Florida Helping Seniors

Florida is contemplating a pole tax to help seniors.

It’s not often that 77-year-old women and strip clubs are mentioned in the same breath, but state Rep. Rick Kriseman made just such a connection.

If passed, Kriseman’s “Personal Needs” bill would levy a $1 surcharge on admission to adult-entertainment clubs and similar businesses. The money would be diverted to the personal-needs allowances of seniors on Medicaid in nursing homes, state-run mental hospitals and developmentally disabled centers.

Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, said the inspiration for the bill came from a 77-year-old female constituent of his.

“A woman by the name of Cecilia brought this problem to my attention,” Kriseman said via telephone last week from his St. Petersburg office. “Seniors have very little money for when they go on field trips … if they want to get their hair done. And when they go out to eat, they’re going to places like McDonald’s because they can’t afford anything else. That’s not a knock on McDonald’s, but it’s probably not the healthiest food for our seniors to eat.”

Kriseman said seniors on Medicaid currently receive $35 a month for all of their personal needs — toiletries, fast food, movie tickets — a figure that has remained the same for 20 years. Kriseman’s bill would double that allowance to $70 a month.

State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, said he’d have to study the particulars more closely before passing final judgment, but that it sounds like a good idea on the surface.

“I’m normally not in favor of tax increases, but these difficult budgetary times call for creative solutions, and this is certainly worth discussing,” Aronberg said. “To me, it sounds like a racy Robin Hood — take from the strippers and give to the seniors.”

Kriseman’s original bill would have done just that. A closer look, however, showed that adult-entertainment services were already subject to a sales tax, so he amended the bill from taxing such services as lap dances to attaching a surcharge to admission fees.

“There are additional surcharges on things such as alcohol and cigarettes, and I thought that a $1 surcharge on admission to adult-entertainment clubs was high enough to fund the increase for seniors, yet not so high that club owners were going to argue that it would kill their business,” Kriseman said.

Kriseman’s bill defines adult-entertainment services as “private shower shows; peep shows; nude, semi-nude, or topless waitressing; lap, friction, couch, or table dancing; erotic massages or performance; nude photo sessions; and personal escort services.”

Representatives from Fantasy’s at the Beach in Fort Myers Beach, and Lookers and Escapades Gentlemen’s Club in Fort Myers could not be reached for comment.

Kriseman bristled when asked what he thought about his bill commonly being referred to as the “stripper tax.”

“I don’t care for it at all,” he said. “This is about personal needs and getting our seniors the dignity they deserve. It’s already been 20 years since the last increase, and to make them wait another year, two years or five years wouldn’t be right.”

To become law, Kriseman’s bill must be approved by the House and Senate. The next legislative session runs March 4 to May 2.

“If it doesn’t pass then, it won’t happen this year,” Kriseman said. “If that’s the case, I’ll reintroduce it at a later date.”

Honey Trapping

I should have titled this "Markets in Everything". Honey Trapping is a service provided to those who fear their SO will be unfaithful given the opportunity. This service, provides the opportunity in the form of a similarly attractive individual and records the results. Given my next big paper is on extramarital sex, this should have seemed an obvious business plan.
When Richard Martinez goes to a nightclub or bar, he often goes alone.

But the 38-year-old former RAF officer wastes no time in heading for a target -- a woman -- to flirt with and flatter.

Martinez will not try too hard, but will allow himself to be drawn into conversation and, if asked, will give out his phone number for a potential future date.

Martinez is a "honey trapper" -- or as he likes to call himself, an "integrity tester" -- one of a growing team of private detectives who are hired by wives, husbands or partners to test the loyalty of their loved ones.

"It's growing all the time," he says of his business, the Expedite Detective Agency (www.ex-da.com), which charges 300 pounds ($588) for an integrity test on a potential cheat.

Martinez refutes accusations of marriage-wrecking, arguing that his customers come to him when they are already concerned about their partner's fidelity or when rumors have led them to suspect an affair. But he admits around 80 percent of targets fail the test and turn out to be ready and willing to cheat on a partner.

