Monday, April 13, 2015

Pete Boettke: I want to eat unicorn for breakfast

This morning had a great time watching Pete Boettke wander around at APEE, complaining that all the breakfast (advertised on the program as "continental breakfast", btw) foods were breads and sugar.  He wanted "protein."

If ONLY there were a system where one could go to some establishment, order exactly what one wanted, and then exchange some valuable tokens for that meal.  We could call it... markets.  And restaurants (there are at least six full service restaurants in this hotel complex...)

But I have to admit that I was with Pete.  Wouldn't it be great if there were just free food, as much as I want, and it had bacon and eggs (the Angus special) and cheese and ham and steak and.... Wouldn't that be great? 

It's so tempting to want that, and to want someone else to provide it.  The difference is that Pete was actually just  joking and having a good time.  Many people really think there "should" be free stuff for everyone. But when they/we try to provide free stuff for everyone, you get people standing in long lines for stuff like toilet paper.  Forget protein...we're talking about toilet paper.  That's not right.  Markets are the best we can do, and they are actually pretty good.

2 comments:

Simon Spero said...

The thing about conference food is that you're a captive consumer, and the breakfasty type carbs are tied to the coffee (which is the only necessary part).

If the local organizers were to purchase a package that included unicorn omelettes, it would be rubbery, factory farmed unicorn that would taste like chicken.

Ali said...

Nice