Under what circumstances would you be willing to pay $731 for a pizza?
If your answer has something to do with raising money for charity, then you are halfway right. But that’s not the interesting half.
Here are a few clues:
+ The pizza was sold at auction.
+ The bidding began at $0, and climbed fairly steadily to the winning bid of $731, with nearly 20 different bidders.
+ The auction lasted just over three days and concluded fairly recently.
+ The identity of the buyer isn’t important; it’s the circumstances of the purchase that are interesting.
Have you guessed it yet? I seriously doubt it. So here are a few more clues.
+ The auction concerned a pizza baked in Brooklyn.
+ The pizza in question was to be baked at a certain time … and was connected to a certain holiday.
Yes, that’s right: someone paid $731 for the rights to the first pizza baked after the Jewish festival of Passover.
During the eight-day festival of Passover (seven days in Israel), observant Jews don’t eat any chametz, a category of food that includes any fermented flour and which therefore comprises bread, cake — and, yes, pizza. (This prohibition commemorates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, when they didn’t have time to let their dough rise; this is why matzo is eaten during Passover.)
And so each year at Passover, many Jews rid their homes of all chametz. There are all sorts of side markets arising from this practice, including the “selling” of chametz to non-Jews, and the repurchase thereof. There has even been an effort to provide kosher-for-Passover gasoline, since corn is also considered chametz, and since corn-based ethanol has become a common ingredient in gas. [Addendum: the kosher gas story was apparently a pure spoof.]
Anyway: the $731 pizza was a different story. It represented the right to break the chametz fast with a fresh-baked pie from the renowned Pizza Time on Avenue J in Brooklyn.
(Hat tip: Jeff Stier)
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The situations for which I would ever pay $731 for a pizza are:
1) Hyperinflation.
2) I am starving to death and I have exactly $731 and somebody offers me a pizza in exchange for money and I don’t have any alternative i.e. i’m hungry in a desert or an island.
3) At gun point (provided I have the $731).
4) Might do it for a charity but not sure about that (provided I have a lot of money).
5) I am paris hilton!
The situations for which I would ever pay $731 for a pizza are:
1) Hyperinflation.
2) I am starving to death and I have exactly $731 and somebody offers me a pizza in exchange for money and I don’t have any alternative i.e. i’m hungry in a desert or an island.
3) At gun point (provided I have the $731).
4) Might do it for a charity but not sure about that (provided I have a lot of money).
5) I am paris hilton!
There are an infinite number of situations where I would be willing to pay $731 for a pizza. For example:
- When the pizza is topped with $731 + x in cash, where x is greater than, say, 10 or 20 (so as to give a small margin of safety should the auctioneer rip me off or should the cheese render any of the currency irredeemable.)
There are an infinite number of situations where I would be willing to pay $731 for a pizza. For example:
- When the pizza is topped with $731 + x in cash, where x is greater than, say, 10 or 20 (so as to give a small margin of safety should the auctioneer rip me off or should the cheese render any of the currency irredeemable.)
The situations for which I would ever pay $731 for a pizza are … I am paris hilton!
If you were Paris Hilton you wouldn’t be eating ‘za in the first place. Too many calories.
By the way, I believe that Kosher gasoline thing was mainly a hoax.
The situations for which I would ever pay $731 for a pizza are … I am paris hilton!
If you were Paris Hilton you wouldn’t be eating ‘za in the first place. Too many calories.
By the way, I believe that Kosher gasoline thing was mainly a hoax.
Neat! You nailed me there. However, there is problem. If you are paying $731 for a pizza and getting a more value than what you paid for (because $731 + x > $731), you are making a arbitrage profit of $x without taking any risk, which is inconsistent with “there ain’t no free lunch” rule. But I would agree the real world can be quite different than this.
Also if this is a auction, the bidding should reach high enough so that the pizza is sold for $731 + x, and not $731.
Neat! You nailed me there. However, there is problem. If you are paying $731 for a pizza and getting a more value than what you paid for (because $731 + x > $731), you are making a arbitrage profit of $x without taking any risk, which is inconsistent with “there ain’t no free lunch” rule. But I would agree the real world can be quite different than this.
Also if this is a auction, the bidding should reach high enough so that the pizza is sold for $731 + x, and not $731.