Martinez and his colleagues -- he has a team of male and female trappers, some more, some less attractive -- record the whole "hit" on audio and video, so that the customer can see for themselves how the evening develops.

And Martinez has "rules of engagement": The target must not be drunk, there must be no touching, and the relative attractiveness of the trapper to the target must be equal.

"It's got to be a fair test," he explains. "So we make sure that we don't set a very attractive honey trapper on a not so attractive target, and vice versa."

"The customer needs a fair answer to the question of whether their husband or girlfriend is loyal."

Martinez says that while many of his customers may end their relationships, other use the honey trap to confront unfaithful lovers and appeal to them to change their ways.

Golden Gate to Suicide

The Odd Numbers blog had this post on suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge.

A question for those of you who live in the Bay area: If you wanted to commit suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge, where on the structure would you take the leap?

In the middle or closer to one of the coasts (San Francisco or Marin County)? And would you face east towards San Francisco Bay or west towards the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean?

According to this graphic which plots about two-thirds of the known suicides as of 2005, most people choose to face civilization and stay closer to San Francisco.

My brother sent me a link to a documentary film on the same topic. The trailer is a little spooky.

Misc Links

Some links.

1. The Economics of Love

2. Cost and Benefits of Love

3. Evolutionary Response to extra marital sex.

4. Dildos going to the Supreme Court?

Strip Club Economics

Looks like someone is moving in on my research:

Freakynomics: An economic analysis of a gentlemen's club
Richard Feynman, Pacman Jones and Dennis Rodman-all great men, all leaders in their respective fields. All frequent strip club patrons.

Coincidence? I think not.

Strip clubs are, as defined by noted social commentator Chris Rock, "a place for all the married men of America." As a demographic with a decent amount of discretionary income, these men are the driving economic force behind the $5 billion strip club industry. This capital is concentrated in relatively few hands: A mid-sized club can generate $15,000-$20,000 in revenue on a Saturday night, and a stripper with an absolute advantage can earn nearly $1,000 in a night.

But how are these lucrative businesses structured? How equitable is the distribution of wealth? What is the marginal utility of an additional hour on the pole? Economists were dying to know, and as my capstone experience I elected to conduct a microeconomic positive analysis of the strip club industry.

What I discovered was a startlingly efficient business model revolving around independent contractors-the strippers. In contrast to regular employees, strippers retain more control over hours worked, jobs accepted and the quality of their performance. Cinnamon, a dancer at a local gentlemen's club, gave me some hard data about strippers' tax requirements.

"As independent contractors we're required to fill out 1099-MISCs," she said. "The paperwork's a breeze and we can deduct any work-related expenses, like tear-away pants and 8-inch glass heels."

Because the clubs provide the stage area and any private rooms utilized, many require payment from strippers at the onset of the evening. The strippers, in turn, keep any and all tips. The initial direction of the cash flow sheds light on two elementary paradoxes evident in all strip clubs.

1) The ugly stripper paradox. The club has an incentive to get as many dancers on the stage as possible, as a part of their revenue is directly proportional to the number of strippers stripping. Naturally, there is a scarcity of attractive women, ergo, ugly strippers. However, while the invisible hand of the market economy fills attractive strippers' g-strings with singles, it tends to gently usher ugly strippers offstage. The remaining ugly strippers are a product of asymmetrical information. There is a finite time most men have at a strip club, so they might settle for a less attractive stripper if they don't know a more attractive one is just a few songs away.

2) The over-enthusiastic stripper paradox. We've all seen them-dedicated strippers who literally work their pants off for any dollar they can get. What's driving these women, in addition to professional pride, is the expense of working. If the stripper makes a $30 payment at the beginning of the night, then most of her first hour would be spent just getting back into the green.

Rational people respond to incentives, so having strippers start their shift with a deficit gives them strong encouragement to dance the night away. This effect is magnified for average-looking strippers, who don't garner as much in tips, and over-enthusiastic strippers tend to be average-looking.

