The Growth of Gastropsychology

A great deal of thought is being put into restaurant menus these days. A recent New York Times article by Sarah Kershaw reported that restaurants are overhauling their bills of fare to make them more appealing to spending-spooked diners.

Briefly, these are the rules restaurants are using to make their recession revisions.

Good:

A menu cameo by Mom, Grandma, or your Great Aunt Millie
According to the article, "people like the names of mothers, grandmothers and other relatives on their menus, and research shows they are much more likely to buy." She doesn't mention whether male relatives' names have the same effect, but somehow I doubt it.
"Enhancers."
Enhancers are those magical ingredients like "applewood smoked bacon" that turn a dish into menu gold. According to Danny Meyer this is what makes chicken liver sound chic. Hm.
Romance.
Stick words like "smokehouse," "country," or "farm fresh" before your bacon, ham or eggs and you've won your diner's heart and wallet.
The Top Right.
This spot on the menu is where the eyes are drawn, and so it's where a smart restaurant will stick its most profitable items.

Bad:

Dollar signs.
Krenshaw says that, "in the world of menu engineering and pricing, a dollar sign is pretty much the worst thing you can put on a menu, particularly at a high-end restaurant."
Zeros.
Dr. Sheryll Kimes and other researchers at Cornell conducted a study comparing sales at restaurants with various menu formats: four digits and a dollar sign ("$17.00"), two digits and no dollar sign ("17."), and written prices ("seventeen dollars").
They found that guests given the two-digit numeral menu (17.) spent significantly more than those given either of the other two menu formats.
Gray and Purple
These colors stimulate satiation, while blue and gray stimulate appetite.

Heroes of the Recession: The Blu-Ray

You may have thought you've been watching movies all this time, but unless you have a Blu-ray DVD player you've basically just been staring at indecipherable blob of crap. You might as well turn off the TV and watch the blank screen. The Blu-Ray is absolutely necessary in order to watch movies the way they were MEANT TO BE SEEN. This is the 21st century, people; it's high definition or NO DEFINITION.


Luckily the kind and generous gods at Blu-Ray are teaming up with retailers to bring down the price of the player from $300 towards, and even below, the "impulse buy" ceiling of $100. Consumers are buying them in droves, and stimulating the economy while they're at it. This, of course, makes the Blu-Ray producer and its retailers our newest Heroes of the Recession. All they want is make your pathetic life better.

So get one or forever wonder what that movie really looked like. Get one, or be left in the past, with your dead grandmother's wigs and the chastity belt. Do you want to look like these people?!?!?Publish Post


P.S. Guess who's gonna have more fun than you tonight? THIS GIRL, because she is BUYING A BLU-RAY.

Why you should be glad you don't have a job

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In the interest of finding the silver lining, here are some reasons the jobless of you out there could thank your lucky stars.

1. One in three women has been harassed at work according to this article by the Daily Mail. (via savetheassistants.com)

What's more,

• 14 percent are “dreading” going to their holiday party because they’ll have to dodge a drunk and/or handsy coworker
• 20 percent say they have had to fend off a coworker’s sexual advances
• 5 percent report that they have quit a job because the office harassment was so bad
• 32 percent say that they have experienced harassment in the form of lewd “humor” or inappropriate joke

2. All bosses want a softie. The unemployed, on the other hand, are free to act like the bitches they really are.

3. Have you seen The Office?

4. Economist Frank Ackerman writes that "on the whole, unemployment is better for our health." He cites less work-related driving/traffic accidents and the fact that unemployed people exercise more, drink less alcohol, prepare and eat healthier food, see their friends more, and enjoy lower levels of stress. You will live longer than your employed friends, even if it is in a van down by the river!

5. Uniforms - wait, make that all work-appropriate clothing. Not as fun as sweats and slutty dresses.

6. The most common time for heart attacks to occur is Monday morning. WONDER WHY.

Recession Resolutions

The country didn't abandon political humor or become faithful church-goers after 9/11; we didn't maintain the sense of civic duty that brought 61% of voters to the polls for the 2008 presidential election (fewer than 30% voted in the NYC mayoral election); 20% of U.S. Americans still smoke despite the medical certainty that they're inviting cancer; and your uncle/aunt/ grandfather/ grandmother never did lose the weight after that heart attack.

We are what one could call a ... resilient people. Others would say stubborn. So what makes us think that the recession is going to create a long-term change in the way that we spend money?













In a New York Times article this weekend, economics professor Carmen Reinhard was quoted saying that even during the postwar years, which were defined by rationing and shortages, the savings don't last; "you get an increase in savings or a decline in debt for one or two years, and then it reverts back.”

So while pattern suggests that our cultural obsession with spending won't change drastically, there is an element of cold, hard truth that can change patterns whether the culture changes or not: for years after this recession, many people, even if willing, will be unable to borrow, due to a collapse in personal credit.

Goldman Sachs Ruined Christmas!

It's raining glass over at 200 West St. According to the Tribeca Tribune last Saturday, a pane from the new Goldman Sachs building in Battery Park City flew out of its pane to shatter the lives of the innocents who toiled below.

No one was hurt, but in addition to causing traffic jams and scaring the crap out of passers by, the falling glass crushed the holiday dreams of children all over New York City: that's right, the hazard delayed the opening of Battery Park City's brand new ice skating rink!

Goldman will compensate both the rink manager and the local cafe that was counting on making a killing selling après-glace treats on opening day.

Happy Endings for Bad News Bears

Speaking of banksters, it turns out some people actually made money from the housing crisis. Greg Zuckerman's book, The Greatest Trade Ever tells the story of the few, the proud, the lucky who bet against that sly little housing bubble and won big.

Guess not quite everyone on Wall St. spent the last two years walking around like this:

The Prosecution Blew It

Thats what William Cohan of the New York Times thinks of the acquittal last week of the two Bear Sterns banksters on trial for conspiracy and securities fraud.


Cohan thinks that the prosecution set the bar for conviction too high in their opening argument and relied too heavily on incomplete e-mail snippets in makings its case. The statement dramatically presented the two men as compulsive and shameless liars who made not a single ethical decision, and those damning blurbs were seen differently when placed in the context of emails that instead seem to document a conscientious decision-making process.

Worse, the prosecution left out evidence that would have been more compelling: for instance a talking points memo that Cohan describes in the article. The acquittal will, as Cohan puts it, force the prosecutors currently investigating the Lehman indictment to "tread lightly." For that reason, "Tuesday’s verdict may be the best news in more than a year for Richard Fuld, the former Lehman chief executive."

In other news— hey wait a minute, what’s tha— ::sniff:: — does anyone else smell fish?