Circus Circus - In the tiny sovereign nation of Circus Circus, a strip club located within Elko, Minnesota, a patron of the club reports that seemingly unsolvable “public goods” problems get solved “all the time.”
“There were, like, eight or nine of us standing around a table watching this hot blonde dancer, and she says, ‘the panties don’t come off unless I see five dollars on the table,’” reported Ed Wilkerson, a third-year economics student at the University of Minnesota. “Now, I know from my economics classes,” he went on, “that she had created a public goods problem. Since her panties were either going to come off or not regardless of whether I threw down a dollar or not, it would be irrational for me to do so, and the same would go for all the other guys around the table. Clearly, the only way the panties were coming off would be if the government forced all of us to chip in, like, eighty cents, or blindfolded anyone who did not contribute.”
What happened next, though, was amazing. “Next thing I knew, there were five dollar bills on the table, and we all got to see one really trim racing strip. Me, I was in free rider city. I got distracted, and it wasn’t until a couple of hours and a few beers later that I realized what had happened.”
Ed now reports that he has been returning repeatedly to Circus Circus to do more “economics research.” This research involves going from table to table, noting on a clipboard who pays the strippers how much and how often, then interviewing them about their motivations for paying or not paying. He hopes to gather enough material for his thesis.
Al LaFontaine, owner and Sovereign of Circus Circus, reportedly has no plans to start solving this public goods problem by forcing people to give money to table dancers at gunpoint. He does, however, intend to tell his bouncers to “quit letting that creepy college kid with the clipboard in.”
Originally posted by Andy Stedman on Wednesday, November 20, 2002 - 03:55 AM WAST for Movementarian.com
