Isaac Laquedem

New York removes a special privilege, in a manner of speaking

I welcome New York's approval of same-sex marriage for several reasons, one of which is my long-held (if slightly tongue-in-cheek) opposition to special rights.  New York is taking away the privilege of gay couples to separate without judicial intervention; they'll now have to go through the divorce courts just like their heterosexual neighbors.

How much should you spend on an engagement ring? Roger Staiger says it's not enough

In the 1940s, De Beers recommended that the groom should spend two months of his salary on the ring for his betrothed.  (De Beers, which controls much of the diamond industry, didn't discourage grooms from paying more.) Today De Beers is more circumspect, saying only that the groom should establish his budget based on his income and what he wants to spend. Meghan O'Rourke, writing in Slate in 2007, brought economics into the picture, and argued that the tradition of the man giving his fiancee an expensive ring as evidence of his commitment to marry her replaced her right to sue him for breach of promise of marriage.  She made a Galbraith-style economic argument: lots of policy, but no equations.

Roger Staiger, a noted real estate consultant, lecturer at Georgetown University, and adjunct professor in the graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, has now introduced mathematics into the question.  Writing in the current issue of Live Valuation, a magazine for the appraisal industry, Professor Staiger suggests treating the cost of the engagement ring as equivalent to payment for an option to enter into a transaction at a fixed future date, and then applying the Black-Scholes theory of option pricing to compare the price of the ring to the present value of the bride's expected future earnings.  (Black-Scholes is the most common method of valuing options, and used by public corporations to assign values to their outstanding grants of stock options.)  He used Jessie, one of his students, newly married to Tom, as an example.  His surprising result: De Beers would recommend that Tom pay $18,300 for Jessie's engagement ring, but the Black-Scholes valuation method sets a fair economic value for the option to marry Jessie at $140,000.  Tom got a bargain, and Jessie now has the evidence to prove it. 

The mathematics of lap dancing leads Isaac to a modest proposal

Our Man in New Mexico sends a story from today's Albuquerque Journal about two 18-year-olds who went to a nightclub and enjoyed lap dances for two hours each (82 dances between them), then were shocked to find out that each dance cost $30 and that their total bill was $2,460.  They had $50 in cash and a $500 credit card limit, and couldn't pay.  The club filed a complaint, and the local police arrested them on felony charges of obtaining services valued at over $250 on false pretenses.

Our M. in N.M. asks a number of legal questions, and some picturesque factual questions, about how this situation came to pass.  The author of the news story, not being interested in the philosophical questions that engage our M. in N.M., simply says that the two youths should have paid more attention in math class.  I noted that, based on the numbers in the news story, each dancer provided about one dance every three minutes, or 20 dances per hour, for a gross fee of about $600 per hour.  (That's considerably more than what I charge for my time, but then I don't dance and I take longer than three minutes per customer.)

Then it struck me ("Oh, no," says Mrs. Laquedem).  The Oregon pattern is to forbid immoral activity, then to grudgingly tolerate it (in the past with the help of la mordida), then to convert it into a source of revenue for the state,as with alcohol, racetrack betting, and video slots.  ("Oh, no," says Mrs. Laquedem again, seeing where this is headed.)  Consider:  a person playing video poker at moderate speed might play 5 hands per minute, or 300 hands per hour.  If each hand costs 25 cents, then the machine grosses $75 per hour.  Out of this $75, perhaps $30 is paid back in prizes and some more in commissions to the landlord.  Maybe the state makes $20 per hour per machine after paying its other costs. 

When I worked out that the lap dancers of Albuquerque were grossing $600 per hour -- as much as eight video poker machines -- it occurred to me that the State of Oregon has at hand a potential revenue source which offers a number of social benefits at least equal to those provided by video poker.  The Oregon supreme court has recognized that exotic dancing is a form of speech protected under the Oregon constitution, and the state could provide safe places in which this form of speech could be practiced, unlike the disreputable venues which currently serve as marketplaces for these ideas.  The job creation would disproportionately benefit younger people with little work experience.  And the revenue is not to be overlooked, as it could easily restore our public schools to full funding.  Some cooperation between the regulators of this new revenue source and the Oregon Liquor Control Commission would increase alcohol sales and the concomitant state revenues.

Farfetched?  The state has already made the decision to profit from the weaknesses of its citizens, whom it simultaneously protects and exploits.  And collectively we're not willing to go back to honest taxation. 

How to persuade opponents to support civil unions and same-sex marriage

A meeting yesterday after work with Pablo (author of the worldwide pablo blog, one of my favorites) led to our engaging discussion about a number of topics, including in particular contrasts between how the Democrats and Republicans have pushed their views in Congress and in the state legislature, and the so-far fruitless efforts of Basic Rights Oregon and others to advance a civil unions bill in Oregon.  (For background, please read Pablo's open letter to Roey Thorpe of Basic Rights Oregon criticizing BRO's strategy this session, and her response, also posted on his blog.)  My sense is that they both dislike on principle obtaining civil rights for same-sex couples a little bit at a time, but that one is willing to accept and push for incremental gains, figuring that more can be obtained later, and the other favors an all-or-nothing approach: full equality now.

