You want movies with that?

There is this new automated dvd rental system owned by McDonald's it's called Red Box. It's basically a vending machine/video rental center. Well it is a red box with a couple of screens and a wall that has all the dvd it is carrying currently. The cost is $1 + taxes a night per movie, you can keep the dvd for as long as you want, for as long as you want to pay $1 + tax/day that is. The selection is not too bad with a lot of new releases and a sprinkling of kiddie movies. You don't see it yet in that many cities but in the Metro DC area alone they have about 120 of these machines.

I think it's cool. Imagine Blockbuster forces its consumers to rent the dvd for the whole week and charges you almost $4 for it. Netflix is better than Blockbuster, but you have to pay a monthly fee and be able to rent 6 movies in a month to come out ahead. For a person who's just got nothing planned for the night and want to catch up on movies he missed this is perfect. I am surprised they have not set it up on college campuses, I'm pretty sure there will be a market for it. I wonder if they sell franchises.

Private vs. Gov't Response

The Katrina tragedy showed the difference in the speed of reaction by private sector compared with the government. Sure private enterprise has a profit motive but they get the job done efficiently. Everybody that was glued to the tv set has seen the footage of the Wal-Mart trucks on its way to disaster areas and also we heard about how FEMA got in the way when they blocked these same trucks. Wal-Mart's response is the cover story of the latest Fortune magazine issue. Below are some excerpts:

Wal-Mart employees arrived so early in the disaster area that they often wound up running their own relief efforts. "If the federal government would have responded as quickly as Wal-Mart, we could have saved more lives," says Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee. "FEMA executives were there, but they didn't do anything. They weren't up and running for four or five days." In one case, he says, FEMA actually made things more difficult for the retailer. Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks with water to a FEMA compound. "Much to my dismay, FEMA turned them away," Lee says. "They said they didn't need it.... [Wal-Mart] ended up giving the water directly to us." A FEMA spokeswoman disputes Lee's account.

But other local officials recall things similarly. Philip Capitano, mayor of Kenner, says Wal-Mart's trucks rolled into his city with supplies several days before the Red Cross and FEMA. "The only lifeline in Kenner was the Wal-Mart stores. We didn't have looting on a mass scale because Wal-Mart showed up with food and water so our people could survive," Capitano says. "The Red Cross and FEMA need to take a master class in logistics and mobilization from Wal-Mart."

Many evacuees decided that they were better off dealing with Wal-Mart than with the government. The company set up a phone bank in Bentonville to take calls from displaced employees who needed assistance. It wasn't long before Wal-Mart volunteers began receiving calls from nonemployees seeking help. They even helped a New Orleans couple find their newborn child, who had been moved from a city hospital to a Houston neonatal center in the chaotic evacuation.

As Adam Smith said many years ago, it is not because of the kindness of the butcher or the baker that we get our meat and bread, it's because of their self-interest, and the wonderful thing is when everbody is allowed to exercise their varied self-interest it results in the promotion of public interest as if led by an invisible hand even if this was not their main intention.

Sure sign

Sign that the city is on its way back.

Playing into their hands

The timing was curious when the french newspaper came out with an expose that Lance Armstrong might have used illegal substances back in 1999. First of all I thought the newspapers wanted to lure Armstrong back to the tour, as I would imagine who would watch the tour again after its greatest champion hangs up his bike.

Now we hear that Armstrong is not ruling out coming out of retirement?

"he's contemplating a return to competitive cycling in part because he knows how much it would rankle French media who believe his record of seven straight Tour wins is tainted by drug use"

Well that's what the french papers wanted him to do exactly!