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Comme chaque samedi, avec leur fils de 3 ans, John et Cathy se rendent au supermarché de leur quartier pour y faire le plein d’achats. Bien qu’il doive surveiller son budget, le couple fait partie de la classe moyenne et s’efforce de bien manger. Auparavant, les deux achetaient en ne se laissant guider que par leur goût, mais ils sont dorénavant des consommateurs beaucoup plus avertis. Le comptoir des produits laitiers est l’un de ceux où ils se sont attardés particulièrement aujourd’hui, et ils y ont découvert une situation de « marché » qui les a rendus perplexes.

Les prix sont des signaux

En comparant le prix du lait liquide dans lequel on a laissé toute la graisse (lait entier) avec celui du lait sans graisse (lait écrémé), le couple a constaté que les deux prix sont à peu près identiques. Bien qu’il ne soit pas économiste, le père n’a pu s’empêcher de se poser la question suivante : en toute logique, le lait entier ne devrait-il pas être vendu sensiblement plus cher, puisqu’il a la graisse « en plus »? Puis, il s’est rappelé qu’un de ses oncles qui travaille dans une ferme laitière lui avait dit récemment que plus une vache produit de graisse dans son lait, plus elle doit manger, ce qui augmente évidemment les coûts de production.

Pour ce qui est de la mère, toujours soucieuse d’une bonne alimentation pour sa famille, elle sait que la valeur du lait réside avant tout dans son contenu en protéines et minéraux (surtout le calcium), de même qu’en vitamines ajoutées. Aujourd’hui, elle a décidé de lire attentivement l’étiquette nutritionnelle des deux types de lait. Cela lui a permis de constater que si elle portait son choix sur un contenant de lait entier plutôt que sur un de lait écrémé, elle obtiendrait à peu près le tiers de plus du total des matières laitières – toutes des matières autres que l’eau – et environ le double d’énergie alimentaire (les calories). De plus, que le choix soit le lait pleine graisse ou celui sans graisse, pour chacune des matières autres que la graisse, la teneur est très semblable.

Étant donné que le prix du lait entier est souvent semblable à celui du lait écrémé, le couple a conclu que, de toute évidence, s’il achetait le premier, il ne payait pas les « coûts encourus pour produire » la graisse; en d’autres mots, le lait écrémé ne leur semblait pas être vendu au consommateur à un prix ayant été réduit en proportion de la graisse qu’on lui avait enlevée. Ils ont donc pensé que cette structure de prix ne respectait pas les principes d’une économie saine.

Vu qu’avec le lait entier, le couple obtenait beaucoup plus pour le même prix, c’est ce lait qu’il a décidé d’acheter. Or, dans une telle situation de « marché », peut-on conclure que son choix aurait été le même s’il avait eu à payer le coût de la graisse? [Si on compare avec un secteur de consommation très populaire, celui de l'automobile, on sait bien que beaucoup de gens feraient l'acquisition d'un modèle luxueux s'il n'avait pas à payer la grande différence de prix par rapport à une voiture beaucoup plus ordinaire!]

Implanter une structure de prix soutenable

Chaque secteur d’activité économique aimerait sûrement pouvoir trouver un nouveau mode de fonctionnement qui puisse fortement réduire ses coûts et accroître grandement ses profits et son expansion. Et chacun le souhaiterait encore plus si ce nouveau fonctionnement lui permettait simultanément d’améliorer son image de bon « citoyen corporatif » parce qu’il lui ferait utiliser les ressources de façon vraiment plus efficiente de même que contribuer beaucoup mieux à ce que le pays tire le meilleur parti de son économie. Or, le secteur laitier n’a-t-il pas une telle possibilité?

