually, and can even be worn as beachwear making them cost effective.
• Moreover, they work with flats and no one wants to deal with the stress of high heels during troubled economic times.
• And long skirts mean less mental space occupied by worries about shaved legs and knobby knees.
• Academic studies indicate that there’s a three year time lag between the lengthening of skirts and an economic crisis.
• Somewhat alarming then that maxi dresses are all the rage this year.

Read the full theory here.

Source: Financial Times

Via: Slate

The Economist looked at the rise of plastic surgery in Iran and other countries:

• Nose jobs are particularly popular among women in the Iran – partly because the face is the one thing that’s visible when women wear the mandatory hijab.
• Banks in some other Islamic countries such as Lebanon offer loans so that people can get the surgeries done.
• The loans help fund what can be an expensive procedure. In Iran it can cost $2,500 to have a nose job done – in a country where GDP per capita is $5,000.
• But the surgery costs twice that in the United States. As Iran rejoins the international world order, increasing numbers of foreigners may start visiting the country for its plastic surgeons.

Read more here.

Source: The Economist

There are cruise ships and there are cargo ships. Angus Whitley and Kyunghee Park wrote about the weird practice of the two overlapping:

• As the global economy slows freight prices have fallen.
• Cargo ships have taken to selling living space to paying passengers.
• Unlike in a proper cruise ship there are no fancy amenities, no internet, and no wait staff. Passengers are expected to keep their own rooms clean.
• Passengers do get to talk to the captain and crew whenever they can find them and can enjoy the solitude of the open seas.
• Trips can last as long as 110 nonstop days from Europe to Asia.
• Passengers pay about $115 a day for the room as well as meals with the crew.
• Plan to book in advance. Demand outstrips supply and there’s a several months long waiting list.

Read about the experience, the type of people who go for the deal, and other details here.

Source: Bloomberg

Via: Marginal Revolution

Shoa L. Clarke wrote about the experience of rich patients:

• At one hospital elite patients are given red blanket to signify their status. There are no explicit instructions on how they should be treated, but all the staff know what a red blanket means.
• Such patients are offered penthouse patient suites with gourmet food, luxury linens, and personal business centers.
• A survey of emergency departments indicates that elite patients are likely to get quicker treatment than regular ones.
• Yet patient satisfaction is correlated with negative outcomes – meaning that all this coddling may be bad for the rich.
• The reason seems to be that doctors are likely to order too many tests and prescribe too many treatments to ensure that top patients feel satisfied, ultimately hurting the patients’ diagnosis and recovery.

Read the full article here.

Centives has previously covered the amenities that the super-rich receive at hospitals. You can read about that here.

Source: The New York Times