The Principle of the Best of the Second Least Expensive

I notice that in capitalism that you are allowed to spend as much as you care to. I cannot however, recommend this, or do it.

Part of keeping going in an artist's life is to get stupid cheap without excessively sacrificing pleasure, and it's in this context that I've learned the principle: Find the Best of the Second Least Expensive Group.

The least expensive things, for example wine or cars, are usually terrible values. Mad Dog Peach and a 95 Kia is not the way to go.

The Best of the Second Least Expensive is the butter zone. A good example is butter, in the sense of bread greasing: the cheapest are the heart stopping tubs of yellow goo, which are about 35% delicious. The most expensive are things like imported Irish organic butter, which is 100% delicious. The butter zone in butter and substitutes is now store-brand real butter, which is about 92% delicious, and costs the same as high-rent less-than-lethal yellow goo tubs.

This is really clear in Liquor: take bourbon. The cheapest bourbon is just awful, but a superior inexpensive brand, like say, Old Granddad, again crosses the 92% delicious category for an additional three dollars - if you keep chasing the perfect, you are going to get tapped out fast for small, ephemeral gains that disappear totally if you use Diet Coke as a mixer.

This could be no more clear than in cars: on the Laird's excellent advice, I bought a 99 Civic new (which has on gamble been restored to service, so far most satisfactorily. ) It was about 12k new, and was still valued at 50% of that when it was totaled two months ago. A truly cheap 99 subcompact would have saved about $2000 but would have crapped out somewhere in Southern Oregon about the time we re-elected Bush. The gains in pleasure and use from a much more expensive car would be real, but the curve of utility gained for ever-growing cost would only get flatter.

Dr. X's certain vehicle is a comparable example in a different direction. (I withhold details in the interest of propriety. Should the industry find his secret lair in Spitzbergen or the Maldives it would become difficult to perform his essential scheme of cornering the market in fish meal futures, much as the Hunt brothers attempted in silver many years ago. ) Finding the bottom of the price drop on a more luxurious used vehicle put it about the same price as the Civic, and it will more or less hold it's value.

It certainly works in restaurants. The principle that the best of the fairly inexpensive restaraunts in a certain group are the most enjoyable holds. In Seattle: cheap hamburger group: Dicks: utterly loved. Sushi: Musashi's is much better and cheaper than a tidal wave of upscale places, which is why there's been a line outside since 1982. Steak houses: No clue. Do I look like I'm made of money?

It occurs to me this works with say, Hollywood actresses of a certain caliber. How much better is your movie really going to be with say, Julia Roberts in it instead of say, the much less expensive but completely fascinating Eva Green? Not much. Probably worse.

I'm just saying, go quality downmarket - the innovation and value is there.