The Economist

In my weekend of delight, I had a lot of interesting experiences. I had pasta with friends, got plastered in the mission, went skydiving at an altitude of between 0 feet to upwards of 15 feet (indoor skydiving), watched 3:10 to Yuma and realized that Westerns really are dead (nobody can compete with Tombstone it seems), went to my company BBQ at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and won a PS3 in a company raffle, and had a tremendous family-style meal with some friends on Sunday night to top it off. However, those experiences play no large part in this post. Rather, as the title suggests, this post is about economics. WAIT! Before you stop reading this post, let me be frank. This is not about traditional economics.

In walking around on Sunday night, a friend and I were on a mission. A mission of grave importance. We were trying to find the oldest bar in San Francisco. While I was skeptical about whether or not this was the oldest bar in San Francisco, in doing research on the Internet, most people seem to suggest that The Saloon in North Beach is the oldest.

While sipping on my traditional gin and tonic, I realized that there was a ten-dollar bill laying on the floor of the bar. Right above the ten-dollar bill, there sat an old-grizzled man whose pockets seemed to be at the right angle to present the possibility that money could separate itself from his pocket. I debated for a split-second. The greed that I felt ebbed in my blood. The decision was quick. There was only one thing to do.

I picked up the money and tapped the old man on the shoulder. He turned to me and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes hit me like cold fog rolling over San Francisco. I explained to him that I had found this money under his chair and that he should take it. He said something briefly, but it was barely intelligible over the drunken slur that he called speech. You could tell that this man was accustomed to the drink. You could tell that he was a consistent consumer to this bar. After receiving the money, he stumbled out of the bar and he put a dollar bill on the ground. I assumed that this was some kind of tithe that he felt obligated to give. It was exactly 10% of the original gift that he had received. A monument to religious taxation of yore. A small testament to what little luck this man has had in his long life.

At this point he came up to me and made me a bet. He slurred that the dollar would be picked up in a minute and a half. Being the consummate carouser, his bet amounted to a beer. I accepted the wager and the sociological experiment began. I was deeply intrigued by both his actions and the current entertainment that was afoot. As San Francisco is notoriously windy, the dollar would not stay in place. So a member of the crowd outside that I will mention as the outside smokers, attempted to add his own legacy to this game. With gum in hand he stuck the dollar back down to the ground and with a triumphant grin, walked back to the group that was now gathered to watch. We soon realized that a group of people intently watching a dollar bill on the ground provided very little encouragement for a bystander to pick up said dollar. The drunken old man even tried his own brand of encouragement by pointing at the dollar like an accuser of a murderer in a line-up. The church finally came for its tithe in the form of a bum. The flood gates have now opened. It was like a horse race with one horse. Or possibly a governmental executive decision. I laughed to myself deeply and while it had certainly been more than a minute and a half, I bought the leathered drunk his fix and my friend and I left with alcohol in our stomachs and a grin on our faces.

Cheers to the Economist. For he, my friends, is still sitting on that same stool at The Saloon.