Classical Values :: hair raising economic schemes

April 17, 2007

hair raising economic schemes

I was a bit shocked to see John Edwards' $400.00 haircuts being defended by Glenn Reynolds, although Glenn cites his own reasons:

Maybe it's because people are always dissing my haircut. Okay, by "people" I mean "snarky blog commenters, but still...."

Fortunately for me, I'm not on TV and I tend to shun video, which means few people would be likely to dis my haircuts. (FWIW, I think it's manifestly unfair to accuse Glenn Reynolds of wearing a toupee -- much less speculate about the toupee's materials.)

But still I thought a brief word on the haircut issue would be in order.

According to the link cited by Mary Katharine Ham, the Edwards campaign does spend big money on the candidate's hair:

John Edwards' campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men's stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs.

Judging by the picture, Edwards' haircut isn't at all complicated or unusual. Certainly not $400.00 worth. This makes me wonder what they're really doing with the $400.00. I also seem to remember Bill Clinton getting a $200.00 haircut and inconveniencing a lot of air passengers in the process. That was in 1993. Inflation has probably pushed up the price.

Fourteen years later, Media Matters is still defending Bill Clinton's haircut, but they're arguing over whether passengers were inconvenienced, not over how much it cost.

Might these expensive haircuts be a disguised form of campaign money laundering?

While I have no idea how much Hillary Clinton spends on her hair, I'm inclined to go with Barack Obama on this issue; he's said to get his hair cut "cheap and frequent."

Politics aside, I find the best value is to get a haircut cheap and infrequent. I pay $12.00, and while I probably should get my hair cut at least once a month, it tends to work out to every six weeks. To maximize savings, I follow the advice of economist Glen Whitman, who gives solid mathematical reasons for cutting hair shorter than the haircutter would want:

I suspect a lot of people want a haircut that looks "just right" immediately after cutting. At least, that's what the lady who cuts my hair (and who does a great job, by the way) always wants to give me. Yet that is obviously a suboptimal haircutting strategy. I always have to ask her to cut it shorter than feels right to her.

The farther your hair length is from the "right" length, in either direction, the greater is your disutility from bad hair days. Too short and too long are both troublesome. Let's suppose the problem is symmetrical, so that (for instance) hair one inch too long and hair one inch too short are equally undesirable. For simplicity, let's say your hair grows one-half inch per week, and you get one unit of disutility for each inch of difference from the right length. If you're on a 5-week haircut cycle, and you start off with the right length, your total disutility is:

0 + 0.5 + 1 + 1.5 + 2 = 5

whereas if you got your hair cut an inch too short, your disutility would be:

1 + 0.5 + 0 + 0.5 + 1 = 3

Clearly, you're better off asking for the shorter haircut, since that minimizes your disutility.

I'm definitely into minimizing my disutility, especially if it saves time, plus I'm lazy about these things. I end up having my hair cut too short with relatively long intervals between haircuts. Of course, there's a very noticeable contrast between what I look like right after a haircut and what I look like after six weeks without one, but it's a gradual process interrupted only by a sudden contrast in my appearance. I realize politicians need to look the same all the time, but I don't. Only once has anyone dissed my hair in recent years -- and that was a fat middle-aged Bush hater who had just met me and assumed I was in the military simply because I had just gotten my economically correct (if too short) haircut and was in good shape for my age. Not that I minded, but I really was asking for it; I could easily have avoided the dissing of my haircut dissed by not defending Bush.

However, you can't win with a guy like that. I think I'd have pissed him off even more had my hair been shoulder-length as it once was.

(And if I had I told I was thinking of registering Democrat so I could vote for Obama in the primary, he and his combover might have come unglued.)

MORE: Glenn Reynolds links this post and comments that he does a "better-than-average robot dance." True; not only has this fact been thoroughly documented at Google, but there's even a song that goes with the dance:

..."Down with liberty! Down with the free market system!"

"You pinko scum!" I yelled, "I'll stop you!"

He answered me with mocking laughter. "Someone whose website gets as much traffic as mine can do whatever he wants. I'm untouchable! I'm Glenn Reynolds! Now I must celebrate."

He then started doing the robot dance and singing this rap song:

"I'm Glenn Reynolds and it's puppies I drink,
And I like to kill hobos because they stink.
Gotta give props to Satan 'cause he's an evil guy;
It was through his help I became a Communist spy."

Though I've heard better rapping, his robot dance was quite good. Finishing his grotesque celebration, he hopped on his moped and sped off laughing evilly all the way.

However, that was in 2003.

When I saw Glenn last fall, not only didn't he do the robot dance, I saw not the slightest sign of a toupee. Bill of INDC attended the same event (in Washington), and he didn't notice anything odd either:

Glenn Reynolds displayed no visible antennae, wires or other electronic components. His grip was warm and remarkably flesh-like, and his optics tracked movement with reptilian smoothness. Remarkable.

Obviously, things are happening too quickly for Glenn's critics to keep up with the rapid pace of technological developments. Toupees are, like, totally outmoded.