Pour ce dernier, cette possibilité de modifier son fonctionnement consiste, au départ, à adopter une structure de prix qui corresponde mieux au principe de base d’un fonctionnement économique sain, tel que l’a décrit Ron Dean (Australie) dans le rapport d’un symposium international sur la Chine, organisé par cette dernière et la Banque mondiale* : «Un principe de base en économie de marché est que les coûts encourus pour produire un produit, incluant un rendement approprié sur le capital employé dans sa production Windows 7 Key, devraient être inclus dans le prix de ce produit. [...] C’est, bien sûr, un énoncé très simplifié, et des centaines de livres ont été écrits pour nuancer, débattre et approfondir cette idée. Une autre façon de le dire, aussi sujette à de nombreuses nuances, est qu’il est important de fixer une structure de prix adéquate si vous désirez une allocation des ressources qui soit la plus efficiente, et si vous voulez tirer le meilleur parti de votre économie.» (traduction libre)

Cette citation semble bien indiquer à quel point une structure de prix adéquate est capitale pour ne pas envoyer de faux signaux économiques à un secteur donné, c’est-à-dire pour permettre à ce dernier de prendre les bonnes décisions de fonctionnement.

Quand John et Cathy prennent la décision du type de lait à acheter, c’est le signal de la prétendue «demande du consommateur» (le marché) qu’ils envoient au secteur laitier. Mais comment peut-on qualifier ce signal si les prix comparatifs des produits entre lesquels le consommateur fait son choix ne reflètent pas le coût de production des éléments qui composent ces produits? Or, il semble bien que ce soit le cas pour les prix du lait; le prix du lait entier ne devrait-il pas être très supérieur à celui du lait écrémé?

L’implantation d’une structure soutenable pour les prix du lait donnerait sans doute de meilleurs repères économiques. La science et technologie pourrait ainsi mieux manifester ce dont elle est vraiment capable!

*World Bank Discussion Paper No 335 Office Visio Key, « Policy Options for Reform of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises » Windows Anytime Upgrade, Proceedings of a Symposium in Beijing, June 1995.

An undated hanodut photograph supplied on 01 May 2012 by the Israeli Antiquities Authority shows a semi-precious stone seal with the name 'Matanayahu' engraved on it, which was unearthed in recent excavations on a house dating to 2 replica watches,700 years ago replica watches, or the end of the First Temple period replica watches, near the Western Wall, in Jerusalem. EPA/CLARA AMIT

Jerusalem – The remains of a building dating to the end of the First Temple period were discovered below the base of the ancient drainage channel that is currently being exposed in Israel Antiquities Authority excavations beneath Robinson’s Arch in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden, adjacent to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. This building is the closest structure to the First Temple found to date in archaeological excavations.

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In the excavations, underwritten by the Ir David Foundation, a personal Hebrew seal from the end of the First Temple period was discovered on the floor of the ancient building. The seal is made of a semi-precious stone and is engraved with the name of its owner: “Lematanyahu Ben Ho…” (”למתניהו בן הו…” meaning: “Belonging to Matanyahu Ben Ho…”). The rest of the inscription is erased.

From the very start of the excavations in this area the archaeologists decided that all of the soil removed from there would be meticulously sifted (including wet-sifting and thorough sorting of the material remnants left in the sieve). This scientific measure is being done in cooperation with thousands of pupils in the Tzurim Valley National Park. It was during the sieving process that the tiny seal was discovered.

People used personal seals in the First Temple period for the purpose of signing letters and they were set in a signet ring. The seals served to identify their owner, just as they identify officials today.

According to Eli Shukron, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “the name Matanyahu, like the name Netanyahu, means giving to God. These names are mentioned several times in the Bible. They are typical of the names in the Kingdom of Judah in latter part of the First Temple period – from the end of the eighth century BCE until the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE. To find a seal from the First Temple period at the foot of the Temple Mount walls is rare and very exciting. This is a tangible greeting of sorts from a man named Matanyahu who lived here more than 2,700 years ago. We also found pottery sherds characteristic of the period on the floor in the ancient building beneath the base of the drainage channel, as well as stone collapse and evidence of a fire.”

Apple is really in the hardware business Best Tattoo Machines, not the software business — it just uses the sales of apps, music, movies, etc. Machine Tubes, to help sell gadgets.

