Presents and Artichokes
Smiling At A Deadweight Loss
Koen Smets | Koenfucius | 17th December 2021
When Christmas approaches, anybody with a smattering of popular economics will refer knowingly to the "deadweight cost of Christmas" — the title of a 1993 study which compared the purchase-price of Christmas presents with the (usually much lower) cash value placed on them by their recipients. But this framing is so narrow as to be simply wrong. It excludes the joy of giving and receiving (1,230 words)
🦒: Browser Readers On Foods With Misleading Origins
Browser Readers | The Browser | 11th December 2021
Mongolian barbecue was invented in Taiwan; English muffins were first made in New York City; French fries were invented in Belgium when Belgium was still called the Spanish Netherlands; the Jerusalem artichoke is native to North America. Browser readers delighted us with an astounding array of foods which make utterly misleading claims about their places of origin (1,280 words)
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