UPDATE: My thanks to Fausta for linking this ~~post~~ link pandering scheme, and for weighing in one the toupee "controversy":

Not that I would succumb to link-pandering schemes, but if it helps, here's a good view of Glenn Reynolds's haircut: he sports what I call your basic "regular-guy cut"

Go check it out. The toupee allegations strike me as some form of jealousy.

And thank you, Fausta, for complimenting me on my cheap haircut! (Yours looks good too!)

UPDATE (04/19/07): Barbers in the Quad Cities area (Iowa-Illinois border) think that a $400.00 haircut is "preposterous," and "impossible":

Quad-City barbers put down their shears and sputtered words like "preposterous" and "impossible" Wednesday when they heard of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards spending $400 for a haircut. In the Quad-Cities, $10 or $12 is about average.

"If I charged $400 for a haircut, they'd come after me with white coats," said Leo Fier, who has been cutting hair for 49 years at his shop in DeWitt, Iowa.

This was about my reaction. Edwards' haircut is not all that complicated. He can spend whatever he wants, of course.

But is it his money?

posted by Eric on 04.17.07 at 02:10 PM

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Comments

Could you elaborate on why it's unfair to accuse Glenn Reynolds of wearing a toupee? In fact, since he's a self-described transhumanist and believes the future of mankind is in prostheses of infinite variety, wouldn't a toupee be almost a mitzvot?

John Bruce · April 17, 2007 04:28 PM

You call still-quivering puppy pelts a "toupee"?

Ron Coleman · April 17, 2007 04:54 PM

Woah, I have no opinion on the topic but love the syntax of the above.

megapotamus · April 17, 2007 04:54 PM

It's not only unfair to accuse Glenn Reynolds of wearing a hairpiece, it's just plain dumb.

As David Letterman once reacted to a similar accusation: "I make a good living. If I were going to wear a toupee, would I get one that looked like THIS?"

Jim Addison · April 17, 2007 04:59 PM

Oh come on, you're paying for haircuts? You can save both time and money using the old #7 on a Wahl, maybe a 6 around the ear and a 2 for some eyebrow and neck trimming. 3-5 minutes tops, once a week or so, and it's short enough to go down the drain. Mistakes make little difference when you do it often enough, you'll catch it next week.

I've never had exactly great hair, but I definitely get more compliments this way than previously.

Don't call yourself cheap or lazy unless you really are.

Morgan · April 17, 2007 05:04 PM

"As David Letterman once reacted to a similar accusation: "I make a good living. If I were going to wear a toupee, would I get one that looked like THIS?""

Tell that to Donald Trump.

Mister Snitch! · April 17, 2007 05:07 PM

You guys are missing out. Clip it to the shortest clipper length, and then just keep the ol' Mach 3 turbo going, up and over, every two or three days.

Now, I'll grant the first sunburn afterwards is a little uncomfortable, but your scalp tans quickly enough.

Charlie (Colorado) · April 17, 2007 05:24 PM

At the risk of sounding snarky and in Edward's defence, you get what you pay for. He's a national figure and like it or not, image is important, so I'm not at all surprised about the $400. That's pretty standard for the top stylists. I'm sorry but to discerning eyes, a $12 cut looks like a $12 cut (in other words, cheap). It would be inappropriate for a national figure to walk around sporting a cheap, and thus nebbish, cut.

stitchy · April 17, 2007 05:30 PM

Bill Gates manages to survive.

TallDave · April 17, 2007 05:45 PM

In a free and marketplace econmy what is it anyone's business if a guy with money decides to spend 400 bucks for a haircut and can afford it? How much do you spend for a nice suit? How much do you think Edwards spends? How much does Bill Gates spend to build his home? How much do you spend? Are you a friggin commie and want us all to spend the same amount for food, vacations, suits, haircuts? get real. This is America and if we have it we spend it and ain't no one's business but ours.

joseph hill · April 17, 2007 06:14 PM

US President Tim Kalemkarain, US Senate Tim Kalemkarian, US House Tim Kalemkarian: best major candidate.

anonymous · April 17, 2007 06:15 PM

Well my hair cuts cost about $45. I figure its a $20 haircut (she's pretty good) and then I pay a $25 premium to ogle cute women with funky hair and tattoos... Makes me wish I was back in school where that was free.

Good call on the optimization strategy. I figure a haircut should look its best 1-2 weeks out...

Bob · April 17, 2007 06:19 PM

"In a free and marketplace econmy what is it anyone's business if a guy with money decides to spend 400 bucks for a haircut and can afford it?"
Excellent point. Not at all like he is campaigning on the difference between people with $400 haircuts and people without. Oh, wait.

buzz · April 17, 2007 07:14 PM

Nice range of opinion on what constitues cheapness, laziness, and communism.

I'm intrigued by toupees as mitzvot for Glenn Reynolds. In the future, everyone will wear a toupee?