But boy does it sell a lot of software: iTunes sales came in at $1.9 billion last quarter Tattoo Grips, which puts the digital store at a run rate of $8 billion.

That’s up 35 percent from a year ago, when iTunes did $1.4 billion.

During Apple’s conference call today, CFO Peter Oppenheimer answered a query about delays getting new content into iTunes with a boast about the depth of the store’s music and video catalog. But as always, my assumption is that the bulk of that growth is fueled by app sales, not traditional media sales.

In the weekend before the official start of the summer season, four new releases, all of which were relatively smaller fare, all debuted to numbers ranging from not awful to genuinely awful (or example 4,321 on why comparing total weekend box office is stupid).  The top film this weekend was once again Think Like A Man, which dropped a surprisingly decent 46%, earning another $18 million.  The ensemble romantic comedy has now earned $60 million, putting it on track to be among the domestic bigger grossers of the first 1/3 of 2012.  If we’re specifically talking ‘black-films,’ then the Tim Story picture is a few days from outgrossing every Tyler Perry movie save Madea Goes to Jail, which grossed $90 million three years ago (the second highest-grossing Perry film is the $63 million-grossing Madea’s Family Reunion). With a smaller drop and a larger second weekend off a $8 million-smaller opening weekend, it may pass that mark all the way to $100 million if it can hold onto screens as summer begins.  It will soon surpass the $65 million gross of Barbershop 2, the $67 million gross of Waiting to Exhale, and the $75 million gross of Barbershop within the next full week.  It’s also out-grosssed and/or will likely out-gross any number of higher-profile ‘white’ romantic comedies or dramas (the $81 million-grossing Dear John The Best Tattoo Inks, the $84 million-grossing Stupid, Crazy Love, the $54 million-grossing New Year’s Eve, etc).  Usually when a $12 million-budgeted film ends up flirting with $100 million, studios respond with sequels and/or star-vehicles for certain higher-profile cast-members.  We’ll see if Hollywood again writes off this ‘unconventional’ smash hit as a ‘fluke’ or whether Kevin Hart Best Tattoo Machine, Gabrielle Union, and Meagan Good (among others) get any ‘bumps’ off this film’s unquestionable success.

The uber-big overseas news of course came from the foreign debut of The Avengers (review).  Opening in about 70% of the major world markets, the $220 million super-hero team-up picture earned a colossal $178 million over its first five days.  That’s the ninth-biggest worldwide opening weekend of all-time, and the biggest for a movie that wasn’t explicitly a sequel (semantics perhaps, but bare with me).  Combined with what will surely be a minimum-$135 million U.S. opening next weekend, and the Marvel production should flirt with $400 million in the tank by a week from today.  As of today, it is the 10th-biggest worldwide grosser of 2012 in just five days (it has already outgrossed the $170 million cume of Battleship which has been playing for nearly a month).  By next week, it will be number-two behind only The Hunger Games ($589 million).  The Avengers may or may-not surpass the $372 million-and-counting domestic cume for The Hunger Games, but it is sure to be the worldwide champion of 2012 at-least until The Dark Knight Rises debuts on July 20th.

Back to domestic news, the highest-grossing of the four new releases was The Pirates: Band of Misfits.  The  Aardman Animation stop-motion toon grossed a solid $11.4 million, nearly besting the $12 million debut of Arthur Christmas last Thanksgiving.  That film had strong legs and eventually reached $46 million in the US and $100 million overseas. The $50 million Pirates! Band of Misfits has already amassed $75 million worldwide so it appears that this is another release where the domestic gross is merely icing on the cake.  Universal’s The Five-Year Engagement performed rather poorly this weekend, bringing in $11.2 million despite starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt.  Blunt hasn’t really had a chance to test her alleged star-power (she frankly usually plays the needless ‘token love interest’), but Segel is a press-friendly star of How I Met Your Mother and a card-carrying member of the Apatow gang with two genuinely solid opening weekends ($17 million for Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You Man respectively).  Still, the film cost just $30 million, so if it doesn’t completely die overseas it should break even in the end. The harm is more about the egos of its stars than actual financial loss for the studio.