Clubs also draw revenue from cover charges and the sale of complementary goods such as alcohol and cigars. Though the clubs' independent-contractor relationship with their strippers somewhat limits their legal liability, in most cases, clubs hire bouncers to maintain a positive working environment. Bouncers are paid at a flat, hourly rate, and in some cases the strippers are also required to tip them at the end of the shift.

Demand for strip clubs seems fairly inelastic, as moves by the states of Texas and Nevada to tax strip clubs (sometimes by 25-30 percent) have been met with little industry resistance (this also indicates that strip club tax rates are currently on the upward-sloping side of the Laffer curve). The customer's relative purchasing power also has little effect on strip club attendance-the wealthy visit just as often as the poor. However, price discrimination (usually having a weekday college or trucker night) is often utilized to increase market penetration and increase consumer surplus. Ultimately, though, strip clubs market luxury goods; holistically these facts suggest a kinked demand curve.

Although this article provides a solid introduction to the economic workings of the strip club industry, its length means it cannot begin to reflect all the conclusions I've made in my hours of (rather expensive) fieldwork, and by no means should it be taken as the 21st century's first definitive work on stripper economics.

Rather, this article was meant merely to arouse interest in the subject and provide a springboard for future studies. Important questions clearly remain: How slim is the profit margin of a club that opens at noon on a Monday? Would Washington University benefit from adopting the independent contractor business model? What are the effects of strip clubs on substitute goods such as meaningful relationships and pornography? If nothing else, it would probably do everyone good to consider the trade-offs of taking it off.

RIAA is Doomed

Found this on another blog. The RIAA's press release to help you become aware of piracy:

Watch for Compilations that are “Too Good to Be True": Many pirates make “dream compilation” CDs, comprised of songs by numerous artists on different record labels who would not likely appear on the same legitimate album together.

Oh the irony...if the CD is good, it must be fake.

Skin

Skin, apparently seeing it is offensive to some people. I can't say as I really get it. Marty Klein points to this absurd FCC fine:

The Federal Communications Commission’s five members—all college-educated adults over 40—continued exposing their obsession with sex and women’s bodies yesterday, fining ABC TV stations $1.4 million for showing 2.5 seconds of a woman’s bare butt.

You can view the offending butt-clip here. It’s a rear view of a woman taking off her robe to shower. A kid accidentally walks in on her, and they’re both embarrassed. She covers up her boobies and woo-woo with her hands, and the kid retreats as fast as he can. It’s charming, it’s real, and it has nothing to do with sex.

And then I hear this on the news on the way home.

Last weekend, a Beach police officer at Lynnhaven Mall gave Abercrombie & Fitch thousands - maybe millions - of dollars worth of publicity by seizing two sexy posters and slapping an obscenity charge on the hapless store manager.

The offending posters were those arty black-and-white photos for which the clothing chain is famous. One showed shirtless males, one flashing a little bit of buttocks. The other featured a female showing not quite as much as Virtus.

Abercrombie & Fitch got free advertising. Virginia Beach got a free kick in the derriere.

By Monday afternoon, after police brass learned that the obscenity story was burning up the news and the blogosphere, Beach officials acted - b ut not before readers of The Drudge Report were exposed to the lunacy and the story was one of the most popular on Yahoo.

It was decided that the obscenity charge should be dropped and the posters returned.

One detail remains. Even after the matter is dismissed by the court, an innocent store manager will have an obscenity offense on his record.

"We would take the lead in getting the courts to expunge that," Deputy police Chief Jim Cervera assured me.

Officials did the right thing in mopping up this mess. But it raises questions about the procedure. Seems to me, cops ought to consult the city or commonwealth's attorney before lodging obscenity charges against a business.

That didn't happen, Cervera said.

According to news reports, an officer had asked the store manager to remove the posters last week. When he didn't comply, the place was raided.

One question: Since when are police in charge of mall decorations?

Every cop should know it's devilishly hard to make obscenity charges stick. There's that pesky matter of the First Amendment. Unless materials show private parts, it's almost impossible to get a conviction. These photographs aren't even close.