3/10/2006 - ... that would have me as a member

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. So says Oscar Wilde. Why do I bring this up? I finally talked the Wife into getting a membership to the Museum of Science. It seems like good value for a fairly significant price, but I must confess that I'm not 100% clear on exactly how much value.

The standard economist's take on value is as follows: Let's say that I have pink-flamingo lawn ornament and my friend, Nenad, has $2 and we agree to swap. I must value the flamingo at less than $2 or I wouldn't have bothered. Nenad must value the flamingo at more than $2 or he wouldn't have bothered.

Now for the membership. Let's say the member ship costs $10 and allows up to 5 people to go to the museum on any given day. Let's say a day long ticket to the museum costs $2. If me and my eldest go to the museum 3 times next year, we get $12 of value for $10. Or do we? If we had not bought the membership, we definitely wouldn't have gone 3 times, so we must not value a trip as highly as $2.

So how many times do we have to go next year before it was worthwhile getting the membership? I don't know. I guess I'll find out when I decide how badly I want to renew...

15,300 empyrical steps today. Cheers.