The next two releases were star-driven, R-rated thrillers that maybe… JUST MAYBE… shouldn’t have opened on the same weekend.  Safe (review) may be one of the best films of Jason Statham’s career (The Bank Job is arguably better), but a marketing campaign that made it seem like a rhiff on Mercury Rising and a crowded weekend made it among his lowest openings as an action-lead.  The film earned $7.7 million this weekend, meaning it will be lucky to crack $20 million after The Avengers steals away every action junkie on the planet.  There are exceptions here and there, but Jason Statham’s career is a lot like Adam Sandler’s.  The better and/or more challenging the movie, the worse it performs at the box office.  Relatively moved the John Cusack thriller The Raven into this uber-crowded weekend somewhat at the last minute Handmade Tattoo Machines, and it’s obvious they knew they had a critical turd on their hands.  And indeed the ‘Edgar Allen Poe catches a serial killer’ picture debuted with just $7.2 million. There isn’t much to say about this one, other than the truly awful reviews left me disinterested in a film that I secretly hoped would be a trashy good time.  Alas…

This article continues at Mendelson’s Memos.

Despite launching three long years ago, the Facebook game FarmVille continues to be Zynga’s runaway hit.

In the company’s first-quarter report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, it disclosed that players who dig planting and harvesting crops accounted for 29 percent of the company’s revenue during the period.

One frequently asked question is whether social games will be played over the long term, or if companies like Zynga will have to continue creating hits to stay afloat.

Since the company went public last year, it has been claiming that the former is true — the older the title, the more revenue it generates. In theory, that’s because long-term players are more committed, and therefore spend more.

Based on the numbers disclosed yesterday, that continues to be the case. In fact, all four of the company’s top titles are at least a year-and-a-half old, and FarmVille continues on the upswing. A year ago, it was contributing 27 percent of the company’s revenue; now it’s contributing 29 percent.

CityVille, which launched in December 2010, accounts for 17 percent of the company’s revenue; Zynga Poker, which is five years old, accounts for 16 percent of revenue; and two-year-old FrontierVille accounts for 10 percent.

Zynga said the primary reason that FarmVille’s bookings increased during the quarter was the release of new content in the game.

However, older titles don’t always perform better.

Mafia Wars is a case in point. Last year Chanel Dresses sale, the game was Zynga’s third-best-performing title, and accounted for 18 percent of the company’s revenues. But after the company launched the sequel, Mafia Wars 2, the game suffered Discount DKNY Clothing, as longtime Mafia Wars players failed to make the transition to the new version.

Now the game makes up less than 10 percent of the company’s revenue, which means Zynga is not required to break out its individual performance. It did note, however, that the quarter’s online game revenue was offset by a decrease of $26.5 million in revenue from Mafia Wars, compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Ouch. That’s a lot less ammunition.

In a recent column (“Stress and Class”), I chided New York University sociologist Dalton Conley for arguing that the rich experience the most stress in our society. Conley has filed the following good-natured reply:

In a New York Times op-ed that I published on Sept. 3 (“Rich Man’s Burden”), I argued that Americans in the top half of the income distribution are experiencing what I called an “economic red shift.” Like the shift in the light spectrum caused by the galaxies rushing away, those Americans who are in the top half of the income distribution (where inequality is rising) experience a sensation that, while they may be pulling away from the bottom half, they are also being left further and further behind by those just above them. One result of these forces is that perhaps for the first time since such records were kept, higher income folks put in more hours than lower earners. The more we earn, the more hours we put in, since the opportunity cost of not doing so is all the greater (and since the higher we go, the more relatively deprived we feel thanks to the exponential distribution of income). Add in a market for everything that used to be done outside the economic realm—food preparation, laundry, even grooming and physical touch—and wage earning is made all the more easy (and necessary).

In a Chatterbox post, Timothy Noah took me to task for writing the following: “[I]t is now the rich who are the most stressed out and the most likely to be working the most.”