I compared this debate to how the Democratic and Republican parties treat their nominees.  Nationally, Republicans who don't like their presidential nominee tend to support the candidate anyway, or at least to be quiet about not liking the guy.  For example, in 1988 I rarely heard a conservative Republican say that he hoped Governor Dukakis would win because he didn't think Vice President Bush was truly conservative enough for his taste.  The Republican stalwarts recognized that even if Mr. Bush didn't agree with them on many issues, philosophically he was a lot closer to them than Mr. Dukakis was, and they would vote for Mr. Bush.  By contrast, I heard liberal Democrats say that because Mr. Dukakis wasn't in their camp on Issue X, they would rather see Mr. Bush win than have an imperfect Democrat in the Oval Office.  (They got their wish.) 

I think incrementalism is the better route.  Gains once achieved are rarely taken away.  And with the cause of civil unions and same-sex marriage apparently dead for this session, I offer a modest marketing suggestion to the proponents for the next session: instead of pitching civil unions as a step toward equality, fair treatment, and equal rights (values not historically associated with the State of Oregon; see the continuation below) for same-sex couples, advertise the disadvantages.  Why should gay couples be able to dissolve their relationship without going to court, when straight married couples can't?  It's not fair, the proponents could argue (with tongue firmly in cheek) for gays to be exempt from a burden imposed on straight couples.  "No special rights!" the proponents could argue, twisting the opponents into knots.  The proponents can't do any worse than they did this session, and -- who knows? -- they might pick up enough votes to get the measure through the 2007 session.  After that, introduce bills to inflict on same-sex couples the other burdens of marriage, a few at a time.  It's worth a try.

More to the story

The Knower of All Things reports that one of our local newspapers -- not the Oregonian -- is investigating who knew what, when, about our former Governor's involvement with a teenager.  Look for a follow-up investigative piece, perhaps as soon as Wednesday.

A conversation stopper

I had no ready response when a youngish woman with whom I was talking said, "I used to follow local politics; my mother worked for Neil Goldschmidt when he was in office."

The bumper sticker for me

After a friend mentioned seeing the "One Man, One Woman -- Yes on 36" stickers and signs, espousing a position with which she disagrees, I regretted that I hadn't printed stickers reading "One Man, Two Women -- Yes on 72." I think I could have sold thousands of them, if Mrs. Laquedem didn't object.

Oregon: we match and despatch

The September 11 Oregonian reported that the state Center for Health Statistics analyzed 2,968 same-sex marriages (SSMs) registered with the state (those performed in March and April 2004) and compared them to the 11,004 M-F marriages that took place in Oregon in the first six months of 2004. The report included some interesting statistics.

First, the same-sex spouses were older, 42 on average, compared to 35 for grooms and 32 for brides in M-F marriages. Second, the same-sex spouses were better-educated; in more than 70% of the SSMs at least one partner had a four-year college degree, compared to 36% of the M-F marriages.

71% of the SSMs were between women, and 29% between men. Why? The report doesn't speculate. Either there are twice as many lesbian couples as gay male couples, or women are more likely to commit than are men. It's a commonplace in the advice columns that the woman wants to get married, but the man isn't ready; perhaps that trait is common to straight and gay alike.

The fact that sparks today's comment is that in only 7% of the M-F marriages, but in 30% of the SSMs, Oregon was a marriage destination, with neither partner living in Oregon. If gay marriage is upheld, this gives our state tourism office a unique marketing opportunity for both straight and gay couples: come to Oregon for the marriage now, and in old age return for the physician-assisted suicide. Unfortunately we can't offer any jobs to fill the years in between, but we never claimed to be perfect.

More on the Archdiocese's bankruptcy filing

I'm pleased at being mentioned in Willamette Week, but surprised that WW didn't commend some older, more prolific Portland blogs, most notably Worldwide Pablo. Check out his post on the bankruptcy of the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, arguing that by separating the archdiocese and its parishes into separate entities, the church has merely done what lawyers advise private clients to do. Also see Jack Bog's rejoinder in the comments.

Aunt of the Right; Anti of the Left

I started life with 19 living aunts and great-aunts, a number of Wodehousian scale. Two of them (sisters to each other) recently got into a discussion about same-sex marriage. The Aunt of the Right, who viewed St. Ronald Reagan as a moderate, took one side. The Aunt of the Left, a quasi-socialist freethinker, took the other side. You can imagine the discussion between the aunt who held that same-sex marriage was flat-out wrong and the aunt who said that it was the private business of the two men or women involved. I could imagine it too, when Venerable Mom reported it to me.

Except that I got it wrong, and you probably did too. The Aunt of the Right said that same-sex marriage should be allowed, as long as her taxes didn't go up. The Aunt of the Left said that same-sex marriage was horrendous to even think about.

I'm planning to see the Aunts of the Right and Left, together, in a month, when I'll raise the topic to them and find out why they each believe the opposite of what I would have predicted. I can't use the beliefs of two sisters to make any firm conclusions about what America thinks on this issue, but their views suggest to me that it can't be expressed so neatly as a churched versus unchurched question.