Eric Scheie · April 17, 2007 08:14 PM

Well, certainly not everyone. Many transhumanists believe in the Singularity -- and while Glenn is cagey about whether he himself does, he certainly plugs the books of those who do, and indeed most weeks, he gets in a number of plugs for transhumanist charities, blogs, sites, books, etc. The Singularity has been described as "rapture for nerds", and is expected, according to the best estimates, by the year 2030. At that point, computers will be so powerful that they will take over human evolution or something like that, and tiny robots will appear that will fix all our bad cells that age and get sick, so a certain number of people will live forever. Since this is all bound up in libertarianism, you can be pretty sure that not everyone will live forever, but prob'ly Glenn will.

Now, a mitzvot is an act of piety, as I understand it, not necessarily undertaken with the expectation of a particular result. Circumcision for Jews, I believe, is a mitzvot, as are the numerous other observances that the religious undertake. Now perhaps after the Singularity, we will have bionic scalps reconstructed by the nanobots, or maybe just virtual scalps. So a toupee in this estimation is not a necessity, and we can't tell who will survive the Singularity, nor exactly what kind of hair or scalps we might have after them. But it seems to me that all transhumanists, in observance of the importance of prostheses, should wear toupees, irrespective of whether there is hair underneath them.

I hope this has made this matter crystal clear.

John Bruce · April 17, 2007 08:28 PM

Wow, I didn't know being all bound up in libertarianism would make me live forever!

Sounds cool -- even if I have to wear a toupee!

Eric Scheie · April 17, 2007 09:38 PM

So now you can see why Glenn is so into it.

John Bruce · April 17, 2007 09:52 PM

I like the idea of living longer, and I've weighed in on singularity before:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2006/03/long_day_with_n.html

While I'm a bit skeptical (especially of how quickly this will happen), I see no rational reason to oppose technological improvements.

But not entirely convinced of the relevance of the toupee to this argument, and not just because Glenn Reynolds does not have one. In logic, whether someone is losing his hair loss is unrelated to what he says. Saying someone is bald is meaningless, because it is purely a physical characteristic. However, asserting that someone wears a toupee is often meant as ridicule, as it implies that the person is phony or insecure. To claim someone wears a toupee when he doesn't seems like a silly and false assertion, so I'm glad you've clarified your position with the additional argument that "transhumanists" should wear them anyway "in observance of the importance of prostheses... irrespective of whether there is hair underneath them." I'm guessing that's your way of saying transhumanists are bogus, and that the singularity will never happen.

If so, then there's no real reason to bother opposing transhumanism, is there?

Eric Scheie · April 18, 2007 08:49 AM

No more than anyone needs to oppose millenarians of any sort who predict a date certain for their apocalypse. But that's no reason to say they don't still look silly gathered on the hilltop in their white gowns, waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

And I'm not sure how you know Glenn doesn't wear a rug. Still looks like a cheap one to me.

John Bruce · April 18, 2007 10:15 AM

I saw nothing resembling a toupee. But then, I also missed Glenn's white gown, so I may not be as observant as I should be.

Also, I left the event before midnight. (Obviously, this was too early to witness the pumpkin!)

Eric Scheie · April 18, 2007 10:52 AM

Here's how you check for a toupee. First, no visible part in the hair. Second, and this applies to cheap ones, it seems to be sitting on top of the forehead like a book left upside down. This is because there are no visible hairs that are coming out of the forehead with roots showing.

No part in hair plus no visible roots = highly probable toupee. Every photo I've seen of Reynolds after he dropped his Paul McCartney do (also a good sign of a toupee) looks like this.

I can see a toupee on a media figure who may feel it's important to look young when you're 55 or 60. But we expect those guys to have some phoniness in their makeup anyhow.

A law prof? Plain phony, it seems to me. Leaving out the hokey tinted glasses.

John Bruce · April 18, 2007 01:04 PM

The only time I met you your hair looked fine, Eric. Maybe it was at the mid-point between haircuts?

Fausta · April 18, 2007 01:14 PM

Actually, it seems to me that the question of Glenn's toupee could be easily resolved. Glenn clearly loves to publish photos of himself -- why not prevail on him to publish one of himself on a scuba dive?

John Bruce · April 18, 2007 01:21 PM

Not a law prof either? You mean we've all been duped about that too?

This is getting serious!

Never trust a man with an invisible part! (And you've also got me worried that Glenn might be guilty of rootless cosmopolitanism....)

Eric Scheie · April 18, 2007 01:42 PM

from the LA Times...some facts on Edwards' spending:

"His $3.3 million in expenses were significantly less than those of his two main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Based on his campaign reports, Edwards flies on commercial airlines and stays in chain hotels.

At a recent Bay Area fund-raising stop, he traveled with a single aide and rode in a minivan, rather than the limo or SUV favored by some candidates."

The man is constantly in the public eye--cameras, TV interviews, public appearances, etc...let him spend some money on a nice haircut.

Hey, our First Lady spent $700 on a haircut.
So what!

tim · April 18, 2007 02:26 PM