Noah misses the thrust of the argument, which focused on the work-hours shift, not on stress. That said, Noah’s point is well taken. One of the things we surely need to think through is that there are many forms of being “stressed out”; likewise, there are many ways that folks react to stress. There is no doubt that sitting around the kitchen table these days discussing rising energy prices, balloon payments on mortgages, rising tuition costs and so on is a lot more relaxing when you are at the top of the earnings distribution (or if, like John McCain, you have seven kitchen tables from which to choose). And there is no doubt that the nature of the workday is quite different for the typical professional than it is for the average cashier or food service worker (the fastest growing low-wage job category). In fact, in order to induce professionals to work more and more hours, one of the more insidious tactics of savvy employers—such as Google—is to make the office environment very un-work like. As I report in my forthcoming book, Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, the Family Dinner and the Age of Affluence to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms and Economic Anxiety, at firms like Google, laundry service, volleyball courts, and even massages are all meant to make the office more attractive than going home. This is quite different, obviously, from Wal-Mart or other large, low-wage employers, some of which even regulate how often employees can urinate.

Likewise, it is clear from the experiments that Noah cites that lower-status workers internalize the physiological effects of stress more than their higher-ranked counterparts.  The physiological association between rank, stress and health has been known at least since Britain’s famous Whitehall Study. However, it is not clear how much of the relationship goes from occupational standing to health and how much goes from health—and the underlying attributes and behaviors that produce salubriousness—to economic position.  For example, one clever study by Stephen Snyder and William Evans took advantage of an arbitrary social security “notch” to investigate the impact of income on life expectancy.  Individuals born before January 1, 1917 received higher social security payments than those born after the cut-off date. What the economists found was counterintuitive: The individuals who received the higher payments actually experienced higher mortality rates. The reason?  They were more likely to be able to afford to work less (or not at all).  Work for these older Americans trying to get by on Social Security is actually heath-promoting.  I bring this example up not to refute Noah’s claim that low-wage employees suffer more stress and indignation on the job (and off) but merely to hint that the sometimes-counterintuitive relationship between education, income, work Tattoo Supplies, stress and health is not so easy to disentangle.

That said, the rise in low-wage service sector jobs probably makes the psychological tolls of working at the bottom of our hierarchy worse (or at least different) than they were in the heyday of manufacturing.  So, indeed, I agree with Noah: The fact that the more earnings rise, the more folks report feeling relatively worse off, or more stressed out, may just be “yuppie kvetching,” as economists Hammermesh and Lee speculate. Along similar lines, Americans today report getting about an hour less sleep per night than they did back in the 1960s. I think these self-reported statistics on sleep and “kvetching” may reflect a new ethic: It is cool to appear over-worked, at least to a certain segment of society. This ethic, which I call the Elsewhere Ethic Tattoo Supplies, is a far cry from both the corporate social ethnic of the mid-20th Century or the Protestant ethic of 100 years ago. And if this dimension of stress is subjective, how could folks be “lying” to survey takers? And why do we care if upper-income yuppies kvetch when things are really not so bad? Because their sense of anxiety is what is further driving the workaholic, spendaholic culture we all endure.

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Conley wrote a little more about stress in his op-ed than he lets on. Otherwise, though, I can find nothing here to argue with.

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While the Dodge Viper is in the midst of a much-too-long (and thankfully soon-to-be-rectified) hiatus, there’s really no question as to who holds the title of Baddest American Sports Car: The Chevrolet Corvette. And the top-of-the-line in Corvette Land is, of course Herve Leger sale, the 638-horsepower supercharged ZR1.

Not that the ‘Vette is the only way domestic car lovers can fan their inner flames of performance. Nipping at the Corvette’s super wide and sticky heels are such classic nameplates as the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger… not to mention Herve Leger sale, from within its own stomping grounds no less Cheap Herve Leger gown, the Chevrolet Camaro.

Perhaps in a bid to cement its internal pecking order Replica Missoni Dresses, the boys from Chevy took one Corvette ZR1 and one Camaro ZL1 to Virginia International Raceway for some sordid fun and hot laps. Wondering just how close the Camaro is to the top-rung Corvette Herve leger strapless sale, which the automaker says set the fastest published lap for a stock car in VIR’s history? Satiate your curiosity by watching the two videos after the jump.

As an appetizer for the Nürburgring 24 Hours Buy White Herve leger, Porsche put on the first Porsche Carrera World Cup. Although the race counted as a round in other international Carrera World Cup series’ Buy BCBG Dresses, this is a race all its own: more than a hundred Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Racers sprinting six laps around the 15-mile North Loop.

The race entry Replica Herve Leger v neck, submitted by Porsche Cars North America wore a livery designed by one of its own interns: Anna Frey created the star-bedecked red, white and blue scheme driven by ALMS GTC racer Melanie Snow.

Although the Cup Racer saw a lot of rain-and-hail-filled action getting ready for the race Discount Herve Leger gown, Snow’s race didn’t last long: a driver booted her off the track at Turn One Discount Hale Bob Dresses, where she was then hit by another car, ending her race. Nevertheless Cheap Marc Jacobs Dresses, congratulations to Anna Frey on the livery and the entire PNCA team for the effort.

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This is interesting. As you cop-car fans well know, Ford recently introduced an all new Police Interceptor. After centuries decades of sticking with the body-on-frame White Herve leger sale, RWD Panther-platform Crown Victoria Cheap Christian Audigier Clothes, Ford made the decision to go with the unit-bodied, front- or all-wheel drive Taurus chassis. They’ve beefed the full-size family hauler up to Herculean stature (claiming that it can withstand a 70 mph rear-end collision!) and by all accounts it should do just fine in the high speed pursuit biz. Still, to many officers and fans of the cars they drive Replica Bandage dresses, police cruisers should be driven via the rear wheels.

That said, check out this Hyundai. A Genesis sedan to be specific Buy Herve Leger gown, all done up in Korean police livery. Looks good, no? Especially with the blue and red lights poking out from the grill. If you’re wondering, the Genesis sedan has either a 3.8-liter V6 or a more muscular 4.6-liter “Tau” V8 up front. Both motors propel the rear wheels. For police duty, we’ll go ahead and assume that Hyundai went with the more potent Tau option, as South Korean coppers will no doubt make use of the 375 horsepower and 333 pound-feet of torque (slight asterisk – that’s on premium fuel. Should you opt for regular gas, the V8 makes “just” 368 hp and 324 lb-ft of torque).

True, like the Taurus, the Genesis sedan is still a unit body Discount Herve Leger gown, meaning that officers in pursuit won’t be able to drive over curbs at 50 mph without twisting the kimchi out of the structure. However, given the Genesis sedan’s better than average handling characteristics, they should have little trouble driving around said curb, and thereby bringing the perp to justice that much more quickly. No word on a super-pursuit Genesis Coupe-based cop car. Tip of the confession-extracting sap hat to Nathan!

[Source: Chosun]

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Pro golf tournaments often feature a par three hole with a high-end luxury vehicle parked somewhere near the green. Get a hole in one, win the car. It makes for great television Where find Replica Zenith Watches, and it’s a fantastic advertising opportunity in the event a golfer actually wins the car. But what about the caddie that told the golfer which club to use and how much the wind and the surface of the green would affect the shot? The folks at Cadillac think they have an answer to that question.

The winner of the HP Byron Nelson Championship will receive one of those really big checks that you only ever see on television Replica Breitling Watches, but his caddie will receive something much Fake Cartier Watches, much larger. The winner’s caddie will receive a Cadillac Escalade Hybrid Fake Ferrari Watches, which retails for $73 Fake Dewitt Watches,840 and gets quite a bit pricier when tacking on options. Not a bad prize for toting a bag for four days.

This will be the first “Caddy for Caddie” promotion since Cadillac gave away a XLR-V at the 2008 Byron Nelson Championship. Hit the jump to read over the GM press release.

[Source: General Motors]